Fantasy Tropes/Cliches that Annoy You

[Astofel]

The racism accusations come about because, in most generic D&D settings you can point at any given drow and say "That elf is evil. I can tell because it has black skin, and all the black skinned elves are evil." That alone won't make your average Joe think "Golly gee, since the black people in this universe are evil I suppose that means the black-skinned people in my universe are evil as well." However, the same thought process is used by many real-life racists to 'justify' their racism, and seeing it represented in fantasy as true reinforces their belief, regardless if that was the creator's intent or not.

So no, some fantasy races being always evil does not indicate outright racism on the author's part, but it does indicate lack of foresight of the message certain kinds of people might infer from their work.

[Vknight]

Very true on that Astofel foresight, is important but can't change the way things are afterwards.

[Max_Killjoy]

Most of the objections in this thread were less about different species being different and more about the inherent evil races and the concept of morality as hereditary trait and a universe based objective moral value judgement of racial traits.

That is also a concept that was very common in fiction from the first part of the last century and got less and less common as decades went by. Because it reminds people of racial arguments how about certain kind of humans without measurable meaningful physical differences were bound to develop bad behavioral traits and thus were inherently inferior. That is where the racism angle comes from. Justified i think.

For me the problem is when they go from empirically verifiable or falsifiable case-by-case assertions about individual works, to the blanket universal claim.

Regarding some of those works -- http://www.escapistmagazine.com/arti...-the-Barbarian

The racism accusations come about because, in most generic D&D settings you can point at any given drow and say "That elf is evil. I can tell because it has black skin, and all the black skinned elves are evil." That alone won't make your average Joe think "Golly gee, since the black people in this universe are evil I suppose that means the black-skinned people in my universe are evil as well." However, the same thought process is used by many real-life racists to 'justify' their racism, and seeing it represented in fantasy as true reinforces their belief, regardless if that was the creator's intent or not.

So no, some fantasy races being always evil does not indicate outright racism on the author's part, but it does indicate lack of foresight of the message certain kinds of people might infer from their work.

Drow aren't evil because of the color of their skin, though -- they're evil because of their culture. It's a demonstrably evil culture. (No, culture and race are not inherently linked, and yes, a culture can be evil.)

And that doesn't even touch on the (already mentioned) examples such as mind flayers, who must do evil to survive.

[Alcore]

Drow aren't evil because of the color of their skin, though -- they're evil because of their culture. It's a demonstrably evil culture. (No, culture and race are not inherently linked, and yes, a culture can be evil.).

While your right, skin color does not make them evil, i must point out that most settings have the gods marking them as evil with that skin color. Horrible thing that, for even good drow carry that mark.


Racism is real. I am white and it feels like the natural color i should be. If i looked into a mirror one day and saw i had become black i would freak. If the black guy next door stepped out of his house as a white guy i would still be freaked. He is supposed to be black and i am supposed to be white. Smile, wave, carry on with life.




What bothers me more in the games is "different equals bad" mentality. Elf? Tall human. Dwarf? Burly bearded human. Hobb-adem- halfling? Short human. Orc? Kill it. Drow? Kill it. Kobold? Kill it....

No "live and let live" to be found. I can't say a whole lot; I've done it as DM and important NPC had to become human as i grew sick of replacing them.

[Max_Killjoy]

While your right, skin color does not make them evil, i must point out that most settings have the gods marking them as evil with that skin color. Horrible thing that, for even good drow carry that mark.


Racism is real. I am white and it feels like the natural color i should be. If i looked into a mirror one day and saw i had become black i would freak. If the black guy next door stepped out of his house as a white guy i would still be freaked. He is supposed to be black and i am supposed to be white. Smile, wave, carry on with life.

I'd be freaked out if I woke up with blonde hair, or 6 inches taller or shorter, too. Or if the sun was green today. What you describe is not racism.

AFAIK, the original drow were dark skinned because they drew on Dökkálfar and Svartálfar legends, etc.

