Fantasy Tropes/Cliches that Annoy You

[Cosi]

Well this is an interesting one. Having a Swastika tattooed on one's face is obviously not great, but that isn't equivalent to what you're addressing. It's like when people claim that tattoos of celtic crosses are racist because certain racist groups are fond of them. That's the sort of assertion you're making. You're attacking celtic crosses not swastikas.

But even the swastika has uses that aren't Nazi symbolism. We, as a society, have decided that those uses are not sufficient to make it "not a hate symbol" rather than "a hate symbol". So when you talk about celtic crosses, the question isn't "is this racist or not racist", but "this has racist and non-racist implications, how should we weight those". The problem is that e.g. Segev is not really presenting an affirmative defense as to why having dark skinned people be evil is valuable, he's just insisting that anyone who sees that as racist is the real racist.

[AMFV]

The Kargs are not an "always-evil" race so no, we're not. Also the irony of trying to use Ursula Le Guin to argue against the concept of white privilege... wow.
.

In Wizard of Earthsea they sure as **** are. They are reference in no context other than being raiders. In Tombs of Atuan they are all evil, or cowardly, or nasty with a single exception. Certainly later that might have changed but that's two works which BOTH depict a white race that is principally evil and antagonistic and brown races that aren't. You asked for one, I've given two, do you want to go for three cause there are more examples.

[Scripten]

In Wizard of Earthsea they sure as **** are. They are reference in no context other than being raiders. In Tombs of Atuan they are all evil, or cowardly, or nasty with a single exception. Certainly later that might have changed but that's two works which BOTH depict a white race that is principally evil and antagonistic and brown races that aren't. You asked for one, I've given two, do you want to go for three cause there are more examples.

Okay, I'm sorry. I'm obviously making the huge mistake of expecting the premise to be examples of settings rather than individual books. Or maybe you're being pedantic and arguing in bad faith. Hm.

And again, this is really just a rhetorical exercise because even if we did enumerate settings based on the "black = bad" versus "white = bad", that wouldn't change the fact that in the real world, there is a distinct weighting toward one side that isn't separate from the context of writing fantasy.

[AMFV]

Okay, I'm sorry. I'm obviously making the huge mistake of expecting the premise to be examples of settings rather than individual books. Or maybe you're being pedantic and arguing in bad faith. Hm.

And again, this is really just a rhetorical exercise because even if we did enumerate settings based on the "black = bad" versus "white = bad", that wouldn't change the fact that in the real world, there is a distinct weighting toward one side that isn't separate from the context of writing fantasy.

Well the setting wasn't presented as other than that for many many years. So you're pretty much wrong there. And the goalposts have shifted, I notice. I guess I'm obviously making a huge mistake in expecting you to accept it when your challenge was easily met within minutes of being posted.

[Cosi]

Wow, it's almost like the person writing something and the person reading it might have different understandings of what a text means.

[BRC]

But these are both part of the same whole. A person's position in society is based on the intersectionality of their various demographics. Everyone has certain levels of privilege and marginalization. Some are more pronounced than others, is all. When it pertains to writing fantasy, those privileges can come out in fairly unsavory ways, hence this conversation.

Oh, I agree.

That's just my theory about why some people dislike the term. They conflate the two uses, and rather than hearing "This thing that is true for you should be true for everybody" instead hear "This thing that is true for you should be true for nobody".



On the subject of Always Evil Races, I wonder if it's especially egregious for the drow because their civilization and culture is especially well fleshed out, compared to most other "Always Evil" races.

Like, the classic presentation of Orcs is as Orcish Raiders. Barbarians at the gates who come from the wild parts of the world to pillage and loot. But that leaves the possibility open that it's not that all Orcs are evil, it's just that human civilization has only ever encountered the evil orcs, since they only encounter orcs when the orcs come to raid them, and non-evil orcs don't raid human villages. You can have Evil Orcish Raiders without declaring that all orcs are inherently evil.

When Orcish society IS fleshed out, it's fleshed out around this idea that Orcs are barbarian raiders whose lives revolve around raiding. Rather than create an orcish society outside the Raiding Party, they've declared that Orcish Society IS raiding parties. But, that can kind of be read as "Barbarian Raiders are Bad", not "Orcs are Inherently Bad".

