I think it comes down to the fact that most Fantasy Races aren’t really alien/different from Humans, they’re a reflection of certain elements of humanity. In a setting where Orcs are around humans are less violent and warlike because Orcs are pretty much a fantasy race based on our most warlike and barbaric tendencies, having equally barbaric humans just make Orcs people with Green skin and tusks.
Mmmh while I agree with your assertion in a way I think everyone of these races would be people. Cultures, languages etc. Are exchanged understanding is fostered or the races who do not fit are exterminated. If you cannot communicate on a base level with your other intelligent neighbors peace is never an option. So they need to fundamentally be similar to coexist in any way, even in Warhammer that is the case, humans and orcs can communicate and even work together in small ways. They still try to murder one another permanently because orcs and humans are too different humans and elves and Draves are more similar and as such live mcub more easily together.
Well then by that logic, are other races just the same? Different aspects of humanity? What would make another race truly another race? No hate, just curious.
@@azca. Typically yes. Granted not all authors use fantasy races in the same way: Warcraft, Warhammer, and Lord of the Rings all have Orcs and they all generally are very warlike and violent, but they express themselves in different ways. Also because authors will occasionally subvert the tropes that these races are associated with like in the D&D setting Eberron Orcs are primarily druids. Also certain races have multiple tropes and portrayals and certain works might chose to focus on different elements: Dwarfs in Warhammer Fantasy, Dragon Age, and Lord of the Rings tend to be super conservative cultures with veneration of the past and family, while other Dwarfs are craftsmen and engineers who build amazing wonders like the Dwemer of Elder Scrolls.
Are other species the same as humans or humans are as other species? Being born, growing up and reproducing cycle of life, in different ways tho, wasn't invented by humans, not by far.
@@InquisitorThomas Warhammer dwarfs are craftsmen and engineers; but they never really recovered from the War of Vengeance against the perfidious pointy-eared gits, being followed, as it was, by Skaven warpstone fuckery that pretty much broke everything, and left Dwarfen civilisation vulnerable to the hated Greenskin.
With the way in-groups work, being human in our world doesn’t put you in an in-group. When there are orks, and elves, and dwarves, and goblins, suddenly humans start to look out for each other more. Suddenly humans are part of a common, meaningful in-group. Humans in fantasy are usually cruel, just not towards other humans.
Exactly, for example with the Humans of Thedas and Tamriel. While the Humans in both worlds (or at least Tamriel, as Thedas is a really crapsack place for everyone,) are usually cordial towards one another, and don’t oppress one other outside of stating stereotypes occasionally, it’s a WHOLE different matter towards the other races (the Falmer and City/Dalish say their brief hello’s, before being disemboweled by human’s for occupying land that they want, and the less said about the Orsimer’s constant oppression the better.)
@@AAZ-yu5ss Well, no, the Red Guards and Bretons have frequently fought one another, the entirety of Elder Scrolls 2 was set in the aftermath of just such a war, and the Nords have been oppressing the Reachmen for years too. Also, the Falmer its less: hello and more: You massacred my city. Prepare to die. The Atmorans were chill with the Falmer before the Saarthal Massacre.
@@levongevorgyan6789 Wait, you believe complete and utter genocide (that includes newborns and children, along with thousands of innocent people) is ok if a city was massacred by a few pieces of shit high in power?! (And you do know that the Nords are an extremely patriotic people, who’s very xenophobic ancestors likely toyed with some of their history to make themselves look better.) But you do make a point that the races of men fought each other as much as the elves and beastfolk. (everyone fights each other in Tamriel really, even the gods invade to have some of that mortal action)
Actually, the kings of Numenor became exactly the same kind of conquerors as Rome and others did... and Sauron played them like a cheap kazoo. It's part of the reason Numenor went the way of Atlantis, and why Sauron was able to gather allies among other human Kingdoms.
@@AeneasGemini I would say it's more that Sauron was a master of using his enemies' weaknesses against them, he used the Numenorians pride and fear of death to turn them against the Valar. but that may have been what you meant.
@@AeneasGemini Their fall was mostly self-engineered. They would not have been susceptible to such corruption without the lows they had already arrived at.
You’re confusing “humans” with “protagonists”. The dunlanders allied with Saruman were also humans. The black numenoreans and pirates allied with Sauron were also human, etc. the good guys are portrayed as displaying virtuous qualities in most human narratives.
@@midgetydeath The Dunlendings weren’t corrupted by him, but instead acted as throwaway allies for a single war because of less than favorable treatment of their lands by Númenoreans.
I think the Witcher series has the most realistic humans. Going through the towns and cities you see the types of people that exist in those times, rough people with all the dark qualities of humanity such as intolerance, treachery, and greed. But you also see people of honor, compassion, and understanding, and everything in between. Ahh the warm messy circle of humanity.
real middle ages people were actually probably more colorfully dressed than people today however thing like purple would be royal colors because the dye was rare some reds and blues would probable be the most common.
That’s not realistic, though. Humans are cooperative and social and try to avoid conflict. Only fighting when they believe it is necessary for their well-being and they’re screwed if they don’t fight. Or out of their loyalty and trust being abused by greedy leaders in a time when there was no way to prove things and so living up to oaths was the only way to survive in a society. The Witcher’s portrayal of humans is entirely inhuman and nonsensical. Even their living conditions are nothing like the time period being portrayed.
Isn't the Lord of the Rings mostly about how 95% of people can't resist the temptation of evil. Not just humans, but elves and dwarves too. (Orcs didn't really get to choose so, you know)
Not really. Sure, when is about the temptation of the power of the One ring, yeah that's straight forward that is bad. But what about other temptations on lower level, like temptation to steal (Marry and Pipin didn't resist too much on it in first movie when they stolen daily vegetables..), temptation of lying and manipulation, temptation of flesh (adultery) etc.
The Elves were not corrupted by the power of the One Ring, but they were made INCREDIBLY cautious by the corruption they saw. The Dwarven Kings that held their rings for dwarves? Literally became the ancient Kings of Jerusalem, constantly lusting for more gold, for more power, for more of everything, until their kingdoms collapsed in upon themselves (the Dwarves of Middle-Earth HEAVILY parallel RL Hebrews), and many Elves and Men look down upon them for this.
It was a regular occurrence in tolkien's books that elves and humans would just go on regular campaigns against the Orcs, not necessarily reacting in defense
Yeah that's what Faramir was doing isn't it, hitting the forces of mordor to keep them down, it's just with a will like Sauron behind them the orcs are neigh unstoppable.
Indeed, the valleys of the Misty Mountains were often targeted for - what is in essence genocidal extermination campaigns, making it harder for the goblins to support their numbers and denying them any chance of real aggricultural advancement. There are several passages that allude to wars of extermination waged against orks and goblins. Trolls, dragons, drakes, giants and troll-men (not the ones from far Harad) were often hunted to extinction or by culling their populations, and several of these are in varying degree intelligent species. And alot of this wasn't as a response to attacks but "preemptive" or part of expansionist politics. Even the Elves would hunt especially goblins and orks with no mercy shown.
@@DaDunge If I recall, at some points in the history of Middle Earth both the Black Gate and Minas Morgul were garrisoned by soldiers from Gondor? Basically enabling the Kingdom to conduct incursions into Mordor as they wished free from the threat of retaliation.
