Do orcs in gaming display parallels to colonialist propaganda?

S'mon said:

I tried to tell her that Bogan was a derogatory term for the Australian rural white lower class - again she did not listen, as it did not fit within her existing mental frame.

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I would suggest "outer suburban" rather than "rural", at least in current usage.

A lot could be said about race and racism in Australia, but this is probably not the thread for it, as I don't know of any gaming or gaming-related texts that deal with or express it.

While I agree with you that cultural norms can vary, and sometimes unexpected, I also think that sometimes their meaning is relativelyi evident. To go back to the JRRT example, there is no cultural norm that explains why JRRT was not evoking racist tropes in those passages.

And if we go back to the OP, do orcs - in the sense of non-urban, warrior cultured, village-dwellers who prey upon (typically white) "good"/"civilised" farms and townships express a colonialist idea? My view is that it is fairly clear that they do. And of course it woudl be quite possible, in principle, to have fantasy stories about pastoralist and village folk fighting off exploitative conquerors who displace them from their lands (an inverse of "Beyond the Black River", my least favourite Conan story although I think that puts me in a minority). But that is not a standard D&D trope.

Whether the FRPG treatment of orcs should be looked at through the lens of Orientalism, or colonisation in Africa, or the Western (in this thread, [MENTION=21169]Doug McCrae[/MENTION] has suggested both) is a further question, about the way these tropes have been developed and expressed in different literary traditions.

And what follows from this fact about FRPG orcs, eg about game play and the design of game elements, is something I don't have a firm view about - that's not an easy question to answer (in my view). But my uncertainty in relation to this last question doesn't make me doubt my view that there is a fact here.

Aldarc said:

Add onto this your position has repeatedly sought to drown this topic in ambiguity so as to remove the issue of colonial undertones of orcs from (1) any reproach, and thereby (2) prevent it from being subsequently addressed. When you constantly ask "But where do we draw the line?" then little to nothing can actually be done to address the problem, because it seeks to force the discussion to be about the parameters of the line (that is also intentionally being blurred) rather than the substance of the issues at stake.

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I haven't been drowning anyone out. I am one poster and for every post I make it seems there are 3-5 that disagree with me. But obviously I disagree that this is a problem, so I am going to take the position that we should be wary of the solution (especially when I think the solution is producing more negative than positive consequences). This is starting to have a big impact on what gets made and what people are comfortable writing. I think the solutions you are seeing promoted on places like Twitter are constricting what is creatively possible, and the boundaries are getting tighter and tighter, often in ways that seem crazy if you are not steeped in this stuff. Like for example the claim that D&D is colonialist propaganda. What I am saying is the bar for entry to be creative in this hobby is being set way too high because it is based around, what for most people, are obscure academic arguments. Most people don't look at D&D as being tied to colonialism (most people don't walk around thinking about colonialism all that much). And most people don't worry about borrowing from a historical battle in their campaign or their book, because it might be problematic in some way, under a certain lens. But now, if you follow these conversations, it is becoming clear you almost need a masters degree or be an expert in a given subject to publish and not run into problems. I don't think you realize how stifled a lot of people are feeling about this. No one really knows where to step. And there large groups of people online just waiting to tear you down if you step somewhere they've decided is off limits (and often those parameters just feel strange).

If only 1 out of 5 missed the mark, that's a good bout of Battleship.

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It wasn't. I just opted to respond to one rather than all five.

Doug McCrae said:

The problem with The Lord of the Rings goes well beyond orcs' physical characteristics. It contains references to many real world historical events...

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Do you object to Bollywood movies referencing real world historical events, where
white-skinned & red-coated British Empire villains murder and oppress Indians before meeting their
well-deserved end on the hero's blade?

pemerton said:

And if we go back to the OP, do orcs - in the sense of non-urban, warrior cultured, village-dwellers who prey upon (typically white) "good"/"civilised" farms and townships express a colonialist idea? My view is that it is fairly clear that they do.

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My feeling is that:

The Siege of Vienna is not a colonialist trope. You can call Tolkien's orcs racist although I might disagree; you cannot legitimately call them colonialist.

Same goes, to a slightly more debatable extent, to the Minions of Evil orcs in the 1e MM and
1983 D&D cartoon. These are the Armies of the Dark Lord, and that is not a colonialist trope. The whole point of Colonialism is that 'we' are the expanding, civilised and civilising force; 'they' are the declining, savage race whose territories & resources should be taken, and 'they' either killed or civilised. In Tolkien's (& Tolkienesque) conservative fantasy, 'they' are the organised force coming to colonise, enslave and kill us. Hence all the people who thought he was writing a parable for the Second World War, with Nazis as orcs and Hitler as Sauron.

