Medieval Non-European Fantasy

To be safe, I'm just saying that this is what many non-white American authors experience. I'm not sure about Canada, but given how they treat First Nations people alone, my expectations are low for them as well.

For example in México, "white" people (Caucasians) are kind of a minority with only 10-15% of the population being of that race. Afro-Mexicans are less than 1% of the population.

Of course those are estimates since we don't really have a race census here. I think it's because they were considered unconstitutional and they had to go.

As for the rest of the population (mestizos) there is no stigma about writing or "appropriating" stuff from the native cultures of the region (Aztecs, Mayas), since we're all Mexicans and that culture belongs to us all (or so we like to believe).

To put it into perspective, I have light skin, blue eyes and light brown hair, yet I'm a mestizo. Down here it wouldn't be seen as socially unacceptable if I chose to dress as an Eagle Warrior. Same thing if I were to write a fantasy work inspired by Aztec mythology.

And before someone asks, fantasy works down here aren't more numerous because:

• 1) We've got a lot of myths and legends already;
• 2) Other genres are far more popular among Mexican writers;
• 3) The few fantasy works that are written using a Mesoamerican-like setting are too weird for European/American sensibilities and most publishing houses seek to, you know, publish something that sells;
• 4) The other fantasy works that are written tend to incorporate foreign elements (i.e. SFS) to make them more popular. At the end, these works end up being Mayincatec at best... despite being written by people who should know better.
• 5) A lot of books written by Mexicans tend to stay inside the Hispanosphere if they even leave México.

edited 13th Apr '15 6:30:06 PM by Lorsty

Because Western fantasy is popular? I mean they are made even popular by games which people play. I think the posters is right: People just find western fantasy cool (mostly because of Video game).

Even Asian write them. No joke, I could easily count two to three off my head.

To be fair, quite a number of western fantasy written are actually influenced by video games fantasy world rather than directly being influenced by Western Fantasy story.

@Sharysa: Actually, one reason why it feel white-dominated is because you live in a White-dominated society, consuming western media. If you wanted to read outside the group, you need to learn to move beyond it... consume media from other world even if it means learning another language.

Non-European fantasy is alive and well. They just happened to be outside your region because Higher-up and editors on YOUR side are fucked up. They don't think non-European fantasy would not sell (or get it)....so nobody bothered to.

Also, there is a certain fear of people not getting it. Because some Westerners made too much noise about certain issue which people from other Culture go: "Huh?".

They rather sell it to their own people who "get it".

About Big White Men saving the day.... Not exactly true. In Japan, the opposite is true: The world is saved by Japanese....same goes for other cultures. White Men don't really do a Big Damn Hero that much in those story....assuming that they even exist and/or not the the bad guys.

That stigma exist in that region for some reason. There is a certain lack of...what's that word? Racial Tolerance? Everybody is just so defensive and sensitive about their identity and they rather hold on to their culture rather than spreading it.

My impression of South American literature (Isabelle Allende, Laura Esquivel, Paulo Coelho maybe even a little bit) is that it's got great Magical Realism. This is not a direct equivalent of European medieval fantasy as in "completely made-up languages, fashions, religions, weird animals that don't exist, and magic powers...all of which would appear suspiciously similar to the Aztec empire the mythology from back then."

That latter would be cool, but it wouldn't have the same narrative lineage as medieval European fantasy had on its way to becoming a genre, which seems to be what the original poster is seeking.

And I think that's perfectly fine. Magical Realism and Wu Xia and all those other genres shouldn't be shoehorned into having the same narrative lineage in parallel. They're all perfectly respectable genres in their own rights.

It's almost like asking what the autumnal season is like in the tropics. We can correspond the seasons if we agree on a calendar, we can even borrow holidays from each other, but the monsoon season is not going to be autumn.

edited 13th Apr '15 10:41:26 PM by Faemonic

Thanks for assuming that I HAVEN'T stepped outside of 'Murica.

Filipino-from-the-Philippines Media: I don't like the media in the Philippines because most actors and actresses in the Philippines are paper-white with straight hair. Nobody looks like me, and I feel excluded from Filipino media because I'm—GASP—light brown with wavy hair.

That makes me feel like an outsider in my ancestral culture.

French media: Fantastic in terms of plot and story-telling, but again, most people and most of the plots are white-dominant, at least what I've seen of it. (Mostly the films that win awards and a couple of episodes of Tintin, the former of which is admittedly REALLY old-fashioned. My view of French media is skewed accordingly.)

Asian media in general: It looks like everyone is paper-white. ESPECIALLY the South and Southeast Asians. This is due to having naturally-fair actors, strongly classist or conformist cultures, and possibly skin-bleaching. Also, in South Asian media there is the strong message that brown skin is ugly or plain or the mark of a poor person, which is also not fun for a slightly-darker-than-average brown girl.

Japanese media: Studio Ghibli, video games, and manga are my main media. Great fantasy in general, lovely period pieces, and I love Rumiko Takahashi's Mermaid Saga for its gore, but as with most of Asia, I really dislike how conformist the actual society is.

So yeah, I've seen one cultural half of the world and it's just as screwed as 'Murica even if it's not "white-as-in-Western-European dominated." Any views about the non-American West?

edited 14th Apr '15 1:04:05 PM by Sharysa

I assumed that because you seemed a little too obsessed with skin color.

If there is a bias in my part of the region, usually it is towards your nationality and ethic group. (E.g. People stereotypically think Caucasian are rich)

I don't really recall dark skin as ugly in the media though. More like plain.

