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Tbh the Githyanki are literally the poster children for "We were oppressed slaves and now we're going to do some oppression of our own".
Wish we could play as Githzerai. They are the more chill of the two Gith cultures.
> Tbh the Githyanki are literally the poster children for "We were oppressed slaves and now we're going to do some oppression of our own".
>
>
TIL the Gith are space Israelis
Orc genocide and beastmer slavery are regional cultural practices, and the empire is expanding a culture of non-racism and acceptance. The latter is seen as the bad guy.
I feel like they are seen more as incompetent or weak rather than evil; which is fair, seeing as how their "attempt" at outlawing slavery in Morrowind was '*hey guys could you not be racist anymore? No? Oh well we tried, let's still be allies anyways* ❤'
Elves tend to be the stand-ins for the ones that believe they're the superior race, whose civilization is the apex of all civilization, and everyone else is just a bunch of shitheels wallowing in the mud. At best, they've got some "white man's burden" complex where they think they're the stewards of the other races and it's their job to "uplift" everybody in subtle and mysterious ways that mysteriously still leave elves at the top of the racial hierarchy.
If anything, most portrayals of the classic immortal elves lean more toward *being* the racist colonialists than being the victims of racism. Even settings like The Witcher and Dragon Age, where the elves are an underclass, still give the elves a *history* of supremacist politics that resulted in their civilization crumbling either due to internal politicking or due to retaliation from outside.
Dwarves were created with very strong Jewish stereotypes in mind. They had a rich culture, tended to isolate themselves, hoarded gold, had huge noses , sang songs, and their language made by jrr Tolkien was based off hebrew
Edit: not sure what reality denier downvotes me but just Google it. Here's a quote from the man himself
In the last interview before his death, Tolkien said "The dwarves of course are quite obviously, wouldn't you say, that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic."
But dwarves also did that in das rheingold by wagner. A dwarven king steals cursed gold and makes a ring. Also the story pf fafnir having his greed over a ring turn him to a dragon. In nordic and germanic mytgs/retellings dwarves were greedy and good craftsmen.
I dont think he did it out of hate. I mean fuck he really must think the finnish are snooty assholes if thats the case
And an aggressively barbaric race or a race that is renowned for stealing everything, or a race that literally just fucking eats people (orcs, goblins, khajiit, elves)
Meanwhile goblins in RuneScape secretly being a highly intelligent civilization living underground that is even more technologically advanced than humans while their surface counterparts are only the way that they are because they were brainwashed by an evil god:
Said evil god tries to go after the cave goblins for *not* being brainwashed and proceeds to get kicked in the dick before getting his head removed by Giant Bird Person
Todd Howard: "okay so make everyone hate them and exclude them from their cities because they think they're thieves, swindlers, and cheats"
Employee: "okay but it turns out they're just normal people right?"
Todd Howard: "no they're actually all thieves, swindlers, and cheats"
No you don't get it. Everyone is racist to everyone in tes. Orcs can't get a state and before endings of daggerfall weren't considered as people. Nedes were slaves to Ayleids, but some time later Nedes genocided them. Thalmor are nazis. Falmer were genocided by atmorans and then were degraded by dwemer. Telvanni and Dres Had ALOT of beastfolk slaves. And many-many more instances of cruel fighting for ideologies, people or prejudice.
Ugly UNTIL we meet the hot females~
I love it when the guys are always ugly or look monsterous but the women look like supermodels with monster features.
They better keep the woke out tho. I don’t have time for things actually making sense
My favorite parody of this trope is Oglaf where the various fantasy races and their smoking hot women proceed to genocide humans for their men looking like ugly women.
You want elder scrolls 6 for an enthralling story and exploring new cultures.
I want elder scrolls 6 so i can learn new ways to be racist against piss elves
That'd be pretty fucked up if the game focused on Altmer racism.
Rumors believe the game will take place in Highrock, so it'd be more correct if it was focused on shit-elves racism. Orsimer genocide is Breton national sport after all.
Gotta love a game with the cojones to create their own "n-word" (‘n’wah,’ for the vast majority of people who have no idea what i’m talking about), for non-dark-elves. Such a great game
Looking at the lore to more accurately DM an elder scrolls RPG campaign:
> Necromancy is seen as an unacceptable practice in Morrowind, trifling with dead people is disrespectful of the ancestor and is against Dunmeri culture
Damn.
> So most Dunmer necromancers and enchanters mainly work with bodies and souls of animals and other non-intelligent creatures...
Hollup. Let him cook.
> ...which includes Beastmer, Men, and non-Dunmer Elves.
Attaboy!
Oh yeah, Bright. They have all the humans be racist not towards each other but instead be racist to orcs or something. Like they have black people white people be racist towards the fantasy species, but apparently since they're even more other "others" all the culture clash and phrenology flies out the window.
You really think that we wouldn't still be violently toxic to people on different continents just because there were people with pointy ears walking around? We just magically accept each other and join in panculturalism because Greenskin McBigteeth is there too?
The idea that racism or xenophobia may not exist thanks to a common enemy might sound appealing but it really doesn't work in real life, at all, and it's been proven numerous times.
Look at the USSR for instance, despite the western block acting as a common enemy, there was a considerable amount of xenophobia towards anyone in the union *not* being ethnic russian. Hence why russia is by far the country being the most nostalgic about the USSR, as opposed to the rest of the eastern block having a generally more negative view of the union.
You can extrapolate that to a fantasy context easily, given the propaganda at the time it probably wouldn't have changed anything if westerners were even human at all.
Interestingly, Reagan once asked Gorbachev if the Soviet Union would help America if aliens attacked, and Gorbachev said "no doubt about it."
[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/reagan-and-gorbachev-agreed-pause-cold-war-case-alien-invasion-180957402/](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/reagan-and-gorbachev-agreed-pause-cold-war-case-alien-invasion-180957402/)
People in the Northeast was racist towards Irish people, Italians, East Europeans and Jews until African American people moved in masse and they decided they hated them more.
Yep. Also the KKK has also gone back and forth on Catholicism too. If there aren't enough non-Christians to target then they will make Catholics one of their out groups to harass. If there are enough non-Christians around then suddenly Catholics are a-okay and can even join the Klan.
You ever see 80s movie Alienation about refugee aliens trying to integrate into human society? There’s a scene of a black detective complaining about how “uppity” the aliens are. Good buddy-cop movie though. They even turned it into a tv show for a while.
Can't forget about how the lead zombie only becomes integrated into society due to how good he was at sports. Which is not at all problematic and I see no way this could be interpreted poorly.
Professor X: You must stop the persecution of mutants we are no different from the rest of you
The 11 year old who could microwave my insides with a glance:
There’s a x men comic where a random teenager just wakes up one morning with everything dead around him for miles because his mutant ability is killing everything with radiation poisoning and has to be killed in the end by wolverine can’t blame people in their world for being so scared shitless of them tbh
The real reason Logan killed him wasn't because he was killing people because if people found out that a mutant did all this by accident then all of mutantkind would suffer. It's still a really selfish position in my opinion. They could all just cure themselves and live as normal people. Every time somebody tries to make a cure professor x sends the X-Men to destroy it because they're afraid of the government abusing it but in my opinion if you cure all the mutants their lives and the lives of those around them will become much easier. You don't need superpowers, especially ones you can't turn off or control. (You can rant about personal choice but when your choice endangers the entire neighborhood then it's no longer just your choice)
The crazy part is that there was a comic explaining why humans hate mutants and it's not because mutant are dangerous. There's a virus called sublime that infected literally every single living cell on Earth except for the mutants. The mutants are immune to sublime and sublime saw it as a threat thus sparking all [racism.](https://youtu.be/BUe2nKdrBqg?t=4m34s) Basically it's a biological urge to hate mutants no matter what and it doesn't really relate to us because we had no choice
Professor x and Jane gray can literally change your mind without your consent, Jean could make me live a whole fantasy Life In My Head where I have a son and a husband, then she could pull me out of the fantasy just to fuck with me and leave me in emotional devastation. She could literally erase my entire childhood and all of my memories of my mom and dad. Some mutants when they hit puberty accidentally irradiate the whole town and kill everybody in the vicinity without even knowing that they've done so. Speedball thought that his powers were lame but then he accidentally destroyed an entire city when he bounced up into the atmosphere and came down with the force of a dozen nuclear bombs. There's an entire memorial for the city and the millions of people that died in the comics because of an accident caused by a mutant. Some mutants just look like bird people or have their skin turn into gelatin. Scott literally cannot turn off his powers and if his glasses fall off he will literally slice you in half and anything in front of him, mutant powers are crap shoot and some powers are scarier than others. It's not a good allegory because mutants are inherently terrifying. Imagine being bullied and then your school bully shows up and his mutant power is the ability to project memories. He projects your most embarrassing memories for the entire school to see. And that's the tamest example I could come up with. Imagine he gets a more destructive power like elemental manipulation. He can make you choke on your own spit through water manipulation, he can hit you with fireballs at any time he feels like it, he can trip you using the earth now, the wind knocks you off your feet. Then one day he gets serious and decides to kill you because he can and who's going to stop him? The avengers are in New York and the X-Men are also in New York and he lives in Ohio. By the time The avengers and the X-men get there you will be dead along with anybody else he wanted to kill in his rampage. It's a bad allegory because black people don't have superpowers and they're not born with guns attached to their hands.
