Dark Skin = Dark Heart?
With the recent popularity
of addressing race issues in pop culture I have become curious if it is applicable
to my own favorite pastime, Dungeons & Dragons. For those of you who do not
know of this magical game, Dungeons & Dragons is a roleplaying quest game
which is based on the eurocentric fantasy world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Simarillion. There is definitely a white
and black juxtaposition, a never ending battle between good and evil, within
almost all D&D stories and paths. As a devout D&D fan, there are
several moments that have made me ponder if my favorite free-time game is
racially inclusive. One of these moments was when I had to create a new
character profile. While creating my new profile I began to notice something
about the more savage-typed characters, they are generally of non-white skin.
These playable charactesr might have white attributes, such as white hair or
eyes, but never skin. I even noticed that the more savage they were, the darker
their skin became. This can also be seen in Tolkien’s novels, which Dungeons
& Dragons is based off of. For instance, in Tolkien’s The Simarillion Eol, a dark elf, is portrayed as a more savage elf
in comparison to his white-as-the-sun counterparts.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/E%C3%B6l_and_Aredhel.jpg/220px-E%C3%B6l_and_Aredhel.jpg
He is described as a
deceptive being with darkness in his heart, which is inevitably passed down to
his children. This is also seen in dark elves, or drow, in the D&D
franchise. Generally, their characteristics are of the evil nature with
distrustful ways. As a character they are more likely to lie and cheat in
comparison to their pure white counterparts. Even their name, drow, is a term that
is inspired by the name for evil sprites in Scottish religions. I also noticed
that almost every evil character in Dungeons & Dragons has something black
colored in their looks. Eol is also described as having everything and anything
black, especially his famous armor galvorn. He is also portrayed as a being
that kidnapped the beautiful and chaste and pure white lady of the elves Aredhel.
This brought on the realization that Caucasians are made to be the default
characters in D&D and Tolkien novels and almost always are on the side of the
lawful good. And by lawful good I mean that they are the chivalric knights that
we had heard of in fairytales since birth. I have also noticed that if your
playable character race is not a Halfling or a half-orc then she/he probably
does not favor the half-orcs. In most character descriptions in the Player’s Handbook, minus those two
exceptions, they describe the character as being distrustful of the half-orcs.
Half-orcs are also the only playable character that is penalized for their race
type. Half-orcs have points deducted from their stats in charisma, making them
more barbaric, and intelligence, making them more stupid. Picture of half-orc.
https://mikemonaco.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/4ehalforc.jpg
What I do not
understand about the D&D franchise is why it has not made bigger strides in
including racial diversity and tolerance, such as its well-known counterpart Pathfinder. There is also a lot of privilege
for the human race in D&D, which is also seen in The Simarillion. In The
Simarillion humans are only second to the elves, specifically the white
ones with blonde hair. The only difference between humans and elves is the “gift
of the humans” which is mortality. Humans are also the only species in both
Tolkien’s writing and D&D to not have a monster counterpart. In Tolkien’s
novel orcs are elves turned evil by Morgoth and his evil henchman, which echoes
to all other species in the series except for the human race. Even flipping
through the monster section in the Monster
Manual for D&D when you reach the H section there is no mention of humans
or monster humans. Human’s half breeds are always viewed as lawful good beings
that fight for the light, and they are predominately white as well.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/bb/31/59/bb31597485ec5a7499db1c96fa9a770d--tauriel-kili.jpg
I have long been bothered by the themes and ideas of dark and black being exclusively bad and white and light being exclusively good. However, I find it fascinating how this theme you discuss above even extends into contradicting basic ideas of biology. In Dungeons and Dragons in particular, I find it extremely puzzling that the drow, duergar, and other Underdark races somehow have dark to black skin despite being deprived of all sunlight and even hurt by sunlight. Strangely, Tolkien is rather contradictory at points with his portrayal of dark as bad and light as good, for the vast majority of elves in fact have dark hair including Luthien, the most beautiful of elves. Alongside that is the love of elves for the stars, which can, of course, only be seen at night, the supposed time when the dark/evil creatures lurk.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of white superiority is heavily presented in many elements of the fantasy world. The idea of the color of skin representing a part of your identity is crazy, your physical appearance has nothing to do with how “savage” you are or how “pure” you are. The idea of white and black relating to evil and good doesn’t work when it comes to humans. The notion of connecting color of skin to how others will perceive you is dehumanizing as you will never get the chance to meet the other because of how he or she looks. The concept of white and black should not relate to human’s characters.
ReplyDeleteI find this post very interesting as it is about something I know little about. D and D is something I have always known about, but didn't really care enough to look into. I am not surprised though to find that there is a lack of representation of people of color. In Tolkien's work 'The Silmarillion,' one can definitely see the über whiteness in almost every character especially those who are understood to be the good guys. Something that does shock me though is the fact that a player who identifies as a half-orc gets points deducted just because of their race. I can understand that the orcs are more war-like and barabaric characters, but it does shine a negative light in the darker skin color, and as we know from class, this contributes to habits of whiteness.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting how you mention that is no race of human descendants that are classified as evil, when two, technically three, immediately leap out at me. I'm not sure what version of the Monster Manuel and Player's Handbook you are using, since that would affect how specific races and classes and such are described, but in the 3.5 edition version of both, there are half-fiends, which are made by a fiend mixing with any race, Tieflings, which are descended from humans and other races with fiendish blood that usually manifests in a devil tail or tiny horns, and half-dragons, whose alignment is influenced by the alignment of their dragon parent. In addition, one of the campaign settings, Eberron, actually works hard at messing with the established Dungeons and Dragons conventions with little attention paid to alignment. So, I think Dungeons and Dragons is closer to being better about inclusivity than people think, but I do agree that it has a long way to go.
ReplyDeleteInteresting read. You presented some thought provoking ideas about some of the mechanisms that we use in our society (black and white/dark and light). But I think we should be careful to make a certain distinction between blackness and whiteness being used in reference to race or being used in reference to good and evil. And yes, the issue is that these are sometimes conflated and confused but that's not the argument I'm trying to make. Obviously, using darkness/blackness to connect skin color and inherent evil is completely wrong. And like, it doesn't even make any sense. But let's not jump aboard the "destroy universally understood vernacular" train. And I'm not saying you or anyone else is, I'm just trying to make a careful distinction. I think the reason dark/black is usually used to infer evil is because of natural human response to darkness. Again, this has nothing to do with race. I mean literal darkness. There are so many people that are afraid of the dark. It's a natural fear that humans have because of how it represents fear of the unknown. And I think that is represented by our association of darkness/black with evil. Sure, some people try to use it to be racist. But most people just see the color black or darkness as representing their natural fears. And this goes for all people.
ReplyDelete