Oh man. I'm so in love with this

[la_vie_noire]

Via the_future_modernes: Deconstructing Pointy-Eared White Supremacists. There is a reason why I will never touch Tolkien and generally (not always, there are exceptions) stay away from Medieval-like high fantasy.

Another thing elves like to do is that they have a low birthrate, are fiercely jealous of humans for being able to drop litters, and when humans get too many they will sail away to the west, weeping tears of severe butthurt all the way in their pearly swan-boats. You ever heard a particular breed of white folks lamenting how awful it is that all the black people and the Chinese and Hispanics are spawning like bunnies, and that white people are increasingly an endangered species? You ever seen a white family get spooked when their neighborhood becomes just a little colorful, so they move to an all-white suburban area where they can continue to send their kids to school full of other middle-class white kids, attend parent meetings where they’ll never ever be threatened by the sight of someone who isn’t the hue of frog bellies?

Ah.

So, what we have are essentially white supremacists, except in fantasy their racism is directed at white humans and white dwarves, rendering any deconstruction or criticism of elves’ attitude ultimately pointless.

But sometimes the table is turned. Elves are subjected to racism. Which brings us to an altogether different, but no less asinine, kind of fail.

Elves: A Vehicle for Appropriating POC Experiences

Let’s talk about Lynn Flewelling. For context, Alec is an elf and Yhakobin is a Plenimaran.

[...]

What are Plenimarans? They’re like this: dark-skinned, scimitar-wielding, woman-oppressing. Plenimaran women are veiled, require chaperons when going out, and are expected to commit suicide to preserve their husbands’ honor. Throughout Flewelling’s books Plenimarans and Zengati (also brown-skinned) are every single one of them evil: they deal in necromancy, slavery, and most of all they deal in enslaving elves. Alec, during his experience in a Plenimaran household, is subjected to beatings, being kept in chains, threatened with gelding, used as a breeding apparatus; he witnesses other elves being castrated, worked to death, raped, and brutally flogged. Elves are shipped en masse, in chains, cramped into small cabins across the sea to be sold to Plenimarans.

Sounds familiar? I’m sure you will be shocked, just shocked, to learn that Flewelling’s elves are white too!

Ahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Comments

[the_future_modernes]

when humans get too many they will sail away to the west, weeping tears of severe butthurt all the way in their pearly swan-boats.


*Still killing me DED.*

[salinea]

I had never noticed that the Plenimaran are dark-skinned. Arghness. This is really shitty.

[willow]

I decided as a child that all Elves were actually Aboriginal Americans and glossed over all the 'white skin' except for Tolkien, which confused me cause all this 'fading away becamse Man fears them, etc,' seemed so 'The End of Native Americans & Jews' to me.

As I got older, however, yeah I've HELL of noticed the racist supremacist parallels. And my issues with DAO's Elves and City Elf Alienages? Alienage - could they BE more obvious?