There’s been a thought rattling around in my head for a long time and I haven’t had a good way to articulate it until now, so I’m planning to ramble for a bit.
Everything going on in the world right now, in Palestine, in Ukraine and Africa is a good reminder that the mass killing of humans isn’t some archaic practice that went out of style a thousand years ago. There are real consequences for dehumanization and calling for one group or another to be wiped out. It starts small, as many things do, as just a little grain in your head that some people are just lesser or worse and thus you’d be okay if they weren’t around you. I find that a lot of this rhetoric comes from pop culure, you see it in books, movies, anime, and video games. Especially when it comes to the fantasy genre. For anime, you have stuff like Goblin Slayer or Frieren where Goblins/Demons are little more than animals and need to be genocided for the betterment of society. Books, you have Orcs in Tolkien (Something I appreciate about ASOIAF is that Grrm doesn’t do this and always treats the idea of a full on massacre like it’s horrible). But video games is where it goes all out.
–Nerd Speak Below This Line–
I’ve been playing a lot of Elder Scrolls lately, which means I’ve become reaquinted with the lore, and one thing aout TES that’s always been a little concerning to me is how many of the backstories end in genocide and displacement. The Nords, the strapping 6-7 feet tall beautiful white people came down from the north and killed all the snow elves nearly to the last, the Orc homeland of Orsinium has been sacked and destroyed multiple times scattering them across the land, the Redguards showed up and killed pretty much everyone they could find for miles before being happy to stop in the desert, and the Empire has essentially been engaged in an extermination war with the Elves (who aren’t saints either) for thousands of years. Two events that I think are really disturbing are Pelinal Whitestrake and Tiber Septim’s conquest of the Summerset Isles. Now I’ll be brief: Pelinal is this uber badass Terminator from the future who had a bad habit of murdering elves so hard that he came home from war covered in blood. Which wouldn’t be too bad if they didn’t specify that he often wiped out civillian populations and even other races that aren’t even involved just because they look like them. Tiber Septim was mad that the High Elves were able to fight off his Imperialist bullshit multiple times and ultimately got a superweapon to go kill them all horribly until they submitted. Both these characters are beloved and their victims get the old “They deserved it” routine. And yes, the backstory does “justify” the purges because the Elves are almost always cartoonishly evil, but still. TES tries to be morally gray but that’s kind of a lie because when all we ever see is what was written by the winners, it starts to look like that’s what we’re supposed to takeaway.
–Nerd Speak Ends–
When you wake up in the morning and see a news program about a school or hospital being bombed, seeing someone say “They deserved it” even in regards to a fictional species hurts in a deep way. People are programmed to think this shit is a joke from a young age. And some react violently when you try and pull them out of that mentality. So yes, I don’t like genocide. Even if it’s happening to to a nonsense race of animal people.
I feel the same. They say fiction reflects reality- and I’d argue that the various series of genocides in TES (and their “justifications”), or- as someone mentioned, the settler-colonial nature of the elves in the Simarillion/LoTR, is from the perspective of white, western- particularly Anglophone if not just outright Anglo-Saxon- writers, almost glorifying or finding ways to justify the actions of their ancestors- whether it was the genocides of the indigenous peoples of much of North America and Australia (among many other, far smaller regions), or it was the (granted, far less genocidal and more assimilationist) actions of their ancient Germanic ancestors against the indigenous Celts. I’m saying this as someone who generally enjoys both universes…
Another fictional genocide that I really dislike, is that of the Uchiha in Naruto- their systemic discrimination is waved away, the involvement of the village in the massacre of their population, when discovered, is knowingly and comfortably swept under the rug by the protagonists, and the last Uchiha (Sasuke) is pretty much vilified for his entirely understandable and even agreeable actions of, after learning the truth, seeking the destruction of the hidden villages’ nigh fascistic political systems. Once again I’d argue that the mentality presented in Naruto reflects the mentality of the society, and particularly the author who wrote it- as someone who enjoys (with mixed feelings) the series, I would posit that it probably says a lot about the unwavering nature of Japanese ultranationalism, the sometimes violent conformity it espouses, and it definitely is greatly influenced by Japan’s own mainstream mentality in regards to minimizing or dismissing the crimes of its past.
In both cases, those portrayed as “protagonists” and “heroes” by and large, are the perpetrators- and the writers are descendants of perpetrators, themselves. These fictions expose biases that can’t help but expose themselves when given a fantasy outlet with few repercussions- celebrating blatant genocide and war crimes in real life can have repercussions, and for the somewhat more decent folk, they’re also capable of realizing how fucked up it all is when looking at the undeniable results of their beliefs. Fiction allows them to justify it all, to write “their team” out to be the heroes no matter how it all goes, and it gives them a lot of societal leeway for presenting even the most horrible things in a positive light.
That’s how it should be, tbh. I’d argue that someone who loses that- or even glorifies it- also becomes more likely to lose it in regards to reality as well. Fiction also has its impacts in the real world- and that’s not to say all fiction or even most should be banned, or that those who glorify even fictional genocides are necessarily genocidal themselves- but there’s certainly some degree of damage being done by all these works, if not to all those who consume them, to at least some small portion- whether the damage be the glorification or apologia of genocide and settler-colonialism, the vilification of “darker,” “evil,” “less human,” or “less western-adjacent” races, etc…
I’d even go so far as to say that the portrayals of genocides, settler-colonialism, war crimes, and other atrocities like slavery in most western and Japanese media comes with a underlying political bent deeply rooted in reality- one sometimes intentional, other times the result of being deeply propagandized, but often simply the result of the natural desire to want to paint those they identify most with- western-adjacent or Japanese-adjacent civilization and characters- in a good light, to see themselves as the heroes rather than the products of the worst, vilest genocidal empires in history.
(Edit) Also, hell if I know the answer to such works that have such references- intended or otherwise- and implications in reality, and possibly on those who consume them. Personally I don’t like arbitrary censorship, think in excess it winds up being dangerously counterproductive, and have a distaste for censorship even as a concept though I realize its absolute necessity (particularly for any societies seeking to defend themselves against the destabilizing, chaotic, and often even malevolent nature of western media- talking more about propaganda, proselytizing, etc) yet I wouldn’t blame any country for banning or restricting works such as Naruto- or worse yet, Attack on Titan, for their apologia-adjacent (if not just straight up apologia, debatable) content, even if I might not enjoy any such hindrance.
Obliging a even a fairly minor rewrite in the case of something like Naruto could shift the characterization immensely. No need to just delete it.