D&D General RA Salvatore Wants To Correct Drizzt’s Racist Tropes

In an interview with Polygon, the author talks about how the drow are currently being redefined in D&D, and how he wants to be part of that process.

”But on the other hand, if the drow are being portrayed as evil, that’s a trope that has to go away, be buried under the deepest pit, and never brought out again. I was unaware of that. I admit it. I was oblivious.

Drow are now split into (at least) three types — the familiar Udadrow of Menzoberranzan, the arctic-themed Aevendrow, and the jungle-themed Lorendrow. Salvatore's new novel, Starlight Enclave, helps to expand the drows' role in the narrative.

D&D’s Drizzt books were built on racist tropes. R.A. Salvatore wants to change that

‘If the drow are being portrayed as evil, that’s a trope that has to go away’

www.polygon.com

In 2020 WotC made a public statement about how they would be treating drow and orcs going forward -- "Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated. That’s just not right, and it’s not something we believe in. "

Commitment to Diversity | Dungeons & Dragons

D&D continues to be made as diverse as possible with the reminder that only a diverse group of adventurers can overcome obstacles.

dnd.wizards.com

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Put simply? It's what the writers -wish- reality was. A Core Facet of the Fantasy.

Clearly Good Heroes. Clearly Bad Villains. A Moral Structure that is Ordained from Above and -actually- means something, rather than the wild mixture of different moralities and ideals we have in our world smashed over each other like breakfast pulsed in a Blender.

People crave the ability to be Heroes or Villains, by and large, to either uphold societal order or tear it down because it gives us a strong narrative conceit in relation to the media that we have consumed throughout our lives. Most of which begin and end as Morality Plays in our youth that become more and more complex as we grow older.

But the reason most of our Media is a series of morality plays is because the writers of Books and Movies and TV Shows also want clearly defined Good Things and Bad Things to provide a strong structure, and the protagonist/antagonist nature of storytelling that relies on conflict gives us an amazing basis for that.

It's why the Jedi are Good, but often problematic, and the Sith are Evil, and also -always- problematic. Why the Dark Lord Sauron must be opposed. Why Paul Atreides joins the Fremen to fight against his own wicked people.

Because no fantasy is more relevant to human experience than a clear line between good and evil. From the moment we could tell stories I would wager that was a core component.

That's why I prefer Law, Chaos, and Neutrality. I still have Good and Evil as alignments, but don't put as much important on them and usually have a mostly Good character have some Evil qualities and a mostly Evil character have some Good qualities.

For example, one NPC is a Neutral Good cleric who follows the goddess of redemption and is an extreme pacifist. She believes that her goddess would let her know if someone was beyond redemption and had to be killed, and so far her non-violence has allowed her to gain the last remnant of a pack of gnolls who worshipped Yeenoghu as a friend and helper, turning him on the path to Good. She has also provided aid to a small community of goblins who are mostly Good or Neutral.

While accompanying the PCs, she once averted a fight using Calm Emotions to escape. Another time she refused to defend herself against a humanoid enemy that had grappled her, even when near death; the PCs killed her attacker and saved her, but unknown to the party it somewhat soured her impression of them. Who are they to choose who lives and dies? Couldn't they at least have knocked the attacker unconscious instead of killing them?

However, she's since been tempted by a very powerful Neutral Evil wizard with an item that bonds the attuned to another creature and forces that creature to gradually change to match the user's own alignment. As a follower of the goddess of redemption the NPC cleric is wondering if using such an item would be for the greater Good, or if using it would make her Evil herself. She's used Calm Emotions in the past to manipulate some evil characters into not fighting her, so she's already temporarily altered someone's mental state for the "greater good". Is magically making an Evil person Good itself Good, or would using such an item be an Evil act? Whether or not to accept the offer has begun to preoccupy her thoughts quite a bit; she prays to her goddess for an answer, but none has come. The wizard (who themself makes extensive use of enchantment magic to manipulate minds and memories) is honestly just curious what would happen if the cleric used this old artifact he found and if her nature and beliefs would permit her to do such a thing.

