I fail to see anything arab or mongolian in Tolkien's orcs.Thanotos Omega wrote: ↑Sun Feb 03, 2019 11:08 am @Actrus I know, but my point is that because his description of the orcs boiled down to Mongolian Arabs it leads to that as a result of the fact that again anyone who is different will become a stand in for generic otherness, they will fill in for any group not explicitly shown as being with the heroes, it's why the whole concept of always chaotic evil is wrong, and even great works can fall into this, look at the amazing books of R.A. Salvator, he didn't mean it but it's very easy to read Drow Society as being against Black Women, or again the Elves from Dragon Age, you have to treat all your races/species with the same respect or you get unfortunate implications,
I never read R.A. Salvatore, but as far as I know, Drows are evil by nature, so them being against black women is in fact a message against racism.
I believe you are putting your preoccupations into these works. I'm not saying racism or stereotypes do not exist in fiction. In Flash Gordon, Ming can be seen as representing the "Yellow Peril", for exemple. But often people will attribute racial stereotypes to a fictional race either to uphold them or to denounce them. I've heard people comparing the Ferengi to the Jews, because they are greedy. I doubt that was the authors' intent. What I'm saying is that it is as much the authors responsability as the readers/spectators if a fictional race is attributed to a real ethnic group.
