Fantasy Tropes/Cliches that Annoy You

[BRC]

If you addressed the second point, I missed it.

This Bit

2) Orcs ARE People, with everything that implies. They may have an aggressive and martial culture, but it's not inherently Evil. Orcish society exists as something more than an excuse to send bloodthirsty raiders at innocent human settlements. Orcs can be kind, cruel, noble, brave, ect. Better yet, have multiple Orcish cultures, or have multiracial cultures that include Orcs.
Sure, Orcs living in the Badlands might be raiders, but Orcs on the coast fish and sail and make wonderful Scrimshaw. Orcs in the city just want to get a decent wage for a days work.

Basically, it's okay to have an evil culture, it's even okay to have that culture associated with a specific race, but because Race/Culture are so often conflated (especially in fantasy), it's best if you provide some evidence that the Orcs (or whatever) are evil by nurture, not Nature. The best way to do this is to establish that there are many orcs NOT from that culture who are Not evil (This works better IMO than having a single Orc Raised in Human Culture, since that only implies a single Extraordinary example, and, if we're digging into real-world allegories, the concept of "Improving" members of an ethic group by taking them from their cultures has it's own long history)

I'm not going to defend D&D worldbuilding -- it's terrible, and bass-ackwards, and laughably ridiculous. I'm not playing, using, worrying about, or basing anything I do on D&D's settings.

Sounds good.
Most of the worldbuilding I do is idle thoughts for RPG settings, so that's how I view things.

As for culpability... no. Just no. The writer is not responsible and cannot be held responsible for every stupid inference that this or that reader might leap to. Orcs are not humans -- whether a story takes the approach that orcs are people, or that orcs are monsters, they're not homo sapiens sapiens.

We had this whole discussion about the real world implications of fantastic racism but...you know what, I'm not going to argue this point. Not in a "Ugh, You'll never see reason" way, but just because, while I disagree with you, it's not a big deal. Some people like pineapples on pizza.

Like, I (clearly) have a lot to say on the subject, and I feel that writing Orcs (Always Chaotic Evil) is a lazy cop-out, but, I think the worst thing that will happen if somebody writes Orcs as Always Chaotic Evil, is that somebody else will read their story and do the same.

Unless you reach the point of Obvious Allegory, you're "Culpable" for very little besides perpetuating a trope I find annoying.