Where are all the minorities in fantasy?

theJoshFrost

I'm sure I'm not the first to make this observation, but how come in every fantasy setting there's a lack of black people/latinos/asians/middle easterners?

In Lord of the Rings there's NOTHING but white people, and even Star Wars only has 2 black guys. One for each trilogy. And no, the racially charged aliens don't count.

So why is that, I wonder? I just find it sort of interesting.

Miloch

LotR has "Arabic" Haradrim. Bad guys of course. I think the reason is because all the stuff you mention is written by white guys. But take Star Trek on the other hand, which has all sorts of minorities, even black vulcans, latino klingons and who knows what else.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Miloch

Well, personally I think it's a bit silly that cultures on another world would have minorities that resemble those on our own world. Obviously, they would have racial variations though, and you get quite a bit of that in fantasy realms like the FR what with blackish-skinned elves and so on.

Brude

Shandyr said:

On the other hand I would like to know how many western men and women are included in movies produced in China or Japan (or any non-western nation for that matter)?

Those are much more homogenous cultures, though, so it's not quite the same.

Is it the moral duty of game/movie industry to always include all minorities?
Is that possible? Is that feasible?

I dunno about 'duty,' but it'd be nice if media, any media, started reflecting the diversity of the American population instead of defaulting to the straight/white/male almost *every* time, especially in leading roles.

LordsDarkKnight185

That's why i love the realms and its diversity in cultures. Beings the "kitchen-sink" Setting should never be viewed negatively for this reason.

ARKdeEREH

In general I am very supportive of there being a more diverse range of BG portraits. Right now most of them look the same so it can be quite annoying when trying to create a character that isn't white or at least one that looks significantly different than the ones I have made before.

While it would not necessarily make sense to have every real world demographic featured in the Baldur's Gate universe, I do think that there should be at least one or two character portraits per character demographic that does exist in the Forgotten Realms universe. For example, I wanted to make my PC look like a drow and I discovered that there were no portraits of black elves. Valygar really didn't look elven enough to qualify. The result is that right now I have a black elf with a white portrait, which seems a little weird.

One possibility that might please everyone is if character portraits were made similar to how they are in the Sims 2. In that game you can custom design your character's skin tone, eye shape, hair color, etc. Maybe there could be some way to do that with the existing portraits in the character generation screen.

Elessar

The basic deal with fantasy, I think, is so much is inspired by Tolkien and he was trying to write a mythology for England, whereas Gene Roddenberry wrote about a utopian future while the U.S. so the racial diversity, or lack thereof, among main characters reflected their writing goals. That said, there's no reason Forgotten Realms can't do whatever it wants with mixing those approaches or whatever, and I agree that the original BG's skin, hair, and portrait options are pretty disappointing. I like the Sims 2 style idea

DJKajuru

That's why I love planescape torment ...

reedmilfam

I had the opposite problem. There were cool black avatars in NwN - I wanted to do the one with the bald head save for the pony-tail, but not one of the voices sounded remotely like a black man.

Anyway, this falls into the 'whatever' category for me. I guess I don't read much into stuff (and don't imagine racism spiking up wherever).

As for Tolkien - it wasn't an anti-black thing to make the Haradrim bad. He was basing on early earth, and we didn't have the immigration that we now have during the middle ages. What I think would be cool is a farther-reaching RPG where you go to those areas and run into more diversity.

Port cities (Akathla) probably would have this, actually.

Brude

reedmilfam said:

As for Tolkien - it wasn't an anti-black thing to make the Haradrim bad. He was basing on early earth, and we didn't have the immigration that we now have during the middle ages.

Well, they did. They just didn't call it 'immigration.' They called it 'invasion.'

Also, the Moors would like to have a word with you. ;-)

Tetraploid

In fantasy settings where travel is relatively poorly advanced, it seems to make sense that regions would be more homogenous in terms of genetic population. It's not like people from another continent could just hop on a plane to visit! Sci-fi with space travel, however, makes less sense - you'd think by the time travel between planets is commonplace, cultures within a planet would be pretty well mixed.

That said, not EVERY fantasy setting is like that. The Elder Scrolls games, in my opinion, have a very good mix of races. Morrowind, Tamriel and Skyrim each have different major cultures (dunmer, imperial, nord respectively) but with a sizeable scattering of other races around the place in varying population density, just like the real world where some towns or cities may have different demographics. The whole thing just feels very natural and realistic, rather than trying to force equal representation of all the races in all the towns. And now I want to re-install Oblivion...

