AH!
I need more coffee.
(See - my default is noone agress with me so I inferred you were saying I was FOS. Hee.)
Handsome brooding vampire guy has to swoop in all sensitive mouth and overhanging forehead. How 'bout leaving some scraps for the homely-looking fellows who don't turn evil when they get some?
Doyle ,'Life of the Party'
The Buffista Book Club: the Harry Potter iteration
This thread is a focused discussion group. Please see the first post below for the current topic and upcoming book discussions. While natter will inevitably happen, we encourage you to treat this like a virtual book club and try to keep your posts in that spirit.
By consensus, this thread is reopened specifically to discuss Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It will be closed again once that discussion has run its course.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Aims - Oct 25, 2007 5:52:40 am PDT #3281 of 3301
Shit's all sorts of different now.
Jessica - Oct 25, 2007 6:12:52 am PDT #3282 of 3301
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?
Intentional or not, Lucas managed to create several fictional alien species in TPM who were basically just laundry lists of racist sterotypes. (Jar-Jar, the Not!Asians, the Not!Jew who owned Anakin & his mother, and so on.)
I'm not saying he has a responsibility to not be an ignorant dumbass, but it sure wouldn't hurt.
JKR's species have enough depth to give her plausible deniability, at the very least.
Vortex - Oct 25, 2007 6:28:40 am PDT #3283 of 3301
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman
Intentional or not, Lucas managed to create several fictional alien species in TPM who were basically just laundry lists of racist sterotypes. (Jar-Jar, the Not!Asians, the Not!Jew who owned Anakin & his mother, and so on.)
I'm not saying he has a responsibility to not be an ignorant dumbass, but it sure wouldn't hurt.
ITA. I used Lucas as an example becuase I thought that the plausibility line was veeerry blurry.
Aims - Oct 25, 2007 6:33:40 am PDT #3284 of 3301
Shit's all sorts of different now.
ITA, also.
Trudy Booth - Oct 25, 2007 6:36:15 am PDT #3285 of 3301
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart
well, it's kind of like the memfault!trade aliens in Phantom Menace. Lucas said that he did not intend for them to be seen as Asian, but pretty much everyone saw it.
Didn't they have almond eyes?
I mean, its not a big reach to say "those guys are Asian" when they have almond eyes.
To say that big nosed characters are Jewish is application of a stereotype, but to say that almond-eyed characters are Asian is more actually descriptive.
JKR's species have enough depth to give her plausible deniability, at the very least.
Not only that, she has a racial analogy with the mud blood thing and the Wizards attitudes towards Muggles.
victor infante - Oct 25, 2007 6:39:18 am PDT #3286 of 3301
To understand what happened at the diner, we shall use Mr. Papaya! This is upsetting because he's the friendliest of fruits.
I think there's a fundamental difference between using traits that stereotypically are assigned to one group, as JKR did with the Goblins and the Jews, but with very little textual evidence that it's meant to be an allegory, and what Lucas did with Jar Jar Binks, which almost directly referenced a series of bad racial stereotypes.
Certainly, you can look at JKR's Goblins and say "Wow. That's meant to be Jews," and make a pretty good case for it, but it doesn't seem to be intentional and you can probably make a case the other way, too. There's no way you can look at Jar Jar and see something other than a race relations timebomb waiting to happen. (Naturally, the kids loved him.)
Connie Neil - Oct 25, 2007 7:09:49 am PDT #3287 of 3301
brillig
the Not!Jew who owned Anakin & his mother
Huh. I always thought Greek for some reason. But then I never see the parallels that other people say are obvious.
Typo Boy - Oct 25, 2007 7:18:06 am PDT #3288 of 3301
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
I never thought it was intentional. (I don't even think the Lucas example was intentional.)
Gudanov - Oct 25, 2007 8:48:36 am PDT #3289 of 3301
Coding and Sleeping
Potterverse Goblins just made me think of generic fantasyverse Dwarves. Perhaps a side effect of having read a lot more fantasy than history.
beth b - Oct 25, 2007 7:01:47 pm PDT #3290 of 3301
oh joy! Oh Rapture ! I have a brain!
Potterverse Goblins just made me think of generic fantasyverse Dwarves.
That's it. Goblins in most fantasy books that I have read are barely sentient beings. I was thinking that they were really smart for goblins. But you are right, they are like Dwarves.