You are right that where it gets stickier is when we get later stuff about the gods marking the drow with dark skin... maybe it's just not worth the confusion regardless of one's motive in making that creative decision.

What bothers me more in the games is "different equals bad" mentality. Elf? Tall human. Dwarf? Burly bearded human. Hobb-adem- halfling? Short human. Orc? Kill it. Drow? Kill it. Kobold? Kill it....

No "live and let live" to be found. I can't say a whole lot; I've done it as DM and important NPC had to become human as i grew sick of replacing them.

Video-game mentality, lack of consequences, etc.

[Pugwampy]

Why buy anything when you can pick up something better in the forest ......
Why have yourself measured for a brand new full plate armour that will take weeks to forge when you can take one from a corpse and resize it in days .....
Tavern Bed and breakfast ? Sleep and hunt in the forest .
Dont go into the forest but dig in the rubbish heap instead .....bitten by a dire rat ...
What ever happened to buried treasure does not belong to any riff raff hobos that finds it .....Its Goonies all over again .


With all these quality goods and gold lying all over the place especially the forest , you would think DND land suffers from a constant economic crisis
You would think every player is smart enough to be a druid or ranger .

[Cosi]

Stupid banal Evil. I like rping as evil but that evil must have depth. Too often you get people without any depth, moving in a straight predictable line. DMs who have had to suffer through it say "no evil!" and so a third of interesting chasracters never see light.

I don't think this is a thing in fantasy in general. Grimdark is a genre that is doing fairly well right now. Bakker, Abercrombie, and Lawrence are all successful authors.

In D&D (or other RPGs), I think "no evil PCs" is generally the correct call.

The X-Men and Marvel superheroes are 99% born into their powers (with the exception of Cyborg, Hawkeye, and Black Widow).

First, there are definitely some you're missing. Captain American wasn't born into his powers (unless you consider "is a really good person" one of his powers). Thor and Superman sort-of were, but their powers are normal for what they are. Green Arrow and Iron Man were born "very rich", but it's not (always) clear that they were born with any particular superpowers. IIRC, She-Hulk wasn't born with powers. Neither was Luke Cage. Daredevil and Iron Fist are both trained (at least in the MCU). MCU Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are both the result of experimentation. Black Panther is born a prince, but he trains and takes some kind of super serum.

There are at least three perfectly acceptable superhero origin stories that don't rely on you being the chosen one. You can have some super science done to you (The Hulk), you can be trained by people to get some superpowers (Dr. Strange), or you can be "very rich" and use your wealth to buy crime fighting gadgets (Batman). Sometimes people have more than one source of powers (for example, Wolverine was born with superpowers, and then subsequently had some additional super science done to him), but it is definitely possible to be a superhero by virtue of stuff other than birth.

Second, even if you are born with superpowers, that doesn't mean you have to go fight crime. Presumably Wolverine could get a job as a bank teller, but if he did he wouldn't have interesting adventures to follow, so we never get to hear about the Mutants or Inhumans or Kryptonians who spend their time working at McDonalds or climbing the tenure track at Gotham U.

My hand is remaining down.

The question was "do you think we are arguing about racism in games" not "do you think there is racism in games"/

I'm not even sure where this notion of "racism" as supposedly inherent in different fictional species being different is coming from, other than fantasy gaming's blinkered insistence on using "race" as a misnomer for "species".

As people have pointed out, having your evil elves also be your darkskinned elves is not okay.

But there's also the thing where subraces have different abilities because they are "Wood Elves" or "High Elves", which is pretty much exactly the thing racist talk about when they say that black people are predisposed to crime.

Well, I guess I do know where it's coming from... the even more blinkered insistence that non-human but intelligent/sapient/sentient species in speculative fiction always and only exist as allegory, and cannot be just an exercise in worldbuilding and/or fostering a sense of wonder.