But with Drow, they have a whole, pretty-well fleshed out civilization that is pretty well understood, and it's all Evil. You can't really propose the existence of a culture of non-evil drow, because unlike orcs, the standard Drow entry in the monster manual gives us a pretty complete sense of their society. It's not just the Drow Assassins that are evil, it's also the Drow Soldiers, the Drow Priestesses, the Drow Farmers, all the way down. The question of "What do Drow do when they're not fighting the heroes" has been thoroughly answered with "Evil Stuff".

Edit: It's like this, take your standard D&D setting, with Orcs and Drow, but make everybody human. All the humans who used to be Orcs are now "Plains People", all the Humans who used to be drow are now "Cave People".

You could assume that, while the Plains People Raiders are evil, other Plains People are not necessarily evil, if only because we're told so little about the non-raiders. Meanwhile, going by the basic fluff, we would be led to believe that all Cave people must be evil.

[Max_Killjoy]

Replied in the other thread.

[icefractal]

Yeah, sadly, the idea that intent doesn't matter, only outcome -- the "culture of seeking to be offended" -- has really made a mess of trying to address these issues.

I'm not going to say it doesn't matter, but intent only goes so far. If you park in my driveway because you didn't realize it wasn't a parking space, I'm still going to expect you to move, and "Well I parked here with no ill intent, and now all the other spots are taken, so I'm just going to stay here - don't get offended" isn't going to fly. And if you ran over my dog in the process, I'm still going to be ****ing angry at you, whether you intended to do it or not.

[Kitten Champion]

Eh, the drow are a particularly good example of really trying too hard or being too devoted to the surface layer in finding fault.

So, okay. You're claiming that "black elves are evil" is racist because it's implying or outright saying that "black people are evil."

That's committing to a false binary where something absolutely and wholly adheres to a specific notion of racism - or whatever discriminatory "ism" you wish - or it's not an issue at all.

A theme of which the Drow are apart on the conceptual level is of moral transgression (I believe they were seduced into drinking demonic blood in the lore or somesuch) which left them literally stained black, this has been in fact a concept preached in real-world forum-unfriendly ways by people.

Add to this is the whole meta-concept for the Underdark is that it's a reverse image of the surface world - a negative portrait of its people - which puts the Drow in direct contrast to the surface-world Elves, their wickedness to the surface's purity.

Also there's the whole issue with the evil Matriarchy, as in it's the only society which makes itself super-duper-abundantly clear that you know that the Women rule it, and it's the silly sadistically evil one which can barely hold itself together.

Are the Drow racists against real-world people of colour? No, not exactly. Do they replicate a cultural ideal which has simmered in religion & fictional tropes, yeah, a little.

"You can't have the evil race have black skin!" is the only real objection left, and that's...it's silly. It's basically saying, "All evil races must be any color other than black." "No, wait, can't be yellow, either. Or red. Or brown. Or orange - that might look brown or red. No, wait, orange is okay, as long as they have stupid-looking enormous poufs of hair, because it's okay to insult a particular politician." :P

I'd prefer not to have Evil Races in general, or at least not ones which are such caricatures in their Evilness. I have no particular issue with Eberron's Drow, which are not shadowy reflections of their world's Elves, are not all Evil by nature, and largely make the choice to be when they are - pretty much like everyone else.

I'm also not into absurd Star Trek-ish hat-wearing races in general... but if you're going to hat someone you could probably consider the implications a little.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's committing to a false binary where something absolutely and wholly adheres to a specific notion of racism - or whatever discriminatory "ism" you wish - or it's not an issue at all.

A theme of which the Drow are apart on the conceptual level is of moral transgression (I believe they were seduced into drinking demonic blood in the lore or somesuch) which left them literally stained black, this has been in fact a concept preached in real-world forum-unfriendly ways by people.

Add to this is the whole meta-concept for the Underdark is that it's a reverse image of the surface world - a negative portrait of its people - which puts the Drow in direct contrast to the surface-world Elves, their wickedness to the surface's purity.

