 Hey, friends! So I originally wasn't planning on making this video, or at least I wasn't planning on making it right now, because this isn't something that really bothers me that much. Originally today I was going to have a video on divided we fall out, but that video wound up being much more in-depth, and much more... Well, it's taking a lot more time than I wanted it to, so let's get in pushback a little, and then I was going to replace it with a video on straight sword, a practical use of the long way for self-defense. And I was able to film part of that, but the rest has to be filmed outside, and it is fucking cold right now. It's cold in here too, that's why I'm wearing my jacket. So that's not an option, so today I was like, okay, you know what, this is something that kind of annoys me about fantasy. It's not exactly an angry rant video, but it's something I wanted to talk about, because it does confuse me and it does irk me a little bit. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. And I am referring to in fantasy, and by this I specifically mean fantasy that takes place in entirely constructed worlds, not like urban fantasy and stuff with like a hidden magical underworld, like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson or anything like that, but in fantasy that's in entirely constructed worlds, why are there so few fantasy races? And I mean that in a couple of different ways, because since like the 90s we've had a, I would say trend, but it's been going on for so long that this is just a huge part of fantasy now, we've had a lot of fantasy series where the setting is just entirely humans. And this is in fantasy stuff that I like and stuff I dislike. I have a giant pile of books here to prove my point. I have Prince of Thorns, I have Warbreaker, I have Lightbringer, I have The Name of the Wind, I have the Gunpowder Mage trilogy, I have Red Queen, I have Lightlark, and granted Red Queen and Prince of Thorns are both technically our world after an apocalypse, so you could argue maybe those aren't entirely constructed, but those are all entirely human settings. And even when they're not entirely human settings, they are almost entirely human settings, like almost everybody's a human and then we have one or two other races, but they're in small numbers, they're generally in other areas so that the main cast doesn't interact with them as much, and in some cases most of the population just straight up thinks that other races don't exist, like they're just myths, like we have Game of Thrones right here, and that one we have like Children of the Forest and the White Walkers, but most people believe that they either are extinct or they never existed to begin with, like they are out there, but they play a pretty small role in the story, and then right here I have The Way of Kings from the Stormlight Archive, this one is really just about the humans and the Parshendi, and their relationship is interesting, it's fascinating, but it's just those two and the Parshendi really are... I guess I could say they're a put-upon minority, but that seems to be underselling it a bit, like they're just... they don't have their own country at all, and there's not that many of them and those that are there are slaves, at least at the beginning of the series, and of course there is Wheel of Time right here, which again is almost entirely human because the only non-humans we see for the most part are Shadow Spawn, like Trollex and Mergeroll, and those aren't really other fantasy races so much as they are just monsters who are said to have a bit more intelligence, so they actually have their own society with their own language and everything, but even if that was in-depth enough to warrant really calling them a race, they are... it's not. And even in like kitchen sink-style fantasy, like you see in Dungeons & Dragons and some other tabletop role-playing games, and occasionally you see it in books and stuff too, but it's rare, like we got the Orca-nomics books, which are great by the way, and even going all the way back to like The Granddaddy of Modern Fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien, like even then when you have a whole bunch of different races, all interacting, elves, dwarves, humans, orcs, whatever, humans are just the defaults, like they are by far more numerous than everybody else, they get to have like a whole bunch of different kingdoms and cultures while the dwarves get one, if they're lucky, the elves get one, maybe two, because they might throw in like dark elves versus regular elves, or wood elves versus high elves or something. I like the Dragon Age games, but they're guilty of this too. So I just wonder why this is the case, you know? Because I always felt that one of the draws of fantasy, one of the things I like about it at least, I can't speak for anyone else, is that you get to create these neat fantastical settings. And that's also something I like about science fiction, but science fiction for the most part isn't guilty of this. Like even when they throw in like 50 other alien races for people to interact with, and we're mostly following humans through it, humans usually aren't like the default setting of the universe, you know, like we're just seeing things from the human perspective. Like Star Trek, for instance, is like this, like humans are very numerous, they have their own space country and everything, but it's not like if you just randomly pop up at some other planet somewhere else in the universe, it's just going to be humans there. It might be aliens who look exactly like humans, because a 60s sci-fi show didn't have the budget to do anything else, but you know, it's different. You have all these other races out there who all have their own countries, their own cultures, their own conflicts, and I mean, humans aren't the defaults, you know, it doesn't feel like the entire setting revolves around them. And granted, I'm not the biggest Star Trek fan, so I'm sure I'm going to get a bunch of comments of people saying, um, actually, and then followed by eight paragraphs explaining why I'm wrong, but you know, that's just what I expect from this stage. But then you have something like Star Wars, which is really more science fantasy, where humans are the defaults. You know, you just pop around on any random planet, there's going to be tons of humans there. Like, they're the most numerous, they're all over the place, they're overall the most powerful, I'd say, and while there are tons of other races, they're for the most part kind of small and insignificant. So, yeah, even science fiction isn't immune from this, it's just less common there. Part of me wants to be generous and say that this is, like, authors trying to make the main characters relatable to the audience, you know, and they do that by making them human and maybe giving them some strange aspects to their culture or something, but overall, they are still exactly like us. But other parts of me want to be less charitable and just say it's laziness. You know, like, they don't really want to go to the trouble of creating a whole other race with its own history, its own psychological and physiological differences from humans, and its own culture, its own