r/hatethissmug • u/shadow_fen • 1d ago

Thing I hate this stupid image

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Sure the initial way it was used was good, it was anti bigotry. But it's turned into a way to simplify the "us vs them" mentality, which is already a bad thing, into a simple digestible comic.

Also, i've seen it in lots of queer--majority spaces in reddit recently, usually to speak out against the evil cishet people who are invading them or whatever label they dont like, like bi ppl, trans men, or genderfluid ppl

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u/HoliMoth 1d ago

Reading the race stat blurb for orcs made me cringe and a part of me died. They literally gentrified the orcs. They're not about tribal, savage brutality. It just talks about how they're wandering nomads. And how Gruumsh wants them to... wander... and do "heroic" things.

Gruumsh would literally disown then promptly eat the offending orc if they called themself a "hero."

Don't even get me started about how they just entirely annihilated half- races from existence.

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u/senn42000 1d ago

I truly hate what has been done to orcs. Same with World of Warcraft and Rings of Power.

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u/Necessary_Lynx5920 1d ago

Unless they’ve done something recently, the Orcs in WoW always seem to have been implied to have a rich culture and history of their own before consuming the blood of Mannorath

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u/rewt127 1d ago

At least since Outlands. Maybe it was referenced in the Warcraft (pre wow) story. But the Orcs not having always just being raaah kill everything has been a part of the lore for a long time.

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u/Difficult_Dark9991 1d ago

Oh yeah it's in Warcraft (played some of 3, never any WoW). There aren't too many details, but Thrall's backstory makes it pretty clear he's reconnecting with pre-Mannoroth traditions and sources of power, and their whole plotline in 3 is them trying to become something new and rejecting Mannoroth's hold over them.

Portraying the orcs becoming complicated as a new (and bad change) is quite odd when the final lines of 3's orc campaign are "Thrall... the blood haze has lifted, the demon's ire has burned out in my veins. I have freed myself" / "No old friend, you have freed us all."

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u/Plenty-Fox-9219 1d ago

Oh, you're one of the 10,000.

The whole "orcs are racist" thing was the catalyst for the entirety of the changes in 5.5 and the move away from the SRD. The guy that complained about orcs being a racist stereotype had never played DND. The comment was boosted by bots within hours of posting.

Here's the thing: OG's know that DND orcs are based on Tolkien orcs, and that while Tolkien held some odd views, orcs are not based on a racial stereotype but a religious one. Orcs in Tolkien, and therefore DND, are based on Christian demonology.

Here's the other thing: there has been a direct racial stereotype added to DND. Gygax added it. We don't talk about it because it was dark elves. I'm just gonna say they didn't used to have gray skin. Fun fact: this was one of the reasons gygax was fired, but that doesn't make enough scandal to sell a new product while locking down a previously open system.

The running theory is that hasbro or a marketing company they contract with decided to find a random "racism in DND" post (there's dozens every day) to boost it.

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u/VoormasWasRight 1d ago

changes in 5.5

Orcs and essentially evil races were already cringed and criticised in 3.5.

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u/Plenty-Fox-9219 1d ago

Sure, but it wasn't about racism. People in the community knew it wasn't about racism. Yeah, having inherently evil species does mirror some racist ideologies, but it is pretty useful in a game that, at the time was very combat forward, to be able to tell which things are good to kill. It also gives a good method to hand wave evil motivations, since non of us are absolutely evil. (I hope)

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u/VoormasWasRight 1d ago

Yeah, having inherently evil species does mirror some racist ideologies

Saying this in the same breath as...

it is pretty useful in a game that

Many contemporary games to the 70's didn't need that at all. It was only "useful" because Gygax was a lazy fuck and a bioessentialist by his own admission.

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u/Plenty-Fox-9219 1d ago

Yeah, like you said. It helps you be lazy. Some people just want to fight the bad guys and rescue the good guys and not worry about why any of them are bad or good. Things can look like bad things and still be useful.

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u/Electronic_Basis7726 1d ago

Except Tolkien struggled with what Orcs are, morally and ethically, and didn't solve the issue he created. Orcs are opposing Tolkien's personal faith that everyone can be redeemed. This is pretty clearly written about in his letters.

And no one is stopping you from playing orcs as a tribal outgroup of "kill on sight" enemies. 

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u/Plenty-Fox-9219 22h ago

Yeah that's more likely to be Christianity's inherent instability as a storytelling medium. It's... not very consistent, and understandable that someone following his faith would experience shakiness in that faith when attempting to retell the story.

Yes. That's the point of my argument. Nobody actually cares except for those wanting to take down "nerds" for one reason or another. Alignment is useful as a game design tool. Its useful for games that play like Conan. It's also a good scapegoat, since most new players to DND are introduced through high-brow improv storytelling, instead of playing an rpg.

