The problem with Evil races is not what you think

(Emphasis mine.)

1) As long as RW slurs and stereotypes are used as descriptive language for RPG foes, we don’t agree. Remove that language, and we’re good.

2) I patently disagree, especially since it is demonstrable that use of RW slurs and stereotypes in fiction not actually meant to mirror the real world is completely unnecessary. Many fiction writers- and more now than before- have found ways to avoid the honey trap of attempting to use language laden with negative baggage. Put differently, if your fiction’s setting isn’t a period piece, there’s no reason to use bigoted language that has been used to describe blacks, Asians, Jews, etc. It’s lazy writing, and insults a portion of your audience, even if that wasn’t your intent.

3) My answer is “Yes. Yes it is.”
Indeed, many authors have, as another Redditor pointed out much like you have, for example, citing the fantastic works of authors such as Ursula LeGuin. The poster responded thusly (which, I agree with the general sentiments if not every specific, or the tone necessarily,but I shall quote it in full here for integrity of the post)


“To answer each of the questions, the first is, it says that we're playing with fire. That it has found something that is consist with very intimate parts of the human psyche, independent of it's capacity or proclivity to good or evil.

That's not how stories work and you know it, the characters involved are intentionally representative of a particular idea. That's just how it works, they convey ideas in form of social interactions between people. To elaborate further though, people do act in particular ways, cultural groups share many things, including- and most importantly- the manner in which they design and pursue (and therefore enforce) a hierarchy of value. There is something to be said for the analysis of how honor as a central value plays out on a societal scale, as contrasted to merchantile acquisition. Hence, why Klingons and Ferengai at large, are just as interesting as Hideyoshi and Carnegie are in particular.

I'll ignore the racial subtext of what I will assume is a botched attempt at making cultural distinctions, after all part of this discussion is about the degree to which race and culture overlap, and answer the challenge it offers. The simple answer, is you didn't read. I specifically said the value of making an entire people into a character, is so that the individuals which compose it, may be contrasted. Though, regarding your claims of undermine the concept of the "other" I regret to inform you, that it is both a fact of nature, and art. Thus is nature of contrast and symmetry.

And finally, this is where you really pull the ideological rabbit out of your analytical hat. "why would WotC choose a framework with a message with similar themes to racial supremecy?" Well I'm glad you asked.

The simplest answer is cause it works. It's an effective structure to communicate to people the details of a character which will be relevant to the drama by establishing the backdrop of a society against which they stand, or into which they blend. Both are novel.

A more nuanced answer, would also go through the trouble of axplaining that a story which does not have the benefit of defining the social game which it's characters will play, must rely strictly on their interactions as they appear in the social games we play. The unavailability of particular nuance in the practical reality of our lives make certain point unaproachable or uncommunicatable between peoples. Defining your own simplified world is convenient and occasionally mandatory for this purpose, when exploring niche or hypothetical questions.

But the actual language of your statement gives away just what's rotten in the state of Denmark, a framework doesn't have a message, actually. It's a toolkit for conveying, generalizing, specifying, adjusting, or comparing messages. What you meant, is why would they use a framework which was used by racial supremacists to convey their own vile message. That argument gets dangerously close to the Hitler owned a dog side of things, though more specifically you might say "Bricks were used to build the ovens in Auschwitz" and then declaring bricks a stepping stone to the fourth Reich. And you know fair point, but you're really doing a disservice to intellectual discourse if that's where you stop your analysis.

Continuing the analogy, you might object to something as bland and flexible in utility as a brick; I wouldn't object, because it's precisely my claim that that's how general and of utility this form of storytelling is, but I digress. Perhaps you could claim that guns were used to order people into trains and intimidate and control them, and fair point. If you wanted to claim that stories were something akin to ideological weapons, you might be really onto something rather articulate there. However, guns were also used to fight the Nazis, and step one of Hitler taking control was to strip weapons from the hands of anyone he didn't control.

So, if you really do insist on bemoaning the ideological dangers of potentially abusing powerful techniques for crafting grand narratives, I suggest you take a good hard look as precisely the pros and cons of solving that problem by any means other than leaving it alone, and allowing everyone go arm themselves adequately so as to be defended against the encroachments of bad actors and tyrants.

