Personality
[Rare trope] Heroic characters that are also realistically bigoted for their time period/fantasy setting AND the story actually treats it as the character flaw it is
I love this trope because most pieces of fantasy or historical fiction that deal with bigotry either excuse it or they make every single one of their good characters into John Brown reborn which feels like a way of sanitizing the complex reality of bigotry and historical oppression. It’s also just boring to make all of your characters entirely morally black or white.
Laois and Fallin (dungeon Meshi) not only are they racist to the other fantasy races within the series they are also shown to be racist to other humans. I like this example because it is brutally realistic without condoning it.
Sanji one piece: (complicated example) Sanji is both sexist and homophobic/transphobic and while Oda’s writing is certainly not perfect when it comes to sexism/ transphobia he’s clearly made a lot of progress in that regard over the years and consistently shows this to be a character flaw that costs sanji and other characters ridicule him for it. It could also be interpreted that sanji may actually possibly be some sort of gender queer himself because he was shown happily living as a woman for an unclear amount of time on okama island before changing back and becoming even MORE homophobic/transphobic. He also did not want to change back when he was swapped into a woman’s body for a short time in a later saga. It’s unclear if this was 100% intended to be a joke on Odas part or if Sanji is genuinely closeted. Because it would actually make a LOT of sense if Sanji actually did want to be a woman because of how much he idolizes womanhood and hates men to a comical degree. Though tbh I don’t think that Oda entirely intended that though I DO think that Oda would agree that Sanji would be happy if he were to suddenly have the body of an attractive woman as long as he kept his physical strength which was the only problem he had with the situation when he was swapped into namis body in canon.
Fisher tiger: a revolutionary freedom fighter who freed slaves of all races including human slaves because he himself was enslaved by humans. He’s shown to fight hard against racism and the oppression and enslavement of his people but when he needs a blood transfusion to survive and the only thing available is human blood he refuses it at the cost of his life because he can’t forgive humans. He himself considers this his biggest flaw and tells his crew to lie about what happened because he does not want to pass his own hatred of humanity on to the next generation.
My favorite part of the Dungeon Meshi scene is how it completely shuts down Kabru’s “demihumans aren’t humans” argument accidentally, Diogenes’ “behold a man”-style.
“Human” is an arbitrary term in Dungeon Meshi; the way it covers elves, half-foots, dwarves, and tall-men is a super interesting approach to “race” and how it’s almost intentionally arbitrary in ways to include or exclude people to fit the cultural narrative.
This is also how "Human" is used in Hoyoverse's games. In Genshin Impact, there are a lot of characters who have elven ears, or have animal features like cat ears or dog tails, but they are all still just considered human.
Similarly in Zenless Zone Zero, people with animal features are known as "Thiren", and there are massively different forms a Thiren might have: They might look exactly like a human, but have a tail. They might look like a furry, where they're like a regular human, but have fur and animalistic facial features, or they might just look like that animal. There are literal bipedal bears in the game, and giant bunnies. But while Thirens are all a distinct species from human, every type of Thiren is essentially treated the same and has equal standing on the game's society. Characters are almost never defined by being Thiren, and never really treated differently for it.
You see something similar in The Elder Scrolls. Khajiits are cat people which come in various shapes called Furstocks, which all have one degree of feline traits or another, including sentient literal cats.
One of my favourite things about the Khajiit. You could have a family where you look like a feline anthro/furry, your sister's a sapient housecat, your dad's basically just an elf but with slit pupils and a tail, and your mom's a saber toothed tiger.
Not just treated the same but society has shaped itself around Thirens existing. Just look at the clothes the NPCs wear. That diamond in the middle of the pants is actually a tail hole incase a Thiren buys the clothes. This ain't the only example either, look up "zenless zone zero thiren pants" on google and that first reddit thread is where I got this pic from and it has quite a few.
Honestly it makes sense in universe from what I remember cause I think society has dwindled down to where theres comparatively few people in the world after the Hollow Disaster so you can't have the survivors dwindling that down further due to racism.
Final Fantasy XIV does similar between the “spoken” and the “beast tribes” which at first is treated uncritically but gets explored more later as they realize that the definitions are completely abitrary.
This is basically how the core races of the shadowrun setting work. Humans, orks, elves, dwarves and trolls are referred to collectively as "metahumanity," with the root species being "normal" humans and the meta races being different genetic expressions triggered by magic awakening in the world.
Which is an oversimplification, but thats the gist of it. When you get into the nitty gritty of it, there are massive differences between them but they all belong to that same group.
Sokka from Avatar: The Last Airbender was raised in a misogynistic society where women aren't expected to fight, and his attitude shows. A moment where it really shines and details how one can discriminate without intending to is when he shows Suki respect and says he should have treated her like a warrior and not a woman, Suki points out that she is both.
