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Message: <blockquote data-quote="halfling rogue" data-source="post: 6470441" data-attributes="member: 6779182">I can understand where you are coming from, except when you say it is a racist stereotype. If a white American/European thinks of another ethnic group as 'honorable', even if it is mislabeled, how can you call it racist? It might be a stereotype, but it certainly isn't a racist stereotype.And that's the thing. Fantasy excels in stereotype. One might even make the argument that Fantasy requires stereotypes and once the stereotypes are removed then it no longer remains Fantasy. This is because stereotypes are actually symbols that speak to deeper truths that we cannot adequately relate in words. This, truly, is the almost unspeakable, hard-to-explainable draw that so many experience to Fantasy. In fact, the thing that troubles me most about the modern take on Fantasy is that in almost every facet it aims at removing stereotypes, to trash the symbols. Look at all of the popular interpretations (or more likely, re-interpretations) of the Fantasy genre in pop culture. Almost every example you will see the deconstruction of stereotypes. Moderns and 'postmoderns' drool over it. Off the top of my head, take the movie "Maleficent" for example (spoilery). The once purely evil Maleficent now has a soft side. She is made into the hero and the king becomes the villain. The show "Once Upon a Time" essentially exists (seemingly) solely for this purpose, to deconstruct stereotypes in Fantasy. They give us a Rambo Snow-white and an angsty Capt. Hook, an evil Peter Pan. A Beast is no longer an actual Beast but a metaphorical beast within. Even Peter Jackson with the many stereotypes found within "Lord of the Rings" couldn't help it in some places. Faramir simply couldn't be as noble as Tolkien wrote him so they made him weak and conflicted, Aragorn, too, to a degree. They even took an extra step (in my opinion) with breaking down stereotypes in the "Hobbit". You'll notice Azog and the goblins of the Misty Mountains are not dark skinned. Another thing (quite small) is that there are residents in Lake-town who are black. I know many who would say I'm being racist just for pointing that out. Say what you will, but the real issue is that those decisions are intentionally made to kick against fairy-tale logic/stereotypes. Maybe the most relevant is that when the art for 5e was released the main thing discussed (before and after) was how stereotypes would/should be/have been broken.I say all of the above, only to point out that Fantasy (or at least how we perceive Fantasy) has shifted in our day. I'm not necessarily saying that it is a bad thing that it has shifted, but I do think we've lost something. It's become less and not more. And (back to the point) one of the things that we've lost is the ability to realize (or speak plainly about) that there is such thing as a good stereotype and that stereotypes help produce good Fantasy. In this case, a culture perceived as "Honorable" is a good stereotype. It might be false to a degree, but every stereotype, when boiled down is false to a degree. The point isn't to dwell on the falseness of the stereotype (unless the stereotype is actually a false one), but to understand the intention of the stereotype within the Fantasy structure. A knight rescuing a damsel in distress is about as stereotypical as you can get, and because of that, many deem it to be sexist. Why can't the damsel rescue the knight? Why should she be a damsel at all? Why shouldn't she be the knight? Why does she have to rescue anyone at all? By the time we're done deconstructing the stereotype we've lost Fantasy. The other problem we now have is that whenever anyone stands up to defend the stereotype, they are instantly lambasted as racist, sexist, or whatever-ist, rather than someone who simply enjoys Fantasy for being Fantasy.So when you get to RPGs and folks participating within Fantasy, and you throw in a dash of that modern deconstructionism in the mix, you get a lot of people talking past each other. All of that to say...imagining Asian cultures as "Honorable" is certainly a stereotype, but it is a good stereotype, especially as a vehicle for Fantasy games. And as such, it is certainly not racist. That's just a flag being waved that gets us off topic.</blockquote>

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