Do orcs in gaming display parallels to colonialist propaganda?

[billd91]

I've not read very much Tolkien biography. (Only what one picks up in some of the critical work on LotR.) It seems unlikely - for statistical if no other reasons - that he was not virulently racist like HPL. For the same (statistical) reasons it seems likely that he was racist, in the sense of viewing non-white people as tending to be inferior in character and accomplishment to Europeans. This was, after all, a fairy common viewpoint among English people, including educated English people, of his time. They lived as part of, and from time to time took significant steps to defend, an Empire that was based very heavily on racist ideas and was governed very extensively along racial lines.

Woah, there. Dangerous territory, painting people with the broad brush. Tolkien seems to have been no fan of the British Empire. "I know nothing about British or American imperialism in the Far East that does not fill me with regret and disgust.” - a quote that seems to be from a letter in 1945, and it isn't alone. He was no fan of the Commonwealth either, and he wrote in criticism of the racist state of his birth - South Africa.

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that JRRT was devoid of any racist judgement, and happened to include a passage equating Central/East Asian appearance with goblinness just out of habit or carelessness or received literary style - that wouldn't change anything about the passage.

That may be, but jumping to conclusions about the rest does neither the argument nor Tolkien anything but disservice. He's a way more complicated individual - one who felt a great deal of respect for northern european culture and its contributions to language, myth, and legend while also opposing using said traditions for an explicitly racist agenda in his strident opposition to the Nazis. Yet also one who harnessed prevailing racist tropes to mark the enemies of his protagonists as different, alien, other.

 

[Derren]

Notably all of your examples of comparison (1) do commonly represent (to Euro-America at least) the dangerous, foreign other from the East who poses a threat to the "civilized West," and (2) these resemblances are indeed used in many depictions of the orcs, including Tolkien's, and (3) these are resemblances are problematic for reasons that have already been elucidated in this thread.

Why do you only limit it to Europe? This is entirely your choice.
The Chinese (and Koreans) had "barbarians in the north" as had the Japanese which did not treat the Ainu pretty well. Not to mention that the Mongols were not only a threat to Europeans but also to many Asian and Middle Eastern nations. After all who ended the period of Islamic scientific leadership by razing Baghdad? It wasn't the Europeans. And there were also the tribes of Timur who conquered large territories. And why couldn't orcs symbolize Vikings?

So as I said, the barbarian raider stereotype existed around the world in all cultures and has nothing specifically to do with European colonialism. And even if you want to limit it European history you still need to explain why orcs would be related to the colonial era of Europe instead of those times when Europe was attacked by tribal societies (Mongols, Huns, Germanics, Turkish tribes, Vikings, ...)

 

[pemerton]

his strident opposition to the Nazis

Australia went to war against the Nazis while fiercely maintaing the White Australia Policy. Churchill went to war against the Nazis while resolutely desiring to maintain the British Empire.

Opposed/fought the Nazis doesn't show that someone, or some political outlook, isn't racist.

 

[pemerton]

I do think it's sad when people have been educated to take offence where none was offended. Couple of my east-Asian friends were sharing a video a year or two back about how it's offensive to ask "Where are you from?" - the clueless well-meaning whites asking Asians & Asian-Americans about their national origin were being given as examples of unconscious racism. In discouraging communication I think that kind of thing is actively harmful.

I can't speak for your friends. But I can report that, in Australia, white Australians - including white Australian who are Bitish migrants or children of British migrants (or similarly pale northern/western Europeans) - almost never get asked "Where do you come from?", while people of colour (including, in this context, many southern/eastern Europeans), even if born in Australia to Australian parents, very frequently get asked "Where do you come from?"

If the answer given is the (truthful) Melbourne, that can tend to provoke more insistent questioning. Which just reinforces the point.

The question betrays an assumption that people of colour are, in some sense, "exotic" or not (fully? really?) Australian. I personally don't know anyone who doesn't find it tiresome at best.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[S'mon]

The question betrays an assumption that people of colour are, in some sense, "exotic" or not (fully? really?) Australian.

It certainly betrays an assumption that they're exotic from the POV of the questioner.

I dunno about Australia, but here white people with discernible accents certainly get asked where they're from too.

For some reason, IRL* I seem to have a great knack for not giving offence. When I told my
half Chinese American friend "Oh, I thought you were Native American!", when I told my Indian friend "Oh, I thought you were half British!" and when I recently told a Greek player "Oh, I thought you were German!" - they all seemed flattered!

*Very unlike on the Internet!