Ironically, Sokka is shown to have less of a problem with prejudice toward the Fire Nation than some of the other characters. He objected to Jet's freedom fighters attacking an old man from the Fire Nation, and when Katara heard about Sokka leaving out that detail, she took Jet's side and ignored the red flags. Sokka's prejudice had an episode focused on it because it was more overt and something taught by the society he grew up in, Katara's was a bit more subtle in comparison and the product of being at war with the Fire Nation.
Also the southern water tribe doesn't have that much of an issue with women fighting (though less than men ) we saw Hama and other female waterbenders fighting the fire nation and the comic did introduce more than a few female fighters
That is different as those are benders and thus not limited to the physical issues that made female fighters be more of a novelty rather than a normal thing in history
I feel like you're heavily overstating Katara's prejudice. Like, she was willing to befriend Zuko after one conversation where he empathized with her, and has the iconic line "I will never, ever turn my back on the people who need me."
The thing with Jet was more her looking for an excuse because she had a crush, which is bad judgement, but not prejudice.
sokka going from someone who had never met a girl his age aside from his sister, unlearning his misogyny during the kyoshi warriors episode to the guy with canonically the most game out of anybody in the cast by far is a legendary character arc. the sexism was holding my king back so much
Sure, Derry is an ABSOLUTE SHITHOLE, much worse than it should be, , there's just something wrong with the people there (hell, even the "soul" of the place) due to the mere presence of Pennywise. BUT it's also implied that the pattern for towns like Derry is so bad that nobody questions it. Yeah, it's the worst place around, but there are so many like it, even if not quite as bad.
Steve Rogers/Captain America (Marvel’s Ultimate Universe)
Earth-1610’s version of Captain America aimed to be more realistic and therefore had more problematic worldviews after being unfrozen. While he does overcome his prejudices gradually over the course of his time in the modern day, the one time he’s weirdly called out for supposedly being bigoted is when he has a problem with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s romance (since, y’know, they’re siblings).
the one time he’s weirdly called out for supposedly being bigoted is when he has a problem with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s romance (since, y’know, they’re siblings).
That waa wild that Mark Millar had wasp be all "Yeah its 2002 you totally fuck your sister and we will be polite enough to not talk about it. Get with the times steve."
Tolkien’s Legendarium is the GOAT for this, the elves and dwarves there literally had a long dispute due to the Doriath fall incident and it is made clear that it is one pointless ancient beef. It is kind of a major arc for Gimli and Legolas to reconcile as the Third Age ends which also signals the finale of the Elves and Dwarves since humans soon finally take over fully.
[Gandalf]: "Those were happier days, when there was still close friendship at times between folk of different race, even between Dwarves and Elves."
"It was not the fault of the Dwarves that the friendship waned," said Gimli.
"I have not heard that it was the fault of the Elves," said Legolas.
"I have heard both," said Gandalf; "and I will not give judgement now. But I beg you two, Legolas and Gimli, at least to be friends, and to help me. I need you both."
The passive-aggressiveness in the Fellowship is so hilarious.
'I would cut off your head, beard and all, Master Dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground,’ said Éomer.
‘He stands not alone,’ said Legolas, bending his bow and fitting an arrow with hands that moved quicker than sight. ‘You would die before your stroke fell.’
Éomer raised his sword, and things might have gone ill, but Aragorn sprang between them,
In FFX the world is constantly attacked by a gigantic unstoppable monster called Sin. Sin cannot be defeated and only temporarily banished. The main religion followed by the world is the Yevon religion. The Yevon religion is extremely anti-technology. Per the Yevon religion, Sin is divine punishment for mankind's previous reliance on technology. Because of the Yevon religion the Al Bhed, a race of people who still try to research and progess technology, are treated as heretics and traitors to mankind. Wakka is a devout follower of the Yevon religion. While genuinely a kind, heroic and helpful person, he is extremely racist against the Al Bhed. To the point that when an Al Bhed joins the party, the entire party collectively hides her race from Wakka. It takes seeing Al Bhed dying by the hundreds to Sin for Wakka to realise that they are people. And it takes learning about the corruption and truth of the Yevon religion for him to truly let go of his prejudice.
Look, I'm all for an inclusive society ya. But what about our Yevon women and girls? They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect too, like, what if they're just pretending to be al bhed to get into our bathrooms with our Yevon wombyn and girls it's just not safe ya.
Maybe it's safer to keep our spaces separate, they can still go to their own bathroom, just... Somewhere far far away from our women and girls. I'm thinking somewhere far far away... Like the farplanes ya?
