First, Do No Harm: World Building Tropes to Avoid
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There’s nothing better than good world building. I love the feeling of losing myself in a world that wouldn’t have existed if not for the author’s determination to bring it to life on the page. When you create a world, you get to let your imagination loose on the page and create something that hasn’t existed before.
But as much as world building is a chance for our creativity to run free, our choices often reflect the books and writers that we’ve grown up reading. Unfortunately, the history of science fiction & fantasy is full of tropes that are harmful to marginalized communities.
Before you dive into this post, it’s important to note that we all have work to do to make our work more inclusive. My goal here isn’t to point fingers or shame. It’s to ensure that we’re doing the best for our readers. After all, everyone deserves the opportunity to lose themselves in a beautiful fantasy world.
Read on for some of problematic tropes that can alienate readers:
#1 – Species/races that are innately evil (and almost always associated with blackness).
Orcs, drow elves, goblins, trolls—fantasy books are full of creatures that are mindlessly driven to kill. Though these creatures are humanoid and possess language, they aren’t really human. They can’t really think. And because they aren’t really people. it’s they can be killed indiscriminately—in fact, our goodly (white) hero is practically obligated to kill these creatures before they can wreak havoc on the innocent (white) villagers they would otherwise terrorize.
The problem?
These fantasy races/species can quickly become a stand-in for stereotypical depictions of ethnic and racial groups in the real world. Even worse, depictions of these species assume that there is no such thing as individuality. Rather than acknowledging that there are good or bad individuals in any society, these species identity becomes destiny. Because these species are almost always associated with some form of blackness that implicit connection between blackness and evil is cemented in our readers’ minds. All to often that implicit connection manifests in real world oppression.
But what if you have an individual from that inherently evil race rise above their origins like Drizzt in R.A. Salvatore’s books?
Nope. It’s still a problem. As much as my child self loved those books (okay, adult me still loves the storytelling) the characterization of Drow elves as black-skinned, spider worshipping, inherently, catastrophically evil beings is problematic. Full stop.
Drizzt’s fight to be accepted for his actions and not for the legacy of his people is compelling, but it doesn’t change the fact that Drizzt is depicted as a miraculous exception to an otherwise ironbound rule that being a Drow elf makes a person evil.
And don’t even get on the nonsensical idea that the elves who live underground are black while those who live above ground are fair-skinned—that’s not how melanin works! But that is how racism works. Whether they thought about it consciously or not, those original D&D writers were had an implicit bias. Black = evil because that’s just the way it is, right?
Nope, it doesn’t need to be this way. Anti-black bias runs deep, both in fantasy and the real world, but you can break the mold in your own work.As you start designing your story world, try steering clear of the mindless minion species that does nothing but sow chaos and die horribly at the pointy end of your hero’s sword—no matter what color they are (but for the of God, please do not make them black).
For an example, look at The Sundering duology by Jacqueline Carey. Physically, the Fjeltroll seem like the perfect candidates for mindless, murderous thugs. But that’s not what they get. Fjeltroll characters are named. They have culture. Readers get to know them and their motives. We’re sad when some of them die. They aren’t mindless, killable brutes. They’re portrayed as characters with their own individuality—just like any other species—and it’s made for a damn good book.
#2 – Using species/races that are rooted in antisemitic tropes.
I have to admit—this issue wasn’t on my radar (like I said at the beginning, we all have work to do to make our story worlds welcoming & inclusive) until I saw a post on Instagram by Molly Rookwood, an editor & Jewish sensitivity reader (she also has an amazing blog post on the subject that I highly recommend—find it in the resources section below).
I had a literal facepalm moment when I read her explanation—the connections between traditional European fantasy creatures and antisemitic stereotypes are so gobsmackingly clear once you know what to look for.
Some examples: the greedy, shifty, and ambiguously powerful goblins of Gringotts in Harry Potter. The hook-nosed witch who eats children in Hansel and Gretel. The list goes on.
