Do orcs in gaming display parallels to colonialist propaganda?

Dannyalcatraz · Mar 10, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
I don' know what that is. But I am not advocating the use of Ethnic slurs. I don't know how much more clear I can be about this.

As I recall, weren’t you the one worried about stifling creativity? About who gets to say what’s racist?

Bedrockgames said:
I feel like you are putting words in my mouth. I am saying people disagree on what tropes are racist or colonialist, and I am wary of where that bar is being set. Further I think some of what people are identifying as colonialist or racist is only so under a deep microscope.

Bedrockgames said:
No, I am not saying that. I am saying that is what we are in danger of doing. I am trying to emphasize that people will have reasonable disagreements over this stuff.

Bedrockgames said:
I hear what people are saying, but I think it isn't always obvious how media and stories impact our world. And I think as well intentioned as this stuff is, you really do run the risk of making wholesomeness prime, and quality second. We can juggle many things at once. But if wholesomeness becomes the benchmark for quality....I think it leads to less interesting stories. Dune is a good case in point. I am not sure how you could change it to take out the elements deemed problematic and have it remain intact. Part of what makes Dune work is the very tropes called into question.

Yup.

To be 100% clear: I’m NOT calling you racist. I’m saying you’re pushing back awfully hard on a not particularly defensible hill.

People who are offended by something will (eventually) tell you so. Telling someone not to be offended isn’t a winning position, even in the defense of art. IMHO, offensive art is at its best when it’s creators are unapologetic- I may not care for the particular message, but I CAN respect the creator’s honesty and integrity.

But regardless, someone who uses offensive words or images will reap the whirlwind they sow, even if they did so innocently.

Remember Aesop’s Fables?

The Farmer and the Stork
A Farmer set some traps in a field which he had lately sown with corn, in order to catch the cranes which came to pick up the seed. When he returned to look at his traps he found several cranes caught, and among them a Stork, which begged to be let go, and said, "You ought not to kill me: I am not a crane, but a Stork, as you can easily see by my feathers, and I am the most honest and harmless of birds." But the Farmer replied, "It's nothing to me what you are: I find you among these cranes, who ruin my crops, and, like them, you shall suffer."

Bedrockgames · Mar 10, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
As I recall, weren’t you the one worried about stifling creativity? About who gets to say what’s racist?

Yup.

To be 100% clear: I’m NOT calling you racist. I’m saying you’re pushing back awfully hard on a not particularly defensible hill.

People who are offended by something will (eventually) tell you so. Telling someone not to be offended isn’t a winning position, even in the defense of art. IMHO, offensive art is at its best when it’s creators are unapologetic- I may not care for the particular message, but I CAN respect the creator’s honesty and integrity.

But regardless, someone who uses offensive words or images will reap the whirlwind they sow, even if they did so innocently.

Remember Aesop’s Fables?

I can worry about putting tropes under an intense microscope that looks for problems like colonialism and how that impacts creativity and still not be defending Ethnic slurs. I don't know. I think the is a perfectly defensible position. I get that you and others might not agree with me. But I don't think it is crazy to say, maybe evil orcs are not racist tropes and maybe they don't have meaningful parallels to colonialist propaganda. People have asked me to introspect, and I have. This isn't a position I take lightly. I understand the stakes. But I think others might also benefit from questioning some of the certainty they are bringing to this discussion. I don't think the morality here is as stark as people claim.

Dannyalcatraz · Mar 10, 2019

But I don't think it is crazy to say, maybe evil orcs are not racist tropes and maybe they don't have meaningful parallels to colonialist propaganda.

They may not be 1:1 analogs for any ethnic group- I dare say they are not- but the racist elements people have pointed out are not solely within the minds of the people seeing them.

Bedrockgames · Mar 10, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
They may not be 1:1 analogs for any ethnic group- I dare say they are not- but the racist elements people have pointed out are not solely within the minds of the people seeing them.

I get it isn’t being drawn out of thin air. I don’t think it is immediately obvious though either. And I still think there is room for disagreement over whether the tropes are racist, or colonialist propaganda, whether it is a problem, and if it is a problem, what the best approach forward is. I can respect that you see things differently. I won’t keep pushing it here with you, because I think we’ve reached the repeating ourselves stage of the discussion. I just think differently about this than a lot of the posters here seem to. Like I said before colonialism is a deep topic. I think it is the kind of analysis you have to be educated into.

pemerton · Mar 10, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
I think if someone starts a thread asking if Orcs are a colonialist trope, people should be able to give their honest opinion that it is or isn't

And so what is your opinion? And what is it based on?

