If World leaders were D & D alignments

[Zardnaar]

https://www.publicmedievalist.com/race-fantasy-genre/

That is not the original depiction of the Drow. Its the 80's version.

This is a lot closer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drow

More modern takes

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1...gAhXIXysKHe5GB_sQsAR6BAgEEAE&biw=1920&bih=938

Generally they try and avoid human skin tones but some of the 80's stuff is very close and looks African. Some also looked purple though.

A bit more variety here.

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1...gAhWDXysKHVpoDxUQsAR6BAgAEAE&biw=1920&bih=938

 

[Estebonrober]

This isn't entirely accurate.

I mean, yes, Drow are subterranean elves, I'm not denying that part. But, no, Drow are just a subspecies of Elf that did end up living underground, and therefore ended up adapting to life underground, and not some magical state that evil elves become. There was a period in the cosmology where a group of elves may have "fallen" from mainstream elvish society, creating the basis of the Drow, sure. But in the time of actual gameplay, they're just different cultures by this point; no evil elf becomes a literal Drow. As I said before, dwarves actually are labeled as "usually good", which means it's definitely not the fact that they're a subterranean society that makes them evil.

But regardless, and I know I'm opening a can of worms here that people hate me for opening, I just find it really interesting that of course the Good races are coded as civilized and white, while the Evil races are coded as wild and non-white. I've talked to death about orcs in the past, so I'm going to leave that one be. But Drow are definitetly coded as being the one elf subspecies that just so happens to be consistently not white as well.

In fact, they were even orgionally given African-colored skin in their initial artwork. That eventually changed to giving them literal black skin, but frankly that still is screaming "these are supposed to be black people". And there's no way around this; if we try to argue that Drow are literally black because of adaptions living underground, why aren't the Good Dwarfs also black? They're white as snow! If we try to argue they obtained their skin color as some sort of effect to their initial fall, then congratulations, we're literally and unironically regurgitating slavery apologetica.

Good and Evil, as they are used in the world of D&D, is fundamentally racist. It has to be, because the concept of a race is biologically true in the universe in itself. But the fact it relies on tropes from our own history of racism, and present them as literally true in the fantasy world, that's wholly unessecary.

I pretty much agree with this, but this is obvious upon review. The Fantasy genre was born in the age of Eugenics and such,

Tolkien himself had a racist hierarchy. The Elves (his own ideal of beauty and perfection, and far off certain other men of the day - at least for Elven women, whom obviously old J.R.R. was more than literarily attached to) were "the eldest, fairest, and wisest of the races of Middle-Earth." The Numenoreans, who were humans with Elven blood and who gained great benefit therefrom (because it was Elven blood - for no other reason), and of whom Aragorn was one of the last whose blood still had potency by the War of the Ring, were the "highest among Men (humans as a whole)." The human nations of Gondor, Rohan, Dale, and Arnor were the "White, European-style nations," and also the human kingdom, in general, aligned to Good and among the Free Peoples. The Umbar (as in the Corsairs) were Middle-Eastern-looking, the Haraddi were Central Asian-looking, and the people of Rhun were South Asian-looking, and they were all, without stated exception, Dark and served Sauron. Many of Tolkien's own descriptions used, among other terms describing their comparative repugnancy the word "Mongoloid." Just saying.

This is true, but I still enjoy the simplicity of the worlds and the beauty of the stories. I get that racism is a thread going back the entire course of humanity. I’m glad to see that thread start to die, hopefully some day it dies completely.

I will not allow the reality of the past destroy my enjoyment of prior human creativity over something that was normal socially across the planet and still is largely.

D&D is a very fluid game with guidelines more then rules. You are welcome to manipulate those as you see fit. It’s guidelines are hung on our shared past which is complicated and not so pretty. This wouldn’t stop me from playing it now, just like baseball is still something I watch despite its past.

 

[Patine]

So the one source for Drow being depicted as African is a single image that even this author themselves acknowledges as a Beyond Thunderdome pastiche? That seems like a bit of a stretch.

All of the old "grandfathers of high fantasy" - J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, P.H. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, Edgar Rice Boroughs - all had a lot of notable "hang-ups" with race, sex, society, social stratification, etc., that showed glaringly in their literary works, to be honest. E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson took a lot of this material, wholesale, without seemingly questioning it or editing, or it's tendencies, much.

 

[Patine]

D&D is a very fluid game with guidelines more then rules. You are welcome to manipulate those as you see fit. It’s guidelines are hung on our shared past which is complicated and not so pretty. This wouldn’t stop me from playing it now, just like baseball is still something I watch despite its past.

I, myself, don't stop playing D&D over Drow. Since I make my own campaign worlds, and always play DM, and have been doing such for 30 years, I decide what elements I include from the game. I don't include Drow in my own campaign worlds, and I'm not obliged to because R.A. Salvatore said so, and many view them as "iconic" to D&D.

 

[Zardnaar]

All of the old "grandfathers of high fantasy" - J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, P.H. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, Edgar Rice Boroughs - all had a lot of notable "hang-ups" with race, sex, society, social stratification, etc., that showed glaringly in their literary works, to be honest. E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson took a lot of this material, wholesale, without seemingly questioning it or editing, or it's tendencies, much.