Also there's the whole issue with the evil Matriarchy, as in it's the only society which makes itself super-duper-abundantly clear that you know that the Women rule it, and it's the silly sadistically evil one which can barely hold itself together.

Are the Drow racists against real-world people of colour? No, not exactly. Do they replicate a cultural ideal which has simmered in religion & fictional tropes, yeah, a little.

The demon blood thing sounds like the Orcs of Warcraft lore.

The drow themselves are supposedly based on far older northern European myths, having nothing to do with modern notions of race.

[Kitten Champion]

The drow themselves are supposedly based on far older northern European myths, having nothing to do with modern notions of race.

The idea of dark elves came from myths, the way they were redesigned and implemented into the Forgotten Realms universe was purely the contemporary pen-holders decisions.

[Max_Killjoy]

The idea of dark elves came from myths, the way they were redesigned and implemented into the Forgotten Realms universe was purely the contemporary pen-holders decisions.

Don't they also predate FR by several years?

Of course, I can't really argue FR lore, I lost track umpteen Reality Rewrites ago.

[Satinavian]

Okay, I'm sorry. I'm obviously making the huge mistake of expecting the premise to be examples of settings rather than individual books. Or maybe you're being pedantic and arguing in bad faith. Hm.

And again, this is really just a rhetorical exercise because even if we did enumerate settings based on the "black = bad" versus "white = bad", that wouldn't change the fact that in the real world, there is a distinct weighting toward one side that isn't separate from the context of writing fantasy.

So your issue is that the obviously evil Dark elves called "Drow" in D&D have dark skin ?

Well, evil elf types are common for fantasy settings. Having them living underground is not necessary but also not uncommon. Let's look at some non-DnD examples :

Spoiler: pics

Show

Three widespread, famous settings, three pretty evil Dark Elf races. In every single one of them Dark elves are lighter colored/paler than the regular, good elves. Even in the one where they don't live underground.

Trying to link fantasy evil Dark elvess to real world racism against dark skinned people is stupid. Even Drow, the only actually dark looking variant does not have any similarities to black humans, considering the straight, usually high colored hair, eye colors that basically never include brown or black and facial structures lookng pretty caucasian.

[Lord Raziere]

My issue with fantasy racism is not that it has any resemblance to any real world racism.

Its that racism is fantasy is portrayed as anything positive at all, regardless of the situation. racism is just plain wrong on principle, and portraying it as a thing necessary to fight evil in a fantasy is just disgusting to me. I'm not saying you can't have racism in your setting, but racism as anything positive or necessary is just plain wrong, full stop. thats what results from races that are "Always chaotic evil", and this is from somebody who loves action and fighting! I don't mind killing mooks, but the weird racial component that people insist DnD and fantasy take on it is baffling and stupid.

[Satinavian]

Now that is something i can agree too. I don't like always evil races.

I might tolerate literal devils and demons and maybe some otherwordly evil that is more a personification of a concept and less an actual person, but wouldn't go any further.

[Kitten Champion]

Don't they also predate FR by several years?

Of course, I can't really argue FR lore, I lost track umpteen Reality Rewrites ago.

Oh, yes, I believe so. The concept of intelligent darkly-coloured Evil Elves with a spider-ish theme who live underground is largely Gygax's invention apparently. Most of their canon lore was produced later though. The Drow sold well after all, that necessitates filling in every detail of their existence with as many books as you can probably get away with, that's just logic.

It is reasonably fair to say that the Forgotten Realms Drow overshadow the alternative iterations in popular consciousness and general conversation.

[WarKitty]

My issue with fantasy racism is not that it has any resemblance to any real world racism.

Its that racism is fantasy is portrayed as anything positive at all, regardless of the situation. racism is just plain wrong on principle, and portraying it as a thing necessary to fight evil in a fantasy is just disgusting to me. I'm not saying you can't have racism in your setting, but racism as anything positive or necessary is just plain wrong, full stop. thats what results from races that are "Always chaotic evil", and this is from somebody who loves action and fighting! I don't mind killing mooks, but the weird racial component that people insist DnD and fantasy take on it is baffling and stupid.