 

[Geoff Thirlwell]

I thought the Drow were the corrupt, evil elves. I don’t see the need to make Drow sub-races to try and avoid any imagined correlations with real world cultures. Blaming their inherent evil culture on Lloth is enough to justify an evil culture. A similar link with Orcs to Gruumsh makes them what they are

 

[MGibster]

Regardless of how any of us might feel about how drow, orcs, or other races were portrayed in past editions of D&D, I think we all need to accept that things change. While I'm not bothered in the least about how orcs were portrayed, and am only mildly bothered by the implications of the drow and can see where people are coming from with their objetions, I'm not particularly bothered by changing things so that races aren't always evil. The fact of the matter is what was acceptable to a large portion of D&D's audience in 1981 is no longer acceptable to a large portion D&D's audience in 2021. The fact of the matter is that D&D is ever changing and adapting to meet the needs of its players. AD&D was a good game in 1985 and D&D is a good game in 2021.

"Ancient spirits of evil! Transform this decayed form to D&D, the Ever-Living!" -- D&D (Citation needed.)

 

[Xethreau]

You're completely right, of course. Im curious: how do you address the inherently Manichaean nature of (most) of the worlds people play D&D in? Literal good and evil exist in a physical sense as archons and devils, and can be touched and interacted with.

I mean the question in good faith; it's something I've thought about and never been able to come to a satisfying answer on.

I play it the Eberron way, which Dragon Age also does very well:

Such entities may be understood as Good or Evil, but that perspective is influenced by political history and allegiance. Most entities, tragically, see themselves as being the height of virtue.

The core of good fiction and good fantasy isn't deception, its truth--and Mani's dualistic insight does not describe the world honestly to my eyes.

 

[jasper]

Question, Will R. A. write a whopping good book which makes me want to go back and read occasionally like I do Weber, McCaffery, and some my other books?
Question Will the kindle version cost $9.99 or less? If so I will buy it.
Question. Will a correct number of books sold (not sent to book stores) be available?
Question. Will jasper have more questions?

 

[Xethreau]

I thought the Drow were the corrupt, evil elves. I don’t see the need to make Drow sub-races to try and avoid any imagined correlations with real world cultures. Blaming their inherent evil culture on Lloth is enough to justify an evil culture. A similar link with Orcs to Gruumsh makes them what they are

Evil isn't who you are. Evil is what you do.

 

[Steampunkette]

That's why I prefer Law, Chaos, and Neutrality. I still have Good and Evil as alignments, but don't put as much important on them and usually have a mostly Good character have some Evil qualities and a mostly Evil character have some Good qualities.

For example, one NPC is a Neutral Good cleric who follows the goddess of redemption and is an extreme pacifist. She believes that her goddess would let her know if someone was beyond redemption and had to be killed, and so far her non-violence has allowed her to gain the last remnant of a pack of gnolls who worshipped Yeenoghu as a friend and helper, turning him on the path to Good. She has also provided aid to a small community of goblins who are mostly Good or Neutral.

While accompanying the PCs, she once averted a fight using Calm Emotions to escape. Another time she refused to defend herself against a humanoid enemy that had grappled her, even when near death; the PCs killed her attacker and saved her, but unknown to the party it somewhat soured her impression of them. Who are they to choose who lives and dies? Couldn't they at least have knocked the attacker unconscious instead of killing them?

However, she's since been tempted by a very powerful Neutral Evil wizard with an item that bonds the attuned to another creature and forces that creature to gradually change to match the user's own alignment. As a follower of the goddess of redemption the NPC cleric is wondering if using such an item would be for the greater Good, or if using it would make her Evil herself. She's used Calm Emotions in the past to manipulate some evil characters into not fighting her, so she's already temporarily altered someone's mental state for the "greater good". Is magically making an Evil person Good itself Good, or would using such an item be an Evil act? Whether or not to accept the offer has begun to preoccupy her thoughts quite a bit; she prays to her goddess for an answer, but none has come. The wizard (who themself makes extensive use of enchantment magic to manipulate minds and memories) is honestly just curious what would happen if the cleric used this old artifact he found and if her nature and beliefs would permit her to do such a thing.

See... you're talking about how you prefer Law/Chaos/Neutrality and then tell a story -all about- good and evil. Outside of saying she's Neutral Good and helped a Good and Neutral party there's never a mention of Chaos or Law in your story.

And even if there were, and you were telling a story about chaos and law, you'd be telling the story of how one of them is antagonistic 'cause that's just the nature of narrative conflict, thus making one "Bad" and one "Good".

This is what I mean by "More complex morality plays".

 

[Hussar]

White skinned people doesn't even exist in most black cultures folklore and religions.
Also, you guys have to make up your minds if that's about African people or not.

