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Message: <blockquote data-quote="W'rkncacnter" data-source="post: 9807849" data-attributes="member: 7033455">but a human-like creature...literally isn't human. it is, by its very nature, dehumanized in some way or form. that's the point (in fiction) - to create something human-like but with inhuman (as in literally not human, not necessarily inhumane) qualities and explore that. in that sense i don't see "inherent morality (whether by divine fiat, different thought processes, biological necessity, etc.)" to be any different from "lives for hundreds if not thousands of years" or "has a devil ancestor" or "reincarnates upon death with only vague remembrances of past lives" or "treats poison like salt".i mean...i'm sorry, but an orc (as an example) is not a human. an orc should not be a human. an orc can have many similarities to a human, but at the end of the day, they are different things. if you think they're too close to be comfortable with considering giving the orc inherent morality, then you do you, i guess. but i don't, and i don't need some moral lecture about it.done well i think inherent good or evil can be plenty insidious or tragic. and while i wouldn't exactly call skyrim's writing good, i'd hardly say paarthurnax is a saturday morning cartoon character, as an example.THAT'S the term i was trying to think of. thank you.it definitely can be, especially if done poorly.okay, so like...noble. just noble.if you're referring to tolkien's letter, isn't that mainly appearance linking orcs to the east (and even then mainly to the mongols)? it seems to me an intentional attempt to metaphorically link orcs to the mongol raids of europe not in a racist sort of way but as a cultural landmark, essentially - "the orcs look and fight like mongols and are as big a threat to middle earth as the mongols were to europe)" sort of thing. to then say that "orcs being inherently evil is fundamentally orientalist racism" because of a storytelling device tolkien used seems to me like a particular large stretch, especially when dnd orcs...don't really look like stereotypical mongols? like, i dunno, this seems like it's stretching a relatively minor aspect of the inspiring work and saying it MUST apply to EVERY derivative thereof even if it clearly doesn't. am i missing something here?</blockquote>

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