Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tonguez" data-source="post: 9547429" data-attributes="member: 1125">Urusla Le Guin criticized the Earthsea Miniseries as having ruined her books and in particular the whitewashing of the characters in the lead roles. She said it was a deliberate choice to make most of the peoples of Earthsea darkskinned - Ged is red-brown and Vetch black (both roles were played by white actors), ironically the only 'white-skinned' character Tenar was played by half-chinese Kristin Kreuk.On the issue of Pipeweed and Potatoes however I'm not sure its really as bizarre as you imply, the worlds of fantasy are not Earth and so we arent constrained by historic species distributions. Having a herb growing in Europe-analogue that can be smoked as a recreational relaxant is just decoration not cultural anachronism specifically because Fantasy-world isnt a historically accurate recreation of Europe - just an inspired simulation.  This discussion reminds me of the Fantasy Spectacles debate from last year or earlier debates about Wheelchairs, Pirate Ships and Rapiers.Issues of representation - racial, gender, disability and cultural appropriation are important but I'm not so certain that kitchen sink design of DnD Fantasy-world is a molehill worth dying onto quote Le Guin "I am intensely conscious of the risk of cultural or ethnic imperialism—...In a totally invented fantasy world, or in a far-future science fiction setting, in the rainbow world we can imagine, this risk is mitigated. That’s the beauty of science fiction and fantasy—freedom of invention. But with all freedom comes responsibility"</blockquote>

Verification