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Zoinks.
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I'm half surprised WotC are still publishing novels, and half surprised that they aren't beating a dead horse into a fine red paste.
I am interested in hearing WotC's side of the story, though.
They're not. Both the last Salvatore trilogy and this new Dragonlance project were through HarperCollins, WotC were providing the licence to allow HarperCollins to publish it. It also sounds like they were coordinating with the books for a possible Dragonlance relaunch for the 5E game in 2021 or 2022.
Based on the legal filing, it sounds like WotC commissioned the project with a wider eye to a larger-scale Dragonlance reboot and then their corporate overlords started having breakdowns about all the Twitter controversies and eventually decided to cancel the entire series. Unfortunately, "people might be mean to us on Twitter" was not one of the cancellation clauses in the contract, hence Weis and Hickman suing them. They'd worked for three years on the project with a reasonable expectation (based on prior sales, even of their decided so-so last few Dragonlance books) of a big payday, so the second that was taken away they unloaded their legal firepower on WotC.
I'm assuming WotC refunded whatever funds HarperCollins had paid as well, as that would be another venue of legal action if necessary.
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They're not. Both the last Salvatore trilogy and this new Dragonlance project were through HarperCollins, WotC were providing the licence to allow HarperCollins to publish it. It also sounds like they were coordinating with the books for a possible Dragonlance relaunch for the 5E game in 2021 or 2022.
Based on the legal filing, it sounds like WotC commissioned the project with a wider eye to a larger-scale Dragonlance reboot and then their corporate overlords started having breakdowns about all the Twitter controversies and eventually decided to cancel the entire series. Unfortunately, "people might be mean to us on Twitter" was not one of the cancellation clauses in the contract, hence Weis and Hickman suing them. They'd worked for three years on the project with a reasonable expectation (based on prior sales, even of their decided so-so last few Dragonlance books) of a big payday, so the second that was taken away they unloaded their legal firepower on WotC.
I'm assuming WotC refunded whatever funds HarperCollins had paid as well, as that would be another venue of legal action if necessary.
It doesn't look like WotC commissioned the project, more like W&H went to them ("Plaintiff-Creators approached Defendant"). W&H paid some money for a license to use Dragonlance to write 3 more books, with WotC having the right to request changes. Which they did, and W&H did the rewrites - apparently not to WotC's satisfaction. WotC did not repay the funds when they put the project on ice according to the filing.
The publishing company is Penguin Random House not Harper Collins BTW.
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I'm not usually one to support WotC's side of arguments, as they have a track record of some pretty egregious behavior... but I think they are in the right here.
I am not a lawyer, but part of my my day-job entails reading legal contracts for things that I need to run by corporate counsel. IOW, I've read a LOT of contracts... and this one is weird. The language is weird: I'm certain it was originally written by a non-lawyer who then had a lawyer tighten up the legalese in a few places but kept a whole lot of extraneous (and, frankly, inflammatory) language in the filing.
Looking at Section 6 of the filing: Since WotC owns the intellectual property, they retained rights under the contract to request re-writes to "propose certain changes in keeping with the modern-day zeitgeist of a more inclusive and diverse story-world." In other words, WotC had a right to demand that the authors take out/change passages that WotC deemed to be racist and/or sexist. It's their intellectual property, after all, and they get to make that determination. It also looks like the time-frame is fairly long here: From November 2019 to August 2020, there were some unspecified number of requests for re-writes from WotC, which Weis & Hickman did, but were ultimately not to WotC's satisfaction.
W&H raised the issue of WotC being perceived as a bad actor in this arena in Section 9... with the implication that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. But past bad behavior on the part of the defendant does not necessarily imply that trying to do the right thing now is disingenuous. Indeed, one could argue that WotC's perceived past bad actions makes them more careful to avoid future missteps... such as publishing new works also perceived as racist.
We don't see the initial contract, so we don't know if W&H were provided with either a time-frame or a number of iterations to bring their manuscript to WotC's sensitivity specifications, but it seems clear that ten months' worth of re-writes is a LOT of re-writes... and that WotC decided that ultimately they could not put their stamp of approval on the project. Also keep in mind that sensitivity reading is expensive, and if there were a large number of iterations, that could easily have eaten up whatever licensing fees W&H paid WotC. If I were to hazard a guess, that's why WotC isn't refunding it: They've already lost money on the project.
