Do you use "evil" races?

[Mallus]

No. But perhaps I will create a setting one day that is traditional high fantasy, complete with symbolically-charged mortal races... it would be a change.

For me, it wasn't a question of generating variety, it was an attempt to combat the overall narrative laziness that I found to be prevalent in fantasy fiction/gaming. I prefer it when the conflict and the drama arise out of something a little better defined {and a lot more fluid} than noble humans fighting evil orcs. Rathering than adding any depth, metaphysical or otherwise, an over-reliance on the standard fantasy archetypes destroys the sense that the participants in the story can be moral actors. It discourages establishing the reasons for conflict, since, bottom line, the conflicts are metaphyical and don't hinge on individual choices/actions.

And frankly, I don't see how playing with the archetypes diminishes the genre at all. How many times do you want to the read the same book, with the same cultures/races depicted, the same struggles which have by now become as ritual as Kabuki theatre, with all the moral weight of a game of chess. I started reading fantasy because it was fantastical, a literature of the imagination, and I really don't see the threat to that posed by some authors who imagine things a little differently from their predeccesors.

Also SJ, can I ask you about this...

The various fantasy race archetypes have ALL been based on exaggerated human traits. Tolkien's work is the easiest to use as example.

and

Essentially you get humans with ugly faces or pointy ears instead of orcs and elves.

Don't these two statements contradict each other? The first says that fantasy/alien race archetypes are just exaggerated, stylized humans, and second says derisively thats what you get if you break with said archetypes??

For the record, I don't see anything wrong with elves as "humans with pointy ears", or alien races that are essentially Romans in space. A succesful attempt at creating the truly alien would result in characters that a reader could not identify with at all, which is tough to make use of in fiction. They are some wonderful examples of it working, like Lem's Solaris.

 

[s/LaSH]

Allow me to make a lexiconic observation that might lead to clearer discourse:

There's a difference in D&D between 'right' and 'good'. Good is the whole 'respect for the dignity of other beings' thing. Right is what should be done, according to your culture. Therefore, it's quite possible to have righteous demons, even though they're evil incarnate - they're doing what they believe is right, not good.

See what I mean?

And on a slightly different note - consider the ethical (alignment) question:

How is a mosquito any different to a yuan-ti?

 

[Desdichado]

The question is more nuanced than I'm saying here, but: If you take aspects of a legendary (high fantasy) world and transplant their superficial characteristics to a realistic (low fantasy) world, you obviously cancel their symbolic reason for being there at all. It's possible to find new uses for fantasy races that make a low-fantasy world stronger rather than weaker from their presence, but it's not usual. You can certainly also alter the symbolism, but that takes real skill and care.

To my way of thinking, the whole realistic layer is just one big authentication strategy for what goes on mythologically in the story/game -- and since I don't need much in the way of that kind of authentication, I tend not to care overmuch what rationalizations they use as long as they aren't intrusive.

In Middle-earth, I don't see how a story about a non-evil Orc would accomplish anything, which is in practical terms the same as saying there aren't any. In the World of Greyhawk, D3 itself includes non-evil drow...

There doesn't need to be symbolism. Fantasy isn't necessarily about symbolism. I can appreciate what you say that this is moving towards a more sci-fi "alien" mindset rather than a Tolkienian fantasy, but today the line between fantasy and science fiction is fairly blurred. I don't require that my fantasy races have symbolic function anymore. Indeed, I never did. I just require that they be interesting.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Greetings!


Thus, most civilized populations wipe them out at every opportunity. It's like exterminating rats or cockroaches. The more you kill, the better!

Off the cuff, if they encountered 10 Orcs out of the tribe of 10,000 that were of Good alignment, in such a war-time situation--which is the defacto frame of existance between the typical human and elf community and an orc community--what difference would it make?

Ah, it's a poor byproduct of too much/little classical education and a dark sense of humor that this is probably the funniest thing I'll see all day.

I don't know if you were aware of this Shark, but 10 good men out of 10,000 is approximately the criteria set by God for showing mercy to the people of Soddom and Gomorrah. Though. of course, 10 good men could not be found.

Good to know that Orcs are less evil than people at their worst and people are less merciful than the Almighty at the most wrathful setting.

