how do black and mixed race readers ov tctc think

[jackgiantkiller]

if ur none white, do u in ur mind c characters as white or dark r. all the bad guys black?

[lucimay]

if ur none white, do u in ur mind c characters as white or dark r. all the bad guys black?

? what are you trying to ask jack?

you're not serious are you? are all the bad guys black? really?
are you saying that if a person is white they might see all bad guys
as black or if a person is black they might see all bad guys as white?
really? is that really what you're getting at? it that a serious question?

[Fist and Faith]

I'm very non-visual in my reading. I've said before that I don't usually look at the maps printed in the front of books. That stuff doesn't matter much to me - regardless of whether or not it matters to the author - and I'm so bad with it that the map doesn't usually help anyway. (In rl, I'm pretty good with maps. Just not in fiction.) Hile Troy's vaunted ability to understand it all better than others without even seeing any of it is quite beyond me.

And races in books don't come through to me, either. It wasn't until my second readings of the first four Malazan books that I noticed Quick and Kalam are black. Same with most of the Earthsea folks. Go figure. Fact is, I couldn't tell you the skin tones of any of the races in TCTC. I'm white, and I just assume every character is until I hear people talking about the fact that the author says they're not.

But Vain and the ur-viles are black, right? heh

Not sure how much of a racist this makes me. I really don't care what color the characters are. I care so little that, it seems, I just skim over descriptions as soon as I recognize them as such.

[Vader]

As I stated before Hile Troy always was black for me until I reread the series last year and found out it doesn't say what he is. Strange though, since I live in a country which doesn't really have a black population at all ...

[Zenlunatic]

if ur none white, do u in ur mind c characters as white or dark r. all the bad guys black?

Does it matter? We all see the world, even imaginary ones, each through our own lens. I'm white, so yes I see characters described to me in fiction as white, until I'm told otherwise (Kalam and Quick Ben are good examples), that does not make me a racist any more than a black person seeing the characters as black makes them one. I'm the reader, it's "my" story so I can pronounce the names any way I want and I can imagine what everyone looks like anyway I want also. Who cares...

[Vader]

I'm drunk - I see all charcaters as being drunk.
I can't type. I see all characters as jackgiantkiller

[Vraith]

As I stated before Hile Troy always was black for me until I reread the series last year and found out it doesn't say what he is. Strange though, since I live in a country which doesn't really have a black population at all ...

hmmm....you are in Germany, yes Vader? cuz if I'm wrong, the following makes no sense...

I guess my Army bud that married a black German and moved back state-side stole the last one....

Seriously though, I pictured Hile Troy [and lots of others, for various reasons] as non-caucasian, though I am caucasian...mostly, I think, on a mixed basis of cultural and geographical parallels as if they were on earth...which isn't really justified, I suppose. {the giants are somewhat viking-ish, for example}.

I do find the original question a bit odd...especially since both bad and good guys, when flesh-tones are provided, are black, and not black, and things between...

[Vader]

I do find the original question a bit odd...

I don't want to be rude but I do find the original poster a bit odd.

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

I'm very non-visual in my reading. I've said before that I don't usually look at the maps printed in the front of books. That stuff doesn't matter much to me - regardless of whether or not it matters to the author - and I'm so bad with it that the map doesn't usually help anyway. (In rl, I'm pretty good with maps. Just not in fiction.) Hile Troy's vaunted ability to understand it all better than others without even seeing any of it is quite beyond me.

And races in books don't come through to me, either. It wasn't until my second readings of the first four Malazan books that I noticed Quick and Kalam are black. Same with most of the Earthsea folks. Go figure. Fact is, I couldn't tell you the skin tones of any of the races in TCTC. I'm white, and I just assume every character is until I hear people talking about the fact that the author says they're not.

But Vain and the ur-viles are black, right? heh

Not sure how much of a racist this makes me. I really don't care what color the characters are. I care so little that, it seems, I just skim over descriptions as soon as I recognize them as such.

Same hur.

[Black Asgard]

I am 1/4th Cherokee, 1/4th Scottish, 1/4th English and 1/4th German. More or less.

I visualize the Bloodguard as looking Native American, and, perhaps for that reason or another, I am very, very fond of them.

Otherwise, I pictured Hile Troy as black (though I never even thought twice about it, until I read the thread here) and Mhoram as looking conspicuously like Ewan McGregor.

[Vader]

I am 1/4th Cherokee, 1/4th Scottish, 1/4th English and 1/4th German. More or less.

I visualize the Bloodguard as looking Native American, and, perhaps for that reason or another, I am very, very fond of them.

Otherwise, I pictured Hile Troy as black (though I never even thought twice about it, until I read the thread here) and Mhoram as looking conspicuously like Ewan McGregor.

