Least Lovely Mongol types: on racial stereotypes

‘Least Lovely Mongol Types’:

 On Racial Stereotypes in Fantasy and How we can do Better than our Forebears

            When I was around seven years old I picked up the RedWall series by Brian Jacques at my school’s library and did not put it down until I knew every bit of information inside that book. So, began my (most likely) life long love of fantasy. From there I picked up on Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Skyrim, and most recently I have taken a shine to the classic tabletop nerd game, Dungeons and Dragons. Also, recently, I’ve found myself reading and watching more and more criticisms of my favorite genre. Mostly for fun, but also because I am obsessed with knowing everything about the subjects I enjoy. This meant I was faced with the harsh reality of what happens in my little worlds of escapism, and their real-life consequences. The least obvious to me, as a white consumer of mostly northern European descent, is the racial stereotypes of black people, romaini, Jewish, middle-eastern, and native Americans. Now of course, I could write a whole book on this topic, but given I'd rather not make a book-length essay, let’s stick with a main point of tension; orcs.

            First, it’s probably a good idea to establish what Orcs even are. The Orc seen in most fantasy likely hails from the Old English mythical Orc or Ogre (“Orc”). The first known appearance of Orcs is in Beowulf, where they were one of the fantastical demon species cast down by God. “Orks” translated as Ogre in modern English, are wicked and vile things that plot to rise up to take a high seat among God’s halls and must be kept at bay (“Beowulf”). They aren’t given much of a depiction other than being demonic, corrupted versions of humans, but. One of the more famous drawings of an Orc from Beowulf, Grendol, depicts him as a cross between bear and human, with large claws, deep brown fur, and giant fangs protruding from a gaping mouth (Marshall). However, there have been plenty of other depictions of Beowulf Orcs, all of them being some sort of human corruption. These creatures – likely the Orcs that J.R.R. Tolkien based his own version off of – bear no intentional allusion to any specific set of people. An “Ork” is likely just another form of the Christian demon (“Orcs”). The evolution of the Orc into something else, came with J.R.R. Tolkien.

            J.R.R. Tolkien hated allegory. In a forward to the Lord of the Rings second edition, he stated “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations and always have since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence,” (Tolkien). He vehemently protested the idea that he’d placed any one to one allusion to anything in his works. However, this is not to say that he never took inspiration anywhere. Tolkien took influence from plenty: the world around him, myth, Beowulf, all wrapped up in the colonialist worldview of his day. But, to make things simpler, let’s discuss Orcs as they are portrayed in his world. The Orcs of the Lord of the Rings trilogy are primarily dark-skinned and grotesque. In Tolkien’s own words “degraded and repulsive versions of those least lovely Mongol types,” (Tolkien, 293). They have large tusks or fangs, are covered in war paint, and are often some combination of green and brown (Tolkien). For Middle Earth, Orcs are always evil. They were elves, twisted and tortured by the main antagonist Sauron into something vile that follows on command like a dog (Tolkien). The Orcs are shown to sometimes have equal intelligence to the other elves in the books, but notably not in their screen adaption. Either way, whatever intelligence the Orcs have takes a back seat to their main duty – following the dark path of Sauron as he tries to destroy the world.

            Tolkien’s worldbuilding is the main basis for all modern fantasy. Most other works of fantasy are based off Middle Earth in some way shape or form, one of the most influential of which is the classic Tabletop Roleplaying Game Dungeons and Dragons. In which you can play as an Orc or half-orc as you adventure across the world with your friends (Arneson and Gygax). These Orcs take after the Orcs in Lord of the Rings more than anything else officially, as the whole world in the game does. Orcs in Dungeons and Dragons tend to have blue-ish to grey skin and large fangs (Arneson and Gygax). Their culture is made up of different tribes that seem to exist throughout the world of the game (Arneson and Gygax). Dungeons and Dragons relies heavily on a character’s stats for gameplay, and each race has a certain set attributed to them. Orcs are characterized by savagery and brute strength in order to give reason for them being stronger than most other races. They have a low intelligence and the manual tells you they are more likely to be evil if you want to play the game strictly by its worldbuilding (Arneson and Gygax). However, in dungeons and dragons you do not have to play by the game’s rules all of the time, it is heavily based on improv. Here we see the first evolution of the Orcs away from Tolkien’s model, having their own ambition. Orcs in Dungeons and Dragons are good or evil based on individual choice, they have more autonomy. While they are still characterized as savage and simple, they do not blindly follow any creator of their race as Tolkien’s orcs do. They are their own people.

