Racism in fantasy

[avram]

One topic that pops up occasionally among fans of fantasy novels and role-playing games is the question of whether the treatment of the various fantasy races — elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. — is racist. I think it generally is, though it’s not the serious, toxic racism of The Turner Diaries. It’s a more dilute racism, introduced for fictional convenience.

One common form of racism is the belief that a person’s character is determined by his ethnicity. This is a boon to writers of adventure fiction. If you and your audience share the same notions of what character traits go with what ethnicities, then all you have to do is give a character an ethnic name and maybe a spot of funny accent or touch of description and your audience will know to assume that he’s crafty or stubborn or greedy or lazy or whatever.

That sort of thing is deservedly frowned upon nowadays, but it’s common in fantasy and science-fiction. Greedy dwarves, logical Vulcans, belligerent orcs, inscrutable elves, all tropes straight out of pulp adventure fiction. Why else do you think we so often refer to “alien races” when they are more properly alien species?

I was reminded of this while reading CS Lewis’s review of Lord of the Rings in On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature (which I borrowed, along with Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories, from Beth, who’s a big Lewis fan). He says:

Much that in a realistic work would be done by ‘character deliniation’ is here done simply by making the character an elf, a dwarf, or a hobbit. The imagined beings have their insides on the outside; they are visible souls.

Confirmation of what I’ve long believed.

I’m not claiming that Tolkien was a racist (though the thread running through LotR, the belief that nobility of character runs in bloodlines, is one that bothers me whenever I try to reread the series), or that modern fantasy authors are racists (though some of them might be), just that the common habit of assigning personality by “race” is a lazy one, and the descendent of a racist worldview, and something that an author might look towards trying to transcend if he wants to create a work of lasting quality (or even just of attention-getting novelty).

Comments

[batyatoon]

It's not strictly a function of race, in fantasy. Authors will often use nationality the same way.

The only one to come to mind right now is David Eddings: Tolnedrans are money-hungry, Chereks are big hearty gruff bearded types, Drasnians are sneaky and clever, Murgos are violent, Arends are courtly and not too bright.
Robert Jordan is guilty of the same sort of shorthand, if not quite as blatantly.

[avram]

So that’s the old, traditional racist habit just imported into the new habitat unchanged.

[camwyn]

Except that it's been reinforced, because a significant portion of the racial 'personality' of each ethnic group in Eddings is reinforced by that group's deity. The Chereks are the Alorns closest in nature to their God - Belar's all down with the big hearty blustery bearded stompage, but the other Alorns have different national personalities. Tolnedrans, on the other hand, have a secularist God who's into money in a big way, and the Nyissans have a dozy serpent God who doesn't notice that half his nation is stoned off its collective ass. The old traditional racist habit is thus reinforced by old beliefs about other ethnic groups' religions.

It's even worse in the whatsitcalled, the Elenium books. "Look! Fanatical desert religious people! They have sharp swords and are dangerous, but are quite stupid and easily misled by religious leaders! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

It's also a descendant of a literary cliche: The idea that physical ugliness is a reflection of moral corruption. (Lewis seems to be alluding to this.)

[volund.livejournal.com]

Although I cut my teeth on Tolkien, I've long been aware of the racist/noble bloodline thread running through LoTR.

And it isn't just the different "humanoid" races --- elves, orcs, etc. It finds play in the descriptions of the different nations of Men (which is probably more bothersome, on reflection).

There is a consistent identification of dark and swarthy with capacity for evil (although when you check out The Silmarillion you do find evil in characters of "fair and noble hue"). Pale and pasty also works for the bad guys, as well.

Orcs tend to be swarthy (unless they're pale and pasty), etc.

The Rohirrim are fair, blond, blue-eyed; their implacable foes the Dunlendings are, by contrast, darker and darkhaired. Descriptions of the Easterlings suggest a darker-complexioned folk, some possibly resembling Mongols. At least some of the Haradrim are clearly described as black-skinned.

On the other hand, there are a couple of fantasy authors who've stood this bothersome trope on its head, possibly deliberately:
LeGuin, in the Earthsea books (Ged is dark-skinned, but very little is made of it, it's simply part of his physical description; the people of the Kargads, who were often at odds with the other peoples of Earthsea, are a light-skinned nation).
Joy Chant, in Red Moon & Black Mountain and The Grey Mane of Morning (the Kelanat or Kalnat, a tall, blond people, start off on the wrong side in the first and are the oppressive exploiters of the Khentorei in the other).

In Chant's case, given that she's British and was born at the close of WWII, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the way she wrote the Kelenat was a deliberate "fuck-you" to the racist Nazi/Aryan "ideal" ...

[redbird]

Also, huge numbers of writers--and not just sf and fantasy writers--assign personality by gender, a fictional convenience they may not even be conscious of.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

In many ways, it's authorial laziness (although I'm not sure that's the right word...it's HARD coming up with a character).

It's also not much different than many people do in the real world. Not necessarily right, but not necessarily racist either.