loreweaver-universe:
While I’ve been recovering from the flu, I’ve been reading over some of the...
While I’ve been recovering from the flu, I’ve been reading over some of the things Rich Burlew, the author of Order of the Stick, has said about his work and the storytelling choices he makes, and I found a quote that really strikes a chord with me and speaks to my own attitudes towards inclusiveness in storytelling:
“If an author writes a medieval fantasy story with more women than men,
or with a higher number of LGBTQ+ people, or a black man in the lead,
then because of the current homogenous nature of the existing body of
fantasy literature, those choices will stand out. However, if standing
out is the point—if these choices are being made partly because the
author wishes to actively challenge the existing literary landscape—then
providing no explanation in fact furthers that purpose. It
forces the issue into the reader’s mind and then, by refusing to address
it at any point, normalizes it. It makes a statement that this is not
something that needs justification, and hopefully by the end of the
work, any reader who initially balked will no longer think anything of
it. Coming up with an explanation for such demographics in fact
strengthens the argument of those people who feel intolerance in the
real world: ‘Oh, he’s saying that in their world, women evolved differently, and that’s why they’re equal. But in the real world, we all know they’re not, right?’“