You think "foster a sense of wonder" isn't a message? Do you think Star Trek has a message?

Which probably tells us more about them, than it does about the text or the author.

And yet, your insistence that we not read anything negative into the games you like says nothing about you.

So no, some fantasy races being always evil does not indicate outright racism on the author's part, but it does indicate lack of foresight of the message certain kinds of people might infer from their work.

Exactly this. Your work doesn't exist in a vacuum. The things you say send a message, and you are responsible for considering that message. To be absolutely clear, I'm not saying you necessarily shouldn't right something because of how it might be received, or refuse to read it because of its content. But you also shouldn't ignore the things it implies, and when people say "hey, I think this is offensive", you should consider that their feelings might be legitimate rather than impugning their motives.

Drow aren't evil because of the color of their skin, though -- they're evil because of their culture. It's a demonstrably evil culture. (No, culture and race are not inherently linked, and yes, a culture can be evil.)

And the fact that there is a single Drow Culture for the Drow Race isn't a racist sentiment propping up exactly that idea?

I think I, at least, would be a lot more comfortable if the setup was that you had one race of elves, and some of those elves were evil and called themselves Drow and others were not evil and called themselves something else. In the same way that there is one human race, and it contains individual cultures. The root problem is the whole "subraces" thing, which is pretty much a direct analogy to race in the real world.

With all these quality goods and gold lying all over the place especially the forest , you would think DND land suffers from a constant economic crisis

Uh, it totally does? D&Dland is a medieval economy, and those are functionally in an economic crisis all the time. Add to that the fact that there are manticores and crap running around and eating people, and periodic apocalypses, and dragons taking huge chunks of currency out of the economy "for no reason", and you have a recipe for an economy that is screwed up beyond belief.

[Bohandas]

Why not just describe your drow as dark blue or violet

[Deepbluediver]

First, there are definitely some you're missing. Captain American wasn't born into his powers (unless you consider "is a really good person" one of his powers). Thor and Superman sort-of were, but their powers are normal for what they are. Green Arrow and Iron Man were born "very rich", but it's not (always) clear that they were born with any particular superpowers. IIRC, She-Hulk wasn't born with powers. Neither was Luke Cage. Daredevil and Iron Fist are both trained (at least in the MCU). MCU Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are both the result of experimentation. Black Panther is born a prince, but he trains and takes some kind of super serum.

There are at least three perfectly acceptable superhero origin stories that don't rely on you being the chosen one. You can have some super science done to you (The Hulk), you can be trained by people to get some superpowers (Dr. Strange), or you can be "very rich" and use your wealth to buy crime fighting gadgets (Batman). Sometimes people have more than one source of powers (for example, Wolverine was born with superpowers, and then subsequently had some additional super science done to him), but it is definitely possible to be a superhero by virtue of stuff other than birth.

Second, even if you are born with superpowers, that doesn't mean you have to go fight crime. Presumably Wolverine could get a job as a bank teller, but if he did he wouldn't have interesting adventures to follow, so we never get to hear about the Mutants or Inhumans or Kryptonians who spend their time working at McDonalds or climbing the tenure track at Gotham U.

Fine, there are more comic-book heroes with non birth-related origins than I had admitted to. But some of the stuff you pointed out still counts, I think. Superman and Thor might be "normal for their kind", but they aren't living with their kind, they're living on Earth where everyone else is lesser than them. Plus- the "accident of science" origin, while perfectly common for heroes and villains, is almost as bad IMO. Bruce and Barry weren't TRYING to become the Hulk and the Flash, it just sorta happened, and then they ran with it (pun definitely intended).
And being born rich truly is the best superpower.
Ok yes, some writers have Tony and Bruce (the other Bruce, that is) be some sort of genius business-gurus who drastically increase their fortunes, but neither one was exactly born into poverty. Or even born into a working-class family.