It also gives you some interesting possibilities, especially if you have a good grasp of history.

For example, most raiding cultures in real life developed for reasons, and those reasons usually weren't "we like it." This is why you see a lot of raiding cultures develop from marginal land - lacking natural resources of their own, such cultures tend to turn to taking the resources of others. Not that that's the only reason, but raiding generally means that there's something to be gained of value by raiding that outweighs the costs and risks.

[Frozen_Feet]

... Drow are a spoof on arachnid mating habits, specifically, black widows. You'd think the overt spider iconography and black-white-red colour scheme would give it away.

[Mordaedil]

It is difficult to determine if dark elves origins in racial discrepancies going back in history, because there is an argument that they precede slave trades in oral traditions from germanic and norse traditions, but they could also be based on oral story telling from explorers going to the far south.

It is very possible that has a racial origin, but you just kinda gotta ask; does it matter in modern context? Or as they wrote in an old webcomic:

[Max_Killjoy]

Inside that comic is an absolute statement that I reject: "All fantasy is an allegory for the human condition".

Nonsense.

Sometimes an elf is just an elf.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Inside that comic is an absolute statement that I reject: "All fantasy is an allegory for the human condition".

Nonsense.

Sometimes an elf is just an elf.

Absolutely agreed. If you're seeing racial metaphors and slurs everywhere, the problem might just be you, not everyone else. It's your right to get offended whenever you want, but that doesn't make it *right*.

[Kitten Champion]

Inside that comic is an absolute statement that I reject: "All fantasy is an allegory for the human condition".

Nonsense.

Sometimes an elf is just an elf.

But elves as an archetype represent numerous things -- an idealized mirror for humanity, a physical representation of Nature as chaotic or sublime, glamorous beauty as both wickedness and delight, the amorphous beliefs and values of pre-Christian Europe, etc.

The mundane things in fantasy can just be what they are, but when you get into our persisting imaginary creations there's usually some basis in our psyche on which they were generated.

[Guizonde]

But elves as an archetype represent numerous things -- an idealized mirror for humanity, a physical representation of Nature as chaotic or sublime, glamorous beauty as both wickedness and delight, the amorphous beliefs and values of pre-Christian Europe, etc.

The mundane things in fantasy can just be what they are, but when you get into our persisting imaginary creations there's usually some basis in our psyche on which they were generated.

or sometimes, you just need a pointy-eared, salad-eating, dubiously-androgynous, hippy-zippy-magical target to hit. repeatedly.

i mean come on. swap out "salad" with "raw-meat" and "hippy-zippy-magical" with "sinfully-ugly-and-irate" and you're describing goblins. then again, by my description, it could be an elf, a genasi, a gnome... i'll keep on saying "greatclub magnets" for short. why do americans own .50bmg sniper rifles? because it's fun! so is full-auto fire so i hear. you've got a fun stick, all you need is something to practice it on. it could be an elf, a goblin, or even a bag that says "50hp for 10xp". a player will hit it like a frellin' piñata. it's just what players do.

fantasy can be wish fulfilment, it can be an alternate take, an allegory, or it can be beer and pretzels. the munchkin card game parodied it nicely: break a door, frag a critter, loot the place. that's the most common type of game i've got going where i live. i loathe the things, so finding a bunch of players interested in some serious rp is a bit of a tough job.

[PhoenixPhyre]

But elves as an archetype represent numerous things -- an idealized mirror for humanity, a physical representation of Nature as chaotic or sublime, glamorous beauty as both wickedness and delight, the amorphous beliefs and values of pre-Christian Europe, etc.

The mundane things in fantasy can just be what they are, but when you get into our persisting imaginary creations there's usually some basis in our psyche on which they were generated.

