Racism and Xenophobia in SF/F Worldbuilding

[Nerds_feather]

This is a topic I've been meaning to bring up for a while. Why do some SF/F authors think it's okay to ascribe "essential" (usually negative) characteristics to various "peoples?"

The most egregious example I can think of is David Eddings, who I read as a kid. There's the "untrustworthy and evil" people, there's the "good at trade" people, the "stupid" people, the virtuous and freedom-loving Anglo-Saxon stand-ins, etc. But this is common, particularly in fantasy. I like Song of Ice and Fire, but find the treatment of "Essos" as a sort of exoticized orient stand-in kind of nauseating, to be perfectly frank.

 

[Ursa major]

But isn't this almost inevitable with close PoV characters, who have personal views, some of which may be prejudiced, and experiences and/or an environment that led to that? And shouldn't these prejudices reflect more on the characters than the author, unless the prejudice expressed seems constant across characters with different world views, or appears in the behaviours of those being stereotyped?

So in A Song of Ice and Fire, Essos (well, most of it**) is bound to appear somewhat exotic in the majority of chapters set there, because these chapters' PoV characters are all, I think, from Westeros. (Of the two PoV characters from Essos, Areo Hotah is in Dorne and Melisandre*** at the Wall.)

None of which excuses lazy writing and a relience on stereotypes.



** - Some of the more western parts aren't so exotic, if only because the Andals living there are, of course, related to the Andals who migrated to Westeros. (And the Targaryens are originally from Essos.)

*** - Melisandre is exotic, but not because of her obvious oriental features.

 

[Nerds_feather]

I understand that perspective on SoIaF, and think it's worth considering the underlying question seriously--where does a plausible representation of character perspective, with all the attendant prejudices, end and an authorial representation of the non-Anglo-Saxon (in this case) peoples begin?

In the case of SoIaF, I think the author's intentions were to show us Essos through the perspectives of Westerosi, and in that sense exoticizing it the way Europeans exoticized (and continue to exoticize) "the Orient" makes sense. But one of the things I hoped for in A Dance with Dragons was a shift from this to a more balanced and less exoticizing perspective. Instead we got an even bigger helping of "Eastern decadence" and "Oriental despotism."

Of course, this is hardly the worst or most egregious example...actually pretty tame compared to what you get in some other novels and series.

 

[Ursa major]

I agree that the Slavers Bay - how's that for the name of a cultural area - narratives do fit that criticism to some extent, probably emphasized by comparison with the slave-free nature of Westerosi society. (Not that I'd really want to live in any of the lands of that world that have been shown to us.)

But they get off lightly compared to the Others, who have received not a single kind word from anyone. They don't even get a proper Proper name. "Others", the ultimate put-down.

In a contrarian mood, I've pointed out once or twice in the GRRM sub-forum that we all assume the Others are the bad guys because we're given no... er... other view of them. For all we know, they've only been stirred into activity to oppose the more-than-dubious actions and intentions of the followers of R'hllor. (The case against the Others is all laid on so thick, I can't help wondering whether the revealing of the "real" nature of the Others is going to be one of the series' bigger shocks.)

 

[The Ace]

To be honest, I don't see racism as Eddings' intent.

The Western Angarak societies were the result of a brutal caste system that was one step away from a hive-mind - 'Belgarath the Sorcerer,' goes into great detail bout the Grolims' rule in Cthol Mishrak.

The secular nature of Mallorea is discussed at great length before the re-emergence of Torak plunged all of Angarak into a new Dark Age in preparation for the campaign that led to Vo Mimbre.

Arendia's social problems and ongoing civil strife are also explored, this is expanded on in, 'Polgara the Sorceress.'

For the others, Vikings and Romans make decent stereotypes anyway, and a society in which disputes are resolved by poison could very easily lead to widespread dug addiction.

Sendaria, as a melting-pot could've gone either way - Eddings just allowed the virtues of the ancestral stock to rise to the surface. Australia, rather than the US, if you will.


Eddings built a world that functioned, and if not entirely laudable, his races are, at least understandable.

 

[Connavar]

Whatever that generic Mongol like people in GRRM series was called, i found him to be real bad at writing excotic barbarians. One of the things that put me off the series in A Game of Thrones book.

There are better use of foreign, non-western people in other epic fantasy series. Joe Abercrombie i think does that well. Gurkish, other non-western people didnt feel too stereotypical and worse written than The Northmen, The Union peoples,characters. Of course Northmen are Viking stereotypes but well written ones.

