race and fantasy

[courtney]

I have been wondering if the apparent lack of black charcters in the majority of fantasy is something that anyone else has noticed over the years, or if perhaps i am just not reading the stuff that contains them. I understand that a lot of fantasy seems to be based on the Europe of the Middle Ages, but historically speaking even at these times there was trade and interaction between Europeans and Africans.
There are of course notable exceptions to this rule namely Martin, Erickson, Gaiman and Williams, but i would like to know if there is more writing where at least one of the main protagonists is black

Take Jordan where there is a whole world involved in a struggle and a world where everyone was displaced after the breaking of the world yet there are no black characters - yet (ten books in mind you), and he even states in that companion book that Sharans are an untrustworthy lot prone to lying etc. Or Eddings where it's the dark swarthy people who are the bad guys.

And to drive the point home the good guys are usually some blond/ginger haired blue eyed geezer who grew up on a farm or some such. This trend bothers me. A lot. I know Tolkien set the paradigm, but man its the 21st century and people been migrating all over for a long time now....what gives?
Am i alone in these thoughts or does anyone have something to say on this...and please note this isn't an invitation to dis anybody of any race, just a opening for discussion with people of good taste, which i judge you guys to be.

[Ouroboros]

I feel that the reason the fantasy genre remains predominantly chock-full of strapping caucasians and little else is that, still, a majority of authors are writing from a white perspective, for a white audience- whether they realise it or not.

In sociology, there is the idea that 'whiteness' is effectively a bizarrely invisible ethnicity. It isn't actual considered an ethnicity at all, in people's daily lives- we don't talk of 'white' entertainers, like people call such-and-such a 'black comic'; or 'moslem comedian' etc. We don't think of white-run restaurants as being 'ethnic' in nature in the same way as we think of a balti house as serving 'ethnic' cuisine. We rarely ask people of their experiences as a white man or woman, nor would it occur to us. We do not think of the fact of people's whiteness as having an impact in their lives, generally speaking- it is a large and invisible ethic category because it is so disproportionaltely inlfuential that it effectively is the invisible norm.

I doubt if the average fantasy author even considers the issue when he begins writing. It probably never occurred to Robert Jordan that Rand should be anything other than a white farmboy.

[Arc]

Ditto all the above. Couple of interesting examples tho - I think in Erikson's Malazan series the Empire characters are predominently black or at least Arabic.

Also Le Guin's Earthsea series - despite some of the cover art giving a misleading impression, I believe the people are meant to be dark-skinned - there's specific reference to the Kargad people's Nordic features being starkly different.

[trentdick2882]

Aren't the Seafolk in Jordan's novels black?

[Mamb]

Isn't there an Asian-Indian-type (Indian Indian, not American Indian) race from Novindus in Feist's King's Buckaneer? Its a while since I read it, but I remember being unsure and a bit uncomfortable as to whether they were deliberately being portrayed as the "bad guys". Feist also has an Arab-type race from Kesh and a Mongoloid-type race from Kelewan. They have all, in the few Feist works I have read, been treated fairly and equally, though the fact remains that the central characters are white. But I suppose that is acceptable for a white author living in a predominantly white society. I do appreciate the fact that he does actually create other races rather than to assume every character worth writing about must be white.

Terry Prachett also has some Arab-type characters IIRC.

Robin Hobb also mentions the characteristic differences in appearance and attitude between the Outislanders and the Six Duchies Folk and also the people of Jamaillia for that matter.

[Dominus]

Originally posted by trentdick2882
Aren't the Seafolk in Jordan's novels black?

I always pictured them as an having a weathered, Middle Eastern look to them, but I think he wrote them in a way where you use your imagination to 'see' them. I think that is basically how it is with every 'dark' or 'foreign-looking' person in a book, you use your imagination to realize the descrtiptions the author has given, so some people may see black, or Middle Eastern, or Indian, or whatever, its up to the reader basically, all the author does sometimes is point you in a certain way.

I think Courtney does have a good point though, I don't think I've seen a book where the author clearly states that they are black (I don't think they would ever say of 'African heritage' or something like that in reference to our world).

Originally posted by Ouroboros
I doubt if the average fantasy author even considers the issue when he begins writing. It probably never occurred to Robert Jordan that Rand should be anything other than a white farmboy.

And I don't think they should either, they should create a world how they see fit, not subject to our common stereotypes, societal objections, or geopolitical structures. If they create a world with black races, white races, tall races, stupid races, brown-eyed races, white-haired races, good, if not, that just isn't how the world is as he envisioned it. The author shouldn't send any racist messages in his/her book, i.e. I hate Asian people, they should all be killed, otherwise, they should just write a book apart from 'our' world (unless it's on Earth, but you know what I mean), and it shouldn't really matter what is in it.

I hope no one thinks I'm narrow-minded, racist, or a bigot, because I'm not, that's just my opinion, I hope no one is offended or anything by this post.

[Evil Agent]

Although I loved Edding's "Belgariad & Mallorean" series(es), now that I look back, they seem pretty close to racist.

I know that Tolkien called men of the South and East "Swarthy" and "slant eyed", but one thing we are all aware of is that his book was written in the 30's/40's. Eddings, when I re-read it last year, ALSO says "swarthy" and, if I'm not mistaken, something along the lines of "slant or squint eyed" to describe the Murgos, and the other Angaraks. Weren't these books written in the 1980s? I mean, COME ON!

[Stranger]

I have to concur with Ouroboros. The majority of writers appear to be caucasian, thus write from their cultural perspective.

I know I would have a hard time writing from a black person's point of view because I know little of their point of view.

I don't think it is prejudice, merely lack of knowledge.

