Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7921437" data-attributes="member: 4937">I totally disagree with this take on things.People don't kill dragons because they are racist. Nor are chromatic dragons just simply &quot;labeled&quot; evil, powerful, and inhuman - they are evil, powerful and inhuman.The motivation heroes have for killing mind flayers, is not because the heroes are racist.Heroes don't vanquish demons because the heroes are racist, nor are demons misunderstood and labeled evil, powerful, and inhuman just so they can be exploited by oppressive organizations.Even in the case of something with a bit more &quot;humanity&quot; than those sorts of foes, say an orc, generally heroes are not going out and killing the orcs merely because they are orcs, but because the orcs are bandits, rapists, and murderers who have been pillaging and plundering peaceable villagers and farmers. It's possible to subvert that situation and have the normally aggressor race actually be peaceable and victimized, and that is interesting and I have written an adventure along those lines. But that isn't the normal situations. The normal situation is the orcs have a culture that considers war and violence to be noble, and whose principle economic activity is theft and the enslavement and cannibalism of their neighbors. In that situation, it's not racism that is the motivation for killing the orcs. And while yes, there is some complex thought you could delve into here as to whether if your only interaction with orcs is as brutal bandits and there are no known exceptions, whether it is racism to fear and hate orcs. But I think we first have to deal with the reality of that being complex.If you really want to deal with &quot;racism&quot; in your fantasy setting, by far the most direct, appropriate, and honest manner is to show racism occuring between members of the same race and deal with that.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's probably not appropriate at all to treat with real world racism by using a monster as an analogy for some real world ethnic group.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7921437, member: 4937"] I totally disagree with this take on things. People don't kill dragons because they are racist. Nor are chromatic dragons just simply "labeled" evil, powerful, and inhuman - they are evil, powerful and inhuman. The motivation heroes have for killing mind flayers, is not because the heroes are racist. Heroes don't vanquish demons because the heroes are racist, nor are demons misunderstood and labeled evil, powerful, and inhuman just so they can be exploited by oppressive organizations. Even in the case of something with a bit more "humanity" than those sorts of foes, say an orc, generally heroes are not going out and killing the orcs merely because they are orcs, but because the orcs are bandits, rapists, and murderers who have been pillaging and plundering peaceable villagers and farmers. It's possible to subvert that situation and have the normally aggressor race actually be peaceable and victimized, and that is interesting and I have written an adventure along those lines. But that isn't the normal situations. The normal situation is the orcs have a culture that considers war and violence to be noble, and whose principle economic activity is theft and the enslavement and cannibalism of their neighbors. In that situation, it's not racism that is the motivation for killing the orcs. And while yes, there is some complex thought you could delve into here as to whether if your only interaction with orcs is as brutal bandits and there are no known exceptions, whether it is racism to fear and hate orcs. But I think we first have to deal with the reality of that being complex. If you really want to deal with "racism" in your fantasy setting, by far the most direct, appropriate, and honest manner is to show racism occuring between members of the same race and deal with that. It's probably not appropriate at all to treat with real world racism by using a monster as an analogy for some real world ethnic group. [/QUOTE]

Verification