Overall I agree with Shark's post, though I apply the principles of it as a result of imperfections in the forces of good. IMC, I make it very clear that there is a wide spectrum of behavior within an alignment, and that while dwarfs who follow the trade of Indian hunters with regard to Orcs exist, the paragons of goodness are those who apply something similar to Gandalf's idea of pity.

I've actually always had the impression that the ethic was at least vaguely in the minds of most peoples of Middle-Earth with regard to Orcs. I mean Morgoth did not make the Orcs evil, he made them fractured and broken and filled with a pain and history that drives them to little good and to oppose the free peoples with little sense or rationality. All of the races will work together to stop Orcs and Beorn will go out and lead some preemptive strikes, but you rarely see people going out to extinguish Orcs without some sort of immediate provocation or threat.

There are also a lot of elves who are effectively evil by virtue of their sorrow or pain.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Agree with JD on that...

Also, don't forget that while races loose their symbolism in relation to being a physical incarnation of evil, they don't loose their symbolism as a physical extension of their gods' agendas, wants and beliefs. While one can say that "Orcs being evil because of their culture lacks the symbolism", this is said ignoring the symbolism of the deific pantheon that gave them that culture and social structure.

This, in my mind, creates a "higher" fantasy, since it becomes possible to free said race from the grip of tyrany instilled by their gods, providing the heroes the opportunity to free and entire race rather than have an easy excuse to commit genecide whenever they appear (kinda like eliminating Torak and his Grollum priesthood in the Balgarian/Mallorean series).

 

[SemperJase]

Originally posted by Joshua Dyal
Yes, but you assume that the Tolkienian archetypes are the only ones that could possibly exist for those races, which is completely untrue.

I just used that example as the most easily recognizable in today's culture. As I have acknowledged and you pointed out, these archetypes have changed over time. I use this example because it is how the archetypes are understood today in fantasy literature.

Another point, is this discussion illustrates significant differences between fantasy literature and fantasy gaming.

The alternative could also be reducing fantasy to some kind of morality play, which Tolkien also railed and worked against.

I disagree. The entire LotR trilogy is a morality play; a point its literary critics quickly emphasize.

Tolkien railed against allegory, not moral clarity in literature.

 

[Tiefling]

I don't use inherently evil races because that's simplistic, and therefore boring.

 

[Desdichado]

I disagree. The entire LotR trilogy is a morality play; a point its literary critics quickly emphasize.

Tolkien railed against allegory, not moral clarity in literature.

You're right. In my typical shoot from the hip posting strategy, I've mislabelled my genres. However, my actual point is still true -- if the races have to "symbolize" something, then fantasy, by default, is allegorical. The implication of the posts I was specifically responding to is that unless it is allegorical, it's not even fantasy.

But I could easily have said it to your original post as well. Fantasy races don't have to by binary in nature: either humans in rubber masks, or conforming to time-honored traditional fantasy symbols. Certainly there can be a middle-ground, or something completely removed from those two poles.

 

[frankthedm]

I know its fantasy and all, but I still can't stop thinking how STUPID the idea of an inherently evil race which nonetheless manages to reproduce and raise young is...

Raising your own young is an act of neutrality. They are an extention of your own flesh. Your own desires are what cause you to nuture your children. To raise them in a way that would benifit others would be "good" [helpfull, generous]. To raise them in a way that would cost others would be evil [bullying, thieving, sceaming]

Mallus
A succesful attempt at creating the truly alien would result in characters that a reader could not identify with at all, which is tough to make use of in fiction. They are some wonderful examples of it working, like Lem's Solaris.

Or the entities of H.P. Lovecraft.

 

[SemperJase]

if the races have to "symbolize" something, then fantasy, by default, is allegorical.

Symbolism is not allegory. Tolkien had symbols of divinity in his books like the briefly mentioned being that Gandalf served. At the same time there was no allegory, no one being represented Jesus Christ (not even Gandalf who apparently came back from the dead).

So one can have symbolism like in Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" and Tolkien's LotR, without having allegory like Orwell's "Animal Farm" or C.S. Lewis "The Chronicles of Narnia".

But we digress.