And who gets the most movies? Not Hawkeye, that's for certain. Thor has gotten about 3 now, I think? And Iron Man has 3 or 4- maybe we'll split the Civil War movie half-and-half between chrome-dome and Cap.
Anyway, as I admitted in my original post- the point here is not that you can't make a good story with this trope, it's that I feel it's being overused. Wasn't that the original question from the thread- what tropes annoy you?

[Cosi]

Why not just describe your drow as dark blue or violet

"You could do Y thing and have it not be racist" doesn't really resolve the question "is X thing racist". Yes, it would probably be less offensive if Drow were some color that humans aren't. But they aren't that way, so the fact that them being that way would change things is kind of irrelevant.

[Bohandas]

"You could do Y thing and have it not be racist" doesn't really resolve the question "is X thing racist". Yes, it would probably be less offensive if Drow were some color that humans aren't. But they aren't that way, so the fact that them being that way would change things is kind of irrelevant.

I'm almost certain I've seen some illustrations in official books depict them as dark violet. If correct makes it semi-canon even if the actual text of the books never deacribes them as such

[Bohandas]

There are at least three perfectly acceptable superhero origin stories that don't rely on you being the chosen one. You can have some super science done to you (The Hulk), you can be trained by people to get some superpowers (Dr. Strange), or you can be "very rich" and use your wealth to buy crime fighting gadgets (Batman). Sometimes people have more than one source of powers (for example, Wolverine was born with superpowers, and then subsequently had some additional super science done to him), but it is definitely possible to be a superhero by virtue of stuff other than birth.

You can also strike a deal with a supernatural entity. Ghost Rider sold his soul to the devil, The Bowler works with the ghost of her dead father, and Captain Marvel/Shazam II got his powers from the first Shazam

[King of Nowhere]

Evil races are only the most visible part of it, though. It is common in fantasy that people or creatures become stereotyped for no real reasons.
Take, for example, dragons. Dragons hoard gold and gems, everybody knows it. Yes, but why? They have absolutely no use for them. Or did you ever saw a dragon go to the market and buy something. And yet they'll risk their lives on a regular base to hoard more (because the hoard makes them target for adventurers, if nothing else). Why? Are all dragons under a sort of compulsion to be total moron? Standard explanation is that they are arrogant, but that explains nothing. Still, for all their being smarter than genius level humans, they can't help but act like morons. If they were just arrogant and showy I'd at least expect them to find different individual ways to do it.

In my campaign world I stated that dragons need a strong magic field just like plants need sunlight, and the older they grow, the stronger they need the field. And gold, gems and magic items are great at creating a stronger local field. Starting from adult, a dragon without loot will wither and die. This gives a good explanation of why they need to hoard treasure, and it also explains how creatures that big can fly with relatively small wings and move so fast despite all that armor: they need to absorb magic from the environment to do it, and if they don't get enough magic, they die. My players liked the rationale.

[Honest Tiefling]

You are right that where it gets stickier is when we get later stuff about the gods marking the drow with dark skin... maybe it's just not worth the confusion regardless of one's motive in making that creative decision.

Personally, I think the black skin was just to look cool. It's not really a skin color that many humans possess (Actual black, not dark brown) so I don't think there was a racist intent. However, I believe something can be an incredibly bad idea without it being intentional. Of course, switching the skin tones is also problematic, because then you run into the Evil Albino trope.

However, the Norse body of myth is pretty racist. When you have Heimdall picking out who gets to be on top due to hair/skin color, maybe, just maybe, it wasn't the brightest idea to import things willy-nilly. Also, it's not entirely clear they are black-skinned, as opposed to black-haired, being of darker skin, or just living in a really dark place. Or dwarves.

[Tinkerer]

I'm almost certain I've seen some illustrations in official books depict them as dark violet. If correct makes it semi-canon even if the actual text of the books never deacribes them as such

Well now they've gone and Jynx'd it ... Although Jynx actually wasn't racist but an unfortunate consequence of basing a character off of a legend of a mythological creature with severe frostbite and hyper sexualization.

