#fantasy discourse

[skrumps-plural]

yeah eragon wasn’t the best fantasy series and you can have discourse but a magic system based on a dead language with the whole energy limitation is really fucking cool and one of my favorite fantasy magic systems of all time

[littlecakeclub]

I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole “RF Kuang is cancelled again” discourse because she was invited to a fantasy conference in Dubai to talk about Babel, then withdrew after learning about the UAE’s involvement in extractivism and violence in Sudan. People are saying she “should have known,” that it’s hypocritical for a decolonial author to attend, etc. And yes, Dubai is deeply implicated in what’s happening in Sudan. Yes, Gulf states deserve critique. Yes, Arab people especially have every right to boycott influencers and institutions that profit from exploitation.

But I want to be very clear from the start: I respect the boycott when it comes from Sudanese and Palestinian movements themselves, and I understand why cultural institutions in the UAE are being called out through BDS. Boycott is a tool of solidarity, not a moral purity test. My issue is not with the boycott itself — it’s with how selectively people apply it.

I find it interesting how quickly the internet jumps to cancel a woman of colour for being associated with Dubai, while completely ignoring the fact that the United States is itself a colonial state. Every American city is built on stolen Native land. Europe is sliding into open fascism. Canada is still a settler colony. India is openly supremacist. And yet, no one screams scandal when RF Kuang travels to Oxford or Cambridge — institutions built on imperial extraction, scientific racism, and colonial wealth. Somehow Western colonialism remains invisible, unremarked, and even prestigious, while non-Western states become the sole terrain of moral outrage. It’s a double standard that reveals far more about Western comfort than about actual solidarity.

I keep thinking about how people said “she should have known,” as if Americans are magically omniscient about global politics. I’m sorry, but I’m a Belgian woman of colour, and when Angela Davis came to Belgium a few years ago — someone I admire deeply — she had no idea about the police violence Black and Arab communities were experiencing here. That same year, a young man had died from police brutality and we had massive protests across the country. If Angela Davis, with her decades of activism, didn’t know about Belgian struggles until someone told her, why do we expect a fantasy author to automatically know everything about Sudan, UAE geopolitics and Gulf extractivism.

And to situate this within the BDS framework: the issue is not that RF Kuang was going to speak about colonialism. BDS targets state-backed cultural partnerships that whitewash oppression, not independent authors who come to critique power. Speaking about decolonial violence in Dubai is not the same as legitimizing the Emirati state. This distinction matters and people keep flattening it.

This is why Alinsky insists on being radical, not “pure.” Purity politics do nothing for oppressed people. They just create smaller and smaller circles of “acceptable” activists. Movements don’t win because individuals are morally flawless; they win because they act strategically. There is a difference between refusing to normalize a regime and refusing to let decolonial voices speak in difficult spaces. We have to know the difference.

Honestly, having a decolonial author present Babel in Dubai might have opened conversations that desperately need to happen in that region. Silencing those voices doesn’t challenge authoritarianism. It reinforces Western cultural dominance by keeping decolonial critique confined to Western audiences only. There are other ways to boycott Dubai that hit harder (like not participating in the trendy Dubai chocolate craze) without shutting down opportunities to challenge narratives from within.

And I’m tired of watching authors of colour get held to impossible standards while white authors face zero consequences. Colleen Hoover still sells millions. Emily Henry hasn’t said a word about Palestine and no one seems to mind. Brandon Sanderson? Also silent. The fandom’s appetite for moral perfection applies almost exclusively to racialized authors, especially Asian and Black writers, while white authors are allowed to be apolitical by default. That’s not solidarity that’s racialized scrutiny disguised as ethics.

To align with the joint Palestine–Sudan call: yes, these struggles are linked, and yes, the UAE plays a role in both. But so do Western states. So does Europe’s border regime. So does the United States’ endless militarism. If we’re serious about solidarity, we cannot reserve outrage for non-Western states while normalizing oppression at home. Solidarity has to be global, or it becomes theatre.

So yes, critique Dubai. Yes, critique extractivism in Sudan. Yes, hold everyone accountable. But cancelling a decolonial author for an honest mistake, while giving Western institutions and white authors a free pass. It misses the structural point entirely. And it makes our movements smaller, not stronger.

[virovac]

Alternative names for fantasy “golems”?

Since it started as an inconsiderate name grab from Judaism that who’s most famous example was something built to fight against racists and prevent genocide into a mere monster.

While there are more dangerou golems, they were generally monstrous due to being overly literal or “what is life?” philosophy questions.

“Construct” in general is probably good. 

Maybe individual less generic names 

Puns based on golems are fine I feel to an extent.  And similar concepts aren’t inherently anti-Semitic, but you know...

edit: I’m not saying not to use golems in fantasy, I’m talking about alternatives for things that aren’t really golem like or overusing the term as something generic and calling everything “flesh golem’ or “ice golem”

[agentumbls]

If your fantasy system's delineation between "citizen" and "beast" is "can it learn Common" it has a problem

[theirmajestyfang]

We need to support horrifying monsters and monsters that are attractive by mundane standards. Mundanes finding someone disgusting does not mean that they are worthless. Mundanes finding someone attractive does not mean that they’ll treat them well. Leave monsters alone.

[hotgrrlbummer]

for the last fucking time if you’re a ghost and you constantly get in taxis/lyfts/any paid driving service and disappear before the end YOU ARE EXPLOITING WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. it doesnt matter if you “keep forgetting that you’re dead” or whatever bullshit excuse that is on you and not the poor drivers, as a ghost who doesn’t have to pay for food and housing check your fucking privilege

[ashaflemythal]

Something I’ve been thinking about and genuinely want opinions on (not sure if I’m going to articulate this well but bear with me):

So I notice that in a lot of Dragon Age discourse (and a lot of fantasy discourse tbh) people seem to want to relate the politics of the fictional world to the politics of the world we live in (especially in terms of like which characters are actually good or bad or whatever) but I’m wondering if that has to be the case?

I’m asking because generally my fantasy opinions differ a lot from my irl opinions because a lot of the time I just don’t find the situations comparable, but I’m curious about how things resonate with other people. And it’s not like I’m trying to judge or saying we shouldn’t be drawing on real life things to relate, but I’m wondering if there comes a point where that does more harm than good.

(If people actually reply to this all I’m asking is that y’all be respectful bc at the end of the day this convo is just academic lol)

[pawpunkao3]

Not every undead person needs another label. Of course they can find communities of vampires, zombies, etc, but no one is entitled to knowing how you died/were revived, and besides, there aren’t good, mainstream labels for some experiences. Just identifying as “undead” is fine.