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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8326670" data-attributes="member: 82106">People often 'sin' in ways that they may not even comprehend. A guy once lambasted me for using the word 'Oriental' in a geographical sense and was absolutely adamant that the word is utterly poison in every possible context and is an epithet, always. I still politely disagree, but to a degree it isn't our place to categorize and approve or disapprove of the reactions of other people. So, we may all use words in ways that bother someone else. We should try not to.Fair enough. I think that is amusing too (the orcs, obviously not the Romani).Oh, there's no pretending anything on my part. I am PRETTY SURE I qualify as an 'older white guy' and I would make no bones about that. Put it this way, Dr King was marching around the south when I was a kid, though a bit young to really understand the whole thing at the time. I don't see this as generational, and I would not simplify it down to some group vs some other group. I've seen the complexity with my own eyes, though I freely admit I have never experienced racial prejudice against my own person. And you are correct, no group can be pigeonholed on any side of this.No, and let me be clear. My FIRST MEMORIES are of listening to my Mother read The Hobbit. I LEARNED TO READ when I was FOUR YEARS OLD so I could read it myself (and I did too, cover to cover believe it or not). The teacher threw me out in the hall at the age of 6 for hiding a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring behind the 'Spot and Jane' reader that the rest of the class was cumbersomely wading through. I must have read that series of books 10 times, at least, as well as a good fraction of all the other stuff that was published posthumously and EVERY other fantasy/folklore story that Tolkien wrote. I am a fan. I can still appreciate that there are real and significant racist connotations buried within his work. I agree that these are, judging by the totality of what we know of the man, probably not intended to convey a message of racial prejudice. But, as I said above, it is neither up to me to decide what is offensive to others, nor to dismiss the significance of these elements as a part of the author's legacy.The othering was the point, and it is an othering OF ACTUAL PEOPLE. So, yes, I believe that Tolkien did not (consciously at the very least) ascribe 'orc-like characteristics' to Asians. OTOH he did knowingly exploit those associations in order to convey that these traits were associated with orcs. So, I cannot hold him really blameless in that sense.And I'm not so much condemning HIS WORKS as I am pointing out that these elements do 'taint' other derived uses, such as D&D's use of orcs. As you pointed out, GW created a very different and, IMHO, more acceptable stereotype of orcs as 'football hoolies'. Even that might offend someone though! lol. Still, they obviously saw the issue and thought about it, which is clever.Again though, this is YOUR PERSPECTIVE. I'm not especially disagreeing with it. I don't particularly find OA offensive. OTOH if you go read a thread on it from a couple years ago on RPG.net you will find out that A VERY LARGE CONTINGENT OF PEOPLE do find it horribly offensive, bigoted, and utterly uacceptable, right down to the title of the book, which some of them equate to calling a book about African Adventures by as * Adventures where the epithet is truly unrepeatable (and should be). I found that to be a bit over the top myself, but it isn't my call to make, their offense cannot be seen as anything but genuine. If some European people want to be offended by some element of their folklore, for whatever reason, that is their prerogative as well. Just like it is the prerogative of certain mothers to be offended by the inclusion of the term 'devil' in the monster manual. I know we consider that later thing silly, but are you implying that their offense is merely a pretense? Maybe in some cases it is, but who am I to judge that??!!I am sorry, but this smacks of trying to say that perfection is impossible, that we cannot succeed 100% so the effort is worthless. The perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. If I reimagine orcs in a less problematic way, yes it may complicate the story telling task in some cases, or require that I invent some other 2-dimensional non-human monster to be a stock bad guy (but D&D has a huge repertoire there to choose from, is this so hard). No solution is perfect. I only live to be better tomorrow than today. I may not even succeed at that, but I am sure going to try it.This whole talk of 'genetic fallacy' is simply going to fail as an approach. There's no 'fallacy' here. WE CHOOSE how to make our games. D&D is not some object cast in stone. It wasn't carved by the hand of E. Gary Gygax in marble. It is ours, we are a living culture of people and we can pick and choose how to go forward and what to do with the things given to us by the past. I mean, you wouldn't argue that a statue of Jefferson Davis has to be left standing simply because someone in 1901 saw fit to erect it, do you?You are putting the blame for prejudice on the victim here. I can never accept this logic. It is fundamentally unjust.Some of this confuses me a bit, you first talk about 'genetic fallacy' which sounds exactly like "the source we draw from is irrelevant" and then you talk about a 'mess', and that you aren't arguing against 'progress', but then you claim those who point out that you're sticking with a racially charged sort of depiction of things and might be left behind 'insulting'. Do you want to move forward or not? You are actually sending mixed messages. And you are fundamentally calling people's reactions, THEIR FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS, 'asinine', 'demeaning', 'insulting', and 'arrogant'. I'm guessing this is more likely to land you in Ernie Gygax territory than it is to land you in a good place. I don't think that you're incapable of change, and you seem to realize that there's a genuine reason for it, some of the time. Yet you, like a LOT of people, have not fully internalized that and completely understood it. Its hard. I believe Camus once said that "The world's problems will not be solved until each and every one of us takes complete personal responsibility for them." Now, maybe I'm butchering Camus, or maybe it was another writer, but I think the sentiment is apropos.</blockquote>

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