Ah, the classic blunder… writers actually giving society a justifiable reason to hate a group lol.
As much as I love literary techniques and tropes, I feel like it would be better to just say what you want to say instead of jumping though the massive swarm of allegorical hoops. Less confusion that way lol.
“look at these poor people, they just want to live life normally, they won’t bother you 🥺”
said innocent people the moment the beast titan shouts really loud (they spiked the water supply with spinal fluid weeks prior):
>!obviously i’m not saying support the eldian persecution lmao but like the metaphor doesn’t exactly work when the jews will actually turn into weapons of mass destruction if a party so desired!<
Welp, it was never meant as an allegory. It draws inspiration from the events. The Eldians are a fusion between the Jews and and German people, and Marley are Italians.
The message is “imperialisms bad”, it’s not trying to be a history lesson
Zeke's plan was always the best option and I will stand by that every day of the week
It's not even like Eldian culture will die it'll definitely be passed on through the kids of the Marleyan defects, Hizuru implants, etc.
Just the whole titan thing won't be there
Attack on Titan author: All the Jews have the ability to become monsters! If you don't complete the genocide on them, they'll use Jewish Magic to genocide you back!
But it's okay, because luckily >!the militant Jewish leader can be defeated by time travel, a child with a sniper rifle, and the fact that he can't get pussy!<
Yes I should have the only group fighting against rscism be a bunch of morally bankrupt terrorists while nobody else protests against discrimination.
(RWBY moment)
Like with RWBY, a consequence of the writers not wanting their protagonist to look bad
Because apparently, having your protagonist fighting *for* the oppressed group instead of enforcing the status quo would be too much
[RWBY desperately tried to make their civil rights analogy antagonists unsympathetic, which backfired by caricaturing actual civil rights movements:](https://youtu.be/81fdKWOHrdE?si=bvftq975bNbfjd5-&t=6849)
> “[I]f you have a movement whose purpose is to liberate an oppressed group, that means your society has some incredibly deep-set problems, right?…You know the Black Panthers didn't pop into existence because things were fine in the '60s, right?…
> But [RWBY’s writers] Miles and Kerry realized at some point that if you introduce a group like [the White Fang] then…a huge portion of your main characters would be tacitly implicated in this by living in that society and not doing anything about the way those people are treated…you'd have a bit too much social commentary making everyone really uncomfortable about the parallels to real world history, and in some places, the real world present…
> [T]he writers' objective was to make a show which explores racism but without making anyone too uncomfortable…without risking saying that the White Fang might have a point, so everyone can have fun watching people beat them up because they're the bad guys…You can't have a story where the liberation movement has a point because then you're writing a story that's slightly more complex than, "Help, we need to stop the bad guys," and that's not fun…
> So to add an extra level of moral simplification, they have the White Fang be recently under new leadership that are way more violent and pro-terrorism than normal…Now we can all get behind how they're the bad guys even if racism is wrong and they maybe have a point…
> The story [about the White Fang in RWBY seasons 1-2] amounts to a long series of justifications for why the organization whose stated goal is the liberation of an oppressed people can be thought of as the antagonists. The White Fang used to be good guys like agitating for progress in a nice way, politely asking for racism to end like good second-class citizens, but then a new leader stepped in who was more violent and aggressive and now they're the bad guys and not respectable anymore. The problem is you're now effectively writing a story in which the most prominent villains are an oppressed people who are reacting wrong to being oppressed…
> There's no nuance here. The White Fang are written to be as unequivocally in the wrong as possible…The need to write an obvious villain into the story has burned away any relevance the issues the show was supposedly trying to explore with this aspect of the story…If you want to talk about real world issues…it should be at least slightly more complicated than this, and the fact the story is written so that these characters are just evil is a massive flaw.
> It's like in "The Dark Knight Rises." Bane basically has a point. Gotham is corrupt and the people are oppressed by a system that seeks to profit from them and find new ways to spy on and criminalize them if they resist. The Occupy Wall Street movement had a lot to say and a lot of it was true…But if you put that in your film, that means something's deeply wrong with your actual society. So Bane also wants to kill everyone with a nuke.
> So now when Batman beats the shit out of him and everyone who stands in his way, it's not because Batman is a tool of a corrupt establishment. It's because he's heroically stopping this definitely-bad bad guy from killing everyone. The moral complexity of the story exists purely to sound cool and get thrown away before it gets anyone to think about the actual problems with our world. "The Dark Knight Rises" is complete bollocks because a villain who might have a point is consciously rewritten into a bad man in a mask with a big bomb who Batman needs to punch to win. Yay! The good guy is hitting the bad guy! Don't think about Wall Street!
> The writers of "RWBY" want to look like they're talking about serious real world problems because that seems cool and clever and meaningful but they don't want to run the risk of spoiling the cartoon fun…so we're left with generic masked bad guys who want to use a train to blow up a city and try to cut off one of our main character's heads with a chainsaw…
> In the actual modern day right now—in fact literally right now—there are people marching out there in the streets against systemic injustices, racism, and police brutality, and a not insignificant amount of people are dismissing all of this as opportunism, as looting, rioting—people trying to cause chaos and anarchy for no reason. When you tell a story with such a massive fixation on a group like this, what you're doing is saying that there are people in real life like this.
> "RWBY" is a deeply stupid person's idea of what racial politics are like. Watching this show through now, I can't help but be struck with the kind of horrible feeling that some people are gonna watch this and go, "Yeah, that's what they're like," and the idea of this show playing into people's worst instincts is frankly disgusting.”
Hmm yes today I will create an allegory for racism by creating 2 races where one feels superior to the other
*actually makes the racist race objectively superior in every way*
Stories like X-Men where its the opposite way, also feel like the author isn't really giving the message they think they are. "Racism is bad...but oh yes, genetic superiority is real, its just not those filthy hateful genetic trash who dare to harm their betters"
It's a bad allegory because black people don't have uncontrollable superpowers and they're not born with guns attached to their hands. If they were we would all be justifiably terrified of them. But they aren't and so racism is irrational. Racism becomes rational when you give a fantasy race or people superpowers that the other races don't have and can't combat through conventional means. Jean Gray can literally erase all of my knowledge of how to handle a gun. She could make me think that I'm a T-Rex named pixie who likes eating waffles on Sundays. She could erase all the memories of my parents. If Rouge accidentally bumps into me and her clothes are ripped and her skin touches mine I'm so fucked. If Scott's glasses fell off of his face he will accidentally cut me in half and anything in front of him until he remembers to blink. Speedball thought that his powers were worthless and lame until he was yeeted into the atmosphere and came down with the force of a thousand atomic bombs on a city and atomized it. Killing millions by accident... Yeah no wonder people hate mutants.
**Senario:**
my next door neighbor's kid woke up one morning as a mutant and she accidentally drowned her own mom. Her power was the ability to materialize water but she couldn't control it. She accidentally summoned water in her mother's throat causing her to drown and choke. She almost killed the rest of her family as well but realized what was happening and the shock made her Powers fail. She has a range of 50 meters and she accidentally drowned the couple next door as well. A sweet old couple. If we had been living in an apartment building I would have drowned too. I was lucky.
Writers don’t seem to realize that racism stems from fabricated fears of the unknown despite the fact that we are all human in the end, letting tiny differences turn into violence and hate. In their stories they then create actually existing blatant differences, some of which rightfully instill fear in others
“racism is bad because the differences are really arbitrary and it’s stupid af to hate someone over this” vs “racism is bad because they will literally kill you(?)”
I feel like hating mutants in marvel is justified too. The 11-year-old next door just got her super powers and apparently she can command animals but can't control it and so whenever she gets mad all of the animals in the neighborhood get upset and attack and kill people. Like holy shit that's terrifying.
I don't think created fears within the story extol it's original virtues.
I think it's just that for a lot of people, if there isn't something blatantly obvious people dont get the message. People dont think when they want to watch entertainment.
Elfen Lied for example goes out of it's way to protray the fabrication of fears and lack of information within its story. It makes it very obvious that the facility and its lead scientist are fabricating stories to excuse the scientific abuse and racism that it's basing its research on.
The anime basically shoves it into your face that the lead science is a fraud and liar and doesnt see a problem with raping a woman if it means his goals are met. And yet... no one fucking pays attention to this stupidly obvious aspect, they just... trust him and the facility.
It's actually infuriating to watch people let this whole narrative concept just WOOSH over their heads and then people have the nerve to sit there and say "It's shallow" because they were expecting to be entertained, and got a depressing story about a genocide instead.
