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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8037999" data-attributes="member: 7023840">Mercurius- I appreciate the very long and thoughtful points you made. I think your reasoned points (whether I agree in full, in part, or not at all) are articulated well, and I enjoyed reading them. I just wanted to address one thing-This was in response to my statement, "I can still enjoy it (AD&D), but I also understand that I cannot enjoy it uncritically." I didn't fully explain this, but this kind of goes to the heart of the idea of problematic faves, or even placing historic material within context.Let me start with a quick analogy. Think of a musician - Michael Jackson, say. There is a difference between saying that I can no longer enjoy his music, and I can no longer enjoy his music uncritically. If I hear Billie Jean or Dirty Diana or Beat It, I don't start punching myself in the face so that I can feel pain equal to the enjoyment I get from the music. But I also recognize that there will be people that cannot put aside those issues; that cannot enjoy his music to the same extent that I do. Different people have different thresholds (for me, its the aforementioned Marion Zimmer Bradley; I will never, ever read a Darkover book again).So it is with AD&D; if I am playing AD&D, I don't don a hairshirt. I have fun! It is always fun!But I am also cognizant that there were people that did not have the fun I did; people that did not feel welcome (and I remember times I did not feel welcome as well). I am open to the idea that there are people (for various reasons) that are unable to enjoy it; either because of experiences that they had at that time, or because of the way that parts of it can appear today.To me, it's a process of engagement. It's like HP Lovecraft; the red flag, to me, isn't people that can still enjoy Lovecraft (I do), it's when people can't, or won't acknowledge that some of his horror and themes of alienation derived from a very specific and dark place.EDIT: And I don't mean to be either reductive or prescriptive in these matter; a while back I mentioned the example that I keep thinking about- that Dave Chappelle famously quit his show when he was doing a skit that involved him donning blackface, and hearing an audience member laughing too hard, and too long at it. Laughing at, laughing with; mocking stereotypes or reinforcing them; enjoying Toto ironically or enjoying them ... um, yeah .... Anyway, there are few easy answers.</blockquote>

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