> This has bugged me for years. It's occurred to me that Science
>Fiction and Fantasy, while generally "progressive" in tone, has always had
>this flirtation with racism (and class, of course) -- in a lot of novels,
>and moreso in games, birth is destiny. If you are playing a Dwarf, you will
>have high strength and constitution (or might and endurance or whatever),
>lower dexterity, be bad at magic, etc. Glorantha and its various systems,
>it seems to me, have been against that -- sure, there are racial and
>cultural trends: Uz are big and hungry, enlo are stupid, dwarves are
>"mechanical," Heortlings crude and ignorant, Black Oaks shifty, etc, but
>there are a lot of individual exceptions. Individual choices seem to matter
>in a way that is absent from a lot of fantasy worlds.
> Anyway, that's my feeling.
I think this is a pretty pervasive theme in human thought never mind just sci-fi and fantasy. Even in supposedly democratic societies there's still a strong sense of destiny/worth tied in with your birth and ancestry. I think the trick to remember in Glorantha is that while there are always other options for individuals that their societies will still reflect these sorts of prejudices. For example I believe that traditional Ernaldans don't care much for Vingans and aren't afraid to show it (and vice versa). In the short lived HW campaign I helped run the chief discarded his Vingan wife in favour of a good Ernaldan girl to satisfy the Ernaldans in the tribe.
The individual going against the grain still has a hard time proving their entitlement to their life choice.
Oliver
Powered by hypermail