Art by Alison Hunt
(Let’s dive into the World section of Do I Need to Use a Dragon? There were a lot of sections to choose from here.)
At the start of Beginning of a Hero, I touched on a cliché of fantasy because I didn’t know any better. A character is in a tavern and is hit on by an elf while a bunch of dwarves tease him for the encounter. Why did I do this? All because I was much younger and I never thought about going away from the overused cliché of elves and dwarves hating each other. It would be years later that I looked at the scene, which still worked for what I needed, and wondered why I took such a path. This racial feud never popped up anywhere else. In fact, I had a half-elf running a school where one of her senior staff was a dwarf who was one of her dearest and oldest friends. This relationship made the earlier scene even stranger unless one sees it as a bunch of drunks teasing a stranger being hit on by a woman. I went on to realize how often fantasy goes with the multiple races hating or distrusting each other. Why is this?
For one thing, fantasy has many racial traditions authors and readers accept without thinking about them. Elves hate dwarves, orcs are always evil bandits, humans are always seen with some disdain, and all vampires are monstrous killers. This brings uniformity between worlds, but it also shows a level of unoriginality when it comes to interspecies relations. It isn’t surprising though because this is a very sociopolitical area, which is easiest to do if you have everyone hate each other.
Personally, I think we gravitate towards this for more reasons than it being a fantasy tradition. We see plenty of hatred and distrust in reality, which doesn’t have the wide variety of species like fiction. It’s all humans here and we can be downright toxic to each other for many reasons that end in -ism or -phobic. So, an author and readers may not find a world where everyone gets along as believable because that isn’t how civilizations work on Earth. If a human hates other humans for something like skin color, then one wouldn’t expect our species could be friends with a pointy-eared, nearly immortal elf.
Of course, this idea isn’t always consistent in worlds where such animosity exists. The proof is that you have half-breeds. This set piece is typically done with two specific races and humans. You have a long tradition of half-elves because an elf and a human either fell in love or had a one-night stand to produce a child. The second type are half-orcs, which are usually made by a human being raped. Both half-breeds are treated as outsiders to both worlds, but half-elves tend to be accepted more by civilization. These two cases show us both sides of the interspecies relationships. Half-orcs conceived this way demonstrate an idea that different races cannot truly coexist without conflict. Half-elves show there can be love and unity between different races even if there is distrust. This makes the interspecies relationship issue more complicated. You can’t show that groups despise each other and then have tons of half-elves born from actual couples. A limited amount could work, especially if it’s a forbidden love thing, but then they’d be treated negatively. This is a big thing to consider if you want to go with the traditional bad blood between species. You could effectively eliminate the possibility of half-breeds if you go too far.
Authors who use this world-building tool may argue this is the only or best way to create tension in a story. They aren’t wrong. If your story involves a group of heroes who come from different species then interspecies issues is a useful character evolution tool. They will have to get over their biases and pre-conceived beliefs in order to work with their new friends and claim victory. This doesn’t mean it is necessary or without risks.
Legends of Windemere 
A very timely topic in light of the many, many videos I’ve seen concerning the Rings of Power series and the treatment of this very topic. You provide a really good explanation on how races are portrayed in many fantasy stories. I also think about science fiction stories and how the topic is handled (especially in the various Star Trek series).
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I’ve seen some of the RoP videos. Personally, I think Amazon is using racism as a cover for their low quality product. I’ve seen more articles about racists hating that show than actual racists hating that show.
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I’ve probably seen some of those videos. Having read books by Tolkien, I can understand the frustration some viewers have when they don’t believe the author’s world is realized in a way that he would have approved of. He was not writing to fit twenty-first century arguments on race. Even a cursory reading of The Silmarillion would reveal that.
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There were other problems too. I recently read that the production fired their Tolkien expert because the writers complained. They hated that he was trying to have them maintain the lore when they wanted to ‘modernize’ it. That’s another reason why I question certain changes. They weren’t made for the sake of the story, but for ego.
