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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8494044"><p>I find this argument very confusing. I can see if a given book specifically has red orcs, how that would be a straight line in that case to Native Americans. But I can't see how making a hodgepodge of "all the 'savages'", makes it play out the cowboy and indian trope more. At least I don't see how it would be specifically cowboy and indian. Lots of places have frontiers and lots of places have people outside their settled regions they regarded as hostile and uncivilized. But more than that, I never even really thought of orcs as tribes on the frontier so much as monsters in the unknown. And lots of genres have this idea too (you see it in wuxia for instance). I think the concept of orc is so abstracted that these arguments have never been particularly convincing to me (again barring a case where there is some specific instance of a culture being invoked: but even then there is still ample room to debate what that means and if it is even a commentary or if superficial cultural elements are simply being used for flavor). I feel like we have had this discussion an awful lot. I don't think many people have changed their opinions. I know I still think the whole orcs are racist argument is just not persuasive in the least.</p></blockquote><p></p>