You mean humans aren’t acting like they have always acted throughout history. Wars, genocide, and the will to conquer their neighbors and assert their dominance. Imagine if the Alliance of Lordaeron found the native americans in america instead of the spanish and later British. They probably would be allies. But in reality, and real life: exterminate anyone who doesn’t look like us 😂
"on the brink of extinction" except not really. There's lots of humans fighting for Sauron. He wants to dominate them, to rule over them, not kill them all.
I think sometimes we forget that there was only 1 Alexander, 1 Attila, 1 Genghis. Those are the equivalent of rampaging orc hordes. For the most part, humans have tried their best to be in peace with each other. And when a Darius, or an Augustus conquered a people. If he didn't wipe them all out, he integrated them into the kingdom. We enjoy the stories of knights going into battle all the time, we forget that most of the time they were just trying to get a decent meal and a quiet bed to sleep in.
Humans don't want peace, we want stuff. We want to check all boxes in our Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Unfortunately, other people have the stuff we want/need. (And way back example, Homo sablis had nothing homosapiensapien needed and we couldn't even thrive in their environment, but we wiped em out anyway.)
@@manictiger "AKTULLY :B" By saying "knight" he was just using an example mate, he could have very well said "soldier" and it would have had the same connotation, you've made a straw man of this real point. The point being that, humans (generally) are simply fighting for peace, security and a meal on ones table. Fighting to live a comfortable enough life without constant suffering.
@@PluvioZA Soldiers do the same thing too, actually. _"The point being that, humans (generally) are simply fighting for peace."_ Well that's just plain false. There wouldn't be any fighting ever, if dark triad sociopaths didn't keep floating back up to the top.
Gotta love how fantasy race discussions range from "elves, dwarves&etcetera are too humanlike to not be considered a human variant like neanderthal" to "fantasy humans are too nice to really be humans"
Yeah a major point of the Dragon Age mythos is that everyone is a bastard. Everybody is racist as hell against everybody else, until you have a world ending army of undead to deal with, and even then some people won't get with the program.
@@levongevorgyan6789 Yeah, but it's another facet of the fantasy game humans are better than we are question... Ferelden, Orlais, Tevinter. They're all awful. I've played many of the games mentioned here as examples, and while I disagree across the board, I'd say that Thedas/DA is the worst of the ones I have encountered in game.
Humans rely way too much on trade with the Dwarves to bother exterminating them. Dwarves need humans, humans need dwarves. It's a symbiotic relationship. Plus they live underground so competition is lessened.
Incredibly poor argument. My friend sent me this video asking for my thoughts on it, so I'll try offering my short version of what I sent him... 1) You failed to make the connection of genocide and racism to better martial prowess/military capability. 2) "These more enlightened, kinder, more tolerant humans..." have you EVER looked at Warhammer Fantasy? You know humans were on both sides of the war going on in Middle Earth, right? "...that's a scenario which having the more savage and cruel elements of human nature on your side might not be a bad thing." Ok, find me the people in Middle Earth, in Warcraft, in Warhammer who are looking at the most malicious elements of a setting and parrot the joke from the last Doom game; the one that said demons weren't evil, but just morally challenged creatures. 3) You invoked the Franks, the Romans, the Assyrians, the Huns, and the Mongols. However, the root argument (racism and genocide makes humans better fighters) fails to align with these forces as well. Hell, in none of them was racial or religious bigotry even a dominate ideology. 4) There's 0 effort in actually analyzing fantasy humans and trying to determine if the humans actually have the qualities he mentions (both tolerance and bigotry). Tbf, that would involve taking each setting and dissecting it individually, which couldn't be covered in 1 video. Instead you disingenuously put them all into one basket. Again, I you to bring up the humans of Gondor who believed that not killing every orc that lives and show how their tolerance is dominant to where it leads to Gondor's near annihilation. Also look at how Warhammer Fantasy's warring main 2 factions are fundamentally having a religious war against each other. Counter-point: Most fantasy settings do involve a high stakes threat to humanity that calls for an outlook that is genocidal in all but name (see Warhamemr Fantasy, Middle Earth, Goblin Slayer, and more). Sometimes it's shown (Goblin Slayer), sometimes it's just discussed (Tolkein), but the "us vs them" attitude is more often than not build into the fundamentals of a fantasy setting/conflict and accepted with little issue.
People hate to acknowledge their darker side. Most wars cover it up with pretty sounding propaganda... But if you truly get to the root of most wars, the real cause is tribal.
Cyrus the Great was actually the closest real man to those fantasy people, he was a genuinely good and tolerant king who was greeted not as a conqueror but as liberator. But I'd totally love to see him defeating Mordor.
I'm just going to go ahead and point out that the army Saruman sent to Helm's Deep was designed to storm Helm's Deep, a firtress which would have been expected to be garrisoned by horse soldiers and farmers. If Saruman had been expecting to fight a pitched battle against Carolingians, he'd have raised and equipped an army to fight a pitched battle against Carolingians.
“But I want my ultra manly, TECH using Caucasian Humans to slaughter the ugly, subhuman magic hordes of inferior creatures?!!🤬” (but I agree, Saurons army would eviscerate the Romans, along with the rest of the ancient and medieval world, if he doesn’t just feel like bending their wills to his.)
I thought this video was going to be about an actual argument that due to the superhuman strength and agility of fantasy humans, they weren’t actually humans. Like, how a human can get so strong from fighting weaker enemies, building up strength and proficiency with no upper limit. Oh well.
I dunno that makes them more human than actual humans. like, the human quality of rapid adaptation in a physical form! Much like how Dragon Ball Saiyans are better humans than the Dragon Ball Earthlings.
There's one obscure piece of lore with Tolkien, and that goes down to his general belief that history is a long slow path of degredation. Humans "back then" really were superior. Heck, ELVES used to be better. Silmarillion elves were basically powered by anime tropes having thunderous fights with the original dark lord while the land exploded around them. In middle earth, history is a battle not to restore what was lost- but to prevent losing any more with each passing generation. I don't personally share this viewpoint, but I do love the legendarium for what it is. But hey- we do have better humans mixed in with the terrible humans here in the real world and always have. For every ruthless conquerer there's a Mr. Rogers.
The view that history is of a long, slow degradation is dreadfully wrong in my opinion too, but then again, Tolkien lived through the ultra-shitty first half of the 20th Century so I can’t really blame him. The heavy presence of grimdark and downer tones in modern fantasy is precisely why I made sure my fantasy world celebrates progress and achievements over one’s ancestors.
@@mrviking2mcall212 I'm not sure Tolkien believed that that was currently the case, except perhaps in a moral sense. But he was definitely drawing on old ideas that were very prevalent in a lot of places at pretty much any time before the Renaissance. The idea of a lost Golden Age used to be a really big thing before technology started advancing fast enough to notice. This is another sense in which The Lord of the Rings gives us actual premodern attitudes in the characters, in a way most fantasy since does not.
I think you're too misanthropic. Immediate attempts at extermination are not the most common outcome of two cultures meeting. Incidents like those feel more common than they are because they're dramatic and memorable, but even in the middle ages, those violent conflicts punctuated a relatively peaceful status quo. When wars break out, it's usually because there's material gain to be had or someone's power is being threatened.
