dated themes in fantasy

[Food Mane]

Most of my post is going to be about fantasy but it applies to sci-fi as well. A lot of tropes in modern fantasy are dated at best and overtly racist at worst.

Orcs are dark-skinned warriors known for physical strength (LOTR, elder scrolls, warhammer is the worst for this with normal orcs and even stronger black orcs).

Desert people are mystical and sexually licentious (Oberyn Martell from Game of Thrones, Redguards in elder scrolls)

Is this because the genre originators were writing in a time when this kind of thing was acceptable and it has gotten passed down as convention?

Is it because fantasy has typically called for obvious (lazy) caricatures to reinforce basic messages (knight saves the princess by being brave)?

Do fantasy writers need to grow up a bit?

 

[Arianne Martell]

Seems like you need to check out Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson

One of the baddest Gods Anomander Rake

This picture doesn't show it but his skin is midnight black.

 

[Food Mane]

Seems like you need to check out Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson

Will do. Care to tell me a little bit about it?

 

[Arianne Martell]

Will do. Care to tell me a little bit about it?

Is wayyyyy more complicated than GRRM series. There are A LOT of characters, races, worlds, cities etc. The first book is hard to read but the following books would have you especially the character Quick Ben (a human Black person) and Kalam, the trillest assassin also Black.

From Wiki:

The Malazan Book of the Fallen is an epic fantasy series written by Canadian author Steven Erikson. The series depicts a period of turmoil in the history of the Malazan Empire and the other nations that share its world, such as Lether. The series incorporates a vast number of characters (human, immortal and non-human), storylines, subplots, themes and locations. Unlike most fantasy series, which depict one large story divided into lesser volumes, the Malazan sequence mostly consists of single novels with their own self-contained storylines with only subplots and some characters continuing between volumes. The closest thing to a main storyline in the books follows the machinations of an alien deity called the Crippled God, which has been imprisoned upon the Malazan world and seeks to escape