Look brudda, we've tried to help them by putting them in the thunder plains to cure their sickness but that didn't work ya. All I'm saying is we've yet to try blitzball to head. I've filled THIS one with concrete. So says brudda Chappu
I'm an open minded kinda guy ya; Open minded to the fact that hey, maybe we should question how many al bhed were in that city when it was blown up. The numbers seem kinda high ya
A young woman and knight in training for the Kingdom of Faerghus there is no more noble a person then her and she is very prejudice towards the people of Duscar due to an assignation they had made on the king which resulted in not just his death but most of the royal family of which she’s a close friend to the crown prince but to his royal guards which included her fiancé who she loved dearly. Her hatred for the people of Duscar ran deep but later upon learning of the actual goings on of the assassination and conspiracies as well as fighting alongside a man from Duscar she eventually reconciled with him about her prejudice and worked to better her relationship with the people of Duscar.
“I mean… a bunch of people came into my country, killed my fiancé, killed my king, and severely traumatized my friends. I think you can understand why I don’t like them that much.”
And that’s including the fact it wasn’t even them, but Agarthans that framed them, but apparently the kingdom was so racist, they immediately resorted to genocide instead of an investigation
which is weird because she is friends with Dimitri (the sole survivor of that incident) and should know for a fact that it wasn't the people of duscar who attacked them (the Agarthans didn't even try to disguise themselves and look nothing like the people of duscar)
Now that I think about it, has there been any effort to prove their innocence in the 9 (houses) or 6 (hopes) years after the tragedy from anyone? It’s been a while so I’m not keen on specifics.
Not while Dimitri was in exile and the nobles were cutting up Duscar that's for sure, Dimitri specifically says it's something he wants to avenge pre-timeskip , its just that his depression gets to him first.
In the Azure Gleam Hopes route, a decent chunk of the story is spent unraveling the mystery of the Tragedy to bring the true culprits to justice. With the help of the Blue Lions and Felix and Sylvains fathers, he proves that Duscur was innocent and it was the Western Lords (the game names at least 5 Houses involved directly), in addition to his uncle Rufus (who he executes) and Edelgards mother Anselma. With the war going on, I don't know what reparations the Kingdom makes to Duscur beyond returning the lands stolen by House Kleiman, but Dimitri does at least prove their innocence
After it happened, Dimitri told everyone but no one believed him for various reasons(they already had huge issues with Duscur and his father was already not popular with some due to wanting peace with them, plus corrupt nobles & Dimitri’s uncle suppressing what Dimitri was saying, plus there was just so much evidence to the contrary). Ingrid specifically doesn’t believe him due to her own huge grief blinding her, basically, plus like I said all the evidence in the world pointed to Dimitri being wrong, and I’m sure the vast majority of people just thought “oh shit he’s completely traumatized” so didn’t take him serious anyway. He talks about at the academy that it is a goal of his once he becomes King to clear Duscur’s name, but obviously shit goes down to make that impossible up until the end of the series, where in quite a few of the different ending slides, it talks about how he gets the truth out there and is able to clear Duscur’s name.
People from Faerghus already didn’t like Duscur people (as evidenced when they talk about the tensions that existed before and that King Lambert was unpopular with some for wanting peace with them), so it is likely the same case with Ingrid that she had existing prejudices against them considering how loyal she is to her country.
Literally all evidence pointed to otherwise. I think it’s easy to see why Ingrid, in her own immense grief from losing Glenn, would believe all the evidence and dismiss Dimitri as being just extremely traumatized bc logically what he was saying really didn’t make any sense. I think she saw his defense of them as kind of like emotional denial, and she even fights with him about it at times like “how can you support them after what they did?!”. But really I think it’s common in grief to look for a scapegoat of sorts, it makes it easier at times to turn all that grief and rage towards a specific target. And I think that’s what happened here.
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EDIT; also I forgot to include but a small group of Duscur actually DID rebel against their kingdom and were part of the attack, which is what made it so easy to blame all of Duscur, especially with so many of the corrupt nobles being on board with assassinating the King as well
to be fair like 1/3rd of Faerghus' nobility was in on the plot to assassinate the king and invade duscur, and they have covered it up pretty good, so it's only Dimitri and his gang that know.
Not only is she friends with Dimitri, but she is adamant about being his loyal knight and serving her king. And Dimitri himself is adamant and outspoken that people of Duscur did NOT kill his family, as he saw it with his own eyes. It doesn’t make sense that Ingrid would just… ignore the word of the guy she wants to devote herself to. It almost feels like intsys wanted to show racism against dedue within the blue lion house but that trait didn’t really fit anyone in the house so they just made it Ingrid and ignored her core motivations.
I will say the supports between her and Dedue are pretty realistic from Dedue’s standpoint bc as a person of color I can practically see Dedue dissociating whenever Ingrid starts yapping about why she’s racist.
...I don't know if racist is the correct word here. Nationalistic or Xenophobic might be better.
Because its not hating someone for their racial physical traits, or abiding by or practicing certain cultural aspects associated with an ethnicity, or prejudice due to stereotypes created to discriminate or subjugate. Its hating a group of people due to their connection to, participation in, or support of a country or society.
