#like damn that is some fourth wall fuckery with the concepts right there

[astraltrickster]

Dungeon Meshi is possibly the best case I've ever seen of fantasy being used as an extended study of casual racism. Most of our beloved blorbos are, in fact, casually racist in some way, including the central party. It's not treated as a good thing. Their ideas are not treated as true by the narrative. But most importantly, the characters are still treated as fully realized people who are likeable and doing their best...but operating under a skewed worldview. Casual racism is a character flaw, and a bad one, and not one that can turn into a benefit in the right situation; the closest it can come is...being mildly useful against shapeshifters.

But most importantly, it's explained by their life circumstances without excusing it. Laios is casually racist - in the kinds of ways that people in real life might be; he's Like This toward other groups of tallmen, even - because he isn't good with people in the first place, let alone enough so to question "ambient" attitudes toward "outsider" tribes or think about why deciding someone's name is too hard to really get right might just be a dick move (in other words, his casual racism exists in a way that a lot more white autistic people need to be aware can happen, tbh) - and he faces the consequences, some of which are fucking devastating (I straight up can't revisit the part where Toshiro admits he hates Laios because holy fucking shit it hits way too close to home to understand BOTH of their viewpoints that deeply, like I had to lay down after that one). Senshi is also casually fantasy-racist, because he's never been in extended contact with a multiracial group before - hell, he hasn't been in extended contact with ANY group since childhood. Marcille seemed like she was at her worst when arguing over the history of the orc war, but the deeper-running thing is that her stubbornness extends to a good bit of egomania; when she has what she thinks is a good idea, she thinks she knows better than anyone; we see this flaw with the mandrake incident and think a valuable lesson has been learned...only for it to REALLY rear its ugly head later, and what else could you expect? Elf culture is, itself, pretty damned racist. She's spent her whole life being told she's smarter and wiser than anyone from a shorter-lived race because ~with age comes wisdom~! That's not something that goes away overnight!

And Chilchuck, as the guy on the receiving end of so many of this society's shitty attitudes...in a lot of media, and hell, often in real life, with someone as initially cold and closed-off from his party as him, we would expect to see a whole scene where he apologized for the mistake of not trusting them...but we don't get that with him, as I honestly believe we shouldn't, because he had no way to know or even suspect that this party would be the one that wouldn't try to just use him as an expendable tool - and in fact, as established above, plenty of evidence to suspect that they very well might. He can't read minds. Any time he's up, he doesn't know how the party will respond if he dies - would they mourn, or would the last thing he heard while bleeding out just be "aw, shit! Where are we going to find another competent half-foot THIS deep into the dungeon!?" We know the answer, but we have every reason to understand that he does not. He's using very rational defensive tactics...against people, it turns out, he doesn't need to use them against, but he's not exactly WRONG to do so - you can't even call him mistaken; he's making the best decision he can with the information at hand (i.e., his history, their casual racism). He sees people who are not half-foots and fully expects them to exploit him based not on outside stereotypes but on his own history, and while it's not cruel, exactly, it sure does make things harder - more so on him than those around him - than they need to be.

And what I like about this is that the narrative says - yes, these racist and ignorant attitudes are bad. They do harm to the people who have to deal with them, both directly and indirectly. No, they aren't going to be 100% resolved in a single story arc; they have to be chipped away at slowly, bit by bit. Yes, they exist in fully realized people. They are the result of Living In A Society, not individually just being the most evil kind of motherfucker on the planet.

They might even - probably even - exist in you.

So maybe we should all be working on that a bit, hm?