Selling teens into sex slavery is genocide?   That doesnt seem like the definition I read.

I read the prologue, the hero does not sell anyone into slavery, he  turns the fates of the defeated over to the Mullahs, and they, in accordance with Sharia law.....place the women into sex slavery and take the kids away.  The hero seems simply to abide by Islam.  I suppose that could make him a villian....so is he a bad guy for allowing the Sharia law to decide their fates, or is Sharia law bad and he should stop these people from practicing their religion?  I am confused how it is genocide, since he seems to be working directly with Muslims in the prologue.  Very confusing this genocide.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138690Are you sure that's the line of logic you want to use? That logic would say there's nothing wrong with Tom Kratman's novels where his hero commits genocide against muslims.

Is there no difference between Orcs and Muslims in your mind?

Are Muslims a purely fictional race?

If we use my logic then there is a difference between using a purely fictional Orc and using an extremely real Muslim.

Do you have any other examples?

Quote from: Shasarak;1138711Is there no difference between Orcs and Muslims in your mind?

Are Muslims a purely fictional race?

If we use my logic then there is a difference between using a purely fictional Orc and using an extremely real Muslim.

Do you have any other examples?

  Well, I checked the source where he stated there was genocide on Muslims, and it sure seems like I must be very confused about the definition of genocide after checking out his suggested starting point in reading the prologue of the book.  It seems there is a war against a caliphate I guess, but I am missing the genocide, unless war means genocide.

   So it appears the real issue with that author is an imaginary war against imaginary Muslims, which oddly enough in the example he told me to look at, the hero is working with and seems allied to more imaginary Muslims......

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138690Throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I acknowledge that monster entries sometimes parrot colonialist claptrap transposed to a fantasy context, but to say "old D&D is bad" is a ridiculous leap of logic.

I remember when "they're going to take away our gaming books!" was a ridiculous leap of logic. Yet here we are.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138713Well, I checked the source where he stated there was genocide on Muslims, and it sure seems like I must be very confused about the definition of genocide after checking out his suggested starting point in reading the prologue of the book.  It seems there is a war against a caliphate I guess, but I am missing the genocide, unless war means genocide.

   So it appears the real issue with that author is an imaginary war against imaginary Muslims, which oddly enough in the example he told me to look at, the hero is working with and seems allied to more imaginary Muslims......

Ok, then I guess an imaginary genocide is more similar to imaginary Orcs.

Quote from: Shasarak;1138724Ok, then I guess an imaginary genocide is more similar to imaginary Orcs.

I'm still waiting for all the heaps of racism found in Volo's Guide. I'm sure it's there. Somewhere.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138690That would actually be clever. Do we think that WotC is competent enough to pull that off?

There are several assumptions that are being overplayed in the current cultural moment.

1) That our values have fundamentally shifted in the past 20 or 30 years.  (They haven't - what we're willing to accept or overlook has changed, but the idea that racism is bad hasn't really changed.)

2) That cultural artifacts are fundamentally unsophisticated and can be read very simply.  Eg. If a "hero" behaves in a certain way then that is an endorsement of the hero by the writers.  Volo could indeed be intended as an unreliable narrator - it's really not all that sophisticated a technique.  I'd have to actually read the book again but I have a hard time believing that colonisalist descriptions would have been used by TSR in the 80s and 90s unironically.

What has changed most is our comfort level with depictions of sexism or racism etc.  We tend as a society to be much more uncomfortable with seeing racism and sexism actually depicted, even if only to be condemmed.

There seems to at the same time have been a loss of cultural literacy.  (Or maybe it's not such a loss but rather there's been a democratisataion of criticism which has perhaps exposed that cultural literacy was always much less than creators imagined - or maybe a little of both).  A lot of the people criticising texts really don't show much real competenence at doing the job they've appointed themselves to do.

So if you combine personal discomfort with generally incompetence and loss of cultural literacy, you get problems.  For one thing people lack the critical ability to separate personal discomfort from the intentions of a work.  For another people seem completely unable to recognise unreliable narrators or flawed protagonists and to understand how these things actually work.

Then on top of that you add a climate which encourages you to view any criticism of your juvenilia as motivated by bigotry and incompetence just spreads.

Quote from: TJS;1138748What has changed most is our comfort level with depictions of sexism or racism etc.  We tend as a society to be much more uncomfortable with seeing racism and sexism actually depicted, even if only to be condemmed.

Yup. I say its become the ultimate sin. You can be a warlord out to continent with an army of hungry ghosts, but don't you DARE be sexist.

At a certain point, you have to forgive or just lessen your evaluation racism.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1138754Yup. I say its become the ultimate sin. You can be a warlord out to continent with an army of hungry ghosts, but don't you DARE be sexist.

   I remember Ron Moore getting into trouble with some fans on a similar point when he was working on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine--some fans were annoyed with him for some stuff he wrote and from which they inferred that Klingon women weren't fully equal in Klingon society.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1138759I remember Ron Moore getting into trouble with some fans on a similar point when he was working on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine--some fans were annoyed with him for some stuff he wrote and from which they inferred that Klingon women weren't fully equal in Klingon society.

I know in DS9 it was made explicit that women traditionally didn't lead great houses. The episode, "House of Quark" (one of my favorites) showed how exceptions were possible, but rare.
I bet it's that one.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1138765I know in DS9 it was made explicit that women traditionally didn't lead great houses. The episode, "House of Quark" (one of my favorites) showed how exceptions were possible, but rare.
I bet it's that one.

It was a.combination of various factors, including that one. But as Moore pointed out, Klingons aren't exactly sterling examples of progressive humanism in many areas, but somehow this was going too far?

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1138767It was a.combination of various factors, including that one. But as Moore pointed out, Klingons aren't exactly sterling examples of progressive humanism in many areas, but somehow this was going too far?

Being sexist or racist towards the protected demos is harder to accept then somebody being a murderer.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1138714I remember when "they're going to take away our gaming books!" was a ridiculous leap of logic. Yet here we are.

The Slippery Slope is no fallacy when Progressives are involved.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138705You mean Scramble for Africa? The news articles I could find are very neutral-sounding.

Are you a compulsive liar or do you just do this for fun?