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The problem with Evil races is not what you think
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<blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 8333593" data-attributes="member: 21169"><p>CONTENT WARNING: VERY RACIST CLAIMS, IN QUOTATION</p><p></p><p>This post is about several different sorts of correspondences between "savage" humanoids in D&D 5e and racist ideas.</p><p></p><p><strong>Savage and Civilised Races</strong></p><p></p><p>Note the virtually identical terminology — D&D 5e's "civilized and savage" and "savage... races" compared with Gobineau's "savage races" and Darwin's "savage and civilised races."</p><p></p><p><em>D&D 5e Monster Manua</em>l (2014):</p><p>"Humanoids are the main peoples of the D&D world, both civilized and savage… far more savage and brutal, and almost uniformly evil, are the races of goblinoids (goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears), orcs, gnolls, lizardfolk, and kobolds."</p><p></p><p>Arthur de Gobineau, <em>The Inequality of Races</em> (1853):</p><p>"The savage races of to-day have always been savage, and we are right in concluding, by analogy, that they will continue to be so, until the day when they disappear."</p><p></p><p>Charles Darwin, <em>The Descent of Man</em> (1871):</p><p>"The belief that there exists in man some close relation between the size of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of the skulls of savage and civilised races."</p><p></p><p><strong>Devil Worship</strong></p><p></p><p>The worship of evil gods, such as the orcish god Gruumsh, is very similar to devil worship.</p><p></p><p><em>Monster Manual</em>:</p><p>"[Gnolls worship] the demon lord Yeenoghu."</p><p></p><p>Cotton Mather, <em>The Glorious Works of Christ in America</em> (1702):</p><p>"These parts were then covered with nations of barbarous Indians and infidels… whose whole religion was the most explicit sort of devil-worship."</p><p></p><p>Charles Wentworth Dilke, <em>Greater Britain</em> (1868):</p><p>"All Indian religion has the air of devil-worship, or worship of the destructive principle in some shape: the gods are drawn as grinning fiends, they are propitiated by infernal music, they are often worshipped with obscene and hideous rites."</p><p></p><p>William Benjamin Smith, <em>The Color Line</em> (1905):</p><p>"These "avenues" of the far-sighted African are nothing but the blind alleys of Voodooism and devil worship."</p><p></p><p><strong>A Creed of Fear and Horror</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Monster Manual</em>:</p><p>"Maglubiyet… is the greater god of goblinoids… he is worshiped not out of adoration but fear."</p><p></p><p><em>Greater Britain</em>:</p><p>"We must not forget that Hindooism is a creed of fear and horror, not of love."</p><p></p><p><strong>Human Sacrifice</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Monster Manual</em>:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Gnolls celebrate their victories by performing demonic rituals and making blood offerings to Yeenoghu.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Prisoners… are sacrificed to Semuanya, the lizardfolk god.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">When an orc slays an elf in Gruumsh's name and offers the corpse of its foe as a sacrifice to the god of slaughter, an aspect of the god might appear.</p><p></p><p>John Lubbock, <em>The Origin of Civilisation</em> (1870):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">The lowest races have no religion; when what may perhaps be in a sense called religion first appears, it differs essentially from ours; nay, it is not only different, but in some respects even opposite... The deities are evil, not good... they generally require bloody, and often rejoice in human, sacrifices.</p><p></p><p>Lothrop Stoddard, <em>The Rising Tide of Color</em> (1920):</p><p>"The native religions were usually sanguinary, demanding a prodigality of human sacrifices. The killings ordained by negro wizards and witch-doctors sometimes attained unbelievable proportions."</p><p></p><p>HP Lovecraft, <em>The Call of Cthulhu</em> (1928):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">From a wide circle of ten scaffolds set up at regular intervals with the flame-girt monolith as a centre hung, head downward, the oddly marred bodies of the helpless squatters who had disappeared. It was inside this circle that the ring of worshippers jumped and roared... there must have been nearly a hundred mongrel celebrants in the throng.</p><p></p><p>Robert E Howard, <em>The Slithering Shadow</em> (1933):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">'A god must have his sacrifices. When I was a child in Stygia the people lived under the shadow of the priests. None ever knew when he or she would be seized and dragged to the altar…'</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">'Such is not the custom of my people,' Conan growled.</p><p></p><p><strong>Cannibalism</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Monster Manual</em>:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Gnolls are feral humanoids that attack settlements along the frontiers and borderlands of civilization without warning, slaughtering their victims and devouring their flesh.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Lizard folk are omnivorous, but they have a taste for humanoid flesh. Prisoners are often taken back to their camps to become the centerpieces of great feasts… Victims are... cooked and eaten by the tribe.</p><p></p><p>Edgar Rice Burroughs, <em>Tarzan of the Apes</em> (1912):</p><p>"And then began for the French officer the most terrifying experience which man can encounter upon earth—the reception of a white prisoner into a village of African cannibals."</p><p></p><p>Robert E Howard, <em>Shadows in Zamboula</em> (1935):</p><p>"Cannibalism was more than a perverted appetite with the black men of Darfar; it was an integral element of their ghastly cult."</p><p></p><p>Patrick Brantlinger, <em>Taming Cannibals</em> (2011):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">The motif of the missionary as cannibal fare has been a staple of Western popular culture for centuries.