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Author Topic: ...Now Apparently Dungeons and Dragons is loaded with Anti-semitic Secret Codes  (Read 15549 times)

Stephen Tannhauser

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I prefer my Alchemists to stick to their historically authentic role of turning gold into less gold.

Sure, but where's the fun in that?  :P
Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain

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Ratman_tf

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The issue with material components gathered from monsters is that it encourages players to think of creatures more as harvestable commodities and less as fantastical creatures. Charaters carting around bloody bags of monster bits like a World of Warcraft player, hoping a Basilisk toenail can cure someone's gout.
Which may or may not be a feature you desire in a game.



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I see nothing in Dwarves that could relate to Jews except their fascination with gems, gold, precious metals etc.   And that's something that could be applied to just about every other racial or religious group.

Well one other thing maybe. They seem to strongly favor their own in-group. You never see "half-dwarves" in fantasy games or novels.  Dwarven societies are mostly homogenous as well.  But again that's kind of pushing it looking for something.

jhkim

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I see nothing in Dwarves that could relate to Jews except their fascination with gems, gold, precious metals etc.   And that's something that could be applied to just about every other racial or religious group.

Well one other thing maybe. They seem to strongly favor their own in-group. You never see "half-dwarves" in fantasy games or novels.  Dwarven societies are mostly homogenous as well.  But again that's kind of pushing it looking for something.

As I commented in (Reply #3), the parallel between Jews and dwarves was confirmed by Tolkien himself.

Quote
In a BBC radio interview with Dennis Gueroult, recorded in 1964 and broadcast the next year, Tolkien made a statement connecting his Dwarves with the Jewish people. What he said was: ‘The Dwarves of course are quite obviously – wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic.’ Also in 1964, he wrote to W.R. Matthews: ‘The language of the Dwarves [...] is Semitic in cast, leaning phonetically to Hebrew (as suits the Dwarvish character).’
...
Tolkien had added a remark about ‘a tremendous love of the artefact, and of course the immense warlike capacity of the Jews, which we tend to forget nowadays.’
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265759803_Jewish_Dwarves_Tolkien_and_Anti-Semitic_Stereotyping

Though he also had a distaste of the nazi anti-semitism of his time.

Quote
In a letter to Stanley Unwin regarding this affair, dated 25 July 1938, an outraged Tolkien called the racist Nazi laws ‘lunatic’, adding ‘I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine’
Source: same

So Tolkien did base his dwarves partly on Jews - though that doesn't inherently make them anti-semitic. He wasn't anti-semitic in the nazi sense, but stereotypes like love of gold and gems about Jews can still be considered a problem, even if the dwarves are overall are portrayed positively.

As a side note, I think Staff is expressing a common view - that this sort of racial allegory is totally projection on the part of any liberal reader of old fiction. But at the time when the book was written, racial segregation was the norm even in countries opposed to nazism, and lots of different race-doctrines were mainstream.

Ratman_tf

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I see nothing in Dwarves that could relate to Jews except their fascination with gems, gold, precious metals etc.   And that's something that could be applied to just about every other racial or religious group.

Well one other thing maybe. They seem to strongly favor their own in-group. You never see "half-dwarves" in fantasy games or novels.  Dwarven societies are mostly homogenous as well.  But again that's kind of pushing it looking for something.

As I commented in (Reply #3), the parallel between Jews and dwarves was confirmed by Tolkien himself.

Quote
In a BBC radio interview with Dennis Gueroult, recorded in 1964 and broadcast the next year, Tolkien made a statement connecting his Dwarves with the Jewish people. What he said was: ‘The Dwarves of course are quite obviously – wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic.’ Also in 1964, he wrote to W.R. Matthews: ‘The language of the Dwarves [...] is Semitic in cast, leaning phonetically to Hebrew (as suits the Dwarvish character).’
...
Tolkien had added a remark about ‘a tremendous love of the artefact, and of course the immense warlike capacity of the Jews, which we tend to forget nowadays.’
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265759803_Jewish_Dwarves_Tolkien_and_Anti-Semitic_Stereotyping

Though he also had a distaste of the nazi anti-semitism of his time.

