I will bring up something about escapism that I think has kind of gotten lost in this thread. For some people, having an entire species that is unfailingly and unchangeably evil that they can kill guiltlessly regardless of context isn't escapsim. It certainly isn't for me. For plenty of people, being able to play as that race and force the acknowledgement of their personhood from others who deny it is escapism. Or having a world where that personhood isn't even a question and they can just go off and do cool stuff is escapism for them.
Spare me. As of late, the entertainment industry as a whole has thoroughly convinced people that heroes that aren't really heroes and monsters/bad guys that aren't monstrous/bad is fun; once you take a step back, you realize that this assumption as the norm is exhausting rather than enjoyable. Where's the pull? What is the incentive to jump from a muddled reality to a muddled "fantasy" full of humans in funny suits in addition to regular humans? Why does the lion's share of media have to be constrained by a soul-sucking palette of grey and gray? What should have been an interesting occasional twist (i.e., "Monsters as analogies for real-world human minority groups.") - particularly as a method for teaching children about bias recognition - has overtaken fiction. The pushback against people that want simple literal monsters to vanquish is incredibly inane and I will continue to maintain that a narrow inability to separate reality from fiction (or vice versa) is at the heart of the matter.
