D&D 5E Dark Sun, problematic content, and 5E…

[Maxperson]

Honestly in the black community there are a growing number of us that are fed up with the media's seeming obsession with black trauma and misery as entertainment and we don't support movies and shows about slavery even if it's portrayed as evil and there are heroes trying to stop it.

Interesting. I didn't know that. There isn't a similar thing going on in the Jewish community(my community) that I know about, but then the number of Moses coming out of Egypt movies being released dropped off a cliff decades ago. I suppose holocaust movies would be similar, but I haven't heard anything about our community becoming fed up with those.

 

[Maxperson]

Which at this stage, post 2020, is practically ancient history as far as how Wizards is going to approach content moving forward.

Yeah. The best I have for 5e are the several examples of institutionalized slavery in the various races, monsters and settings(though not central to those settings).

 

[Cadence]

I'd be more interested in what percentage of modern fantasy literature, adult and young adult, features slavery as a major setting element...

I'm not sure why I was surprised that there were a number of articles that listed recent books featuring it when I googled:
slavery in modern youth fantasy

Most of my recent fantasy/sci-fi reading lately has been in short stories, and none of the more memorable ones did.

Wesley Chu's "Art of Prophecy" is at least tangential with prisoner of war/ghetto/forced labor.

 

[Hussar]

Wouldnt there be an assumption in there that the descriptions and/or art make it clear that its a negative? That the people in charge are doing villainous things?

I mean extrapolate this.

"What is explicit evil?"

Hell, lets just round trip this and bring it home to the holy of holies of circular debate.

"What is Evil?"

Ok, let's try this.

Think of something you think of as explicitly evil. Doesn't matter what it is. Just something that you, personally, feel is explicitly evil. Now, you pick up a game dealing with that theme. In that game you see depictions of someone who is a victim of that explicit evil that appears mostly unaffected, perhaps even happy. Are you okay with that? Or, would you want depictions of that explicit evil (note, we're talking about making the product show this content as EXPLICITLY evil), to be shown as horrific and never, ever in even neutral terms?

"Slavery isn't portrayed as explicitly evil in a book unless every picture or description in it of a slave involves them being horribly physically and mentally abused in the most graphic ways" seems kind of hyperbolic? Presumably, we can, for example, teach children slavery is an awful thing without needing to show it graphically?

(Granted of course there are adults who seemingly won't admit it is/was).

I'm guessing I missed the point of the hyperbole?

Is it hyperbole? Remember, we are meant to show that slavery (in this case) is EXPLICITLY evil. Which means that every single participant of this must be evil. After all, if something is explicitly evil, and someone repeatedly performs that act, we would declare that NPC (or PC) to be evil. And, again, would you be okay with neutral depictions of "explicit evil"?

So, again, that's the question I'm asking. How do you declare something to be explicitly evil, without actually showing it to be evil? What does that look like?

Is it enough to show a bunch of slaves just working? Is that "explicitly evil"?

Everyone seems to be content with these very high level, abstract ideas, but, I want to know EXACTLY what you mean when you say that you will present something as "explicitly evil".

Like I said, if you think of anything that you consider to be explicitly evil, are you comfortable with that in a game book shown in neutral terms where the victims are perhaps even looking happy?

So, yeah, what does "explicitly evil" look like?

 

[Staffan]

Is it hyperbole? Remember, we are meant to show that slavery (in this case) is EXPLICITLY evil. Which means that every single participant of this must be evil. After all, if something is explicitly evil, and someone repeatedly performs that act, we would declare that NPC (or PC) to be evil. And, again, would you be okay with neutral depictions of "explicit evil"?

This brings me back to the depiction of Agis of Asticles in the Verdant Passage. He thinks of himself as a good slave owner. He treats his slaves well, making sure they're well fed and not whipped and so on. And yet he gets surprised when one of his highest-ranking slaves betrays him to someone who offers them their freedom, and asks something along the lines of "Why? Was I not a good master?". The reply was basically "But I was still a slave, denied my freedom, and that's something I can't tolerate." As I recall, this is one of the incidents that lead Agis to freeing his other slaves (the ones not expropriated to work on the ziggurat, that is) and advocating for general abolition when he and his allies are conspiring to bring down Kalak.

So you can have "kind" slavers (or at least slave owners), but that doesn't mean that the institution itself isn't evil to the core. If 5e still had know alignment spells, they would at best detect as Neutral, and even that's a hard sell. You can't be Good and own slaves (possibly with exceptions like "I buy the slave to free them").

 

[Scribe]

In that game you see depictions of someone who is a victim of that explicit evil that appears mostly unaffected, perhaps even happy.

I mean right here, we see the issue.

