Do orcs in gaming display parallels to colonialist propaganda?

[Hussar]

So you have to go back 40 years and 3 editions to find something to support your theory.
And why is this relevant today? Seems it has already been corrected.

[MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION], once again this has been asked and answered. IIRC, more than once. It would help if you would go back and read the thread before asking us to repeat what's already been discussed. It makes it difficult, and honestly, rather frustrating, to keep having to justify why we're having this discussion every five pages or so whenever someone else comes in the door.

Why not presume that we've actually already discussed this, and presume good faith? The same presumption we should extend to you and not presume that you are simply trying to derail the thread, no?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So you have to go back 40 years and 3 editions to find something to support your theory.
And why is this relevant today? Seems it has already been corrected.

[MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION], once again this has been asked and answered. IIRC, more than once. It would help if you would go back and read the thread before asking us to repeat what's already been discussed. It makes it difficult, and honestly, rather frustrating, to keep having to justify why we're having this discussion every five pages or so whenever someone else comes in the door.

Why not presume that we've actually already discussed this, and presume good faith? The same presumption we should extend to you and not presume that you are simply trying to derail the thread, no?

Some of us were discussing this on pg1:

There have been elements of some of the “always evil” races’ treatment in early FRPGs- especially D&D- that could definitely be said to echo some of the racism present in the early pulp and genre fiction that inspired the founders of the hobby. But as time has passed, those elements have been somewhat reduced, and the various races have been fleshed out a bit more realistically by subsequent game designers.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Orcish features that correspond to 19th and 20th century European ideas about black Africans:

Dark skin
Tribes
Primitive
Savage
Combine human and animal traits
Cannibalism (in the sense of eating other humanoids)
Witch doctors (2e and earlier)
Low intelligence
Physically superior (3e and onward)
Fecundity (1e, 2e and 5e)

They live in villages, which suggests they're not steppe nomads or plains Indians.

The barbarian rage and use of axes introduced in 3e was probably inspired by Fafhrd and vikings, and does muddy the waters a bit.

 

[Aldarc]

Here's a list of orcish features that correspond to 19th and 20th century European ideas about black Africans.

While also being depicted as a dangerous chaotic threat to "the West" representing Law, the (quasi) Medieval European society, and a predominately white-drawn cast of characters. This point does not necessarily reflect 19th and 20th century Europe, but the overlay between what you list and the mostly "European" perspective of orcs in the game cannot be ignored either.

 

[Doug McCrae]

On the similarities between the fecundity of D&D orcs and early 20th century race "scientists" notions about black people.

Orcs reproduce more quickly than other humanoids.

“Luthic, the orc goddess of fertility and wife of Gruumsh, demands that orcs procreate often and indiscriminately so that orc hordes swell generation after generation. The orcs' drive to reproduce runs stronger than any other humanoid race, and they readily crossbreed with other races.” - 5e D&D Monster Manual​

Black people are believed to reproduce faster than other races.

“Treating the primary race-stocks as units, it would appear that whites tend to double in eighty years, yellows and browns in sixty years, blacks in forty years.” - Lothrop Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920)​

“The black man is, indeed, sharply differentiated from the other branches of mankind. His outstanding quality is superabundant animal vitality... To it... is due his extreme fecundity, the negro being the quickest of breeders.” - Stoddard again​

Orcish traits are dominant.

“Half-orcs tend to favor the orcish strain heavily and as such are basically orcs, although 10% of these offspring can pass as ugly humans.” - 2e AD&D Monster Manual​

"Lower types" are dominant.

“The result of the mixture of two races, in the long run, gives us a race reverting to the… lower type… the cross between a white man and a Negro is a Negro” - Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race (1916)​

 

[Bedrockgames]

I was under the impression that you are deeply concerned - even afraid - about what might happen if anyone closely examines orcs in gaming for parallels with colonialist propaganda. You've expressed concerns that after such examination, we might set standards, and then impose those standards on others.

Well, this is what happens: We note the overlap between LotR orcs (also known as goblins) and traits associated mostly with Asian or Turkik populations. We note the overlap between WotC orcs and common American stereotypes of black people. We encourage mindful compassion about how those stereotypes might feel to players (and children) with relevant ancestry. THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS. That's what you've been SO worried about.

After all those posts of concern, you apparently agreed with us (or at least me and Danny), *all along*, about how to apply those principles in the specific scenarios which I described. I guess it wasn't so bad after all?

There's a possibility that one individual will say something along the lines of "you shouldn't play D&D, you should play some less racist TRPG." That person will be alone in their outlier position; the rest of us won't join that person to dog-pile you. (If you WANT a TRPG with fewer racist images in its text and illustrations, then you can start a new thread with that question, and I'd happily suggest some. In the meantime, if you're happy with D&D, then I'm not gonna second-guess your gaming preferences, not even if you play the edition which I hate.)

