I hate when fiction uses discrimination against supernatural creatures as a metaphor for real life hate. like yeah if there were vampires i'd fuckin discriminate against them becuase they drink blood. thats not the same as homophobia.
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I mean, I'd totally read the adventures of the Flaming Faggot (who wears a costume with a picture of a bundle of burning wood (AKA a literal faggot) on his chest). Bonus points if he burns gay-bashers to death. Possibly even more bonus points if he's a straight ally.
It's the same issue in things like Zootopia. Yeah man, predator species ARE dangerous, actually. If the metaphor is applied literally, minorities = predators. Not the lesson you really want to be implicitly conveying.
This needs more attention. Writers sometimes just think they’re being cool while not realizing how relating regular people to a superpower monster is in fact not cool.
Idk. I loved X Men for being about the equality struggle. It's human vs mutant, but it's obvious it's about racism, homophobia, and the like. I like the Professor X/Magneto dynamic. They have radically different approaches (liberation vs equal rights) but ultimately have the same goal.
It can definitely make the topic more approachable, especially for younger readers, but I agree that it lessens the impact and isn’t a great 1-1 metaphor. I don’t think it’s bad per se, but discrimination isn’t just about people being different. It’s about people wanting to hate for no good reason.
I love XMen, but like... Mutants are legitimately dangerous. I get the notion that we're empathizing for victims, but they're fictional characters written to be likeable. We don't need victims to be likeable to be worth standing up for, and our victims are not dangerous like xmen's.
X-Men is really annoying about this. Yes, bigotry is unacceptable but if I know there's a guy who can shoot laser beams out of his fucking eyes and another who can turn me into a vegetable with a thought I'd be a bit concerned to say the least
The mutant metaphor has its issues but I think ironically your comment highlights it’s strengths because you’re automatically judging someone for how they’re born and applying the potential danger of his powers to all mutants when most mutants have superficial mutations like glob or beak
Which is how it goes in the comics, the bigots point to mutants like cyclops or magneto and go “hey they can hurt you, your neighbor who was born with gills, he can hurt you too” and that feeds the hysteria and hate, a little bit of concern quickly becomes dangerous
That's not quite right. A guy with laser eyes is still a guy. He doesn't have to use them to explicitly hurt others. In that scenario, it's not like it is in his nature to do that vs vampires who very much need blood to survive.
There's more of the 'fear of contagion' in there and 'they're hiding something' going on with mutants, people being afraid they or their kids might already 'be' one and use that against someone especially after how badly people know they treat mutants. Except Ben Grimm they can look at the FF like..
There are several other groups of superheroes, a lot of them even more dangerous than the X-Men. They're all fine until you slap the term "mutant" onto them and suddenly they're the scum of the Earth. It's discrimination against a group that should be no different than those
Even then, story wise; of course we're going to follow the coolest mutants that have cool powers, but in universe most mutants are just things like 'has extra eye balls on parts of his body' or 'has a long neck'.
Powers that even if the mutants were evil, they'd be no use.
Even that adds to it. In universe the most coverage mutants would get is "world ending hurricanes" and "devastating magnetism", and not the girl who shits ice cream. Just like how irl news coverage isn't following the trans girl who doesn't bother anyone but cherrypicking one that's a school shooter
True! I never thought of the meta-connotations of the reader only really following the powerful mutants.
Also, I want to congratulate you for finding a way to reference Soft Serve completely naturally in the middle of a discussion about prejudice in a way that made sense.
Making vampires sympathetic is a challenging endeavor. They are obligate predators of human beings. We don't tolerate that well.
In my vampire novel, I just let them be evil. But that was starting with Mr. Wickham...
Depends on the fiction. In some, including Rice's verse, Forever Knight and BTVS, they can subsist on animal blood, but they will be both looked down upon by their fellow vamps and sometimes not have full power.
I thought that was a easy out and so my vamps have to drink human blood, lots of it.
I think you're using discrimination as in "choosing the best athlete in your pickup game" instead of rights, freedoms, dignity, and respect. In HP, the dark wizards killed muggles for being muggles, not for any particular action.
Inherent characteristics of a person does not deprive them of the dignity and respect owed to all people. Muggles aren't lesser to wizards with respect to life and liberty. Magical ability does not give one a right to violence and domination over others.