Why? Says who? I find armchair sociologists and psychologists to be mostly projecting their own beliefs and feelings onto others. Digging beyond the material presented, like extrapolations from limited data, tends to lead to dubious results.

or sometimes, you just need a pointy-eared, salad-eating, dubiously-androgynous, hippy-zippy-magical target to hit. repeatedly.

i mean come on. swap out "salad" with "raw-meat" and "hippy-zippy-magical" with "sinfully-ugly-and-irate" and you're describing goblins. then again, by my description, it could be an elf, a genasi, a gnome... i'll keep on saying "greatclub magnets" for short. why do americans own .50bmg sniper rifles? because it's fun! so is full-auto fire so i hear. you've got a fun stick, all you need is something to practice it on. it could be an elf, a goblin, or even a bag that says "50hp for 10xp". a player will hit it like a frellin' piñata. it's just what players do.

fantasy can be wish fulfilment, it can be an alternate take, an allegory, or it can be beer and pretzels. the munchkin card game parodied it nicely: break a door, frag a critter, loot the place. that's the most common type of game i've got going where i live. i loathe the things, so finding a bunch of players interested in some serious rp is a bit of a tough job.

Agreed. Mostly. I think

[Max_Killjoy]

Symbolism in general is over-rated.

Nothing I write is a symbol or allegory for anything else. It is exactly what it is on the page -- whether that's worldbuilding, fiction, an RPG character, or whatever, what I'm interested in is that, not something else. It's not a stand-in for anything else, it is what it is.

Too much of what passes for analysis and criticism of fiction rests on a dire failure to understand the difference between the reader's own inference, and any actual implication within the material. I long ago lost any patience for postmodernism's deification of the observer's subjective experience.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Symbolism in general is over-rated.

Nothing I write is a symbol or allegory for anything else. It is exactly what it is on the page -- whether that's worldbuilding, fiction, an RPG character, or whatever, what I'm interested in is that, not something else. It's not a stand-in for anything else, it is what it is.

Too much of what passes for analysis and criticism of fiction rests on a fire failure to understand the difference between the reader's own inference, and any actual implication within the material. I long ago lost any patience for postmodernism's deification of the observer's subjective experience.

Like a mirror, the current mode of interpretation tells you much more about the interpreter than it does about the work itself. It reeks of high-school "literature" class, where students are forced to shovel mountains of bull excrement and claim that they've found pearls. Sometimes, the point of the poem is that the writer wants to get the girl to go to bed with him. Sometimes the only point of the story is that it's cool.

If it's not clear, I'm totally agreeing with you.

[Segev]

I do think the claim that "privilege" is a bad term is legitimate. That said, that doesn't do what Max wants it to, because it doesn't change the underlying social structures that exist.

The solution to the underlying social structures - REGARDLESS of who they favor or oppress - is to treat all equally, and not have any rules which look at skin color or other phenotype traits to determine if somebody needs a leg up or to be swatted down. The more we focus on FINDING examples of racism, rather than trying our best to divorce them from reality, the more we create real-world tribalism and hyper-awareness of race. Hyper-awareness of race creates racism.

"But," some may say, "That's just a lie that evil white supremacists use to claim that fighting racism makes them racist! They really are racist and just don't want people pointing it out!" And...they're wrong. White supremacists - and black supremacists, and any other * supremacists - tend to be quite open about their racism. They don't hide it behind some façade of "you fighting racism made me this way;" they're more prone to arguments of genetics and (badly researched) science to justify why it's necessary. (There's about a 40/60 split on whether they'll go "it's justified because science" or "it's not racism; it's science." Also, about 83% of statistics on the internet are made up on the spot.)

The fact that it didn't occur to you that "don't have an evil race" was the obviously ideal solution here is what makes people think you are not as racially unbiased as you think you are.

Really? That I think having a non-human group of evil entities is okay in a fantasy game means I'm clearly racist against some sort of real-world human?

Does this also mean - since we're discussing Drow - that my secret biases include a belief that whatever race (I'm guessing "blacks," since the sole connection is black skin color...even if the kind of black is way, way different) I'm secretly biased against are all weak men and dominant - nay, dominatrix - women?

Seriously, if that's the best you've got - "You're secretly a racist because the concept of an evil fantasy race didn't immediately offend you so much that you think it shouldn't be done" - then you're essentially abdicating from the debate. "Segev's a racist, because he disagrees with me," is the only recourse you seem to have.