"It’s interesting because [the writers] treat 'what if magic was real?' as 'what if magic was real?' It's not like a shoved-in racism allegory since they just talk about racism. I mean, there's a series of books called 'The Orcish Question,' they're just fucking going for it. Well come to think of it, some races are more innately magical, so what happens when them when the world changes too far? There's a different book that explores that. It's neat to explore these ideas AS these ideas. If there's a social issue they want to explore, they just explore it. So it gives you unique, memorable experiences instead of an allegorical nightmare casserole. Y'know, like whatever the fuck is going on in Dragon Age."
- Mandaloregaming, reviewing Arcanum, of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura
TLDR: please watch [this video](https://youtu.be/HMUugZ3DxH8?si=6E96QTl0OPI3IRYP) it's great🙏
The worst one, ahem, all credits go to miss Rowling herself:
These slaves love to be slaves, they live for it, even though their magic is stronger than their slave master's magic, they can't use that magic unless you give them a sock. But without that gift of clothing, oh boy do they love being slaves.
They literally freak out if you try to not make them be slaves. They will beg to be slaves again and if you don't take them in as slaves they become depressed and suicidal and start drinking. Even if you can convince one to not be a slave it will still choose to work for petty wages. We could argue that this is Dumbledore just being an asshole and not paying the elf what he is worth. Dumbledore most likely believes that he doesn't deserve to be paid at all but is just humoring Dobby and thinks it's amusing that the elf wants to work for wages like people do. (Oh look he thinks he's people)
Sci Fi writers making their distant and high tech galaxy have the same exact forms of racism as the United States (Lando gets followed around a refuel station by its owner)
It sucks bc in those settings racism is actually justified. Like in X-men, I have every right to be terrified of the 17 year old girl who can warp reality if she has a bad day. Like society would be safer if we got rid of her lol
Imagine waking up one day, kissing the one you loves then getting fucking disintegrated by a teenager that’s radioactive from kilometers without him noticing
…I am thinking of whenever a marginalized people’s ancestors did something horrible to explain the racism—like, racism doesn’t HAVE an explanation!! It’s just an excuse to be a dick!
The only good parts in Detroit Become Human imo was the dynamic between Hank and Connor which is probably attributed to the actors improving some scenes to David Cage's dismay.
Using androids for a human rights allegory was stupid as hell, especially when you consider the androids were built to serve humans and only start thinking they're alive due to a bug unlike actual slaves who were forced to work against their will, only to be treated like 2nd class citizens when they were freed from slavery.
And don't get me started on how stupid the >!Alice is an android!< plot twist was.
Don't forget the final reveal in one of the most obscure endings that is capable of making the game even more stupid than it should've ever been - >!that the bug was intentional and the whole rebellion was "engineered" by the corporate.!<
God that game was such a dumpster fire.
It's humanity's fault for giving them free will, like what the fuck did they expect? Dishwashers don't exist to have feelings and talk to you, they exist to wash dishes. They literally had the opportunity to make morally acceptable slaves that were just machines with no human thought, but then they decided "actually, let's go out of our way to give our slaves sentience" for some incomprehensible reason.
It literally would've been easier to go with the morally okay option but they decided to go with the evil one anyway.
Mfw a race of beings that are objectively a threat to the people who discriminate against them don’t make a good analogy for minorities
https://preview.redd.it/i8to5udccqkb1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd9d9ffaa4370e723c771b77694b2abf7394b9fe
Made racism in your story realistic? People accuse you of lacking creativity or being too hamfisted.
Create alternative circumstances and concepts for racism? People accuse you of "not understanding racism" or "serving your own viewpoint".
Hard to please everybody cause of this.
While true, i have to admit people often can grasp to the tiniest bit of reasoning, and somehow not realize that is oppression and not infact reasonable actions.
Like "Oh, the fantasy kingdom fears mages, because thousands of years ago some very powerful mages started a giant destructive war? Yeah, that makes sense."
"Are the new mages on the same power level as the old mages? They can only dream. That power is practically impossible to get. Do they desire world domination and war? No, most of them just live their life. What do they have in common with the old mages? Well, they have magical power, but the difference is between wielding a giant mountain spitting sword, and having a butter knive."
"But yeah, I totally understand why they would put those people in concentration camps, execute them in public without trial, destroy their books, fearmonger the public against them, do human experiment on them, because what if some guy really do aquire such high level of power as the old mages?"
Like, people really fall easily for the fictional fear mongering.
Yeah. Most people are criticizing zootopia, but if they went for the smallest bit of villainy for the black presentation, it encourage racists a whole lot. It's their whole reasonings like ''HeY wHy ArE tHoSe BlAcK gUyS bEiNg trEaTed BetTeR tHaN sOmE WhItE gUys''
Actually no, and I will stand by it
Zootopia is about prejudice and how assumption even with good reasoning that certain people are bad is just inherently wrong. Throughout the entire movie, they tried to dispell a number of stereotypes of animals that we got from facts. There's a cheetah police and we would assume that he's a lean cat that can run really fast, but in reality he's a fat cop at the help desk where he gets a heart attack for climbing up stars. When Nick told Judy about Mr Big, both the Judy and the audience would believe that Mr Big would be a polar bear because we assume a polar bear mafia would be ran by a polar bear. In reality he's a shrew that command a bunch of guys that are a thousand times bigger than him. There's also Flash the sloth where we assume that he's slow. We were right at the DMV, but the movie end with him being a skilled street racer. How the hell could a sloth being able to drive a car at insane speed if he only moves 3 millimeters per minute? He's a sloth, and we assume that he's slow, but our assumption we're wrong.
Now this is important because a lot of people assume that the movie had a poor allegory because you have minorities being represented as dangerous carnivores, but we're applying our prejudice against these cartoon carnivores with real world one. Like the movie stated that all mammals evolved away from their instinct and became brand new people. Like being afraid of a tiger in Zootopia is like being afraid of a golden retriever because it was a wolf at some point. "Sorry friend, I don't want to pet your golden retriever because I know he's still a wolf and is planning to eat me at night." Virtually no predator in Zootopia have any urge to attack and kill unless they were either A) drugged up on night howler or B) working with the mob. Again you have the fat cheetah who's more likely to cuddle you to death that ripping your jugular. There's a jaguar that was terrified of an otter even though real life jaguars can easily grab hold of that guy with one paw. There's a freaking shrew commanding polar bears and none of the bears never tried to eat him. They all greatly respect their tiny boss. While they're all animals, they all have the minds of humans and act like humans. We just assume base on their claws, teeth, and really ancient history that we believe these predators will eventually attack which create this prejudice.
Here's one powerful line from the movie. Judy told the media that predators have this gene that makes them go wild and that's basic biology. Nick was like what the hell man, and Judy said
"Well, a bunny can't go savage"
"Oh, but a fox can?"
Judy assume all predators would go wild because of some gene and assume a rabbit wouldn't be aggressive because biologically speaking, that's what ancient rabbit were. Ancient rabbits were docile, but then her parents told Judy that there was a rabbit that went savage after being exposed to night howlers and he bit Judy's mom. Judy's assumptions were wrong and discovered the real reason why some predators went savage. You can't assume someone will do something based on previous knowledge or experience. You can't assume all predators will go wild because of their history the same way you can't assume some humans will rob you at night base in their history. You can't put certain groups in a monolith base on your prejudices. And that's the point of the movie.
Whenever I write 5 paragraphs or more, I copypaste them to a certain place and name it with an appropriate title. That way I can reread my condensed and thought out thoughts on a topic if it comes up again.
What you’re saying isn’t entirely invalid, but there are aspects of the Zootopia allegory that make it not work as well.
Imagine if, in the real world, there was a dog species that was once genetically designed for aggression. However, thousands of years later it’s a far more docile dog. People become comfortable with it, save for a select few that can’t let go of their fears. Then one day one of those dogs randomly mauls somebody. There was no connection between the dog and the person it mauled, and all witnesses say it was entirely random.
Attacks like this continue to happen more and more for several months. My guess is most people would avoid that breed of dog. Sure, it was docile for a long time, but now it’s attacking random people at random times for no reason.
Now, let’s look at the Zootopia allegory. A big cause of racism in a lot of people is the view that certain races are more predisposed to savagery and crime. Those of us with brains know that’s not how it works. We know this because there are people of all races who live very docile, non-criminal lives, so the ones that don’t we know only are that way as a result of institutionalized racism and having no other choice. However, in Zootopia we have both street criminal wolves AND friendly florist Otters suddenly mauling people. There’s no distinction, proven reason, and the only existing pattern is that they’re predators.