Quote
In a letter to Stanley Unwin regarding this affair, dated 25 July 1938, an outraged Tolkien called the racist Nazi laws ‘lunatic’, adding ‘I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine’
Source: same

So Tolkien did base his dwarves partly on Jews - though that doesn't inherently make them anti-semitic. He wasn't anti-semitic in the nazi sense, but stereotypes like love of gold and gems about Jews can still be considered a problem, even if the dwarves are overall are portrayed positively.

By whom? And to what end?

In another time I might agree, but the suffusion of social justice ideology into culture has set an idea illustrated by the article linked in the OP. Identity politics. Everything is offensive, everything is racist, and if you aren't a part of their solution, you're part of the problem.

Quote
As a side note, I think Staff is expressing a common view - that this sort of racial allegory is totally projection on the part of any liberal reader of old fiction. But at the time when the book was written, racial segregation was the norm even in countries opposed to nazism, and lots of different race-doctrines were mainstream.

And as you pointed out, Tolkien expressly rejected anti-semitism.

I disagree with your assesment that the "common view" is that racial allegory is a total projection. I think, like Robin DiAngelo, it stems from the guilt generated by the racist thoughts and feelings of so-called "liberals". They have a point, but project their point onto others as a means of coping with their identity as a person who values social justice. [/armchair psychologist]
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Shasarak

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I prefer my Alchemists to stick to their historically authentic role of turning gold into less gold.

Sure, but where's the fun in that?  :P

Where is the fun in historically authentic RPGs?
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BoxCrayonTales

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Clerics using griffin feathers to cure blindness does not sound very historically authentic.

Pretty sure the Romans killed all the griffins during their occupation of the Isles, so yeah, no feathers to be found by mid-evil clerics. Also anything related to faeries after St. Patrick is horseshit since he banished them all.

Those accursed Romans!

Anyway, I made a mistake by saying that. I meant to say "medieval authentic" or whatever the advertising blurb is for Lion & Dragon IIRC. Basically, whatever J.K. Rowling was doing by referencing her library research in her fictional books.

The issue with material components gathered from monsters is that it encourages players to think of creatures more as harvestable commodities and less as fantastical creatures. Charaters carting around bloody bags of monster bits like a World of Warcraft player, hoping a Basilisk toenail can cure someone's gout.
Which may or may not be a feature you desire in a game.

Well, players certainly aren't encouraged to think of them as fantastical now. That was what I was originally complaining about. Players already think of griffons in terms of whether they're a valuable mount or source of treasure and nothing else. (I find the fantastical vs natural dichotomy nonsensical anyhow. Medieval bestiaries had tons of bizarre ideas about real animals that make them feel more "fantastical" than many D&D monsters.)

Furthermore, medieval bestiaries did describe creatures as harvestable commodities. That's pretty much a side effect of human beings thinking of the world around them in terms of utility value. That's always been the case around the world and in folklore. For example, descriptions of the manticore state that rich people in "India" would have baby manticores captured, their tails crushed, and kept as pets in choirs because of their pleasing trumpet-like voices.

It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. Humans by nature think of everything around them, including fantastical creatures were they to exist, in terms of utility value. It may destroy the fantasy for you personally, but for me it feels more immersive because that's exactly how humans would perceive fantastical creatures if they existed. By existing in the same world as humans, they're no longer nebulously "fantastical" but concrete creatures that you can use as mounts or sources of medicinal and alchemical and magical components.

IIRC, ACKS has a section where it mentions that the party wizard can open their own dungeon to lure magical creatures in order to harvest for spell components.

Stephen Tannhauser

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Where is the fun in historically authentic RPGs?

Well, "Where's the fun in things that emphasize strict accuracy at the expense of playability or entertainment value," more accurately.

