For the longest time, the Fantasy genre has been dominated by protagonist that do not represent most of the world’s demographics. Often male, and almost always white. The roots of this are easy to see. The modern Fantasy genre was birthed out of the Epics and Romances of Europe. Fantasy settings were often just Medieval Europe with magic. And when you needed your villains, why, you just looked to the east where the swarthy and exotic races of Fantasy Asia lived.
All writing is influenced by the era it is produced. Once It was perfectly acceptable to have your protagonist be white and your antagonist not-white. Luckily, we do not live in one of those close-minded eras. I grew up believing the color of your skin doesn’t matter. The capacity for heroism dwells in the hearts of all of us, and the siren’s call of evil sings in the depth of all our souls.
So why do you still see Fantasy dominated by White protagonist? Is it because the majority of authors in the field are White? Perhaps it’s because the largest market for English literature is (in no order) USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK? Is it a subconscious act. Do these authors look at the Fantasy stories they were raised on and propagate what they read? Or is it a limitation of imagination that locks them into a Eurpoean-centric fantasy world?
Fantasy is an amazing genre. It doesn’t have to be limited to knights, castles, and wizards. You can set your world in a Victorian era, a bronze-age, a tribal landscape. You can conjure worlds that could never exist in reality, the work on principals of physics or theorems of magic that are impossible in our more mundane universe.
And the races you populate your world in can be just as creative. You don’t have to limit yourself to the constrains of the old. Why couldn’t the courtly intrigue of a seventeenth-century France be populated with Black-skinned aristocrats as they scheme and plot for power? The center of culture and learning could be a society inspired by the Indian subcontinent. And the fierce barbarians pressing at the edges of a might civilization could be White.
Or you can get really creative. Why limit yourself to the races that we have on Earth? Create your own. Take elements from different cultures. Let your imagination populate your world with a diverse mix of fleshed out societies. There are a rainbow of skin-tones, eyes, and hair colors to paint the canvas of your Fantasy world with. So create a world that wholly unlike our own, and share the amazing depths of your imagination with us.
And the most important thing to remember is that any human is clever. Regardless of how technological their society is, how learned their scholars are, how civilized their nation appears, even the most primitive of humans had the intelligence to grasp new concepts, to adapt to new circumstances, to innovate. That’s who we are as a species. So let’s celebrate our diversity in our writing.
Well said! I agree that speculative fiction needs diversity. I’m not just talking about creating a niche for Afrocentrism or gender issues. I hope to see us bring a variety of characters to the table–black, white, yellow, green… blue, you name it. I want us to portray humanoids and anthropods and 3rd and 4th genders cavorting across the stars. I’m not interested in convincing people that we are all the same but rather that no matter how deep our xenophobia, prejudices and differences run, we are all children of one universe–and that’s a truly remarkable thing.
Yep.
I just found this via Vanna Smythe’s newsletter. I couldn’t agree more, and the good news is that many editors and agents are specifically asking to see more with non-WMS (white-male-straight) MCs. The bad news is there are still plenty of people who insist that non-WMS characters should only be included if it’s “relevant to the story” – as if who the characters are could be anything but relevant.
I’ve set stories all over my main secondary world, and I’ve written stories focused on characters who are black, brown, yellow, red, white – and even green. I haven’t discovered a blue race, or a third or fourth gender yet, but give me time.
Glad you found your way here!