AH. The subject is the Drow race. Back on topic. Where are the Drow derived from? To the best of my knowledge, and by EGG's own admission, they are derived from Norse myth. Now. The Norse race/culture (variously known as Scands, Goths (from Gotland) and by extension are grouped with the Teutons, were a Caucasoid race, especially the Scands from which the Prose Edda derives. In the PE their skalds refer to a dark alf (elf) who lives beneath ground, is evil, hates sunlight 9and just like the Trow, or Troll, are turned to stone in sunlight (as in The Hobbit's example) and have dark skin. They are distinguished from the light elves who are fair skinned, live above ground and are of an even temperament if not just good. Now, by extension,am I now to concern myself with a soley white race making creatures in the dark other than in their image? By no means. It had nothing to do with race then. It has ancient beginnings in all races associating dark places, the night (going back to pre-ancient times when cave men saw the light as a boon and darkness, when all the fell creatures cane forth and could not be seen by the former which instilled ulrimate fear and terror in the) and its byproducts of the imagination, all represented by the pitch darkness in that surround. So to associate Drk Eleves, or dark beings, or dark anything among the white skalds was a mere projection of the unknown, mysterious and deadly by association, The Greeks, when offering sacrifice to Hades, for instance offered a black sheep. Because the color black was intimately connected to the concept of the dark underworld and homeopathic and sympathetic invocations through the black sheep (rather than white or other) was thought to bring accord with the god and his realm.
So, historically, there is no connection between what was and what is now being voiced as a cultural concern. I dare say that in doing so one is appropriating and misrepresenting the Scandinavian culture, its literature, and history from whence the material was derived.
Understanding the mythic origins of some of D&D creatures is a good thing, many of us got into the hobby after discovering a fascination with myth and folklore. But "no connection" to modern day cultural concerns? BS.
D&D has racism problems. Full stop. The broader fantasy genre has racism problems. D&D pulled from the fantasy literature of the time, and from (mostly) European myth and folklore, which has racism problems . . . D&D's problem with racism goes all the way back to it's source material. That's not to say that D&D's illustrious creators and early designers were racist themselves, just not fully aware of the racist tropes already existing in literature, myth, and folklore. Society has had a lot of conversations around these issues in recent decades, and we've been able to share these discussions like never before due to social media. We've been talking about these issues on the ENWorld board intensely over the past year or so . . . . although none of these concerns are truly new to the game, hobby, or genre.
While we're mostly talking about the drow in this thread, this discussion applies to almost every "bad guy" race in D&D's history, even the "good guy" races. The drow are a classic creation from the game's early days and have been fan-favorite antagonists for decades for good reason. The fact that they are inspired by Norse mythology adds to their "heft" as D&D antagonists. But that doesn't erase the extremely problematic issues with
evil-being-black that the drow have, ESPECIALLY because it comes from earlier folkloric sources.
So, do we need to assign blame and point fingers at the early designers and creators of D&D? No, of course not. Do we "erase" this classic group from D&D's the current game? We could, but I think that would be a mistake.
So, what do we do? We can take a look at other genre properties with similar issues and see how they handled it . . . . I like looking at the Klingons from Star Trek. A sci-fi race with similar problems to the drow . . . evil, swarthy villains to the (mostly) white Federation heroes. Their portrayal has changed and grown significantly since Kirk's days, both visually and their culture and nuance has broadened significantly. Klingons in current Trek lore have a diverse culture (although, arguably, not yet diverse enough), and a diverse ethnic look to the various Klingons portrayed onscreen. This hasn't been without controversy over the years, of course.
Can we start portraying drow in D&D as a race/species with broader, more nuanced, and more diverse culture? Beyond just worshipping other evil deities? Beyond just having the occasional "rebel" against Lolth? Can we depict them visually with more diverse skin tones and other physical features, diversifying the ethnicity of the race? Love it or hate it, that's what WotC is slowly and haphazardly doing. Not erasing the classic drow portrayal, but broadening it so that we don't have the evil-black-race anymore.
Even within classic Lolth-worshipping, matriarchal drow culture . . . can the Lolth-worshippers simply be the dominant faction within the drow city (Menzoberranzan, Erehli-Cinlu)? Can the "common drow" be more of a neutral outlook, just trying to survive in a harsh culture? Can there be dark-skinned drow, who aren't rebels against their entire species, but opposed to the Church of Lolth and her evil priestesses?
We can have our cake and eat it too. We can keep the classic villainous drow, dark-skin and all, but we can have all of the above too. D&D needs evil antagonists . . . but we don't need reductive stereotypes that cast an entire race or species as evil.
I will volunteer to send a good fairy to teach him the ways of etti-cat & virchew.