I certainly have no disagreement with the idea that straight historical RPG settings can yield loads of fun, but I'd miss my wizards and my dragons, or their genre-trope equivalents. And even the straight historical settings, in practice, tend to play down the "authentic" bits that would really make the imaginary experience un-fun, like death from sepsis or gangrene, or illness from poor sanitation, or strict enforcement of contemporary cultural prejudices.
Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain

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Shasarak

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Where is the fun in historically authentic RPGs?

Well, "Where's the fun in things that emphasize strict accuracy at the expense of playability or entertainment value," more accurately.

I certainly have no disagreement with the idea that straight historical RPG settings can yield loads of fun, but I'd miss my wizards and my dragons, or their genre-trope equivalents. And even the straight historical settings, in practice, tend to play down the "authentic" bits that would really make the imaginary experience un-fun, like death from sepsis or gangrene, or illness from poor sanitation, or strict enforcement of contemporary cultural prejudices.

The complaint is, as I see it, why do we have (for example) Vampires based on the novel of Bram Stoker instead of historically authentic sparkling Vampires based on the novel of Stephenie Meyer.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
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look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

Stephen Tannhauser

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The complaint is, as I see it, why do we have (for example) Vampires based on the novel of Bram Stoker instead of historically authentic sparkling Vampires based on the novel of Stephenie Meyer.

Ah, fair enough. I was confused by the conflation of alchemists, who did exist (even if they couldn't do what they thought they could do or were doing), with griffins and fantastical creatures which never did.

All fantasy is extrapolation from reality, which is why making the really outlandish extrapolations seem more convincing by intertwining them with relatively mild extrapolations (e.g. imagining how a legendary ability would become a commodity among people who could make use of it) is one of fantasy literature's touchstones. So it's reasonable to point out that complaining about which imaginary thing is more imaginary than others is pointless. But this whole thread is about the supposed dangers of that extrapolation going the other way, when fantasies inspired by reality but exaggerated for entertainment value are then inferred to be allegorical claims about reality -- claims which are inferred to have some kind of hostile social or political agenda behind them.

I remain of the opinion I advanced before, which is that propaganda subtle enough people fail to realize it's propaganda is generally rarer than most people think and takes far more time and volume to have any effect than most actual propagandists will settle for.
Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain

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Ratman_tf

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The issue with material components gathered from monsters is that it encourages players to think of creatures more as harvestable commodities and less as fantastical creatures. Charaters carting around bloody bags of monster bits like a World of Warcraft player, hoping a Basilisk toenail can cure someone's gout.
Which may or may not be a feature you desire in a game.

Well, players certainly aren't encouraged to think of them as fantastical now. That was what I was originally complaining about. Players already think of griffons in terms of whether they're a valuable mount or source of treasure and nothing else. (I find the fantastical vs natural dichotomy nonsensical anyhow. Medieval bestiaries had tons of bizarre ideas about real animals that make them feel more "fantastical" than many D&D monsters.)

Furthermore, medieval bestiaries did describe creatures as harvestable commodities. That's pretty much a side effect of human beings thinking of the world around them in terms of utility value. That's always been the case around the world and in folklore. For example, descriptions of the manticore state that rich people in "India" would have baby manticores captured, their tails crushed, and kept as pets in choirs because of their pleasing trumpet-like voices.

It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. Humans by nature think of everything around them, including fantastical creatures were they to exist, in terms of utility value. It may destroy the fantasy for you personally, but for me it feels more immersive because that's exactly how humans would perceive fantastical creatures if they existed. By existing in the same world as humans, they're no longer nebulously "fantastical" but concrete creatures that you can use as mounts or sources of medicinal and alchemical and magical components.

IIRC, ACKS has a section where it mentions that the party wizard can open their own dungeon to lure magical creatures in order to harvest for spell components.

Doubly so in a table top RPG based on a table top wargame. The gods themselves were reduced to stats and values.



Something famously used by groups so they could beat up the gods and take their loot.

