An enslaved monkey race that rose up to fling off the chains of their evil Wizard master.. I am paraphrasing, but not by much. Slave race of monkey-like humanoids. That never should have made it past the editor in this day an age.
I don’t know of a monkey-like humanoids in the real world. Humans look very much different from monkeys, esp from the ones in the illustrations. That is really a long shot.
I really don’t follow this, on a similar absurd reasoning one could claim elves in lotr are racist because the have light skin.
It’s just a story set in a fantasy world. If you mean to it’s always possible to twist anything into being offensive.
Didn't stop generations of racists from making offensive comparisons. Doesn't stop them from continuing to do so.
Racism's value system doesn't care about rationality or truth.
> On a similar absurd reasoning one could claim elves in lotr are racist because the have light skin.
Amusingly enough, Tolkien did in fact hold racist beliefs, despite his fervent opposition to the Nazis during WWII. Both of those things can be and are true. His elves are very explicitly Old Norse expys (read his letters if you don't believe me) and his constant fawning over them (as pale, beautiful, skilled, and wise) in contrast to orcs (as dark-skinned, ugly, brutish, and enslaved) was criticized then and is still criticized now.
> If you mean to it's always possible to twist anything into being offensive.
It is justified to take offense at something that is, in fact, offensive.
I agree he seems to me to have held racist beliefs, I mean the orcs and the goblins.
However, I think the elves were straight up alfar with their leaders (Gandalf, Elrond, Celbrimbor, Galadriel, the wood elf king - I never remember his name) drawn from the vanir.
I think the Rohirrim were Anglo-Saxon expys though, and I think the Hobbits were English expys. I also think Tolkien put more than a little of himself in both Theoden and Bilbo. Theoden says 'A lesser son of great sires am I'. Also, the relationship between Bilbo (who stays home, too old to fight the war against Mordor) and Frodo (the young effectively son who goes to fight the evil in foreign dark lands) a parallel to him and Christopher Tolkien.
Place names, language, all of that is evocative of Anglo-Saxons (the early vikings, later they came from Sweden and Denmark), except horses.
Wikipedia says "Tolkien grounded Rohan in elements inspired by Anglo-Saxon tradition, poetry, and linguistics, specifically in its Mercian dialect, in everything but its use of horses. Tolkien used Old English for the kingdom's language and names, pretending that this was in translation of Rohirric. Meduseld, the hall of King Théoden, is modelled on Heorot, the great hall in Beowulf." (available under CC-AS)
Wait, that says nothing of vikings...
But, "The name "Anglo Saxon" refers to the Germanic people who invaded and occupied West England from c. 500-1066 AD. These people arrived first from Saxony (NW Germany) and later (800-1066) from Sweden and Denmark. We refer to these last groups as "Vikings", and this is where Beowulf originates and takes place." - from 'Intro to Beowulf' (https://webpages.uidaho.edu/engl257/Anglo%20Saxon/intro_to_b...)
To be fair, some authors lump Anglo-Saxons in with Vikings, some keep them distinct.
Nothing is racist about inventing a fantasy race in a fantasy world. One of the reasons we have fantasy and science fiction is it allows us to discuss difficult real world topics in a setting that hopefully avoids the real world biases.
I think what people find racist about this situation is that the scenario is obviously mirroring black slavery (fine, it still needs to be discussed), and that the race the authors chose to stand in for blacks are a racial caricature of blacks (monkeys, real world racist dehumanization as used by real world white supremacists and real world history, generally considered sub-human). End result is you get to discuss slavery and racism of sub-humans, which probably isn't what the creators intended, but the sort of thing we got wrong in the 90s. And probably should be fixed in updates like this if you want to keep your IP and franchise alive and not join the masses of media that 'hasn't aged well'.
If you could replace the fantasy race with a real-world race and not have to change any other thing, it's probably never going to be received well by modern society.
With one notable exception: if it's merely the starting point of a campaign to enact major change (perhaps also if used as a vehicle to display how bad the system really is).
Do a quick google search for LOTR and racism, and you'll find for yourself that the line isn't quite so clear.
That said, I"m fairly sure you'd have to change a number of things to make "goblins/orcs" match up with real world Germans (such as the cannibalism) But it's been some years since I read LOTR.
I don't know how I feel about that analysis. Just because something is inspired by historic events (slavery in this case), doesn't mean it's advocating those events as good.
Is it dark? Yes, and I think it's meant to be.
If anything, I think it's actually great that they're doing this because I believe RPG games are a great and safe mediums to acquaint people with these difficult subjects. I can't be the only person with this opinion?
Are people calling Marvel racists or anti-Semitic because Hydra was inspires by some parts of the Nazi military being obsessed with the supernatural?
I think calling these racists (or xist) is a failure of imagination; kinda weird to see it come from the RPG community, too
The tone of the spelljammer setting is not dark. It is more marketed towards kids in its latest iteration.
I think people just don't want to deal with slavery and race bullshit in their fantasy setting, which I understand.
So it's just annoying and tone deaf and doesn't add anything, plus the fact they are simian and transported on tall ships and auctioned off as slaves.
If you can't see why someone would would say "wow, a slave monkey race transported on ships. That sucks." Then you aren't arguing in good faith. It is not that much of a stretch to see it as a little demeaning.
Depictions od people of color as animalistic is undeniably a thing people used to do to be demeaning to them.
So I would argue you are having a failing of imagination.
Lol I think you spend too much time reading social media...
I honestly doubt someone wrote this because they want to degraded black people using a far fetched analogy. It feels to me like a small group of people really wants this to be perceived as racist for some reason.
Like, don't get me wrong. I'm familiar with racist rednecks calling black people "monkeys," but I see no reason we need to give so much power to some small part of American culture and let it transfer into a fantasy world. What's infuriating is that those racist reprobates are probably not even aware of this situation, and we gave them so much influence.
Anyway, I wanted to write a more extensive reply initially, but then I felt like you've probably already painted me as a witch/heretic/racist in your head, and don't care about what I have to say. So, let's just agree to disagree and move on with our lives.
The analogy itself is the problem. If I wanted to assign a racism value to the creation of a fantasy race with certain characteristics and the resulting analogy by some to black people in this instance, the analogy would always have a higher racism value.
But, I don't think the analogy to black slavery is meant to be there. It seems to me that some people just want (or need) it to be there.
Also, at the risk of being painted a heretic/racists/whatever. I'm not sure why the focus is so much on just black slavery; is it because it was most recent, or is it because of the current zeitgeist? Is it an American thing? Is it the "monkey" part and because some racist rednecks call black people monkeys? I find it mortifying we're giving those people so much influence over a fantasy world they're probably not even aware of.
outsourcing personal opinions wholesale to articles that others have written, without being able to reformulate/articulate said opinions in your own words, does not make for an especially compelling argument.
I don't care what WotC thinks, I don't care what Polygon writers think, and I don't care to argue about something as volatile yet useless as drawing comparisons between real-world races and fantasy races, because I also think that's all really, really stupid and tiring, and being offended on the behalf of others is not a very productive use of my time.