OK we all agree to that. But the point here is that all fiction are showing discrimination on lesser people with respect to ability. So a wrong conclusion could be: black people are lesser human but we should tolerate them with respect to life and liberty anyway. Even if there are indeed lower human
I almost agree with you... except there's the glaring case of Arthur Weasley. Good guy. Great guy. Respects muggles. But also treats them with the fascination of an early 20th century English colonialist on non-European natives, as something to be gawked at for their novelty.
Eh, I think the right author could make that distinction map onto the ability/disability distinction in the real world
(Plus, it can be turned on its head: wizards excessively rely on magic while muggles don't, which hypothetically could be employed as a technology metaphor)
I don’t know how JK Rowling was thinking about racism. Because she supports structural racism. Just not overt. And there’s this entire point that the wizards are a minority and in hiding because of the witch burnings… so muggles are just better? It’s just stupid.
Oh, well I suppose it is obviously true that wizards would be responsible for most major events like that one, if they were real. I did miss your point
Not a fan of jkr, but the racism there is their hatred of muggles for no other reason than they are muggles. Hating someone inferior is even worse, like why?
Of course, didn't witches leave muggleland because of the witch trials (discrimination against witches)?
I don't think magic is a metaphor for race. If it were, why are there squibs, and how is the daughter of muggle dentists a witch? Magic is not purely genetic.
It may represent education, where magic is Ivy League (or any university), muggle is blue collar, and mud-blood is first generation scholar.
In that case, Arthur Weasley makes complete sense. Engineers are known to be fascinated by the tricks tradesmen come up with, and often don't realize how much they sound like, "Amazing how these little guys have figured out how to get by without a 'real' education!"
Every student at every Wizarding school insists that theirs is the best in the world sounds like elitism.
And Hogwarts was founded around the same time as the earliest universities, adding parallels with magic and religion, which actually goes along with the earliest university thing,
I'm sure you don't really mean "wizards ARE better than muggles becuase they have MAGIC" because it would take a nasty person to value people who lack a certain skill less. I mean I have MATHEMATICS but don't consider myself better because of it (just better at mathematics).
I believe you may be missing the point. Assuming we are talking about properties like "True Blood," in which the vampires are still people and not "Salem's Lot" vampires, discrimination against them would still make you a bigot. Being afraid of something is not an excuse to harm or hate them.
Yes! My worlds generally don't include discrimination, even as fantasy races have differences. But when it's a theme that I include, it's inherently unjustifiable and morally wrong, no matter the excuses made by its practitioners.
I also dislike bad metaphors, but that doesn't make the entire category of allegorical storytelling invalid. Vampires have always been an although for the wealthy and powerful that rose alongside capitalism. Using that to represent the oppressed is one of the worst decision a writer can make.
B’Elanna in Star Trek, for example, has an ongoing storyline where her half-Klingon heritage is used as an allegory for racism BUT her forehead ridges are a direct example of discrimination of those of us with physical differences & as a kid that meant a LOT to me
Interview with Monster Girls, an anime with all the issues that entails, at least has the different take of supernatural creatures being metaphors for disability. The vampire girl is treated much like a type one diabetic, for example.
When magical oppression is to oppress people who can and, often in canon, do hurt people because they are more powerful, all it does is actually justify their oppression. So, it largely teaches nothing.
Same goes for zootopia. I never get why people are okay with it because … yeah if someone wants to eat you you will be upset??? It's not the carnivore's fault that it wants to eat the herbivore. It’s damn nature.
Vampires work better as a metaphor for the ruling class and how lust for power can corrupt those with even the best initial intentions. Vampires should be bad guys. They can have a sympathetic origin, but people usually become vampires by choosing to abandon their humanity for power.
I make huge room for the vampire who is so wronged and disgusted by humanity that nature, divinity and the cosmos make them a vampire in a chemical reaction to their scorn
"I am powerless to kill that part of humanity that echoes violence across history; in this rejection i remove myself from history, into the one true battleground: eternity" 🥹🫡😭
(X-Men) Most mutants are just trying to exist, but because a few have killed all are feared and banned from participating in society, governance, etc. They are untrustworthy potentially dangerous freaks that exist as abominations against what is natural and good.