Wow, it's almost like the person writing something and the person reading it might have different understandings of what a text means.

Indeed. But that doesn't mean that the person reading it has a right to interpret it however he wants and then demand reparations of some sort (even if it's just "ostracize and demonize everybody who disagrees with my being offended!") and be taken seriously.

Just because, say, a left-handed person looks at Legend of Zelda and sees that Link is both left-handed and has pointy ears, and decides that this means that Legend of Zelda is claiming that all left-handed people are homicidal maniacs who think they're magical elves, doesn't mean we have to nod seriously and accept his interpretation as valid. Nor even give him attention to seriously consider whether it might be. No matter how offended by the "stereotype" he thinks he sees there he might be.

Sometimes, dismissing somebody's claim that "X is Y-ist" is just that: dismissal. It isn't a sign of inherent bias against anything but flimsy reasoning and strained conspiracy-theorist-level pattern-invention.

My issue with fantasy racism is not that it has any resemblance to any real world racism.

Its that racism is fantasy is portrayed as anything positive at all, regardless of the situation. racism is just plain wrong on principle, and portraying it as a thing necessary to fight evil in a fantasy is just disgusting to me. I'm not saying you can't have racism in your setting, but racism as anything positive or necessary is just plain wrong, full stop. thats what results from races that are "Always chaotic evil", and this is from somebody who loves action and fighting! I don't mind killing mooks, but the weird racial component that people insist DnD and fantasy take on it is baffling and stupid.

Generally speaking? "Racism" isn't portrayed as positive in any of the fantasy stuff we're talking about. The closest we come to that is recognition that, barring evidence to the contrary, the orc raiding camp a half mile outside your village probably means you should be hiring adventurers or contacting your local militia or noble-led armed forces to defend yourselves. "Fair" or not, pattern recognition shows us that failure to prepare for hostilities leads to burned out villages and - if the villagers are lucky - a spate of half-orc refugee babies in the arms of the refugee victims of those raids.

There's actually a lot of pathos in stories where they deal with the non-evil half-orc who has to overcome the prejudice against his race. It isn't treated as something he "deserves," as a general rule.

Inside that comic is an absolute statement that I reject: "All fantasy is an allegory for the human condition".

Nonsense.

Sometimes an elf is just an elf.

Agreed, but the comic seems to also agree. Note how that line is put in the mouth of somebody being verbally, if not smacked down, at least soundly shown up in the debate.

I think I remember reading that stretch of comic before, and if I remember rightly, the previous one had the two who talked about the allegorical nature of fantasy and respecting the drow-player's character talking about how not all drow are evil and how that's an awful stereotype, and thus offending the drow who had escaped from his evil and oppressive society (as well as the player who had wanted to play a character exploring the struggle of overcoming the quite reasonable stereotype).



That actually brings up a fantasy trope that annoys me: when every member of a culture (racial or otherwise) that we see is an "exception" who is actively struggling to "throw off the evil ways" of their home culture. It could work, if it were a commentary on bigotry and stereotype and how meeting real people from those stereotyped cultures dispels the myth, but the way it usually is handled, it's just snowflakism. The individuals who are supposedly fighting to throw off the ways of their people (and yet make up the majority if not all of those of those people that we meet) agree with the stereotype and insist it's true...for all but them.

That actually could be a fairly funny subversion. Make a drow-expy race and come across an enclave of attractive young adults of it who hasten to assure you that they aren't like the others, but warn you against seeking their people. They paint a picture of, well, drow society.

But then the party warily moves on and has to infiltrate the "wicked city" and...discovers that it's not nearly as bad as the young adult "rebels against society" claimed. In fact, in retrospect, those protesting grown-up children had more flaws in how they ran their society while trying to "throw off evil ways" than the supposedly-evil society does.

[BRC]

Generally speaking? "Racism" isn't portrayed as positive in any of the fantasy stuff we're talking about. The closest we come to that is recognition that, barring evidence to the contrary, the orc raiding camp a half mile outside your village probably means you should be hiring adventurers or contacting your local militia or noble-led armed forces to defend yourselves. "Fair" or not, pattern recognition shows us that failure to prepare for hostilities leads to burned out villages and - if the villagers are lucky - a spate of half-orc refugee babies in the arms of the refugee victims of those raids.