 

[dragoner]

I guess I think these things are pretty much entirely about subjective experiences.

No, objectively wrong remains wrong, saying it is subjective is only an attempt to nullify the truth.

You mentioned nazis up thread, and I as being mostly Slavic and Jewish, with a large part of my family being murdered by the nazis in the Holocaust, I despise nazis. However, I had to write a paper on "Inglorious Basterds" for an English class in Business School, wound up criticizing the movie for being wrong as a base revenge fantasy. Personally I don't care about revenge, because the 38 members of my family that died, it won't bring them back; what I want is the truth to be told. Vassily Grossman stated in a "Writer at War," that what happened in the East could have only happened with the help of the local population. Ellie Wiesel stated that they saw British Recon aircraft overflights at Auschwitz and know that the Western Allies were indifferent to our fate, and that there were not Einsatzgruppen in France, because the French Police and Army helped to round up Jews for the nazis. The guilt is spread farther than merely the nazis.

http://ww2today.com/23rd-january-1943-the-battle-of-marseille

Two wrongs do not make a right, objective truth remains truth. Orcs are wrong due to the way they are represented, there is not any subjective truth to it. Inherent evil or the capacity for evil as a racial quality, is racist. Compounding on that the killing of females, and children for extra experience points ... it would be just as wrong to do to Germans or nazis.

 

[S'mon]

Orcs are wrong due to the way they are represented, there is not any subjective truth to it. Inherent evil or the capacity for evil as a racial quality, is racist. Compounding on that the killing of females, and children for extra experience points ... it would be just as wrong to do to Germans or nazis.

What do you think is the best approach? Get rid of "Always Chaotic Evil" races?

Are Always-CE Undead ok? How about demons?

I'm not joking; I am increasingly inclined to think RPGs can do without orcs and suchlike.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Tolkien drew on a vast range of sources in creating his literary works, many of them medieval or referencing the medieval, such as William Morris's The House of the Wolfings. But he also drew on colonialist era writers like H Rider Haggard and James Fenimore Cooper.

Gygax and the other creators of D&D mostly used much more recent sources - late 19th or 20th century - which explains why 1e and 2e D&D's orcs have witch doctors and half-orcs are described using the language of people who measure skulls. They've become more of a colonialist trope.

And they've moved from Asia to Africa. Tolkien's orcs are inspired by the Ottoman Empire, and perhaps other nomadic warriors who travelled west out of Asia and attacked Europe - Attila the Hun, the Arabs, and the Mongols. Gygax's orcs are inspired (indirectly) by the late 19th century Scramble for Africa.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I do think it's sad when people have been educated to take offence where none was (edit) intended. Couple of my east-Asian friends were sharing a video a year or two back about how it's offensive to ask "Where are you from?" - the clueless well-meaning whites asking Asians & Asian-Americans about their national origin were being given as examples of unconscious racism. In discouraging communication I think that kind of thing is actively harmful.

I’ve seen that one, too. Drives me nuts. I mean, it’s just something people ask people they don’t know. I get asked that all the time.

Now, if the follow-up questions betray obvious bigotry or ignorance, THEN it’s time to get ruffled. Example: An incident from my father’s adolescence involved an older white gentleman seeing news involving a diplomat from somewhere in francophone Africa, prompting the exclamation, “Imagine that! N_____s speaking French!”

At least his mind grew a little bit that day.

Or, well, some of the things I've said in the past that offended you, Brendan, I didn't mean to
be offensive but I spoke (wrote) too casually, and didn't think about my likely readership.
For one thing British humour often doesn't translate well across the pond; for another, the written word tends to strip out nuance compared to speech. My initial reaction to your strongly stated offence has generally been "Why is he persecuting me?!" - but on reflection I should have put more weight on where you were likely coming from.

(Emphasis mine.)

I think you’ve encapsulated some of the things a few of us are pointing out.

While AFAICT, nobody in here is accusing JRRT of being a racist, we are saying that some of his writings contain racist stereotypes. We acknowledge that he probably didn’t intend to use them to offend, but he still used offensive tropes when he didn’t have to. I mean, the man invented languages for his nonhuman characters, but he occasionally mailed it it when it came time to be descriptive of antagonists.

And increasingly, we have to consider our potential audiences as multicultural, multiethnic, gender diverse, multi-aged, etc. So we have to be more cognizant of when we toss around faux insults in our fiction lest we actually insult real people. We don’t have to agree with complainants, but we also can’t handwave away complaints without at least a modicum of questing for the truth.