So, I woke up thinking about what would happen to some classic fantasy series if they were recast with more racial diversity.

Yes, welcome to my brain.

Actually I started out with a dream about a movie version of the Belgariad with the Worst Casting Ever, so I was thinking who could be cast as Silk without losing that whole rat face quality or having to resort to fake noses (they had a fake nose that peeled and fell off in the dream. you are glad you didn't have this dream, trust me.) Then I wandered into thinking about the gender problems in the series, the whole Wives Are Not Rewards thing, the bit where women exist to be fallen in love with and act as inspirations for the men. Except for The Most Beautiful Woman In The World, who is allowed to go around telling off other women sometimes. It's a bit of a problem. So I decided if we just gender swapped some of the other characters we'd be sorted. I'd start with Silk, only secretly. I mean, notably short and devoted to disguise? That could totally work.

So then I was thinking up ways to file the serial numbers and write my own version - it's a genre, it wouldn't take much filing - and thinking up alternative code names for Silk and the first one that sprang to mind was Milk, because his father traveled widely and brought back a northern bride and now he can pass in much wider geography due to unusually pale skin.

And then I started thinking about race issues and recasting in classic fantasy.

So, you know, maybe three minutes after I woke up. Something like.

ANYways

Your classic fantasy, as I was thinking on it, has your basic adventure party made up of archetypes who wander around the landscape meeting kings and collecting Plot Coupons until they have enough whammy for the Big Finale, which usually involves a mountain blowing up or something. You know.

Archetypes like: The Wizard, the Thief, the Warrior - often subdivided into Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger - and the Novice and the Princes, who seem to end up together an awful lot. They're characters drawn in with really broad strokes, big mythology characters.

Is there any way to make them be characters of color that doesn't end up with Skanky Race Issues?

I mean, archetype+race=stereotype... yesno?


Take the Belgariad: We have the Old Wise Man and his daughter the Mother Archetype Woman. Then her boyfriend the Commoner of Simple Wisdom - I was going to say Farmer Close to the Earth, but technically he's a blacksmith, so not precisely; plus he's interesting in that for once it's a man that gets to be the Inspiring Sacrifice. Usually it's a woman who is all passive and inspiring. Like at the end of Heroes season 1 *grinds teeth*.
Anyway
there's also the Novice, who in this case is a trainee king and sorcerer and all that stuff. By the logic of the 'verse both the blacksmith and the novice are mixed race - Sendars are made up of everyone else mixed together. Having a mixed race novice-king seems to me to be an actual good thing. Unfortunately having a character of color be the voice of Simple Wisdom starts getting weird. Yes?

And then there's the Old Wise Man. He wanders around being all educational and helping the novice grow up. and the Mother Archetype Woman has to match, because she's his daughter. I think if they're both black they're both stereotypes with names, yes?
I was thinking because of their alternative forms, turning into wolves and owls, they could be from somewhere with a spirit animal tradition. But it still feels a bit odd. Does it make it any different when they're advising/mothering a character who is for once not white?

So then they meet the Rat and the Bear, the Thief and the Barbarian. If either of them are black they're named stereotypes again. Black does not equal criminal, except on TV. And to make the big warrior dude black with have Teal'c, amongst many others - the Scary Black Man. I don't know what happens if you make them any variety of Asian though. I mean, given that thief isn't a generally approved type anywhere, making him anything other than white is going to be a Thing, right? But a giant warrior man has a pretty good rep... except for the drinking and going berserk parts. When he's a Viking type he's not immediately offensive, yesno? Or are there still vikings around to get offended? I know little. But anyway... seems like there's an easy match in the Really Good Boats category if you go look for island people. But is easy match the problem here?

... I have noticed this is all suffering from Random Capitalisation Syndrome. Sorry. I'll try and keep it under control...

Who else: We have the Ranger / Robin Hood. Put like that I can't see anything wrong with making him a character of any color. Or indeed making him a her. That'd be fun. But then we have Lelldorin ... er, or spelt something like that ... anyway, a guy who never thinks before he acts and is representing one half of a civil war that has been going on since forever. The other half is represented by the Paladin, the Knight in Shining Armour. I was at first thinking these two would be a good place to cast black actors, because they're such very British archetypes there isn't really a negative stereotype on them. But then, civil war. And being Bloody Stupid in the whole can never quit that civil war thing. Which isn't going to look good on anyone.

So I keep bumping into the thing where you can make white characters into a variety of archetypes, put all sorts of good/bad traits on them with it just looking like a whole bunch of characters. But once you add race to the mix it goes all kinds of wonky and looks like stereotypes.

Unless you just cast everyone as black or everyone as asian or otherwise keep them all matching. Then there's such a variety the nasty goes away. Yes? No? Maybe?

This stuff is all complicated.

I'm going to go have breakfast.