Seldar

Minorities exist in Faerun in Jungle of Chult, Caalimshan, Kara Tur, and I suppose there are many ohters at the extreme East of Faerun. But indeed, we never talk about them

NWN_babaYaga

well... in our world "whites" are a minority. About Tolkien...the regions his tales takes place is a bit like europe and so a caucasian dominated land. But i think there is a subliminal message that "good or high" elves are always white as porcelain and the list goes on in literature by western authors who write in favor of their own skin...

and that twilight and harry potter BS (all aimed and younger people) is another example for sneaky racism where only whites play a role..

ARKdeEREH

Tetraploid said:

In fantasy settings where travel is relatively poorly advanced, it seems to make sense that regions would be more homogenous in terms of genetic population. It's not like people from another continent could just hop on a plane to visit!

It might make sense if mages at least were more diverse. They might not be able to "hop on a plane," but they could likely teleport, fly, or use some other magical means of transportation, such as that used by the mages that got trapped on that frozen island in Tales of the Sword Coast.

Howie

An A Song of Ice and Fire RPG set in the Free Cities would be awesome.

Miloch

NWN_babaYaga said:

About Tolkien...the regions his tales takes place is a bit like europe

Actually, that part of NW Middle-Earth *was* Europe - a Europe in the distant past. There were of course vast tracks of the continent to the south and east (presumably proto-Africa and Asia) but Tolkien didn't write much about them.

Athkatla is supposedly modeled off medieval Spain, so should have a significant "Moorish" (i.e. Calishite) population, and Calimshan would be totally Moorish/Arabic. But I don't know if you see a whole lot of that in the game.

Dynaheir of Rashemen is black (or at least dusky-skinned) as she should be according to lore, and so should Minsc, but they made him white for some unknown reason.

ARKdeEREH

I think Saerk Farrahad is supposed to be middle eastern

cherrycoke2l

@Miloch – I don't believe Rashemites are supposed to be dusky-skinned. Forgotten Realms: Campaign Setting has a picture of Rashemite witch (Hathran) and she's not really dusky-skinned like Dynaheir is in the game's portrait. Anyway, here's what the handbook has:

http://pds1.egloos.com/pds/1/200605/17/36/a0006836_22334232.jpg

theJoshFrost

Tetraploid said:

I
That said, not EVERY fantasy setting is like that. The Elder Scrolls games, in my opinion, have a very good mix of races. Morrowind, Tamriel and Skyrim each have different major cultures (dunmer, imperial, nord respectively) but with a sizeable scattering of other races around the place in varying population density, just like the real world where some towns or cities may have different demographics. The whole thing just feels very natural and realistic, rather than trying to force equal representation of all the races in all the towns. And now I want to re-install Oblivion...

I've always thought it was hilarious that the Elder Scrolls games made a separate race entirely for black people (Red Guard). Then again, I guess ES races aren't divided like that since Imperials, Nords, and that other race that I never make cause they look like total dweebs are all just white folk. So it's not a big deal, but it amuses me.

LordsDarkKnight185

cherrycoke2l said:

@Miloch – I don't believe Rashemites are supposed to be dusky-skinned. Forgotten Realms: Campaign Setting has a picture of Rashemite witch (Hathran) and she's not really dusky-skinned like Dynaheir is in the game's portrait. Anyway, here's what the handbook has:

http://pds1.egloos.com/pds/1/200605/17/36/a0006836_22334232.jpg

That portrait is kind of dusky, and minsc is dusky-ish. Dynaheir is not dusky, she is far far beyond dusky.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20051218163632/nwn2/images/e/ef/Humans.jpg
All the way on the right is a tethyrian man, beside him is a Rashemi woman

http://www.shsforums.net/uploads/monthly_03_2011/post-5803-130073513163.gif
The man on the right is also rashemi

LordsDarkKnight185

OH and for the sake of just pointing out a positive future.

http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n589/roqoodepot/Books/the-reaver.jpg

Miloch

LordsDarkKnight185 said:

cherrycoke2l said:

@Miloch – I don't believe Rashemites are supposed to be dusky-skinned. Forgotten Realms: Campaign Setting has a picture of Rashemite witch (Hathran) and she's not really dusky-skinned like Dynaheir is in the game's portrait. Anyway, here's what the handbook has:

http://pds1.egloos.com/pds/1/200605/17/36/a0006836_22334232.jpg

That portrait is kind of dusky, and minsc is dusky-ish. Dynaheir is not dusky, she is far far beyond dusky.

Well, they both look dusky to me. I suppose there's a range of duskiness, which is what it says for Rashemi in Races of Faerun. Minsc is white though, and according to that supplement he should be hairy and bearded, since Rashemi men don't shave their heads. Thayans do however and also tattoo themselves, so Minsc looks more like a Thayan (Edwin should really look that way) which would be an abomination to a Rashemi.

