#evil fantasy race

[your-fave-is-christian]

Hellboy

Hellboy from Hellboy is Christian!

[lordgeneralsix]

I think the only villain in veilguard that I was actually interested in and dare I say even a little intimidated by was the butcher.. like everything about that scene from the atmosphere to his clam dialogue were very reminiscent of the arishok and like. idk it was a sliver of depth beyond being the mindless killers the antaam were unfortunately portrayed as and maybe if bioware wasn't racist there definitely could've been more substance there . but whatever who cares about anything anymore right

[cellarful-of-noise]

thinking about that post talking about how tolkien likely equated no trees with evil because of his experience in the great war and thinking about how poppies bloomed in no man's land and thinking about The poppies blow / Between the crosses row on row and thinking about how contrary to popular belief orcs are not an inherently evil race because orcs are not their own race they are elves who inwardly turned so evil that it manifested itself outwardly and thinking about how in war people don't look evil they just look like people and thinking about tolkien going to war as a young man and coming home having lost friends and years of his life and his youth and seeing unimaginable horrors and fields with trenches and poppies and no trees and evil people using evil weapons who just look like anyone else

[experimentalmadness]

“Oh but how can you like the Evanuris when they’re supposed to be blood magic crazy despots?”

Yeah let me explain: a video game company can’t borrow aspects of my culture and then use literal blood libel antisemitism to make it “spooky evil” so fuck that have a nice day. :)

[aflamethatneverdies]

i do rly love dungeon meshi so far and i do see that the mangaka is trying to rehabilitate the dnd tropes and make them more thoughtful and less racist and this is not so much a judgement, more an observation, but the dnd tropes originally are so racist that i kinda wish that the mangaka was completely inventing her own worldbuilding instead of building off of them. like maybe at some point we should as a society move away from and throw away dnd tropes in the trashcan where they belong, just a thought you know.

[gravyhoney]

“Something something [fantasy race] is inherently evil”

What if I fucking killed you

[circusheart]

Average dungeon meshi fan hasn't read any fantasy since Tolkien apparently

[g4zdtechtv]

Cinematech Reborn Presents: Summer Game Fest 2025 Special - Best of the Fest

Another year, another annual Geoff Keighley shindig that makes us miss E3 a little bit more and more year after year…

Sorry, got a bit sentimental. Anyhoo, Cinematech Reborn is here, for a very special episode giving you the highlights of this year's Summer Game Fest!

(watch on 4GTV!)

[porquenolostodos]

Preach my fucking truth. I hate this shit so much. From the time I was a kid I've always stuck up for the "evil races." I think it had to do with growing up in the woods. Oh, so the talking herbivores are good, and the talking carnivores are bad? IT'S NOT THEIR FAULT THEY HAVE TO EAT!

Female Power Romantasy novels can be indulgent as they like with giving the MC all the powers and hottest love interests and overcomplicated backstories, and I will cheer that on. Yes, there is a place for this! I see your vision, girl!

But the moment it starts talking about blood purity, her divine right to rule, and how ubermensch her babies will be with the man with the equally super special bloodline? You're doing girlboss eugenics at that point.

[enderlordisadumbusername]

the fact that kobolds seem to be this more "animalistic" race, with kuro talking in broken language and like improper grammar. this, coupled with the fact that he seems unaware of the fact that he's being exploited by mick, makes kobolds appear to be less intelligent than other races.

but we actually find out that the simple speech patterns are in fact due to common being kuro's second language. and in a scene where kabru talks to kuro in his native language, it's actually kabru with the simple speech patterns.

we even learn that kuro seems to actually have a much better understanding of his situation with mick than we first imagine. merely wanting to stay with them so they can have someone who they can feel relaxed around.

this, coupled with a bunch of other things, really makes dungeon meshi stand out from other fantasy media. there are no "dumb" or "evil" races, they're all just people.

[light-wrath-paradise]

Sci-fi worldbuilding is like a thing that really hates you and wants you dead

[sirobvious]

“You just wrote your medieval fantasy setting to have medieval gender roles and homophobia and prejudice because you secretly fantasize about being able to be sexist and homophobic in a land with no PoC without any pushback! It’s fantasy, there’s dragons and wizards, it doesn’t have to have prejudice unless you, the writer, want it like that! In *my* D&D setting, there’s no sexism or homophobia, so that gay transgender women of all races can be holy knights fighting to protect the good kingdom from the endless hordes of the evil dark race that has threatened its borders for a thousand years!”

[g4zdtechtv]

THE PILE PRESENTS: GameSpot TV - New Year's Special (1/1/00)

With highlights of some excellent games from the previous century, as well as some that should've stayed in the development room!

