TSR Problematic Faves and Early D&D

[AbdulAlhazred]

Oh, but what if the "unfathomable evil" is not so much evil but alien and removed from the sense of normality and orthodoxy of the principle perspective of the protagonist? Maybe Dagon is just as "good" or "evil" as any other god of the surface dwellers. Dagon just is in as much as the cold uncaring dark of the void of space just is.

I think that while H.P. Lovecraft was deeply problematic, particularly when it comes to separating author from fiction, his work inspired a tremendous depth of creativity that exists far beyond him. And there is some fantastic fiction out there by "leftist authors" who took H.P. Lovecraft, warts and all, and subverted the mythos for a new, modern audience. That's pretty powerful. Imagine, if you will, the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft imagined not as a fear of any impending downfall of white society, but as a fear of the impending doom of global warming and natural disasters that exist beyond the reach of humankind to handle.

This is one of those points where I would embrace the trope only to subvert it. Is the purity something worth saving? Is it just as corruptive or unnatural, if not more so, than the encroaching corruption?

I definitely like the idea of subversion. It should be pretty darn straightforward to do with Lovecraft too! Certainly the 'ecological' spin is one that provably works. I think you could definitely do something with the racial purity aspect as well, though one might offer up that it almost definitionally is going to be critical of SOME group or other, even if one that is probably not considered generally downtrodden.

 

[Fenris-77]

As far as saving 'purity' goes, that isn't really how I read the trope, or why I think it resonates with people so well, or least that's not the only reason. The gradual fall to madness in Mythos stories is about the loss of control and the loss of agency. I think it's just as profitable, if not more so, to read the Mythos in terms of infection, rather than simply good and evil. The horror of madness and death works in these stories almost as well when the character in question isn't particularly good. Even the gradual descent of villain into madness, as his mind is slowly consumed by contact with cosmic horror, works to convey the sense of fear and hopelessness that makes the Mythos so effective. In this way it's much like a lot of the tropes found in Zombie stories - you can't fight against the encroaching dark without stepping into that same dark, but stepping into the dark almost guarantees your eventual death. Good guy, bad guy, everyone gets eaten in the end.

To pursue this reading a little further, everything that's human, both good and evil, stands in the light, and the darkness from the void represents the loss of that humanity, which for Lovecraft is the loss of reason and of choice. 'Evil' characters in Mythos stories tend to approach the darkness as a means to power, and they choose to immerse themselves in it to pursue that power. Interestingly, the result is usually death or madness, not power at all. I find that interesting from an Existentialist perspective, where the thing that's important, that's being risked, is free will. I'm not suggesting that Lovecraft was working any kind of overt Existentialist program, but I think it does provide a very interesting way to read his stuff that also happens to obviate some of the other issues in play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One point I'd make to the thread in general: When you go down the road of criticizing, particularly to the degree of demanding ostracism or at least censorship, you need to bear a very heavy burden. I don't want or mean to lay some load on people who are dealing with "yet another idiot saying stupid things about us." (if not worse) but it is a heavy burden. Ideally everyone is able to both consume and produce material without too much trouble.

One thing that seems to be a danger, albeit most producers may not have much to worry about today, is that there will be such a high bar raised that eventually only the most well-heeled corporate organizations will be left producing game material. It is already QUITE clear that the potential for people who are not satisfied with some material to force its removal/demonitization/revision is a reality right now today. MANY things have been pushed off DriveThru RPG for example (probably all of them were fairly offensive to a lot of people, I'm not defending anything). Clearly we just need to be cognizant that both producers and consumers of material need to exercise some discretion and try to operate with good will and in good faith.

 

[Aldarc]

In this way it's much like a lot of the tropes found in Zombie stories - you can't fight against the encroaching dark without stepping into that same dark, but stepping into the dark almost guarantees your eventual death. Good guy, bad guy, everyone gets eaten in the end.

Incidentally a lot of the earliest zombie films were rooted in a white fear of blackness. Even the comparatively much later Romero films deal much with a white bourgeois fear of societal upheaval. And it's increasingly difficult for me to read a lot of zombie films as anything other than a white middle to upper class capitalist fear of a "mindless" proletariat uprising.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As far as saving 'purity' goes, that isn't really how I read the trope, or why I think it resonates with people so well, or least that's not the only reason. The gradual fall to madness in Mythos stories is about the loss of control and the loss of agency. I think it's just as profitable, if not more so, to read the Mythos in terms of infection, rather than simply good and evil. The horror of madness and death works in these stories almost as well when the character in question isn't particularly good. Even the gradual descent of villain into madness, as his mind is slowly consumed by contact with cosmic horror, works to convey the sense of fear and hopelessness that makes the Mythos so effective. In this way it's much like a lot of the tropes found in Zombie stories - you can't fight against the encroaching dark without stepping into that same dark, but stepping into the dark almost guarantees your eventual death. Good guy, bad guy, everyone gets eaten in the end.

