Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/19/margaret-weis-and-tracy-hickman-sue-wizards-of-the-coast-after-it-abandons-new-dragonlance-trilogy.html
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Ah, what a boner by WotC. People would LOVE new Dragonlance material. It was a fantastic series and supplemental material.
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Bit puzzled by many of the MtG cards deemed offense But I guess that is a post for another day.
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That said, yes, they should clean up their house and definitely be more forward thinking.
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I was sat there trying to remember if there was anything particulary racist about Dragonlance, and then it struck me that there is a hilarious possibility here that Hasbro thinks it has canceled Forgotten Realms.
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Refresh my memory on Forgotten Realms?
I did used to collect the comics, though I know those didn’t reflect all of the modules and books, etc.
I don’t remember anything bad about Dragonlance… But it has been awhile.
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It isn’t made clear why this would lead to WoTC abandoning the new Dragonlance deal
It’s implied that WoTC was “going to the mattresses” in the belief that, given all the dysfunction the company had, that all publicity was bad publicity. It would be a weird and self-destructive approach for a company to take, but hey, this is the management of WotC we’re talking about. Which makes this thought…
… all too likely.
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Probably the worst thing is the stereotypical (of the pure, noble and good variety) buckskin-wearing barbarian tribes.
Also, the Gully Dwarves are clearly supposed to be stand-ins for Midwestern suburbanites.
Are they low on cash and trying to wriggle out of financial obligations? Because this seems like money in the bank.
Honestly, I’m surprised Dragonlance hasn’t been optioned by Netflix or Hulu.
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Turns out they had a card called ‘invoke prejudice’ that cared about the colour of the creatures in play, depicted people in hooded robes, and was illustrated by a white supremacist. By apparent coincidence it has a specific number in their online directory of cards that white supremacists like. This was the main one that absolutely needed to be done away with.
There were also cards like ‘Crusade’ and ‘Jihad’ that are possibly more understandable but are a bit insensitive, and also some that could be taken as referencing racial slurs that I don’t understand, but have no issue with being gone.
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Was the Drizzt thing supposed to be racist? Were the drow supposed to be Africans? I don’t remember having any association with race in there at all but maybe it just went over my privileged-assed head.
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This reminds me of the arguments over the Salamanders in the 40k Universe. They were long held up as a defence against accusations of racism in Games Workshop’s flagship IP.
Grognard, in bad faith or ignorance, “But how can 40k be racist? The Salamanders are all black!”
Me, “They are literally Black Face!”
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I tried rereading this recently. The original trilogy is awful. The cover art is amazing. However it was painful to read some 30 years later. I have fond memories of the Death Gate cycle but I’m scared to attempt a re-read wondering if the writing has aged just as poorly.
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Drow were as a race “evil” but they’re elves… I never got the feeling they were supposed to be Africans. They have white hair and purple eyes. However the Drizzt story line is largely about the evils of racism and I can’t imagine people taking issue with that.
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I didn’t make any racial associations as a kid, but now its hard to see “drow are like elves but dark skin and evil” isn’t a problem. I don’t remember the backstory, but I’m guessing they got their dark skin as punishment for being evil or betraying someone? Drizzt himself was a hero, and you can even see him as a sort of attempt to sort of redeem some of the stereotypes that already existed, but by the same token he reinforces those same stereotypes – AFAIK every other drow in the story is evil. That is all my recollection, I only read a few of the forgotten realms novels, I read almost all of the dragonlance ones.
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Concerning Dragonlance, they have not one, or two, but three short comic relief races: the reckless and kleptomaniac kender, that the setting insists, against all the evidence, are lovable innocents; the bumbling gadgeteer gnomes obsessed with Rube Goldberg machines, whose creations never work; and the stinky, stupid, ugly gully dwarves.
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When I read these books a billion years ago, I never made the connection that the Gully Dwarves were supposed to be sack-jawed midwestern yokels, I just took them at face value as comic relief. That makes it funnier though.
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Oh, that’s right, Drows are from Forgotten Realms. Still, I didn’t think they were every depicted as being African stand-ins? Just another magical race who happened to be black, but also dark blue and grey. (They should be see through pale if they live in the underground. Maybe see black or dark blue veins under their skin. That would be a cool update.)
That is probably one of the most common/worst tropes in fantasy, full of noble, and not-so-noble “savage” groups. I have an outsider underground comic from the 70s that makes fun of Franzetta’s use of this trope.
HEY! I live in a mid-west suburb! I doubt Gully Dwarves would eat avocado toast.
Possibly. But, come on, make daddy Hasbro money machine go brrrrrrrr.
A good adaptation of the original trilogy would be awesome.
I clicked on the article. I can see what they were trying to do, but yeah, that one was the most egregious.
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Yeah. I’m in the same boat. I was considerably older when I read the deathgate cycle, so I am reasonably confident the writing must have been better, but honestly it would be hard to be worse than the original dragonlance trilogy.
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Not intentionally racist, and only marginally problematic in the story itself (in the general sense of literalizing unironically european Svartálfar by giving them dark skin and making them hand-wringingly evil). And if anything the Drizzt stories are quite sharply anti-racist and encouraging of empathy.
The trouble is when that fantasy milieux makes fresh contact with our reality and mistakes are made.
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This post got me thinking about rereading the original trilogy for the first time since the 80s. Sounds like I’m better off with my memories.
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A sort of purplish pale gray is what tends to prevail now in artwork. A number of official portraits seem to lean into what (white) people look like when they get silver poisoning.
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