@@bread1958 They all eventually went extinct, at least partly due to resource wars like the ones I described, but none of them faced an immediate conscious effort at extermination on first contact with anatomically modern humans. Like, we know that anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals had actual children together. That seems very strange if the human relationship with them had been a simple matter of instant extermination crusade. I see no reason to think humans would be incapable of tolerating another sentient species if it did not compete for the same environmental niche.
But there is more than a cultural difference between humans and orcs and elves. I think this might draw humans closer together, but also make them suspicious at best and cruel at worst, toward other races.
Keep in mind that contrast can be a powerful social force. For example, during the World Wars, many German Americans quickly gave up aspects of their old culture for a more "American" way of life. When humanity is fighting orcs and goblins or other brutal war loving groups, it's entirely possible that the humans would try to be more "civilized" in opposition.
They did not give up their culture or their names for that matter for a more american way of life, they gave it up for fear of ending up like the german colonists who came under brittish rule in africa, or later the japanese americans during WW2. It had less to do with wanting to be united, and more with simple base fear for ones life, and not wanting to end up in a work camp.
@@_Muzolf Many gave up uniquely German customs so that they appeared more 'American,' yes. Although it must be noted that you can find many stories about how folks disowned their ancestral homes not because they were afraid of their fellow Americans but because they truly wanted nothing to do with that place causing trouble for their actual homes. Not that these are mutually exclusive or easily separated reasons. And the German case, especially, is helped because there's been Germantowns in the US since at least the Revolutionary War.
I can confirm that I have neither killed anyone nor wished to wage war on someone for looking different from me. I also have not expressed the desire to kill, maim, or brutalize anyone or anything. I guess I'm not a human! Thanks for helping me figure that out, Templin Institute!
My biggest problem with this type of thinking is that ignores the possibility for other fantasy races to be capable of achieving the same if not worse than what we've done, despite there being no reason for that to be the case.
Oh yes, the Numenoreans that are 8 foot tall and clad in full heavy armor, able to slaughter legions of orcs, are totally just normal humans. Or the Rohirrim riders who can evoke an image of Orome, with the ability to murder people with his barehands. Yes, these are normal humans.
Yes, there was a famous man that spent 5 years killing mercenaries as revenge for the death of his wife before dying from his injuries. He had never lost a fight even when outnumbered.
I thought I was in for the completely banal "fantasy humans aren't real humans because they didn't evolve/aren't on earth" take, but instead it was the much dumber "fantasy aren't humans because they aren't as savage and cruel as real humans" take - the kind that only a person who describes himself as "enlightened by his own intelligence" can make. Templin Institute never ceases to surprise and disappoint me.
Its been over a year since I stopped watching templing regularly and can't help but agree, I feel I disagree with a lot of the takes going on... Its a shame I used to like it.
I feel that too many authors have taken this kind of 'realism' on board. Every author seems to have a fairly consistent cross-cultural human nature for their characters they struggle to ever deviate from. In the Witcher novels humans are basically officious and self-absorbed, while in Westeros humans are basically all cynical and ruthless; while this definitely makes them less nice, it does not make them more realistic when everybody has those traits. It also fits poorly into most depicted in-world cultures, in the Witcher world Nilfgaard is basically the logical result of the basic character of human beings in that world but then they are not exactly weak, so it works somewhat. In Westeros on the other hand, only the Wildlings are really compatible with the character of Westeros characters and they aren't strong at all.
I joke regularly with my friends that the 'humans' in the Monster Hunter series could be mistaken for Astartes, or Super Soldiers if they went anywhere else. These are people who, though human sized, can basically fist-fight T-Rexes into submission, tank energy blasts and all kinds of elemental damage, jump from a skyscraper height jump without a shoot, hero-landing it on impact and walk away without even muscle strain....and then go home for a 19 course dinner of some of the largest dishes I've ever seen. Also if you think the humans of Kryta are weaker, less savage, less cruel than 'normal' humans... ya really need to play the game more. They regularly exterminate entire enclaves of centaurs, clans of Skritt that are trying to eke out an existence, and one of their oldest nations had forced the 'local' population of Charr -- 650lbs clawed, fanged, megapredator sentients -- out of their homelands and built a wall to keep them out. At least, until the Charr basically nuked that nation. And that's not counting the horrors of the White Mantle, Separatists, and any number of tinpot dictators that always rise up to try and carve out their kingdoms from what's left.
Mh....not your strongest argument. The entire premise is that all humans and all cultures are basically the same when dealing with violence and aggression and that they are all equally good at crushing people with their military. I'm not saying that fantasy is right, honestly humans are among the weakest races in most fantasy universes, and authors usually fails to represent how magic would completely change warfare (is so weird to think that Youjo Senki is among the best in this) but the idea that every kingdom would be an extremely militaristic state is just not believable. Even in our world we had states that basically ignored war for centuries while every other country around them was busy killing each other. Edit: i just realized that Switzerland itself sound like a fantasy concept...a kingdom in the mountains that has a past as one of the strongest military in the continent but then just stopped engaging in warfare and has lived in peace for centuries.
Because no one wants to exterminate them. If let’s say the NATO Hegemonic coalition decided the Swiss are a threat in their center that doesn’t deserve to exist, the Swiss would be wiped out Remember Switzerland isn’t neutral cause they’re so awesome, they’re neutral cause their last military engagement they got absolutely annihilated by the French who destroyed their way of life up to that point. It’s the same reason Japan seems so docile today. The Swiss know should they fuck up and piss off one of their great power neighbors or worse yet the superpower suzerain of said neighbors they’d be in for a bad time. People often misconstrue Switzerlands neutrality as being from a position of strength. Rather it is something far more sane on their part, a recognition that they are in fact very weak and they only way to enjoy their quality of life is to just not get very political and risk pissing off someone they should and be dragged back into the dark 18th century. And also fortify the fuck out of their mountain so who ever wants to attack them only has to options 1) Don’t do it. 2) Exterminate them, don’t even bother to conquer or occupy.
And they achieve this with countless underground fortresses, and vast buried vaults of gold and wealth, that they use to make deals with anyone and everyone, making an invasion upon them so utterly unprofitable...
“If 12 year old girls aren’t regularly r%ped to death by their relatives for our “enjoyment”, it isn’t historically accurate!😡🤬” (personally I’m tired of the more cynical, militaristic fantasies, I wanna see some more optimistic, slice of life fantasies, were people are just living their lives with magic and other weird creatures.)
@@AAZ-yu5ss Definitely agree. At the very least, i'd want to see more of said "simple pleasures" moments in grimdark fantasy, in order to make said grimdark life more bearable to be in (not only for the characters within, but also for the audience watching).
Wars of "extermination" were pretty rare in human history. Very seldom was it profitable to "exterminate" people you want to be able to tax. In fact 'large scale warfare' has more often than not been more about logistics than "hardened battle loving soldiers". The Romans didn't win so often because they were inherently 'better' or 'stronger' as individual humans than the people they were fighting. But they almost always were way better supplied. If you're fighting an adversary who doesn't need food, water, or sleep? Forget "pitched battles", how the hell would humans be expected to go out and attack an enemy that could at any moment outflank them and hit their supplies. Supplies that, being human, they need. Since 'magic' so often satisfies logistical issues, thinking too deeply about human warfare in fantasy settings is probably gonna send you down a very different rabbit hole from the one the creator/author intended.