I get your point but also they showcased mutants with insane powers. Just a singular person with unchecked power who had a bad day can destroy half the population unintentionally. Have enough cruel mutants on the wrong side of history and idk, I also get why the humans in that universe are afraid.
That's valid--I just also can see how rational fear can snowball into irrational bigotry, so to me the 'supernaturals as a way to tell the story of phobic/ism society' isn't all that far-fetched.
The Boys also dives into these ideas in a fascinating way. And True Blood (despite itself lol)
Well, in the case of vampires I tend to agree, there's almost always a legitimate conflict of interest there. Other kinds of creatures and whatever 'world' is portrayed may be more on a case by case basis.
If the werewolves are organizing for equal rights, but half the activist board got mauled last full moon, I feel like we’re dealing with a different category of injustice.
It is really the murder that is the issue with vampires. Also historically vampires are about forbidden sexuality. I do agree with you about this one just bookmarking that CAMILLA wasn't the same as like the Cullens
One way or another the stories we tell are going to create the background radiation of our culture - lessons about how to treat "the other" with empathy are good background.
The one example I gladly rant about is Zootopia. Predators are not racially profiled, they're predators, they DO have a history and a biology of predation.
It's a shit metaphor for our human world random racial prejudice. Nobody ever agrees with me strongly enough 😂
I think Babylon Five was a better way to show discrimination against other people (aliens) and the original Star Trek was sort of good at it although it was still sexist.
It’s not even the drinking blood part. It’s the hunting innocents (and in original folklore being undead abominations that should not exist and survive by usually killing children).
Vampires, since Stoker, are supposed to be similes to the upper classes.
X-Men does this all the time. "You hate me because I'm born this way" No, I'm terrified because you can boil my insides with a stray glance, control world weather patterns, or drive me insane, if you have a bad day. Last I checked, being bi didn't give me the ability to kill with mind bullets.
Here the thing though. Does this consumption of blood require the death of the person their draining? Are they morale enough to ask for concent? Do the require human blood or will animal blood. Because if so then yes you are being a dick for discrimining.
However you are not wrong for fantasy races being discriminated against being poor stand-in’s for real life racism. You hit the nail on the head on that one.
In stories I write not all vampires kill their victims. Just resort to human trafficking, using fear and drugs to keep their blood donors compliant. But vampires are less a metaphor for marginalised people and just straight up predators. But some do form symbiotic relationships. So not all evil.
The cool I once wrote a story were a vampire began a sexual relationship with an Older female werewolf after she freed him from his sire. That was exchange for letting him feed on her blood because the healing ability she has means he can’t accidentally kill her while feeding.
Well as vampires are classically a metaphor for lust or sexual desire, this tracks. And werewolves when not seen as just monsters usually have a connection to nature and life. Interesting contrast there.
Sci-fi does seem to do better than fantasy: someone else mentioned Babylon 5, and I thought of "Jerry was a Man" by Heinlein. There's also The Sneetches by Seuss.
Well any decent author sld take U on a story arc from traditional hating on vampires into sympathising with their condition.
Buffy was an interesting case study.
"Mr Pointy" her fave stake to taking up with Spike...
What you do say is true for video games.
(Which I generally loathe)
Monster fodder.
Yeah, when you don't try and force your fantasy discrimination into the "Isn't this just like RACISM?!" box, you end up with way more engaging worldbuilding that actually lets you connect to the characters way better.
HEY! Not all vampires are unethical about their blood sources! Not only can a vampire get much of their food from a butcher, but they would be taking the things us regular humans wouldn't want! Think about it they could drink pigs blood! It would be their equivalent of a Coke!
I am only racist against vampires who drink human blood without consent! Otherwise theyre all invited to my cookouts and im gonna set up plenty of shade!
There is still a great deal of mistrust among humans of magic in general and of the "chimerals," particularly the folk since they were the "bad" wizards' tools of oppression for a long time.
The discrimination doesn't come up a lot in the story.
I was hoping to make a world where most of the people are trying to move beyond that.
I will say there is an evil underground group dedicated to the eradication of all folk & kend and the eradication of the remnants of magic in the world.
I remember I was talking to someone about that my strange addiction episode where the woman drinks blood. And this girl was like you should be more understanding. Uhh I’m sorry Sharon I draw the line at cannibalism sort of a wacky thing about me
Zombies and ar-15s rise in popularity in recent years track perfectly when you graph them. The fantasy is that you could shoot a ton of hated people and be called a hero.