Swimming upthread a few pages.

You are 100% absolutely right. We have made up our minds. It's about African people. That's pretty self-evident and it's those who want to derail the conversation away from resolving the problems and into endless nit-picking about if there is a problem or not that are mistaken. It is about African people. Full stop. We've already moved past that determination. It's only a handful of people whose arguments completely fall apart if they accept this as fact that are still arguing about whether or not this is about racism and bigotry.

 

[Aaron L]

Inhuman monsters are not human ethnicites.

 

[Faolyn]

Okay... I'm glad he thinks it should be buried in the deepest pit and never shown again.

But he WROTE about Menzoberranzan. About the Drow. For DECADES. And he was "Oblivious" to the fact that they were presented as an evil race?

Oblivious to the allegorical dark skin=evil and women in power=evil I -might- accept he didn't really think too hard on. But not knowing they were "Portrayed as Evil"?

Don't buy that for a heartbeat.

People can have changes of mind and suddenly realize that what they've been doing for a chunk of their life was actually wrong. Not everyone is perfect from the get-go, after all. I don't know if that's what happened with Salvatore, but it can happen.

And with drow, I think that it's possible that a person could think that drow are actually hexcode #000000 black, not human black-which-is-actually-brown, and therefore isn't the same thing and not realize that it's still very problematic. And likewise, they could think that it's OK to have an evil nonhuman matriarchy , thinking it's no worse than showing an evil nonhuman patriarchy, without realizing that it's really, really suspicious that basically every matriarchy in D&D is evil. Again, I have no idea if this is what went through Salvatore's mind. But it's possible.

 

[Faolyn]

And any positive changes made to the Drow via these books aren't canon basically.

Unless WotC chooses to make it canon, of course. Which they may very well do, if there's positive response to the changes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Inhuman monsters are not human ethnicites.

Good thing we're talking about humanoids instead of inhuman monsters then.

 

[Faolyn]

I have a hard time believing black people would be actually offended by the mere existence of the drow elves.

It may be more along the lines that one of the few races that are depicted as being dark skinned--not just in text but in the artwork--are also depicted as being evilevilevil.

 

[Zardnaar]

Noooooooooooooope. It does not. Has -nothing- to do with that.

Humans started out black. All humans. That's not up for debate. Diurnal Black African Humans moved outward to other regions and different pigmentations became more or less useful based on relative distance from the equator. Plus, y'know, Sexual selection.

There's nothing in our biology that makes black skin and white skin, not just the absence of light creating darkness but specifically and explicitly black skin, "Evil" to us.

Hell. Romans didn't have prejudices against black people for the most part. Oh, they hated -everyone- who wasn't Roman. Called 'em Barbarians 'cause their language was "Bar bar bar bar bar" to the Romans. But once an area became part of Rome? Once a person became Roman? Skin tone didn't matter. Not even a white.

Black = Bad came out of wars against the Moors and the Crusades. It was at that point in time people started equating darkness of skin with wickedness or cruelty. When certain texts started getting translated from Latin to English and German it got so much worse. And then eventually the Slave Trade solidified the dehumanization of black peoples.

We shouldn't. But also they aren't there. And we mustn't give legitimacy to the idea that they are.

Roman sources said outright racist things about black people.

Their concept of race was basically white (themselves) black (Ethiopians and Numidians) and pale (Germans).

And tied it to the climate. Naturally the Romans/Greeks and similar colours had the best balance.


Tldr version it's complicated. The records are also very incomplete and very elite heavy. Asians were effiminate (Asia being east of Greece).

 

[Hussar]

Seriously people, if we can't have entirely evil races in our games because it's socially unacceptable, we should also make an argument about how it's bad to go around murdering people for gold and power. I honestly believe we as a community should turn it down a notch on the self censorship. It's almost impossible to write anything at all without offending someone's sensibilities.

Still catching up on the thread.

This is an incredibly reductionist argument that no one is actually making. No one is saying we can't have evil races in the game. What's IS being said is we should change depictions of various elements in the game that use racist language to "prove" this race/element is evil. Drow are evil. The only reason drow are dark skinned is because they are evil. Maybe, just maybe, since lots of and lots of real world bigotry ties these two things together, we shouldn't do the same thing in our fiction.