You have it backwards. It is highly unprofitable to attempt to tax people who will revolt every decade once you took over. Romans specifically learned it the hard way. Almost every other major empire until Renaissance were based on underlying cause be it religious, cultural, or historical differences which made peaceful coexistence impossible on a large enough scale. I've studied in both High Schools and Universities on both Western and Eastern hemisphere in highly respectable schools and colleges. Let me tell you, Western history is exceptionally redacted compared to Eastern. Sure Cortez bringing Small Pox killed 95% of the local aborigines and USA had The Trail of Tears which was viewed as *the* worst of genocides as Dr.O'Donnell taught us, but it was mere displacement of people. I am from Kazakhstan, and we didn't have a single year of history where we didn't cover at least two total genocides committed by us or our neighbors. I am talking hunting refugee kids and mothers with dogs across a thousand-mile steppe during the aftermath Kazakh-Dzungar Wars, I am talking Imperial China vanishing entire regions of revolting people like Sogdians, I am talking of going through entire genealogical trees of your own populous to exterminate any possible semblance of distant ancestry, I am talking of genocides so total and so complete they kind of faded from memory because there simply aren't any people left to complain or demand reparations. And you won't find them unless you look for them specifically. Seriously, you don't hear of most successful genocides because they were so thorough. That is what I think the author of this video is talking about. In a world where goblins existed, Holy Crusades would be committed at any given point by the dozens 'just because' of their different looks and cruder language as opportunistic and charismatic people ride the wave of hatred and intolerance to profit on expansion. Add in the fact that goblins are generally homicidal and rapists and it's an instant 'kill' button for humanity of our world who would exterminate those creatures for perceived threats and slights. There is a reason we are the only 'homo' genus left on the planet even thou there was more than a dozen at one time. Because despite being able to peacefully communicate and even REPRODUCE we still viewed such tiny differences as such irrevocable that we genocided our way into their total extinction bar those that already intermixed with Homo sapiens.
In Warcraft lore, the humans of Azeroth are descendants of the barbaric half-giant Vrykul of Northrend, their progenitors. The Vrykul used to be a race of sentient metallic beings created by the Titans until the Curse of the Flesh afflicted them to lose their metal forms and gain flesh and blood bodies.
So Humans are technically giants due to being descended from Vrykul the same way Orcs were descended from the Ogres, who were descended from Ogronn, who also finally descended from Gronn. That means both species are just small giants!
@@temporary67315 So basically there's actually a Lore reason that all the shop keepers look like they spend all their off time pumping 'roids' at the gym. It wasn't just reusing the same character models for NPCs!!
Maybe someone already mentioned it, but regarding why the 'good' races hadn't just wiped out the bad ones, the simple reality is that orcs are in some ways more like forces of nature, and you might as well ask why our ancestors didn't wipe out rats or mosquitos, since no matter how many we kill, they can disappear into places where we can hardly follow and replenish their numbers. I know that if I just won a massive land battle on the surface and forced orcs to retreat into mountain caves, I wouldn't be thrilled to chase them into dark underground tunnels where they could easily kill and eat me. It would be easy to justify the risk of a few raids and maybe one big battle every few generations. Middle Earth humans also aren't nearly as generally nice as the video implied, and there were some insanely brutal things happening between members of the same race - they just weren't the focus of LOTR or the Hobbit. The Kinstrife between the elves was literally a bunch of the most heroic "good guy" elves going for revenge against Morgoth, and deciding to brutally wipe out another group of elves to steal their rides. The following war included lots of betrayals of other human, elven, and dwarven groups for various reasons. Then we have the humans of Numenor (the "best" of humanity) murdering and sacrificing each other, colonizing and conquering all over Middle Earth, and declaring war on the elves and Valar out of jealousy. Discussing Rohan, the implications of Saruman's speech to the Dunlendings/Hill-men is that they are effectively held as an oppressed lower class by Rohan, and finally, what humans would Rohan actually need to fight? They are friendly with Gondor to their south and east, and previously with Saruman to the northeast, so other than some pirates on the western coast and the Dunlendings in the north, there's basically no one other than orcs in the mountains to fight. There are really just the two isolated human realms to the West of Mordor, and plenty of empty plains and forests for expansion, so neither of them seem to have the kind of population pressures that would force them to do something suicidal like invading magical forests or getting horsemen to dismount and fight in mountain caves to hunt goblins. Rohan is separated from the Shire by hundreds if not a thousand miles and almost no one knows it even exists, Dale is even further, and anywhere else with humans involves going around Mordor, so forget that. There will always be some conflicts between people, but societies always try to define an outsider, and that's going to be a lot easier if you have an entirely different species showing up to murder you every few decades, as well as an actual evil demon dark lord running the hellscape nation next door. If you don't have that kind of threat, society will pick something like a person's language or accent, skin color, or hair color and declare them to be the outsider. If those kinds of divisions start to fade, someone will make up a new way to define themselves and exclude others, and then declare that anyone who doesn't accept or understand the new division is an oppressor and the real enemy.
Rohan is also on good terms with Gondor because the proto-Rohirrim came to the aide of Gondor in a war to turn the tide (which was repeated again at The Battle of the Pelennor Fields), they were gifted that land to rule as long as they maintained friendly relations (it also worked in Gondor's favour as their Northern lands were basically lost, and lessened logistical concerns, why waste dwindling resources on a bunch of land that isn't nearly as occupied while also getting a new buffer state between you and potential hostile states?).
Can't blame Tolkien though, since he was literally sitting in a trench at the front lines in WWl when he started laying the ground work for Lord of the Rings. He def probly had a enough of our/real world humans. lol
Odd idea but... you know how there are good elves and evil elves? Are the fantasy humans more good or are we just more evil? Are we the dark humans? Did we get banished to this magicless wasteland for our crimes?
This just in: The Templin Institute discovers the fact that different societies behave differently. They’re still human my guy. There have been tons of peaceful, non-bigoted human societies in the real world. They just tend to get wiped out by their more aggressive neighbors. Please read up more on history.
I think the kingdoms of the Witcher and Dragon Age would be more like what we would do. Using magic AND being militaristic. I always thought that having magic would make life simpler for many, at least in general. Easier construction, medicine, etc. Maybe this helps reduce strain on some aspects of society that would push people to be more militaristic. Then again, if WE had magic we would make magic nukes, so eh. Maybe it depends on the period of development it's discovered. And if there are demons and such, maybe people would be more united and chivalrous?
One thing that always bothered me is how the sorcerers, and magic users in general, are misplaced in fantasy settings. See, in a world where magic was present even before humans created the first civilizations, the magic users would totally dominate the political landscape. The magic users would be like god-emperors, no one can even challenge their power. They would be the kings, not just their advisors or doing their own thing. No, mages would be the first to rule early civilizations. In a magical world, they would be the first pharaos, and their rule would last... forever, potentially.
Kinda agree at this point. But I think it more depends on the role, that humanity plays in comparison of other creations. Like if there were no thinking species other then humans, they would still be almost the same side as in our world. However on the other side, when there are a lot of other civilisations we would be highly affected by their presence. It just depends on a lot of circumstances.
Demons aren't even real, but humans have and do believe they are, and use that as justification to torture, murder, and or disenfranchise people with different beliefs (political and religious), or that they just don't like. Imagine how much worse it'd be if demons actually existed.