Evil races are only the most visible part of it, though. It is common in fantasy that people or creatures become stereotyped for no real reasons.
Take, for example, dragons. Dragons hoard gold and gems, everybody knows it. Yes, but why? They have absolutely no use for them. Or did you ever saw a dragon go to the market and buy something. And yet they'll risk their lives on a regular base to hoard more (because the hoard makes them target for adventurers, if nothing else). Why? Are all dragons under a sort of compulsion to be total moron? Standard explanation is that they are arrogant, but that explains nothing. Still, for all their being smarter than genius level humans, they can't help but act like morons. If they were just arrogant and showy I'd at least expect them to find different individual ways to do it.

In my campaign world I stated that dragons need a strong magic field just like plants need sunlight, and the older they grow, the stronger they need the field. And gold, gems and magic items are great at creating a stronger local field. Starting from adult, a dragon without loot will wither and die. This gives a good explanation of why they need to hoard treasure, and it also explains how creatures that big can fly with relatively small wings and move so fast despite all that armor: they need to absorb magic from the environment to do it, and if they don't get enough magic, they die. My players liked the rationale.

That is actually canon from 2nd edition. A dragon requires a horde in order to grow more powerful although they wont actually die without one they will grow exceedingly weak.

[Deepbluediver]

In my campaign world I stated that dragons need a strong magic field just like plants need sunlight, and the older they grow, the stronger they need the field. And gold, gems and magic items are great at creating a stronger local field. Starting from adult, a dragon without loot will wither and die. This gives a good explanation of why they need to hoard treasure, and it also explains how creatures that big can fly with relatively small wings and move so fast despite all that armor: they need to absorb magic from the environment to do it, and if they don't get enough magic, they die. My players liked the rationale.

I like that rationale, too. Is there any chance in your world a dragon might settle down underneath a Wizard-school or anything like that, where all the loose magic flying around also pumps up the ambient levels?

[pwykersotz]

Personally, I think the black skin was just to look cool. It's not really a skin color that many humans possess (Actual black, not dark brown) so I don't think there was a racist intent. However, I believe something can be an incredibly bad idea without it being intentional. Of course, switching the skin tones is also problematic, because then you run into the Evil Albino trope.

If I recall correctly, it's because they are literal negative images of the elves who fell. It has nothing to do with skin color, and everything to do with reversal of color palette, no matter the original color. But based on the culture descriptions Gygax lifted the elves from, dark-skinned drow became the norm. Which makes this argument one of the silliest I've seen in a while.

[Deepbluediver]

If I recall correctly, it's because they are literal negative images of the elves who fell. It has nothing to do with skin color, and everything to do with reversal of color palette, no matter the original color.

So does that mean they have black teeth, too?

But based on the culture descriptions Gygax lifted the elves from, dark-skinned drow became the norm. Which makes this argument one of the silliest I've seen in a while.

Was the original description that they had "black" skin, or just something more ambiguous like "dark" skin? Prior to globalization, some European skin tones where described by other Europeans as "dark", even though today we think of them all as "white", because everything is relative.

One of my favorite fantasy novels has evil elves (they aren't called Drow, but it's plain that's what they are an expy of, just like the Hobbit/Halfling thing) but it never specifically says what color skin they have. The description of them is that they are very similar to elves, with grace and beauty and melodious voices, but since they are a perversion they exude a sense of wrongness, kind of like how the good elves exude tranquility.

[Bohandas]

So does that mean they have black teeth, too?

That's an awesome idea

[Bohandas]

Of course the real problem with the drow is that they're hackneyed and boring

[Lemmy]

"You could do Y thing and have it not be racist" doesn't really resolve the question "is X thing racist". Yes, it would probably be less offensive if Drow were some color that humans aren't. But they aren't that way, so the fact that them being that way would change things is kind of irrelevant.