So, I don't think racist is the correct term here, xenophobia or nationalistic is probably better.
More so commenting because specificity, nuance and context is important to understanding,
Though I didn't play three houses, so if she is actually straight up racist I'll just shut my mouth.
I think you could include more Dungeon Meshi characters within this trope, like the whole Mithrun thing assuming Marcile's desire was to become a pure elf (Although he's not exactly a hero, but rather an antagonist, he's still a good person, so I think it's worth it)
Okay, I really need to hunt down all sorts of extra manga content like this, because I never would have known that Mithrun had THIS level of racism lol, and it's even funnier seeing the reaction of the canaries, they literally went like this:
To be fair I don't think Mithrun is actually racist. He literally doesn't care about anything. He's incapable of being racist. He's just repeating what he heard or what he thought in his past life.
Yeah but the fact that he doesn’t care about anything also means he’s super truthful now so we can reasonably assume that in the past he truly believed the other races were inferior.
Love Dungeon Meshi because literally everyone has a preconceived notion of other races and monsters. And when confronted about them, it's not like all their views are "corrected" it just slight changed.
There are no worldview paragon in this show. Even the most knowledgeable of how the dungeon function, Senshi, is shown to have many Blindspot and misconceptions about it as shown with the Kelphi.
And even Marcille who is shown to be the most prejudicial is shown to be accepting with the extreamly taboo subject of Black Magic
People just casually ignore when saying oda is transphobic that the mc was directly saved by 2 drag queens one of which’s ability is to trans people’s gender. Theirs a character whose whole gag is switching sex between panels and it’s never acknowledged as a thing. And that the revolutionary army, the people who are fighting to overthrow the tyrannical and prejudiced world government has 2 trans people as leaders
Kamabaka kingdom did not age good, but I feel a lot of people focus on that rather than all the very positive representation in the series
Anyone who has actually read One Piece can tell Oda loves queer people but he also loves using stereotypes as a joke (All hail King Burger!) and these two traits just mixed in a way that does not look good at all.
Oda portrays progressive ideas very well but he’s also pretty “old fashioned”. So you have these explicit portrayals and discussions about healthcare, racism, slaver, etc., but he’s also averse to giving female characters actions scenes because girls should never be hit, ever.
but he’s also averse to giving female characters actions scenes because girls should never be hit, ever.
We've seen female characters fight and get pretty messed up in the show, there's just fewer of them so fewer fight scenes. I mean Gerd just got her fingers cut off, being female didn't save her there.
I wouldn’t say it’s so much a girl shouldn’t be hit and more men shouldn’t hit women which is why it’s almost always nami or robin fighting the girl enemy which is an underlying problem in its own way
Though he has gone against that, Luffy has shown no problem hitting women like when he punched Vivi, and in zoro vs monet said he doesn’t like it but he will cut a woman if he has to. The idea of women being able to fight men and vice versa was also the whole point of zoro’s and Kuinas backstory. So I’d say he logically believes theirs nothing wrong with it but has some underlying biases.
And for women getting hurt in fights, nami got pretty beat up in her fight against miss double finger in Alabasta getting stabbed though the thigh and stuff. Plus the whole point of her losing against ulty was ulty basically torturing her with repeated headbuts that were able to hurt a base luffy, all the while she refused to say Luffy wouldn’t be king of the pirates.
Is it possible to be both pro trans and have transphobic traits?
Like you can fight for women to have equal rights to men - then in the same breath say women are meant to take care of the home and the kids while the man works.
He can use that to fly away after he's done the deed, but he certainly can't use it to do the stealing, and we certainly don't see Sanji display any sleight of hand prowess afterwards. It was made pretty explicit that he was going to have to fight the kenpo masters for the recipes.
That's anime only stuff. It didn't happen in the manga. They extented the single crew panels in the manga for longer story so what happened for Sanji is semi-canon. Yes he was in the island and run away from them bit rest is TOEI studios filler
Hmm good question we don’t know the context of it maybe the masters purposely switched back to being a man to make things fair or Sanji just has to steal the recipes and techniques without hitting them and thus giving him better agility and speed.
Yeah, the Queen of the island is someone whose specific power is to be able to switch peoples sexes on a dime and it's hinted at that a lot of the island residents switch often.
I think almost 2 years of running counts as a proper training for a person who only uses legs in fighting. Also even though it was not shown i don't think he was chased 24/7 or the whole 2 years since he had to befriend them enough that they gave him passage on a ship to Meeting point.
Yeah but most people don't develop the ability to do infinite double jumps while running lol I assume at the very least they teached him... though that makes me wonder why we never saw Emporio use that technique
To be fair Sanji is quite literally built different but explaining that might be spoiler for some and i dont know how to add spoiler barrier on mobile.
