Silentpony said:
Well sure, there are monsters and spoopy things on the occasion. But if there's a villain or traitor or human bad guy, its either the black guy or the Jew. Always
I dunno. I don't want to get into how accurate this statement is, but I can certainly respect that the racist elements have put you off Lovecraft's writings, as they understandably can. Fair cop.
It reminds me of one of Robert E Howard's stories about the little people, I think it was called
The Children of the Night (1931). To be honest, a lot of Lovecraft and Howard's stuff has racism evident in the stories. When I read them in my youth, I never really attributed the racist overtones to the writer, and instead thought it was just a trait of the characters. But when I reread this story later (I think it was in my teens), it kinda opened my eyes to it being more likely the writer's biases. Still bloody great writers, though.
As an additional aside, I think that that Conan MMO that came out several years ago could have done with a little fantasy racism, mainly because the kingdoms
were more racist in the stories, and it fueled the aggression of war in a lot of the stories (EDIT: I'm implying that the political intrigue as well as the open hostilities between races and kingdoms in the stories would likely make an excellent fuel for any story for gameplay, just to be clear). I am, however,
fully aware that this would not be a popular opinion, and would at first flush certainly seem to fly in the face of inclusivity. Elves hating Dwarves as a racist trope in fantasy is easier to accept because the races arguably have no direct real world counterparts. But Shemites and Hyrkanians are, loosely, based on ancient kingdoms/peoples, so yeah. Not as fun.