To pursue this reading a little further, everything that's human, both good and evil, stands in the light, and the darkness from the void represents the loss of that humanity, which for Lovecraft is the loss of reason and of choice. 'Evil' characters in Mythos stories tend to approach the darkness as a means to power, and they choose to immerse themselves in it to pursue that power. Interestingly, the result is usually death or madness, not power at all. I find that interesting from an Existentialist perspective, where the thing that's important, that's being risked, is free will. I'm not suggesting that Lovecraft was working any kind of overt Existentialist program, but I think it does provide a very interesting way to read his stuff that also happens to obviate some of the other issues in play.

Yeah, I think that is basically how I read it way back in the day. Miscegenation, given my upbringing, didn't have much resonance (we were pretty liberal back then). In fact, I don't think I really even read that message into it much. I mean I know it is right there written on the page in many cases, but it had so little valence in my value system that I just took it as more like "these guys messed with forces beyond the veil, they're borked!" vs some sort of literal racial debasement (IE the Deep Ones are just aliens from outside the 'light' of our experience, of course mating with them has serious consequences!) In fact I don't recall even necessarily thinking it was inherently bad. Even HPL seems to almost echo that when he mentions the vastly expanded life spans of the Innsmouth people, there IS power to be gained in that association! He clearly thought it was not worth the price, but it was there. I recall thinking that maybe if I was the main character I'd not be quite so disturbed by the whole thing, after all, you get to live at least several centuries, maybe forever, and learn all sorts of stuff...

 

[Mercurius]

Mercurius- I appreciate the very long and thoughtful points you made. I think your reasoned points (whether I agree in full, in part, or not at all) are articulated well, and I enjoyed reading them. I just wanted to address one thing-



This was in response to my statement, "I can still enjoy it (AD&D), but I also understand that I cannot enjoy it uncritically." I didn't fully explain this, but this kind of goes to the heart of the idea of problematic faves, or even placing historic material within context.

Let me start with a quick analogy. Think of a musician - Michael Jackson, say. There is a difference between saying that I can no longer enjoy his music, and I can no longer enjoy his music uncritically. If I hear Billie Jean or Dirty Diana or Beat It, I don't start punching myself in the face so that I can feel pain equal to the enjoyment I get from the music. But I also recognize that there will be people that cannot put aside those issues; that cannot enjoy his music to the same extent that I do. Different people have different thresholds (for me, its the aforementioned Marion Zimmer Bradley; I will never, ever read a Darkover book again).

So it is with AD&D; if I am playing AD&D, I don't don a hairshirt. I have fun! It is always fun!

But I am also cognizant that there were people that did not have the fun I did; people that did not feel welcome (and I remember times I did not feel welcome as well). I am open to the idea that there are people (for various reasons) that are unable to enjoy it; either because of experiences that they had at that time, or because of the way that parts of it can appear today.

To me, it's a process of engagement. It's like HP Lovecraft; the red flag, to me, isn't people that can still enjoy Lovecraft (I do), it's when people can't, or won't acknowledge that some of his horror and themes of alienation derived from a very specific and dark place.

EDIT: And I don't mean to be either reductive or prescriptive in these matter; a while back I mentioned the example that I keep thinking about- that Dave Chappelle famously quit his show when he was doing a skit that involved him donning blackface, and hearing an audience member laughing too hard, and too long at it. Laughing at, laughing with; mocking stereotypes or reinforcing them; enjoying Toto ironically or enjoying them ... um, yeah .... Anyway, there are few easy answers.

Yeah, I think I knew what you meant, and I basically agree as far as being aware of any circumstances around a work of art, or in this case, a D&D product, which allows you to make conscious choices about how to (or not) bring that to the game table. Awareness is always good.

That said, I am leery of over-applying critical analysis to aesthetic experience. The "aesthetic mind" operates differently than the "analytic mind." There is actually something...colonial...about over-analyzing aesthetic experience, when art becomes everything but the actual piece of art, the aesthetic experience, or in the case of D&D, the fantasy world as a shared imaginative space.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That said, I am leery of over-applying critical analysis to aesthetic experience. The "aesthetic mind" operates differently than the "analytic mind."

"Dissecting a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process."

Ms. Piggy, maybe.

 

[Fenris-77]

Incidentally a lot of the earliest zombie films were rooted in a white fear of blackness. Even the comparatively much later Romero films deal much with a white bourgeois fear of societal upheaval. And it's increasingly difficult for me to read a lot of zombie films as anything other than a white middle to upper class capitalist fear of a "mindless" proletariat uprising.