Conversely, from at least the time of Keep on the Borderlands, the territorial-development themes in the 1e DMG, and getting much stronger with the "Savage Barbarian" orcs exemplified by the 3e MM depiction, there are actual colonialist (or very similar, US 'Old West') tropes in D&D.

S'mon said:

Do you object to Bollywood movies referencing real world historical events, where
white-skinned & red-coated British Empire villains murder and oppress Indians before meeting their well-deserved end on the hero's blade?

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It's a problem relativized by imbalances in power and colonial history. Satire and parody, for example, in the hands of the marginal power targeted against the dominant power is a means to fight oppression. However, satire and parody in the hands of a dominant power targeted against the marginal power is a means of oppression. So while we may say that these Bollywood movies referencing real world historical events have problematic elements in their depiction of their ex-colonial overlords, you must admit that it would look radically different if we were talking about the inverse situation: British movies referencing real world events, where darker-skinned & turban-wearing Indian villains murder and oppress white British citizens before meeting their end on the hero's blade.

Bedrockgames said:

But it doesn't mean they are right that it is a problem for the broader culture. I could be really bothered by something, but my reaction might be a very unreasonable one.

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So imagine that you are introducing a young friend or relative to LotR, and you come to this passage (quoted upthread by [MENTION=21169]Doug McCrae[/MENTION]):


You wouldn't be any more self-conscious reading that to a child of East or Central Asian background, than to someone who was white? You wouldn't be self-conscious at all?

You think it's an unreasonable response to see racist ideas in the notion of sly, slanting eye in a sallow (= yellow/brown) face, which - apparently in virtue of these features, as nothing else is mentioned - looks more than half like a goblin, that is, looks sinister and evil?

Btw, this has absolutely nothing to do with academic debates and literary criticism. As [MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] already mentioned upthread, this is something that 5 year old children of colour will notice. Nor is it particularly related to offence. Who knows, and who cares, whether or not JRRT intended to give offence - I suspect he didn't much think about that at all. And some people of colour may be offended by this, but others may not be - perhaps they're pretty used to it, and maybe they even find JRRT rather tame compared to other experiences they have had. The point that I (and others) have made is about the meaning that JRRT is conveying, and the tropes used to convey it. These present a certain sort of person as of inherently or naturally sly and evil appearance. It is this idea that is racist, and (in some, perhaps loose, sense) an element of "colonialist propaganda" insofar as it is an element of a larger body of 19th and first half of the 20th century racist ideologies.

Bedrockgames said:

I have no problem being pinned to actual positions that I express

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Bedrockgames said:

misogyny was brought up in this thread, and you can see in many peoples responses that just plain sexiness or displays of sexuality are sometimes being treated as terrible through that lens.

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Whose responses? Which "many people"? I've read the whole thread (other than a small number of posts from people who have me blocked - mostly Celebrim in this thread, I believe). I didn't see these "many" responses.

And frankly, this is why you are getting pushback. Instead of making clear assertions and defending them, you refer in oblique terms to these barely articulated threats to your artistic preferences.

So let's go back to misogyny. As far as I know I'm the one who brought it up, with reference to the random harlot table, and particular reference to Brazen Strumpets, Wanton Wenches and Saucy Tarts. Do you think that in suggesting this stuff is sexist crap that the DMG would be better off without, I am opposing sexiness in RPGing? Is there no way of presenting sex and sexiness in our games beyond fantasies about prostitutes who really, really want it?

With both your discussion of JRRT, and your allusion to the DMG, tell us - what are you actually defending here?

Aldarc said:

It's a problem relativized by imbalances in power and colonial history. Satire and parody, for example, in the hands of the marginal power targeted against the dominant power is a means to fight oppression. However, satire and parody in the hands of a dominant power targeted against the marginal power is a means of oppression. So while we may say that these Bollywood movies referencing real world historical events have problematic elements in their depiction of their ex-colonial overlords, you must admit that it would look radically different if we were talking about the inverse situation: British movies referencing real world events, where darker-skinned & turban-wearing Indian villains murder and oppress white British citizens before meeting their end on the hero's blade.

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But Indians are dominant in India! Both cases concern historical events. White Europeans aren't a magical permanent oppressor class, they can be on top or not at different times. During the Seljuk and Ottoman expansions they certainly weren't on top.

pemerton said:

So imagine that you are introducing a young friend or relative to LotR, and you come to this passage (quoted upthread by [MENTION=21169]Doug McCrae[/MENTION]):

"Frodo saw a dark ill-kept house behind a thick hedge: the last house in the village. In one of the windows he caught a glimpse of a sallow face with sly, slanting eyes; but it vanished at once.
‘So that’s where that southerner is hiding!’ he thought. ‘He looks more than half like a goblin.’"​

You wouldn't be any more self-conscious reading that to a child of East or Central Asian background, than to someone who was white? You wouldn't be self-conscious at all?

