Do orcs in gaming display parallels to colonialist propaganda?

Bedrockgames said:

I don't watch football so this isn't an issue I follow much (for example I don't know what the opinion of the team name is among Native Americans in polls). But I see a clear difference here. This is a team name that is using an actual ethnic slur of a real people as its name. If orcs were instead called something like that as their name, sure that would be pretty hard to ignore. Instead we are going by two lines in a description from tolkien, and again, it isn't clear to me if he was pointing to an actual race or not in that description. I just think it is a lot more murky.

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CW: Racial slurs

I'm not sure how one can make the argument that [sblock] [/sblock] is clearly an unacceptable racial slur but [sblock] [/sblock] somehow isn't. This isn't apples to oranges; this is, at most, red delicious* to granny smith**; they're both apples and they're both awful.

You keep making the argument that you don't believe JRRT intended that passage to be racist, but (a) nobody's arguing that he did and (b) he very clearly leaned on a number of all-to-common racialized tropes at the time to flesh out the description of his "irredeemably evil" creatures. That is, at best, an indifferent perpetuation of actually harmful stereotypes. The intention here isn't really all that relevant; the impact is what is. We can argue all we want about the extent of that impact; I'm not sure that I'd go quite as far as others have on either the historical impact nor the modern legacy of the same, but I'll add my voice to those saying "it's not clear that the was actually drawing on real-world racial tropes" in JRRT's description of orcs is a completely indefensible position.



*"Red Delicious - At Least We Got The Red Part Right!"
**Granny Smith apples are more than acceptable for baking, at least.

Sadras said:

Essentially you're polluting younger generation's minds with these posts whereas before many players never made orc- RL black person association. Why the flowers would they?

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I'm not associating orcs with real life black people. I'm associating orcs with racist ideas about black people.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

Now watch, D&D playing will spike among Klan members!

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It's certainly a fast-growing market. Hate groups have surged in the USA since "Unite the Right" in Charlottesville. Perhaps WOTC missed an opportunity, by failing to set up an outreach booth for that event? Were there lots of drop-ins, that week, at the Adventurers League session of the friendly local game store? Could WOTC break into a market dominated by RaHoWa?

If you want to know about the RaHoWa TRPG, a search for "rahowa 1d4chan" will get you there, but warning, the description includes quotes from the game itself, and that means a LOT of offensive language including slurs.

Flexor recognizes that the Klan still exists. Sadras writes as if racism is over, a thing of the past, and today's young generation could grow up in complete innocence, as long as we hide unpleasant history from them. Why the flowers *would* Dylann Roof describe black people in the same vile terms as his 19th-century and 20th-century predecessors? For the people at that Bible study session, the more painful question isn't why he *would*, but why he *did*.

Gradine said:

CW: Racial slurs

I'm not sure how one can make the argument that [sblock]

Spoiler

redskin

[/sblock] is clearly an unacceptable racial slur but [sblock]

Spoiler

slant-eyed

[/sblock] somehow isn't. This isn't apples to oranges; this is, at most, red delicious* to granny smith**; they're both apples and they're both awful.

You keep making the argument that you don't believe JRRT intended that passage to be racist, but (a) nobody's arguing that he did and (b) he very clearly leaned on a number of all-to-common racialized tropes at the time to flesh out the description of his "irredeemably evil" creatures. That is, at best, an indifferent perpetuation of actually harmful stereotypes. The intention here isn't really all that relevant; the impact is what is. We can argue all we want about the extent of that impact; I'm not sure that I'd go quite as far as others have on either the historical impact nor the modern legacy of the same, but I'll add my voice to those saying "it's not clear that the was actually drawing on real-world racial tropes" in JRRT's description of orcs is a completely indefensible position.



*"Red Delicious - At Least We Got The Red Part Right!"
**Granny Smith apples are more than acceptable for baking, at least.

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That wasn’t my argument. I said many times that it’s an ethnic slur and I don’t use it. But my argument was the football team name itself is a slur. In the case of orcs the name isn’t a slur. It was merely part of the language Tolkien used to describe them (and my point about that was I can’t tell if he has an ethnic group in mind or is just using it to describe an eye shape)

Bedrockgames said:

That wasn’t my argument. I said many times that it’s an ethnic slur and I don’t use it. But my argument was the football team name itself is a slur. In the case of orcs the name isn’t a slur. It was merely part of the language Tolkien used to describe them (and my point about that was I can’t tell if he has an ethnic group in mind or is just using it to describe an eye shape)

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I’ll give you a hint; nobody in the history of anything, EVER, has used that term to refer to “just” an eye shape.

Riley37 said:

I hear your warnings about not leading to a better place. I'm still standing by my story about how the illustrations on Players Handbook 5E, pages 70 and 112, helped a newcomer to D&D feel welcome, included, comfortable. (Perhaps even more welcome at the game store table, than elsewhere in his life.) Do we disagree on whether that story counts as an example of "a better place"?

