A very spicy take: the fact that the most recent edition of D&D is willing to countenance nonbinary elves but repeats racist hackery from a decade ago about orcs is not a coincidence.
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It's easy to get caught up in relatively facile criticisms like John Tynes's Power Kill, which don't really reflect the primary style of play for most Dungeons and Dragons groups. This is a mistake, because by placing the standard at "engaging in race riots/genocidal violence,"
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the end result is to excuse play wherein the assumption that orcs are just naturally evil continues to play a role, even if the party never actually carries out any acts of mass slaughter or goes through with the appalling "paladin faced with a baby orc" scenario.
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But, of course, if you turn over the rock of examining this type of racism, then you start wondering about all those "racial" homelands, wherein everyone has a "natural" home where their communities are...
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Which, okay, maybe elves do live in forests (D&D elves don't universally, but whatever), but forests are freakin' everywhere. There's no reason to have an "Elf Kingdom" unless you want a world where racial segregation is natural and racial integration is strange and new.
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Tolkien did this, and, well, let's be clear- Tolkien sincerely believed that racial segregation was natural and racial integration was a disruption. His opinions on the morality of that situation are maybe a bit more complex than that of a KKK member. But he still believed it.
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It seems really out of step with what people want. Maybe my sample is skewed but I know a lot of people who are super into playing orcs or goblins or kobolds, but the writing still feels very much 'uh you can do this if you WANT i guess you weirdo'
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100%! It's utterly baffling if you look at what people consume in media!
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