Your misunderstanding my position. I think I've been clear. It is early and I am too tired to try to rephrase it. But like I said before, I don't think the evil orc trope, or evil orcs in fantasy RPGs are racist. And I don' think the tie to colonialism is super obvious. My main contention was taking a fine tooth comb to this stuff, in my view, doesn't really help, and when that mindset is actually put into action (in say places like twitter) I think the outcome is a lot nastier and more censorious than people intend. And I think this kind of academic critical approach is crating a gulf in the hobby between people with advanced degrees and people without (and that is part of why I say it stifled creativity, because if you are not versed in this new etiquette, which is quite complex in my opinion, you get hammered if you don't handle these kinds of tropes in exactly the right way). I basically don't agree with a certain approach to analyzing media content. And I think there are other points of view, that take slightly different positions about the meaning of media, how we ought to react to it, etc, that are useful and not the rightwing viewpoint that some posters seem to think any criticism of this idea represents. I don't think the approach people are advocating here achieves the desired result and I think it is increasingly leading to a throwing out of the baby with the bathwater. But that doesn't mean I hold racist views, am right wing, etc. And it doesn't mean I want to see people get hurt. I just have a difference of opinion about some of the fundamental assumptions at work in this thread. I believe those assumptions come from a good place, but I don't think they lead to a good place. And me holding these views certainly doesn't mean I would recite an ethnic slur in front of a group of children. We were examining Tolkien's use of the word, and how it informed the orc. There is a big difference between an adult today using that label and a person from Tolkien's era using it as an easy way to describe a monster's eye (who we have very strong evidence wasn't a racist because of things like his letter to his German publisher in which he denounces the kinds of theories people are concerned about). The way he is using it sounds like it is meant to simply be descriptive and not as the slur (to my eyes). Doesn't mean I'd just read it off the page to a group of kids though. But I think a group of adults can have a discussion about it, and see some nuance rather than a black and white this trope is bad conclusion. My honest opinion of Tolkien's description is it on the cusp, but not at all clear. All we have is that word and 'swarthy' to go on, and a lot of the other attributes are things you would find among any conquering tribal group of nomadic group. To me, as much as an issue that kind of language could be, it is clear Tolkien wasn't trying to make some kind of 19th century racialist argument. I don't think that was the intent at all. I think he just wanted an evil race in the way that demons are evil because he was operating off of the hierarchy of being as a concept and trying to explain the existence of evil in the setting. That he agonized over this detail, and changed his mind on how to approach over time, I think shows this wasn't a person who was given to the kind of thinking people are concerned is embodied in the trope. If there is anything nasty in there, it is entirely unintentional and I think that matters because there would be a big difference it was crafted as intentional racial or colonialist propaganda (the book would have made active efforts to perused readers to that point of view). Hopefully I am not missing any details of what I've said here. I believe these are all the points I made summed up.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I want to point out that in this long and meandering thread about RW stereotypes being used in genre literature and the games inspired by it, I think we should all remember Hanlon’s Razor:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

That’s the original formulation, but in this case, I doubt “stupidity “ is the actual foible in question. Instead, maybe it is “ignorance”, in the nonjudgmental sense of “being uninformed” about something- a gap in awareness. Perhaps even “indifference”.

IOW, I don’t see any evidence of an intent to denigrate on the part of most of the figures discussed herin. I honestly don’t think anyone’s calling JRRT, EGG, (most) other authors and game designers, or any fellow ENWorlders posting here as being actual racists. I think some if not most of the pushback seen here is coming from honest disbelief or lack of information, not genuine antagonism. I know I really haven’t felt anything like that much here.

I think from posters like you and Hussar, the response has felt like you describe: I feel you are reacting to what I actually say. But I have to be truthful here, I think some of the other posts have strongly implied racism as a motive on my part (or at least advised a serious need for me to reform my ways). Many of the reactions were in my view unfair rhetorical tactics like (paraphrasing) “why do you care more for your precious orc tropes than the harm experienced by marginalized groups”. Or I would get a lot of ‘you should reflect on it is you really think that’—-suggesting that I have racist beliefs deep down. What troubles me, and this isn’t directed st you because I have found your posts to be very empathetic, is for all the talk of empathy, compassion and not hurting people, the cruel streak visible in some posts once people decide you don’t have the right idea about analyzing colonialist tropes (a derp and complicated topic in my view with plenty of room for more than two simple extremes).

 

[Doug McCrae]

I wouldn't want to give the impression that the racist ideas I mentioned above are purely a thing of the past. 19th century race science is still being peddled by prominent Youtubers. The notion that dark-skinned men represent a sexual threat to white women and that dark-skinned people are outbreeding white people are a significant influence on our current politics. The white idea of black physical superiority is a major theme of the recent movie Get Out.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Great thread with many thoughtful responses.

I've not much to add except that the cultural "rehabilitation" of orcs (or Klingons, for that matter), comes through applying a kind of "Noble Savage" or "Honorable Warrior" template - itself, another colonialist trope.

Re JRRT:

"out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues."

Tolkien wrote an essay called Sigelwara Land (an Old English term for Aethiopia) and postulates that this early construction has relicts of a pre-Christian image of Muspelheim with demons "with red-hot eyes that emitted sparks and faces black as soot."

In some early maps, Harad appears as Sunharrowland, of similar construction.

 

[Sadras]

Greece, too, was on the side of the allies, even though the predominant political hierarchy had a great deal in common with the Nazis.

And some of the religious hierarchy, specifically the monks of Mount Athos.
But there were others that were extraordinarily brave.