Writing Sympathetic Fantastic Racism

In my comic, I have an elf who is fascinated by human culture, but ultimately views it as inferior. I've showed his fascination and curiosity with humans in other pages, but I don't think I've truly showed his sense of superiority.

What's a good way to get it across that, while he is fascinated by human culture, he views his as far better? Also, he needs to not be a complete asshole about it since I already have the troll as an asshole character.

Have him point out the blanant flaws or things he likes better about his own culture in comparison to the humans'.

I'm not entirely sure how someone could be open-minded enough to be "fascinated" by another culture, but still small-minded enough to insist that their own way of life is superior. The best I can imagine is someone studying the foreign culture as one might dissect an insect: a sort of cold, sterile and distant curiosity, gathering knowledge for the sake of gathering knowledge, rather than pursuing some kind of deeper understanding of the subject at hand.

A perect example of this?

Arthur Weasly from Harry Potter.

Arthur absolutely adores muggles, and he always advocates for their rights. However, he also sees to view them as quaint little oddities, rather than actual thinking people on the same level as other wizards. This is not due to any form of malice, but a very understandable ignorance. Arthur has been raised his whole life to believe that Wizards are the master race, and by the values of the wizarding world, his way of thinking is extraordinarily progressive.

Writing a sympathetic racist is actually very easy. Racism (Or ANY form of predjudice) is never a good thing, but a lot of very naïve people make the mistake of thinking that being racist automatically makes you the reincarnation of hitler (ironic, since such binary, one-dimensional thinking is what frequently leads to racism in the first place). There are many good-hearted people in Real Life who, due to one unfortunate circumstance or another have come to see another group of people as either inferior or the enemy.

Maybe have your character explain something that he's concluded about the human race that is up for debate among humans, but your elf character is so sure is unanimous, and he will argue this with an actual human and invalidate that human's subjective experience about their own culture. But the human can't possibly be the best authority on it, because elves are just better at understanding things.

Or maybe something from the elf world would actually be useful to implement, like a word for a concept, but the elf discourages the idea that humans could adopt it, because it would ruin their "humanity" (that is, make them more elf-like and less like zoo animals that can be clearly labeled as interesting noble savages.)

So, things like that that are snobbish and thoughtless, but not hostile.

(This is my first post in this subforum, hi everyone.)

I agree with Lunacorva about Arthur Weasley. Another idea is to show your character challenge his own beliefs. Perhaps he starts as a racist, due to having been taught to regard humans as inferior. But the things he discovers himself contradict the things he's been taught, so he starts wondering if his upbringing could possibly be wrong. This intermediate phase would still be Fantastic Racism, because he'd still be going back and forth and probably be doing insensitive things, but it could also possibly double as character development.

Generally discussing things in infantalising or dismissive terms could work. You know, things are 'quaint' or 'rustic' or 'charmingly simplistic'.

If you treat things that have real spiritual or emotional significance to real people like cute little oddities or interesting puzzles, you're going to come across as a bit of an ass. A benevolent ass, probably, but still.

Oherwise, he could describe things as being 'almost as good as' elvish equivalents and treat it as high praise.

edited 21st Dec '14 5:21:19 AM by LoniJay

It's also worth keeping in mind that fantastic humanoid races are genuinely different from each other much more than human groups are. Thus, for an elf, elven society probably is better, because it fits the elven way of thinking and doing.

Yeah. Speculative fiction is kind of a pain like that; our assumption that everyone is created equal falls apart if they are not created equally enough to allow that sort of thing. Mages always make for a really awkward example, in that if someone who can kill with a gesture or a word commits a crime, how do you arrest them without putting everyone in the area at risk? You can't disarm them the way you would an ordinary criminal with an ordinary weapon. At some point you must also weigh the rights of the cops and the bystanders for safety as well as the rights of the accused, and when you've done so it may well be that the best answer is simply to kill the mage rather than risk trying to arrange an arrest and trial.