They were all products of their time though. Not exactly fair to judge them with modern mores. Gary Gygaxs youth was what 3 generations ago?

 

[Omega124]

So the one source for Drow being depicted as African is a single image that even this author themselves acknowledges as a Beyond Thunderdome pastiche? That seems like a bit of a stretch.

How is it a stretch? It's a cover to the first Drow themed supplement, which showed off the Drow, who are all clearly not coal black but African black? Is the artwork for Dungeons and Dragons not a valid source for Dungeons and Dragons?

That is not the original depiction of the Drow. Its the 80's version.

You do realize that the Drow were wholesale created by Gygax for Dungeons and Dragons, right? Like, there was no such thing as a "Drow" until the game was created. Even the wikipedia page you linked says that.

 

[Hygro]

Not only that, but in D&D, there are literally sapient races which are literally "always x"*. The implications that people are actually born good or evil is extremely problematic to me. Stuff like killing babies becomes morally acceptable if one assumes defeating evil in all of its forms to be good, and that latter assumption is usually true in most D&D campaigns.

*Granted, those species tend to be literal demons or angels, which are supposed to be avatars of said alignment. It's not as bad as I assumed it was, which was labeling races like orcs or drow as always evil. No, they're just "usually evil" instead. Progress?

This game is entirely a reflection of you and your social circle you play with. If you want to play "Really the orcs are the historically oppressed" fine play that. I won't, because my orcs are evil creatures that are as likely to spawn out of a smelly bog on a lunar eclipse fully formed as they are to be born.

 

[Traitorfish]

All of the old "grandfathers of high fantasy" - J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, P.H. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, Edgar Rice Boroughs - all had a lot of notable "hang-ups" with race, sex, society, social stratification, etc., that showed glaringly in their literary works, to be honest. E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson took a lot of this material, wholesale, without seemingly questioning it or editing, or it's tendencies, much.

No doubt, but that's not what is being highlighted here. The drow were invented out of whole cloth in the late 1970s, and most of their thematic reference points- witches, spiders, caves- points towards a characterisation as "spoopy elves", rather than anything clearly racialised. It's a worthwhile discussion, but this is a deeply weird entry point into it.

How is it a stretch? It's a cover to the first Drow themed supplement, which showed off the Drow, who are all clearly not coal black but African black? Is the artwork for Dungeons and Dragons not a valid source for Dungeons and Dragons?

Fantasy art from this era is notoriously inconsistent, between editions, and between the art and text. All the image really shows is that the artist interpreted his brief in a certain way, and the editors accepted the work turned in. In the absence of a second data point, it's not self-evidently more than an embarrassing curiosity.

 

[Hygro]

Fantasy art from this era is notoriously inconsistent, between editions, and between the art and text. All the image really shows is that the artist interpreted his brief in a certain way, and the editors accepted the work turned in. In the second absence of a second data point, it's not self-evidently more than an embarrassing curiosity.

And low budget so they're going to take what they paid for. All the drow art I grew up with looked like gray skinned europeans with pointy ears and white hair. I've always taken them to be more cavernous-colored than sun tanned or melanin rich.

 

[Mouthwash]

I don't know how appropriate it is, but I sort of enjoy the fact that Tolkien's Dwarves were meant to be the Jews.

Spoiler :

When you watched the Hobbit, you really watched Zionist apologia!

 

[Phrossack]

Tolkien himself had a racist hierarchy. The Elves (his own ideal of beauty and perfection, and far off certain other men of the day - at least for Elven women, whom obviously old J.R.R. was more than literarily attached to) were "the eldest, fairest, and wisest of the races of Middle-Earth." The Numenoreans, who were humans with Elven blood and who gained great benefit therefrom (because it was Elven blood - for no other reason), and of whom Aragorn was one of the last whose blood still had potency by the War of the Ring, were the "highest among Men (humans as a whole)." The human nations of Gondor, Rohan, Dale, and Arnor were the "White, European-style nations," and also the human kingdom, in general, aligned to Good and among the Free Peoples. The Umbar (as in the Corsairs) were Middle-Eastern-looking, the Haraddi were Central Asian-looking, and the people of Rhun were South Asian-looking, and they were all, without stated exception, Dark and served Sauron. Many of Tolkien's own descriptions used, among other terms describing their comparative repugnancy the word "Mongoloid." Just saying.

It's worth noting that some of the Easterlings of the First Age (granted, different Easterlings from the Third Age) fought and died alongside the Noldor and Atani at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. The natives of Gondor (before the Númenóreans) were consistently described as swarthy, and made up probably a majority of the Gondorian population. And the fair Númenóreans were mostly corrupted even before Sauron arrived in their captivity; after that, they mostly fell into the service of evil.

I initially faulted Tolkien for seemingly dismissing all the Haradrim and Easterlings for being dark-skinned evil-doers, but to be fair, they grew up cut off from the help of Elves and right next to the center of Sauron's power. As in Númenór, the followers of Sauron would have sacrificed his opponents and dominated society, leaving no real chance to be a good person there. Even so, Aragorn had no ill will towards them and spared those who surrendered. Tolkien didn't want readers to hate them, and if they're marginal in the story, it's because the story was always meant to be flavored after Northern Europe.