There are indeed strong elements of race and class in the genesis of the 'zombie story' as imagined by American cinema. Two things need to be unpacked about that though, IMO. First, I seriously doubt that that is how people in 2020 'read' zombie stories. I suspect that more modern readings, one's not steeped in the fear of communism and cold war, index different things, infection primary among them. In both cases, race and Communism, what you have is an overthrow of the 'natural order' colored by the perspective of whomever is being overthrown, naturally. It's that basic fear, unconnected to race or class, that think is the prime mover in our discussion.

This leads me to my second point, which is that the fear at work there, of the overthrow or corruption of the natural order (life and death in the case of zombies), is separate from either of those associations, or any other ones that could be indexed to the zombie genre at various times (AIDS in the 80's, for example). Connected at the time, yes, but separate. That's one of the reasons why more modern treatments of zombies often really push the contagion factor, some issues of body horror, and issues, again, of loss of control and agency, because that's what resonates with audiences now. I think it's important to be nuanced about that separation, otherwise we get, well, what we have, where people either don't know how to, or aren't interested in, any kind of rational analysis, and just throw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[Kurotowa]

Just want to amplify this. Kurotowa is spot on. Somewhere along the line, the language shifts the discussion. There is a world of difference now between saying "this content is offensive" and "someone is offended by this content." One judges the content, the other judges the observer.

And both are traps. Saying that "someone is offended" makes it easy to dismiss them as thin skinned and emotional. Saying that "content is offensive" sends you into a labyrinth of trying to make rules about why not all offenses are equal, or else be forced to put the inevitable complaints about openly LGBT couples featuring in a story on the same footing as sexism or ethnic stereotypes.

Making it about offense at all is a dead end. What we have to ask instead is, "Does this do harm?" As I tried to illustrate in my post, these derogatory depictions do real quantifiable harm to people. If BLM isn't your cup of tea here's another example. Doctors are less likely to take women's statements of symptoms seriously because of cultural stereotypes of women being emotional and unreliable. Studies have repeatedly shown that women have higher rates of being denied necessary care because doctors didn't think they were really that bad off. When I was young one of my parent's friends died because the hospital sent her home to "sleep it off".

The entire debate has to be shifted away from either the giving or taking of offense, otherwise all we'll get is a list of forbidden naughty words without any change in the attitudes or actions those words indicate.

 

[Mercurius]

And both are traps. Saying that "someone is offended" makes it easy to dismiss them as thin skinned and emotional. Saying that "content is offensive" sends you into a labyrinth of trying to make rules about why not all offenses are equal, or else be forced to put the inevitable complaints about openly LGBT couples featuring in a story on the same footing as sexism or ethnic stereotypes.

Making it about offense at all is a dead end. What we have to ask instead is, "Does this do harm?" As I tried to illustrate in my post, these derogatory depictions do real quantifiable harm to people. If BLM isn't your cup of tea here's another example. Doctors are less likely to take women's statements of symptoms seriously because of cultural stereotypes of women being emotional and unreliable. Studies have repeatedly shown that women have higher rates of being denied necessary care because doctors didn't think they were really that bad off. When I was young one of my parent's friends died because the hospital sent her home to "sleep it off".

The entire debate has to be shifted away from either the giving or taking of offense, otherwise all we'll get is a list of forbidden naughty words without any change in the attitudes or actions those words indicate.

I appreciate the distinction you are making, but not sure if it would really solve the problem.

One group will say, "This causes harm, so needs to be changed."

Another group will say, "But does it really cause harm? And what changes?"

And we just shift the same dynamic to a new word: offense to harm.

The example you gave is a clear example of harm. We can extend that to racial discrimination or issues around class in terms of medical care (that is, whether one has adequate health insurance). In such cases it is clear that harm is being done.

It is less clear about D&D ideas, especially when they range the gamut, and when you factor in history, who is using the book, and the fact that it is a fantasy game. And then, of course, what changes will really provide solutions, while not creating more problems.

In the end, WotC is the final arbiter about changes. They have to find workable answers to questions like: Does a book printed 35 years ago cause harm, especially to those who don't use it? Does a written description cause harm, when it may or may not have problematic connotations, depending upon who is reading it (and how they're reading it)? What changes can we make that will address concerns around potentially harmful material, but don't open up new problems? Etc.

In other words: Best of luck, WotC!

I don't think there are clear answers, or at least ones that will satisfy everyone. As I suggested here, probably the best answers are found somewhere between the more moderate views, rather than running with one extreme or the other. The vast majority of D&D players just want to play the game, but are open to some changes.