Timeline for Ways of explaining Fantasy without a lecture
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| 21 hours ago | comment | added | R.M. | @OnlineWriter The term "infodump" is used frequently for this sort of thing. I mention it as you should be able to find a large number of additional essays & perspectives if you use that term in a web search (or "info dump", "infodumping" etc.). | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | And with Tolkien, while they mentioned in passing the notion an argument that someone made in general terms about orcs or goblins possibly representing "Mongols," they didn't mention it's very specific and undeniable presence in Tolkien, with Tolkien himself having mentioned that they were supposed to represent something along the lines of the "least lovely (to Europeans) Mongol types." | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | In Maas's works, as far as I can tell (not being much of an expert in them), the divisions between the various types of fae are actually because at least some of them (notably the Illyrians) and certainly the Vanir of Midgard, were actually created, modified, or bred by the Daglan. The Wiki claims that the High Fae were actually made by the Daglan to rule, which would be a much better example than Tolkien's elves, if so (the article notes that the elves were made by Eru, but doesn't note that basically everyone was, and that it's humans who are "ordained" to rule Middle-Earth in the end). | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | @Ben - Although, since I listed some dubious inclusions, I think it's only fair to mention a few things that they forgot to mention that actually would have strengthened some of their criticisms (by dint of mainly summarizing others): it's not just that the vampires in Twilight happen to be pale; they actually turn "white" when they become vampires, echoing some of the more unpleasant aspects of previous Mormon theology (not currently accepted by mainstream LDS). | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | Unless of course it is the poem's description of his descent from Cain, which was used as a justification for slavery in the USA, famously. But it would be ahistorical to extrapolate that backwards and declare Grendel representative of some foreign people—he's a jötunn, and represents Cain as a mythical progenitor of monstrous spirits (leaving aside dubious euhemerist interpretations of jötnar, of course). | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | I guess I would also question the description of John Gardner's Grendel as "highlighting the nationalistic, discriminatory side of the English classic." The original poem is about people who would be considered Swedish and Danish in modern terms, and is only somewhat nationalist under the (disputed) hypothesis that the author was descended from the Geats (and then, no more nationalist than any other story about a heroic ancestor), and it's unclear what's meant to be discriminatory, unless it's Beowulf targeting Grendel (in retaliation for his raids, an aspect retained in Gardner). | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | I'd consider that much more of a whether than a why, unless someone has more information that I do suggesting that portrayals of goblins, dwarves and so forth in fantasy were supposed to be based on Jews. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | I don't know whether they modeled some goblin artifact on a shofar, and it would be pretty bad if they did, but is this "Jewish rebellion" also meant to be the Fettmilch Uprising? Because as mentioned, not only did that occur in 1614, but it was against Jews, not a Jewish rebellion. I'm confused where this assertion is coming from at all, to be honest. They also write: "it’s worth considering what antisemitic stereotypes inspired such European folklore of a long-nosed race depicted as greedy and untrustworthy." | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | I guess one could maybe make an argument for some of the events of 1613 as part of the uprising, but, anyway, since they're specific that they are referring to a massacre of Jews, that didn't occur until 1614. They seem to be trying to backdate the Fettmilch uprising to the earliest complaints. They also say "The game also includes a goblin artifact from the goblin rebellion of 1612 which looks just like the Jewish shofars—ancient musical horns typically made of a ram’s horn, used for Jewish religious purposes—which were used during a Jewish rebellion in 1612." | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | Another point they make is that a Harry Potter video game had "a goblin rebellion meant to take place in the year 1612. Meanwhile, in Germany, 1612 (in the real world, not the Harry Potter books) there was a pogrom (an organized massacre of Jews) in Frankfurt." I think this is meant to refer to the Fettmilch uprising (and to heavily intimate that they chose that year to evoke it), but that was actually two years later, in 1614, albeit that its causes went back to 1612 (or earlier, depending on how one looks at it). | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | ...that the portrayal of "the race as being largely excluded from the mainstream culture (as the dwarves primarily live underground and in a diaspora) resembles real-life antisemitic beliefs." The exclusion of Jews from the mainstream culture, and the fact that they were a diaspora, was a reality of the prejudice they faced in, say, not an anti-Semitic belief. The author may have meant to say that the clannish nature and voluntary seclusion of the dwarves was reflective of anti-Semitic characterizations, but that is not quite what they wrote. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | @Ben - That said, I think the linked article, while mostly good (if I don't point something out, I probably basically agree with it), makes a fair few dubious affirmations, mostly just repeating other people, and I would be remiss not to point them out. For instance, they note that the portrayal of dwarves as being greedy is probably based on anti-Semitism, which I would agree with (or better said, the choice to portray the traditionally greedy dwarves with, by Tolkien's own admission, Semitic elements, was probably driven a bit by Jewish stereotypes), but then write... | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | It does seem as if they are conflating cultural differences between the way different human groups are most likely to do magic, which I don't think has to be done poorly (for instance, the Pythagorean and Moist schools both did mathematics, but within pretty different frameworks of mathematical thinking) with some notion of innate differences between humans and elves (with elves probably being just pointy-eared humans as per usual), which I view as the part that is more or less unsalvageable. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | @Ben - I think the basic point is well-taken, and it's something that (say) D&D has steadily moved away from over the years, from its early years, when certain fantasy races could not be certain classes at all, to editions like 3.5 with its ability score bonuses and penalties, to the more recent versions where there basically are no obligatory ability score differences between, say, elves and humans, so it's definitely something that people have been considering. I think the line "Fantasy races often conflate race, culture, and ability" is one that they would do particularly well to consider. | |
| yesterday | answer | added | wetcircuit | timeline score: 2 | |
| yesterday | history | became hot network question | |||
| yesterday | comment | added | Ben | To better understand what you are doing here, replace magic with maths, the ability to do magic with intelligence, the elves with white people (or "caucasians"), the humans with black people (or "negroes"), and the monk-based culture with Asians. Everyone who writes fantasy today should educate themselves about fantasy and racism. Here is a quick introduction: pageturnermag.com/2024/10/10/avoiding-racism-in-fantasy-races | |
| yesterday | answer | added | KrisW | timeline score: 10 | |
| S yesterday | review | First questions | |||
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| S yesterday | history | asked | OnlineWriter | CC BY-SA 4.0 |