I absolutely loved the original Dragonlance series when I read the first trilogy as a teenager back in the mid-80s. Back in 2005 or so, with fond memories of the series, I started to read The Dragons of Autumn Twilight to my young child. Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. I stopped about a third of the way through because I realized that the book is extremely racist, and also sexist: It's a "white savior" story, pretty much literally. (It's also a blatant allegory of Mormon theology—an allegory that makes Narnia look subtle in comparison—but that's another story!) I completely missed it when I read it as a teenager, but to an adult reader who is cognizant of such matters: It's right there.
My read of the complaint is that Weis and Hickman could not remove enough racism from their manuscript to meet WotC's standards, WotC came to the conclusion that the authors would not be able to produce a work to their satisfaction, decided to cut their losses, and terminated the contract.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I don't really see how W&H have grounds to sue, nor can I see them coming out of a lawsuit looking particularly good.
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I'm not usually one to support WotC's side of arguments, as they have a track record of some pretty egregious behavior... but I think they are in the right here.
I am not a lawyer, but part of my my day-job entails reading legal contracts for things that I need to run by corporate counsel. IOW, I've read a LOT of contracts... and this one is weird. The language is weird: I'm certain it was originally written by a non-lawyer who then had a lawyer tighten up the legalese in a few places but kept a whole lot of extraneous (and, frankly, inflammatory) language in the filing.
Looking at Section 6 of the filing: Since WotC owns the intellectual property, they retained rights under the contract to request re-writes to "propose certain changes in keeping with the modern-day zeitgeist of a more inclusive and diverse story-world." In other words, WotC had a right to demand that the authors take out/change passages that WotC deemed to be racist and/or sexist. It's their intellectual property, after all, and they get to make that determination. It also looks like the time-frame is fairly long here: From November 2019 to August 2020, there were some unspecified number of requests for re-writes from WotC, which Weis & Hickman did, but were ultimately not to WotC's satisfaction.
W&H raised the issue of WotC being perceived as a bad actor in this arena in Section 9... with the implication that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. But past bad behavior on the part of the defendant does not necessarily imply that trying to do the right thing now is disingenuous. Indeed, one could argue that WotC's perceived past bad actions makes them more careful to avoid future missteps... such as publishing new works also perceived as racist.
We don't see the initial contract, so we don't know if W&H were provided with either a time-frame or a number of iterations to bring their manuscript to WotC's sensitivity specifications, but it seems clear that ten months' worth of re-writes is a LOT of...
interesting haladir.
Very interesting.
In that time period you are talking about I was a little boy, black, and my first fantasy novel ever was Time of the Twins. I have yet to read the original trilogy, but I read TONS of the anthologies, and I didn't get what you were pointing at here. Maybe that was a good thing. Then again, I was a kid.
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First of all, bear in mind that the last time I read the books was 15 years ago... and I only got through the first third of the first book before I had to put it down. The time I'd read the series previous to that was in the early '90s, when I was prepping to run a Dragonlance campaign for AD&D. And the time before that was in 1985, when I was a freshman in high school. So I may be getting some details wrong... and I may have just read some plot summaries and criticism of the books to refresh my memory.
The casual racism that I saw in the book was mostly with the depictions of Native American analogues. Other than Riverwind, who was describes as having bronze skin and dark hair, all of the major characters were described as white... does Krynn not have Black people?
So... Goldmoon. She is a "Plainswoman" and clearly an analogue for Native Americans... except she's white (fair skin, golden hair). This is in contrast to the other plainsmen, such as Riverwind. This is never explained. When we meet the Plainsmen, they wear a lot of leather, are nomadic, have cone-shaped tents, and wear a lot of feathered headdresses. The Plainsmen are also called "Barbarians," and those terms are used interchangeably.
Goldmoon discovered the "Disks of Mishikal," a holy relic of the True Gods that granted her divine power... as opposed to the 'false gods' that her tribe worshiped. And when she tried to enlighten her tribe with signs of divine power, she was banished... but through her perseverance, is eventually able to convince them and to save her people. She ultimately brings the True Gods back to the world. She is quite literally a white savior.
[ASIDE: Tracy Hickman is a devout Mormon. Goldmoon's story is a barely-veiled-at-all Mormon allegory: According to the LDS Church, Joseph Smith discovered the Golden Tablets buried on his farm which he realized was God's new testament. Based on these writings, Smith founded what he considered a true religion among people who were worshiping falsely... and he and his followers were banished to Utah because of it. I'll also note that the LDS church has/had a very deep issue with racism, only allowing Black people into positions of power within the church in the late 1970s... less than a decade before Autumn Twilight was published.]