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Well my son has a bit of an epicanthic fold due to Finnish ancestry, it certainly wouldn't have occurred to me (or him) to worry about this stuff until you brought it up. But again it's a cultural issue - if he was getting teased at school then it might well be an issue. If east-Asian children are being bullied over their looks, then their looks become an issue. Likewise white or black kids in east Asia - Barack Obama apparently suffered a lot of racist bullying as a school child in Indonesia.

pemerton said:

So imagine that you are introducing a young friend or relative to LotR, and you come to this passage (quoted upthread by @Doug McCrae):

"Frodo saw a dark ill-kept house behind a thick hedge: the last house in the village. In one of the windows he caught a glimpse of a sallow face with sly, slanting eyes; but it vanished at once.
‘So that’s where that southerner is hiding!’ he thought. ‘He looks more than half like a goblin.’"​

You wouldn't be any more self-conscious reading that to a child of East or Central Asian background, than to someone who was white? You wouldn't be self-conscious at all?

You think it's an unreasonable response to see racist ideas in the notion of sly, slanting eye in a sallow (= yellow/brown) face, which - apparently in virtue of these features, as nothing lelse is mentioned - looks more than half like a goblin, that is, looks sinister and evil?
[/I]

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Please stop putting words in my mouth like "You think it's an unreasonable response to see racist ideas in the notion of sly, slanting eye in a sallow (= yellow/brown) face, which - apparently in virtue of these features, as nothing lelse is mentioned - looks more than half like a goblin, that is, looks sinister and evil?". I never said that.

I would be self conscious with that passage regardless of who I am reading it to but particularly if the person was Asian. Of course I would pause at such a passage and wouldn't be callous about the topic. Like I said I not defending the use of the slur. And that slur is one I find particularly troubling. I am talking about what Tolkien intended, what the tropes mean today, and if a concept like Evil Orc is something that is a problem (or related to colonialism). I feel the nuance of what I am saying is getting lost here. He was writing in a very different time, and you do have to put that into the conversation. That isn't a passage that I remembered being int he book. It doesn't surprise me it is. But I do think there is huge difference between the way things like race appear in LoTR and the way it appears in other works (like the works of Lovecraft). With Tolkien, I don't get the sense that any of it is ill-mentioned or even deliberate. And I think that matters. I don't think Tolkien was a racist. Especially when I read things like the letter he wrote to a German publisher. I do think he was a person of his time and used language that was much more common. And so I don't think the trope is as loaded as ones that are crafted with nefarious racial intent.

And again, my point is, I don't know that the intent is obvious from those reasons. He could have just been using a handy word to describe narrow eyes. I don't know that he had asians in mind (particularly since he is talking, if I follow, about another hobbit). I think you can be sensitive to the way that word would be perceived now, but understand that Tolkien's intentions at the time were probably not bad.

S'mon said:

The Siege of Vienna is not a colonialist trope. You can call Tolkien's orcs racist although I might disagree; you cannot legitimately call them colonialist.

<snip>

The whole point of Colonialism is that 'we' are the expanding, civilised and civilising force; 'they' are the declining, savage race whose territories & resources should be taken, and 'they' either killed or civilised. In Tolkien's (& Tolkienesque) conservative fantasy, 'they' are the organised force coming to colonise, enslave and kill us. Hence all the people who thought he was writing a parable for the Second World War, with Nazis as orcs and Hitler as Sauron.

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I think you are disregarding some of the ideas that underpin the self-conceived legitimacy of a settler colony. (Such as the one I live in.)

A recurring idea that justified "dispersing the natives" (that is the term that was widely used in Australia; I'm not sure what the American or East African analogues are, but I'm sure they existed) is that they are coming to kill us and destory our civilisation. A recurring idea that justfied the White Australia Policy (which I assert counts as a colonialist project) was the need to protect this outpost of British civilisation from "Asiatic hordes". (And the conception of such hordes, as it figured in Austrralian politics of the time and to the extent that it continues to figure in Australian politics, does not draw subtle distinctins such as between the history of Turkish attacks on Vienna and Sax Rohmer fantasies about China.)

These idea, of civilisation under attack and having to defend itself against these "savages", lives alongside the ones you mention - about declining races, etc. How the two sets of ideas are reconciled in a coherent national narrative is something of a puzzle, but many national narratives contain prima facie conflicting elements.

Your post also prompted me to recall another example of paradox/contradiction in colonial conceptions of civilisation and "native" - a photograph of a British settler in New Zealand with a wall mounted with many, many Maori heads. (Google has turned up the photograph - a warning that some may find it graphic and/or disturbing.) Yet in the British and American pulp and proto-pulp literature it is the "natives" who are headhunters, and the civilised people whose heads are in danger.