Racial Stereotyping In Fantasy: Is It Justified?

[Wyrmhero he/him]

Now, before I get into things here, it should be noted that I am asking this question divorced from the idea of racism. Racism is never acceptable in our modern society, even though some more ignorant people think it still should be or that it's justified. It's a dying set of outdated beliefs held by dinosaurs from a less enlightened time (not actual dinosaurs. Racist dinosaurs would be weird). Now that that's out of the way, let's have a proper discussion

 

So this question stemmed from something I was talking to my father about recently. Lately it's become illegal to offer cheaper car insurance to women in the UK, despite the fact that women provably less accidents on average than men do. This law was passed because the disparity in insurance prices was declared as sexist towards men. However, as I said, there was evidence to prove that this was true and not just prejudice towards male drivers. So at what point do we say that something is prejudice despite (or because of) proof?

 

This lead me onto thinking about fantasy, and the subtle but almost omnipresent racial stereotyping and discrimination within - Elves are aloof and vain, dwarfs are greedy and usually drunk, orcs are vicious and primitive, etc.

 

But the question here is how much of this is a social construct within fantasy, and how much of it makes sense? Now, in the case of dwarfs particularly, this stems all the way back to Norse Mythology, in which almost all dwarfs/dark elves (depending on where you look, the two can be one and the same) displayed these traits. So does this justify the blanketing of a race with a trait for the sake of being true to the source material?

 

Are orcs provably more violent than other races within the same fantasy novel, or is this due to their upbringing rather than genetics or what have you? Is it even possible to prove such a thing in most fantasy like this, considering things such as biological makeup doesn't enter into most stories? How far does the social aspect justify making them like this?

 

For that matter, is it possible to have a fantasy race without them all being stereotyped in some way? What makes a race different from one-another in terms of fantasy novels? If you did not homogonise all elves into being magical and graceful but arrogant, would the physical differences (usually height and ears) be enough to say that they are a separate race?
 

Sanderson is actually a good example of justifying the stereotyping - Skaa are shorter, poorer and weaker because of a lower diet because of their place in society. Koloss are violent because they started off as destructive constructs and then it became a holdover from that time later on in Alloy of Law. Even Parshmen, which I was informed he was criticised for (solely due to them having black skin and thus being an apparent fantasy version of black people, which is beyond ridiculous reasoning) have their reasons for being so docile and slow-minded.

 

Prachett's novels contain a lot of racial tension in them - mostly between trolls and dwarfs, but also with undead, and lately orcs and goblins. However, with regards to most of this, he plays with these ideas, since the Discworld novels are a deconstruction of the fantasy genre. There are many examples of people not confirming to their racial archetypes. But for those of you who have read Snuff, is dropping the moral anvil in that manner too much, considering the audience?

 

As I say, this discussion is solely for dealing with the fantasy idea of races. Nothing to do with real life other than being inspired by a conversation in it and comparing to original myths. So what do people think on this? Do fantasy novels in which there are multiple races justify stereotyping like this, even when there are no reasons? Or should novels do more to try and combat this quiet discrimination below the surface?

Edited August 27, 2014 by Wyrmhero

[Voidus]

 

 

 (not actual dinosaurs. Racist dinosaurs would be weird)

I'll have to ask Kobold and Lightwards about it

As for the rest I often think there's a problem with the stereotyping but my issue is usually more that I wish they'd mix it up a bit more, what I wouldn't give to see a group of drunk elves. On the topic of eliminating the stereotypes altogether I'm not sure how that would work, I do think that to an extent it serves a purpose, WoT springs immediately to mind, it saves time in description if you can just say that a woman is Domani and the readers all know that means willowy, graceful with clinging dresses and acts seductively. I see it as mostly being a social construct as not entirely understanding each others' social cues, here on earth we do tend to have ideas that for example Japanese culture is much more respectful, French culture is all about base pleasures, rich food and wine, and so on. This causes some people to (Inaccurately) ascribe personality traits to entire cultures, French are snooty and arrogant, Japanese can be harsh and orderly, Germans are efficient, and so on.

Hope this long rambling has made at least some modicum of sense.

[Kasimir he/him]

Oi, King, I see OOC-blue is creeping out of the Sanderson Elimination forums, too.

 

Hmm. The first thing I'd really like to get clear on is what we mean here by 'justification.' Do we mean to say that there is an in-universe basis, 'proof', as it were, for a rational agent to say 'All koloss are violent'? Are we looking at moral justification for doing so? Are we, in fact, considering if the stereotyping of fantasy races makes the author responsible a lazy author? A bad (in what sense, again? Aesthetically? Ethically?) author?