I think the depiction of fantastic things relies a lot on how the GM approaches the game. For a "beer and pretzels" game, monsters are wandering bags of loot and xp. On the other end of the spectrum is pure Role Playing, with everyone in character and less focus on metagame concerns. Most games, I think, fall in-between somewhere.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
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jhkim

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So Tolkien did base his dwarves partly on Jews - though that doesn't inherently make them anti-semitic. He wasn't anti-semitic in the nazi sense, but stereotypes like love of gold and gems about Jews can still be considered a problem, even if the dwarves are overall are portrayed positively.

By whom? And to what end?

In another time I might agree, but the suffusion of social justice ideology into culture has set an idea illustrated by the article linked in the OP. Identity politics. Everything is offensive, everything is racist, and if you aren't a part of their solution, you're part of the problem.

As I see it, hyper-partisanship means that either *everything* is racist or *nothing* is racist. One has to always side on calling out racism, or always side against accusations of racism.

As I see it, racism exists -- and especially lots of racism existed back in the 1930s. Also, there are different forms and degrees of racism. The U.S. Army fought against the Nazis in WWII, but they also had their own forms of racism - including segregating black soldiers to be cooks or serve in all-black units.

On the other hand, not every accusation of racism is going to be correct, and sometimes I'll disagree about a given claim. In the case of the link from the OP, the author was correct that Tolkien's dwarves were modeled after Jews and represent some negative Jewish stereotypes -- but I think other points of his were exaggerated.

Ratman_tf

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So Tolkien did base his dwarves partly on Jews - though that doesn't inherently make them anti-semitic. He wasn't anti-semitic in the nazi sense, but stereotypes like love of gold and gems about Jews can still be considered a problem, even if the dwarves are overall are portrayed positively.

By whom? And to what end?

In another time I might agree, but the suffusion of social justice ideology into culture has set an idea illustrated by the article linked in the OP. Identity politics. Everything is offensive, everything is racist, and if you aren't a part of their solution, you're part of the problem.

As I see it, hyper-partisanship means that either *everything* is racist or *nothing* is racist. One has to always side on calling out racism, or always side against accusations of racism.

As I see it, racism exists -- and especially lots of racism existed back in the 1930s. Also, there are different forms and degrees of racism. The U.S. Army fought against the Nazis in WWII, but they also had their own forms of racism - including segregating black soldiers to be cooks or serve in all-black units.

On the other hand, not every accusation of racism is going to be correct, and sometimes I'll disagree about a given claim. In the case of the link from the OP, the author was correct that Tolkien's dwarves were modeled after Jews and represent some negative Jewish stereotypes -- but I think other points of his were exaggerated.

And that's how they get well intentioned people apologizing for their racist ideology. There's usually a glimmer of a point, and then they slide to that hyper-partisan side of the issue.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
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BoxCrayonTales

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On the other hand, not every accusation of racism is going to be correct, and sometimes I'll disagree about a given claim. In the case of the link from the OP, the author was correct that Tolkien's dwarves were modeled after Jews and represent some negative Jewish stereotypes -- but I think other points of his were exaggerated.

Yeah, Tolkien was basically the equivalent of a weaboo except directed toward Jewish culture. The dwarves of Middle Earth have the most Mary Sue qualities after the elves. For example, they're the only race to resist Sauron's will when given the rings of power.

Stephen Tannhauser

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The dwarves of Middle Earth have the most Mary Sue qualities after the elves. For example, they're the only race to resist Sauron's will when given the rings of power.

Well, they aren't utterly transfigured and enslaved by their Rings, the way Men are, but they are profoundly influenced for the worse; it's noted that the greed and wrath provoked in the Dwarves by their use of the Rings ultimately wound up working to Sauron's benefit anyway, by seeding destructive conflict, paranoia and pride among them.

(Though ironically, you could make a case for the Dwarves as a race being an "in-universe" Mary Sue: they weren't originally planned as part of Arda's Creation, but introduced by a fan and secondary creator the Vala Aule, who thought it would make Arda even cooler to have them in there, and who designed them almost as a self-insert! Only his willingness to respect the wishes of the IP holder earned them a place in the canon.)
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