Contemporary Theories:

The Opposition to Racism

            Racism is not the only option available for the reasoning behind the founding of the fantasy races.  Some hold the opinion that it was the evolution of myths, legends, and folk tales that created these races.  When early speculative fiction authors were writing their novels, they decided to incorporate a favorite myth into their work.  Over time, different races evolved out of the pure “make-believe” of the imagination.  In this case, the “good guys wear white and bad guys wear black” cliché could easily form.  It might be a logical step from there to say that the forces of darkness do not only wear black, but that their skin is as dark as their hearts, while the good guys are as fair as their souls are pure.

            A Darwinian-styled theory is that the various races all stem from humans.  Each race has a specific quality that it is supposed to personify or represent.  In some storylines, the races are created through genetic engineering to serve purposes, and then centuries pass, civilization collapses, and eventually all that’s left are warring races.  Others follow the line of evolution.  This version says that humans that lived in the mountains became better fit for that life and environment (dwarves), while those that lived in the forests changed to become elves.  Giants were simply taller men and women who over time and a form of natural selection became even taller.

            This way of explaining the formation of the various races forces one to consider the alternate sides of man.  The characteristics that each race has, those special qualities and moralities that are unique to each class, are actually different parts of the human psyche; they’ve just been amplified over time to the exclusion of some elements and the exaggeration of others.  Elves are thought to represent what humans wish they could touch or be, but can not actually become: angelic, graceful, and beautiful.  Happy, fun-loving, relaxed, and always enjoying the pleasure of food, the Halfling is what other people wish they could be.  Dwarves, gruff and drunk, are said to be some of the baser urges of men.  The orcs, of course, are representative of the even more base urges of man.  Violence and rage rule their world. (Aeon, Episode 11)

Take a human.  Add some pointy ears and you’ve got an elf.  Lop off a few inches and add a beard and you’ve got a dwarf.  Shrink him a little further and you’ve got a halfling.  Give him muscles and a few fangs and you’ve got an orc.  With very few exceptions, all the intelligent races in role-playing games are humanoid.  They’re all shadows of the master form, variations on one common theme.  They are a reflection of everything that humans are not, and a reminder of what they are.  (Aeon, Episode 10)

            As discussed in the paragraph above the quote, humans tend to strive for or desire those things which they can not have or can not be. It is a completely natural desire to want more. The instinct to better not only one's standing in the pack, but also to make oneself better as an individual--whether for the purpose of reaching those higher standings, the attraction of a mate, or simply for one's own self-image (which is in humans and not the lower species).  It was never necessarily said that better meant good.  Instead, better means different things to different people.  An artist might think beauty is of the utmost importance and wish to identify him or herself with the elves, who are known for being aesthetic. Hard-core athletes, on the other hand, might see strength and toughness to be the superior quality. Therefore, they might opt for the sturdier, stronger, and even more violent form of the orc.  These races, according to this logic, were not made out of an agenda of racism.  Instead, it was through the hopes and desires of improvement that gave rise to them.

            Despite the other theories available, the most likely appears to be that the birth of fantasy races stem from a racist perspective, as unconscious as it might have been.  Race has always been a significant issue for humans.  The creation of “good” races and “evil” races, both of which share an amazing number of characteristics with various groups in the real world is a very convenient.  There are races of light-colored people and races of dark-skinned people and strangely enough, they have often fought. It seems rather odd that in a society that is mostly Caucasian-based, the evil races in the literature would in many ways resemble the African and other darker-skinned races in the real world.  While many people attempt to ignore the blatant racism and bigotry of differentiating the species in fantasy, the racism is blatant and  can not be ignored.  While this doesn't necessarily mean that the racism has continued into the present, the fact that it has persisted should be an obvious indication that something is wrong.  Though the origins may have been racist, and many consider it to be so, that is not how the majority of people observe the literature, cinema, and games.  The question must still be raised nonetheless; does the present notion of race in fantasy change the fact that it is inherently racist?

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