Yeah. I can think of some in both BCE and CE real world settings, but most are in secondary worlds. As an unrelated aside, how many people care if we use BCE and CE or BC and AD?
Doesn't matter to me, either. I just asked because I almost typed AD / BC. I'm happy with either one, but the use of CE and BCE seems a little odd to me because it is still tied to the same religious dates, so I'm not sure what point people are trying to make with it. Sorry to derail.
But there is in European folklore, which is the very basis of Fantasy, which is an extension of an ancient culture. That would be like writing ancient Aboriginal dream-time stories and sticking in talking Siberian huskies. You can do it, but it's disrespectful to the culture.
I don't agree with that viewpoint, either. I think the whole of the human experience is available to the writer to draw from. I use whatever cultural elements from various cultures I feel like, so long as I can employ them in a way that is internally consistent within the logic of my world.
That's always been my position too. I was once accused of whitewashing a script, until I pointed out that at no point did I ever say what ethnicity any of the characters were. They argued it's because I DIDN'T point it out. Sigh. People hell-bent on inclusion are usually the people who see others as different. Anyway, you said it better than me so no need to repeat.
But we don't decide what can or cannot offend others. All we decide is if we are prepared to do so. Personally I get annoyed and offended by the mutilation and mistreatment of European culture and folklore, such as making black elves. Just like other cultures get offended when their culture is adopted, used and bastardized by outsiders. That's normal and has been happening for millennia.
True. Every decision you make is going to turn off some readers and interest others. I understand that, but I'm still going to write the stories the way I want them. There are enough readers out there that won't be offended, and those are the ones I'm writing for.
For me, BC has always meant Before Computers, so that's what I still use. Most people think I'm stuck in the past.
I'm generally keep my character descriptions to a minimum. I think readers latch on to one or two significant characteristics, and beyond that they're going to envision them however they want anyway.
I was just thinking: it would be cool to see more stories which had nothing to do with epic struggles or war or kingdom politics. Why not a locked-room murder? (Sorcerer Plum, in the dungeon, with the blessed athame!). Or a caper story? (Merlin's Eleven?). Or a wacky road trip? (Dude, Where's My Broomstick?)
A slasher movie in a fantasy world. I definitely like the Agatha Christie/ Cluedo murder scenario though. I've always wanted to write this in a space sci-fi setting, but never got around to it- perhaps I should.
Here is the issue then . . . If a fantasy writer uses Norse Mythology as inspiration and a jumping off point for his or her story, why shouldn't their story be reflective of the people that inspiration came from? By no means am I saying this is a must. I just don't see why authors should be lambasted for not deliberately including other races if they are choosing to write some Viking-type, seafaring, fantasy adventure. Likewise, if someone was to use the Mayans for their inspiration and jumping off point I wouldn't be upset if that author didn't include a bunch of Europeans. So all Tolkien's characters are white men--big deal? I don't see that as raciest or sexist. I see it as a reflection of the location and period he was using as inspiration. If someone writes all female characters in some form of Amazon-warrior-princess type story where their mothers refuse to allow them to wed until after they've killed their first man so they go on a killing spree through Scythian lands, that isn't radical-feminist man-hating work; it's a story based off beliefs of a specific culture. If an author choose to write rules of culture and racial phenotyping that happen to be white, why is that wrong? Would you be just an angry if an author choose to write a book were everyone was some shade of indiscriminate brown? Or all strangely blue? I wouldn't. And I don't understand why authors like Tolkien or Stephen Lawhead should be considered somehow "lesser" because they choose a place and period to write about that has predominantly white characters.
I would still understand where you are coming from. I just think BC and AD are silly because you loose about 30 years. Before Christ and After Death; believe what you like it's highly unlikely he died the day he was born. Though to be honest I can think of a number of people who wouldn't mind deleting those 30 years from the worlds collective history and pretending they didn't happen.
I totally understand and actually agree with you (believe it or not). The point being made earlier, though, was that it is stupid to say "I can't have a black heroine because there weren't any in medieval England" when their story contains dragons, fairies, and doesn't actually take place in medieval England. It's a false equivalency born of this cockamamie idea that there is a Right Way to write fantasy. If you were to say "I don't have any black characters because the characters just aren't black," that's completely different. There's no reason to force diversity, but excluding a group because of some nonexistant rule that it has to be a certain way is passive bigotry at best. If you're writing about a fantasy version of the Mayans, then, by all means, leave out the samurai warriors. But if your fantasy world does not draw from the lore of an existing Earth culture, don't feel like you have to limit yourself. If, in the organic process of writing your story, you end up with a cast of mostly white cismen, fine. The problem is deliberately excluding someone from another demographic because of the rule that the heroic norm is a straight white cisman. I've never read Lawhead, so I can't comment on that, but Tolkien is held up as an example of the good and bad because he was a pioneer of the genre, and if anyone is going to make a faux pas, it's going to be someone who is making the first foray into unexplored territory. Personally, the only thing I can find racist in LOTR is the way the Easterlings (obviously an analog to Middle Eastern people) are treated as an Evil Race, allied with Sauron.
I stand corrected. Though, with this information I like AD even less because I do not think we share the same Lord.
Yeah, but CE is still based on the same religious events and the same "Lord," they just changed the word for it, so I'm not sure what was really accomplished. If you're using CE you're still basing your reckoning on the same religious underpinnings.
With CE, you're just pinning to a date. I don't have to say it's in "the year of our lord." I'm pretty sure we don't worship the same lord. CE is like saying "the 10th year following the death of Ronald Regan," vs AD saying, "The 10th year since the death of our greatest president ever." Not everyone likes Regan and he was only president of the United States, not the world.
Yeah, but the date you're pinning it to is still the Christian lord. That's the only reason that particular date is chosen. You aren't saying that's what it is, but that's still what it is.
Are you being deliberately obtuse? Jesus existed, just as Regan existed. Jesus may be your Lord, but that does not mean that he is anyone elses Lord. Jesus may have simply been a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur who wasn't worthy of worship and adoration, but like a lot of other crazy people developed a following anyway. In the same way, Ronald Regan may be the hero of the Neo-Con's, but he is not the hero of the socialist. We can pin time to the date Regan died, because can agree that he existed and the date he died. But it is terribly inconsiderate to expect everyone to say, "In the 10th year following the death of our Greatest President," if Regan was not their President and they do not believe him to the the greatest of anything.