All of the relationships in the book are heteronormative... and all of the women don't reach their full potential until they have a man in their life.
There is also a whole lot of racial essentialism throughout the book. (e.g. all Kender are wide-eyed and flighty; all dwarves are gruff; all gully dwarves are stupid; etc.) And the antagonists, the Draconians, are an inherently evil race created by the deliberate corruption of innocent young. (i.e. the eggs of good dragons.)
I acknowledge that of much of this was due to the time the books were written. Mainstream literature (especially aimed at young people) had no queer representation. Fantasy literature was all Eurocentric. Women, when they appeared at all, fell into traditional gendered stereotypes: Even warrior-women or female adventurers still took on care-taking roles, and those that didn't were villains (e.g. Kitiara)
So that's what I meant by the casual but blatant racism and sexism in the original Dragonlance trilogy, and why I stopped reading the book to my then-six-year-old. I switched to "His Dark Materials" instead.
* * * *
One other thing about the contract for the new DL series: This is pure speculation, but it wouldn't surprise me if WotC had asked for queer representation in the book, but Hickman didn't want to add it (or added some queer characters that were harmful tropes). He's gone on record that he thinks homosexuality is a sin.
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Is Tolkien racist with his portrayal of orcs? Robert E Howard?
Yes. Yes, they both are. Neither were as venomously or overtly hateful in their racism as, say, H.P. Lovecraft, but racist they were. (e.g. Tolkien's "swarthy men from the South" who fought on Sauron's side in the War for the Ring.)
I don't think I'd consider the Mormon references an issue unless they go deeper than anything I've seen suggested. Echoing religious symbolism in fiction is common and you really have to get obnoxiously overt or use it as an attack on that religion for it to be bad.
I'm not objecting to the Mormon allegories, just pointing them out. I was also drawing attention to the fact that Hickman was raised in faith that was steeped in racism and racial essentialism. [To its credit, the LDS Church has officially dropped most of its racist theology since the mid 1970s.]
And I don't mean to knock religion in general: I'm a man of faith myself. Specifically, I'm an ordained Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and a vocal member of the Christian Left.
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** spoiler omitted **...
ahh....that bit about Hickman explains some things.
And there are black people on Krynn, the sea going people of Ergoth.
I didnt find much out and out racist in Dragonlance, but it is a rather simplistic setting and some people could take the one dimensional aspects of it and make it into something truly awful.
I also love Taladas and want to see more of that part of the world!
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It doesn't look like WotC commissioned the project, more like W&H went to them ("Plaintiff-Creators approached Defendant"). W&H paid some money for a license to use Dragonlance to write 3 more books, with WotC having the right to request changes. Which they did, and W&H did the rewrites - apparently not to WotC's satisfaction. WotC did not repay the funds when they put the project on ice according to the filing.
The publishing company is Penguin Random House not Harper Collins BTW.
Yup, HarperCollins have been doing the UK editions which caused the confusion.
Weis and Hickman contacted WotC after Salvatore got a new deal because they wanted to see if anything could be done. WotC agreed it was a good idea and commissioned the project. The fact Weis & Hickman made the first move is somewhat immaterial. WotC agreed and assigned and editorial team to work on the project for more than two years with what seems like a great deal of success, but then removed that team and assigned a guy who has some form for controversial behaviour, who demanded rewrites and changes to the book after it had already been 100% accepted, edited and locked for publication. W&H agreed, fully complied with all requested changes, these changes were accepted, and then the project was put on ice anyway because of things happening elsewhere in the company.
Looking at Section 6 of the filing: Since WotC owns the intellectual property, they retained rights under the contract to request re-writes to "propose certain changes in keeping with the modern-day zeitgeist of a more inclusive and diverse story-world." In other words, WotC had a right to demand that the authors take out/change passages that WotC deemed to be racist and/or sexist. It's their intellectual property, after all, and they get to make that determination. It also looks like the time-frame is fairly long here: From November 2019 to August 2020, there were some unspecified number of requests for re-writes from WotC, which Weis & Hickman did, but were ultimately not to WotC's satisfaction.
This seems to be a misreading of the situation, in particular by trying to make the larger context irrelevant when it is key to the case.