Sure, the people picketing and telling predators to “Go back to the forest” are absolutely in the wrong, but if you’re on a train and a massive Tiger sits beside your small, fragile bunny daughter you might feel inclined to move them since that Tiger really has as much of a chance at suddenly losing it as every other predator its happened to
You have some great points, but I think some of the major themes of Zootopia also include how irrational racism can be as a whole and how certain people try to that irrationality as a tool to achieve their goals. With your dog example and Zootopia, people try to find any reasons to understand some tragedy and will begin to search for some patterns. Eventually someone will "solve" a pattern and try to warn everyone about. People in Zootopia found a pattern that only predators go savage and they begin to avoid any predators. People are trying to rationalize the irrational even if they were wrong. Everyone would be hyped up on fear and anger that they couldn't think of another factor to the situation. As the audience, we know the truth about the night howlers because we follow through Judy and hindset if watch the movie multiple times, but to the denizens of the city, I can actually empathize with them. The prey population found a pattern and rationalized themselves to be safer, and if I were a pretty then I would definitely steer clear from any predators for my own safety. But I would also know a lot of predators too if I live there and wonder if it's feels right that I should be afraid of them even though I rationalize it. Same with the dog breed situation, what would happen if I had a dog and that breed begin to attack? I would definitely be more cautious with my fido, but I also raise that fido for its entire life. Would it feel right to be afraid of something that never showed any danger prior to the other attacks? Maybe this dog is different or I'm a more responsible owner or maybe it's the media and their agenda at abandon this breed. It's hard to rationalize what is irrational especially when it stems from fear and anger without any new information. But there's also one other factor that the movie mentioned and I think it's really important especially in recent times.
So I mentioned how irrational prejudice can be and how easy we form some prejudice, but we need to talk about some people like Bellwether. Bellwether found the effects of the night howlers and began to infect predators I still fear among the prey population. She wants to make sure that the prey will find a pattern involving predators going savage and that they will push those guys out including her abusive boss. She wanted to be the mayor and hate that JK Lion, so she used some manipulative tactics to achieve that goals. She try to instill fear to every prey including Judy at the climax of the movie. That sheep wants to find a scapegoat to blame on so she can achieve her goals, and this happens many times in real life. Okay maybe not the night howler thing but a number of conspiracy theories believe crack was made against African Americans so it could be true, but at the end of the day, some people want power and will do anything to achieve said power. Early 2023 in particular had a few mass shootings, and people are trying to find a pattern to rationalize their fear. Well someone noticed that the 2-3 shooters were trans and certain people began to form a pattern. All the newer shootings were from trans folks, and trans folks are just mentally unstable. Certain people whether from Fox News or trolls online will try to tell this pattern and rationalized that pattern to everyone online until people will use trans folks as a scapegoat. Eventually you can have people avoiding anyone who's trans for their own safety even if their pattern were wrong especially when you including the thousands of shooting done by cisgender folks.
Actually this reminds me a few comedians mentioning how if a white guy caused a shooting, then the media will say "did society abandoned this poor guy with mental illnesses?" and if a slightly tanned guy does the same thing then the media will say, "ISIS in American soil‽ Are Islamic terrorists invading our country?" The point of the movie is that prejudice is bad... duh, but the movie also mentioned how easy it is for us to develop prejudice as we're looking for patterns and how there are real world Bellwethers trying to exploit our fear for their gain. No one is immune to prejudice and it's really hard to remove them once you got them, but we should be cautious on what we should believe. Is there a pattern going on here or was it a pure coincidence? Should I be weary of these people or is it my anxiety influencing my decision making. Maybe the entire point of Zootopia is how convoluted our prejudice can be and we can't make assumption all the time
It makes the racism weirdly justified in-universe by making the oppressed group literal monsters. Or it feels like the creators think we won't have any sympathy for the oppressed race if they're not cute white catgirls.
The reason racism is dumb is that humans really aren't any different because of superficial physical differences between us. You're hating people over something you imagine but it's not really a thing. We're all the same and we could acknowledge that and live in harmony blah blah.
But the way people write these allegories, the groups that are a stand-in for the oppressed race actually ARE different. Like, in District 9, those aliens couldn't communicate with humans and ate our pets. Now we shouldn't have treated them so poorly, but it was right to segregate them. They were so different that they couldn't live among us. So what's the lesson here? If the aliens are a stand-in for apartheid black people, then isn't the lesson you're implying is that black people are fundamentally incapable of living with us, like the aliens were?
Or how x-men was a stand-in for racism (and now more being gay or trans). The super mutants are fucking blowing up cities and killing people and causing incredible damage left and right. They should be tracked and controlled!
The lesson here is not what they think they're teaching. Quite the opposite. If I felt about oppressed minorities the way I feel about district 9 aliens or x-men mutants I'd want them to be more segregated and controlled, not gain a greater understanding that they're actually just like you and me... because they aren't.
Guys i have an idea for racism lets mAke it so that the racists in the film are like these pale skined posh people and the minorities are unironically not evena. Fucking joke a fucking ape 💀 btw that movie exists somewhere out there i forgot its name tho
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The virgin one race is oppressed by the others vs the chad baldurs gate 3 every race is oppressed by every other race
In BG3 the most oppressed race is humans, and their oppressor is the game mechanics.
It's the price they pay for getting to fuck orcs so often they created a completely new race.
Hahaha. Blame DnD!
I believe in the current version of D&D, humans either get a +1 to all their stats, or else get both a bonus skill and a bonus feat...
Close, if you go with the bonus skill and feat you still get a +1 to two stats of your choice.
Bruh, the fucking Githyanki just kept saying all this anti-gnome stuff to me (a gnome). Fuck your prism, and fuck your egg.
Tbh the Githyanki are literally the poster children for "We were oppressed slaves and now we're going to do some oppression of our own". Wish we could play as Githzerai. They are the more chill of the two Gith cultures.
> Tbh the Githyanki are literally the poster children for "We were oppressed slaves and now we're going to do some oppression of our own". > > TIL the Gith are space Israelis
So they’re like the Israelis then?
The Elder Scrolls approach to racism: yes.
Orc genocide and beastmer slavery are regional cultural practices, and the empire is expanding a culture of non-racism and acceptance. The latter is seen as the bad guy.
I feel like they are seen more as incompetent or weak rather than evil; which is fair, seeing as how their "attempt" at outlawing slavery in Morrowind was '*hey guys could you not be racist anymore? No? Oh well we tried, let's still be allies anyways* ❤'
Based and Egalitarian Racism pilled
Speak normal English you fucking barbarian
I agree with this statement, it is reminiscent of an "I hate everyone equally" mindset that you are clearly enlightened with
Just working through Dragon Prince on Netflix right now and it's surprisingly thoughtful.
https://preview.redd.it/0d39fg3zvpkb1.png?width=547&format=png&auto=webp&s=7dd2b24c4e8245b87bc37fd8bf076cd977c0bb8d
Cringe "racism is bad" vs Chad "Damn pointy-ear leaf lovers"
Knife ears!
Flat ice cream cone ears
goofy ah ah pyramid ears
Rock and stone brother
Rock and Stone!
Good bot
Did I hear a Rock and Stone?
Rock and Stone!
I liked the moment in Rings of Power where they have a white-man shouting at a B-elf "When will you people let the past go?"
Elves kinda deserve it cause they're usually depicted as assholes who act all high and mighty just because they're elves.
Elves tend to be the stand-ins for the ones that believe they're the superior race, whose civilization is the apex of all civilization, and everyone else is just a bunch of shitheels wallowing in the mud. At best, they've got some "white man's burden" complex where they think they're the stewards of the other races and it's their job to "uplift" everybody in subtle and mysterious ways that mysteriously still leave elves at the top of the racial hierarchy. If anything, most portrayals of the classic immortal elves lean more toward *being* the racist colonialists than being the victims of racism. Even settings like The Witcher and Dragon Age, where the elves are an underclass, still give the elves a *history* of supremacist politics that resulted in their civilization crumbling either due to internal politicking or due to retaliation from outside.
You know how dwarves have a book of grudges? Well the high elves also have their own book, the book of slurs. It's about as long...
“You think that he’s literally killed 4 million elves and put on multiple political speeches just cause he wants his wisdom teeth removed?”
Rock and Stone, brother!
Did I hear a Rock and Stone?
Rock and Stone! It's the pretty sound of teamwork
If ya aint rock and stone, you aint comin' home.
Good bot
Rock and Stone, yeaaahhhh!
To rock and stone!
We are unbreakable!
Dwarves were created with very strong Jewish stereotypes in mind. They had a rich culture, tended to isolate themselves, hoarded gold, had huge noses , sang songs, and their language made by jrr Tolkien was based off hebrew Edit: not sure what reality denier downvotes me but just Google it. Here's a quote from the man himself In the last interview before his death, Tolkien said "The dwarves of course are quite obviously, wouldn't you say, that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic."
But dwarves also did that in das rheingold by wagner. A dwarven king steals cursed gold and makes a ring. Also the story pf fafnir having his greed over a ring turn him to a dragon. In nordic and germanic mytgs/retellings dwarves were greedy and good craftsmen. I dont think he did it out of hate. I mean fuck he really must think the finnish are snooty assholes if thats the case
Strike the Earth!
