Candid photo of Davis Aurini, white nationalist on paper

Re: Tolkien: He apparently really came to recognize the Orientalism of the Hobbit and Trilogy and had planned to write histories of the other parts of Middle Earth with the explanation the descriptions found in his earlier works should be taken as the POVs of the local/featured peoples.

I’m not sure if that’s mentioned in this article (I’ve read it elsewhere and don’t have the link handy), but seeing it reminded me of this line of duscussion.

http://observationdeck.io9.com/east-middle-earth-a-story-worth-telling-1691586234/+cherylvis

Also was it just me or did anyone else find it weird that the /totally african race/’s bonus was….that they run fast? Like really Bethesda? Really?

They’re called Redguards. They have a whole video game to themselves.

In Skyrim, Redguards have 50% resistance to poison, and they recover their stamina twice as fast for 60 seconds once per day. Speed is related to height, and while Redguards are taller than Bretons (at 1.005 to 1.000), Orcs are the tallest and therefore the fastest.

In Oblivion and Morrowind, Redguards’ Adrenaline Rush boosts three physical attributes, their speed, and their hit points for 60 seconds, once per day, and they have 75% resistance to poison and disease.

In Arena and Daggerfall, specific stats aren’t provided, but it says Redguards are better with hand weapons, hardier, and less vulnerable to poisons. Daggerfall also says they aren’t related to Nords or Bretons.

But Ulfric does segregate the Dunmer and the Argonians in Windhelm and won’t lift a finger to help anyone but a Nord.

On the other hand, the Thalmor are an occupying force, and the Imperials are their running dogs.

That’s why everyone should bow to me, the Dragonborn. Also I can shout dragons out of the sky.

Not going to defend Tolkien.

I do think Frodo’s story of trauma and aftermath is the best part of the book.

Yeah, but they look African.

I don’t know. I joined the Blades in Oblivion and they handed me a katana. I threw up my hands and just went with it after that.

kirbywarp | March 15, 2015 at 12:29 am

The problem with trying to do any sort of racism metaphor in a fantasy world with races of completely different species is that it basically plays into the hands of the Davis Aurinis. The most important thing for men like him is the core belief that human races are fundamentally alien to each other. When they interbreed (and yes, they would think of it as interbreeding rather than just… breeding…), the results are treated as bizarre as half-orcs in fantasy.

No matter how good of a message you try to impart by likening race relations between people and between fantasy species, it will still boil down to reinforcing that idea that people with dark skin and people with light skin are fundamentally different, as different as elves and dwarves. It still fails to attack the underlying assumption that is crucial to their worldview.

There’s also the aspect that all the species in fantasy and space opera games get specific racial bonuses to stats. This means that there’s an actual in-world reason for the basic prejudices. It makes sense to treat orcs like dumb thugs, because they are–the wisest orc is at best equivalent to an above-average human.

In Shadowrun, I actually tweaked my setting a bit to move away from using ‘game races’ as a stand-in for actual racism. The old sourcebook, The Neo-Anarchist Guide to North America, had a Chicago section, which basically declared that the metahuman thing got rid of the old-school racism that has always been a big part of the city’s legacy. I decided that was Neo-Anarchist propaganda, and that Chicago was actually one of the only places in the world where your ‘ethnicity’ still mattered at least as much as your ‘race’ in social interactions. (After all, this is a city where, in 2015, it can still matter if you’re Irish vs. Polish.)

Hmm, for ethnicity, my comment normally is that I’m part English, part Irish, part Scottish, and part German. (Usually followed up with ‘I argue with myself a lot.’)

Then again, my parents, grandparents, and most of my great-grandparents were born in Canada, and many of my ancestors were living in Canada since before it became a separate country. (The German branch was first; Poor Palatines who fought on the British side of the American Revolution, and kind of weren’t welcome in the U.S.A. after that. The Irish fleeing the Great Famine also count, though not by many years.) I’m about as Canadian as I can get.

I can’t believe there are actually people on that article about the violent assault of the pregnant woman arguing that she should have said “thank you.” Because that’s the most important part, her not saying “thank you,” not getting beaten so badly she was put in th hospital. Because that is totally a reasonable response when a woman doesn’t thank a man.

Makes me want to do a Jay and Silent Bob only with a film crew and no violence.

Falconer | March 16, 2015 at 10:26 am

But Ulfric does segregate the Dunmer and the Argonians in Windhelm and won’t lift a finger to help anyone but a Nord.

On the other hand, the Thalmor are an occupying force, and the Imperials are their running dogs.

That’s why everyone should bow to me, the Dragonborn. Also I can shout dragons out of the sky.

Or at the very least give me a way to settle the issue myself no matter what beyond “Join the racist-as-oblivion Stormcloaks and kick the Thalmor out of Skyrim, or join the far more welcoming Imperial Army and keep the Thalmor.” I would like a way to deal with the Thalmor, considering how BIG of a deal they were made out to be.

The way I always figured it was that the empire (judging from talking to General Tullius and his second in command, Legate Rikke) didn’t like the Thalmor any more than Ulfric did, and were plotting a counter-attack when Ulfric threw his little fucking rebellion. So now the empire has to devote time and resources that they were going to use to strike back against their own people because Ulfric couldn’t keep his axe in its holster for five fucking minutes and wait for the larger force with more resources to hash out their plans.

Meanwhile, Ulfric wants to go stag against the Thalmor (because two of the elven nations that took the rest of the fucking empire to task against the itty-bitty force that is the Stormcloaks is totes going to go well), and he’s using the banning of the worship of Talos as a bid to gain political power, challenging the (former) High King Torryg to combat. I don’t doubt that he was going to do it anyways though, Talos being banned or no.

Binjabreel | March 16, 2015 at 12:32 pm

Re: Amanda and the storm cloak/front-

Yeah I figure it’s meant like that. He’s even a charismatic leader with a powerful voice who leverages a legitimate crisis for his own personal power grab.

Agreed. I don’t think he really gives a fresh skeever’s ass if Talos worship is banned. If you talk to Hadvar’s uncle in Riverwood, he talks about how it wasn’t a big deal until Ulfric raised hell about it. Then the Thalmor had to come in and enforce it.

And I’m wandering around like, could you please all just sit down and shut up, I’m trying to stop the draco-apocalypse here. Except then I go all Oooh shiny! and wander off. Alduin is patient.

(Going from Skyrim to D&D has confusing potential, because what D&D used to call half-dragons it now calls dragonborn.)

Aw, I don’t play Skyrim. I feel so left out. 🙁

(And to add insult to injury, we lost EVERY SINGLE ONE of our video games due to postal fail a few days ago. The only one we have left is Gigi’s copy of American McGee’s Alice. FFFFFF.)

Aw man, LBT, that sucks.

@ LBT

And to add insult to injury, we lost EVERY SINGLE ONE of our video games due to postal fail a few days ago.

Oh NOOOOOOOO, gods above I’d cease to function for a moment if that happened to me. Are you strictly a console gamer? If not I can try to share some of my Steam games with you if you have a computer that can run them.