Human Fighters Most Common Race/Class Combo In D&D

prosfilaes said:

So when Ebert called North a "unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experience", he was wrong, because that's not what the author intended? Ebert called out a lot of movies for being problematic for some reason that the authors did not intend; it seems like your statement blows a hole in the whole idea of criticism.

In any case, Tolkien isn't relevant here; Sean Bean was not in Tolkien's Lord of the Ring, he was in a much later cinematic adaptation. Even that was just a visual point for the discussion, which is about D&D, and D&D in 2017.

Do you think my intention matters? Or is that only for Tolkien that intention matters in what he wrote, and not for us peons?

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I know very little about film criticism or Ebert's career, and have seen neither of the two films you mention. I do know, however, that in scholarly literary criticism it is considered in bad taste to take a particular text out of it historical context and the perspective of the author, which you seem to be doing. I will say that because =our cinematographic tradition grew out of a literary one and because one of the films you mention (LotR) has both medieval and mythological roots, ignoring them and the symbolism that flows from those antecedents is problematic.

Saying, "let's make D&D more inclusive," has absolutely nothing to do with LotR or Tolkien except, perhaps, on a very superficial level most of us ignore, anyway.

prosfilaes said:

If you're worried about real problems being ignored, then go work on them. I'm chatting on a discussion board just like you are.

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That's my day job. I'm on off hours.

prosfilaes said:

No matter what Tolkien intended, his racial patterns are deeply problematic.

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I have a proposal. Why don't you try explaining what you mean without using the term "problematic"? Because you seem to be leaning on it rather heavily to express your views, but as far as criticism goes it is overused and frustratingly nonspecific. That's how you end up with misunderstandings like WayOfTheFourElements thinking you're calling people racist and you insisting that you're not.

WayOfTheFourElements said:

That's my day job. I'm on off hours.

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I'm off hours too, so stop telling me what to do. Stop acting like I can't have this discussion because I could be working on real problems.

TheCosmicKid said:

I have a proposal. Why don't you try explaining what you mean without using the term "problematic"? Because you seem to be leaning on it rather heavily to express your views, but as far as criticism goes it is overused and frustratingly nonspecific. That's how you end up with misunderstandings like WayOfTheFourElements thinking you're calling people racist and you insisting that you're not.

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No, that's not how we end up with misunderstandings. If I say Tolkien's racial patterns are deeply problematic, that's not "sit{ting} around calling each other racist." It is a statement directed at the writings of someone, and even if you ignore the ellipsis and claim I'm calling Tolkien racist, that's still not "each other".

prosfilaes said:

I'm off hours too, so stop telling me what to do. Stop acting like I can't have this discussion because I could be working on real problems.

No, that's not how we end up with misunderstandings. If I say Tolkien's racial patterns are deeply problematic, that's not "sit{ting} around calling each other racist." It is a statement directed at the writings of someone, and even if you ignore the ellipsis and claim I'm calling Tolkien racist, that's still not "each other".

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Except that Tolkien's writing has nothing to do with race and everything to do with depictions of evil as abhorrent as opposed to seductive. Tolkien merely falls on the side of Dante as opposed to Milton. As for primarily white, protagonists, Tolkien's writing is rooted in the mythology of northern European, which when those myths were created was overwhelmingly populated by white-skinned Germanic, Slavic, and Saxon peoples.

We don't expect to find African protagonists in Chinese traditional literature/mythology, why would we expect anything different from Europeans?

Without directly refuting these two simple arguments, I have a difficult time believing you are trying to bring race into a conversation in which it hold little reliance.

As I have said, there is a world of difference between arguing that D&D should branch our from its traditional Euro-centric roots and give equal respect/acceptance/page-space to all mythological/literary traditions and saying that "Tolkien's racial patterns are deeply problematic."

WayOfTheFourElements said:

I know very little about film criticism or Ebert's career, and have seen neither of the two films you mention. I do know, however, that in scholarly literary criticism it is considered in bad taste to take a particular text out of it historical context and the perspective of the author, which you seem to be doing. I will say that because =our cinematographic tradition grew out of a literary one and because one of the films you mention (LotR) has both medieval and mythological roots, ignoring them and the symbolism that flows from those antecedents is problematic.

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The historical context is of an Englishman during a period where the United Kingdom held India and much of Africa as colonies, who writes an epic story of good versus ultimate evil where good is multiple races, all white. He's not medieval, he's from 20th century Oxford.

Secondly, Roland Barthes disagrees. His "The Death of the Author" is hardly a new idea, nor is reader-response criticism. For my own play on the latter, I would argue that you cannot judge one of the best selling books of all time solely from the perspective of one person. What the Lord of the Rings meant to Tolkien is but a tiny scratch on what the Lord of the Rings means to humanity.

And lastly, you can not simply make a movie of the Lord of the Rings or use his races in a game and then dump all the responsibility on Tolkien. That's a new author, a new historical context.

WayOfTheFourElements said:

Except that Tolkien's writing has nothing to do with race and everything to do with depictions of evil as abhorrent as opposed to seductive. Tolkien merely falls on the side of Dante as opposed to Milton. As for primarily white, protagonists, Tolkien's writing is rooted in the mythology of northern European, which when those myths were created was overwhelmingly populated by white-skinned Germanic, Slavic, and Saxon peoples.

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A citizen of a nation that ruled a multi-ethnic empire, who was born in the part of that empire that invented apartheid, will always have their race tangled in the background of their writing. To ignore that is to ignore the historical context of the writing. Tolkien's writings are rooted in the sources he chose, and said mythology was greatly expanded.