@@Vitalis94 They'd also start learning quickly how MAYBE it's not the best place to be after the first few 'god kings' got their heads taken off or poisoned by the normal people serving them and it's better to be high in the power structure but not be its face. IE, the right hand advisor. Trust me, eventually people learn that the throne comes with all kinds of problems as well as benefits, it's better to be just close to it.
@@TheSuperRatt if they existed there’d be concrete evidence to prove or refute accusations of such. Doesn’t mean humans wouldn’t still use such accusations for their own selfish, zealous, or dictatorial reasons but there’d be precedence set.
Speaking of fantasy, there are many other topics that we can discuss: how fantasy modern warfare works, Industrialization in the fantasy world,.... I’m a big fan of Magitek and anything like that :3
Yeah, the fact that most fantasy settings either have no advancement in technology or it is sooooo slow tends to bother me. And far too often the blending of magic and science is just ignored. I can only think of a couple settings that avoid these problems, namely Warmachine and Shadow of the Conquerer.
I can't help but think you not only have a cynical view of humanity, but are failing to read a lot of (usually unintentional) racial coding. The humans in a lot of these settings aren't reflective of the diverse cultures of real life humans. They are almost uniformly white psuedo-Europeans, and the non-human groups are very racialized. Tolkien himself described orcs as resembling the "least lovely Mongol types", and the humans who side with Sauron are coded as non-white, resembling people from Asia or North Africa. The Alliance in Warcraft is basically NATO. I didn't play a lot of WOW, but in the goblin starting zone, while fleeing destruction, you witness the humans violating the terms of a truce by keeping Thrall as a prisoner, and when they realize the goblin refugees saw the whole thing, they order the ship to be sunk. The Horde certainly isn't without its sins, but the humans clearly have some bigoted feelings or at least a deep mistrust of peace. Bigotry against non-humans is prolific in almost every fantasy setting, and it's clear that those non-humans are in some way reflective of real life racial minorities. To quote Terry Pratchett, “Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because-what with trolls and dwarfs and so on-speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.” I think it's not totally out of the realm of realism for a fantasy world to have humans that are united and benevolent. I think humans, by nature, are social and cooperative creatures. Absent of the influence of bad actors who manipulate our more base tendencies, humans tend to want to band together in times of crises. But, also, I just don't agree that humans in fantasy are by-and-large more noble than they are in our world. If they are, it's usually due to a racialized coding of the "Men of the West" banding together to prevent the hordes of others from storming the gates.
Really well put. What humans stand for in any work of fantasy, contrasted with other sentient species, depends on the author and their intentions... but racial subtexts are everywhere.
You know that your argument basically boils down to "how dare these escapist fantasy stories be escapist" right? And that's the charitable interpretation btw.
I think you're forgetting complacency. If the threat isn't active, constant and immediate, it's difficult to rally the mob to support a wars without end.
This happened irl with Churchill identifying the Soviet Union as the next major threat to the world after Germany was defeated and wanting to go to war with them before the Soviet Union could rebuild their military strength. The people more or less replied with "Look, you're right but we're tired." and voted for someone else.
hey, if you want to go degenerate, pick a dark elf! or blood elf if it's in WoW because they're always 'thirsty' for magic. don't know about you, but my BIG MAGNUM is great source of some great magic! BEWARE OF BB_baalbuddy ELVES
3:27 they would have lost and humanity would be extinct. There's a reason they don't go into Mordor looking for a fight. 'One does not simply walk into Mordor"
I think it comes down to the genre being fantasy allows the author to present an idealized society as a mirror to the readers. In the novel I am working on, all the different fantasy races are simply different subsections or physiologically distinct ethnic groups of humans, (kinda like a German Shepherd, Great Dane, Bull dog, etc are all the same species but have different traits.)
well no, i'm gwessing that that's the result of having a common enemy as a species, the main divergences smooth out with time cause people have to live with all the dangers that also aggregate in great numbers to kill humans indiscriminately constant friction with these creatures ended up creating the situations we see they probably already hunted them down ecc ecc, but try it yourself to defeat a whole race who's doing the same from the start and almost always has greater numbers or superior streinght
They are ideals, meant to, in a similar vein to fairy tales, convey a notion of what humans are capable of being. What they should strive to be. The Nobility of a typical Fantasy human is meant to inspire us by showing us what we ought to be.
Same thing with Starfleet in Star Trek hanging in the ropes every other war because humans are just too good to build straight up warships unlike the Klingons, Romulans or Cardassians.
First of all, I'm pretty you sure you missed some of the evil human factions in Middle Earth. Some of whom allied with Sauron! Not to mention the Scarlet Crusade from Warcraft. Now on to the main argument, while I do see you point to a degree....but. To me complaining how human in some fantasy setting aren't bastards is like complaining that Superman uses his powers for good. Sometimes people want to see people be heroes. Especially after hearing about backlash from Game of Throne finale.
@@VoiceOfTheEmperor Provocation of Thought is a terminal offense in the Imperium of Man. But then the human in WH40K aren't human either. Literally everything about the IoM requires humans to be far more sheepish and less mentally and morally resilient than they really are.
@@Petterwass That doesn't work either. Humans, REAL Humans, would rebel even unto death, They would bend fold and spindle that indoctrination, and most certainly would NEVER allow Knowledge and/or the ability to attain it to be lost or so controlled as to cease to be a HUMAN thing. Further every regime that has tried to rule by force and intimidation has ultimately failed by factors within and without. Lies and Propaganda only last so long. It is simply impossible for anyone to attain and maintain the level of control the IoM is supposed to have across A planet, for get 100s of 1000s in a Galaxy where it might be centuries before that planet ever sees their so-called conquerors again, if ever. Do not kid yourself, the Humans in WH40K are NOT REAL HUMANS.
Tolkien actually draws a lot of attention to the failures and weaknesses of his human characters in Arda, as well as the many failures of his elven and dwarven characters. The entire Akallabeth is a cautionary tale of how what was once the most advanced human civilization ever fell and was nearly completely destroyed due to their pride, greed, lust for eternal life, unearned feelings of superiority... and their final ruler being prideful and foolish enough to fall for Sauron's temptations when he brought him to the homeland as a prisoner. Tolkien doesn't exactly mince words about his humans and draws attention to bigotry, selfishness and unreasonable stubbornness in the case of Túrin, some of his human bandit pals, but also with the people in Bree, in Dale and Lake-town, in Rohan and Dunland, the hobbits often behave in an ignorant, idle and hoarding manner, and last but not least, also in Gondor (their culture often teaches people to look down upon less developed human countries) and Harad (the rulers of Harad serve Sauron out of sincerity or simple fear, and their ordinary subjects have to fight in wars they likely don't want). The Nazgul and the Black Númenoreans and their corsair descendants are some of the most evil-minded humans in Arda, even though they mostly descend from that once-great civilization, much like Arnor and Gondor. Though Tolkien does show the good sides of his human cultures, and does show believable idealism (after all, most people tend to be decent and mundane-minded, and even most of their bad actions are petty, not those of masterminds), but he's pretty explicit humans can be very, very evil, moreso than largelly disposable henchmen like orcs. The orcs don't have as much free will and fully autonomous agency as the human characters, or elven or dwarven or other characters.
Oh, I thought this video was gonna be about how humans aren't physically Earth humans, given their proclivity of surviving get thrown into buildings or getting superpowers from vats of chemicals. My bad. For real though, I think this is giving some of those fantasy nations too little credit. I feel like it'd take more than humans being stone cold edgy badasses to outfight monster races that overpower us one on one. Not to mention this video ignores that many of those worlds HAVE darker and more violent humans as well.