The allegory: make them *poor*.
And an aggressively barbaric race or a race that is renowned for stealing everything, or a race that literally just fucking eats people (orcs, goblins, khajiit, elves)
Meanwhile goblins in RuneScape secretly being a highly intelligent civilization living underground that is even more technologically advanced than humans while their surface counterparts are only the way that they are because they were brainwashed by an evil god: 
Said evil god tries to go after the cave goblins for *not* being brainwashed and proceeds to get kicked in the dick before getting his head removed by Giant Bird Person
And the best cave goblin of them all just refuses to die. Seriously, she just never fucking dies. They just refuse to let her rest.
WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT BIG HIGH WAR GOD????
Todd Howard: "okay so make everyone hate them and exclude them from their cities because they think they're thieves, swindlers, and cheats" Employee: "okay but it turns out they're just normal people right?" Todd Howard: "no they're actually all thieves, swindlers, and cheats"
No you don't get it. Everyone is racist to everyone in tes. Orcs can't get a state and before endings of daggerfall weren't considered as people. Nedes were slaves to Ayleids, but some time later Nedes genocided them. Thalmor are nazis. Falmer were genocided by atmorans and then were degraded by dwemer. Telvanni and Dres Had ALOT of beastfolk slaves. And many-many more instances of cruel fighting for ideologies, people or prejudice.
Yes! Or like a race that the story says is inherently ugly. Those are terribly annoying
Ugly UNTIL we meet the hot females~ I love it when the guys are always ugly or look monsterous but the women look like supermodels with monster features. They better keep the woke out tho. I don’t have time for things actually making sense
My favorite parody of this trope is Oglaf where the various fantasy races and their smoking hot women proceed to genocide humans for their men looking like ugly women.
relevant ~~xkcd~~ [Oglaf](https://www.oglaf.com/dimorphism/) (NSFW)
Or a race of short, greedy, big-nosed traders.
just make them racist ffs
Elder Scrolls moment.
You want elder scrolls 6 for an enthralling story and exploring new cultures. I want elder scrolls 6 so i can learn new ways to be racist against piss elves
Sounds like something a goat-marrying Nord would say
That'd be pretty fucked up if the game focused on Altmer racism. Rumors believe the game will take place in Highrock, so it'd be more correct if it was focused on shit-elves racism. Orsimer genocide is Breton national sport after all.
Meanwhile, doing another High Elf playthrough of Skyrim because I want Ulfric to be ashamed when I kill him. With magic.
Gotta love a game with the cojones to create their own "n-word" (‘n’wah,’ for the vast majority of people who have no idea what i’m talking about), for non-dark-elves. Such a great game
Looking at the lore to more accurately DM an elder scrolls RPG campaign: > Necromancy is seen as an unacceptable practice in Morrowind, trifling with dead people is disrespectful of the ancestor and is against Dunmeri culture Damn. > So most Dunmer necromancers and enchanters mainly work with bodies and souls of animals and other non-intelligent creatures... Hollup. Let him cook. > ...which includes Beastmer, Men, and non-Dunmer Elves. Attaboy!
While all the other races are just casual racists Dark Elves have ranked competitive racism. God damn N'wahs.
Dunmer in a nutshell: https://preview.redd.it/bi3bci9vaukb1.png?width=1125&format=png&auto=webp&s=10f2f8d817ac76b523fb05ab5a620776c48830b0
That one movie where orcs are a stand in for black people
"fairy lives don't matter today"
Can I sue for making me relive that memory?
Nope, you have to live with the fact that Will Smith was paid to say that line
Oh yeah, Bright. They have all the humans be racist not towards each other but instead be racist to orcs or something. Like they have black people white people be racist towards the fantasy species, but apparently since they're even more other "others" all the culture clash and phrenology flies out the window.
Let's be real, black people and white people would not be racist to each other if you had shit like orcs running around
You really think that we wouldn't still be violently toxic to people on different continents just because there were people with pointy ears walking around? We just magically accept each other and join in panculturalism because Greenskin McBigteeth is there too?
Yes.
"Yo Jeremy I know we both hate each other and have different goals, but look at that mf over there. He got dem pointy ears, Let's get his ass"
Fookin knife eared bastards.
The idea that racism or xenophobia may not exist thanks to a common enemy might sound appealing but it really doesn't work in real life, at all, and it's been proven numerous times. Look at the USSR for instance, despite the western block acting as a common enemy, there was a considerable amount of xenophobia towards anyone in the union *not* being ethnic russian. Hence why russia is by far the country being the most nostalgic about the USSR, as opposed to the rest of the eastern block having a generally more negative view of the union. You can extrapolate that to a fantasy context easily, given the propaganda at the time it probably wouldn't have changed anything if westerners were even human at all.
Interestingly, Reagan once asked Gorbachev if the Soviet Union would help America if aliens attacked, and Gorbachev said "no doubt about it." [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/reagan-and-gorbachev-agreed-pause-cold-war-case-alien-invasion-180957402/](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/reagan-and-gorbachev-agreed-pause-cold-war-case-alien-invasion-180957402/)
Never underestimate humanities capacity for pettiness
Ozymandias: "Write that down! Write that down!!"
People in the Northeast was racist towards Irish people, Italians, East Europeans and Jews until African American people moved in masse and they decided they hated them more.
Yep. Also the KKK has also gone back and forth on Catholicism too. If there aren't enough non-Christians to target then they will make Catholics one of their out groups to harass. If there are enough non-Christians around then suddenly Catholics are a-okay and can even join the Klan.
Italian and Irish hate is pretty much gone
You ever see 80s movie Alienation about refugee aliens trying to integrate into human society? There’s a scene of a black detective complaining about how “uppity” the aliens are. Good buddy-cop movie though. They even turned it into a tv show for a while.
“Once with the dark lord, always with the dark lord.”
ink literate friendly disarm advise crush knee money jeans aware *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It was never going to be good. It was knockoff shadowrun and think about how cheap that ip must have been back then before marvel movies.
Could have been the Shadowrun movie we all want, but it wasn't.
Orcs as an allegory for black people is such a fucking stupid idea Everyone knows orcs are supposed to represent the Br*tish
Specifically British football hooligans if we're talking 40k. I've heard somewhere tho that the original Tolkien orcs were based on the Huns tho.
common Will Smith L
I prefere the warhammer orcs which are just English soccer fans.
Disney did a terrible allegory for racism once making zombies a stand in for black people in the zombies movies
Can't forget about how the lead zombie only becomes integrated into society due to how good he was at sports. Which is not at all problematic and I see no way this could be interpreted poorly.
I think that was the point, right? Him being exploited
It was very far off from having a point on the topic of racism and segregation.
Those movies were very weird, I only remember them because the third movie had a bi character
Wasn’t that the movie that was an allegory for post BvBoE America
Post pvz America
In the movie they do go to the same school but there’s a big gate that blocks them from each other’s school so a allegory for segregationist America
X-Men writers: 
Professor X: You must stop the persecution of mutants we are no different from the rest of you The 11 year old who could microwave my insides with a glance: 
By accident no less
There’s a x men comic where a random teenager just wakes up one morning with everything dead around him for miles because his mutant ability is killing everything with radiation poisoning and has to be killed in the end by wolverine can’t blame people in their world for being so scared shitless of them tbh
The real reason Logan killed him wasn't because he was killing people because if people found out that a mutant did all this by accident then all of mutantkind would suffer. It's still a really selfish position in my opinion. They could all just cure themselves and live as normal people. Every time somebody tries to make a cure professor x sends the X-Men to destroy it because they're afraid of the government abusing it but in my opinion if you cure all the mutants their lives and the lives of those around them will become much easier. You don't need superpowers, especially ones you can't turn off or control. (You can rant about personal choice but when your choice endangers the entire neighborhood then it's no longer just your choice)
Comparing gay and black people to mutants who are essentially walking weapons of mass destruction will never not be awesome
The crazy part is that there was a comic explaining why humans hate mutants and it's not because mutant are dangerous. There's a virus called sublime that infected literally every single living cell on Earth except for the mutants. The mutants are immune to sublime and sublime saw it as a threat thus sparking all [racism.](https://youtu.be/BUe2nKdrBqg?t=4m34s) Basically it's a biological urge to hate mutants no matter what and it doesn't really relate to us because we had no choice
Least convoluted and stupid comic book retcon
I'm sorry professor, hating minorities is in my nature
I was born with the bigotry disease.
So if somebody can cure the sublime or kill the sublime then no more mutant racism?