If you wish to lambast the WotC as being wittingly or unwittingly participatory in the cultural equivalent of nuclear proliferation, then so be it. But first, if ask you count just how many wars nuclear arms have stopped, and just how many they've started. You'll find the score heavily on one side.

And then from there, I would like you to speculate on the value of letting these things play out organically, and to grow detached and independent from their unpleasant roots, grow richer deeper ones, and become a pillar of our culture which holds it up against the rattlings of the world. Just how much good do you really expect to accomplish ripping these things up by their roots, and just how wide are you leaving the door open to unforseen and readily foreseen consequences alike”
 

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pemerton

Legend
people do act in particular ways, cultural groups share many things, including- and most importantly- the manner in which they design and pursue (and therefore enforce) a hierarchy of value.

<snip>

the value of making an entire people into a character, is so that the individuals which compose it, may be contrasted.

<snip>

"why would WotC choose a framework with a message with similar themes to racial supremecy?" Well I'm glad you asked.

The simplest answer is cause it works. It's an effective structure to communicate to people the details of a character which will be relevant to the drama by establishing the backdrop of a society against which they stand, or into which they blend. Both are novel.

<snip>

Defining your own simplified world is convenient and occasionally mandatory for this purpose, when exploring niche or hypothetical questions.

<snip>

a framework doesn't have a message, actually. It's a toolkit for conveying, generalizing, specifying, adjusting, or comparing messages. What you meant, is why would they use a framework which was used by racial supremacists to convey their own vile message. That argument gets dangerously close to the Hitler owned a dog side of things, though more specifically you might say "Bricks were used to build the ovens in Auschwitz" and then declaring bricks a stepping stone to the fourth Reich. And you know fair point, but you're really doing a disservice to intellectual discourse if that's where you stop your analysis.

<snip>

if you really do insist on bemoaning the ideological dangers of potentially abusing powerful techniques for crafting grand narratives, I suggest you take a good hard look as precisely the pros and cons of solving that problem by any means other than leaving it alone, and allowing everyone go arm themselves adequately so as to be defended against the encroachments of bad actors and tyrants.

If you wish to lambast the WotC as being wittingly or unwittingly participatory in the cultural equivalent of nuclear proliferation, then so be it.

<snip>

I would like you to speculate on the value of letting these things play out organically
This is unbelievable.

So @Dannyalcatraz is "bemoaning". And is "lambasting" WotC for engaging in "the cultural equivalent of nuclear proliferation"? Where is he doing these things? Is this really all you can take away from his posts?

And are you really asserting that just as bricks are a ubiquitous building material, which we can't easily do without, so FRPGing can't do without specific "frameworks" of racialisation and racist tropes that has its the origins in 19th and early 20th century "race science" and its pulp adherents? What is your basis for such an assertion? And what is it adding to our fantasy worlds to have races that are "fecund" and threaten demographically-driven destruction of "civilisation"? (And do you really think this is a character presented as a people/culture? What character is this?)
 

This is unbelievable.

So @Dannyalcatraz is "bemoaning". And is "lambasting" WotC for engaging in "the cultural equivalent of nuclear proliferation"? Where is he doing these things? Is this really all you can take away from his posts?

And are you really asserting that just as bricks are a ubiquitous building material, which we can't easily do without, so FRPGing can't do without specific "frameworks" of racialisation and racist tropes that has its the origins in 19th and early 20th century "race science" and its pulp adherents? What is your basis for such an assertion? And what is it adding to our fantasy worlds to have races that are "fecund" and threaten demographically-driven destruction of "civilisation"? (And do you really think this is a character presented as a people/culture? What character is this?)
You’ll find that remarkable number of your questions addressed to me as of late are easily answered by actually reading my posts in full, rather than reading selectively.

It will save you missing statements such as “this is a quote from another discussion”, “[whilst I don’t agree] with the tone or every specific point” etc.
 


@transmission89 If you quote a long block of text from someone else I think it's a good idea to use INDENT tags, or alternatively, in the case of a post from a message board such as reddit, QUOTE tags:

Code:
[indent]multiple paragraphs here[/indent]
or
[quote="some redditor"]multiple paragraphs here[/quote]
Cheers for the tip :). Apologies for any confusion caused by not adhering to forum convention. A lot of what I write is in snatches of free time on mobile.
 

darkbard

Legend
Indeed, many authors have, as another Redditor pointed out much like you have, for example, citing the fantastic works of authors such as Ursula LeGuin. The poster responded thusly (which, I agree with the general sentiments if not every specific, or the tone necessarily,but I shall quote it in full here for integrity of the post)
I find this a rather bizarre rhetorical move: to quote some unidentified poster from another social media community and declare you agree with the general sentiment but not specifics (or tone) but then failing to identify your points of disagreement. Why not post your own statements that make the points you wish to make 100% and in the way you wish to make them tonally?
 