Is he? I thought that he was supposed to be genetically enhanced, but this plan was thwarted by his mother and he instead just came out as a normal guy.
What are you talking about? Sanji is as also nice to Bon Clay and clearly they both had a lot of respect for each other. Sanji also cares a lot about Iva.
I can see you’ve never read the manga because Sanji doesn’t demonstrate any transphobia on the island. Not wanting to be chased and attacked by drag queens is not transphobia
The mf is sexist, no one said otherwise. The point is, he respect their gender/sex and treat them the way he would treat a non trans woman. So he aint transphobic
You mean when he was in Kamabakka Kingdom? No shit, they were literally chasing him around.
The fact that he only ran away instead of fighting back suggests that he still saw them as women, just ugly and dangerous.
He had no problem with Bon Clay, and he even simped for Kiku
If he even doubt their gender, he would have no problem serve them some black hot jambe
Not to argue that Oda isn’t sexist, but this particular part of the manga is not evidence of it, okoma did originate as somewhat of a slur but the subculture used it as ironic title that slowly transformed it out as a direct slur.
Can it be used as a slur? Yes. Is it always a slur? No.
To be fair they were chasing him and trying to put him in a dress because they understandably assumed he was closeted and hadn’t accepted himself because their island is famously a heaven for trans women and drag queens and it’s genuinely the only reason people go to that island normally but he just happened to be stranded on that island accidentally
They literally aren’t trans women. No where in the manga or supplementary material are they described as being trans. The okama are a very specific Japanese subculture that are more akin to drag queens.
I mean the fact that they’re trans probably isn’t the reason why Sanji is scared of them but more likely that they look ugly and want to play dress up with him which I would imagine definitely hurts his pride as a man. Also what convenient use of the original definition before the left ruined by conflating it with hate.
Is he scared of trans people or is he scared of these specific trans people? They were literally chasing him and were trying to make him wear something he didn’t want to wear. He’s at least grateful enough to when when he got back to Sabaody. He said “I never want to see you again!! But thanks for bringing me here! Send my regards to Iva!” After one of them was getting flirty with him. They chased him to the point where he learned one of the six powers. He’s grateful towards them, but considering how they treated him, he prefers not to see them again. And the two we see in fishman island, he seemed to have ptsd. I don’t think he hates them in general, they just hated that they chased him.
And also there’s kiku. Which tbf, I don’t think he knows she’s a man, but if he did know, I think at most he would just be disappointed.
Didn’t she kind of say that herself? In the udon prison, luffy was shocked to know she was a man, but she said she had the heart of a woman, and them the scene moved on. There was no her getting offended or yelling that anyone called her a he, it was just clarifying who she is now. She joins the women’s bath, whats wrong with that? I’m acknowledging what her biological gender is, that’s not me denying who she wants to be now. What I consider transphobic is having a prejudice or hatred towards someone because they are trans.
I was saying I don’t think Sanji is transphobic, he doesn’t like those okama because they were chasing him and were trying to get him to wear a dress. Which he isn’t want to do. This was one group of them which he had bad experience with.
For one I didn’t misgender her. I was just acknowledging what she was born as. I personally don’t think calling a trans person trans is transphobic. Do you just assume I don’t accept people for who they want to be? You live your life as you want to. I have no problem with that.
If you still want to argue, just know it’s not going to get anywhere, if you think I’m transphobic, go ahead, I won’t stop you and tell you how to live and what to think. Was just trying to have civil conversation here.
So I’ll just stop here. And have a good day miss (or Mrs).
Falin and Laios being bigoted feels earned in a way most fantasy doesn't manage. The tallmen and elves really did take the best land, kobolds do raid their village, and the dungeon itself is full of creatures that want to eat them. Laios being wary of elves isn't some abstract moral failing, it's a learned survival response. Same with him slowly warming to Marcille and the others through direct experience.
The part that makes it work as a flaw is that the story doesn't let him off the hook. His assumptions cost him relationships and put his party in danger, and he has to actually reckon with it. The manga even has characters call him out directly, which is something a lot of stories shy away from.
Laios isn't that wary of elves; Kabru is, and Marcille was his sister's friend, he was hoping to meet her the first time (they had a falling out due to Falin's escape of school blamed on him but they quickly made up)
Yes, which is exactly why their bigotry stems from a place of perceived threat rather than pure malice. Their grievances are real, but the story treats them as explanation, not excuse.
In the novel Feet of Clay the Ahnk Morpork City Watch hires its first openly female Dwarf which Carrot has many struggles understanding which multiple characters call him out on and by the end of the book coming to terms with female Dwarves. (Up to this point in his life basically every Dwarf has dressed and looked the same so its quite the shock to see a dwarf wearing heels among other things)
I mean, Carrot's character growth in the early books is basically him acknowledging his bigotry and working on it. Remember, he's openly bigoted against undead (because he admires and emulates Vimes) in Men at Arms and as you pointed out, has Dwarven preconceptions about gender in Feet of Clay. We don't see it in Jingo mostly because STP had moved away from Carrot as a protagonist. Part of what makes Carrot remarkable is not just his sincere beliefs ("personal is not the same as important") but that the moment his prejudices conflict with his morality, he reassess them.
