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<blockquote data-quote="Parmandur" data-source="post: 7539718" data-attributes="member: 6780330">I mean, the rather non-conservative WotC thought it would be a good name for a book in 2001, and that was written by one of their wokier writers in the extremely cosmopolitan Seattle environment rather than whitebread rural Wisconsin, so that's hardly something we can hold against Gary uniquely.Gygax was a rough writer given to purple prose and ham-fisted obviousness. The over-the-top bigotry of his Medieval scholar stand-in is one example of this.The Drow thing seems largely to have originated with an ink inversion of a standard Elf: what is black on the Elf ink drawing becomes white space, what is white space becomes black ink. A bit of 70's psychedelia, more than any racist statement.My recommendation for the movies would be to not touch the Drow topic, as there is plenty of space to avoid it. if they must come up, make non-Drow Elf characters obviously African in features (which has D&amp;D precedent anyway). The issue is less that they are black, though, and more the (probably unintentional) echo of the &quot;Mark of Cain&quot; bit from racist lore in regards to Lolth, which seems hard to get around.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Parmandur, post: 7539718, member: 6780330"] I mean, the rather non-conservative WotC thought it would be a good name for a book in 2001, and that was written by one of their wokier writers in the extremely cosmopolitan Seattle environment rather than whitebread rural Wisconsin, so that's hardly something we can hold against Gary uniquely. Gygax was a rough writer given to purple prose and ham-fisted obviousness. The over-the-top bigotry of his Medieval scholar stand-in is one example of this. The Drow thing seems largely to have originated with an ink inversion of a standard Elf: what is black on the Elf ink drawing becomes white space, what is white space becomes black ink. A bit of 70's psychedelia, more than any racist statement. My recommendation for the movies would be to not touch the Drow topic, as there is plenty of space to avoid it. if they must come up, make non-Drow Elf characters obviously African in features (which has D&D precedent anyway). The issue is less that they are black, though, and more the (probably unintentional) echo of the "Mark of Cain" bit from racist lore in regards to Lolth, which seems hard to get around. [/QUOTE]

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