It's slowly dawned on me over the last few years that one of the biggest reasons why I find the endless reams of Tolkien/D&D-ripoff fantasy fiction distasteful is because its popularity enables guys like this to smuggle racism into broader discourse. If your entertainment already has you primed to think in a racialized framework, it's going to take you that much longer to cotton onto what this dingleberry and his buddies are actually pushing.
Also, it probably helped kneecap the popularity of Tolkien-style "Always Chaotic Evil" (TV Tropes page) races/species, by virtue of making the racialised elements much more difficult to ignore.
As TV Tropes' analysis page notes, however, there are a fair few ways to make Evil Minionstm without throwing any racial baggage into the mix - ways that have let the base trope survive the change in political climate, even as its original version fell out of favour.
I used to find it amusing how many black metal bands were 'Tolkien inspired', it is a lot less funny now. (but hey, at least they are not NSBM)
Honestly I'm so used to deconstructions of the basic good races vs. evil races dichotomy that when I joined my first long form DnD campaign about a year ago, I ended up having a chat about it with our DM where he had to explain to me that the orcs were intended to be an obviously "we are evil, we are the enemy, you are supposed to fight and kill us" type of enemy. There's been some more nuance since then, but even since we've moved to the next campaign with new characters, mine is once again the "wait, maybe we should listen hear out the chaotic evil demonic minions and find out why they suddenly decided to try and invade our lands" type of character.
Alignment-locked races (or classes for that matter) are just stupid. It’s probably the thing I hated about D&D the most and getting rid of alignment altogether was one of our house rules. I’m actually really happy Baldur’s Gate 3 did that, because suddenly a whole bunch of players realized how you can easily work around those restrictions.
It’s so much more fun when you travel to, say, the Abyss and don’t operate under the pretense that everything you meet there is chaotic evil by default and that you could maybe even meet a morally complex demon. Even more fun in a Planescape campaign.
/off-topic rant
Big "divorced dad looking for the toilet because he needs to take a shit one way or another, pronto" energy in this photo
I can't be racist, my DND main is a Drow.
Well, this guy is a wingnut. He thinks he's too smart to be considered a white nationalist but reckons black folks should be slaves. Fucken nazis.
Never heard of him before. Wikipedia
Wait, he's over fifty?
I knew he's older than he pretends to be but I still expected him to be closer to my age than my dad's.
Can't even "OK boomer" him properly anymore. A millennial might at least take offence but the only bit of generational emotion a mid (phrasing intended) GenXer like him has likely neglected to suppress is euphoria from someone recognizing gen x was ever a thing.
I'd think going the other way would be more effective. Boy, son, kid. Insult the ego, inflated sense of importance and authority. Call his philosophy immature. That would rile him.
behind the bastards has also recently done two episodes on the clown, if you want to learn more things you'll hate
As in a member of a race of edgelords allergic to sunlight? Very progressive of your mistress to let you post on the internet on your own. Is "Nock" the Undercommon word for mom's basement?
I'm about to say, drow are pretty strictly matriarchal from what I remember. He's at best a dork elf, and only in one of the recent "actually elves suck" worlds as opposed to the directly tolkein-inspired.
elf an unsafety
Dark Elf you say? Let’s ship his ass to Menzoberranzan and see how the NRx shit does there.
Right, sure he picked the most glorified fantasy race out there, “but evil”. When in reality he’s a Duergar at best:
Personality Tyrannical, grim, industrious and pessimistic,[11][20] the lives of the gray dwarves were bleak and brutal. Rather than a flaw, however, they viewed their lack of happiness as their greatest strength, the defining feature of duergar pride.
Sounds about right for the joyless world he imagines his ideal society would represent.
Just like Elon
Image: musk in trench coat
dork elf
Cuckis Yawnvin*
