One could argue that this is intended to work like 'A Wizard of Earthsea', which uses brown=normal and white=savage to make a point about the overwhelming 'whiteness' of fantasy while also providing a good fantasy novel with a hero of colour.
The difference is in the viewpoint character, of course. Aerin is definitely white-skinned.
Well, the last sentence is basically my problem with the book and why I think it falls into the category of "white savior." It's great that the background people are POC, but it means that once again, we don't have a POC protagonist and a white main character that saves the day.
That's also my problem with Blue Sword. I think McKinley (and most people) are anti-imperialist, but the problem still remains that many narratives about anti-imperialism or whatnot still have white protagonists.
I think you could make the argument that many fantasy books are about colonialism and imperialism and countries conquering others. But the problem with those is that they take race out of the picture, while in our world, race was a very huge part in colonialism. So it really bugs me when most stories either don't address race at all by having the entire world be white or when they do address race, but only through the means of having a white main character.
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Re: Please clarify
Wed, Jul. 11th, 2007 05:00 pm (UTC)The difference is in the viewpoint character, of course. Aerin is definitely white-skinned.
Well, the last sentence is basically my problem with the book and why I think it falls into the category of "white savior." It's great that the background people are POC, but it means that once again, we don't have a POC protagonist and a white main character that saves the day.
That's also my problem with Blue Sword. I think McKinley (and most people) are anti-imperialist, but the problem still remains that many narratives about anti-imperialism or whatnot still have white protagonists.
I think you could make the argument that many fantasy books are about colonialism and imperialism and countries conquering others. But the problem with those is that they take race out of the picture, while in our world, race was a very huge part in colonialism. So it really bugs me when most stories either don't address race at all by having the entire world be white or when they do address race, but only through the means of having a white main character.