Sometimes fantasy writers try to defend themselves by saying that they’re just using traditional fantasy creatures. But the unfortunate truth is that antisemitism is deeply rooted in Western cultures. As a result, many of the fairytale creatures we grew up with are rooted in hateful stereotypes. Shrugging your shoulders and saying that you’re just using a common mythological creature isn’t good enough. Once you know better, do better.
#3 – Magic systems with rigid unbreakable gender binaries.
LGBTQ+ people have always existed and there is no reason for them not to exist in a fantasy world. After all, if your fantasy characters look like humans, reproduce like humans, and experience puberty like humans, then it stands to reason they would also experience the full spectrum of human gender expression and sexuality. Diverse representation is a topic for another blog post, but when it comes to world building, it’s essential that you create a world/magic system that allows for gender diversity to exist.
If you’re using a gender-based magic system first consider if gender is truly an essential element in the first place. If you decide to proceed with a gender-based system, make sure you make room for trans & non-binary people. Take the Dreamer plotline from Supergirl Season 4. Dream powers are passed down among the women in the family. When Nia Nal, a trans woman, inherits those powers her womanhood is affirmed and the gender-based magic system becomes an inclusive one.
The same goes for science-fiction applications. For example, in the original comic book version of Y: The Last Man, trans people are briefly alluded to but otherwise ignored. The show version goes much further, featuring trans men as characters and emphasizing that anyone with a Y chromosome died whether trans, nonbinary, intersex, or cisgendered. Whether the show gets it totally right is still up for debate, but it’s important to at least create worlds that acknowledge the full range of sexual identifies and gender expressions that exist.
#4 – Technologically advanced worlds that have no religion or spirituality.
This one implies that religion and technology are automatically opposed to one another and that any rational, scientifically minded person automatically shuns anything religious or spiritual. In the real world, things are never that neatly divided. Many scientists are simultaneously religious. Highly educated people enjoy reading their horoscopes just for fun or because they are seeking certainty in a world that is still inherently chaotic, no matter how amazing our scientific advancements.
Given the state of our world, it’s becoming increasingly dangerous to suggest that religion and science are inherently opposed—they don’t need to be. Religiosity exists on a spectrum—there’s a large divide between atheism and zealotry with many stops along the way. Consider making room for people who embrace religion and science—they exist in our world now and there’s no reason they wouldn’t exist in your futuristic one.
Now, if you’re creating a world in which certain ideas are being repressed, that’s a different story. But suggesting that humanity will someday evolve past the beliefs, stories, and traditions that bring us comfort or joy is another thing entirely. At the very least, your society is likely to reflect the beliefs that once had importance, even if people’s allegiance to those beliefs change over time.
Resources to Explore
If you’re starting to second guess every world building decision you’ve made, take a moment and breathe.
Every single one of us has biases and blind spots when it comes to the world building process. Learning to uncover and work through yours is going to be the an ongoing process. To start that process, here are some resources I recommend:
Writing the Other - a website with resources & courses designed to help writers feature a variety of diverse identifies that they may be unfamiliar with. The book Writing the Other: A Practical Approach by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward is another great resource for writers committed to diverse representation.
The Tricky Trans Politics of FX’s Y: The Last Man by Emily St. James - this article discusses the world building of Y: The Last Man specifically, but addresses our fixation with gender-based power systems more broadly at the end of the article.
Antisemitism in Fantasy and Fairytales by Molly Rookwood - a detailed discussion of antisemitic tropes in world building—a must read for anyone considering using traditional fantasy creatures in their world building.
D&D Must Grapple with Racism in Fantasy by Cecilia D'Anastasio and Fantasy Has Always Been About Race by Vanessa Angelica Villarreal - two articles dealing with the concept of racism in fantasy world building.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s okay. There is a lot to learn. But this isn’t a process that’s going to happen overnight. Creating inclusive, welcoming worlds will be a lifelong journey. But it’s worth it to make sure that readers from all backgrounds can escape into your world.
Happy Writing!
FYI: This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. For more information click here and thanks, as always, for your support!
