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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9519965" data-attributes="member: 7035894">One thing that I am struck by in the defensiveness that many have about Gygax and others is how thin-skinned it is, because the criticisms are actually pretty small potatoes: basically, that these were flawed people who did some stuff/published some things that most of us now see as problematic, but that are only a tiny bit of their legacy. Like, I don't understand why some folks seem so reluctant to admit that Gygax was a great creator who left a monumental, positive impact on our culture...but yeah, he was a sexist, and proud of it, and some aspects of this came into his creations.And one reason I don't understand it is because I love reading rock biographies. You wanna talk about dealing with complicated legacies, pick up just about any biography of a famous rock star (or other artist) that you admire. Or don't, if you don't wanna be disillusioned. Because even the best of them have some skeletons. Sometimes some really terrible, clearly criminal ones. After you've read a few of these, you learn to start tempering your fandom with some realism.So I don't see the criticisms of Gygax and co. as particularly difficult for me to wrap my head around. Not that sexism, for example, isn't a very important issue, but these guys weren't monsters. We're not talking Phil Spektor. We're talking a (mostly) culturally conservative mindset from mid-century Middle America, and a lot of fairly conventionally sexist beliefs that go along with that. Not a lot different from some of my older male relatives. Not even that different from a lot of guys my own age. I obviously disagree with these viewpoints, but they aren't the sum total of who these people are, or even close to it.So I have no reason to doubt that Gygax was a gregarious, likeable fellow at cons. I too would be starstruck if he contributed to a thread I started. I have immense respect for what he accomplished. I would argue all day long with him on certain topics, but probably we wouldn't taking about that; I'd be way too busy picking his brains about how he made "Tomb of Horrors."</blockquote>

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