WotC has repeatedly made "gestures" to appear to be more inclusive and open, whilst also continuing to do things that are the exact opposite. For example, saying they wanted to make dark elves and orcs less "racist" (ignoring the fact that this has been going on since the late 1980s with characters like Drizzt, Eiliastree and Vrakk, arguably Obould, and in fact it a lot of this development was stopped by WotC themselves in the 4E days because they wanted a more stereotypical, old-school feel from the game) and rewriting Curse of Strahd to make the Romany analogues less stereotypical. That's fair enough as far as it goes. Yet behind the scenes they'd quietly reinstated a writer-editor who'd previously been removed for supporting a serial sexual harasser and abuser (including allegedly giving him a list of name of complainants about his behaviour, an act of reckless endangerment); hired a QAnon-spouting conspiracy theorist artist for MAGIC; consistently rejected work by author and artists of colour; and hired a writer-editor who'd been repeatedly excoriated for writing a Lolita-esque novel glorifying pederastry in the early 2000s.
One of the black writers who recently quit the company painted a picture of a company that likes to appear inclusive and diverse for PR purposes but behind the scenes continues to operate as business as normal and seems genuinely confused by the whole diversity/progressive thing and doesn't understand it. Hence fixing genuine problems with the RAVENLOFT material, creating new problems out of nowhere but not firing any of the highly problematic people they have working for them.
As the filing notes, Weis and Hickman were aware of the wider issues with wanting to appear progressive and this was not incompatible with their own work: previous DRAGONLANCE material featured plenty of strong female protagonists and antagonists, no bikini chainmail in sight (although a couple of the cover artists disagreed, fortunately not the good ones), a more nuanced approach to race including "good" hobgoblin and ogre characters, and revising the draconians from being genetically-engineered to be evil the time to being individuals, some of whom were capable of being good or honourable. Yes, there's plenty of material still in the original DRAGONLANCE books that people could raise issues with, but not unusually so at the time. The implication that Hickman is a bad person because he's a Mormon is also unwarranted; there are Mormons who use their faith as an excuse for homophobia and bigotry, like Orson Scott Card, but also Mormons who feature positive portrayals of gay people and minorities, like Brandon Sanderson.
We don't see the initial contract, so we don't know if W&H were provided with either a time-frame or a number of iterations to bring their manuscript to WotC's sensitivity specifications, but it seems clear that ten months' worth of re-writes is a LOT of re-writes... and that WotC decided that ultimately they could not put their stamp of approval on the project. Also keep in mind that sensitivity reading is expensive, and if there were a large number of iterations, that could easily have eaten up whatever licensing fees W&H paid WotC. If I were to hazard a guess, that's why WotC isn't refunding it: They've already lost money on the project.
Not sure what you mean here. The filing states that the book was accepted, approved and locked for publication in January 2020. The requested rewrites and edits took two months, not ten. In January they switched to writing Book 2. It was only when Nic "sleeping with 15 year olds is fine!" Kelman was appointed editor in the summer - something W&H seem to have objected to but been ignored - that he asked for additional rewrites and changes for Book 1 based on sensitivity readings inspired by the controversy WotC were experiencing in other areas (the fact WotC had assigned Kelman to the project apparently specifically to look for issues shows that their understanding of those issues is already fundamentally flawed, like asking a fox to do a Health & Safety inspection of the henhouse). Depending on the contract W&H may not have been obliged to do this, because WotC had already accepted the book for publication through Random House and their contractual duties had been discharged. However, they agreed to the requested changes and these were in turn completed in full and accepted.
The one controversial area noted was the use of a love potion in the story to create a non-consensual situation. We have no idea of the context: if this was a hero using such a potion, then yes, that would be problematic; if it was a villain doing something obviously evil, then not so much (because it's show to be evil in context). No further information is given other than the changes were completed as requested. It's also worth noting that by that point the book had passed through two female editors before Kelman who had already thought the book was fine, because they'd accepted the book for publication.
I absolutely loved the original Dragonlance series when I read the first trilogy as a teenager back in the mid-80s. Back in 2005 or so, with fond memories of the series, I started to read The Dragons of Autumn Twilight to my young child. Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. I stopped about a third of the way through because I realized that the book is extremely racist, and also sexist: It's a "white savior" story, pretty much literally.
DRAGONLANCE is of its time, but calling it "extremely racist" and "sexist" feels like an overreaction.
My read of the complaint is that Weis and Hickman could not remove enough racism from their manuscript to meet WotC's standards, WotC came to the conclusion that the authors would not be able to produce a work to their satisfaction, decided to cut their losses, and terminated the contract.
