Can you be racist in a fantasy setting?

chaosof99

I still play Magic on occasion. It's a fun game, but I no longer spend any big money on cards. I mostly play it online through various programs, and that's pretty much about it. However, I do get somewhat excited and follow along whenever a new set is released. Today Wizards of the Coast had an art gallery on their magic homepage presenting some of the new art in the upcoming set Magic 2012. Among them this piece:


This is a leonin, a member of a sentient race of lions which are home to a world called Mirrodin, but also pop up in other places such as a world called Alara. The most famous Leonin in Magic is a planeswalker called Ajani Goldmane (a planeswalker being a very powerful wizard able to transfer from one world to another). This is him:


In the thread about this article on MTGSalvation, probably the biggest online magic community out there, I came across this post:

Shale WarBringerWhy is there an Ajani art, since we know that he is replaced by Gigeon?

Perhaps I should explain the context: The card Ajani Goldmane was one of the first planeswalker cards, a new cardtype in Magic that was introduced only a couple of years ago. Though Ajani got a second card (Ajani Vengeant), Goldmane was reprinted in both Magic 2010 and Magic 2011, them being the "Core Sets" being released every year as the most rudimentary sets giving a basis for all formats and teaching the rules to new players. However, in Magic 2012 he will be replaced by a different white planeswalker named Gideon Jura (white of course being one of the colors of Magic, distinct from blue, black, red and green; not the color of skin).

Nevertheless, the comment left a bad taste in my mouth, since it struck me as very racist similar to "all black people look alike to me", this being of course "all leonin look alike to me". However, I'm not sure if I even should feel that way, considering this is all make belief. Is it actually racist of it is about things that don't actually exist? Would a statement like "all smurfs look alike to me" also be racist?

Apreche

There can definitely be racism in a fantasy setting. X-Men is about racism, and it's a fantasy setting alright. You can also create a fantasy race that represents a real race. What if all the mages in my fantasy setting resembled jews? Racism accomplished.

From what I can tell in your post, there's nothing racist about this Magic card business.

DevilUknow

In this case the Gideon card is totally different from the Ajani card rules and all and not just a white-washing picture swap to make the subject more Aryan (unless you are some kind of crazy person who things anthropomorphic animals should be respected as a fictional but equal race of humans).

Racism requires a victims that is, at some point, an actual person or group of people. If you have a fantasy world with a race of rats who all display distinctly negative Jewish stereotypes and the story is about cleanings the "home" of these "rats" by gassing them then it would be racist.

In fiction you can also use the "all smurfs look blue to me" trope to talk about racism without actually being racist (see x-men) by demonstrating the negative impact without singling out any one real victim.

Also, before anyone says "HER DERP YOU THINK MAUS IS RACIST LOL?", no Maus isn't racist.

chaosof99

I believe both of you didn't quite understand my post. My question wasn't about Ajani being replaced by Gideon, but about the user I quoted, Shale Warbringer, essentially going "This picture is of a leonin and Ajani is a leonin. Obviously they're the same person." I didn't mean that there was any racism inherit in the game, but in that users reaction. My question was about whether there can be any racism expressed towards fictional characters at all, since after all the sentence "all leonin look alike to me" can't hurt anybody because there are no leonin people, but also whether or not such behavior could be allowable as being capable of making a distinction between individuals of a race is often limited by the capabilities of the artist portraying them, hence my question involving the smurfs.

Nuri

X-Men is about racism, and it's a fantasy setting alright.

No, it's sci fi.

However, yeah, of course you "can" be racist in a fantasy setting. You can be racist in any setting. Is it okay to be racist in a fantasy setting? Maybe. It depends on the point of the work.

DevilUknow

Shale Warbringer, essentially going "This picture is of a leonin and Ajani is a leonin. Obviously they're the same person."

Oh. In that case, unless "Shale Warbringer" is a 12 yo (seems a safe assumption) who thinks he's being cool and is aping his racist dad for trolling purposes then no, I think he's just illiterate.

Dr. Timo

Technically, a fantasy setting is the only place you can be race-ist.

Walker

X-Men is about racism, and it's a fantasy setting alright.

No, it's sci fi.

That's a useless distinction in this case. For the purposes of this conversation X-Men is a fantasy setting hiding behind sci-fi tropes.

Anthony Heman

I think your racism detector is broken and throwing out some incorrect readings. But on the topic of "can you be racist in a fantasy setting", there are multiple ways to look at that question. Racism is part and parcel in standard D&D tropes. Whether it's racism in the unfair prejudice way or in the authentic racial distinctions way varies game to game, setting to setting, group to group - but yes its there. But you could also be asking if racism from our world can get fed into a work of fiction, where the answer is also yes... but it's often difficult to sort out. It gets even more tough to figure out when dealing with combinations of history and fiction. That Mark Twain named a character Nigger Jim comes to mind from other recent discussions. Sorting out what should be and should not be brought to the table for discussing racism should probably weight in some perspective, along with what exactly the end-goal of bringing that to the table is.

Edit: It also occurs to me that whether you mean "can" as in, "is it possible"; or "can" as in "is it permissible" also changes the details of the answers slightly.

Greg

Would a statement like "all smurfs look alike to me" also be racist?

Smurfs do look all the same because they are all the same character design, but they distinguish characters by adding token changes like one will wear glasses or one will have a beard, that is except for Smurfette, distinguishable because she's a girl; but then she's inherently sexist, because she was create by an evil wizard to try to plague the smurfs. That was a weird show.

Anyway, there can be racism within a fantasy setting -- LotR is all about a race war -- but I'm not sure that a person in the real world can be racist about a fantasy setting. If someone says that "Orcs are inferior and should be executed to make way for a master race of Elves" that doesn't mean they are a racist. That being said, fantasy settings can indicate an amount of reflection of genuine racism in the real world. It's another example that fantasy is a good analog for people to gain understanding about the real world.

Nine Boomer

Speciesism is where it's at.

Greg

Speciesism is where it's at.

We could go by Orson Scott Card terminology and call it Xenocism.

Not nine

Yes you can be racist in a fantasy setting. It's even easier in such settings because often a human cannot mate with lizardfolk, or kobolds and orcs. It also leads to interesting roleplaying. I am reminded of /tg/'s Elf Murderin' story. Guy roleplayed his character and fucked the DM's gay elf fantasies.

That Shale WarBringer guy clearly landed on his head after he fell of a cliff.