 

The prejudice and proof boundaries, IRL, are rather thin. An interesting exemplar of this problem, if highly controversial, is in examining the history of eugenics. I'll leave it at that, because it's a very thorny issue, and not one I'm prepared to tackle at the moment. How we should consider those and how we draw a principled boundary between them and if 'proof' even exists or if there is even such a thing as non-perspectival, neutral, non-prejudiced "objective" fact is another cluster of nightmares, and probably 2 and 3/4s of dissertations in critical theory, feminist theory, and the philosophy of science, so I'm not going there

 

Is there a basis (proof, as you've said) for the way races have been typecast in fantasy? Perhaps, depending on your views of how genic* determinism works. I personally regard it as an interplay between the social and perhaps with an underlying biological basis, in many cases. You've brought up the example of races in the Cosmere, but another case I have in mind would be the Eddings in the Belgariad. The Arendians are bull-headed, rash, and not exactly the sharpest pencils in the box. The Tolnedrans are short and money-obsessed. The Drasnians just can't stop bargaining. Again, the idea of social construction at this point lends itself to nuances. In a society where money is divinely valued, can we expect a wide display of behaviour where money becomes the greatest good in that society? Perhaps. Members of that race could easily be socialised into such behaviour.

 

The thing about typecasting races in fantasy is that it does give a strong idea of what to expect, from which deviation can be expected. It tells the reader about the country, from the perspective of the narrator (*note inherent problem with god's eye perspective here) in a way that can be tracked. I don't want to say it is impossible, but I think it is realistically going to be rather challenging to give the reader a three-dimensional view of the race that lives halfway across the world, and members of whom only appear as minor characters or as background within the book. More importantly, I think one benefit is that it reveals some of the epistemic limits of your viewpoint characters. A character who thinks the Race That Lives Halfway Across The World are primitives who commit blood sacrifices (when, perhaps, members of that race have amazing medical advances) is one whom we know is epistemically limited, and probably has one or two empathy (? Maybe not the right term) issues to boot. Cultures/races don't always know everything, and they can sometimes tend to tar things they don't recognise. That itself can be interesting to toy with.

 

The more important question: can we do without it? Perhaps. Some ways to hint at a unitary race (I admit I've been playing fast and loose with whether we mean race in terms of ethnicity or race as in an entirely new culture; I'd also note fantasy sometimes says race when we probably mean species) could be less in terms of physical appearance but appealing to geographic boundaries and a shared culture. Perhaps the calling sign of the People of the Hawk (a Mongol import that I've just randomly come up with so it's not very good) might not be the fact that they are short, bow-legged and have slanted eyes, but the fact that they revere horses and love drinking powdered tea. That is, at least, enough to separate them as a culture. As a species? Hoo boy. What makes a species? You have issues of fertile cross-breeding, questions of descent...our species system is in itself the subject of major dispute. I don't think fantasy is going to have an easy time sorting it out.

 

Still, your concern might be right, I feel, in that fantasy is most likely to use morphology to distinguish races in the sense of species. If it has horns, is generally bulkier than a person, looks half-bull, it's a minotaur. What might there be left for cases with elves? Generally taller than the average human, for one. Think homo sapiens v. homo floresiensis. Magical? Perhaps. Arrogance is a cultural factor, unless for some reason, sociopathy breeds true in elves, perhaps. The calling card as it were has usually been the ears. I believe that there's some element of defeasibility to the term of stereotypes: if something is tall, graceful, has pointed ears, and is humble, is it an elf? If it is short, graceful, and arrogant, is it an elf? If it doesn't have pointed ears, is it an elf? My intuitions on the matter, at least, would be: yes, no, no. For me, it's the physiology/morphology that is the determining factor, within limits, for fantasy races in the sense of species. (If it doesn't have Darkvision, it's not a Dwarf!  )

 

What novels should do is yet another question, IMO. There's really a lot of unclarity and issues packed into that question. But I find it interesting we're conflating typecasting with speciation with stereotypes and with discrimination. The boundaries are very vague, I will grant that. It is just as diffficult to consider their real-life analogues as it is to sort them out in the context of fantasy. But all the same, it's a data point--nothing more.

