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Some viewership figures finally out. RoP was a flop, and only 37% of people in the US who started it managed to make it through the whole series: link With steely determination, I was one of those few. Season 2 has been hampered by a fire on set link. And a horse dying link, drawing PETA's...

Sure. I think this is pretty uncontroversial - even if we tend to stereotype the "tortured artist," and are perhaps willing to afford them more latitude in their views and actions because of their art. But I also think that this tendency has been becoming less forgivable in many ways for quite...

Many. Yes. Lovecraft's overt racism, Gorman's fetishism, Howard's racial perspective, Farmer's obsession with sex, Asimov's exclusion of women, Tolkien's implicit class-and-race-and-religious worldview. Let's face it, the list is endless. It's not about it being acceptable. It's about honest...

When I open the oven and I touch my jacket potato (baked potato, if you're American), if it is too hot, I will keep the door open and let it cool down. I've already coated my potato with olive oil and rock salt, and it has the potential of providing a satisfying meal. After it has cooled...

I mean, most of these complaints really seem levelled against Disney and their sprawling franchise - which is fair enough. But Die Hard and Terminator were never PG-rated, so it's not really a fair comparison. Disney was always family-driven, and careful to adhere to the most conservative moral...

I think these are all fair points - I.e to what extent is an artist in control of their own persona, and to what extent are they conforming to expectation or being curated by a team of fashionistas or being coerced by their manager etc. Instead of Beyoncé, we might look at Lady Gaga or Madonna...

I'm trying to explain why Beyonce expressing her sexuality is different from male fantasy artists drawing sexualized pictures of women. People can draw or paint whatever they like. Again, you are conflating notions of "should not" and "cannot" with the actual substance of the discussion.

Subjects vs objects explained

You should certainly wonder. But I think this question implicitly demands the lens of gender identity, and I think that it may be beyond the scope of this thread to constructively analyze. Suffice it to say that I chose the words from and by with care.

A forceful expression of female sexuality - from a woman - and a pictorial representation of a sexualized woman - by a man - are two rather different things.

I think the words slave, slavery carry a great deal of psychological weight, one not shared by thralldom, peonage, serfdom, indentureship, and even though the rights of slaves have varied by time and place, it is within the context of the US that some of the most egregious abuses took place -...

I don’t think anyone is denying that, and I’ve re articulated that I don’t shy away from controversial material in my own games. This is more about what is a reasonable, uncontroversial baseline for Wizards in terms of their product. WotC has to make rational choices about how they market...

Maybe not. I think the world itself, especially insofar as it differs from our own in geography, climate, biology and culture, is given a central place. Its peculiarities - where it diverges from our normal experiences - are constantly emphasised. Its scope is at once epic (the whole world) and...

I think that's more about a human protagonist being transported to an alien world. Planetary Fantasy would seem to me maybe to place the environment itself - presented as a holistic entity - as a kind of antagonist to be overcome, so it might include Barsoom. But now I'm thinking about...

Not an easy question to answer. But I think Burroughs' Barsoom and Richard Corben's Den and Howard's Almuric share a kind of continuity with Dark Sun - psi powers, deserts, despots & slaves.

I think this is an important point, and I hadn't really considered it before. It does make me think that an uncontroversial baseline is a responsibility of the large publishers. I recently did some digging around a scenario called Bar-Room Brawl from White Dwarf #11. It was reprinted in Best...

There was no ambiguity in my meaning: toxic words can have toxic results. The other poster instead chose to deflect the conversation into questions around proving a negative, and suggest that reading Gandhi and enacting violence based on that reading was no different from reading Lovecraft and...

In the course of conversation, it is important to be able to distinguish between a rhetorical flourish and a logical assertion which is central to a position. That way, you don't end up missing the thrust of the argument and wasting your energy on things which can otherwise be passed over...

See how that works? Each of us bears a responsibility to posterity, in both our words and our actions. While I am actually rather sympathetic to Lovecraft as a human being - his pathos, his dysfunctional family and inherited mental illness, his inability to form intimate relationships - it...

In principle, yes. But I don't think that it's in the interest (financial, reputational) of WotC or Paizo to pursue this route, and I'm not persuaded they wouldn't make a hash of it anyway - Book of Vile Darkness, I'm looking at you. As I also mentioned way upthread, I think this is third-party...