(4GTV - WATCH NOW!)

[txttletale]

yknow one quite common response i get to my critiques of the fantasy genre's 'evil race' trope is that, yknow, people want to play games that offer a guilt-free violent power fantasy without any moral complexity. but, like--this is also the core reasoning that makes a lot of pulpy throwback nazi-punching media work, and you never see wolfenstein insisting that germans are biologically evil in order to make that work

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi, sorry if this is an insensitive question but I was wondering if you have books by black authors that don't center racism? It's not that I want to live a blissful life not knowing about racism, I'm dark skinned nb woc, racism is part of life. I just noticed that unless it's a romance book, every 'by black authors' book list I find will have all the books with racism being a major theme. As if being a black author means publishing will only sign if you write about racism. I want to read something different, happy and humorous, fantastical, scry, whatever. I don't want every book I read from black authors to be about race the same way I don't want every book by queer authors I read to have homophobia. I got some recommendations before and all of them were like "hilarious book where author talks about racism they faced in a funny way", I feel exhauated. I know different books have to exist but I can't find them when I google.

sorry I'm so charmed by the idea that asking a white bitch for book recs about Black people doing something other than experiencing racism might be insensitive

anyway you're right like!!! a lot of authors of color only get to crack into publishing if they're willing to write about their suffering and be lauded for that and like, cool, bless up for writing that but would be cool to pay attention to stuff that's not all pain and suffering!!

I'm going to caveat to say that some of these will contain, you know, References to racism, especially if they take place in the real world, since Black authors and Black characters are gonna acknowledge that, but I'm not gonna rec like. The Hate U Give where that's The Point, yknow? also a lot of these are still rather dark and grim as novels because of who I am as a person and what I like but I hope will still be helpful. check the content warnings for everything I recommend ever.

ANYWAYYY

gotta shill for Akwaeke Emezi right out of the gate as usual: their most recent novel, Little Rot, is a pitch black thriller that starts with a Nigerian couple breaking up in Lagos and proceeding to have the most evil and deranged weekend anyone has ever had. truly almost content warning in the book for this one, BUTTTTT racism is like. the least of anyone's worries. girl, there are hitmen.

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite is another Nigerian novel that's more of a dark comedy about a dutiful older sister who's been cleaning up her impulsive and beautiful younger sister's dead boyfriends for YEARS. shit comes to a head when little sis sets her eyes on a man her older sister likes (who's also her boss!!! gag!!!).

Helen Oyeyemi's novel The Icarus Girl is a quietly creepy horror about a young mixed English girl who visits her mother's Nigerian family and comes back with a commanding, powerful imaginary friend that no one can see, who starts causing terrible things to occur once the family is back home. I was blown away by how well Oyeyemi wrote little Jessamine's POV; really nailed the smart, lonely, anxious child perspective.

Darknesses by Lachelle Seville is a WILD paranormal indie pub that i read earlier this year that's soooo messy and so entertaining. I think I described it as feeling like reading through someone's blog about their OC's? it was a hoot. the basic premise is that a young Black woman named Oasis, physically and mentally scarred from escaping a cult, is working at a bookstore in New York City when she meets another gorgeous Black girl who claims to be in love with her... and also to be an incarnation of Count Dracula.

if we want some high fantasy I really, really love NK Jemisin's Dreamblood Duology, which is set in a fantasy version of ancient Egypt and revolves around a class of priests who utilize the magic of dreams. political intrigue ensues!

love of my life Janelle Monáe curated a collection of short stories called The Memory Librarian, where each story is written by a different author and is inspired by the world of Monáe's album Dirty Computer. Danny Lore's story Nevermind, based on the music video for Pynk, is my #1 favorite thing.

also if we want some nonfiction I truly adore all of Samantha Irby's essay collections so much; there aren't a lot of writers who consistently make me LAUGH laugh but she gets me. her most recent, Quietly Hostile, has some top notch shenanigans re: having to go to the hospital for a very stupid allergic reaction at the height of COVID social distancing.

you may also find inspo here (I know I did!!)

and here (I'm especially intrigued by Meet Me at the Crossroads)

[hoping-for-novelty]

I think orcs also tend to incorporate a lot of stuff from other racial groups. I can't think of proper examples rn but iirc there was also stuff that seemed like it came from (stereotypes of) vikings and Sub-Saharan parts of Africa. but yeah. Yeah it's uh

It's bad

idk. maybe it's obvious if you're looking for it, but when you show me an orc i just see a buff green guy. i don't consider that it might be racist until something sticks out to me