 

Anyway, there's a lot going on in your question, and I've toyed with some issues, raised some, and ignored others: all in what isn't really the most organised matter. I'm kind of exhausted at the moment, so I'll maybe take a raincheck and pop back in some other time. Still, it's an interesting question, for sure.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Kasimir

[Left he/him]

Well I do have to say that I loved how The Wheel of Time did it with humans. There was plenty of prejudice, but it was more in-line with what that world would be expected to feel, not taking earth's prejudices and then pasting them into the books.

In other books, I think that it really depends on the world that the book is in. If it's a forgotten realms book, than there's reasons behind a lot of the stereotyping. Although, in Salvatore's books, that's one of the main issues so it can get very interesting because you have Drizzt the good drow. Way later in the series isn't there supposed to be a nation of at least semi-civilized orcs?

Generally speaking, I think that the races are could be a lot different if the individuals were raised differently. Let's take LotR elves for example. If you'd taken an elf babe and swapped it with a human one, I think that the elf would grow up to act more human than elfish. Because of immortality and stuff he would definitely still be elfish, maybe kind of like Aragorn? I don't know, I'm starting to ramble really badly, hope some of that made sense.

[Kobold King he/him]

Upvotes all around for well thought through posts! Also, I am flattered that I have become the resident authority on racist dinosaurs. It is an honor to have made such a mark on the forum.

 

To the point, this is actually a topic I feel very strongly about, as I consider it closely tied to one of the most important questions the human race has encountered: that question being "what measure is a non-human?"

 

I would say that to answer this question, we rely much more upon zoology then we do upon ethnic differences between humans. The differences between human ethnicities are negligible--the physiological differences between an Asian human and a Caucasian such as myself are so minor that they do not even inhibit interbreeding. The similarities between human societies across the world lend further testimony to the fact that human psychologies do not vary significantly from one "race" to another.

 

But we do not have to stray into the world of fantasy to gain an idea of what non-human species look like, or what differences in psychology can emerge between radically different races. This world is covered with lifeforms of varying levels of intelligence, covering classifications as diverse as primates, carnivores, whales, and even octopuses. With such diversity at our perusing disposal, the original question comes into better light.

 

Is racial stereotyping in fantasy justified? Yes--both because it is human nature to do so and because it reflects reality to a degree. Human beings consider certain behavioral traits to be the most important factors in judging inhumans. We categorize dolphins as gentle, fun-loving animals, because these traits are common in them. While depressed dolphins and even violent dolphins certainly exist, they are not as disposed to these behaviors as humans or other races are. Humans are more likely to fall out of touch with group dynamics, triggering depression; we are also more likely to fight over resources or because we feel our group dynamic has been insulted. While human ethnic groups possess little variance from one another, different species on this planet can be extremely distant from one another in both physiology and psychology.

 

And while dolphins or orangutans possess just as much variance within their own species as humans in ours, we generally aren't inclined to see this. We judge a species by any trait we feel is important enough to distinguish. Thus dung-flinging chimpanzees, gentle dolphins, snarling wolves, and speculatively... graceful elves, drunken dwarves, and snarling orcs.

 

It takes a rare Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey to delve into the minds of inhumans. For most of us, our species stereotypes are all we will ever see these animals as. It is not that far a stretch that the humanoids in fantasy would suffer a similar process of stereotyping. While I imagine the cultures of elves, dwarves, and orcs would be just as diverse as human societies, the majority of humans would not examine their alien neighbors closely enough to realize it.

 

Would I enjoy seeing a fantasy novel which explored these races' psychology to the full extent? Storms yes. The world needs more examples of how non-human minds might operate. Exploring the cultural complexities of orcish warriors or dwarven citadels would be amazing to witness. A deconstruction and reconstruction of these racial stereotypes would impress upon the reader's mind that a being can be very different from a human, but a worthy creature in its own right regardless.

 

 

This mini-essay is rather rambling, as it is morning here and I am tired. But I thought I'd throw my thoughts into the matter before the conversation grew too large to keep up with. In short, dwarves, elves, and orcs are not human, and thus are likely to display very different traits from us Homo sapiens. We are likely to latch on to what we see as their "key characteristics," forgetting that we are dealing with beings of just as much value and sophistication as ourselves.

 

Racist dinosaurs for the win.

[king of nowhere]

the way other races in fantasy or science fiction are generally portrayed as stereotyped and all alike, with humans being the most varied culture around, is both accurate and inaccurate at the same time.