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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Thanks for sharing.
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Excellent points, Charles. There is a lot of story milage in getting characters that are traditionally enemies to work together for a common objective.
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True. It’s also important to have the hate make sense and not a trope. Hate simply due to hate doesn’t always work.
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Unless it is born out of ignorance like racism
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An interesting post, Charles. In my Wolves of Vimar series, the leader of the group of heroes is a half elf, conceived in love. There is a dark-skinned human, a full elf, a dwarf, a snobbish young woman from the nobility, a girl from the slums and a couple from a country to the west. While most are human, any conflict in the group comes mainly from their personalities, although there is some classism. My antagonist is human.
In one of the spin off books in Dragonlance, there is a half orc, if my memory serves me well, who isn’t evil. I have always had a bit of a problem with a whole race being bad, or good, for that matter.
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I tinkered with the ‘whole race evil’ think in Legends of Windemere. Not sure if I mention the chaos elves in the rest of the section that this is connected to. Originally, they were simply evil by nature, but I dropped that quickly. It made no sense and I liked that they were forced to be evil. That held more substance and opened the door for better characterization.
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Tolkein was such an influence on the genre, it really isn’t surprising everyone imitated what he did. I would point out that he had the Elves and Dwarves dislike each other, but they weren’t hateful. He also made a point to have Legolas and Gimli become such good friends. People always talk about the dislike, without acknowledging the full character arc.
As a writer, I guess you may not want to have all the races be lovely and get along perfectly. Rivalries create an obstacle that challenges the characters trying to get where they need to be for the story to work.
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I always felt the dwarves and elves hated each other. It had just gone on for so long that they didn’t know the reason, so it was like a tradition that nobody put thought into. Kind of like a family feud that’s gone on for a few generations. Legolas and Gimli were the ones who figured out there wasn’t a reason anymore.
Rivalries definitely work. Kind of have another section on that. I think a lot of it deals with the world and it’s history. Needs to be a reason for the hate.
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I love racism as a plot issue. In mine it’s usually a layer below the plot, but it appears often just below the surface. It makes for some nice tension. All the way back to my first book, even Lisa Burton had to deal with it. It shows up a lot in my science fiction. I dabbled on the light skin vs dark skin issue in Grinders. I’m currently flipping the script on it in one of my WIPs. Percy the Space Chimp has experienced racism directed at him, but he now goes over the top in thinking others don’t accept him. My anti-hero character even expressed some racial terms, but it was with a friend who is Chinese.
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Racism makes for a relatable subplot. Although, I sometimes feel like people throw it in without much thought and depth. As you describe, it should really be used with at least some intention.
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The whole elves/dwarves thing really does feel overdone. I understand where you’re coming from. It’s easier to sell with a robot girl or a Space Chimp.
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Yeah. I think some people just throw it in out of tradition. Although, I’ve found that some fantasy fans expect the elf/dwarf hate and get irritated if it’s not there.
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This is a question I tackled when I wrote my Goblin Trilogy. Why should goblins and humans always be enemies?
Unfortunately a plausible reason presented itself, but my sympathies leaned towards the goblins, who really just wanted to be left alone.
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Guess it depends on the goblin types. I can see how the rampaging, bestial species being hated. The more civilized ones don’t really fit that.
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I wouldn’t call my goblins civilised.
That was the question I took on, why would they rampage? In nature, very few species are mean for meanness’ sake.
So I referred back to the goblin wars, a time when such battles took place. A people attack when they fear something or when they are attacked. In this case, the humans feared the goblins because of their appearance and the goblins defended themselves and their right to live.
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So, humans just hated the goblins because of past wars?
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They hated them for the usual racist reasons, they were different. Green skin and pointed ears reminded them of demons from their mythologies. Plus the goblins live in underground caverns and don’t behave according to human societal expectations.
They are tribal, live close to nature, and consider gardens and livestock fair game.
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