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I am not feeling very well tonight so I can't respond to this one in as much depth as I would like (I found this post to be very well stated and to raise a number of interesting points). Just want to respond to this as best I can at the moment.

We do not disagree on the fundamental point here. I want people to feel welcome, and I don't want to exclude anyone. Obviously it is good your friend felt welcomed by that imagery. And I think for a game like D&D, which is The Game as far as RPGs go, I think it is good for their art to reflect a diversity of people. All I am saying is that isn't the only way to make a book, and there are more kinds of games out there than just D&D alone. And that there are reasons other than racism for books to have less diversity in their art. In some instances, the 5E approach will make a lot of sense. I can definitely see cases though where you might want the characters to reflect the demographics of a given setting (and that might be less diverse). I guess my only point here, is what you describe is good. I don't think it should always be the standard though. I want there to be what you are describing here, but I also hope we can leave room for other approaches because there might be valid reasons for it. Basically let people experiment with different approaches and ideas.

Bedrockgames said:

I am not feeling very well tonight so I can't respond to this one in as much depth as I would like.

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Feel better, Brendan! I may disagree with you on this and other issues, but I certainly don't wish you ill!

Sadras said:

Okay I will admit I'm a bit of traditionalist, so I also would not want to see blonde Vulcans.

I believe the answer to your post is, for the WotC/community to create more awesome dudes like Duke Ulder Ravenguard, Marshall of the Flaming Fist in our D&D mythos. Why complain and attempt to rewrite (correct) the past when you control the present and future? And why are we obsessing with Tolkien, black hair and darker skinned elves are allowed in FR and many other settings.

Do we really need PoC to play every role possible? Vikings? Kerrigan? Mario Brothers? Can fiction just not be?

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Nope. But, we do need the option. Juliet of Romeo and Juliet was played by a boy for a long, long time. Does that mean that every single stage and movie production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet must feature a boy playing Juliet?

We're obsessing with Tolkien because invoking Tolkien is pretty much the same as Godwinning a thread. It must be obsessed over. But, if you'd like, we can point to a swath of works all the way up to current day showing the direct connection between "brutish humanoid" and depictions of various minorities.

The fact that suggesting that PoC play elves in the new Amazon version of LotR creates a storm of folks coming out of the woodwork to decry it, shows that this isn't just some academic issue that only a few people know about.

It shouldn't matter one whit that PoC play elves in Tolkien. If they want to have Idris Alba play Elrond, it shouldn't matter at all.

But it does. And that's the problem.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

I still use pig faced orcs that are Chaotic (really LE) and made in the image of Grummish. They lack the free will that was granted to the children of gods of good for the most part. Grummish hates free will. As does Maglubiyet, and most of the other evil deities so their creations are stunted in that way though there have been "defective" orcs that find themselves with that free will. Grummish is much better at destroying than creating after all so he screws up sometimes. They are pig faced and green, with pink noses. They speak in squeals for the most part. They do have tribes and shaman/witch doctors though they will cowardly serve anything more powerful then them. I use Roger Moore's work in Dragon on my evil humanoids for the most part, love those articles.

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So, when a player declares that he's slaughtering the non-combatants, orc babies for example, you have zero problem? It's perfectly acceptable to commit genocide on these creatures? After all, they have no free will. They aren't capable of anything but evil, so, killing them is perfectly fine, regardless of circumstance.

I don't know about you, but, that notion makes my skin crawl. Why not just use demons? After all, that's what you've done - made demons (unredeemable evil) and put them in meat suits that are linked to racist depictions of minorities.

You really have no idea why someone seeing that might have an issue?

Hussar said:

Well, I guess the question to ask would then be, do we see the same association between fairness and goodness in other societies where there is much less variation than in Northern Europe?

IOW, are there fairy tales and myths in, say, Kenyan or Native American cultures where being fair skinned is equated with goodness?

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Absolutely yes. In Indian mythology Devas ('angels') are traditionally depicted as light-skinned and Asuras ('demons') as dark-skinned.



And of course, almost every society considers fair skin more attractive (at least in women). Skin-whitening creams are popular all over the world, including in areas that were never colonized by European nations.

Doug McCrae said:

I'm not associating orcs with real life black people. I'm associating orcs with racist ideas about black people.

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OK, but are you implying that those who like orcs in D&D are indulging repressed racist beliefs? I don't think so. I think "The black brute is lurking in the dark, a monstrous beast, crazed with lust. His ferocity is almost demoniacal. A mad bull or tiger could scarcely be more brutal. A whole community is frenzied with horror, with the blind and furious rage for vengeance."...describes a worthy fantasy roleplay monster, regardless of whether some hysterical white people 120 years ago thought of black people like this.