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Imaginary cannibals have been all too influential as a negative stereotype of non-Western Others and as an excuse for the extermination of those Others.</p><p></p><p><strong>Non-morality</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Monster Manual</em>:</p><p>"Lizardfolk have no notion of traditional morality, and they find the concepts of good and evil utterly alien."</p><p></p><p><em>The Color Line</em>:</p><p>"It is more correct to say of the Negro that he is non-moral than immoral."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Doug McCrae, post: 8333593, member: 21169"] CONTENT WARNING: VERY RACIST CLAIMS, IN QUOTATION This post is about several different sorts of correspondences between "savage" humanoids in D&D 5e and racist ideas. [B]Savage and Civilised Races[/B] Note the virtually identical terminology — D&D 5e's "civilized and savage" and "savage... races" compared with Gobineau's "savage races" and Darwin's "savage and civilised races." [I]D&D 5e Monster Manua[/I]l (2014): "Humanoids are the main peoples of the D&D world, both civilized and savage… far more savage and brutal, and almost uniformly evil, are the races of goblinoids (goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears), orcs, gnolls, lizardfolk, and kobolds." Arthur de Gobineau, [I]The Inequality of Races[/I] (1853): "The savage races of to-day have always been savage, and we are right in concluding, by analogy, that they will continue to be so, until the day when they disappear." Charles Darwin, [I]The Descent of Man[/I] (1871): "The belief that there exists in man some close relation between the size of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of the skulls of savage and civilised races." [B]Devil Worship[/B] The worship of evil gods, such as the orcish god Gruumsh, is very similar to devil worship. [I]Monster Manual[/I]: "[Gnolls worship] the demon lord Yeenoghu." Cotton Mather, [I]The Glorious Works of Christ in America[/I] (1702): "These parts were then covered with nations of barbarous Indians and infidels… whose whole religion was the most explicit sort of devil-worship." Charles Wentworth Dilke, [I]Greater Britain[/I] (1868): "All Indian religion has the air of devil-worship, or worship of the destructive principle in some shape: the gods are drawn as grinning fiends, they are propitiated by infernal music, they are often worshipped with obscene and hideous rites." William Benjamin Smith, [I]The Color Line[/I] (1905): "These "avenues" of the far-sighted African are nothing but the blind alleys of Voodooism and devil worship." [B]A Creed of Fear and Horror[/B] [I]Monster Manual[/I]: "Maglubiyet… is the greater god of goblinoids… he is worshiped not out of adoration but fear." [I]Greater Britain[/I]: "We must not forget that Hindooism is a creed of fear and horror, not of love." [B]Human Sacrifice[/B] [I]Monster Manual[/I]: [INDENT]Gnolls celebrate their victories by performing demonic rituals and making blood offerings to Yeenoghu.[/INDENT] [INDENT][/INDENT] [INDENT]Prisoners… are sacrificed to Semuanya, the lizardfolk god.[/INDENT] [INDENT][/INDENT] [INDENT]When an orc slays an elf in Gruumsh's name and offers the corpse of its foe as a sacrifice to the god of slaughter, an aspect of the god might appear.[/INDENT] John Lubbock, [I]The Origin of Civilisation[/I] (1870): [INDENT]The lowest races have no religion; when what may perhaps be in a sense called religion first appears, it differs essentially from ours; nay, it is not only different, but in some respects even opposite... The deities are evil, not good... they generally require bloody, and often rejoice in human, sacrifices.[/INDENT] Lothrop Stoddard, [I]The Rising Tide of Color[/I] (1920): "The native religions were usually sanguinary, demanding a prodigality of human sacrifices. The killings ordained by negro wizards and witch-doctors sometimes attained unbelievable proportions." HP Lovecraft, [I]The Call of Cthulhu[/I] (1928): [INDENT]From a wide circle of ten scaffolds set up at regular intervals with the flame-girt monolith as a centre hung, head downward, the oddly marred bodies of the helpless squatters who had disappeared. It was inside this circle that the ring of worshippers jumped and roared... there must have been nearly a hundred mongrel celebrants in the throng.[/INDENT] Robert E Howard, [I]The Slithering Shadow[/I] (1933): [INDENT]'A god must have his sacrifices. When I was a child in Stygia the people lived under the shadow of the priests. None ever knew when he or she would be seized and dragged to the altar…'[/INDENT] [INDENT]'Such is not the custom of my people,' Conan growled.[/INDENT] [B]Cannibalism[/B] [I]Monster Manual[/I]: [INDENT]Gnolls are feral humanoids that attack settlements along the frontiers and borderlands of civilization without warning, slaughtering their victims and devouring their flesh.[/INDENT] [INDENT][/INDENT] [INDENT]Lizard folk are omnivorous, but they have a taste for humanoid flesh. Prisoners are often taken back to their camps to become the centerpieces of great feasts… Victims are... cooked and eaten by the tribe.[/INDENT] Edgar Rice Burroughs, [I]Tarzan of the Apes[/I] (1912): "And then began for the French officer the most terrifying experience which man can encounter upon earth—the reception of a white prisoner into a village of African cannibals." Robert E Howard, [I]Shadows in Zamboula[/I] (1935): "Cannibalism was more than a perverted appetite with the black men of Darfar; it was an integral element of their ghastly cult." Patrick Brantlinger, [I]Taming Cannibals[/I] (2011): [INDENT]The motif of the missionary as cannibal fare has been a staple of Western popular culture for centuries.[/INDENT] [INDENT][/INDENT] [INDENT]Imaginary cannibals have been all too influential as a negative stereotype of non-Western Others and as an excuse for the extermination of those Others.[/INDENT] [B]Non-morality[/B] [I]Monster Manual[/I]: "Lizardfolk have no notion of traditional morality, and they find the concepts of good and evil utterly alien." [I]The Color Line[/I]: "It is more correct to say of the Negro that he is non-moral than immoral." [/QUOTE]
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