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The Problem with Fantastical Racism (Patreon)

Published:
2025-09-30 03:59:46
Imported:
2026-11

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  • 540517352.mp4

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Content

Fantastical racism is when a prejudice against a non-human group serves the purpose of being an examination of real-world discrimination or bigotry. Either as an expansion of existing prejudice or by putting a mirror to audiences to explore their own biases in fiction. This has been used across a number of works of sci-fi and fantasy in novels, comics, and television shows.

On a surface level, this makes a lot of sense. There are figures and creatures in mythology based on stereotypes and racism—even some not originally rooted in those stereotypes can, due to how some of those elements have blended, end up transforming the original into something else.

Because of this, people have been primed to look at demons that are very clear in their role as an antagonistic, morally corrupt “race” and, rather than accept that piece of the world, to interrogate that to mean something deeper.

🫶🏾 General Disclaimer: This video only covers a narrow part of this topic and not an exhaustive look into the topic. Anything left out was either cut for brevity/subject matter or simply did not come up in my research. I encourage anyone to fill in any gaps I may have missed with their own content or in the comments. 🫶🏾

Thumbnail by Euralis Weekes

Sources:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/victorianstudies.53.1.65

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25746408

https://www.twomorrows.com/kirby/articles/22danzig.html

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stan-lees-biggest-enemy-was-racists-the-only-way-to-destroy-them-is-to-expose-them/

https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/important-x-men-locations-explained-list

Douglas Wolk by All of the Marvels

“WHY IS THE ONLY GOOD ORC A DEAD ORC? THE DARK FACE OF RACISM EXAMINED IN TOLKIEN'S WORLD” by Anderson Rearick III

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition

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Comments

rippley

I'll have to watch this later but just reading the description I was reminded of how weird it is that all these allegories, white people are represented as humans and other ethnicities are represented by nonhuman species, sometimes literal monsters and/or animalistic. Regardless of intent I feel that sort of reading of their stories gets neglected in discussion, despite how obvious it is. Anyway, looking forward to hearing your discussion of it!

e.lonnrot

I strongly, strongly feel that the Book Club should continue with the Liveship Traders trilogy after finishing Assassin’s Quest, if everyone is having a good time. 🙏 The Liveship Traders more directly tackles the theme of all the different ways women try to cope with living under a violent patriarchy and gender roles. As a veteran of the Arya v. Sansa wars, I feel like there is a lot of juicy material that will speak to you. The Farseer trilogy is written solely from Fitz’s POV ofc, but Liveship has a multi-POV structure and we are introduced to all of these interesting female characters.

rippley

Having watched the video now, I think dehumanizing was the word I was talking around. I hadn't ever thought about how sometimes white people are the subtext for The Other, which was interesting. I also appreciated the discussion of the why; why is this discrimination here, and how does it fit in the world- and your point about how not exploring that leads to universes where some inherent evil or inferiority or so on is just accepted (while trying to discuss racism/discrimination!) and thus the social commentary can fail to say what it's trying to.

Quinton J. Alexander

Omg I read the live ship traders series ages ago. I was in a bookstore recently and saw them and thought should I revisit that series? Maybe this is sign I should.

og.monstr

I basically arrived at the same conclusion you did, Princess: Tolkien wasn't trying to be racist, but his prejudice, preconceived notions and bias nevertheless reared their ugly heads. At least he recognized the problem with making Orcs inherently evil in his later years - although that realization derived from his TradCath theological-soteriological anxieties rather than reflection born out of an antiracist attitude.

e.lonnrot

I’m clearly in the Liveship Traders > Farseer camp, so my response is “yes!” But it’s far from a unanimous opinion. Some readers really like the intimacy of Fitz’s POV, and he is, after all, the main character of the Realm of the Elderlings books. It’s just some of us are old and struggle with being in a child’s head all the time and prefer the variety of multiple POVs. Trigger warnings for rape, child abuse, slavery, and torture tho. It’s not a light and fluffy story.