Problem is Warcraft didn't had a human kingdom among the seven kingdoms who was taking notes from the brutality of the horde and the organization of the humans and forming an imperial seat with no regards to the well being of others to persecute total war against the Horde and uncooperative alliance factions Think if Archaon the Everchosen led the humans, he would havent fall to the same flaws as Arthas did and ensure Lorderon didn't fall and instead become the new imperial seat
Not sure I agree with this. It’s a pretty narrow view of our history imo. Yes, people of our past were a lot more sexist, fanatic, and all those other attributes than their fantasy contemporaries, but not by too much, to be honest. For example, you mention Cyrus the Great at the end, and I find this odd since he’s pretty famous for being one of the less awful and oppressive rulers in pre-modern history. He was very hands-off with those he ruled as long as they paid their dues, and even fostered their cultures (the Jews went as far as to declare him the messiah as he allowed them to return to Judea and funded the construction of a new temple in Jerusalem). Ultimately, with some notable exceptions, people are far more concerned with their money than they are with their prejudices. In the case of the Uruk-Hai and Orcs I can agree with you that, yeah, those humans realistically should be far more vicious towards them. But for others, I’m not so sure. I’m also not too well versed in fantasy so maybe there’s a better explanation for all of this, I’m not sure.
Lore wise the humans of Stormwind are extremely aggressive. The story just happens at a point where they aren't as aggressive and have been the recent victims of sudden aggressive groups. They're literally what you said. The only difference is they're the ones who were more recently thwacked.
I have often asserted that fantasy and sci fi that have different races in it reflects different aspects of humanity. The elves are what we may reach for and by reaching for it we become the more noble humans, who are nobler, less aggressive, etc. than we are in the real world. Uruk-hai represent who we could descent into if we fall for our baser instincts. You can even see this in ancient mythologies. The Ettins or Jotuns of Norse mythology are not a different race from the Aesir, but a more savage and less noble version of what humanity can be. This is also why humans or heroes in the stories seem strange, because they are what we should reach for.
I’d like to think that, when literally faced with the outright hostile existent of evil, humans would see “goodness” as a survival strategy, at least toward each other and their allies
In a lot of fantasy fiction, factions and races are written to represent good/evil, or other facets of human nature, distilled into that form, based on the author's views, impressions, and philosophies. They aren't meant to be mirrors held up to whatever someone thinks is "realistic."
So this is when supremacism engenders paranoia and turns xenophobia inwards; it's truly sad to behold. Along with all the other people who have pointed out that you've failed to properly account for the effects of humans developing alongside other sentient species and the fact that ancient and medieval humans were not all always savagely and ruthlessly violent but rather were frequently curious and friendly, I'd like to add that you've also failed to account for the wearing down of violent societal tendencies after long and just as often deadly wars of attrition have depleted resources, production, learning, matériel and population, as happened in Europe after the World Wars as well as many of the alternate-world examples you claimed to give. Also, even humans here aren't necessarily guaranteed the "luxury of living in our more modern world", not with factions still striving to cover the world in blood under their own medieval or even twentieth-century banners.
This is a good answer. Killing orcs sounds good when you are talking about doing it from your armchair in the modern world. It's rather harder when there's a shield-wall of orcs in front of you and their spears will kill you as dead as yours will kill them. And there's nothing much to get from doing it. The orcs typically have weapons just as good as humans do!
@@Feaelen Thank you for your compliment. In most of the works I've seen, orc and goblin weapons are more crude and rough-hewn, while elven and dwarven weapons are far more finely crafted or forged, with human weapons falling somewhere in the middle, yet they all inflict the same lethal effect in combat! Your comment suggest another good point that hadn't occurred to me when I typed my first post; in such a situation where there is little immediate profit to be gained from warring, the remaining major reasons are: capturing/holding a specific strategic location, or fighting for survival, along with ideological conflict, or seizing a particular economic resource. I think such a situation would plausibly result in the geopolitical stagnation we see in these alternate worlds or like the historical examples of classical warfare in the ancient world whenever major powers in contact with one another had similar levels of technological advancement.
3:59 Oh yes, I'm certain Cyrus the Great would have done a wonderful job invading the main headquarters, and seat of power, of what is essentially a Fallen Angel wielding Powerful Magics and Ancient Lore not seen since the dawn of Time and his army of Orcs, Fire Breathing Drakes, Fellbeast mounted Undead Warrior Kings (Nazgul), Massive Shock Troops who had "hide was as thick as stone" and were "nigh-impervious to physical attacks" (Trolls) I'm sure he or the Romans would have done great/Sarcasm Likewise, I'm sure that MORE Racism, Sexism, and Bigotry would have done the Humans of Azeroth wonders when they found themselves interacting with the Giant, Flying, Extremely Long Lived, (Sometimes)Fire Breathing, Magical Lizards who were essentially empowered by an ACTUAL DIVINE MANDATE (The Dragon Flights), or when they had to interact with the Regenerating, Long-Lived, Vodoo Witch Doctors (Trolls), The Nigh-Immortal, Pointy Eared people who were natural born wielders of Magic (Elves in general), the stumpy short bois who could make actual Mechs, Fuckhuge Bombs and who could make better Armor and Weapons in their sleep than a Human could make in their entire lifetime (Gnomes, Goblins, and Dwarfs respectively). I'm sure that would have won them plenty of allies for when the ACTUALLY ENDLESS LEGION OF DEMONS comes to knock on their door/Sarcasm From a Transhumanist to a Human Supremacist, I'm afraid that we are going to have to disagree here. The Humans in these Fantasy Lands NEED to be more "noble" and "accepting" because they need allies, otherwise they would get their shit kicked in and probably go extinct.
This probably ties in to their decreased aggressiveness, but many of these worlds with less violent fantasy humans also have far fewer wars than our own due to there being either no or just a handful of rival human nations, and/or long periods of peace where the world is ruled over by a single superpower. This means these civilizations had far fewer opportunities or incentive to innovate their tactics and technology. Additionally many of the hyper-aggressive non-human species you mentioned also have enhanced strength, durability, and haling capabilities. Making them far deadlier to face in combat than any normal human.
I think in dragon age they have the human aspect you talked about. 40K has the same but put to the extreme so much so that our human crusades and inquisitions would be like “those fanatics are crazy.” But in terms of Lord of the Rings perhaps it comes down to populations and troop numbers. Also geography that determine convenient locations and barriers. Imagine if all of Russia was inhabited by orcs? Yes you have the burning hatred of the none humans but will that keep you warm in the winter?
For my understanding orcs are stronger and have higher pain tolerances making them ideally suited to the brutality of medieval warfare. Perhaps humans of that time period were more savage than we are today but I think it would be an even fight. If I recall correctly it was inter-human strife that handicapped humanities ability to stave off the orcs
"i think every human in fantasy should act like my civilization at the worst moments of our history, since they don't, they're not human" ok dude, i mean, ok
@@mikhaelgribkov4117 "I will also completely ignore the very reason as to why fantasy exists in the first place in order to make my argument seem like it holds any strength, and completely fluff up, exaggerate, or completely lie about the fantasy works that I do like and enjoy to try and assert my bias."