Aldarc

Legend
Just how much good do you really expect to accomplish ripping these things up by their roots, and just how wide are you leaving the door open to unforseen and readily foreseen consequences alike”
Just how much good do you really expect to accomplish by scaremongering that things should mostly stay as they are out of the veiled threat of unforeseen consequences?
 

I find this a rather bizarre rhetorical move: to quote some unidentified poster from another social media community and declare you agree with the general sentiment but not specifics (or tone) but then failing to identify your points of disagreement. Why not post your own statements that make the points you wish to make 100% and in the way you wish to make them tonally?
A valid criticism. I’d respond:
To a great extent, I already have touched on those points across a number of posts in the thread.
The quoted parts do express much of what I touched on in a more detailed and eloquent (within the context of that particular back and forth) way and to take the time to rewrite on mobile felt needlessly laborious and would still have a sense of trying to pass off other’s work as my own.
 

pemerton

Legend
It will save you missing statements such as “this is a quote from another discussion”, “[whilst I don’t agree] with the tone or every specific point” etc.
I didn't miss it. But you said I agree with the general sentiments which I reproduced in my quote of your post.

I will repeat what I posted upthread: I believe that most of your posts read like rhetorical posturing, and attacks upon unidentified threats to <something important though you don't actually seem to say what>. You refer to various views that you disagree with, but don't attribute those views to any particular posters, and then as in the post I'm quoting here deny holding the countervailing views that you quote with approval.

EDIT:
The quoted parts do express much of what I touched on in a more detailed and eloquent (within the context of that particular back and forth) way and to take the time to rewrite on mobile felt needlessly laborious and would still have a sense of trying to pass off other’s work as my own.
So you do agree. Except that you don't?
 

CONTENT WARNING: VERY RACIST CLAIMS, IN QUOTATION

This post is about the way features of D&D orcs and goblins – high fertility rates, dominant 'genetic' traits, and abundant population – replicate racist ideas. These ideas may be found in the writings of late-19th and early-20th century influential race 'scientists' – Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Madison Grant, and Lothrop Stoddard – and in Yellow Peril fiction and other popular fears about "Asiatic hordes". There are also similarities, though not as strong, with the present day far right "White Genocide" or "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory.

High Fertility Rates

AD&D 1e Players Handbook (1978): "Orcs are fecund and create many cross-breeds." D&D 3.5e Monster Manual (2003): Goblins have "rapid reproduction." D&D 4e Monster Manual (2008): "Goblins breed quickly."

D&D 5e Monster Manual (2014):

Luthic, the orc goddess of fertility and wife of Gruumsh, demands that orcs procreate often and indiscriminately so that orc hordes swell generation after generation. The orcs' drive to reproduce runs stronger than any other humanoid race, and they readily crossbreed with other races.​

D&D 5e Volo's Guide to Monsters (2016): "Orcs breed prodigiously (and they aren't choosy about what they breed with, which is why such creatures as half-orcs and ogrillons are found in the world)."

Houston Stewart Chamberlain, The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899): "Generative power often stands in inverse relation to the nobility of the race." The "generative power" of "the negro" is superior to that of white people.

Lothrop Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920):

Treating the primary race-stocks as units, it would appear that whites tend to double in eighty years, yellows and browns in sixty years, blacks in forty years.​
The black man is, indeed, sharply differentiated from the other branches of mankind. His outstanding quality is superabundant animal vitality... To it... is due his extreme fecundity, the negro being the quickest of breeders.​

Dominant 'Genetic' Traits

AD&D 1e Monster Manual (1977): "Half-orcs tend to favor the orcish strain heavily, so such sorts are basically orcs although they can sometimes (10%) pass themselves off as true creatures of their other stock (goblins, hobgoblins, humans, etc.)." AD&D 1e PHB : "Some one-tenth of orc-human mongrels are sufficiently non-orcish to pass for human." AD&D 2e Monstrous Manual (1993): "Half-orcs tend to favor the orcish strain heavily and as such are basically orcs, although 10% of these offspring can pass as ugly humans." D&D 5e MM: "When an orc procreates with a non-orc humanoid of similar size and stature (such as a human or a dwarf), the resulting child is either an orc or a half-orc."

