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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8658475" data-attributes="member: 18">Maybe you should separate your own personality from the things you read, Thomas?You are not your books. Sorry. I know some people like to think they are. Just because you own a book with racism in it, doesn't make you a racist, and it definitely doesn't entitle you to falsely claim you are &quot;being told you are a racist&quot;. Talk about wanting to be a victim! Also weeping about a &quot;culture war&quot; is unhelpful and borderline against the rules of this board, as well as disingenuous as hell.The idea that the age of a text impacts whether it is racist or not is absolutely laughable. A great example is the 4E Vistani vs. the 5E Vistani. 4E revisited the Vistani, and toned down the stereotypes (not entirely), but more importantly, made a Vistani a culture, not a race, thus avoiding mirroring racist propaganda against the Roma people. 5E Vistani swept all that aside, and went directly back to the obviously racist 1/2/3E take where the Vistani were non-humans who just looked like humans (something said about the Roma countless times), conformed to virtually every Roma stereotype (some with a more positive spin, but many of them not), and so on. Then it changed them to being oh look, a culture, not a race, and toned down the stereotypes!That was more recent, and more racist. That you are having difficulty with this concept doesn't reflect a &quot;culture war&quot; or the like, it reflects a very simplistic understanding of culture, where &quot;more recent&quot; automagically means &quot;less bad&quot;. No. That has never, in human history, been how it has worked.With Orcs the situation was not entirely dissimilar. 5E went back the oldest stereotypes of Orcs, which, unfortunately, mirror the worst stereotypes about East Asian and Black people. The original conception of Orcs by Tolkien sadly did contain some of this, but frankly 5E ramped it up. I very much doubt it was intentional, but the mirroring was pretty close, so calling it &quot;beautifully written&quot; seems well, uh, fanciful at best. Note that the &quot;warlike&quot;-ness isn't really the key issue, it's other traits that mirror the racist stuff most closely and creepily. If warlike-ness was a problem, Hobgoblins would be a problem, but they're a much poorer match for racist sentiments (the worst I can offhand say is that there has been some rather Orientalist - in the Edward Said sense - tendencies in how they've been portrayed visually).That's a pretty fascinating take.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8658475, member: 18"] Maybe you should separate your own personality from the things you read, Thomas? You are not your books. Sorry. I know some people like to think they are. Just because you own a book with racism in it, doesn't make you a racist, and it definitely doesn't entitle you to falsely claim you are "being told you are a racist". Talk about wanting to be a victim! Also weeping about a "culture war" is unhelpful and borderline against the rules of this board, as well as disingenuous as hell. The idea that the age of a text impacts whether it is racist or not is absolutely laughable. A great example is the 4E Vistani vs. the 5E Vistani. 4E revisited the Vistani, and toned down the stereotypes (not entirely), but more importantly, made a Vistani a culture, not a race, thus avoiding mirroring racist propaganda against the Roma people. 5E Vistani swept all that aside, and went directly back to the obviously racist 1/2/3E take where the Vistani were non-humans who just looked like humans (something said about the Roma countless times), conformed to virtually every Roma stereotype (some with a more positive spin, but many of them not), and so on. Then it changed them to being oh look, a culture, not a race, and toned down the stereotypes! That was more recent, and more racist. That you are having difficulty with this concept doesn't reflect a "culture war" or the like, it reflects a very simplistic understanding of culture, where "more recent" automagically means "less bad". No. That has never, in human history, been how it has worked. With Orcs the situation was not entirely dissimilar. 5E went back the oldest stereotypes of Orcs, which, unfortunately, mirror the worst stereotypes about East Asian and Black people. The original conception of Orcs by Tolkien sadly did contain some of this, but frankly 5E ramped it up. I very much doubt it was intentional, but the mirroring was pretty close, so calling it "beautifully written" seems well, uh, fanciful at best. Note that the "warlike"-ness isn't really the key issue, it's other traits that mirror the racist stuff most closely and creepily. If warlike-ness was a problem, Hobgoblins would be a problem, but they're a much poorer match for racist sentiments (the worst I can offhand say is that there has been some rather Orientalist - in the Edward Said sense - tendencies in how they've been portrayed visually). That's a pretty fascinating take. [/QUOTE]

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