This is the kind of take one reaches after having only read about the worst, moost violent parts of history and deciding that's all that matters. You read about one empire going genocide that one time and ignore the hundreds of years before and after where people coexisted in peace in the same land
In some regards your right, but I want to point out risk/reward for some settings. Why invade mordor? Thats a lot of resources you would have to dump into the invasion, what would you gain? A desolate hellscap? Far easier to just bottle them up in the long run and more easily justifiable to your citizens...
I'd say it often has a lot to do with fantasy escapism. We want to imagine a world that has the cool violence we want, whilst still being nobler, less complicated. Humans fighting humans is messy and we already have our fill of it IRL.
There are no bathrooms in 90% of these fictional worlds so the humans of those worlds have evolved to fully process 100% of all the nutrients and matter they consume. They also don't have to worry about disease from waste disposal issues. Thus they effectively have super powers.
Warcraft even, to an extent. Oh, let’s not forget humans in the Elder Scrolls; the first prolific human nations were built on a mountain of elven corpses - the Nordic and Alessian Empires. The former was just a straight up invasion and colonization, while the latter was the result of a slave rebellion that went zealous. Tiber Septim’s Empire also made a point to slaughter khajiit left, right, and center.
@@theinquisitor8112 *grabs Wuuthrad* YOU WOULD DENY THE NIGHT OF TEARS, KNIFE-EAR?? But seriously, calling almost any fantasy humanity as mostly peaceful is quite a stretch, even LotR, the fantasy standard. Wild tribes, open xenophobia, expanding empires.. About half a dozen "evil" factions of men, with as many good ones, almost all of which have been killing without cease since their factions began.
@@SirAroace Because the dude who made the video was cherry picking and trying to overgeneralize in an attempt to make it seem like his argument holds any water.
Oh yes, the kingdom of Stormwind that conquered its territory in the war against the trolls is not aggressive at all. This whole argument is simply striking in the amount of deliberately omitted information to make it work. Warcraft is just one example. Thedas people are also extremely bad at fitting into your narrative.
But once they settled. Did they do anything ? No Stormwind stood there in their borders. Looking for peaceful agreements. Same for Lordaeron and the other kingdoms. There wasnt expansion wars. And I think that's what he explained, if it were us human in theses worlds there would have been far more wars. The elves wouldnt be allied with us because we would try to take as much ressources as possible. I'm not saying human race would dominate the world as there is many great opponents. But that humans in Azeroth (for example) are quite different. It shows even more nowadays when Varian softened and Anduin pacifist reign. Humans are depicted as theses "noble and rightgeous" Again, not saying its a bad thing they are written differently. Just pointing out
@@Eroll-dw8ex The problem is that there are a bunch of equal forces. Trolls do not quite sit on their ass and wait until they are killed. Stormwind was once part of Arathor's empire that fell apart. In any case, the situation does not stagnate just because people are passive. It also happens because authors don't write hundreds of years of history. The reason for Varian's pacifism is that if you kill the horde in history ... you will suddenly piss off millions of real horde players. It's the same with the Alliance. This is not pacifism, but the self-preservation of the authors.
Humans in modern fantasy often represent the "knights in shiny armor"/"wise wizards" archetype, but there's also plenty of examples in many fantasy worlds, where the worst parts of humanity are shown, and even some where they're the norm. In Westeros, you can't make it as a "good guy". Heck, even in Shrek, the "ugly" ogre is the hero, while the knights are the bad guys.
And I highly respect that, being more peaceful and living happy lifestyles instead of fighting one another and living in shit hut’s like a bunch of backstabbing savages (looking at you, Westeros Humans, at least get out of your ridiculously long medieval stasis.)
Hmm. It seems you're really stretching the concepts you talk about in these latest incoming videos. I mean most of them can be explained in like three sentences. I don't really see how fantasy humans not acting "human" warrants a video.
One of my favorite parts of ROTK (book) that wasn't in the movie was all the other human factions besides Rohan that showed up to party/defend Gondor. One of my least favorite bits of both (especially movie) is the reliance on the army of the dead. The humans were perfectly capable and eager to fight and win on their own.
I feel like the sections of this video on Azeroth, Ferelden, and Lord of the Rings were made by someone who never interacted with the material beyond looking at trailers. There is backstabbing, racial and cultural tensions, and all manner of evil in each setting. So much so that it is hard to miss.
I mean, the Easterlings, the Southrons, and the Corsairs of Umbar were pretty willing to beat the brakes off Gondor for a laugh because Sauron asked (and paid) them to, and it's interesting to note that every named dragon killed in Middle-Earth met its end at the hands of Man, but oh _boy_ have I got a story for you that makes those oliphaunts pale in comparison. I give you *Ar-Pharazon the Golden.* He was a Numenorean warrior-king who was so hardcore that he -defeated Sauron by fielding an army (of just Men; no alliance-of-free-peoples nonsense in this Man's army) so overwhelming that the forces of Mordor took one look at it, broke, and ran without a fight; -dragged the fallen Maiar through the streets in chains and disgrace; threw Sauron in prison and pumped him for info; and (I kid you not) -launched a _land invasion of heaven_ after slapping Sauron around for kicks got boring. Not only that, when Ar-Pharazon's fleet showed up for D-Day at the Undying Lands, the demigod Valar living there were so freaked out about what Men might do there that they appealed to Eru Iluvatar Himself to intervene. For a bit of perspective, the last time the Valar decided to wreck face, a _continent_ died. And Ar-Pharazon had them on the run. To stop this threat, Eru Iluvatar had to pull out _all_ the stops. He vaporized the invading army and fleet, sank the island of Numenor Atlantis-style, and *REMADE THE WORLD* from a flat map to a globe to keep this from happening again. (Incidentally, that's why the 'last ship of the Elves' at the end of ROTK was so special: the Grey Elves were the only ones who could build and sail ships that would make it to the Undying Lands. Anyone else, and they'd just circumnavigate the world at best.) But yeah, Middle-Earth humans are the only ones who were so hardcore that they captured and interrogated Maiar, killed every dragon with a name, and singlehandedly pissed off the creator of the universe so much that He literally redefined physics and cosmology from first principles to calm things down again. _(edited to clarify dragon kills)_
I agree with most of your comment but I am pretty sure some of the dragons that were out about during the massive first age battles must have been killed by non-humans at some points (like by Manwe's eagles or whatever). But yes, Glaurung the First, Ancalagon the Black, Smaug the Golden, the most famed dragons of Arda were all killed by Men.
@@gokbay3057 Possibly. It's speculation, but if we're comparing tallies, "killed by rival dragon" probably tops the draconic cause-of-death list. I'll amend my comment to specify _named_ dragons, because all of those are credited to Men.
Rant: Alot of stories have to focus on the new differences that they forget to show us that the humans in the story truly are the same or something else entirely. Though it might be hersay to declare but the Space Marines aren't as human as the Imperial Guard if you get what I mean. I mean, in a lot of fantasy settings our specalities are taken from us and given to the other races. Elves are wiser, dwarves are craftier etc etc. In most situations humans in a world with other humanoid races, should specialize specifically in nomadic life. Stamina is like a huge thing for us, its part of why dogs and horses are some of our oldest friends. Where peace and war blur through the life that is the constant hunt. It also pissed me off how human are so rarely show being amazing at throwing and shooting. Makes SO much sense the tree huggers are master bow weldiers, such great hunters they are dispite how most media claim they are animal friends. We're not even that terrible of swimmers, not fast but we have stamina to go to sleep before sinking.