LordsDarkKnight185

Miloch said:

Well, they both look dusky to me. I suppose there's a range of duskiness, which is what it says for Rashemi in Races of Faerun. Minsc is white though, and according to that supplement he should be hairy and bearded, since Rashemi men don't shave their heads. Thayans do however and also tattoo themselves, so Minsc looks more like a Thayan (Edwin should really look that way) which would be an abomination to a Rashemi.

I agree completely! I have had this conversations a couple of times on here, and it always ends with; we don't know if Edwin is bald and tattooed under his hood or not.

LadyRhian

@LordsDarkKnight185 Actually, Edwin wears two hoods. The red outer one, and a gray inner one that can look like hair from a distance.

And Tolkien based his mythology on both old German and English mythology along with the Finnish myth stories collected as the Kalevala with Lemminkainen and Vainamoinen, as this was his specialty, mythology. Vainamoinen influenced the character of Gandalf the Gray...

Lemernis

The Forgotten Realms is what we would consider ethnically very diverse for humans in the sense that it has lands clearly derived from the real world, eg, Calimshan = Persia, Chult = Africa, Kara-Tur = "far east" (Asia), Maztica = Mexico/Central America, etc. One thing that is rather different, though, is in the real world Africans migrated and mixed so extensively (mostly due to the slave trade) and in the Forgotten Realms Chult has remained relatively isolated. But of course in FR, in addition to humans, it's the humanoid fantasy races of elf, dwarf, orc, and halfling that seem to dominate people's thoughts and attitudes about "race." And then too there are so many intelligent monster races. However this incredible racial diversity doesn't mean that they are racially tolerant in the Realms. By and large they aren't.

Syntia13

@LadyRhian

LadyRhian said:

Actually, Edwin wears two hoods. The red outer one, and a gray inner one that can look like hair from a distance.

Actually, I believe it's a helmet. Very sensible of him, if you think of it. The hood does nothing for critical hits, after all. :P

On topic - well, there aren't many human races included, but look at all the other sentient species: there are moon elves, wood elves and drow, gnomes and deep gnomes, goblins and hobgoblins, dwarves and duergars, halflings and feral halflings (in the Planar Sphere), and I'm sure there are more of them which I'm missing. (The various types of undead don't count, I think).

LadyRhian

@Lemernis And then there is Al-Quadim, which is the Fantasy Arabia/Middle East, separated from Abeir-Toril by a water barrier known as the Great Sea.



There was also an unexplored land called Osse, and Maztica was its own continent (the southern part. I know they released one adventure set in the northern part of the continent which was more like Native America.... The Southwest, with Anasazi-type tribes. That may have been FMA, Cities of Gold.

LadyRhian

Sorry, should have said that Maxtica is the land at the top left of the map. The land above, the triangle shape with the comma at the bottom, is Maztica. Maztica proper is the comma-shaped piece at the very bottom, and the southwestern America lands is the kind-of triangular shape at the top. Toril is in the center. The islands are Moonshae near the top. Evermeet is the tear-drop shape closer to upper Maztica, and the comma-shape near the middle of the map is Nimbral (a very strange place- mages there replace their eyes with orbs of solid silver and are all illusionists. Their replacement eyes are wonderful for seeing magic and through illusion. Against gaze attacks however... not so much help!) Above the Moonshaes are several small islands- Uttersea, Gundarlun and Ruathym. The island above the backwards Massachusetts of land is Lantan (beneath the Moonshaes, the single larger island). The tiny islands, closer to the coast are the Nelanther, the so-called "Pirate Isles". Zakhara is the sort of upside down U-shaped land at the bottom middle of the map. It's separated from Toril proper by very high mountains on the landward side called the Yehimal. The Utter East is that sickle-shaped coast above Zakhara, and to the East (left of the middle) is Tabot (Tibet), Shou Lung and T'u Lung, pretty much in order going east. Furthest east is Malatra. Osse is the huge land to the furthest left of the map.

One map of Zakhara:

A more detailed map:

Another map:

And one last map, showing how Maztica was discovered:

reedmilfam

Brude said:

reedmilfam said:

As for Tolkien - it wasn't an anti-black thing to make the Haradrim bad. He was basing on early earth, and we didn't have the immigration that we now have during the middle ages.

Well, they did. They just didn't call it 'immigration.' They called it 'invasion.'

Also, the Moors would like to have a word with you. ;-)

The Moors did not have rapid mobility to distant lands and an ability to move back in short time. That was a slow expansion through southern europe (a relatively small distance, actually, from shores of Africa and other ports in the easter Med.

@NWN_babaYaga I don't even know where to start with that. If you try, you can find so-called racism everywhere; talk about a tired dialogue!

NWN_babaYaga

@reedmilfam it was an example and nothing i realy have to say more about... just a bulb:D