Applewhite posted:

Is it gonna be lovely because of that though? Is it? What if the Centaurs aren't central to the story? Do you really need to waste a lot of time making them nuanced when all you really need is for them to show up for a single chapter and have their casino be an obstacle for the characters? Are you gonna throw down and tell your friends not to read an otherwise good book because of the casino scene?

I'm very wary of any "If you're a good writer then you do X" because any rule you come up with, you can find a great writer who breaks it on the regular. Yeah you've gotta learn the basics before you start to break the rules, but if you're still writing at a basic level then by definition you're not a great writer.


It kind of depends on the story you're trying to tell, doesn't it?
If you're writing the next great American novel, yeah you want to go in depth, but if you're writing a fairy tale then exploring the nuanced intricacies of elf society is a pointless derail.

Applewhite posted:

Wow, I guess that's true.

My final thoughts on the matter: write whatever you want because nothing matters.

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

I hope the movie has lots of overt racism when it finally comes, if only to justify the last 4 pages of discussion in this thread

Hat Thoughts posted:

And I don't understand the dichotomy you're setting up there, I'm not insisting that everything has to be examined in specific detail, but there are ways to paint something in broad strokes without those strokes being racist. More than that I don't really understand why a fairy tale is any less valuable or worth less effort than "the next great American novel". Isn't the goal making something valuable either way? If your story necessitates racism to be told then, y'know, maybe it's not the best story.

Applewhite posted:

I didn't say effort in a fairy tale was less valuable, but a passage like "I went into the goblin's house. His walls were decorated with the windblown detritus of a life lived on the edges of ennui. The particulate buildup of a desperate soul searching for longing in an upturned world." would be out of place, don't you think? It wouldn't fit the tone, especially when all the story calls for is something like "Sally met the goblin, he had a merry little bell on his cap!"
You don't need to know anything about the goblin except that he is tricksy and wears a bell. That's the sum total of the goblin's existence and in a fairy tale that's all you need.

Applewhite posted:

My point is that the advice "try not to include racist elements in your story" is worthless. Unless you're a racist, you would never deliberately include racist elements in your story in the first place, and if you are a racist, then you're not going to listen to someone telling you to leave them out now are you?
Use your best judgment about what to include in your story but if you try to anticipate and remove everything from your story that other people might think is racist, you're gonna be at it all day and you still won't please everyone and even if you manage to make your story completely prejudice free for your time period, people a few decades from now will find new things to complain about because the world will have moved on.
So stressing about whether your story is racist is probably one of the last things you should do because even if it is (and it will be to someone), it can still be great.

The MSJ posted:

I am here just carefully observing Applewhite's post in case he makes a reference to being the creator of furries-as-religious-minority webcomic Dreaming of Utopia. Unless that's another goon.

Hodgepodge posted:

Have you ever read Tintin? Have you noticed that Tintin is portrayed as opposed to racism, and yet the comics themselves are incredibly racist?

Do you think that Herge was a stealth racist? Or might it be that our unexamined assumptions might be racist, even when our intentions are the opposite?

Tender Bender posted:

I mean you're basically saying that people are incapable of recognizing and confronting their own prejudices and if they tried to do so it would be a hatchet job that robs the work of all flavor because golly how am I supposed to know what people find offensive? Which is intellectually lazy at best and at worst the fallback option of a drunk uncle who unironically complains about the PC Police at family gatherings. There's centuries of literature that does exactly what you're claiming is impossible.

Edit: this isn't a response to the goblin bell post.

Tender Bender posted:

That annoying thing on the bottom of your list seems pretty important to at least half of the other things on your list though.

I mean it's not like a beep boop checklist is how you write, ideally you don't create an entire race of pot-smoking voodoo Jamaicans in your story and if you do "Sorry my priority was on worldbuilding, not examining my racism" isn't an excuse.

Tender Bender posted:

I agree I don't think you would either.

Gildiss posted:

Can I still say 'zug zug' though?

Applewhite posted:

Tintin is awesome and I wouldn't change a single thing about any of Herge's comics.

Alhazred posted:

Herge changed a lot of it though.

Applewhite posted:

I mean, I can't imagine why I would, that doesn't sound like something I'd do, but that makes me all the more certain that I wouldn't do it without a very compelling reason.

Gildiss posted:

Can I still say 'zug zug' though?

Steve2911 posted:

When this movie does well I wonder if we'll get a Starcraft movie too. I'd love a chance to understand the plot of Starcraft.

Applewhite posted:

Tintin is awesome and I wouldn't change a single thing about any of Herge's comics.

quote:

Hodgepodge posted:

I'm not talking about changing them. Pretending that they are not incredibly racist is paying lip service to their being awesome without respecting Herge as an artist enough to point out that this is racist:


Not acknowledging this is "changing them" by omission.

Invalid Validation posted:

Blizzards CGI is real pretty, they should have just made their own movie.

Applewhite posted:

I didn't say we shouldn't acknowledge it. But having acknowledged it, what's the next step? Like, I'm making a note here "Herge portrayed Africans in a racist way." Now I'm filing the note in a filing cabinet. In it goes. All done.

I'm still gonna read and enjoy Tintin, and still recommend it to my friends so acknowledging the racism doesn't seem to have any impact on my beliefs or actions?