Chamberlain:

The predominance of his [the "negro"'s] qualities in the descendants [is]... greater than those of the whites.​
In Europe at the present day we… see the growing predominance of an alien race which… by animal force gradually overpowers the mentally superior race.​

Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race (1916):

The result of the mixture of two races, in the long run, gives us a race reverting to the more ancient, generalized and lower type. The cross between a white man and an Indian is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a Negro is a Negro; the cross between a white man and a Hindu is a Hindu; and the cross between any of the three European races and a Jew is a Jew.​

Stoddard: "In ethnic crossings, the negro strikingly displays his prepotency, for black blood, once entering a human stock, seems never really bred out again."

Abundant Population

AD&D 2e MM: Goblins "would be merely pests, if not for their great numbers." D&D 3.5e MM: Goblins have "great numbers." D&D 5e MM: "Individually weak, goblins gather in large—sometimes overwhelming—numbers." "Occasionally, a powerful war chief unites scattered orc tribes into a single rampaging horde."

MP Shiel, The Yellow Danger (1898): "The Chinese host was to resemble a flight of locusts, covering the entire sky from horizon to horizon… Yen How's army would consist of the 400,000,000 which formed the population of China."

Jack London, The Unparalleled Invasion (1910):

The real danger lay in the fecundity of her [China's] loins​
China's population must be seven hundred millions, eight hundred millions, nobody knew how many millions, but at any rate it would soon be a billion. There were two Chinese for every white-skinned human in the world… and the world trembled​

Federation on Chinese Exclusion, Memorial to Congress (1901):

Civilization in Europe has been frequently attacked and imperiled by the barbaric hordes of Asia. If the little band of Greeks at Marathon had not beaten back ten times their number of Asiatic invaders, it is impossible to estimate the loss to civilization that would have ensued… Attila and his Asiatic hordes threatened central Europe when the Gauls made their successful stand against them… The free immigration of Chinese would be for all purposes an invasion by Asiatic barbarians.​

John Kuo Wei Tchen and Dylan Yeats, Yellow Peril! (2014):

[During the Korean War (1950-1953)] newspapers across the nation ran headlines such as "Red Hordes Swarm South Korea!" as the Chinese pushed American troops back south. Popular press accounts claimed that the Chinese troops were mere cannon fodder, but their sheer numbers made them invincible.​

The "White Genocide" Conspiracy Theory

Bridge Initiative Team, Factsheet: White Genocide Conspiracy Theory (2020):

Proponents of the white genocide conspiracy theory… claim that the "white race" is under threat due to falling birth rates among white women, the continued growth of "mixed race" marriages, and ongoing immigration of black and brown people into Europe and America. They allege that demographic change will result in white people becoming a minority in the United States in the near future​
Brenton Tarrant… attacked two mosques in Ōtautahi/Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand killing 51 Muslims. Tarrant explicitly referenced the white genocide conspiracy theory in his manifesto entitled: "The Great Replacement."​

The parallels here are not as close as they are with the race 'scientists' and fears of "Asiatic hordes". But the broader ideas of the threat of higher birth rates, being outnumbered, and being replaced are the same.
You've only touched on some elements here too:

Orcs are also violent, primitive, and stupid: AD&D 1e Monster Manual p76 ORC "INTELLIGENCE: Average (low)", evil "ALIGNMENT: Lawful evil" they will "always intimidate and dominate the weaker", they are 'tribal', they "hate the light", "Orcs are cruel and hate living things in general", their dress is also repulsive and "dirty and often a bit rusty." Essentially a panoply of negative social, cultural, and personal traits.

Compare this with the views of racial minorities today in the US: Considered stupid and uneducated, assumed to be violent or potentially violent, seen as slovenly and living in dirty conditions, thought to form violent gangs as a habit, criminal, drug users, anti-establishment, etc. I can personally validate many of these stereotypes existing through direct experience of family members who encountered several of them on a daily basis, even from people who were supposedly 'not prejudiced'. You need only turn on the television to see the rest of the whole sordid story.
 

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