I never thought it was intentional. (I don't even think the Lucas example was intentional.)

Potterverse Goblins just made me think of generic fantasyverse Dwarves. Perhaps a side effect of having read a lot more fantasy than history.

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.

I found it fascinating to read people's reactions to realising the protagonists of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys were black.

Ah, crap. Wish I could remember this; I may have just been expecting them to be black, because - Anansi. Seems like a fair assumption. But when other characters' skin tone is referenced, then you tend to assume the person doing the noticing doesn't belong to that group - so when it's mentioned that some bloke is white, then you assume the noticer isn't. Or whatever. Huh. Regardless, I definitely don't remember any moment of OMGWTFSkinTone!!!

GC, I just want to say that I'm sorry if I helped to make you feel piled-on. (In that non-porny way.) And ditto to Megan.

wrt the Pureblood/Mudblood/Halfblood thing - I'm a bit divided on whether I see this as racial. I mean, I kind of do, because - duh. But also it really pings me as a class thing. Which may be partly because the purebloods tend to have Latinate names.

wrt heteronormativity - I really don't think Rowling was trying to create a non-heteronormative world. If she was, she sure as shit failed abysmally. imho.

Ellen Kushner's Riverside - nonheteronormative. Cap'n Jack's Cardiff Torchwood - nonheteronormative. Tanya Huff's Quarters Books - nonheteronormative (and default spearcarrier-types are generally women). Otherwise, most every book, movie or show I can think of is heteronormative. Including QAF.

Yeah, it would have rocked my socks if she'd had Neville or Luna or Ginny or Ron or somebody turn out to be gay. Because, yes, she did a pretty good job of including most flavours of kids in there, without hitting you over the head with their ethnicity - would have been good, as romance and naughty thoughts start impinging on them all, if this had included some same-sex pairings. (Neville/Draco - ah, that would have been nice. Or Seamus/Dean - could've bought that. Or Oliver Wood/Percy. Aw! Oliver Wood could have helped give Percy a kick up the ass and get him to come and reunite with the family! That would have been lovely and apposite.)

On a vaguely related note, I just read Robin McKinley's DragonHaven, in which the grumpy Snape-like bloke turns out to be gay, and chills the fuck out a lot when he actually gets a boyfriend, and that made me beam.

Fay, thank you for mentioning Dragonhaven! I had no idea that McKinley had a new book out. Very exciting.

She also has a Livejournal these days!

She also has a Livejournal these days!

Really? *bustles off to look her up*

But when other characters' skin tone is referenced, then you tend to assume the person doing the noticing doesn't belong to that group - so when it's mentioned that some bloke is white, then you assume the noticer isn't.

It just dawned on me, but no. I notice when people are black just the same as I notice when people are white. Perhaps if I were coming from a luxurious position of dominance I wouldn't have to care and could just assume. But I notice, and I know other people notice, just the way every black guy on my floor at work introduced himself to me within my first week or so there.

I'd wager good money they didn't do that to white hires.

There's often a shared moment as you pass a strange black person in the street that is so commonplace it almost makes me laugh.

But when other characters' skin tone is referenced, then you tend to assume the person doing the noticing doesn't belong to that group - so when it's mentioned that some bloke is white, then you assume the noticer isn't.

It just dawned on me, but no. I notice when people are black just the same as I notice when people are white.

I didn't make myself clear - I wasn't aiming to make a general point, but rather a point about narrative. By 'doing the noticing' I actually meant 'making the textual reference'. I mean, maybe that was clear and you disagree, which is fair enough, but I should have made it more explicit that I was talking about word choice geared to draw a reader's attention to something within a narrative.

There's often a shared moment as you pass a strange black person in the street that is so commonplace it almost makes me laugh.

Because, yes - I don't register 'Thai person! Another Thai person! Thai person! Twelve more Thai people' as I walk down the street - I'm pretty much just registering people. Whereas I do actively notice white people (or, actually, any other visible minority people).

In writing, though, my impression is that narrators often don't bother to flag someone's skintone/nationality/religion if they belong to the same group as the narrator. This may just be the books I've read, though.

my impression is that narrators often don't bother to flag someone's skintone/nationality/religion if they belong to the same group as the narrator

I would say that in general it's fairly obvious that most of the people in most of the books I read are white because of a telltale physical description that makes it at the very least highly improbable they're anything else.

As for similar skintone, well, most black people aren't my skintone, so what would I be expected to do as a narrator? And I'm not singling myself out for special treatment--just that with the random mixing there's chocolate this and au lait that and high yellow and red bones and ... we got them all, man. And we will use them describing each other.