[Se'dray-on]

The main characters in my book are lightly tanned, not white, but not black either. They are not coloured this way because of any previous thought on my part, but only because of where they live. In the novel I'm writing their are important characters of all races because it is a world encompassing novel.

I don't think any author writes to exclude minority races, many probably just don't think about it.

[Medwyn]

I'm sure most authors don't think much about the race of their characters, but I certainly think they should .

Most fantasy worlds that I can think of certainly have more than one race of people, whether this means variations in the appearance and culture of humans, the traditional elves, dwarves, etc., or some other races of the author's invention. So, just as it would be disturbing to read a novel about our world in which everyone of importance is white, it can also be disturbing to see the "other" races in fantasy novels being marginalized. After all, this is where racism stems from--seeing certain groups as something other, something qualitatively different from yourself.

This can be more pronounced in fantasy, precisely because it can have races that really are different, unlike the little variations in skin tone and physical features that we get so worked up about on this planet. So what the author chooses to make of these differences is very important. Do they see these differences as the basis for distrust, antagonism, and war? Do they imagine that there are "normal" races, compared to which the others are exotic, savage, or incomprehensible? Do they believe, like Eddings, that each race has characteristics that can be applied to all within it (practical Sendars vs. the wicked, crafty, and, yes, slant-eyed Murgos--oh, and let's not forget the Thulls, who are really only suited to manual labor)?

The funny thing is that Tolkien and Eddings, two of the authors that have been criticized several times in this thread, both wrote about parties comprised of different races working together to fight evil. Unfortunately, that evil tends to be associated with the darker-skinned people. There's really no good reason to make that association, and there are obviously plenty of good reasons not to!

It's true that, as Stranger pointed out, many authors are simply writing from the perspective they know most about. Maybe these authors aren't qualified to write a novel about South Africans under Apartheid, or Orthodox Jews, or even middle-class African-Americans. But in a fantasy world of their own creation, they should be able to manage to write about any kind of person convincingly. If I can imagine living in a fantasy world, I think I can also imagine having dark skin.

[Stranger]

Well, you also have to keep in mind the old religious prejudice about equating good vs evil, dark vs light. That's fairly well-ingrained in our thinking, and the main theme of most fantasy work- although I almost always root for the bad guys.

I LIKE the wicked ones!

The goody-twoshoes, pure knight makes me barf.

[KatG]

Well the genre is only 25 years old. It's just starting to hit its stride. It has the same problem that sf, an older genre has, which is, as someone else noted, a lack of "ethnic" writers. Which makes a certain amount of sense -- there's not a lot of money in the genres to attract ethnic writers, sf was started by a bunch of white men running pulp magazines in the thirties, non-Anglos had been sort of kept out of the sciences until the last thirty years or so, fantasy started out using European mythology with Tolkein as their model, and ethnic writers can write fantasy works in the literary arena -- magic realism, African and Indian surrealism -- and get much more attention. (Go check out writers like Amy Tan, Louis Erdrich, Isabel Allende and the like, and you'll find plenty of fantasy with an ethnic bent.)

So there hasn't been a great deal of incentive to spread out culturally in fantasy, and people have often gone with what is most familiar to them from European fairy tales we all were introduced to as children -- the Celtic mythology of fairies, elves, dwarves, St. George and the dragon, knights and princesses, possibly with blond locks. (Though we may note that Aragorn is a dark-headed lad.) To use African, Asian, or Arabic characters requires a whole other set of research into those cultures, which not all writers are interested in pursuing.

Tolkein was writing about WWI -- Europe, so it makes sense that he had no African characters. The "darkness" in his work is based on medieval symbolism from the old epics from which he drew, not from racist views. Eddings' southern countries are clearly Arabic and within them, there are good characters (allies,) and bad characters (enemies.) Jordan's Sea Folk are Gypsy-ish, Middle Eastern, as are several of the southern countries in his imaginary realm, which are clearly modeled after Italians and other Mediterranean folk, but he does have a major character who is black -- the Daughter of the Nine Moons. All the top echelon of the Seanchan are clearly black/brown skinned (occasionally described as blue-tonned,) though some of their chief servants/slaves are white or Middle-Easterned toned. And while the Seanchan are in opposition to Jordan's hero, they are also portrayed as not purely evil either. Tad Williams in his Dragonbone Chair series has a major character who is black and quite African-like and quite heroic as well.

The urban fantasy writers, writing in the contemporary realm, tend to have a wider diversity of characters, reflecting current globalization. Charles de Lint, for instance, has Amerindian and black characters regularly. Some writers have eschewed Anglo territory altogether. Barry Hughart's Chronicles of Master Li, for instance, and Kij Johnson's The Fox Woman tackle Asia.

And there's also a lot of fantasy being written outside of English-speaking countries that's probably a lot more ethnic than that from most American writers. Problem is, those countries do not have the rigid category caste system of the United States, from which the fantasy category as a category originates, and so when their work is imported to North America, Australia or Britain, it is usually not within the fantasy genre but as general fiction.

The Celtic/European tradition is certainly not exhausted, but a lot of folk are nosing about for new material in the myths of non-European cultures. And as fantasy gets older and expands its audience beyond predominantly white readers, we'll probably see more ethnicity result. That's certainly what has happened in contemporary fiction, where "ethnic" fiction has become the major movement after many decades of near lily whiteness.

[Stranger]

KatG,
Now THAT'S what I call an informed comment.
Kudos.

[milamber_reborn]

The Tairens are dark-skinned. The Sea-folk are probably a shade lighter. Keshians in Feist's books are definitely dark-skinned.

The problem is that "dark" can be taken in many ways.

[Medwyn]

Originally posted by KatG
Well the genre is only 25 years old.

?????????????????

How do you figure that?