Diversity in Fantasy

This is a heavily rewritten version of a post I wrote for my old blog almost exactly ten years ago. At the time, I felt points needed to be made about diversity in fantasy, but I suppose I tacitly assumed that things would continue getting gradually better, as they had up until that point.

What a difference ten years can make. With diversity and inclusion now under a more concerted attack than at any time for decades, I think it’s vital that we, as creators as worlds that can be as we choose them to be, don’t make the mistakes of the world around us

Yes, prejudice can certainly be a powerful force in our worlds — and perhaps they wouldn’t work if it weren’t. But we get to choose how it’s presented.

Why Is Diversity Important in Fantasy?

Now, discussions advocating diversity in fantasy (and fiction in general) generally talk about the moral and social importance of showing positive diversity. In particular, it’s important to present positive role-models for members of under-represented races, genders and orientations.

All that’s vital, but there are two other reasons why it’s important. Lack of diversity is unrealistic. Lack of diversity is boring.

We read and watch fantasy, after all, for the differences. We love strange worlds, strange peoples, strange creatures, strange customs. And we want the characters to be varied — heroes and villains, fighters and scholars, royalty and simple folk.

Why would we want them all to be the same race, gender and other forms of identity?

So does that mean every story has to have a “diversity quota”? Not at all, and especially not short stories. If you were write a story set in the World War One trenches, for instance, your cast would have to be predominantly male and probably mostly white — though any opportunities for more diversity would be welcome.

There are even situations in secondary worlds where this makes sense. I’ve written stories with all-male casts, but then again I’ve also written stories with all-female casts. When you’re only dealing with two or three people, it has to meet a specific need.

Diversity is best measured over an author’s opus, or even over a widespread trend. It doesn’t mean I’ve failed, after all, if I write one story focusing on white males. The next story might have black females coming to the fore.

Race in Fantasy

Traditionally, fantasy and SF worlds have tended to be populated by a wide variety of exotic races — yet they tend to be depressingly uniform. Elves are all snooty tree-huggers, for instance, dwarves are all gruff axe-wielders, Klingons are all obsessed with their honour… and so on.

In SF, if a human protagonist visits a planet, they’re likely to find an alien race who are all alike and all follow a single culture and religion, wherever they are on the planet.¹ And, where a fantasy world is populated by humans, those humans will very often be exclusively European-type in both race and culture.

OK, to be fair, film and TV adaptations are increasingly dealing with this — but usually in a very illogical, haphazard way. Not that I’m criticising “colour-blind” casting, but it doesn’t give a very realistic picture of a genuinely diverse world. That requires races, cultures and religions that have grown up naturally in situ.

Why would the entire population of a world be either alike or just randomly different? There are good reasons why people are different in different parts of our world. We all started off black, in Africa a hundred thousand years ago, and we’ve adapted to the climate and conditions our ancestors settled in. The same would be true of any world populated by humans — and probably by any humanoid species.

That doesn’t mean, though, that they have to slavishly follow what happens in our world. Of course, to a large extent races with lighter skins will tend to live in cooler climates and those with darker skins in the hotter regions, but this doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily have the same cultures as their real-world equivalents.

In my main world, for instance, the predominantly black continent not only had ancient, high-achieving civilisations (as Africa did) but, in the “modern” era, these civilisations were never destroyed or held back by colonialism and slavery. Now, some might say that, in portraying black races who don’t have the legacy of the slave trade and colonial exploitation, I’m belittling that heritage.

My view, however, is the exact opposite. It seems to me that, if I were to portray another, unrelated world whose black races have suffered slavery en masse, I’d be coming perilously close to suggesting that was some kind of natural destiny for black people. Obviously it’s not. In our world, it was something done to Africa as a result of a specific lining up of global factors, and there’s no reason to assume this would happen in a different world.

Gender in Fantasy

Both SF and fantasy were at one time predominantly about men. Not exclusively. William Morris, writing fantasy in the 1890s, tended to create stronger and more vivid female characters. This included The Water of the Wondrous Isles, which focused almost entirely on the heroine, with the “hero” reduced almost entirely to love interest.

Morris was an exception, though, and aside from a few female main characters, such as C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry, for the first two-thirds of the 20th century fantasy was largely the domain of men. Things began to improve a little with the emergence of more female authors in the 60s and 70s, such as Ursula Le Guin, Andre Norton, Tanith Lee and Louise Cooper, but it was a slow process.²

On the face of it, you might think this battle has been won, but here, as in other areas of diversity, we’ve been going backwards for a few years now. That could be seen clearly by the outcry when Doctor Who introduced a female Doctor. Many reasons for this were given by the objectors, but on the whole much of it boiled down to good old misogyny.

