Eurocentricity and Race in Modern Fantasy

Art by Keeley Flynn

By Kora Quinn, Staff Writer

In the Spring semester of 2020, I took an English class in which we tracked the development of modern fantasy back to its roots in J.R.R. Tolkien and the epic Beowulf. Of all the things we discovered along the way, the biggest take away from that class was this: modern fantasy always falls back on the same model of a Euro-centric, medieval world, and that’s a problem.

There is no doubt as to who the “father of fantasy” is, as the term is generally applied to J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the famous Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Tolkien not only wrote some of the first epic fantasies, but he also wrote literary essays on the genre as a whole. It was Tolkien’s theory that fantasy should act as an escape, not from the real world, but to what he called the “natural world”. Tolkien based his world of Middle-Earth on a recreation of medieval England, a time long before cars and televisions were even thought of. 

In light of this, it makes sense the first fantasy stories would be set in a reimagined Europe. Tolkien lived in England for the majority of his life, and viewed technology critically. What he couldn’t have predicted, however, was the immense impact he would have on the future of the fantasy genre. 

Since Tolkien, old Europe has become the default setting for modern fantasy. This is evident in some of the most famous fantasy series. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, for example. Every new fantasy book is full of kings and queens, princes and princesses, knights and thieves, commoners and beggars. Accompanying outdated monarchies comes rigid class systems, sexism, corruption, and oppression in general, without a sign of modern technology as far as the eye can see. The only true fantasy element about them is magic and new—if not slightly problematic—races, and all the unique, carefully crafted systems authors built around them. 

This foundation became so familiar, readers began to expect it. When stories stray away from this model, they start to feel wrong and out of place. This even happens to me, despite my awareness of the problems with medieval fantasy. It feels nostalgic, as all of my favorite stories were about court scandals and corrupted monarchs, and I still feel uncomfortable if a fantasy world involves modern technology. 

So, what exactly is the problem with this eurocentric model? What is the issue with one of its only magical elements being new races? How can it be addressed?

First, the issues with basing worlds in 1300s Europe: it’s uncreative, elicits habits of whiteness, and forces men and women back into rigid gender roles. It’s uncreative because, now, it’s been done time and time again. When authors begin the process of world-building, the easiest thing to do is make it medieval and give the characters magic. This, usually unconsciously, allows for habits of whiteness. 

“Habits of whiteness” is a term used to describe the phenomenon of readers automatically assuming all the main characters are white unless the author specifically describes them as having black or brown skin. The reason for this is, simply, that the majority of medieval Europe was white. The founder of fantasy himself included close to no people of color in his books. Furthermore, in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, there is not a single female character. While many medieval fantasies revert back to placing women in the household and men in the workforce, Tolkien’s prequel didn’t include them at all. 

So how do authors fix this? The simple answer is get creative. If you need a historical period to base your world on, explore something new. Have your characters alive before dinosaurs went extinct. Who knows, maybe their magic caused it? Create a new planet with six seasons instead of four and make the main form of government a diarchy, with power equally shared between two people who can’t agree on anything. What if this world has historically been a matriarchy, in which women held all the power? Would there be social movements for equality? What if all the bodies of water in your story were acid, and all the trees had flames where the leaves should have been? How would your characters and society overall have to adapt to these conditions to survive? There are limitless possibilities when it comes to fantasy, and authors should explore them. 

The second problem with Tolkien-inspired fantasy is the habits authors fall into when it comes to race-creation. Tolkien filled his medieval world with Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs. While this is a brilliant idea and it’s only natural that humans wouldn’t be the only race or species in a made-up world (if they exist at all), it has to be handled delicately. The biggest downfall that plagued Tolkien’s races in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit is that specific personality traits and mannerisms were attributed to the race as a whole instead of to individuals or their ethnicity. For example, instead of claiming that the Dwarves valued money and loved mining because of their culture and how they were brought up, Tolkien gave that trait to the race. Hardly any Dwarf strayed from it. This is problematic in that it is the equivalent of saying all white people love fast food. It would be more fitting to say all Americans love fast food, attributing the quality to the culture of the United States rather than all white people. Even then, it’s still a generalization and many Americans don’t like fast food at all. 

Stereotyping and generalizing races is a significant issue in both the real world and in fantasy. It implies that certain personality traits are biologically tied to race as opposed to being social constructs. In an audio recorded interview with BBC’s reporter Denys Gueroult, Tolkien claims, “The Dwarves of course are quite obviously—wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic.” Here, Tolkien is comparing the fantastical race of the Dwarves, who are described as caring greatly about gold and gems, to real life Jews, who are stereotyped as loving money. In this case, Tolkien’s race-creation can clearly be interpreted as racist. In many modern fantasties based on Tolkien’s work, attributing cultural elements to race has the potential to have the same effect.

Beyond creating a clear distinction between ethnicity and race to avoid reinforcing stereotypes, it’s also important to have a reason for including new races in fantasy worlds. How biologically close to humans are the new races? Did all races begin as humans, and then adapt to the conditions of the world by evolving? Are there humans at all, and if so, why are they there? If this is a new world with new religions and new physical conditions, how is it possible for humans to exist? If they do, does this new world have some connection to Earth, or do we always assume that any world containing sentient life must be human? This can be viewed from another angle as well: why would you base your world on medieval Europe, yet include Elves? 

These are all questions the modern fantasy writer should ask themselves when world-building, because it’s not enough to simply rely on the default structure of 1300s England anymore. Fantasy is meant to challenge what we already know by thrusting readers into something completely unfamiliar while still maintaining real themes of power, love, trust, and much more. Those unfamiliarities allow readers to see their own society in a unique way, thus allowing them to pave their own path in destroying harmful stereotypes and hierarchies of power. That’s what’s exciting about the genre of fantasy. That’s what makes it an escape.

Gueroult, D. (1964). Author Archive Collections - JRR Tolkien - BBC Sounds.