D&D (2024) Does the concept of subspecies of Elves come across as racist to you

[Frozen_Heart]

I think the scientific consensus these days is that they are homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and that is why the species in Shadowrun are so named. Homo neanderthalensis is acceptable as a shorter, somewhat less formal, name.

I honestly can't find a clear answer on it. A lot of people class them as a fully separate species, while others class them as a subspecies. Seems that there isn't a consensus even among the scientific community.

Evidence seems to show that they had a lot of difficultly creating viable and fertile offspring with humans, which puts them more on the separate species end of things. With very conditional fertility like tigons and mules.

Interestingly as the genus 'Homo' is taken to mean 'human', they could potentially end up classed under human in DnD even if they were fully separate species.

Which has the cursed implication that the DnD playable species/races are in fact playable genus.

ducks behind cover from incoming thrown objects

 

[Corinnguard]

Interestingly as the genus 'Homo' is taken to mean 'human', they could potentially end up classed under human in DnD even if they were fully separate species.

This was very much the case in Shadowrun because as the magic returned to the world, it triggered a gene within certain humans and transformed them into the first metahumans of the Sixth World. It also transformed some humans and metahumans into the first spellcasters of this new world.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I think he's saying that isn't the question posed by this thread, but there is a link in this thread (OP) to the other thread which discusses that. Whether or not it's the right theme to choose (I am not a fan either) this thread is asking if it's racist - not if it's the wrong theme.

Fair enough. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[TheSword]

The concept of subspecies of elves or any other fantasy race is not inherently racist (subspecies exist for real world species), but I would argue that the grouping of human-like fantasy people into distinct subspecies can lead to racist lore or echoings of real world racism. For example, older editions said that Drow/Dark Elves in the Forgotten Realms were cursed with dark skin because they turned on Corellon. This bit of lore echoes the Curse of Ham/Cain, real world Judeochristian beliefs that say that some ethnicities have dark skin because their ancestors sinned against God, and therefore discriminating against them is justified. And obviously having "black skin is a curse for being evil" is unexcusably racist lore, ignoring the real world parallels.

So, no. The mere concept of elven subspecies is not innately racist, but is a potentially problematic bit of lore that can and has lead to racist parallels to real world justifications for racial discrimination. Elven subspecies aren't inherently racist. That doesn't mean that they haven't been racist before, though.

The Curse of Ham is racist because it was developed into an ideology to justify racist oppression and is clearly and patently not the actual cause of differences in skin pigmentation.

Do you not think you’re being a bit hyperbolic here? I think we should be more cautious when ascribing racism to something simply for sharing similarities else to something when it doesn’t share the actual racist elements that causes that thing to be racist.

Some fairly fringe depictions of the biblical story of the curse of ham are racist - ergo all fictional curses that change someone’s skin colour are racist. That seems a stretch to me.

There is of course a solution if you feel that is the case… the curse of The drow is racist propaganda told by sun elves to justify the banishment of the drow after the fact, and the pigmentation elements are a magical response to the semi-magical elves not getting enough sunlight/exposure to the radiation of the underdark.

Or just ignore the whole curse thing altogether

 

[Corinnguard]

There is of course a solution if you feel that is the case… the curse of The drow is racist propaganda told by sun elves to justify the banishment of the drow after the fact and the pigmentation elements are a magical response to the semi-magical elves not getting sunlight.

More like how the elves that became the Drow adapted to the near lightless conditions of the Underdark within a matter of centuries. The bad PR came later when the Drow and their surface cousins met each other again, and the latter tried to distance themselves from any association with the former. Elven arrogance and pride did the rest.

 

[Micah Sweet]

i reckon some of the elves in those subspecies are probably pretty racist but not the inherent concept of a subspecies. There’s little material difference between comparing drow with sun elves and comparing humans and dwarves.

Most elven subspecies seem to come about through isolation or magical event. Don’t really see a problem with difference based on those terms.

Adding an extra step of character creation for culture doesn’t really pay off for me. Extra complication for very little payoff. Culture is absolutely mechanically represented in the game - it’s part of background and race. This will become even more pronounced with 5.5. We get to write our own character backgrounds - do with it as you will.

You could always write your own backgrounds. It's right there in the current Player Handbook, ignored so people can pretend saying it again is saying it the first time.

Apparently, people don't read either the PH or The DMG.

 

[Alzrius]

You could always write your own backgrounds. It's right there in the current Player Handbook, ignored so people can pretend saying it again is saying it the first time.

Apparently, people don't read either the PH or The DMG.

Or the Monster Manual, since everyone seems to overlook the part saying how alignments aren't written in stone, and that individuals might have an alignment different than what's listed.

 

[Mistwell]

Or the Monster Manual, since everyone seems to overlook the part saying how alignments aren't written in stone, and that individuals might have an alignment different than what's listed.

Yeah I hope they change the entry for each one which is something like "Typical Alignment" instead of just "Alignment".

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I honestly can't find a clear answer on it. A lot of people class them as a fully separate species, while others class them as a subspecies. Seems that there isn't a consensus even among the scientific community.

Okay. Everything I’ve read in the last ten years classified them as h. s. n., not as h. n., and doesn’t use the term subspecies at all. They’re just referred as a species of human or a species of hominid.

Evidence seems to show that they had a lot of difficultly creating viable and fertile offspring with humans, which puts them more on the separate species end of things. With very conditional fertility like tigons and mules.

Source? That’s a very interesting idea, and I’d love to see how it squares with the presence of Neanderthal DNA in many modern humans, and the most recent theory I read as being generally accepted as the most plausible for why they aren’t aren’t being that they didn’t reproduce as much as us, and we simply mated with them to the point where they disappeared in our populations.

Interestingly as the genus 'Homo' is taken to mean 'human', they could potentially end up classed under human in DnD even if they were fully separate species.

Well, you’d just have multiple types of human, just like elves and dwarves.

Which has the cursed implication that the DnD playable species/races are in fact playable genus.

ducks behind cover from incoming thrown objects

Totally possible!

 

[Umbran]

The Curse of Ham is racist because it was developed into an ideology to justify racist oppression and is clearly and patently not the actual cause of differences in skin pigmentation.

Do you not think you’re being a bit hyperbolic here?

Historically, no, not hyperbolic. The Curse of Ham was frequently used in the United States as theological and philosophical grounds to justify slavery, preached from the pulpit and the podium. Whatever it was before that, in the American context, it was used too widely to support racism and bigotry to not have that connotation.

I think we should be more cautious when ascribing racism to something simply for sharing similarities else to something when it doesn’t share the actual racist elements that causes that thing to be racist.

This, unfortunately, comes down to, "the person speaking gets to say whether what they say is offensive," which is wishful thinking, at best.

This is a place where we should probably introduce the modern concept of the difference between a thing being racist, and it being bigoted. We can largely simplify it to: Racism is mostly about effect or impact. Bigotry is about motivations.

In D&D, the old story of the Drow is somewhat racist, even if the authors of that lore didn't intend to make it an analogy to African Americans, because it has outsized impact on folks of color, since basically the same story was used to justify the slavery whose impacts they still bear centuries later.

I could totally understand if the lore authors didn't get that - they probably lacked the perspective and life experience to understand, and didn't have guidance from people of color on the matter. But a great deal of racism in culture persists because folks don't understand, and don't consider how things may look or feel from another's perspective.

Calling this racist then isn't, "OMG, guys these writers were horrible people and soooo racist!!!1!" It is an error made in ignorance. Ignorance isn't a character flaw, and is correctible, so long as arrogance doesn't get in the way.