Even when female characters do play a significant role in modern fantasy, though, there’s often a tendency to portray them in subservient roles in their society. You might say that this is how the world always has been, and it would be unrealistic to portray things any other way.

To some extent, that’s true, and it would be a reasonable argument if you’re writing about a real historical setting. Although, like so many other things that “everyone knows about history”, the real picture is a lot more complex. But, as with race, a secondary world doesn’t necessarily have to follow the same cultural assumptions as our world. As long as there’s a good internal logic, you can have whatever kind of society you want, including sexual equality. Invoking history is just an excuse.

Other Diversity in Fantasy

Race and gender are both crucial diversity issues, but by no means the only ones. Sexual orientation is a huge factor and, like race and gender, fantasy has made huge strides with this in recent years — but that’s under attack now in society in general.

In my experience, an LGBTQIA+ character is more often than not met with the question “What’s the justification for their orientation?” And, of course, it might seem reasonable to ask that about any facet of any character — but the problem is that it’s a question only reserved for those that are seen as “different”. I don’t recall anyone ever asking “What’s the justification for making this character a straight white male?”

The implication is that you should only have a gay character if you’re dealing explicitly with “gay issues”, just as it’s also implied you should only have a black character if you’re dealing with “racial issues”. Certainly, you may want to use the character for that purpose, but to insist that they’re irrelevant otherwise is to create a ghetto with very high walls.

This is even more the case for other kinds of inclusion. When did you last come across a disabled or neurodiverse character in fantasy? I’m not saying they don’t exist, and there’s certainly more probability of them featuring than a few decades ago — but I’d personally struggle to think of many.

Diversity in the Traveller’s World

The Traveller’s World, in which a large proportion of my stories are set, started out in the 1970s, and back then I was writing about a small group of countries inhabited by European-type populations. While I did include a number of female major characters, and even one or two gay ones, the majority were straight white males.

This has changed as both my perspectives and the world have grown, and the world now comprises seven continents. These have white, black, yellow, red and tan races (plus an isolated race with a green tinge) in a roughly similar distribution as in our world (except for the green race, that is).

I also have a lot more female characters. This is partly a conscious choice, but I’ve also come to realise that, on balance, I actually enjoy writing women more than men. Of my six recurring-character series in the Traveller’s World, three have female protagonists, one a male protagonist, and two a male and female who alternate point of view.

The racial spread isn’t quite as even — of the eight characters, only one is black, two would be middle-eastern in our world, one would be half Chinese, half Native American, while three are white. In terms of sexuality, four are straight, two bisexual, one gay and one asexual. And my latest addition, known as the Maimed Warrior, is disabled.

I have made mistakes in terms of inclusion, though. The one I’m most annoyed with myself about, in hindsight, is in At An Uncertain Hour, which centres around a thousand-year war where each side is led by an immortal. And, although the continent on which the war takes place has a predominantly black population, the two immortals are white.

This isn’t for any obviously “colonial” purposes. The idea for the novel goes back decades, when the issue simply didn’t occur to me. While I don’t believe I’ve been at all belittling to any of the many black characters in the novel, I certainly wouldn’t write it that way now.

I don’t think the issue’s egregious enough to warrant withdrawing a book I’m otherwise proud of, but I do apologise for it. I’ll do better in the future.

The Future of Diversity in Fantasy

As I said at the beginning, ten years ago I assumed diversity, both in fantasy and in the world generally, would be continuing on an upward trajectory, but that’s no longer guaranteed. There’ll no doubt be people who regard this blog as “woke” and “virtue signalling”.³ To those, I’d simply ask: “Are you actually a bigot, or taken in by bigoted rhetoric?”

I suspect there’s going to be a sharp divergence, with one group of fantasy authors and readers (of whom there are still many) asking for and writing more and subtler diversity, while another group slips back into the old prejudices. So there’ll be a choice between boring, monochromatic worlds and stories, and those trying to further explore the whole, amazing range of possibilities in humanity — and beyond.

I know which I’ll be reading and writing.

¹ Assuming there is anywhere else on the planet. “A planet”, especially in film or television SF, often seems to consist of nothing but one city, or a small group of villages. In the same way, a fantasy “world” is often only a handful of kingdoms surrounded by terra incognita.

² Even Le Guin and Norton initially tended to default to male main characters, although they certainly had more gender diversity than most of their male colleagues.

³ As idiotic terms as most of those that allow bigots to believe they have the moral high ground. “Woke” means being awake to what’s important, while as for “virtue signalling” — anyone who doesn’t set a personal example of their moral position is a hypocrite.