We don't expect to find African protagonists in Chinese traditional literature/mythology, why would we expect anything different from Europeans?

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Because Aladdin is Chinese, first written down by a French translator allegedly from a Syrian Christian. Because Tolkien wasn't writing from an isolated culture, he was writing from the core of a multi-racial empire. I don't expect something different in real European mythology, but Tolkien was not a writer of real European mythology. Tolkien was not medieval.

And again, this is not about the Lord of the Rings novel, per se. We rewrite literature all the time. When we turn Doctor Dolittle into a movie, we don't include a white Doctor Dolittle turning an African prince white as a reward.

prosfilaes said:

The historical context is of an Englishman during a period where the United Kingdom held India and much of Africa as colonies, who writes an epic story of good versus ultimate evil where good is multiple races, all white. He's not medieval, he's from 20th century Oxford.

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Medieval is in reference to Dante. Tolkien is, of course, a modernist.

prosfilaes said:

Secondly, Roland Barthes disagrees. His "The Death of the Author" is hardly a new idea, nor is reader-response criticism. For my own play on the latter, I would argue that you cannot judge one of the best selling books of all time solely from the perspective of one person. What the Lord of the Rings meant to Tolkien is but a tiny scratch on what the Lord of the Rings means to humanity.

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Yes, the school of deconstructionism analyzes texts in that way, but is but only of many styles of critical analysis. What deconstructionism does not do, however, is disconnect a text from its literary precedents, in this case Dante and Germanic mythology. As I have said before, presenting evil as abhorrent, vile, and ignorant has nothing to do with race, nor does the association between darkness and evil, which appears even in African mythology.

prosfilaes said:

And lastly, you can not simply make a movie of the Lord of the Rings or use his races in a game and then dump all the responsibility on Tolkien. That's a new author, a new historical context.

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I have said nothing of the LotR film. I haven't seen it, and therefore have no opinion on the matter.

prosfilaes said:

A citizen of a nation that ruled a multi-ethnic empire, who was born in the part of that empire that invented apartheid, will always have their race tangled in the background of their writing. To ignore that is to ignore the historical context of the writing. Tolkien's writings are rooted in the sources he chose, and said mythology was greatly expanded.

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Source? I'm not necessarily going to buy that comment, seeing as most Englishman would have no little to no contact with the Empire at large. To the average Englishman, I except the Empire was little more than an abstract concept and, possible, a source of exoticism. Most of the English population, I would assume had little knowledge of the horrors which occurred throughout the larger empire except under the obscuring lens of British propaganda.

Furthermore, because of the deeply rooted symbolism of evil and darkness and evil as vile rather than seductive, both of which where long established before the British Empire was established, I see no reason by Tolkien's symbolism and race are necessarily connected. It is just as likely that we have become a society obsessed with fighting and/or cementing racial divides and are looking at past works with an eye to discovering racial bias rather than allowing the greater picture of the western literary tradition speak for itself.

Like I said, you can argue that depicting allegoric evil as ugly, abhorrent, and ignorant is problematic in one way or another. Same with the connection of evil and darkness, but what should be replace it with? Milton's depiction of evil as seductive and alluring is one alternative. I'm sure there are other's, too (evil is present in the hearts of all men, for example). Unless you want D&D to remove the dualism of allegoric good and evil (which is one option), alternative depiction of allegoric evil is must be found.

prosfilaes said:

Because Aladdin is Chinese, first written down by a French translator allegedly from a Syrian Christian. Because Tolkien wasn't writing from an isolated culture, he was writing from the core of a multi-racial empire. I don't expect something different in real European mythology, but Tolkien was not a writer of real European mythology. Tolkien was not medieval.

And again, this is not about the Lord of the Rings novel, per se. We rewrite literature all the time. When we turn Doctor Dolittle into a movie, we don't include a white Doctor Dolittle turning an African prince white as a reward.

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To Tolkien is a writer of allegory, using the symbolism derived of a tradition old that predates the Empire itself.

While I can agree that it is noble for artists to be inclusive in a positive way...such as the delightful 1-second nod to LGBT families in "Frozen"...I can't accept the inverse: that it is somehow not acceptable to do so. While multi-cultural acceptance is a good thing, it is not the only good thing, and I don't expect artists (even blatantly commercial ones) to fight for every progressive goal.

If Tolkien had been more culturally inclusive, for which of his other progressive failings would we (by which I mean "you") be criticizing him?

My guess is that it would be a suggestion that somehow Harad == Middle East and therefore Tolkien was an Islamaphobe. Or maybe that Ungoliant and Shelob were both female. Surely we can mine that literary decision for misogynous intention.

[video=youtube;joabBacXzdA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joabBacXzdA[/video]

WayOfTheFourElements said:

Except that Tolkien's writing has nothing to do with race and everything to do with depictions of evil as abhorrent as opposed to seductive. Tolkien merely falls on the side of Dante as opposed to Milton. As for primarily white, protagonists, Tolkien's writing is rooted in the mythology of northern European, which when those myths were created was overwhelmingly populated by white-skinned Germanic, Slavic, and Saxon peoples.

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I think more troubling than orcs is that all the non-white humans (say, Haradrim and Easterlings) are all Sauron's minions.

Azzy said:

I think more troubling than orcs is that all the non-white humans (say, Haradrim and Easterlings) are all Sauron's minions.

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Now that's something we can actually talk about.

WayOfTheFourElements said:

Now that's something we can actually talk about.

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Amirite? Islamaphobia right there.