Just read better authors than the ones mentioned in this kind of fantasy. Better meaning at world building, writing different kind of peoples. There are many out there.

 

[Brian G Turner]

To myself, a big flag of unintentional race bias is when a story is supposed to have a multicultural cast - yet only the "black" characters have their skin colour described, because everyone else is presumed "white".

 

[Anne Lyle]

I think there's a certain amount of copying Tolkien, who at least had the excuse that he was born in the late 19th century when simplistic views of non-Western cultures were the norm. And of course mythological creatures such as elves, dwarves and so on have always tended to be seen as stereotypes rather than individuals precisely because they are archetypes.

On the SF front, Star Trek is an equally bad influence, since each race/species of aliens is basically monocultural - but there I guess the excuse is that in a one-hour TV show you don't have much opportunity for complex and subtle worldbuilding.

I can't comment on ASOIAF since I gave up after the second one...

 

[Montero]

To myself, a big flag of unintentional race bias is when a story is supposed to have a multicultural cast - yet only the "black" characters have their skin colour described, because everyone else is presumed "white".

Katherine Kerr has a punt at this with her Polar City sf books - she says in an author's introduction something to the effect of she is fed up with white-centric western sf, and in these two books assume everyone is black unless you are told they are white.....

 

[Grunkins]

To myself, a big flag of unintentional race bias is when a story is supposed to have a multicultural cast - yet only the "black" characters have their skin colour described, because everyone else is presumed "white".

I think about this a lot when I play at writing. I've decided it comes down to PoV. Generally people in the racial majority from a fairly racially homogenous area don't think to mention or even notice the features of the majority, but do notice the racial traits of the minority. In a mixed area no one takes the time to notice any racial traits at all. And a minority in a racially homogenous area tends to notice the racial traits of other minorities.

It's something I'm very aware of when writing.

To the thread at large: google "Race fail 09". Lots of interesting points of view on the topic.

 

[allmywires]

This is a topic I've been meaning to bring up for a while. Why do some SF/F authors think it's okay to ascribe "essential" (usually negative) characteristics to various "peoples?"

I have been guilty of this slightly in the past, I think, but I've changed all that now and I've come to believe it's just lazy world building. It would take too much time and effort to create dozens of complex different nationalities (but sometimes, for the sake of plot, it has to happen) and it's easy to characterise them by a certain defining trait. In some ways it's true in our world, like you could definitely say North Korea = Bad Guys, and all that.

I like Song of Ice and Fire, but find the treatment of "Essos" as a sort of exoticized orient stand-in kind of nauseating, to be perfectly frank.

Agree that its a relic of Tolkien-ism, when 'exotic' countries were just that - exotic - and were relative mysteries to a white British fantasy author. I'm hoping that tide will change very soon - it should do, considering our inherent multiculturality (is that even a word?)

 

[Nerds_feather]

To be honest, I don't see racism as Eddings' intent.

The Western Angarak societies were the result of a brutal caste system that was one step away from a hive-mind - 'Belgarath the Sorcerer,' goes into great detail bout the Grolims' rule in Cthol Mishrak.

The secular nature of Mallorea is discussed at great length before the re-emergence of Torak plunged all of Angarak into a new Dark Age in preparation for the campaign that led to Vo Mimbre.

Arendia's social problems and ongoing civil strife are also explored, this is expanded on in, 'Polgara the Sorceress.'

For the others, Vikings and Romans make decent stereotypes anyway, and a society in which disputes are resolved by poison could very easily lead to widespread dug addiction.

Sendaria, as a melting-pot could've gone either way - Eddings just allowed the virtues of the ancestral stock to rise to the surface. Australia, rather than the US, if you will.


Eddings built a world that functioned, and if not entirely laudable, his races are, at least understandable.

I don't think he intended to be racist either. The Western/Eastern dynamic is pretty clearly meant to reflect the Cold War, and the "evil hive mind religion" is a blatant stand in for "godless Communism."

The "essentialism" maps on top of that. From TV Tropes:

Almost everywhere. Eddings mined real-world cultures almost exclusively when populating the world of the Belgariad. Word of God states "The Sendars correspond to rural Englishmen, the Arends to Norman French, the Tolnedrans to Romans, The Chereks to Vikings, the Algars to Cossacks, The Ulgos to Jews, and the Angaraks to Hunnish-Mongolian-Muslim-Visigoths out to convert the world by sword. I didn't really have correspondences in mind for the Drasnians, Rivans, Marags, and Nyissans."

and

Each of the nations of the world, overlaid on their Fantasy Counterpart Culture. Drasnians are devious, Tolnedrans are greedy, Arends take Honor Before Reason to truly ridiculous levels, Nyissans are decadent hedonists, Alorns are sailors and party animals.