relationship with humans. Like, they don't want to go to that much trouble, so that's treated as more of an afterthought and that's why all the other fantasy races are just sort of pushed to the side, you know? Like, the stories focus on humans, and then, oh wait, we got to go to the elf country because the elves only have one country and humans have like 12, and then they go there and talk to them and they're like, whoa, the elves are mysterious and that's it, you know? Again, this goes all the way back to Tolkien. Even though the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit do focus on non-human characters, humans are still like the defaults of that setting and, like, it's just a failure of imagination, you know? Like, it doesn't bother me that much, you know? This isn't something that makes me mad because like, I showed off that whole pile of books, like, there's stuff I really like and really dislike in there. I'm just not sure why, you know? And like, it annoys me because there's so many different ways you could do this. And just to clarify, by so many different ways you can do this, I mean, so many different ways you can have a fantasy setting and still include humans, but have it be something other than they're the only ones there or they're the defaults, you know? Like, a while ago I did read Age of Myth and I have the sequel here, but it's been like four years and I haven't read it yet, so I'd probably need to reread the first one. But the basic idea of that story is that humans are essentially oppressed by elves, you know? Like, they have their own territory which is treated more like a reservation than anything and then they have this other race They're not elves, but they're basically elves, you know? They have crazy, powerful magic. They live for thousands of years, but they have very few children and then they look at humans and they're like, oh, yes, they are short-lived, but they have tons of kids and so there's gonna be a bunch of them and if we leave it alone, they'll attack us, you know? That's the basic idea of the story and that drew me in just because it's like, yeah, humans are the oppressed ones. Like, that's a different dynamic to the world. I like the Dragon Age games a lot. Like, the world they take place in is fascinating, even if it is a little too similar to JRR Tolkien for my liking. But in that one, it has the same basic problem where it's basically just, yeah, humans everywhere. Dwarves have one little area underground that they control and then elves don't have their own countries at all. Like, they mostly live in ghettos in human societies as an oppressed underclass. There's not very many of them and also there are a couple of nomadic Daelish elves wandering around and I just, I keep thinking to myself like, imagine how interesting that could be if they just switched the positions there, you know? It wouldn't even have to be like that. You wouldn't have to change that much. You know, you could keep the same basic cultures in place just switch which one is dominant and there's many different directions you could go with this both story-wise, character-wise, thematically. Like, there's a lot you could do with this, but, I mean, again, it's just, there's so much here. And granted, sometimes there are explanations for why humans are the default race. Like, I mentioned ergonomics and while I do love those books, they kind of suffer from this problem. In that one, it's just that humans are the genetic defaults of all of that world. Like, so if two humans have a baby, that baby will be human. But then if a human and an elf have a baby, it'll be human. If an elf and a gnome have a baby or if a gnome and a dwarf have a baby or a gnome and whoever else, like, they'll all just wind up being humans so that it makes sense whether so many of them. And also the main cast has several non-human characters like the protagonist is a dwarf named Gorm. Seriously, check out ergonomics. Like, I know I've been singing that book's praises for a year now, but for real, just check it out. It's a great book. But even when there's an explanation for why humans are the defaults or why they're the only ones in the setting, it just comes across as, I don't know, dull. You know, so I just, I don't know. There's other ways you could handle this. Like I said, you could just have humans be the minority, the oppressed underclass because I don't know, maybe elves live a lot longer, but they're just as fertilized humans. So like, again, there's a bunch of them and their elders are really old and wise. So they're just, they're the most powerful ones there. Like that could be an interesting idea. Or maybe for whatever reason in that world, it's not safe to live on the surface. So most people don't. They are forced to live underground and that's like where the dwarves reign supreme. Like they might have some like physiological or cultural advantages, which allows them to be way more powerful than anyone else living underground. Just as an example, you could have like 40 other races and the humans are just sort of one of them. You know, they aren't particularly special in any way. They're just, they're just one of them or you could have it so that most races are physically really small and weak and humans are like orcs basically, you know, we're the big tough guys on campus. And so that's why they were able to take over that that could be something like, you know, just something other than, yeah, there there's a lot of humans and they're really good at reproducing. Hell, you could have it so that humans are live off in like this far away land, which most other races don't ever go to because it's just difficult to traverse and people think humans are a myth but then they go there and they're like, oh, shit, they're here and they are really tough and really hard to kill and they love fighting each other. These guys are bad news. Like, you know, like there's so much you could do here. That's the thing about fantasy is that there's so much you can do with it and so many people just don't do anything with it. And I don't know, like I said, this video is not exactly an angry rant but it's just something that bothers me a little bit and I feel like just, I don't know, authors out there, critics, people, random people on the internet, like just demand a bit more from fantasy settings, you know? Like ask authors or if you are an author then try putting a little bit more imagination into it. Like throw in some other races, have humans be something other than the default, you know? Like you could just do so much with that and I'm aware that this could easily turn into a fantasy version of humanity. Fuck yeah, which I don't like humanity. Fuck yeah, I've explained that before. But you know, at least that would be something a little different. That's anyways, that's about all. Next week, I'll have something a little bigger for you. Again, apologies for the delay, but I hope you all have a lovely day. Goodbye. Hello, thanks to everyone who watched, especially if you watched all the way to this point. These names here, these are my patrons. If you go over to Patreon, then you can, you know, get your name put on here. 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