It's not racist. And drow ARE a different color from humans. Black people are grey. Or purple. Or actually black. Just like white people aren't actually white. It's pretty much a variety of shades of beige and brown.

[Lemmy]

Anyway, here's a trope that I don't exactly hate, but I'm tired of seeing everywhere... It got old a while ago for me.

Evil Race/Entity that assimilates you: Be it the body-snatchers, borgs, vords... Whatever. It's an easy way to make your enemy scary and create that "anyone could be an enemy" atmosphere... But I'm just so tired of it...

[Honest Tiefling]

It's not racist. And drow ARE a different color from humans. Black people are grey. Or purple. Or actually black. Just like white people aren't actually white. It's pretty much a variety of shades of beige and brown.

Google Queen of the Dark. She's a Sudanese model with a skin tone that's actually really close to black.

Through I'm liking the grey idea, could be multiple shades of grey, even. Most art of Drow tends to go to grey tones anyway, might as well roll with it.

[Segev]

Think about nearly ever recent pop-culture phenomenon- Harry Potter was "the boy who lived", who survived the killing curse as a baby and was targeted because of a prophecy/stable time-loop. The X-Men and Marvel superheroes are 99% born into their powers (with the exception of Cyborg, Hawkeye, and Black Widow). Naruto had the demon-fox sealed inside him as an infant. Natsu was trained by a dragon. Steven is a human/gem hybrid. etc etc etc

I have a lot more patience for plots of this nature like these, at least, where the "destined from birth" element is because of something DONE to make them so, rather than a random, "Oh, the stars say that Bob the Bestest will be born in 1111 years and 11 days on the 11th hour's 11th minute, and he will be the Bestest."

Even better, though, are the prophecies which are conditionals whereby the prophecied one chooses himself. In Supernatural, the first seal is broken by a particular action which somebody must meet certain alignment criteria to perform, and the prophesied "Chosen One" who can save the day is the one who breaks the first seal.

It isn't, "Bob the Bestest was born, as foretold in prophecy," but rather, "By doing this thing, you have marked yourself as the Chosen One." Arguably, the act of revealing oneself as Chosen is also what makes one qualified to be the one to solve the problem. At that point, it is about what you've done.

Through I'm liking the grey idea, could be multiple shades of grey, even. Most art of Drow tends to go to grey tones anyway, might as well roll with it.

Drow I've seen always have either the undertone of gray or purple for their black skin.

[BRC]

I have a lot more patience for plots of this nature like these, at least, where the "destined from birth" element is because of something DONE to make them so, rather than a random, "Oh, the stars say that Bob the Bestest will be born in 1111 years and 11 days on the 11th hour's 11th minute, and he will be the Bestest."

Even better, though, are the prophecies which are conditionals whereby the prophecied one chooses himself. In Supernatural, the first seal is broken by a particular action which somebody must meet certain alignment criteria to perform, and the prophesied "Chosen One" who can save the day is the one who breaks the first seal.

It isn't, "Bob the Bestest was born, as foretold in prophecy," but rather, "By doing this thing, you have marked yourself as the Chosen One." Arguably, the act of revealing oneself as Chosen is also what makes one qualified to be the one to solve the problem. At that point, it is about what you've done.

What are your thoughts on Deliberately Fulfilled Prophecies, somebody "Destined from Birth" because their birth/upbringing was arranged to fulfill the prophecy.

Like "The Champion will be born in 233 years", so 233 years later the ancient society kidnaps/adopts a hearty looking newborn and raises them to fulfill The Prophecy?

[Astofel]

Drow aren't evil because of the color of their skin, though -- they're evil because of their culture. It's a demonstrably evil culture. (No, culture and race are not inherently linked, and yes, a culture can be evil.)

And that doesn't even touch on the (already mentioned) examples such as mind flayers, who must do evil to survive.