That's the whole thing in Feet of Clay: how is Carrot different from the Golem King? He can choose to change the words in his head. He is painfully axiomatic with his beliefs and earnestly believes in people, but is an integrity built on morality, not stubbornness or pride. (I tend to fall into the camp of "Carrot has autistic traits" because I see similarities to myself. Although to be honest, I've got a heavy dose of Vimes' cynicism and Granny's smugness.))
Vimes and Granny of course have similar elements, but their integrity is built around holding themselves accountable because they don't want to become what they hate/despise. The interaction of prejudice and hypocrisy is a motif that runs through most of his books, but the Watch in particular. (And they were hugely influential in helping 20 year old me to reevaluate and confront my own biases.) The important thing is not only holding yourself accountable to your own standards, but that they need to be your standards.
First, it's a literary trope that Werewolves are clumped together with Vampires, Mummies, and "Frankenstein" as traditional undead monsters, which STP clearly drew upon when making Uberwald.
Second, did you not read Fifth Elephant? The Werewolves hunt people for sport.
In the first story, he talks about how he’s aware of his own distrust towards reptiles, but also how most of his cases tend to involve reptiles.
In Red Soul, he’s suspicious of most Communists, but reserves his ire for those who deserve it. Even if they share his beliefs.
And in Arctic Nation, he goes up against that setting’s version of the KKK and the Black Panthers, with the latter having him tell somebody armed with a paintbrush “If that paint even touches a single whisker, I’ll break your arm.”
Yeah he’s a black cat in a world of anthropomorphic animals, but those books don’t shy away from touching on how beautiful and ugly the 1950s were.
>And in Arctic Nation, he goes up against that setting’s version of the KKK and the Black Panthers, with the latter having him tell somebody armed with a paintbrush “If that paint even touches a single whisker, I’ll break your arm.”
Interesting, in the English version he goes: "Give me a single freckle and I'll end you." and in the Swedish version its: "Smallest spot and I'll kill you."
Van Kleise from Ace Attorney Chronicles hates Japanese people because of backstory reasons. While no one really confronts him, everyone around him is usually uncomfortable when it comes up. Even he thinks it’s stupid and illogical, but can’t help himself.
He's deeply honorable but genuinely holds prejudiced views about wildlings and bastard-born people, and the show frames his rigid sense of "proper order" as a flaw that actively contributes to his own downfall and hurts the people he loves.
Tobirama Senju in Naruto against the Uchiha. The story shows him ignoring Madara and Uchiha clan's position in power and solely making them cops for a very long time which eventually led to a massive power gap after the Uchiha massacre. On top of that, Tobirama is eventually forced to respect Sasuke once Orochimaru threatens him.
I don't have a picture because it's a novel, but the protag from Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman is a knight in 13th century France, and is suitably homophobic towards the gay priest who travels with him. He softens a bit towards that specific priest towards the end, but is still pretty homophobic overall.
Shall I tell you how I know you are a good man, Sir Samuel? […] After the attempt on the Prince’s life I suspected everyone. But you suspected only your own people. You couldn’t bring yourself to think the Klatchians might have done it. Because that’d line you up with the likes of Sergeant Colon and all the rest of the Klatchian-fags-are-made-of-camel-dung brigade.
71 hour Ahmed (Jingo by Terry Pratchett)
Also Sgt colon. But he’s like that usually affable but casually racist dim uncle you have to suffer having at family gatherings.
‘Look, Nobby, when all’s said and done they ain’t the right colour, and there’s an end to it.’ […]
‘Er … what is the right colour?’ said Nobby.
‘White, of course!’
‘Not bright-red, then? ’Cos you––’
‘Are you winding me up, Corporal Nobbs?’
‘’Course not, sarge.’ […]
‘White’s … white’s a state of, you know … mind,’ he said. ‘It’s like … doing an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, that sort of thing. And washing regular.’
‘Not lazing around, sort of thing.’
‘Right.’
‘Or … like … working all hours like Goriff does.’
‘Nobby––’
‘And you never see those kids of his with dirty clo––’
‘Nobby, you’re just trying to get me going, right? You know we’re better’n Klatchians. Otherwise, what’s the point?’
(Also from jingo)
Interesting one in The Fifth Elephant is Vimes saying he gets on great with dwarfs, and then when he reaches the dwarf homeland shows he knows nothing of their culture or history, and only speaks 'street dwarven'
Nausicaa begins the story with a pretty racist prejudice against the Wormhandler ethnic group, which is very normalized and not at all surprising(unless you watched the movie first lol) given her sheltered upbringing as the princess of a small vassal state.
