chapotraphouse

I am legitimately kind of confused as what's going on with TTRPGs and goblins et al. Back in teh day goblins were little green dudes who did horrible things because Gygax was kind of a shithead and adopted the race-essentialism of Tolkien's Orcs without Tolkien's "These guys are literally fake humans/elves created by the god of evil as weapons. Actual humans, including specifically black or dark skinned humans, have conscience and free will and can do good things or bad things according to their beliefs". Like racism in Tolkien, big topic, very popular, many posts, but Tolkien's orcs were militant, organized, industrial, arguably the most industrialized society in Middle Earth, and in so far as they could be said to represent anything it's much easier to make a case that Tolkien's orcs in LOTR are a representation of the industrialization of warfare than they are a British Imperialist racial caricature.

Then Gygax and later creators took orcs from "We have a huge, organized military capable of extended field operations away from our power base. We have the necessary industrial and agricultural base to produce food, weapons, armor, goods, and everything else needed to sustain that army in the field." to pretty much just racist caricatures of "primitive" black people or "primitive" indigenous people, leaning heavily on the "Noble Savage" trope. Orcs became gigantic, absurdly muscular brutes prone to grunting, hitting things with clubs, being angry, and not wearing clothes (Tolkien orcs top out at five feet, aren't particularly strong despite having notable endurance, and do wear clothes). Unlike the tall, robust, blond humans they don't seem to have any industry or agriculture.

Well, obviously that's all bullshit, and starting with Millenials it started being rejected and replaced with new stuff. But the new stuff, as near as I can tell, is just making everyone ridiculously hot, but they're green and have tusks. I'm not clear exactly what narrative role is served by hot green people, some tall and ripped, some very short and curvy, but I suspect it is not of god nor sanctioned by the volcel police