I think it also has a lot to do with how what they call 'polarization' and the propaganda that got everyone here has both sides fearing most other people are mindless hordes that will attack for no sensible reason, but they're ddehumanized so the gore's "OK."
Counterpoint: We tend to believe vampires drink human blood, therefore are bad, because folklore tells us so, much like (ahem) witches. Fiction uses hate against those who are seen as "other" as an apt metaphor for real world hate against those seen as "other", who are often labeled as evil.
Eh, i don't know. You could always throw in a "whose values are superior" argument into the book.
Maybe it only looks bad from a human ethical standard, but from the vampires, they see humans as a food source as we do animals 🤷 and that we are free range at least.
It's actually offensive comparing a disenfranchised human to a blood sucking monster. Maybe instead use that juxtaposition with someone that IS a monster. Like a CEO.
I feel like it's a slippery slope. If we humans can't even tolerate each other over bullshit like skin colour or gender no shit there'd be SOME discrimination if we had to share the planet with another species entirely, but don't try and overly focus on it. Always evil races suck tho fuck that trope
There are no objectively evil races. They're just different. But from the point of view of the human race, they are bad. I mean, even in nature there is a kind of dominance of one kind of creatures over others.
Add to this the poor understanding of two different races and differences in views, and boom...It all depends on whose point of view the story is being told.
"I hate when fiction" my brother in christ, that's how these myths started in the first place. All supernatural creatures began as metaphors for social groups that certain people hated
This is so blatant in True Blood that at times it almost feels like a satire of the trope, but then, no, it seems to really expect us to take it seriously.
Right? I think my (least) favourite example of this is Detroit: Become Human. In it, these androids gain sentience and want human rights. Which is great, but the game tries to use that as a metaphor for freeing slaves. (1/2)
But the androids in Detroit: Become Human ARE NOT human. It's not a case of humans deciding to own other humans. It's machines built by humans to be owned by humans being owned by humans. Now should the androids be enslaved still once they gain sentience? Probably. But that's not enough to compare.
I kinda disagree. Your argument falls apart due to the fact that they deliberately designed the robots to look like humans. Why make them look like humans? It feels like diet slavery. Like a loophole to own a human but because it only looks like a human but is a machine it’s okay. Still messed up.
I can think of a few reasons why you might make the robots look human if they're made to perform human tasks. If a robot is used to go shopping for someone, it might be less unsettling to see a humanoid shopping for you as opposed to something looking like R2D2. (1/2)
Or if you have a robot nannying your kids, you probably want the robot to look human as opposed to some machine. I don't think making robots look human comes from a desire to own a human without the baggage. (2/2)
LGBT+ is NOT a superpower. Comparing them to superpowers is stupid. (I loved parts of X-men where it showed actual racism or superpowers were not all that super and thus just 'different' or caused issues, such as substance abuse or family problems and focused on those)
Arguably, many vampires also don't choose to be vampires, however, and some vampires are careful not to drink blood from humans or not to drink blood from sources which had, say, not consented.
It really depends on the version of vampires; not all vampires in supernatural fiction are just assholes.
Drinking blood should in itself not be a cause for discrimination. It would be a problem only if vampires illegally took blood from unwilling victims – which should be a crime and not a cause for mistreatment of an entire group of beings.
I agree! It also depends on which vampires in whose fictional universe. The True Blood vampires are a reasonable parallel; they drink blood, which some humans enthusiastically want done to them and other humans find gross, but it’s not inherently harmful when done amongst consenting adults.
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Judging a singular being’s actions and not condemning them for simply existing is the journey.
Plus, supernatural characters are fun.
The predators were framed. Anyone could turn crazen and it wasn't their fault.
Without this ^, do you even have a story?
In real life, I mean.....
A guy with "laser eyes" is just a guy with a built in gun.
The laser eyes aren't the problem, its the intent.
Your "concern" about Laser Eye Man sounds a lot like white people's "concerns" that pop up whenever black people exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.
Or the Avengers' for that matter.
Or live pagan gods.