We don't have the same discussion about, say, giants because, A. Giant's coloration is not tied to anything other than physical description B. There are canonically giants of both good and evil and; C. Giant's have descriptions that are largely removed from anything that could be related to any real world depictions of people.

And, finally, D. No one is talking about giants. If people had been complaining about giants and their depictions for FIFTY FREAKING YEARS, then we'd be talking about Giants. But, none of these things are true. However, ALL of these four things are true of Drow.

It's funny, over a thousand novel length, original fantasy (as in not media tie ins like the Forgotten Realms novels) novels are written every year and have done so for the past twenty years. And yet, virtually none of them offend anyone. You couldn't possibly read more than a tiny fraction of the original novel length fantasy novels written in a year. Yet, you are complaining that we won't have anything to write about if we change Drow?

 

[Faolyn]

Why aren't we raging about depictions of Hobbits as a people who typically eat a lot and drink too much...won't that make people think that short people are gluttons?

Hobbits were depicted as mostly decent people, and several of them were depicted as enormous heroes.

Drow are depicted as so evil that one article, thankfully ignored almost as soon as it was published (in Dragon Mag, I believe) on them said that if a drow gets pregnant, the fetuses fight to the death and this feels orgasmically good to the mother. (Which reminds me of things I've seen written by incels.)

 

[Don Durito]

There's a gulf of light years between being against racist tropes being implemented in the depiction of fictional races and the the idea that PC characters should never act in immoral ways or do evil things.

Even the idea that these are in some way equivalent displays either serious conceptual confusion or bad faith.

 

[Steampunkette]

Roman sources said outright racist things about black people.

Their concept of race was basically white (themselves) black (Ethiopians and Numidians) and pale (Germans).

And tied it to the climate. Naturally the Romans/Greeks and similar colours had the best balance.


Tldr version it's complicated. The records are also very incomplete and very elite heavy. Asians were effiminate (Asia being east of Greece).

So... here's a thing:

Everyone has nasty phrases for people of different races... but that's not Racism. It's a -component- of Racism, but if insults were the end all and be all of racism we wouldn't have the generational issues we have, today. But Racism? It's -ingrained- in society. It's -systemic- in society.

And African Romans? Existed at every level of government except Emperor from the start of the Roman Conquests. EVERYONE did. They'd make local leaders into Plebeians and if they had wealth Senators. And they even had two black Emperors, Both Severus Septimus and his son Carcalla.

African Romans could work any job if they had the skills without significant backlash from society or Redlining and Disenfranchisement or other racist policies that exist, today. Because Romans are Romans, regardless of skin tone.

 

[Zardnaar]

I was afraid of the dark until my late 20's, personally, because there was an irrational fear of something I couldn't see being just out of sight. It's also why I'm still afraid of the ocean and never get in it.

Also, darkness is used a lot in visual horror media.

As for why people sleep in darkness, it's because for the vast majority of human existence there was no other choice.

In summary, I'm unconvinced that being afraid of the dark is just a cultural construct.

Wonder if that's a cultural upbringing thing.

Here we get taught to swim at a very young age. I don't really remember doing it.

As a kid we played "spotlight". Basically hid and seek at a camp the person looking got to use the spotlight. You had to sneak up on them and tap their shoulder.

Black being evil or whatever isn't universal but it's often associated with death or sickness across multiple cultures.
Notice very few countries have black flags. ISIS used a black flag so erm nevermind.

 

[Zardnaar]

So... here's a thing:

Everyone has nasty phrases for people of different races... but that's not Racism. It's a -component- of Racism, but if insults were the end all and be all of racism we wouldn't have the generational issues we have, today. But Racism? It's -ingrained- in society. It's -systemic- in society.

And African Romans? Existed at every level of government except Emperor from the start of the Roman Conquests. EVERYONE did. They'd make local leaders into Plebeians and if they had wealth Senators. And they even had two black Emperors, Both Severus Septimus and his son Carcalla.

African Romans could work any job if they had the skills without significant backlash from society or Redlining and Disenfranchisement or other racist policies that exist, today. Because Romans are Romans, regardless of skin tone.

That was covered in the video. They were 2nd class citizens for the most part.

They could become citizens via military service so logically some of their kids would have been citizens as well. The surviving accounts are a bit vague on that.

They would have been the exception not the rule though.

By modern standards the Romans were a cruel people not really any better or worse than most empires they're all built on blood at the end of the day.