In no description of Dark Sun, have I made any kind of mental association with 'yeah these folks are probably happy'.

So...why would Wizards or any hypothetical organization, present it in such a way?

Nobody is trying to say 'slavery is fine in Dark Sun, its good, probably'. Like, nobody.

 

[Minigiant]

Honestly in the black community there are a growing number of us that are fed up with the media's seeming obsession with black trauma and misery as entertainment and we don't support movies and shows about slavery even if it's portrayed as evil and there are heroes trying to stop it.

Yeah, that moment is growing. A softened Dark Sun with a stereotypical "free the slaves and kill the masters" quest capitalizing on black misery is not getting my money.

 

[Cadence]

Is it enough to show a bunch of slaves just working? Is that "explicitly evil"?

It feels like if we know they're being forced to do it it's obviously evil?

Everyone seems to be content with these very high level, abstract ideas, but, I want to know EXACTLY what you mean when you say that you will present something as "explicitly evil".

In old time radio shows it doesn't take much to show the abusive husband is awful even if the wife usually seems content. (A threat and describing her flinching usually carries for quite a while).

How much beyond describing the marketplace where the children are ripped from their mothers' arms and hearing the crack of a whip in the background ?

Like I said, if you think of anything that you consider to be explicitly evil, are you comfortable with that in a game book shown in neutral terms where the victims are perhaps even looking happy?

Looking happy sometimes? One of the many seeming to be happy usually by perhaps being a collaborator? Most having a glimpse of respite now and then?

It feels like those can all easily be happening with reminders of what is going on and how awful it is not being hidden.

It feels like no one who isn't insipid thinks American chattel slavery wasn't evil just because the slaves sang spirituals and wasn't whipped continuously.

So, yeah, what does "explicitly evil" look like?

Children being ripped from their mothers, people being forced to work or be punished, people being brutally beaten now and then? Those all feel evil?

It feels like it isn't that hard to have it clear that those in charge of the system continuing and the system itself being evil. And that those going along with it are engaged in evil.

It doesn't feel any harder than conveying in a game that the maffia, drug cartels, and kidnapping rings are evil. That oppressing minorities or other groups of people are evil. That keeping the kid in the basement in Omelas is evil.

It feels easier than in teaching history where (most?) people seemingly have a hard time admitting that their ancestors and country were very excremental in at least some aspects and that there wasn't really an excuse for going along with it. Or that they themselves are invariably going to be rightfully judged as failing in some manner. Is it easier in fantasy settings to have someone with almost no positive qualities to make the right choice more obvious?

 

[Cadence]

Yeah, that moment is growing. A softened Dark Sun with a stereotypical "free the slaves and kill the masters" quest capitalizing on black misery is not getting my money.

Is there a good list of overused tropes of that sort in different genres that have just become offensive (great white savior, woman in a fridge, etc...)?

 

[ReshiIRE]

Yeah, the whole 'being non-white, cis, hetero sucks at all times and these people only have worth in terms of showing their misery' train needs to die.

Every once in a while, I get a review on a book where someone is mad because my characters are minorities and not suffering and I happily dunk those in the garbage beside the ones that are enraged that there's a woman who can swing a big sword.

This is something I must have been subconciously thinking of but forgot to mention.

I remember seeing the film Detroit when it was in the cinema in Ireland.

'Enjoy' is not the right word (I should have realised the film was going to be darker than I expected... my university friends and I were all pretty shocked and appalled at what happened), but I appreciated that the film was well done and portrayed the naughty word, shocking evil of what happened clearly. I remember John Boyega putting in a great performance and William Poulter displaying shocking, banal evil in a sinister manner. And I'm really surpised reading hte creddits to realise Anthony Mackie was in it (but I wasn't as aware of him as I am now).

I decided to read up on reviews afterwards, I think to partly gather my thoughts and to investigate the history - historical accuracy in fictional films about real events is something I'm always curious about.

My perception of a lot of the issues around Black representation in media, particularly from the US, changed as I read about how the film despite it's quality was receiving a chill reception because it was another film about naughty word things happening to African Americans and Black people... which I was realising were continuing to happen all too frequently. I was starting to understand why there was hostility to films like 12 Years a Slave.

I am not a person of colour or Black, but it has certainly made me steadfast to write settings and fiction where people of colour, at the very least, do not suffer because of their skin colour.

As an amendum, it has made me think about what it would feel like to have films about Irish people that were only about the Famine or the Troubles or general oppression of Irish film. The situtations, on many levels, are obviously VERY DIFFERENT and so I'm only able to empathise to a certain degree.

But I would find that highly irritating and discouraging at a certain level. Especially since Irish culture can be a wee bit too addicted to the old misery and moaning like.