(This thread has already given some reasons why Because I've never noticed or felt it to be so may not be a good answer to that second question.)

Dannyalcatraz · Mar 10, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
I think if someone starts a thread asking if Orcs are a colonialist trope, people should be able to give their honest opinion that it is or isn't

Just noticed the wording here.

The thread isn’t about if Orcs are a colonialist trope, but whether they “display parallels to colonialist propaganda.”

It’s a small but important difference. Perhaps within that difference lies the reason for your position.

Bedrockgames · Mar 10, 2019

pemerton said:
And so what is your opinion? And what is it based on?

(This thread has already given some reasons why Because I've never noticed or felt it to be so may not be a good answer to that second question.)

I have given my opinion. I don’t think orcs are a particularly colonialist trope. I think you have to squint to see it. And I think criticisms on colonialist grounds require such in depth knowledge of the history that isn’t something most people would see unless they are trained to see it. It seems like an elitist concern to me. So I think it is an odd thing to fixate on as a problem. It is based on my experience playing games with orcs in them, my experience talking to other gamers about this issue, and my assessment of the arguments people have made on this topic in the last several years.

Bedrockgames · Mar 10, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
Just noticed the wording here.

The thread isn’t about if Orcs are a colonialist trope, but whether they “display parallels to colonialist propaganda.”

It’s a small but important difference. Perhaps within that difference lies the reason for your position.

I don’t find either positions particularly compelling

pemerton · Mar 10, 2019

Doug McCrae said:
It doesn't matter whether "slant-eyed" refers to East Asians, or Siberians, or Turks, or Arabs, or all of them. The point is that a physical characteristic possessed by a distinct group of people in the real world, a group who would be perceived as racially different because of that characteristic and others, is being associated with evil. That's what racism is. The connection of negative mental and moral traits with external physical features shared by a large subset of humanity.

I've quoted this (1) because I agree (though I don't think that this is all that racism is), and (2) because it provides the context for the following quotes:

Bedrockgames said:
But we are talking about a fictional race, that seems to hold a lot of different cultural influence. I am just saying I don't think this is so cut and dry as people are making it. If it isn't even clear if that is a reference to Siberians or Turks (or perhaps not even to people at all) I don't see that it is an obvious racist trope.

Bedrockgames said:
I am not defending the use of that term. That isn't a term I would ever use. I am saying I don't know that it is clear what it is meant to indicate in this case.

Bedrockgames said:
I can worry about putting tropes under an intense microscope that looks for problems like colonialism

Bedrockgames said:
I don’t think it is immediately obvious though either.

<snip>

colonialism is a deep topic. I think it is the kind of analysis you have to be educated into.

It's nonsense that colonialism and race are deep topics that you need to be educated into. Young children of colour can and do recognise racism, directed at them and their parents; recognise privileged treatment enjoyed by white people; recognise obvious patterns of social domination and subordination.

More generally, if it's not obvious to you what is conveyed by describing an "evil" race as dark and slant-eyed (with scimitars and bandy legs get thrown in for good measure), and furthermore by treating that description as sufficient grounds for inferring their evil (which is what happens between Frodo and the Southerner in Bree, as [MENTION=21169]Doug McCrae[/MENTION] quoted from LotR upthread), then that's on you. If you need a microscope to be able to notice how that evokes and deploys racist tropes then that tells us something about you, but not much about JRRT's work.

Bedrockgames said:
we are trying to figure out what JRR Tolkien had in mind when he used it in the 40s* because the assertion here is that orcs are based on a racial stereotype. Without knowing what he meant by that term, we don't know whether they were meant to depict a particular race or ethnicity.

Perhaps this is what you are trying to do. Doug McCrae and others have already posted that they are not interested in what JRRT had in mind. The point is that he has dipped his pen into a well of ready-to-hand racist tropes and used them in his writing. End of story.

pemerton · Mar 10, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
It seems like an elitist concern to me.

Most people who worry about colonialism aren't elites. They're trying to get out from being at the bottom of the pile. It's the colonists who were the elites.

Do orcs in gaming display parallels to colonialist propaganda?

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