Even the Hulk has a statue in Central Park but people who are born with powers should be put in camps and/or exterminated. 🤷♂️
Its still definitely a heavy handed and inapt metaphor for real world bigotry, but its not just that they have super powers and can be dangerous
People who aren't JJJ are fine with other super heroes but mutants are too much
There are several other groups of superheroes, a lot of them even more dangerous than the X-Men. They're all fine until you slap the term "mutant" onto them and suddenly they're the scum of the Earth. It's discrimination against a group that should be no different than those
Powers that even if the mutants were evil, they'd be no use.
Also, I want to congratulate you for finding a way to reference Soft Serve completely naturally in the middle of a discussion about prejudice in a way that made sense.
In my vampire novel, I just let them be evil. But that was starting with Mr. Wickham...
I thought that was a easy out and so my vamps have to drink human blood, lots of it.
using muggle hate as a metaphor for racism shows how jk rowling views other races: as a lesser thing that must be simply tolerated.
(Plus, it can be turned on its head: wizards excessively rely on magic while muggles don't, which hypothetically could be employed as a technology metaphor)
Also, the blood purity guy was maybe a little bit right because muggles were responsible for the Holocaust, apparently.
You... might be missing my point.
Of course, didn't witches leave muggleland because of the witch trials (discrimination against witches)?
It may represent education, where magic is Ivy League (or any university), muggle is blue collar, and mud-blood is first generation scholar.
And Hogwarts was founded around the same time as the earliest universities, adding parallels with magic and religion, which actually goes along with the earliest university thing,
And what is the main purpose for organized religion in society? Controlling the population. "He who controls the church, controls the state."
But the most important point is that no, wizards are not 'better' because they have magic.
Is a steering wheel 'better' than tires on a car? Should we eliminate cupholders because they don't make the car go?
first of all, people forgot how radically different views were even 15-20 years ago.
the point is not “vampires = gay people!” the subtext is deeper — I’ll let series creator alan ball explain it
https://nypost.com/2009/06/23/flesh-blood/
Because that's what discrimination is.
B’Elanna in Star Trek, for example, has an ongoing storyline where her half-Klingon heritage is used as an allegory for racism BUT her forehead ridges are a direct example of discrimination of those of us with physical differences & as a kid that meant a LOT to me
Because right up until they were also homophobes, the anti-vampire extremist cult dudes were completely morally correct.
The argument doesn't ring familiar?
The Boys also dives into these ideas in a fascinating way. And True Blood (despite itself lol)
It's a shit metaphor for our human world random racial prejudice. Nobody ever agrees with me strongly enough 😂
Fine movie that aside.
(But still!)
Vampires, since Stoker, are supposed to be similes to the upper classes.
Buffy was an interesting case study.
"Mr Pointy" her fave stake to taking up with Spike...
What you do say is true for video games.
(Which I generally loathe)
Monster fodder.
[Insert Detroit: Become Human Joke Here]
(😜)
Prejudice & discrimination exist, but mostly only in more isolated areas.
I would be interested in know your thoughts on this.
(cont)
They created "folk" by bestowing human intelligence & physical features on animals. They used the folk as labor and soldiers.
The "good" wizards created "kend" by bestowing animal features on humans.
(cont)
But since the "bad" wizards were cruel, even to the folk they created, everyone eventually joined forces and overthrew them.
(cont)
(cont)
I was hoping to make a world where most of the people are trying to move beyond that.
I will say there is an evil underground group dedicated to the eradication of all folk & kend and the eradication of the remnants of magic in the world.
Powerful stuff.
Maybe it only looks bad from a human ethical standard, but from the vampires, they see humans as a food source as we do animals 🤷 and that we are free range at least.
If that makes sense.
Bill, the ostensibly sympathetic Confederate soldier, on the same night he murders a prostitue:
"how dare they be bigoted against vampires"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk7M2jGdnxU
Probably NOT enslaved. One little word completely changed the vibe I was going for. Probably NOT! xD
No idea what group of people or class that corresponds to. Glad it doesn't exist.
It really depends on the version of vampires; not all vampires in supernatural fiction are just assholes.
Eating any baby is wrong though.
Except for baby Hitler.
And t(R)ump.
And Peter Thiel.
Probably JD Vance.
Definitely Mitch McConnell would have been better off as vampire chow.
I'm going to have to reassess my position on this and get back to you...