Seconded. The Bloodguard were Native Americans until I came here and read about them being Shaolin. :p

[jackgiantkiller]

whats so wrong? nonwhite wont be offended by this question.

[SGuilfoyle1966]

I am 1/4th Cherokee, 1/4th Scottish, 1/4th English and 1/4th German. More or less.

You are a mutt. so much easier to say it that way, right?

I visualize the Bloodguard as looking Native American, and, perhaps for that reason or another, I am very, very fond of them.

I was more into them as a Oriental, martial. Or if Indian, than something akin to Eskimo, given the cold climes from whence they come.

Otherwise, I pictured Hile Troy as black (though I never even thought twice about it, until I read the thread here) and Mhoram as looking conspicuously like Ewan McGregor.

I never thought of Hile Troy as black. I find it odd that some do. But now that some do, I find it odd that I've maybe missed something they didn't.

I question those who skip over descriptions, however.That's where Mr. SRD is at his most prolific. Our adjectives and adverbs are simply a feather off a sparrow. His are whole condors, from beak to tailfeathers.

[Vraith]

I am 1/4th Cherokee, 1/4th Scottish, 1/4th English and 1/4th German. More or less.

I visualize the Bloodguard as looking Native American, and, perhaps for that reason or another, I am very, very fond of them.

Otherwise, I pictured Hile Troy as black (though I never even thought twice about it, until I read the thread here) and Mhoram as looking conspicuously like Ewan McGregor.

Seconded. The Bloodguard were Native Americans until I came here and read about them being Shaolin. :p

Heh...if we're gonna be particular about ourselves, Black Asgard, %-wise, I'm less caucasian than you [by a tiny bit]...but I look wholly so, and was raised culturally so.
I always thought the Bloodguard were big Asians...which, [something I didn't know then, but do now] if you look at genes and migrations pretty much IS Native American [some tribes more so than others, of course: Most Native American's don't look much like the stereo-image of them, just like any other race]

I never thought of Ewan as Mhoram...not bad...just not ascetic enough in frame for my picture...the gaze intensity though...yea..not bad.

[peter]

I don't believe Jackgiantkiller was meaning to be racist or offensive in his question - I certainly hope not, and so I will answer it from this perspective. Most of us will naturally visualise charachters in novels as of our own etnic type (I believe) unless specifically directed by description not to do so. Villians also would be visualised as such, unless the visualiser had such a 'hard-wired' deep stereotypic picture of all criminals of his own society being of a different skin colour, that he was unable to form a mental image where this was not the case (also unless specifically directed to do so via description of the particular villain). NB. I think there probably are such benighted communities where this would indeed be the case - so deep does prejudice run in some societies.

In my own case specifically relating to TCTC, only Vain was ever seen as black. I never grassped that the ur-viles were black untill Vain came into the picture and by then it was too late to change my mental image of them.

[Shelt]

I'm Black so I'll answer the original question.

No I don't think of the good guys as white, and the bad guys as Black. I think of all the characters as the author describes them. If the author takes the trouble to be descriptive with the skin tone of give characters then that's what will be in my mind. Most of the time if the author doesn't mention skintone in the description, I automatically assume the character is white.

[Black Asgard]

One problem I note in my own conception of the Bloodguard as being Native American is that the first Chronicles mentions several times how they are akin in height to Stonedownors, yet broad. Native Americans tend to be taller, and less flat of the face than Asian natives.

However, I think spending time on the poorer reservations in New York when I was a teen lent to my mental image of the Bloodguard, because I always found it eerie how some of the older men would stand so still when they weren't engaged in an activity. Even when they were speaking, they were still.

Also, the Bloodguard are broad, like N.A.'s tend to be--my family certainly is broad. So broad the men on my mother's side (and my brothers and I) are so broad in the shoulders that we have to have nicer clothes custom tailored. Which means we infrequently wear nicer clothes.

Yes, I am a mutt.

[Vraith]

However, I think spending time on the poorer reservations in New York when I was a teen

By Silver Creek, or Salamanca? If so, I might know some people who know people you know [heh..which would be the closest relationship I have to anybody on KW, as far as I know]

[Wheelwash Whitecap]

I don't understand why some came away that Hile was black... I did not get that at all.

On another thought from this thread,

Racism permeates thru the very fabric of human existence....How have we ever survived as a species?

[lorin]

Racism permeates thru the very fabric of human existence....How have we ever survived as a species?

I would say divine intervention if I believed in the divine, so I will answer that question by asking my own. Have we really survived or have we begun that slippery slide? How can we say we survived as a species if half our species are dying of starvation, illiterate, diseased, and desperate?