I'm fully aware that drow aren't evil because of their skin colour. But the fact is that the only black-skinned elves are drow, and all drow come from an evil culture, so if you see a black-skinned elf, you know that it is evil. Their skin being specifically black isn't even particularly important to my point. I could make exactly the same argument using an orc, or a goblin, or any other always evil race. That point being that you can immediately tell that someone is intrinsically evil because of how they look in a fantasy world, so prejudice towards those people is justified. The whole 'justified fantasy racism' uses the same thought process as real-life racists, and reinforces and normalizes those beliefs.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm fully aware that drow aren't evil because of their skin colour. But the fact is that the only black-skinned elves are drow, and all drow come from an evil culture, so if you see a black-skinned elf, you know that it is evil. Their skin being specifically black isn't even particularly important to my point. I could make exactly the same argument using an orc, or a goblin, or any other always evil race. That point being that you can immediately tell that someone is intrinsically evil because of how they look in a fantasy world, so prejudice towards those people is justified. The whole 'justified fantasy racism' uses the same thought process as real-life racists, and reinforces and normalizes those beliefs.

How?

If orcish culture is aggressive and brutal and merciless and based on dominance by might and intimidation, and every orc people meet behaves in this manner because that's what their culture teaches them to be like, how is racial prejudice for people who've only ever seen orcs behave that way to worry that members of the orcish species to behave that way when they encounter them in the future?

And if a reader is stupid enough to confuse those three different things and take some sort of racist inference out of that fiction, then there's no helping them.

[Blackhawk748]

How?

If orcish culture is aggressive and brutal and merciless and based on dominance by might and intimidation, and every orc people meet behaves in this manner because that's what their culture teaches them to be like, how is racial prejudice for people who've only ever seen orcs behave that way to worry that members of the orcish species to behave that way when they encounter them in the future?

And if a reader is stupid enough to confuse those three different things and take some sort of racist inference out of that fiction, then there's no helping them.

It also makes sense with the One Culture thing, especially because these species where made, quite directly, by Gods who actually interacted with them. Thats why all Orcs have more or less the same culture, cuz thats what Gruumsh told them to do.

Now if that bit is missing, then its just writer laziness.

[Max_Killjoy]

It also makes sense with the One Culture thing, especially because these species where made, quite directly, by Gods who actually interacted with them. Thats why all Orcs have more or less the same culture, cuz thats what Gruumsh told them to do.

Now if that bit is missing, then its just writer laziness.

You're right -- the "One Culture" thing is potentially a big problem, but it's a separate problem.

In a fantasy setting, the scale can be such that the characters and the NPCs they interact with have only ever encountered that one orcish culture -- one out of many that exist across the broader world.

I think some modern criticism here is (ironically) couched in an unconscious expectation of far-reaching travel, wide awareness, and cosmopolitan multiculturalism.

[Astofel]

How?

If orcish culture is aggressive and brutal and merciless and based on dominance by might and intimidation, and every orc people meet behaves in this manner because that's what their culture teaches them to be like, how is racial prejudice for people who've only ever seen orcs behave that way to worry that members of the orcish species to behave that way when they encounter them in the future?

And if a reader is stupid enough to confuse those three different things and take some sort of racist inference out of that fiction, then there's no helping them.

Whether you call it specifically racial prejudice or not the fact remains that in fantasy you can safely assume that any given drow/orc/goblin is evil and wants to kill you. In the context of that fantasy universe that would be completely justified. And therein lies the problem. Like I said, most people won't suddenly become racists just because they read a book where orcs are always evil. What happens is that people who are already racist read those books and see the way they think reflected in that fantasy world. It doesn't make them consciously think 'Racism is justified here, therefore I too am justified in my bigotry', it's more that seeing other people use the same logic they do subconsciously influences them to believing that their way of thinking is the norm, that it is the correct way of thinking.

It's similar to how prominent real-world figures can spout all kinds of racist and otherwise bigoted garbage, and people who share those beliefs will be emboldened in them and come creeping out of the woodwork.