#but how good can i be while embedded fully in the imperial core

[ihavebeesinmybrain]

Feeling A Lot Of Moral Guilt

[normal-thoughts-official]

Fandom racism anon here and yeah absolutely (I didn't realise I had anon on lol)

Because while LOTR has problems within its themes (ie the orcs can be seen as to be coded as people of colour, especially since they ride elephants) the explicit message of the book is evil bad

Because the only people who work for sauron are evil. There are no morally grey people, they aren't misguided or tricked they just are evil and want to take over the world

And yeah I totally agree that this is more of a literal take on like empirical war (is that the word) and that makes total sense considering Tolkiens history

Whereas I would say that the allegories in shaowhunters is way more based on racial conflict within a country itself especially slavery, I can't remember if this is show Canon but is it that they have the warlock tropheys? I remember that in the books magnus talks about shadowhunters hanging warlock marks on their walls? (sorry to bring the books up)

Idk it's very hollow to me, unlike with LOTR though it's a different allegory it's totally irritating to show many of these supremecists as morally misled. LOTR says bad guys are bad guys, shadowhunters says well yeah they did follow a guy which thinks that downworlders are subhuman and should be eradicated but they just made a mistake

I want to compare this to tfatws which while it isn't really fantasy I just feel like it shows how the priorities of the writer can impact the message of the show so powerfully (I know u aren't up to date so I'm gonna be pretty vague)

There's a scene in tfatws where the new white perfect captain America does something bad and doesn't pay for the consequences - done to comment on white privelege and how America condones white supremacy and how Sam is in comparison to that

Mayrse and Robert revealed to be part of the circle! And paid no consequences Shock horror my parents were the bad guys (even rho they were either implicitly or explicitly extremely racist the entire time) also I haven't finished the seires but do the lightwoods ever try to get their parents to face the consequences?)

Only one actual really critiques the situation and the reality behind it whereas the other one is just to centre the white characters once again and present them in a further sympathetic light

AND ANOTHER THING! I was mostly talking about show Canon here and I'm sorry to bring up the books but I literally can't believe I hadn't picked up in this before.

So like downworlders = people of colour, Simon is a vampire so is coded as a person of colour. However in the books in the last one he stops being a vampire and becomes a shadowhunters instead, coincidentally that's also when he starts dating Izzy HOW IS THIS ABLE TO HAPPEN!!????

I mean I know cassandra clare is lazy right? The original seires is by far the worst of all her writings but come ON!!!!! By the allegory has he become the white man!????? These books made no fuckin sense when I read them at 15 and they make no sense now I'm digressing anyways

I don't know man I wrote this ask because I was trying to find some fantasy book recommendations on booktube and SO MANY of them were about slavery or general ly extrême préjudice with à White protagonist to save this 'poor souls'.

Also I was watching guardians of the galexy the other day and realised nearly every movie set in space is just bigger stakes imperialism - planets instead of countries. Literally star wars, star trek, guardians of the galexy 2, avengers infinity war - all are facing genocidal imperialistic villains without actually paying much, if any attention to those effected

Just writing this ask made me exhausted I'm so tired of lazy writing and exploiting other people's struggle. I'm white and I'm trying to be more critical about the movies, shows and books I watch and read but let me know if I said something off here❤️❤️ you gotta get up to date with tfatws man, Sambucky nation is THRIVING!!!!

i'm not sure i agree that the whole "the evil people are evil" thing is a good thing, because i feel like more often than not making the bad characters just like... unidimensionally evil just means that the reader will be like "lol i could NEVER be that guy" and when it comes to racism that is a dangerous road to take because white people already believe that racism is something that Only The Most Evil People, Ergo, Not Me, Can Do, which makes discussions of stuff like subconscious racial bias and active antiracist work become more difficult because people don't believe they CAN be racist unless they're like, Lord Voldemort

which is not to say that racism should be treated as morally ambiguous, just that the workings of racism should be represented as something that is not done only by the Most Hardcore And Evil, but rather as a part of a system of oppression that affects the way everyone sees the world and interacts with it and lives in it

yes the warlock trophies are mentioned in the show, albeit very quickly (there is a circle member who tells magnus that his cat eyes will make "a nice addition to his collection" and then it's never mentioned again because this is sh and we love using racism for shock value but then not actually treating it as a serious plot point or something that affects oppressed ppl). and you are absolutely right, shadowhunters (and hp, and most fantasy books) has genocide as its core conflict and treats it, like you said, in a very hollow way, treating racism as both not a big deal and not something that is part of a system of oppression, but really the actions of a few Very Bad People. it's almost impressive how they manage to do both at the same time tbh

i think you hit the nail right on the head with this comment, actually. for most of these works, racism is SHOCK VALUE. it's just like "lol isn't it bad that this bad guy wants to kill a gazillion people just because they are muggles? now that is fucked up" but it's not actually an issue. in fact, when this guy is defeated, the whole problem is over! racism is not something that is embedded into that world, it's not a systemic issue, it's not even actually part of what drives the plot. the things that led to this person not only existing but rising to power and gathering enough followers to be a real threat to the whole world are never mentioned. it's like racists are born out of thin air, which is dangerously close to implying that racism is just a natural part of life, tbh

anyway my point is, it is never supposed to be questioned, it is never part of a deeper plot or story, its implications are barely addressed except for a few fleeting comments them and there; so, it's not a critique, it's shock value, even though it is frequently disguised as a critique (which is always empty and shallow anyway. like what is the REAL critique in works like hp or sh/tsc other than "genocide is bad"? wow such a groundbreaking take evelyn)

about simon and the book thing: i actually knew about this and the weird thing about this is that, like... simon is jewish, and he's implied to be ashkenazi (calls his grandma bubbe which is yiddish, which is a language spoken by the ashkenazi ppl), and it seems like cc is always toeing the line between him being accepted by shadowhunters and then not accepted by them, which sounds a lot like antisemitic tropes and history of swinging between (ashkenazi) jewish ppl being seen as the model minority myth and thus used as an example by white christians, and being hated and persecuted. i'm not super qualified to talk about this since i'm not jewish and i'm still learning about/unlearning antisemitism and its tropes, and i don't really have a fully formed thought on that, tbh; it just reminds me of the whole "model minority" swinging, where one second simon is part of the majority, the other he's not, but always he is supposed to give up a part of himself and his identity in other to be "assimilated" by shadowhunter culture. this article (link) covers a book on jewish people and assimilationism into USan culture, this article (link) covers british jews' relationship with being considered an ethnic group, and this article (link) talks a bit about the model minority myth from the perspective of an asian jewish woman

it just really calls to my attention that cc chose to make her ashkenazi jewish character start off as a downworlder and then become a shadowhunter. i don't think she made that decision as a conscious nod to this history, because it would require being informed on antisemitism lol but it's incredible how you can always see bigoted stereotypes shining through her narrative choices completely by accident. it just really shows how ingrained it is in our collective minds and culture

and anyway, making a character go from the oppressed group to just suddenly become the oppressor is just. wtf. not how oppression works, but most of all, really disrespectful, especially because she clearly treats it as an "upgrade"/"glowup" that earns him the Love Of His Life

also, out of curiosity, are you french? it seems like your autocorrect changed a few words and i'm pretty sure extrême and préjudice are the french versions of these words, and since u said ur white, that's where my money would be lol