>In their rush to have contemporary diversity in their setting they fail to consider why such diversity exists. Not because it cannot, but because interesting world building and stories come with answering why it's there.

This, this is it exactly.

I think it depends on what the story is going for.

Colorblind casting in a story like Princess Bride or Stardust, where the entire thing is a completely fantastical escapade that isn't supposed to have any realistic worldbuilding, absolutely. Or even something like Bridgerton, where the period setting is really just elaborate set dressing for a story that isn't supposed to be even remotely grounded in real historical context.

In a context where the worldbuilding of how and where different populations came to be is important to the story, instead of colorblind casting it would be nice to see some acknowledgement that different ethnic backgrounds have some meaning for the people who come from them. For example, the Six of Crows duology has a diverse cast whose backgrounds matter and their existence in the main setting of Ketterdam makes sense with it being a merchant hub. This is a good way of bringing in diversity that doesn't feel thoughtless and tokenistic.

I think it's better to acknowledge that where people come from and how they look actually does matter in the course of their life and can't just be brushed over and ignored in a serious fantasy story that cares about other aspects of worldbuilding.

Just read another good book to over-write these (very real yet vicarious emotions).

The Painted Bird (Jerzy Kosiński)

Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy)

Man’s Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl)

lol, the shade!

I respect you but I’m sorry, Mr. poppers penguins totally slaps

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Exactly.

I had a friend whose kids’ typing teacher only graded on improvement. So she had her kids bomb the test at the beginning of the term, then each week count the words, draw a line where it was one more word than the week before, then stop typing when they got there. All her kids passed with flying colors. That’s exactly how I would have handled the reading. My kid would be reading at a kindergarten level at the beginning…

It doesn't even need to be an immigrant country. Although mass immigration is obviously a cause. A lot of countries have different ethnic groups because of past migration and conquest.

Even in countries that people assume are homogenous, different areas have a different language used historically (if not currently) and cultural or ethnic\racial differences.

In their rush to have contemporary diversity in their setting they fail to consider why such diversity exists. Not because it cannot, but because interesting world building and stories come with answering why it's there.

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I respect your opinion and while I don’t agree to their frequency that could be any number of things. And regardless responses like yours aren’t what this post is about. It’s about the people who are not able to do that and exert their distaste on the sub/poster. As I said to the other person I was responding to, the issue I have is not that people have a certain type of post they dislike seeing, but the toxic responses that often occur around those topics

The paparazzi hound them when they're just trying to live their lives. Having you seen the way the paps treated Britney Spears? It should be illegal. Watch the way they surrounded her car:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29IUP5RQIAY

Don't really get the hate. Haven't read it myself, but it seems like an absolute rollercoaster of a book. Did anyone really expect the tell-all memoir of an ex-royal to break new ground in literature?

If you're reading for anything other than gossip, cringe etc., the fault lies with you, not the book.

I agree there’s stale subjects on any subreddit, I just disagree that book suggestions are one. And regardless that’s not the point, the point is that there’s often people within a sub who are quite toxic about this topic. There’s a civil way to handle the things you dislike whether it be to ignore it or voice your opinion respectfully as I feel we’ve managed to do, but there’s undeniably people incapable of that. Especially on the internet

Notes are the way. Write a chapter summary after each chapter in your own words and a book summary at the end. You'll find you remember the parts you note down much better.

I think the South Park episode about them wanting "privacy" pretty much nails it. Most of us here are normal people who appreciate our privacy. We're not going out of our way to achieve that privacy because it's actually pretty normal and natural to do. The once-famous actors and other celebrities that I don't hear about anymore and one day I wonder "oh yeah, I wonder what happened to them?" They actually achieved privacy because it actually takes a bit of work to be ever-present in the public sphere. Harry can actually be that "oh yeah, whatever happened to him" person if he wants to be. No, it wasn't fair or easy what happened to him as a child, but given what we know goes on in the world, he's had a decent life.

Snorri Sterlusun is prose and poetic eddas are the biggest giants. I loved Egil’s saga the most that I’ve read.

What a fantasy world like Tolkien, who set out to create a mythology for Britain? Where it is set in pre-history before the world became inter-mingled? He explicitly stated many times that Middle-Earth would become England as the ages went on. He has other human races like the Easterlings who are clearly meant to represent a different ethnicity. His characters are definitely not meant to be ethnically diverse.

Ugh, I'm more likely to complain of crude trolling, bland lecturing and clumsy virtue-signalling than I am of forced diversity

Because royalty is romantic, like something out of a fairy tale.

I read Spare, and assuming it wasn't a lie from beginning to end, I did gain sympathy for Harry that I didn't have before. He lost his mother when he was 12, he grew up in the public eye, his family is dysfunctional, he was having trouble coping but nobody suggested that he get therapy until he was 30.

When he talks about wanting privacy, he means from the paparazzi and I think that's fair enough.

What if the story is set in a world of dragons and magic, but also the ethnicity of a character has contextual implications?

>big words they didn't understand and decided the book was deep and cool.

That about sum up tiktok as a whole.

The stories with all this diversity almost always include a human or humanesque race as well, why can't that human race also be diverse like it is in real life?

Edit: like I get that there are elves and dwarves and Hobbits and all that, but these are all very humanesque species. It stands to reason that there are others of their species developed in other parts of the world, and as such would probably react similarly to humans as evolving and would evolve differently. These stories often involve a long journey, so I'd expect them to encounter different races of their own species

Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't help but feel like this is a direct reference to all the virtue signaling over the casting of the Rings of Power show and the incredibly lazy dismissal of anyone who points out how ham-fistedly it was implemented as a racist neckbeard. I've been on Reddit long enough to know a shit-stirrer when I see one...