It is inaccurate because I would expect any inhuman race to have as much variety as we do, possibly more. in the sci-fi videogame Mass Effect, mordin (a scientist) say that individual differences among humans are greater than with other races: quoting from memory, something like "in all societies there are geniuses and idiots, but you see a krogan, or an elcor, you can draw conclusions on all the race; with humans you can't. too much individual difference". At least genetically, it is false. humans had a bottleneck somewhere a few tens of thousands years ago, when only 1000 to 10000 individuals survived. as a result, we have less genetic differences between us than most other races on the planet. Unless those aliens suffered similar, even harsher near-extinctions, i expect them to be more differentiated. Still, we have huge cultural differences.

But it is also accurate, in that we would not perceive those differences. let's see it with a practical example. I am italian. I went to work in finland. At the beginning, all finnish people looked the same to me, because of their different culture. With time, I began better noticing the individual differences. But still, even after four years there, I perceive the finns as an homogeneous mass that is substantially different from me, and over that stereotype are pasted individual differences. Every time I say "this guy is particularly talkative, for a finn", I am aknowledging the stereotype of quiet finns and putting a modifier to it. I myself am not an average italian, and fit pretty poorly in my country; but in finland, I fit better with other italians, or even with spanish - who have a similar culture. I have nothing but respect and goodwill towards the finnish people, but I still see them as different from me and mostly uniform among them.

And that's taking in two european cultures. When I went to usa I felt an even greater difference, and I felt more strongly my european identity. If I traveled outside of europe or north america, I'd surely feel the people even more different from me, and I'd feel my broader western cultural heritage. And if we were to met some aliens, I'd likely feel human in the face of something different. And that has nothing to do with hate or racism or trust or stuff. I respect the finns, I believe their country is the best in the world for general wellfare and quality of life, but I still feel them as different.

It's roughly what kobold king said. if something is different enough from you, you won't be able to perceive the individual differences because they will be overshadowed by the bigger differences with your culture.

So, the fantasy tope is quite justified. To humans, all elves look the same. to the elves, all humans look the same. to the orks, there is no difference between humans and elves beside the pointy ears.

Notice also that most of those stereotypes are actually true. Not all italians are extroverted and talkative, and not all finns are quiet, but go to a restaurant in finland and in italy, and you see the difference in the amount of conversations going on. Not all americans love to keep their air conditioning at freezing levels during the summer, but in no other country I had the need to put on extra clothes when entering a museum or train station.

Now, that brings us to the problem of racism: is it racist to apply stereotypes to other people?

I say no, as long as you leave room for individual judgment.

Racism is a form of prejudice. From pre (before) judice (judgment), meaning to judge before knowing. Are you judging before knowing if there are plenty of statistics to back up the idea that a certain people is, on average, more inclined to behave in a certain way? No.

But then, one must never confuse the people with the individual. regardless of the stereotypes of a people, and how true they may be, you have to judge any single person for his actions alone, and not blindly assume that said stereotypes would apply to him. That, I think, is the line between knowing your stuff and being racist.

And, while that applied to the real world, it applies also in fantasy. On this, sanderson is doing a good, realistic job. while his races and cultures show some uniformity, they are clearly composed of individuals, and we see many who do not fit the stereotype. Jordan made a worse job of it, imho. all aes sedai of a same ajah were virtually undistinguishable from each other, and the domani and ebou dari, and especially the aiel, felt too homogeneous to me. BUt while I found many cultures lacking individuality, it was still handled reasonably well. I'm sure there are many who makes a worse job out there.

Edited August 27, 2014 by king of nowhere

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

That's an interesting question, and the others in this thread have already brought up some excellent points, but I'll toss in my two cents. 

 

Racial stereotyping is clearly wrong. End of story, no more need be said on that point. However, I do think there is a point where the reader or critic becomes so zealous to expose and eradicate the stereotyping he or she sees in fiction that creativity and social commentary become stifled as a result. 

 

Tolkien's Orcs are a good first example. Orcs are portrayed in an unflattering light, allying as they do with Sauron from beginning to end. This has led to many fantasy imitators portraying their own Orcs as Always Chaotic Evil, most likely as an excuse (in my opinion) to provide the villain with cannon fodder that will not engage the reader's sympathy when they are mowed down in droves. However, Tolkien said that, as a Catholic, he would not create a race that was beyond redemption, and that had he the proper place for it, he would have created a sympathetic Orc character, or shown more Orcs in sympathetic lights. This becomes even more astounding (given the tropes his Orcs spawned) when you realize that the Orcs are a corrupted offshoot of Elves, a race hijacked by Morgoth (basically Middle-Earth's Satan) to be his servants. 