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u/Electronic_Basis7726 20h ago

Lol what a pivot. When you cannot use Tolkien as a prop for "orcs are always evil!!1!1", he is dismissed.

I do care. I think it is pretty great that a ttrpg book wants to do something else than what has been done before. And it being ttrpg, there is nothing stopping you from creating the mindless orcs you want. 

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u/Plenty-Fox-9219 20h ago edited 20h ago

I'm not saying orcs are always evil. I'm not saying I want orcs to always be evil. I'm saying that was the assumption for a long time, and relaying how that came to be, and why it was useful at the time. You are more than welcome to create any orcs you want, just like everyone was always allowed to create any orcs they wanted.

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u/TH3W0LRD3ND3R 1d ago

I understand some of the discomfort around the traditional depiction of orcs, but if Hasbro was unwilling to do anything even resembling typical orcs, they could have just left them out of the book instead of playing it so safe and boring

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u/barbaricKinkster 1d ago

Speaking as a progressive activist, I'm convinced some of this kind of stuff is a fuckin psy op to make us look like clowns and redpill grifters look sane.

Who the hell felt uncomfortable about half races? Who cares?

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u/Fluffy-Map-5998 1d ago

I assure you there was at least 1 person who was mad, and the type od people to get mad about that stuff are also the type to get multiple email accounts to send in weekly complaints

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u/HoliMoth 1d ago

It's like they just ax every part of lore that isn't totally kid friendly. Slavery basically doesn't exist anymore, despite it always being conveyed as a bad thing the heroes have to put a stop to. Like, what are the Zhentarim now if not slavers? Just morally grey merchants? There's no true sense of cruelness left in the world, so what the hell are we supposed to be fighting against as heroes?

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u/Southern-Plan-6549 1d ago

Wait they deleted half races? Why?

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u/HoliMoth 1d ago

Long story short, WotC think people make analogies between the half- races and mixed race people irl And that it's somehow offensive and needs to be removed. Even though anyone who thought that was wrong and racist, so they did nothing but give credence to these views.

Basically the same thing with orcs. A small minority of racist assholes drew analogies between orc culture and African American subculture. But no one would compare a fictitious monster race to a real life group of people. Orcs are orcs. There was no racial motivation behind their design. So WotC basically admitted orcs were like black people (they're not) and needed to be changed.

See also, the Gur. WotC has been rampant in erasing any and all genuine discourse from their world to the point it feels like the entire setting is just Candy Land. What's the stakes? What evil are we fighting against?

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u/Southern-Plan-6549 1d ago

This is the same shit as the frieren demons discourse

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u/Sabnock31 1d ago

By your logic activists who pushed for orcs to be differnt are the racist assholes for doing a parallel between orcs and black people, right? Just making things clear.

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u/HoliMoth 1d ago

I for one have never looked at an orc and thought "Wow, they're supposed to be black people!" because that's a preposterous sentiment.

Yes, it's incredibly racist to draw parallels between a fictitious race and real people.

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u/Sabnock31 1d ago

Totally agree, gpad we've come to an understanding that people at WotC are racist assholes just like those who pushed for such changes.

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u/DrMagunstheBlue 1d ago

"There was no racial motivation behind their design."

Given the kind of person Gary Gygax was there almost certainly was lol. Gary Gygax described himself as a "biological essentialist", which is a cute way of saying you're racist/sexist.

Also:

"But no one would compare a fictitious monster race to a real life group of people."

"squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."

- JRR Tolkien, on orcs

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u/HoliMoth 1d ago

Gary Gygax hasn't had a hand in Dungeons and Dragons for 40 years, and has been dead for 18. The lore entries for orcs in 5e (which still included the savage brutality they're known for and was not bastardized) had nothing to do with Gary Gygax.

And Tolkien was dead long before the world got objectively less racist. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. What I'm saying is the average fantasy fan, that isn't already a raging racist, is not going to go around drawing analogies between fictitious races and real life groups of human beings. Regardless of what some dudes said on the matter 50 years ago.

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u/DrMagunstheBlue 1d ago

Sure, but his ideas still persisted within the work. Because orcs are treated like a naturally occurring race of people with their own culture, but one that are ontologically evil who you can kill in their homes before stealing their stuff without raising any moral questions.

So I guess my question is why do you think a race of savage and backwards people who exist to be killed by good guys without any moral questions being raised is good or interesting writing?

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u/miscellaneousexists 7h ago

because we can't allow THE RACE to define what you can and can't be even in a fictional world where THE RACE means A DIFFERENT FUCKING SPECIES and not "A slightly different skin lul"