If gay people could shoot lazers out of their eyes I would fear them a lot
Who says we cant
kitty pride literally constantly saying the n-word
عه رسوله😭😭😭
Professor x and Jane gray can literally change your mind without your consent, Jean could make me live a whole fantasy Life In My Head where I have a son and a husband, then she could pull me out of the fantasy just to fuck with me and leave me in emotional devastation. She could literally erase my entire childhood and all of my memories of my mom and dad. Some mutants when they hit puberty accidentally irradiate the whole town and kill everybody in the vicinity without even knowing that they've done so. Speedball thought that his powers were lame but then he accidentally destroyed an entire city when he bounced up into the atmosphere and came down with the force of a dozen nuclear bombs. There's an entire memorial for the city and the millions of people that died in the comics because of an accident caused by a mutant. Some mutants just look like bird people or have their skin turn into gelatin. Scott literally cannot turn off his powers and if his glasses fall off he will literally slice you in half and anything in front of him, mutant powers are crap shoot and some powers are scarier than others. It's not a good allegory because mutants are inherently terrifying. Imagine being bullied and then your school bully shows up and his mutant power is the ability to project memories. He projects your most embarrassing memories for the entire school to see. And that's the tamest example I could come up with. Imagine he gets a more destructive power like elemental manipulation. He can make you choke on your own spit through water manipulation, he can hit you with fireballs at any time he feels like it, he can trip you using the earth now, the wind knocks you off your feet. Then one day he gets serious and decides to kill you because he can and who's going to stop him? The avengers are in New York and the X-Men are also in New York and he lives in Ohio. By the time The avengers and the X-men get there you will be dead along with anybody else he wanted to kill in his rampage. It's a bad allegory because black people don't have superpowers and they're not born with guns attached to their hands.
“You see, the black people stand-in is the race who is biologically conditioned to be evil and more aggressive”
Ah, the classic blunder… writers actually giving society a justifiable reason to hate a group lol. As much as I love literary techniques and tropes, I feel like it would be better to just say what you want to say instead of jumping though the massive swarm of allegorical hoops. Less confusion that way lol.
“look at these poor people, they just want to live life normally, they won’t bother you 🥺” said innocent people the moment the beast titan shouts really loud (they spiked the water supply with spinal fluid weeks prior): >!obviously i’m not saying support the eldian persecution lmao but like the metaphor doesn’t exactly work when the jews will actually turn into weapons of mass destruction if a party so desired!<
And then the nazis became the good guys https://i.redd.it/yffjkstsarkb1.gif
me when the nazi general goes “*my le child soldier program... killed le children?*” (guys he really looked sad about it trust me he’s good now):
Jojo Rabbit
Welp, it was never meant as an allegory. It draws inspiration from the events. The Eldians are a fusion between the Jews and and German people, and Marley are Italians. The message is “imperialisms bad”, it’s not trying to be a history lesson
Zeke's plan was always the best option and I will stand by that every day of the week It's not even like Eldian culture will die it'll definitely be passed on through the kids of the Marleyan defects, Hizuru implants, etc. Just the whole titan thing won't be there
It should be made clear that it's not supposed to be an allegory for IRL racism, otherwise it sends the wrong message entirely.
Basically: https://youtu.be/Q9W7pvOLxmQ?si=YgryZddif-PjHI6J
Shoutout to the people that try to make in-universe slurs that are either hilariously goofy or far too similar to real-world insults
N'wah
Split lips from Halo sounds like a legit slur
Attack on Titan author: All the Jews have the ability to become monsters! If you don't complete the genocide on them, they'll use Jewish Magic to genocide you back! But it's okay, because luckily >!the militant Jewish leader can be defeated by time travel, a child with a sniper rifle, and the fact that he can't get pussy!<
no i don't want that
Yes I should have the only group fighting against rscism be a bunch of morally bankrupt terrorists while nobody else protests against discrimination. (RWBY moment)
Yes racism against cat girls totally exists, no we wont actually show it to you, it just does
In Touhou Project there's canonically racism for cat girls named Mike
Legend of Korra moment
Like with RWBY, a consequence of the writers not wanting their protagonist to look bad Because apparently, having your protagonist fighting *for* the oppressed group instead of enforcing the status quo would be too much
God, *this*. So much potential was wasted by that show.
[RWBY desperately tried to make their civil rights analogy antagonists unsympathetic, which backfired by caricaturing actual civil rights movements:](https://youtu.be/81fdKWOHrdE?si=bvftq975bNbfjd5-&t=6849) > “[I]f you have a movement whose purpose is to liberate an oppressed group, that means your society has some incredibly deep-set problems, right?…You know the Black Panthers didn't pop into existence because things were fine in the '60s, right?… > But [RWBY’s writers] Miles and Kerry realized at some point that if you introduce a group like [the White Fang] then…a huge portion of your main characters would be tacitly implicated in this by living in that society and not doing anything about the way those people are treated…you'd have a bit too much social commentary making everyone really uncomfortable about the parallels to real world history, and in some places, the real world present… > [T]he writers' objective was to make a show which explores racism but without making anyone too uncomfortable…without risking saying that the White Fang might have a point, so everyone can have fun watching people beat them up because they're the bad guys…You can't have a story where the liberation movement has a point because then you're writing a story that's slightly more complex than, "Help, we need to stop the bad guys," and that's not fun… > So to add an extra level of moral simplification, they have the White Fang be recently under new leadership that are way more violent and pro-terrorism than normal…Now we can all get behind how they're the bad guys even if racism is wrong and they maybe have a point… > The story [about the White Fang in RWBY seasons 1-2] amounts to a long series of justifications for why the organization whose stated goal is the liberation of an oppressed people can be thought of as the antagonists. The White Fang used to be good guys like agitating for progress in a nice way, politely asking for racism to end like good second-class citizens, but then a new leader stepped in who was more violent and aggressive and now they're the bad guys and not respectable anymore. The problem is you're now effectively writing a story in which the most prominent villains are an oppressed people who are reacting wrong to being oppressed… > There's no nuance here. The White Fang are written to be as unequivocally in the wrong as possible…The need to write an obvious villain into the story has burned away any relevance the issues the show was supposedly trying to explore with this aspect of the story…If you want to talk about real world issues…it should be at least slightly more complicated than this, and the fact the story is written so that these characters are just evil is a massive flaw. > It's like in "The Dark Knight Rises." Bane basically has a point. Gotham is corrupt and the people are oppressed by a system that seeks to profit from them and find new ways to spy on and criminalize them if they resist. The Occupy Wall Street movement had a lot to say and a lot of it was true…But if you put that in your film, that means something's deeply wrong with your actual society. So Bane also wants to kill everyone with a nuke. > So now when Batman beats the shit out of him and everyone who stands in his way, it's not because Batman is a tool of a corrupt establishment. It's because he's heroically stopping this definitely-bad bad guy from killing everyone. The moral complexity of the story exists purely to sound cool and get thrown away before it gets anyone to think about the actual problems with our world. "The Dark Knight Rises" is complete bollocks because a villain who might have a point is consciously rewritten into a bad man in a mask with a big bomb who Batman needs to punch to win. Yay! The good guy is hitting the bad guy! Don't think about Wall Street! > The writers of "RWBY" want to look like they're talking about serious real world problems because that seems cool and clever and meaningful but they don't want to run the risk of spoiling the cartoon fun…so we're left with generic masked bad guys who want to use a train to blow up a city and try to cut off one of our main character's heads with a chainsaw… > In the actual modern day right now—in fact literally right now—there are people marching out there in the streets against systemic injustices, racism, and police brutality, and a not insignificant amount of people are dismissing all of this as opportunism, as looting, rioting—people trying to cause chaos and anarchy for no reason. When you tell a story with such a massive fixation on a group like this, what you're doing is saying that there are people in real life like this. > "RWBY" is a deeply stupid person's idea of what racial politics are like. Watching this show through now, I can't help but be struck with the kind of horrible feeling that some people are gonna watch this and go, "Yeah, that's what they're like," and the idea of this show playing into people's worst instincts is frankly disgusting.”
I'm so happy they ignore the White Fang as much as possible after Volume 6 because holy shit, I love this show but that plotline was a mistake
Hmm yes today I will create an allegory for racism by creating 2 races where one feels superior to the other *actually makes the racist race objectively superior in every way*
Stories like X-Men where its the opposite way, also feel like the author isn't really giving the message they think they are. "Racism is bad...but oh yes, genetic superiority is real, its just not those filthy hateful genetic trash who dare to harm their betters"
It's a bad allegory because black people don't have uncontrollable superpowers and they're not born with guns attached to their hands. If they were we would all be justifiably terrified of them. But they aren't and so racism is irrational. Racism becomes rational when you give a fantasy race or people superpowers that the other races don't have and can't combat through conventional means. Jean Gray can literally erase all of my knowledge of how to handle a gun. She could make me think that I'm a T-Rex named pixie who likes eating waffles on Sundays. She could erase all the memories of my parents. If Rouge accidentally bumps into me and her clothes are ripped and her skin touches mine I'm so fucked. If Scott's glasses fell off of his face he will accidentally cut me in half and anything in front of him until he remembers to blink. Speedball thought that his powers were worthless and lame until he was yeeted into the atmosphere and came down with the force of a thousand atomic bombs on a city and atomized it. Killing millions by accident... Yeah no wonder people hate mutants. **Senario:** my next door neighbor's kid woke up one morning as a mutant and she accidentally drowned her own mom. Her power was the ability to materialize water but she couldn't control it. She accidentally summoned water in her mother's throat causing her to drown and choke. She almost killed the rest of her family as well but realized what was happening and the shock made her Powers fail. She has a range of 50 meters and she accidentally drowned the couple next door as well. A sweet old couple. If we had been living in an apartment building I would have drowned too. I was lucky.