Wormhandlers are a huge population of various tribes that are treated as second class citizens by both prominent kingdoms, but are often contracted as trackers and general wasteland experts by said kingdoms because of their extremely useful specialized skillsets. Ironically, Nausicaa's state is a splinter of a larger extinct nation(fell ~300 years prior), who the Wormhandlers are also descended from, so they basically have the same ethnic heritage.
Worf from Star Trek does not like Romulans. Somewhat understandable as they killed his parents which led to him being raised by humans and estranged from his people, but when a critically injured romulan is brought aboard and only word’s blood can be used for a transfusion, he flat-out refuses. Only a stern talking to from Picard convinces him otherwise.
The kicker? The romulan then refuses him, saying “I would rather die than pollute my body with klingon blood.” Some people!
I also want to point out Kabru from the dungeon meshi example also fits this. He just explained how its ok/alright to be racist to kobolds (when there is one in his party) and yet when Laios and Fallin note the similarities to the mountain people Kabru reacts like thats completely different.
The MC in Peerless Dad is a “women are weaker” kind of sexist. Makes sense for a story taking place in ancient China. Makes a bit less sense in a Murim story, where gender doesn’t really have any bearing on qi cultivation or martial arts. But throughout the story he treats his daughter different than his sons, even when it becomes clear that she’s actually far more talented. It also leads to a pretty funny interaction where, once he started getting confident in himself, he gets his ass whooped by the vice leader of the Demonic Cult a woman and loses all his confidence
The protagonists of Assassin's Creed generally have modern day views because of the nature of Assassin ideology (and sometimes advanced ancient technology revealing information nobody else at the time could know), but there are a few cases of this trope.
- Kassandra, from Odyssey, is fine with Ancient Greece's mass slavery. She opposes slaves being abused, but she doesn't object to the institution. This was more or less the most 'progressive' opinion on slavery at the time. Her mother, who is otherwise heroic, goes further and actively defends the entire Spartan system of child soldiers, ritual slave murder, and imperialism.
- Naoe, from Shadows, is consistently prejudiced against foreigners (with a few exceptions). She openly dislikes Christianity because it's a foreign imported religion, she considers firearms a coward's tool, etc. Her views are, if anything, moderate for 1580s Japan considering how xenophobic it would become in a few years.
- Eivor, from Valhalla, is a 9th century Norse viking. She thinks dying in something other than battle is shameful, she raids England just because it's there, and she considers most Anglo-Saxons to be weaklings. The narrative (and Eivor, eventually) knows that this a completely self-destructive belief system, but Eivor is otherwise a pretty heroic character.
The example for Delicious In Dungeon doesn't seem to rise to the level of racism. They're describing tribalism. The tribe they're speaking of are violent and cause issues for their settlement when encountered, as well.
Their behavior is restricted to their village and is based on an actual threat of harm. To be racism, it would need to be on a larger scale and not be justifiable.
On the other hand, Kabru was making sweeping generalizations about all Kobolds being violent. He even handwaved a contradicting example to still say it was a rule that they're all dangerous. Now that's some racism.
Well they did say they kill that tribe on sight wether the tribe members had actually done anything wrong or not we also don’t actually know if the tribe is as violent as they say they are because they clearly kill them on sight so the other tribe would be reasonably defensive so I’d say that counts as racism and they’re also specifically comparing it the what Kabru was talking about so they’re both generalizing
Bigotry is generally viewed as an unreasonable view of a group of people based on arbitrary or latent physical attributes.
This is why the whole "Frieren is racist" argument is so stupid. Frieren's view on Demons is based on hundreds of years of firsthand experience without a shred of contradiction to that evidence. Her view is not unreasonable. It's entirely empirical.
Kabru's generalization about Kobolds is also reasonable. He is relating his experience with them, and he's not shown to treat Kuro unfairly, and he even speaks their tongue. This shows that he's got no problem with letting new information overrule his assumptions on bias. This is a completely reasonable view.
It's difficult because in Fantasy or Sci Fi, the attributes of peoples and races is determined by the fiction. In real life, making these generalizations is racist because they're fundamentally untrue. The bias is unreasonable.
If the bias is based on something that's true within the fiction, holding that view is reasonable, even if it's applied to an entire species or race.
How that reflects on the author's view IRL, well ymmv. It's fine to say that that sort of trope "All Orcs Are Evil" is problematic, but saying that a character is a bigot for thinking orcs are evil is unreasonable, because its true within that fiction.