This "read" of the contract is certainly a take.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I don't really see how W&H have grounds to sue, nor can I see them coming out of a lawsuit looking particularly good.
They have grounds to sue because WotC blatantly violated their contract and refused to publish a book after it had already been accepted for publication and they'd worked on the project for three years, and the reasons given for refusing to publish the book appear spurious in the extreme.
All of the relationships in the book are heteronormative... and all of the women don't reach their full potential until they have a man in their life.
This is another bizarre take. Laurana achieves tremendous success as a warrior, general and effective commander of the forces of good after being rejected by Tanis, when there is no romance going on in her life (later developments notwithstanding). Tika becomes a capable warrior despite Caramon's attempts to mollycoddle and protect her, and this is shown to be disrespectful.
In the context of mid-1980s fantasy DRAGONLANCE has reasonably effective female characters, certainly better than what was going on elsewhere (FORGOTTEN REALMS had a whole trilogy based on mocking the "bikini chainmail" trope, but still used it, whilst DRAGONLANCE never felt the need).
There is also a whole lot of racial essentialism throughout the book. (e.g. all Kender are wide-eyed and flighty; all dwarves are gruff; all gully dwarves are stupid; etc.) And the antagonists, the Draconians, are an inherently evil race created by the deliberate corruption of innocent young. (i.e. the eggs of good dragons.)
This is true in the original books and the authors agreed it was problematic, which is why they revisited the idea later on (i.e. showing an honourable and good group of draconians in THE DOOM BRIGADE and its sequels).
Even warrior-women or female adventurers still took on care-taking roles, and those that didn't were villains (e.g. Kitiara)
Kitiara was corrupted by a lust for power. This was not down to her rejection of care-taking roles (having the same upbringing as the honourable, heroic Caramon shows that) but down to her personality and her personal ambitions. You could argue that her ambitions leading to the path of evil might be a reading of women overreaching themselves with ambition, but that would be quite a stretch (not to mention incoherent, given her brother Raistlin follows a similar path).
In the past Dragonlance was the most sold fantasy saga after the Lord of the Rings
Weis & Hickman certainly had a very big-selling series (even W&H's last books in the late 2000s sold bucketloads, despite being terrible) but it's never been remotely close to LotR. Authors like Terry Brooks, Terry Pratchett and Robert Jordan were always vastly ahead of it in sales.
Combined sales of all Dragonlance material (even the non-W&H stuff) I believe reached something like 50 million, which was still behind Brooks etc, but is still quite impressive.
As for Tolkien's use of swarthy, you can't ignore Faramir's lament at the death of the Haradrim soldier.
Certainly in his personal views Tolkien was not racist, tearing a German publishing house in the late 1930s a new one when they asked for proof that he had no Jewish ancestors before they'd publish THE HOBBIT and taking principled stands against apartheid and racism.
For subconscious racism in his works, there are some arguments but these seem to be let down by the fact that all of the monstrous, corrupted evil humans in his books are also white: Wormtongue, Saruman (who wasn't human but chose to take the form of a human white man), the Numenoreans, Gondor during its colonialist phase (implying the Haradrim, Easterlings and Umbarians were justified in their rebellions), Denethor, the Nazgul and so on.
One area where Tolkien admitted to an unconscious bias was his treatment of the orcs. He later agreed with a reader it was simplistic and also violated his own Catholic doctrine that all thinking, feeling creatures can be Saved (in the theological sense), and that would apply to the orcs as well. He planned to write some revisions to the origins of the orcs in THE SILMARILLION, but died before that work could be undertaken.
One other thing about the contract for the new DL series: This is pure speculation, but it wouldn't surprise me if WotC had asked for queer representation in the book, but Hickman didn't want to add it (or added some queer characters that were harmful tropes). He's gone on record that he thinks homosexuality is a sin.
This is purely speculative, but it is somewhat convincing. However, WotC did not appear to make any such demands of R.A. Salvatore, so it would be inconsistent if they did make demands of W&H.
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The casual racism that I saw in the book was mostly with the depictions of Native American analogues. Other than Riverwind, who was describes as having bronze skin and dark hair, all of the major characters were described as white... does Krynn not have Black people?
Nordmaarians. Generally neutral, mostly nomadic. Allied with Solamnia for much of history. There may be other groups but I'm not very knowledgeable about DL.
never heard of these folks.
Where did they appear?