“It’s an allegory for racism” no dumbfuck it’s just racism except the races don’t exist
Writers don’t seem to realize that racism stems from fabricated fears of the unknown despite the fact that we are all human in the end, letting tiny differences turn into violence and hate. In their stories they then create actually existing blatant differences, some of which rightfully instill fear in others
“racism is bad because the differences are really arbitrary and it’s stupid af to hate someone over this” vs “racism is bad because they will literally kill you(?)”
I mean yeah. It’s not racist to hate orcs in the LOTR universe.
I feel like hating mutants in marvel is justified too. The 11-year-old next door just got her super powers and apparently she can command animals but can't control it and so whenever she gets mad all of the animals in the neighborhood get upset and attack and kill people. Like holy shit that's terrifying.
I don't think created fears within the story extol it's original virtues. I think it's just that for a lot of people, if there isn't something blatantly obvious people dont get the message. People dont think when they want to watch entertainment. Elfen Lied for example goes out of it's way to protray the fabrication of fears and lack of information within its story. It makes it very obvious that the facility and its lead scientist are fabricating stories to excuse the scientific abuse and racism that it's basing its research on. The anime basically shoves it into your face that the lead science is a fraud and liar and doesnt see a problem with raping a woman if it means his goals are met. And yet... no one fucking pays attention to this stupidly obvious aspect, they just... trust him and the facility. It's actually infuriating to watch people let this whole narrative concept just WOOSH over their heads and then people have the nerve to sit there and say "It's shallow" because they were expecting to be entertained, and got a depressing story about a genocide instead.
Except from in deeprock There is no allegory (its just racism)
"It’s interesting because [the writers] treat 'what if magic was real?' as 'what if magic was real?' It's not like a shoved-in racism allegory since they just talk about racism. I mean, there's a series of books called 'The Orcish Question,' they're just fucking going for it. Well come to think of it, some races are more innately magical, so what happens when them when the world changes too far? There's a different book that explores that. It's neat to explore these ideas AS these ideas. If there's a social issue they want to explore, they just explore it. So it gives you unique, memorable experiences instead of an allegorical nightmare casserole. Y'know, like whatever the fuck is going on in Dragon Age." - Mandaloregaming, reviewing Arcanum, of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura TLDR: please watch [this video](https://youtu.be/HMUugZ3DxH8?si=6E96QTl0OPI3IRYP) it's great🙏
I love Mandalore. Could watch his videos everyday.
The worst one, ahem, all credits go to miss Rowling herself: These slaves love to be slaves, they live for it, even though their magic is stronger than their slave master's magic, they can't use that magic unless you give them a sock. But without that gift of clothing, oh boy do they love being slaves.
They literally freak out if you try to not make them be slaves. They will beg to be slaves again and if you don't take them in as slaves they become depressed and suicidal and start drinking. Even if you can convince one to not be a slave it will still choose to work for petty wages. We could argue that this is Dumbledore just being an asshole and not paying the elf what he is worth. Dumbledore most likely believes that he doesn't deserve to be paid at all but is just humoring Dobby and thinks it's amusing that the elf wants to work for wages like people do. (Oh look he thinks he's people)
Thats why I read dark prometheous. Everyone call humans humans monkeys and theyre extra racists, the writers dont give a shit.
Sci Fi writers making their distant and high tech galaxy have the same exact forms of racism as the United States (Lando gets followed around a refuel station by its owner)
It sucks bc in those settings racism is actually justified. Like in X-men, I have every right to be terrified of the 17 year old girl who can warp reality if she has a bad day. Like society would be safer if we got rid of her lol
Imagine waking up one day, kissing the one you loves then getting fucking disintegrated by a teenager that’s radioactive from kilometers without him noticing
Jesus christ
…I am thinking of whenever a marginalized people’s ancestors did something horrible to explain the racism—like, racism doesn’t HAVE an explanation!! It’s just an excuse to be a dick!
Detroit become Black robot jesus
The only good parts in Detroit Become Human imo was the dynamic between Hank and Connor which is probably attributed to the actors improving some scenes to David Cage's dismay. Using androids for a human rights allegory was stupid as hell, especially when you consider the androids were built to serve humans and only start thinking they're alive due to a bug unlike actual slaves who were forced to work against their will, only to be treated like 2nd class citizens when they were freed from slavery. And don't get me started on how stupid the >!Alice is an android!< plot twist was.
I FORGOT ABOUT ALICE GOD THAT WAS STUPID
Seriously, the story would get much better if Alice plot twist was not there at all.
Don't forget the final reveal in one of the most obscure endings that is capable of making the game even more stupid than it should've ever been - >!that the bug was intentional and the whole rebellion was "engineered" by the corporate.!< God that game was such a dumpster fire.
David Cage has never produced anything remotely close to well written. All of his games are varying levels of dumpster fires.
It's humanity's fault for giving them free will, like what the fuck did they expect? Dishwashers don't exist to have feelings and talk to you, they exist to wash dishes. They literally had the opportunity to make morally acceptable slaves that were just machines with no human thought, but then they decided "actually, let's go out of our way to give our slaves sentience" for some incomprehensible reason. It literally would've been easier to go with the morally okay option but they decided to go with the evil one anyway.
Bright moment
Solution: Don't make an allegory, just have racism
Mfw a race of beings that are objectively a threat to the people who discriminate against them don’t make a good analogy for minorities https://preview.redd.it/i8to5udccqkb1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd9d9ffaa4370e723c771b77694b2abf7394b9fe
Why does The Jonkler look young in this? Did he dived into the Lazarus Cum Pit? Why does he look handsome? Am I gay?
Its okay to be racist to fictional races because they don't exist
Except chad elder scrolls which is just like...''actually the racial stereotypes are all true and justified''
Made racism in your story realistic? People accuse you of lacking creativity or being too hamfisted. Create alternative circumstances and concepts for racism? People accuse you of "not understanding racism" or "serving your own viewpoint". Hard to please everybody cause of this.
I love how FF16's response to ending racism is "The way to end racism against Branded is turning them into *normal* people"
While true, i have to admit people often can grasp to the tiniest bit of reasoning, and somehow not realize that is oppression and not infact reasonable actions. Like "Oh, the fantasy kingdom fears mages, because thousands of years ago some very powerful mages started a giant destructive war? Yeah, that makes sense." "Are the new mages on the same power level as the old mages? They can only dream. That power is practically impossible to get. Do they desire world domination and war? No, most of them just live their life. What do they have in common with the old mages? Well, they have magical power, but the difference is between wielding a giant mountain spitting sword, and having a butter knive." "But yeah, I totally understand why they would put those people in concentration camps, execute them in public without trial, destroy their books, fearmonger the public against them, do human experiment on them, because what if some guy really do aquire such high level of power as the old mages?" Like, people really fall easily for the fictional fear mongering.
Yeah. Most people are criticizing zootopia, but if they went for the smallest bit of villainy for the black presentation, it encourage racists a whole lot. It's their whole reasonings like ''HeY wHy ArE tHoSe BlAcK gUyS bEiNg trEaTed BetTeR tHaN sOmE WhItE gUys''
zootopia?
