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D&D Races: Evolution, Fantasy Stereotypes & Escapism
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8530062" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Perhaps it doesn't apply to your group, but I've seen it happen. Very rare in groups I actually play with, but still. There is definitely an impetus toward "non-human? Turn brain off, just enjoy murderating them. Wait, those are humans? Okay so we have to be <em>really sure</em> they <em>deserve</em> this and need to consider other options before we go nuclear."</p><p></p><p>I mean, we don't even need to look very far to see this in action. The whole trope of "will you kill this orc baby" or related things literally cannot have meaningful force or impact unless orcs are presumed "kill on sight" and humans aren't. You have to have a climate of presuming humans are nuanced and complicated, always needing contextual reasons to kill them, while assuming orcs are simple and uniform, needing no more reason than "they exist."</p><p></p><p>Heck, after a fashion, your examples demonstrate a consistent pattern of needing a justification for violence directed at humans: they're slavers (something most humans regard as inherently evil), or kidnappers with intent to perform live human experimentation (committing crimes and mutilating), or they're enemies in wartime (where violence is permitted to protect or advance one's country), or they're pillagers actively rampaging through innocent villages. Those are all "this group has done evil and must be stopped ASAP" or "this group is our active enemy in an official war, and we generally obey the laws of war."</p><p></p><p>For a lot of folks, the <em>only</em> reason you need for killing an orc is that it's an orc. E.g. I know someone on here has their orcs as essentially biological androids constructed by the forces of darkness to be disposable foot soldiers. They don't reproduce, they don't engage in relationships or have art or trade or any kind of culture, and aren't so much "alive" as "meat puppets animated by darkness." And this was done, IIRC, specifically so that all the pesky moral quandaries would be gone. Orcs, in this paradigm, aren't moral beings in either sense of the term, they aren't sapient or able to make moral decisions because they're almost biological robots of evil, and they hold no moral weight, not even what an animal might possess, because they're totally artificial and only exist to be biological weapons used on whomever the forces of darkness are targeting today.</p><p></p><p>If humans and orcs were near-universally treated the same way, there would be no need to explain why presumptive KOS status is okay, because presumptive KOS status wouldn't be a thing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8530062, member: 6790260"] Perhaps it doesn't apply to your group, but I've seen it happen. Very rare in groups I actually play with, but still. There is definitely an impetus toward "non-human? Turn brain off, just enjoy murderating them. Wait, those are humans? Okay so we have to be [I]really sure[/I] they [I]deserve[/I] this and need to consider other options before we go nuclear." I mean, we don't even need to look very far to see this in action. The whole trope of "will you kill this orc baby" or related things literally cannot have meaningful force or impact unless orcs are presumed "kill on sight" and humans aren't. You have to have a climate of presuming humans are nuanced and complicated, always needing contextual reasons to kill them, while assuming orcs are simple and uniform, needing no more reason than "they exist." Heck, after a fashion, your examples demonstrate a consistent pattern of needing a justification for violence directed at humans: they're slavers (something most humans regard as inherently evil), or kidnappers with intent to perform live human experimentation (committing crimes and mutilating), or they're enemies in wartime (where violence is permitted to protect or advance one's country), or they're pillagers actively rampaging through innocent villages. Those are all "this group has done evil and must be stopped ASAP" or "this group is our active enemy in an official war, and we generally obey the laws of war." For a lot of folks, the [I]only[/I] reason you need for killing an orc is that it's an orc. E.g. I know someone on here has their orcs as essentially biological androids constructed by the forces of darkness to be disposable foot soldiers. They don't reproduce, they don't engage in relationships or have art or trade or any kind of culture, and aren't so much "alive" as "meat puppets animated by darkness." And this was done, IIRC, specifically so that all the pesky moral quandaries would be gone. Orcs, in this paradigm, aren't moral beings in either sense of the term, they aren't sapient or able to make moral decisions because they're almost biological robots of evil, and they hold no moral weight, not even what an animal might possess, because they're totally artificial and only exist to be biological weapons used on whomever the forces of darkness are targeting today. If humans and orcs were near-universally treated the same way, there would be no need to explain why presumptive KOS status is okay, because presumptive KOS status wouldn't be a thing. [/QUOTE]
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