            In the gaming world, Dungeons and Dragons further influenced the rules for almost every other roleplaying game in existence, including the very famous Elder Scrolls series. For simplicity’s sake I’ll focus on their most well-known title, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Orcs appear as a playable race here as well and are taken even further away from Tolkien’s blind following version. Orcs here are greenish-blue, making them more fantastical and more like Beowulf instead of being recognizable as a human race (Skyrim). Their tusks are larger, like elephants as well. They are still characterized as brutes, but not so much as savages. Like Dungeons and Dragons, the playable races in Skyrim each have different stats, so you can play different types of characters. The Orcs in this game are like those of their predecessor, strong warrior brutes, however, there is nothing saying they cannot be intelligent. The Orcs of this game are also tribal in nature, a mountain-race who put heavy emphasis on being ‘blood-kin’ or being part of the clan (Skyrim). If you are not one of the clan, you are not worth knowing or speaking to until you prove your worth. In The Elder Scrolls you see Orcs take on even more autonomy. While the game’s orcs act in the manner outlined above often, they can also be magic-users or rouges, and there is nothing stopping the player from choosing to make their avatar in the game a shy, kind Orc. Orcs in this world have less of a pre-determined fate, and more a certain culture. They have tendencies but are not defined by them. Over time we have seen the portrayal of Orcs in two directions, towards autonomy and towards the fantastic. The move towards fantastic implies a hope of separation from their past associations. The move towards autonomy possibly implies that creators are more aware of the implications of Tolkien’s writing than they admit.

               Racial coding is inescapable. Fiction is based off our viewpoints on the world, so it follows that groups of people in our fiction would have correlations to groups of people in the real world. We take our inspiration from somewhere. According to film critic and essayist Lindsey Ellis, “Coding is often careless or unintentional. Born from reappropriating tropes without delving into the history of why they’re even there in the first place.” Coding has existed in our tales since mythology. Even when tales are not meant as allegory to aspects of the real world, they still retain those aspects. “the tendency grew to see in the tales of mankind…reflections of common truths, hopes, fears and aspirations of races and of mankind generally,” (Bettridge). the existence of these reflections often takes place in coding, and this is especially true for Tolkien’s Orcs.

            Tolkien’s thoughts on exactly who and what the Orcs resemble were made clear in his own words. While their culture, if one could even call it that, is not based off the Mongols, it is no coincidence he thinks of them in his description. Coding does not have to line up perfectly with what it’s representing, and there are plenty of aspects about the Mongolian people that do not have a correlation to Orcs in the Tolkien sense, such as their ancient nomadic lifestyle, or their religion, which tends to be Buddhism. Their most common religious beliefs, in particular, are quite the departure from the ‘savagery’ of the Orcs. Coding also does not have to be accurate as it is based off the author or audience’s worldview. The Mongols are not savage brutes, not by a long shot, and while there is not much information as to what that world view specifically would be, it is safe to assume that the colonialist worldview of Tolkien’s 1950s England, the Mongols would often be depicted as the culture of Genghis Kahn, of warrior tribes that brutally slaughter thousands as they encroach on people’s land. Of a dark-skinned people whose only thoughts are of killing. No matter how wildly inaccurate or racist, that is the culture coded into Tolkien’s Orcs. Of course, it isn’t the only one. Fantasy races tend to take influence from more than one people more often than not. Orcs in fantasy take influence from plenty of cultures “from the Celts, to the scots, to the Zulu, and of course those ‘least lovely Mongol types.’” (Ellis). There is no one to one correlation in coding, and whether any of the stereotypes are justified does not matter. They still exist. Since Tolkien’s fantasy influenced every other piece of modern fantasy in some way, shape, or form, the Orcs of other works adopt Tolkien’s coding. By keeping the tribal, savagery aspects of the Orcs, by keeping their descriptions as close to Tolkien’s as they do, Orcs in most fantasy cannot escape what Tolkien created, and in some cases (as in Dungeons and Dragons Orcs of low intelligence) add to that coding.

            So, if coding is unintentional, why is it an issue? Let’s provide an example. The Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movie trilogy actually doubles down on the coding in the books. “Evil characters, particularly the Uruk-Hai, are visually coded as savage, tribal, and Black, with fangs, face paint, and dreadlocks…the casting of Lurtz, the Uruk-Hai leader, who was played by two different actors from Maori background and highlights the close visual connections in the representations of the Uruk-Hai and Maori warriors.” (Young, 353). The only characters who are not played by white actors, or even look non-white, are the Orcs and Sauron, the evil characters who are consistently played by Maori peoples. There are a few white people among the “evil races,” but they are in face paint and makeup that makes them appear darker skinned. These are not the Mongols being coded anymore, it is any warrior of non-white descent. The only elves, the highly intelligent and beautiful race of the series, that are not white and/or blond, are the supposedly tortured and twisted Orcs, and their leader who wants to destroy the entirety of Middle Earth, Sauron. Coding is a neutral term in academia and is not always necessarily malicious. Peter Jackson, Tolkien, Gary Gygax, Todd Howard, they are not making a statement that people of non-European descent are savages intentionally, and maybe not even consciously. The audience is going to see a certain culture within a creator’s work, and by making that culture intentionally evil, or stupid, or arrogant, or savage, the creator is unintentionally feeding that view of whatever culture is coded into your work.