So the simple answer is that sometimes, Fantastic Racism isn't. Racism is based on and in non-functional traits.

Of course, it's worth remembering that fiction doesn't exist in a vacuum. I've always been very uncomfortable with creating a setting where racism "makes sense" because of the real-world implications. It's why my fantasy efforts always avoid hereditary magic, among other things.

Night is exactly right. It always grates on me when fiction treats discrimination against fantasy races and such- types of people ostensibly with actual meaningful physical differences- as analogous to racism in the real world. The X-Men are a prime example of this.

This fantastical discrimination may well be unfounded, but even if that's the case it should not be treated as equivalent to real-life racism as the key difference- that there actually is a meaningful difference in physiology between different kinds of people, precisely unlike the situation in real world- is the very thing that's not true of whatever it is you're writing.

It's funny you mention hereditary magic...

How so?

To say that hereditary magic features prominently in the fantasy 'verse I'm writing would be a massive understatement. It is the central thematic and intellectual focus of the story and the central pillar around which the 'verse revolves, observable from the micro to the macro scale, and having been relevant to the development of civilization since the very beginning.

Given what you just said, I'm now wondering if I'll be bombarded with accusations of racism by clueless people if I ever finish my works and put them to print.

That wasn't quite what I meant. My point was less about fearing how audiences would react than it was that I don't want to create a setting with "justified" inequality, and it's hard to think of something that would lead to that more than hereditary magic. It's not something I want to deal with. From what I understand of your purposes for your setting, it makes more sense there.

edited 24th Dec '14 11:16:38 AM by nrjxll

Mine isn't meant to be analogous to the real world. Elves are superior to humans in many ways, such as magic and longevity.

EDIT: I agree with Gault. It's especially stupid in fantasy settings that try to use vampires as analogs for minorities. Vampires of all things! Even they're nice, they usually still retain the killer instinct and barely have in under control. True Blood was especially bad at this, since their vampires really are actually evil and that Sun church was totally justified in killing them.

edited 25th Dec '14 9:38:19 AM by washington213

If you want to explore the concept of racism in fiction, you're going to have to drop the fear of being called racist. If you set out to make a statement of "racism is bad guize don't do it" you're effectively just preaching to the choir, as any reasonable person would agree with you. But take a movie like American History X that realistically shows how racism is perpetrated and the actual logical flaws in racist beliefs and you have a much more compelling story as it causes the audience to think.

You can't create sympathetic fantastic racism because it enforces the idea that there is some measure by which sapient beings can be considered objectively better or worse than one another and that some people are entitled to make that judgement. You're missing the point if you try to argue this or that characteristic really does make them better. The anime Jinrui Wa Suitai Shimashita comes to mind, and does it well enough by making the inferior race modern humans.

In terms of fundamental, inherent moral value, you're right. Assuming the species you are comparing are both fully sentient, I have no idea how you would even begin to try and devise a means to determine something like that, assuming you should even try.

In terms of economic value however, not so much. It might very well might be the case that a certain made-up species has a higher level of inherent physical ability than others, which would make them able to out-compete them.

Additionally, if the conditions in which these species exist resembles anything close to capitalism- or any other system that's based on and/or values competition- for all practical purposes the latter will be the former.

Isn't that really true only when talking about an economy driven heavily by physical labor?

Which, admittedly, most fantasy economies are.

No. For a non physically-driven economy, all you need is an ability that is applicable to the current economy. For example, a creature with a second set of eyes that inhertently magnify would have an avantage as an artisan. One with the ability to see into the infrared would give thermal imagining, giving benefits to cooking, certain manufacturing processes (especially in lower technological environments), and low-to-no light environments.

Additionally, the same principle can be applied to non-physical abilities. And that's not even touching on the 'fantastic' ability of magic that some species might enjoy.

Look at 19th century orientalists, if you want a real life example.