Not sure about Philippines though, never been there but I do believe they don't like westerners that much (again might be due to be part of colonial rule in the past). Unfortunately, they don't really care about which part of Western world you are from.

Off-topic, but I could've sworn the Philippines had the highest approval rating of America in the world. Given that, I'd think there wouldn't be too much anti-Western sentiment in general.

edited 14th Apr '15 9:05:12 PM by AwSamWeston

Well, thank god I managed to keep my temper from getting too bad. Today I was thinking about this thread and wondering if I'd devolved into ANGRY-RANTING or if I'd managed to still sound rational, and it looks like I did sound mostly rational.

Also, seconding the fact that Filipinos are pretty approving of America.

Back to the main topic of this thread: Europe doesn't have a monopoly on feudalistic-type societies—a whole lot of places know the concept of kings/chiefs/lords and many tropes in Western genre are hardly exclusive to that part of the world, so if people don't feel comfortable doing something RADICALLY different in fantasy, why not just transplant their plot to a distinct-but-similar setting outside of Europe?

Then again, I may only know that many things are similar throughout the world due to being a fan of mythology and folklore.

edited 14th Apr '15 9:08:53 PM by Sharysa

@idiot

Why would you believe that? Could it possibly have been the case that you met with someone who happened to have Philippine citizenship, or whose parent or parents happened to have Philippine citizenship, and who also just so happened to consider you annoying as an individual person?

@Sharysa

There is no reason why not.

Not that you accused me of this, but I also hope my previous post didn't come off as that the Fantasy genre by definition would be Euro-centric and semi-historical.

Genres can change.

On a tangent: I read something interesting from Seanan Mc Guire, author of the October Daye series. It's urban fantasy fairies in San Francisco. All her fairies trace their lineage to Oberon, Titania, and Maeve. She also counts Kitsune as fae, because...San Francisco, Where Asian-Americans Exist (A Lot.)

I didn't think it gelled well. (Although I do believe that it can.) If Mc Guire could do it over again so she wrote in her Livejournal she would have made her mythology more Euro-centric, so as to respect the folklore of the othered cultures with which she had appropriated by (as the statement read to me, anyway) not having them in her books at all.

I cannot say that's better, but good on her anyway for thinking it through.

It's no Dresden Files, either, but I still really enjoy the Toby Daye series.

edited 15th Apr '15 6:21:49 PM by Faemonic

@Sharysa I end up sounding too emotion is my own fault for being agitated and not reading what you type carefully.

I am closed-minded and never concerned about how others read a story. When I read a story, I don't think about race of that person....he/she could be black, green even red.

Character A is just Character A.

So when you mentioned that People of Colour don't write fantasy story because there is not much representation of their racial group in the said setting. I was agitated by it. I don't believe that the lack of fictional character (from certain race) would have that much impact on other readers to such an extent that they would feel excluded.

However, I did not take your second point into consideration that because story are white-dominated, the Publishers automatically assume that story written by people of color would not catch on, resulting in the current situation that you are in.

My second post is bad so I will try to simplify my thought: Assuming that you did not read other media: (my fault really). If you don't want to read a story with White people dominating the story, reading story from other language where White people don't have a presence = a story without much white influence.

About South-East Asia media...actually I am racking my head over it. Not all actors I could recall are paper-white... Also I don't recall any shows trying to stuff the idea that Brown skin is ugly and white is beauty.

Only advertisement... trying to sell whitening-cream.

=

About the dislike of westerner, not Philippine, Asians. Those sentiments are usually from older generation, who actually had been oppressed by the white in the past. There is a certain level of inferiority complex going around that generation that sometimes passed down to next generation.

From their perceptive, Caucasian appear to be rich while they struggling even with basic necessity of life (some still do). Also,partially nationalistic attitude: (Westerner)foreigners versus us attitude.

Good thing is Newer generation(X onwards), who are more well-educated, tend to be more liberal and open-minded about westerners.

What I am trying to say is that Racism in Asia(at least what I could recall) usually involved your ethnicity (sometime Nationality) rather than your skin color (though you can argue that some racists just assumed your ethnicity based on your skin color).

Most people in Asia and South-east Asia have similar skin tone..... so discriminating somebody based on their skin-tone is just counter-productive.

Yea, I am going off-topic. So I should just stop. I think I have prove myself to be an idiot enough.

edited 15th Apr '15 9:26:29 AM by idiot

If you argued that fantasy literature didn't detail its characters enough that anybody could easily project their own appearance to the main character, maybe I'd believe you.

But you're telling us that you read the words "Character A entered the room" and your mind defaults to making the character green, or that you conceive of fictional characters as disembodied personality programmes without visuals, accents, or any other indicators...

Methinks your pantaloons are aflame.

Why agitated? If you really didn't understand it, it would be confusing or too strange a concept to bother with. Instead, it comes off to me that you do understand it, if only, for unfathomable reasons, as a personal attack when somebody else speaks from their own experience of the world and their place in it about literature...which is not about you.

I'm just going to leave the real-world tangent on "why people of color are tangibly blocked from fantasy (at least in 'Murica)" alone for now.

I actually love that. THE CITY IS FUCKING KNOWN FOR ITS AWESOME JAPANTOWN.

As for the fact that genres CAN change, of course they can. I just explained the problem that many people of color are actively prevented from changing European-centered fantasy, so it's taking way longer than it should.