            An example of an unconscious statement all of these works imply with their coding is the alienation of others. All of that racial coding in fantasy is in creatures like Orcs who look distinctly non-human. Some other examples are dark elves from Dungeons and Dragons and Skyrim. Dark elves are red-eyed, blue-skinned and usually look less human than other forms of elves in these universes and are often coded as Middle-Eastern in their culture, and then coded as slavers and people who perpetrate crime to get ahead. The Kajhiit, a race of cat-people from the Elder Scrolls series are distinctly coded as Romani, and like so many depictions of that culture, are then coded as thieves. This does not happen with races in fantasy that are coded as white, or generally as European (other than the Romani). Now, one of the tactics generally used to discredit groups of people is to mark them as other. There is a reason we call immigrants “aliens” so often. The word means strange, different to the point of incompatibility (“Aliens”). Now look back at the fantastical creations we apply stereotypes to. We’ve taken the stereotypes used to brand these cultures as less than human in the past and then coded them into races that are distinctly “alien,” feeding the notion that the peoples we also attribute those stereotypes to are also incompatible with “human” society.  

            Now, as a white writer who wants to work in the fantasy genre, why did I go to the trouble of laying all of this out, researching the issue, why do I care? It’s not my culture or ancestry who are ever coded as savages or evil, so why should I talk about it? Well, while we’re on the topic of my ancestors, a large portion of it is made up of not-so-great-people. People who actively worked in the destruction of whole cultures and/or their oppression, or at least were complicity silent in the systems that did because it benefitted them. To then turn around and, even unintentionally, brand people of those cultures as brutes, or savages is simply adding insult to injury and feeding the perpetual cycle of discrimination that still exists. Am I saying that racial coding is the reason racial discrimination exists? No, of course not. However, I am saying that coding helps feed the viewpoints of that racial discrimination perhaps being okay. We consume so much media that there is little chance it does not influence us. In a recent study in the Yale Law Journal, it was found that the amount of CSI watched by jurors affected their decisions in real life court, their opinions were affected by relevant fiction (Tyler, 1056). It stands to reason this phenomenon would not also apply to coding. This is something we must come to terms with and address. As creators, we are responsible for the effect our work has on audiences.

            We can do better. We can never entirely get rid of coding since our fantasy will always be in part, a reflection of our world. Our fears, our hopes, our world-view, will always find a way into our entertainment, but by being aware of ourselves when we create these worlds, these new fantastic creatures, and cultures, we can avoid the toxic depictions of the past. We can reflect inward. Ask yourself why a certain culture is this certain way, ask yourself who your influencers are. Do more than that. Ask the people around you. We are more connected than ever before in history. It should, therefore, be far easier to find someone who does not necessarily think like you. If someone points out that you’ve coded a culture into your fantasy as something that makes them feel less than sympathetic, fix that. If you find yourself thinking of a certain culture while you’re writing, do some research. Look up how people view that culture, how they view themselves. Don’t rely heavily on one culture if you’re not importing it directly. These are just some guidelines I’ve picked up over the years from listening to other people who are directly affected by this coding, and by being a part of different writing circles as I have gone ahead in my life. It may seem like a lot, but in doing research, and being aware of your own shortcomings in this area, not only will you do justice to the cultures that find their way into your work, but you, yourself will become a better writer.

            Of course, if being a better writer and wanting to make the fantasy genre enjoyable for everyone isn’t enough of a motivator, then aren’t you bored anyway? Most of the complaints about fantasy tend to be that it's become too formulaic, that everything has been done. It’s expected that Orcs are savage brutes and elves are uppity vegetarians and halflings (hobbits if you’re Tolkien) are stoner farmers. If you really are bored, then shake things up. Orcs could be artsy vegetarians, or peaceful farmers, or impish tricksters. Or better yet, don’t categorize entire fantasy races. Cultures are more complicated than personality traits, and often have more to do with simpler things like food and adaptations to geography than entire cultures being one thing or another. Orc races would be made up of individuals, not one person copy and pasted. Growing up I have always loved fantasy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see its flaws. A lot of people take criticism of their favorite works as condemnation when that simply is not true. I love Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, and the Elder Scrolls series. However, I can see where they’ve gone wrong, and where they can be improved upon. This criticism allows for better work to be made, to consistently improve what came before. We can be better than our forebears, and in doing so we make the things we love all the more special.  

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