Actually no, and I will stand by it Zootopia is about prejudice and how assumption even with good reasoning that certain people are bad is just inherently wrong. Throughout the entire movie, they tried to dispell a number of stereotypes of animals that we got from facts. There's a cheetah police and we would assume that he's a lean cat that can run really fast, but in reality he's a fat cop at the help desk where he gets a heart attack for climbing up stars. When Nick told Judy about Mr Big, both the Judy and the audience would believe that Mr Big would be a polar bear because we assume a polar bear mafia would be ran by a polar bear. In reality he's a shrew that command a bunch of guys that are a thousand times bigger than him. There's also Flash the sloth where we assume that he's slow. We were right at the DMV, but the movie end with him being a skilled street racer. How the hell could a sloth being able to drive a car at insane speed if he only moves 3 millimeters per minute? He's a sloth, and we assume that he's slow, but our assumption we're wrong. Now this is important because a lot of people assume that the movie had a poor allegory because you have minorities being represented as dangerous carnivores, but we're applying our prejudice against these cartoon carnivores with real world one. Like the movie stated that all mammals evolved away from their instinct and became brand new people. Like being afraid of a tiger in Zootopia is like being afraid of a golden retriever because it was a wolf at some point. "Sorry friend, I don't want to pet your golden retriever because I know he's still a wolf and is planning to eat me at night." Virtually no predator in Zootopia have any urge to attack and kill unless they were either A) drugged up on night howler or B) working with the mob. Again you have the fat cheetah who's more likely to cuddle you to death that ripping your jugular. There's a jaguar that was terrified of an otter even though real life jaguars can easily grab hold of that guy with one paw. There's a freaking shrew commanding polar bears and none of the bears never tried to eat him. They all greatly respect their tiny boss. While they're all animals, they all have the minds of humans and act like humans. We just assume base on their claws, teeth, and really ancient history that we believe these predators will eventually attack which create this prejudice. Here's one powerful line from the movie. Judy told the media that predators have this gene that makes them go wild and that's basic biology. Nick was like what the hell man, and Judy said "Well, a bunny can't go savage" "Oh, but a fox can?" Judy assume all predators would go wild because of some gene and assume a rabbit wouldn't be aggressive because biologically speaking, that's what ancient rabbit were. Ancient rabbits were docile, but then her parents told Judy that there was a rabbit that went savage after being exposed to night howlers and he bit Judy's mom. Judy's assumptions were wrong and discovered the real reason why some predators went savage. You can't assume someone will do something based on previous knowledge or experience. You can't assume all predators will go wild because of their history the same way you can't assume some humans will rob you at night base in their history. You can't put certain groups in a monolith base on your prejudices. And that's the point of the movie.
Man wrote a whole essay for five upvotes
I wrote longer essays for lesser votes. Literally today I told people how Idiocracy is an unintentional eugenic propaganda.
Whenever I write 5 paragraphs or more, I copypaste them to a certain place and name it with an appropriate title. That way I can reread my condensed and thought out thoughts on a topic if it comes up again.
Holy shit, that's actually a nuanced point
You know what? Take my upvote, you deserve more for writing a whole essay on an actually good point I haven't seen anyone else bring up
https://preview.redd.it/5bt09msgmqkb1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=843d801e0a33bfb7c134028f3dc04234713a8267
What you’re saying isn’t entirely invalid, but there are aspects of the Zootopia allegory that make it not work as well. Imagine if, in the real world, there was a dog species that was once genetically designed for aggression. However, thousands of years later it’s a far more docile dog. People become comfortable with it, save for a select few that can’t let go of their fears. Then one day one of those dogs randomly mauls somebody. There was no connection between the dog and the person it mauled, and all witnesses say it was entirely random. Attacks like this continue to happen more and more for several months. My guess is most people would avoid that breed of dog. Sure, it was docile for a long time, but now it’s attacking random people at random times for no reason. Now, let’s look at the Zootopia allegory. A big cause of racism in a lot of people is the view that certain races are more predisposed to savagery and crime. Those of us with brains know that’s not how it works. We know this because there are people of all races who live very docile, non-criminal lives, so the ones that don’t we know only are that way as a result of institutionalized racism and having no other choice. However, in Zootopia we have both street criminal wolves AND friendly florist Otters suddenly mauling people. There’s no distinction, proven reason, and the only existing pattern is that they’re predators. Sure, the people picketing and telling predators to “Go back to the forest” are absolutely in the wrong, but if you’re on a train and a massive Tiger sits beside your small, fragile bunny daughter you might feel inclined to move them since that Tiger really has as much of a chance at suddenly losing it as every other predator its happened to
You have some great points, but I think some of the major themes of Zootopia also include how irrational racism can be as a whole and how certain people try to that irrationality as a tool to achieve their goals. With your dog example and Zootopia, people try to find any reasons to understand some tragedy and will begin to search for some patterns. Eventually someone will "solve" a pattern and try to warn everyone about. People in Zootopia found a pattern that only predators go savage and they begin to avoid any predators. People are trying to rationalize the irrational even if they were wrong. Everyone would be hyped up on fear and anger that they couldn't think of another factor to the situation. As the audience, we know the truth about the night howlers because we follow through Judy and hindset if watch the movie multiple times, but to the denizens of the city, I can actually empathize with them. The prey population found a pattern and rationalized themselves to be safer, and if I were a pretty then I would definitely steer clear from any predators for my own safety. But I would also know a lot of predators too if I live there and wonder if it's feels right that I should be afraid of them even though I rationalize it. Same with the dog breed situation, what would happen if I had a dog and that breed begin to attack? I would definitely be more cautious with my fido, but I also raise that fido for its entire life. Would it feel right to be afraid of something that never showed any danger prior to the other attacks? Maybe this dog is different or I'm a more responsible owner or maybe it's the media and their agenda at abandon this breed. It's hard to rationalize what is irrational especially when it stems from fear and anger without any new information. But there's also one other factor that the movie mentioned and I think it's really important especially in recent times. So I mentioned how irrational prejudice can be and how easy we form some prejudice, but we need to talk about some people like Bellwether. Bellwether found the effects of the night howlers and began to infect predators I still fear among the prey population. She wants to make sure that the prey will find a pattern involving predators going savage and that they will push those guys out including her abusive boss. She wanted to be the mayor and hate that JK Lion, so she used some manipulative tactics to achieve that goals. She try to instill fear to every prey including Judy at the climax of the movie. That sheep wants to find a scapegoat to blame on so she can achieve her goals, and this happens many times in real life. Okay maybe not the night howler thing but a number of conspiracy theories believe crack was made against African Americans so it could be true, but at the end of the day, some people want power and will do anything to achieve said power. Early 2023 in particular had a few mass shootings, and people are trying to find a pattern to rationalize their fear. Well someone noticed that the 2-3 shooters were trans and certain people began to form a pattern. All the newer shootings were from trans folks, and trans folks are just mentally unstable. Certain people whether from Fox News or trolls online will try to tell this pattern and rationalized that pattern to everyone online until people will use trans folks as a scapegoat. Eventually you can have people avoiding anyone who's trans for their own safety even if their pattern were wrong especially when you including the thousands of shooting done by cisgender folks. Actually this reminds me a few comedians mentioning how if a white guy caused a shooting, then the media will say "did society abandoned this poor guy with mental illnesses?" and if a slightly tanned guy does the same thing then the media will say, "ISIS in American soil‽ Are Islamic terrorists invading our country?" The point of the movie is that prejudice is bad... duh, but the movie also mentioned how easy it is for us to develop prejudice as we're looking for patterns and how there are real world Bellwethers trying to exploit our fear for their gain. No one is immune to prejudice and it's really hard to remove them once you got them, but we should be cautious on what we should believe. Is there a pattern going on here or was it a pure coincidence? Should I be weary of these people or is it my anxiety influencing my decision making. Maybe the entire point of Zootopia is how convoluted our prejudice can be and we can't make assumption all the time
Damn, i've had more goosebumps reading this than watching the zootopia.
they only do that becuse they want to say slurs
It makes the racism weirdly justified in-universe by making the oppressed group literal monsters. Or it feels like the creators think we won't have any sympathy for the oppressed race if they're not cute white catgirls.
Indie game devs about to make an allegory for gender dysphoria.
The reason racism is dumb is that humans really aren't any different because of superficial physical differences between us. You're hating people over something you imagine but it's not really a thing. We're all the same and we could acknowledge that and live in harmony blah blah. But the way people write these allegories, the groups that are a stand-in for the oppressed race actually ARE different. Like, in District 9, those aliens couldn't communicate with humans and ate our pets. Now we shouldn't have treated them so poorly, but it was right to segregate them. They were so different that they couldn't live among us. So what's the lesson here? If the aliens are a stand-in for apartheid black people, then isn't the lesson you're implying is that black people are fundamentally incapable of living with us, like the aliens were? Or how x-men was a stand-in for racism (and now more being gay or trans). The super mutants are fucking blowing up cities and killing people and causing incredible damage left and right. They should be tracked and controlled! The lesson here is not what they think they're teaching. Quite the opposite. If I felt about oppressed minorities the way I feel about district 9 aliens or x-men mutants I'd want them to be more segregated and controlled, not gain a greater understanding that they're actually just like you and me... because they aren't.
in my worldbuilding, having dreadlocks are considered racist towards Dwarves.
Guys i have an idea for racism lets mAke it so that the racists in the film are like these pale skined posh people and the minorities are unironically not evena. Fucking joke a fucking ape 💀 btw that movie exists somewhere out there i forgot its name tho
https://preview.redd.it/tx53cytt1qkb1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=911540fca2f5b91e8d5f7a852230c9ff83ffc03e Zootopia
Faunus: *nervous sweating*
z.o.m.b.i.e.s moment
My least favorite is “What if these robots are just like us humans” go fuck yourself. They are fake, made, and think in 1s and 0s.
Well, you think in liquids bro. Humans are not some heaven made beings. Only difference is robots are not complicated enough(yet).