That's exactly what is meant by "Fantasy portrays Racism as good".

Fantasy presents a world where sentient beings have inherent biologically-determined predispositions towards certain behaviors (or, are so uniform within a culture that it might as well be biological), and assuming those traits to be correct is simply common sense. This is a mindset that Racists ALREADY apply to the real world.

In A fantasy World, if you see certain types of people (like Orcs) walking towards you, the correct action is to prepare yourself for a fight, because Orcs are Violent and Cruel. Fantasy presents a world where Racism is correct. Where the racist instinct of judging somebody's character by their appearance alone will serve you pretty well most of the time.

In the real world, if somebody said " <insert ethnicity here> are inherently less intelligent than <other ethnicity>", you would assume them to be Racist, and you would be right.

In a fantasy world, you can say "Orcs are inherently less intelligent than Humans", and be pretty much correct. After all, they have that -4 penalty to intelligence.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's exactly what is meant by "Fantasy portrays Racism as good".

Fantasy presents a world where sentient beings have inherent biologically-determined predispositions towards certain behaviors (or, are so uniform within a culture that it might as well be biological), and assuming those traits to be correct is simply common sense. This is a mindset that Racists ALREADY apply to the real world.

In A fantasy World, if you see certain types of people (like Orcs) walking towards you, the correct action is to prepare yourself for a fight, because Orcs are Violent and Cruel. Fantasy presents a world where Racism is correct. Where the racist instinct of judging somebody's character by their appearance alone will serve you pretty well most of the time.

In the real world, if somebody said " <insert ethnicity here> are inherently less intelligent than <other ethnicity>", you would assume them to be Racist, and you would be right.

In a fantasy world, you can say "Orcs are inherently less intelligent than Humans", and be pretty much correct. After all, they have that -4 penalty to intelligence.

Consider that despite gaming's idiotic use of the term "race", Orcs aren't a race (which is an artificial distinction within homo sapiens sapiens based mainly on superficial factors such as skin color, geographic ancestry, etc). It would be far more accurate in most settings to describe Orcs as a different species or subspecies.

Consider also that Orcs might well have a separate culture, and that despite the onerous efforts of identity politics to assert otherwise, race and culture are very different things and in no way intrinsically linked. Seeing a score of armed Orcs and being worried is no more "racist" than someone in Eastern Europe several centuries ago seeing a score of armed Mongols and being worried.

[Cosi]

Too much of what passes for analysis and criticism of fiction rests on a dire failure to understand the difference between the reader's own inference, and any actual implication within the material. I long ago lost any patience for postmodernism's deification of the observer's subjective experience.

There's nothing but subjective experience. There is no objective. There can't be. Particularly not for something as inherently subjective as the meaning of literature or art.

The solution to the underlying social structures - REGARDLESS of who they favor or oppress - is to treat all equally, and not have any rules which look at skin color or other phenotype traits to determine if somebody needs a leg up or to be swatted down. The more we focus on FINDING examples of racism, rather than trying our best to divorce them from reality, the more we create real-world tribalism and hyper-awareness of race. Hyper-awareness of race creates racism.

You can't just magic away social, economic, political, and historic context by ignoring it. By way of analogy, suppose someone broken your legs. Would it be right to expect you to perform just as well as someone whose legs weren't broken in a marathon or other athletic competition?

Really? That I think having a non-human group of evil entities is okay in a fantasy game means I'm clearly racist against some sort of real-world human?

Having a group whose behavior is determined by racial lines is racist. That's, like, the definition of racism. Having "an evil race" or "a magic race" or "a Druid race" is racist.

Indeed. But that doesn't mean that the person reading it has a right to interpret it however he wants and then demand reparations of some sort (even if it's just "ostracize and demonize everybody who disagrees with my being offended!") and be taken seriously.

You would think if the "this is racist" interpretation was so bad, there might be some other interpretation that rested on anything more substantial than repeated insistence that minorities are the real racists for daring to be offended that the game asserts that the things racists say are literally true.