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It doesn't look like WotC commissioned the project, more like W&H went to them ("Plaintiff-Creators approached Defendant"). W&H paid some money for a license to use Dragonlance to write 3 more books, with WotC having the right to request changes. Which they did, and W&H did the rewrites - apparently not to WotC's satisfaction. WotC did not repay the funds when they put the project on ice according to the filing.
The publishing company is Penguin Random House not Harper Collins BTW.
Yup, HarperCollins have been doing the UK editions which caused the confusion.
Weis and Hickman contacted WotC after Salvatore got a new deal because they wanted to see if anything could be done. WotC agreed it was a good idea and commissioned the project. The fact Weis & Hickman made the first move is somewhat immaterial. WotC agreed and assigned and editorial team to work on the project for more than two years with what seems like a great deal of success, but then removed that team and assigned a guy who has some form for controversial behaviour, who demanded rewrites and changes to the book after it had already been 100% accepted, edited and locked for publication. W&H agreed, fully complied with all requested changes, these changes were accepted, and then the project was put on ice anyway because of things happening elsewhere in the company.
Looking at Section 6 of the filing: Since WotC owns the intellectual property, they retained rights under the contract to request re-writes to "propose certain changes in keeping with the modern-day zeitgeist of a more inclusive and diverse story-world." In other words, WotC had a right to demand that the authors take out/change passages that WotC deemed to be racist and/or sexist. It's their intellectual property, after all, and they get to make that determination. It also looks like the time-frame is fairly long here: From November...
interesting Werthead.
Very interesting.
I don't agree wholeheartedly, but I do see where you are coming from.
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You might remember Theros Ironfeldof the Silver Arm, the guy who forged the new dragonlances; he is Nordmaarian.
no...but ill check it out.
KENDER FOREVER!
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Exploding Tinker gnomes forever!
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This video by Leonard French might be of interest. Short summary: He believes that WotC is very much in the wrong in how they handled this situation, from a purely legal standpoint.
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So...no one wants exploding tinker gnomes?
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Marc,
Oh..see. I thought we already had that...but okay.
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So...no one wants exploding tinker gnomes?Maybe what people want is to have a reasonably intelligent conversation about this topic ...
we can talk about this conversation intelligently and still love things about the setting.
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Like exploding tinker gnomes? :)
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Toned down tinker gnomes are basically just Mystaran gnomes.
indeed, I like mystara.
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Or an Eberron artificer. The ones that don't entertain that is.
Nothing beats a halfling barbarian riding a dinosaur slinging boomerangs tho. Just say'n.
I didn't care for the halfling Dino Riders.
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Is Tolkien racist with his portrayal of orcs? Robert E Howard?
I'm going to point out how the wording of the question dramatically alters what the question means. This is going to be very semantic, but it is semantics that can improve what precisely we're discussing.
Is Tolkien racist? This asks the question on whether the essential nature of Tolkien's existence is racist. A human's existence is unlikely to be racist by it's very nature.
Is Tolkien a racist? This is asking whether or not he was advocating or trying to enact racism in some form. In essence, the question is asking "Can we compare Tolkien to someone in the KKK?" While this question does apply to more than a few people, it is a pretty limited and radical group of people who don't represent the majority of our culture or society.
Is Tolkien's portrayal of orcs racist? This is the best form of the question... and probably the one you implied. It means we aren't asking about the nature or character of the man himself, but rather we are investigating the work itself. This kind of question can apply to all of us, and it can promote self-examination. Anyone, even someone who isn't a racist, can do something that is racist. Understanding whether a thing has the effect of racism or not can help us better determine whether we want to keep doing it in the future.
Speaking as someone who has specialized in colonial/imperial world history, I say the answer to the last question is yes. A plain reading of the text and we find a horde of racist tropes that were found throughout British culture during 18th to 20th century. Interestingly, Orcs aren't black people. They're Asian, specifically the Mongols.
A pretty good post about it. He doesn't say anything I've found to be blatantly false, and it is well grounded in historical fact. He also cites sources.
He also wrote a part 2 which includes implications for gaming.
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Yay Tinker gnomes! :D
(Also I like Scarred Lands jungle gnomes slightly more...)
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Does anyone else have nostalgia for Dark Sun halflings? Just me then? OK...
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Darksun Halflings are pretty cool.
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Well, WoW gnomes are basically Dragonlance tinker gnomes, especially since Jeff Grubb had a big hand in both worlds (and he was the one who thought up tinker gnomes).
I guess that's a reminder that DL wasn't all Weis & Hickman, even if they claim all of it.
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DARK SUN FOREVER