 

A great deal of social commentary can be found in those simple facts, and in my opinion, all of them cast Tolkien as an author in a favorable light. By claiming a race conscripted into the service of pure evil is not beyond redemption is tantamount to saying that any culture, no matter how depraved we might think they are, can be redeemed, that every culture has a reason for existing, and that every culture is capable of great good. Sadly, none of those facts made it into LOTR or his other works, so what we're left with is the trope maker for fantasy races that their authors see as beyond hope, beneath pity. 

 

Taking examples from Mistborn also yields more social commentary than racism. The skaa are, as many pointed out, shorter, poorer, and less healthy than their noble counterparts—but this is because of a poor diet and a thousand years of oppression, the physical differences are obvious. To me, this read more as commentary on how social and political oppression, together with poverty, change what could and should be a thriving people group into a group that is more easily oppressed, so they are oppressed, and their physical condition worsens, and so on. It felt, to me, more like a snapshot of how racism comes to be and festers in a society that denies its own oppressive laws until oppression has become so ingrained in a culture that the oppressors think it's the best and only way to do things, and the oppressed don't believe they deserve any better. In the case of Mistborn, it would be erroneous to call Sanderson's treatment of the skaa racist. He portrays them sympathetically, and doesn't gloss over their oppression. 

 

Yet in some cases, I think fantastic racism can rear its ugly head, even when the author is trying to subvert it. Take The Outcast of Redwall, as an infamous example. For the first part of the book, I think Jaques was trying to show how the abbeybeasts' treatment of Veil—their assumptions that he would be evil like every other ferret—became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet he's treated the ferrets and every other "vermin" as Always Chaotic Evil in every other book, so in Outcast, that fantastic racism becomes a part of the story regardless of his intentions. Yes, Veil does die saving his adopted mother from his biological father. But when he joins his adopted father, it's treated as him giving in to his nature, not the assumptions of the others at the abbey. And when Veil is dead and his adopted mother, Bryony, is saved, she is treated to a speech about how Veil gave in to his evil nature and became evil himself. Does she angrily shove the lecturer aside and give them a speech of her own about how they should have given Veil a chance to become good? No. She essentially says, "Yeah, I loved him like a son, but he was a terrible little guy. Vermin in every sense of the word. It's best for the world that he's dead." This is treated as Bryony leveling up in maturity and parenting skills—not as her embracing the erroneous assumptions of her culture. 

 

In short, fantastic racism is a difficult thing to pin down. The lines between fantastic racism and social commentary are very fine indeed, and it takes a skilled writer to walk that line without crossing it. 

[Left he/him]

 

Yet in some cases, I think fantastic racism can rear its ugly head, even when the author is trying to subvert it. Take The Outcast of Redwall, as an infamous example. For the first part of the book, I think Jaques was trying to show how the abbeybeasts' treatment of Veil—their assumptions that he would be evil like every other ferret—became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet he's treated the ferrets and every other "vermin" as Always Chaotic Evil in every other book, so in Outcast, that fantastic racism becomes a part of the story regardless of his intentions. Yes, Veil does die saving his adopted mother from his biological father. But when he joins his adopted father, it's treated as him giving in to his nature, not the assumptions of the others at the abbey. And when Veil is dead and his adopted mother, Bryony, is saved, she is treated to a speech about how Veil gave in to his evil nature and became evil himself. Does she angrily shove the lecturer aside and give them a speech of her own about how they should have given Veil a chance to become good? No. She essentially says, "Yeah, I loved him like a son, but he was a terrible little guy. Vermin in every sense of the word. It's best for the world that he's dead." This is treated as Bryony leveling up in maturity and parenting skills—not as her embracing the erroneous assumptions of her culture. 

 

 

I didn't expect to have a serious discussion on Redwall on here at any point, but you did bring up interesting points. It's been a long time since I've read any of the books but as a counter point to what you said above I'd like to say this.

In the Bellmaker (I think that's the book, can't remember for sure) there are two ferrets(?) who get captured from their ship and taken to the abbey. One of the ferrets, the captain of the ship, stays evil and eventually ends up trying to kill several animals. The other ferret, when he arrives tries to fit in with the animals of Redwall and becomes a really great carpenter who hangs with all the little animals.

The 2nd ferret is, as far as I remember, the only "bad" animal that ever truly turns to the good side. Now I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make, just though that I'd put in the counter instance for the Redwall books.

 

P.S. I just remembered. In Mossflower the evil cat's brother and his wife are both good cats, and their descendant and the owl from Redwall are both neutral good/ chaotic neutral.