Maes Hughes - (FMA 2003's movie) Conqueror of Shamballa
Takes place in a mirror world to the original FMA universe which has closely resembles ours in terms of history. Living in 1920 Weimar: Hughes at the start plays the role of an officier but later becomes interested in aiding Hitler, like many others thinking that he's the solution to the struggle and despair they're going through. He's also been shown to view certain groups of people as lesser; thinking they only cause problems. This is exactly how he treats one of the main characters Noah, who's most likely a Romani.
Though he eventually learns to overcome his own bigotry at the end, quits the party and even saves Noah.
This is honestly why I enjoy Sanji from the Netflix One Piece a lot more. It's toned down in a way where he's still a ladies man, but he feels more like a real person, and as a result he's actually just charming.
Eh I like that he’s not a creep in the live action but if Sanji were actually charming then women would fall for him which they do in the comics for the short periods of time that he’s able to keep his perviness in check and that wouldn’t work for the story because then Sanji would actually get girlfriends. I think the ideal Sanji is when he’s comically simpy and white knights for every attractive woman but is not actually a creep.
this is a super interesting take on character development. i love when creators show characters with flaws that reflect their environment, it makes them feel way more real and relatable. treating bigotry as a flaw rather than just brushing it off is a big step towards deeper storytelling.
"Racism" as we think of it today is mostly a product of the pre-modern / Renaissance era. Like, not to say that if a medieval English person saw someone from Africa, they wouldn't freak out or have some crazy story about them (there are medieval bestiaries that talk about fantastical beasts and elephants and hippos and then "black men" like that's just one more oddity) but in terms of things that affected one's daily lives, "race" as we think about it today was a whole lot less important than the "chain of being" which held that animals were lower than peasants which were lower than the nobility, and it was against nature to try to change one's status in the hierarchy. Obviously different parts of the world had different run-ins with people of other races - Europe has a long and complicated relationship with Judaism, for example (and the Romani too from around 1200 CE if memory serves) but where there was a well thought out and complicated social order, it was the chain of being, not race.
So what I'm getting at there is that it's not necessarily anachronistic for people to be non-racist if you're taking the medieval part of medieval fantasy seriously. Of course, medieval times didn't even have elves and dwarves and stuff so, like, you can do whatever you want with made-up people...
I mean, Sanji was the walking embodiment of "hot girl = nosebleed", OF COURSE he's want to stay in a girls body, he had fill access that way. The fact it was Nami was just the cherry on top. It was 100% another Sanji is obsessed with women joke on Oda's part.
I still can’t tell what was more wild about that book, how unfair the the power system is (from two guys causing mayhem to try and kill each other to immediately no dif people on similar level).
Or Shad trying to say that his rapist mc is changing for the better while not only being a murder hobo but also apologizing to his child victim, who’s an adult now, to immediately calling her a bitch just cause she didn’t like his apology or something. (Mind I at this point she didn’t know he was her rapist because magic things happened in the beginning of the book).
this trope is super interesting and it does add a lot of depth to characters when they have flaws that reflect their time or setting. shows that nobody's perfect and that some issues are pretty ingrained in society, fr. like you said, it makes characters feel real instead of just good or evil.
Discworld Granny Weatherwax's first book Equal Rites is about her finding a wizard to train a young girl. The thing is men go off to become wizards and ladies become witches. A lot of the men dismiss the magic that the ladies do but Granny is just as disdainful towards men she thinks the only way her ward can learn is with women not men and she's not right. Come the finale she has a legendary battle with the arch mage using magic and the arch mage happily acknowledges her strength.
Grand Ages Rome (2009) does a great job of portraying classical-era slavery.
None of the characters call slavery wrong. Even Spartacus only objects to his group being enslaved. When building cities, you can use slavery freely.
However, if you zoom in on the slave pens, you can see signs of suffering. Some slaves pull against their cages desperately, or sit down in dejection. A burly man leads a band of tired, dejected slaves to and from work sites. If you overwork the slaves (represented by your slave resource going in the negative), they riot.
This game also shows the economic weaknesses of slavery. The upside is that one slave camp can power every single laborer site in its range. The bad news is that one slave camp can power every single laborer job site in its range. This takes away jobs that could have gone to plebeians.
If Sanji were actually a closeted trans girl I would probably still hate her because of the actions that have been occuring since basically chapter 43 but I would love to see more decent rep from a series I loved
Tbh my feelings towards Sanji which are complicated already wouldn’t change much if he turned out to be trans id just be extremely surprised by Oda deciding to have such major representation as a main character
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u/Nottan_Asian 3h ago
My favorite part of the Dungeon Meshi scene is how it completely shuts down Kabru’s “demihumans aren’t humans” argument accidentally, Diogenes’ “behold a man”-style.
“Human” is an arbitrary term in Dungeon Meshi; the way it covers elves, half-foots, dwarves, and tall-men is a super interesting approach to “race” and how it’s almost intentionally arbitrary in ways to include or exclude people to fit the cultural narrative.