The explanation for this is:

The gods chose people who had traits that appealed to them to follow them, and have spent umpteen-thousand years cultivating those traits. Extra justified in the case of the Angaraks, who were split into nations based on physical characteristics after Torak returned from a few thousand years of doing god-stuff. Too bad those characteristics were caste-related and not tribal, like he thought.

With the Murgos, as stated by Belgarath in Belgarath, the Sorceror, they were split based not on their physical characteristics, but on their cultural roles. Nadrak is Old Angarak for "merchant", Thull means "worker", and Murgo means "soldier". Their physical characteristics were already present because of natural trends for these roles to attract people with certain body and mind types. They simply became more and more pronounced over the hundreds of years due to their comparative isolation from one another.

So there's a reason why it looks this way, but hold on...the Eastern/swarthy peoples are the "evil ones" and the Western whiteys are the "good guys." That's problematic.

I loved these books as a kid, and they were instrumental in getting me into fantasy, so on one level I hate to pile on like this, but on another level it is a problem that needs to be addressed. I know it gets a bit more complicated and less essentialist in the second series. But I think this is a good example of problematic fantasy worldbuilding. I just don't think it should be considered acceptable in stuff written today, at the very least.

 

[Southern Geologist]

I have been guilty of this slightly in the past, I think, but I've changed all that now and I've come to believe it's just lazy world building. It would take too much time and effort to create dozens of complex different nationalities (but sometimes, for the sake of plot, it has to happen) and it's easy to characterise them by a certain defining trait. In some ways it's true in our world, like you could definitely say North Korea = Bad Guys, and all that.

I think you've hit on an excellent point here, and I would like to expand upon it. On the one hand, many different nationalities may be necessary for a story, but on the other hand it takes time and effort and--I think this is crucial--space to give them each their own cultural identity.

Even if a writer is willing to dedicate the time and effort to researching different cultures and coming up with something interesting and multidimensional for each race/culture attempting to do so may well expand their five hundred page novel to an eight hundred page monstrosity (in the eyes of the editor). This runs counter to the modern writing culture where writers (unestablished ones, at least) are essentially taught to cut, cut, cut! as much as possible, and this particular element of world-building may be seen as fluff by the editor. Who needs to make enemy races/cultures sympathetic, right? It can be very difficult to toe the line between doing justice to various cultures and not adding too many words. After all, it's hard to describe a culture in a couple of sentences.

Please note that I propose this not as an excuse for lazy world building/latent racism in one's writing but as a practical problem that needs to be overcome.

 

[allmywires]

Oh, I agree with everything you've said. It's a fine line between balancing the epic, far-reaching scale of traditional fantasy populated with real, believable and non-xenophobic cultures and bloating your novel with poorly-thought-out countries and peoples.

In my WIP, what I did was rather than skimp on my many different cultures, just cut them in half. That way I can dedicate the necessary care to cultural world-building (I hope).

 

[Nerds_feather]

I think you've hit on an excellent point here, and I would like to expand upon it. On the one hand, many different nationalities may be necessary for a story, but on the other hand it takes time and effort and--I think this is crucial--space to give them each their own cultural identity.

Even if a writer is willing to dedicate the time and effort to researching different cultures and coming up with something interesting and multidimensional for each race/culture attempting to do so may well expand their five hundred page novel to an eight hundred page monstrosity (in the eyes of the editor). This runs counter to the modern writing culture where writers (unestablished ones, at least) are essentially taught to cut, cut, cut! as much as possible, and this particular element of world-building may be seen as fluff by the editor. Who needs to make enemy races/cultures sympathetic, right? It can be very difficult to toe the line between doing justice to various cultures and not adding too many words. After all, it's hard to describe a culture in a couple of sentences.

Please note that I propose this not as an excuse for lazy world building/latent racism in one's writing but as a practical problem that needs to be overcome.

I don't think it needs to be that elaborate--actually, it's often better if it's not. You just don't make them avatars of a specific "essence," and make sure to give them the subjectivity of a real person. Then don't get into one of those Western/white = good, civilized, heroic; non-Western/non-white = bad, barbaric, villainous kind of dichotomies.

And that doesn't mean you can't have an "evil empire." It's just a bad idea to have an "evil people."