So I wanted to jump back to a question I proposed initially. The Article discusses how - after a backlash - Salvatore decided to do the right thing and add in additional material showing that the Drow were not inherently evil.
So if the Drow deserve this sort of re-write, why not Orcs, or Goblins? Is there an underlying factor that would favor one of these groups over the other two?
Is it just because the Drow are so popular?
Again, I think it's a mistake. If we trade "inherently evil" for "culturally evil" we get something closer to real world attitudes. This is the WoW mistake -- which eliminated "inherent" evil from orc but put in colonial narrative in its place. There is one leader who wants to civilize his people. When you trade evil souls for the ideology of colonialism you take a giant step backward. (and as much I like Solasta I think they fell into the trap set for them by WotC)
It's just the power of the visual. "The black skinned race is inherently evil" fits the twitter length attention span. The fact that nothing else about their construction supports contemporary stereotypes gets considered.
Originally Posted by Armoredhedgehog
Other than the charcoal colored skin the drow don't resemble any one human group. Because they are not races but seperate species. This whole discussion is somewhat based on confusing racism and speciesism.
Racism has layers of meaning. I'm using racism in the original, scientific racist sense as a belief that humans are divided into different species or sub species. Look up the etymology of 'race', you will find it was once synonymous with terms species and breed. What you call specieism is what I am calling racism.
