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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7926818" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Because they aren't particularly strong points. They strike me as someone who already wants to draw a particular conclusion, and so is cherry picking evidence to support it.</p><p></p><p>For example, you cite something like this as if you hit upon a strong point: "<em>They are interfertile with humans." </em>The emphasis is yours.</p><p></p><p>But in the setting, people are potentially interfertile with cows, swans, dragons, demons and trees. In myth and fantasy, pretty much anything crosses with anything else. We have no guarantee of a fantasy setting being a scientific biological world. And in Warhammer, for example, orcs are sentient algae. So yeah, there is that.</p><p></p><p>Moreover, when you say things like this: "It's much easier to "otherise" things which don't closely resemble us.", you are actually undermining your own argument. If it is easier to otherise things that don't closely resemble us, then surely you are guilty of the reverse - humanizing something just because it has an incidental resemblance to us. How much the look like humans has no bearing whatsoever on whether they are actually people. What makes something people isn't appearance.</p><p></p><p>But beyond that, you aren't even addressing the question. You say something like, "There is nothing in any version of the rules to suggest that they are automata, incapable of choice." But of course there wouldn't be, because there are really no rules for this except alignment, which you are discounting as a valid rule. The actual suggestion regarding how evil or how invariably evil they are wouldn't be found in any crunch but alignment, but in the flavor text. And the flavor text of orcs per canon is that they are the creation of Gruumsh, the unblinking god of conquest and destruction who drives his followers to kill. It's not impossible that a deity might have creations that don't reflect the nature of the deity, but one particularly note worthy aspect of orcishness is that there are no orc gods of good in most canon pantheons. The dwarves, elves, gnomes and humans were created and bestowed with gifts by both good and evil deities, but all the creators of orcs are evil and incarnate destructive ideologies of conquest and killing. So, while there is room for suggesting that orcs have free will, there is also room for suggesting that they are heavily predisposed to evil, or that they are invariably evil. There is no "curse of Ham" required here.</p><p></p><p>Once again, you are determined to see orcs as Africans, and it is you that are therefore equating Africans with orcs. You are the one determined to see black people in monstrous terms, and determined to identify orcs with Africans. Not the people you are addressing.</p><p></p><p>It's a weak argument and it's a racist argument.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7926818, member: 4937"] Because they aren't particularly strong points. They strike me as someone who already wants to draw a particular conclusion, and so is cherry picking evidence to support it. For example, you cite something like this as if you hit upon a strong point: "[I]They are interfertile with humans." [/I]The emphasis is yours. But in the setting, people are potentially interfertile with cows, swans, dragons, demons and trees. In myth and fantasy, pretty much anything crosses with anything else. We have no guarantee of a fantasy setting being a scientific biological world. And in Warhammer, for example, orcs are sentient algae. So yeah, there is that. Moreover, when you say things like this: "It's much easier to "otherise" things which don't closely resemble us.", you are actually undermining your own argument. If it is easier to otherise things that don't closely resemble us, then surely you are guilty of the reverse - humanizing something just because it has an incidental resemblance to us. How much the look like humans has no bearing whatsoever on whether they are actually people. What makes something people isn't appearance. But beyond that, you aren't even addressing the question. You say something like, "There is nothing in any version of the rules to suggest that they are automata, incapable of choice." But of course there wouldn't be, because there are really no rules for this except alignment, which you are discounting as a valid rule. The actual suggestion regarding how evil or how invariably evil they are wouldn't be found in any crunch but alignment, but in the flavor text. And the flavor text of orcs per canon is that they are the creation of Gruumsh, the unblinking god of conquest and destruction who drives his followers to kill. It's not impossible that a deity might have creations that don't reflect the nature of the deity, but one particularly note worthy aspect of orcishness is that there are no orc gods of good in most canon pantheons. The dwarves, elves, gnomes and humans were created and bestowed with gifts by both good and evil deities, but all the creators of orcs are evil and incarnate destructive ideologies of conquest and killing. So, while there is room for suggesting that orcs have free will, there is also room for suggesting that they are heavily predisposed to evil, or that they are invariably evil. There is no "curse of Ham" required here. Once again, you are determined to see orcs as Africans, and it is you that are therefore equating Africans with orcs. You are the one determined to see black people in monstrous terms, and determined to identify orcs with Africans. Not the people you are addressing. It's a weak argument and it's a racist argument. [/QUOTE]
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