I don't think humans are intrinsically violent or hateful. We are creative, curious, enterprising, competitive, exploitive, and hierarchical. These traits can cross each other in such a way that inspires violence, and it is certainly natural behavior, but it is not our primary method for approaching new situations. War and strife are overrepresented and even romanticized because they elicit a reaction, but most of our recorded history is a product of commerce, politics, and innovation. Also, the reason humans are often at a disadvantage in fantasy is because we like to root for the underdog. This is because the underdog embodies the ideals we value: things like determination, valor, cunning, etc. No one wants to hear the tale of how a knight slew a caterpillar, but a story of a knight slaying a 3 ton magical flying lizard bears repeating. Likewise, who cares if a powerful human kingdom crushes a band of roving mauraders, tusks or not? The joy isn't in being the best, but in becoming the best, against all odds.
Exactly. Most people aren't hateful, racist, sexist etc. But much like the famous Christian preachers that were strongly against gays, drugs and sex outside of marriage and then get caught doing all of those things, the people who claim to be anti-racist and anti-sexist tend to actually be those things. But they project their own evils onto innocent people so they can virtue signal.
@@whiteeye9584 What about them? There are a lot of video games that let you do many different things. People enjoy being able to do things you can't or wouldn't do in real life. For example: I enjoy playing space sims. It's fun flying spaceships but I'm terrified of heights. I have trouble riding planes in real life, so I would never be able to fly a real spaceship.
The lack of social media might be the one major thing. Without the ability to speak out loud to the entire world, without propaganda going through them in a large dose, people tend to be tamer. People back in the middle ages might've been the same. Docile and passive. They had no knowledge of the world other than the ones they see and hear. They can only imagine everything and are confused on other cultures and society. That's my take on it anyway.
The nobler side of humanity does exist, and has been shown throughout history. Showing only the noble side can get tedious, but constantly showing the darker side of humanity would get pretentious. I'm glad that some fantasy human factions each have a certain mix.
I see that nihilism and self loathing are taking over here as well, pathetic. I mean what’s even the point if this, whinging about how bad humanity is?
@@TemplinInstitute I just watched it and it didnt contradict what Korpiz said. Its clearly meant to be sarcastic. This video seems to me like you WANT Humans in fictional series to be xenophobic, which makes them stronger, in your warped mind. It seems that 40K has started to effect you a bit too much. Nevermind that history has proved time and time again that the world does not run on fascist logic. Also, you got LOTR wrong, Sauron wanted Humans to worship him and his might, not exterminate them.
We only see a very small time period and community of humans in fiction. In Middle-Earth history, Gondor had plenty of conflicts other humans, plus with themselves (and don't forget that Gondor was founded by Men fleeing from ANOTHER human vs. human conflict). And if you think the humans of Azeroth are "enlightened", you haven't been paying attention (they're just as backstabby and supremicist as we are, looking at you Gilneas and Scarlet Crusade). The peace and tolerance that we see is just one small blip in their history, and humanity of Earth has shown similar attitudes, in some place and some time. Humanity can't be the "rawr-rawr kill everything" cynical view all the time, otherwise we'd never get anything done, and history is biased: wars and conflicts get talked about, not peace and kindness.
I have enjoyed all of your videos. This is by far the worst video I have seen from your channel. This had no real correlation to anything other then the videos creators biased political views on how he feels about humanity in general, which no supporting evidence was even provided for that either. It's telling how many dislikes this video already has.
I often wondered this myself about middle earth. About the closest thing it has to real world humans are the dunlandings. Who are essentially just a placeholder group of dark age barbarians for Rohan to fight against. Just imagine what it would have been like if an uruk-hai or orc warband had defected to fight on the side of the main characters to gain some sort of redemption for their race or something like that. Its even expressed in the series that orcs display other interests besides simply being minions of evil.
This seems a far cry from the normal standard of content here. Cherry picked examples which have unique origin stories for the races known as human are not representative of most fantasy humans.
Everything in a fantasy world is a plot device to help tell the story as the Author imagined. In most fiction, the goal is to tell a story, not to construct a logical parallel to our own reality. I’m certain JRR Tolkien created Middle-Earth to present the themes and messages to tell the fantasy plot as he imagined it. To be fair, your logical analysis is spot on and I find your content to be very entertaining and interesting. I look forward to many more of your high quality and thought provoking probes into various stories, ripping to shreds any oversight a creator may have made.
I agree to an extent, but I also consider the possibility that sharing a world with aggressive non-human sapient species' meant that Humanity could not afford to be fighting itself or weakening itself with things like bigotry, sexism, etc... towards their fellow Men and Women. All of their hatred and their thirst for conquest would instead be directed outwards to their rival species'.
Congratulations! You have discovered that contemporary humans have WAY more bad karma than all the fantasy humans you encountered - In the fantasy worlds, that bad karma is concentrated as the enemies of humanity, but in our world, there is no such thing, thus the bad karma is diffused among the humans themselves...
Man, I thought I was cynical, but man is this take super-cynical. Calls for extermination are not ALWAYS the go-to response for humans even on a general level, and the desire for self-defense and survival can take more forms than pure fear-driven racism. It is ignorant to portray human responses and their motivations in such black and white terms.
I think, what always struck me, was the amazingly noble kings. I may be way off, but if I recall, real life kings often payed little to no mind to the lives of their peasants. What’s a couple commoners getting eaten by a dragon in the grand scheme of things anyway, as long as it doesn’t set it’s sights on the king’s gold.
Sounds interesting. Edit: Also I just want to point out that some fantasy worlds have relatively realistic humans. Many worlds of Dungeons and Dragons have somewhat realistic nations, also Westeros as you mentioned. I agree with this video though, it’s very noticeable that humans in other worlds seem to be very unrealistically good hearted.
I think it comes down to the fact that most Fantasy Races aren’t really alien/different from Humans, they’re a reflection of certain elements of humanity. In a setting where Orcs are around humans are less violent and warlike because Orcs are pretty much a fantasy race based on our most warlike and barbaric tendencies, having equally barbaric humans just make Orcs people with Green skin and tusks.
Mmmh while I agree with your assertion in a way I think everyone of these races would be people. Cultures, languages etc. Are exchanged understanding is fostered or the races who do not fit are exterminated. If you cannot communicate on a base level with your other intelligent neighbors peace is never an option.
So they need to fundamentally be similar to coexist in any way, even in Warhammer that is the case, humans and orcs can communicate and even work together in small ways. They still try to murder one another permanently because orcs and humans are too different humans and elves and Draves are more similar and as such live mcub more easily together.
Well then by that logic, are other races just the same? Different aspects of humanity? What would make another race truly another race? No hate, just curious.
@@azca. Typically yes. Granted not all authors use fantasy races in the same way: Warcraft, Warhammer, and Lord of the Rings all have Orcs and they all generally are very warlike and violent, but they express themselves in different ways. Also because authors will occasionally subvert the tropes that these races are associated with like in the D&D setting Eberron Orcs are primarily druids. Also certain races have multiple tropes and portrayals and certain works might chose to focus on different elements: Dwarfs in Warhammer Fantasy, Dragon Age, and Lord of the Rings tend to be super conservative cultures with veneration of the past and family, while other Dwarfs are craftsmen and engineers who build amazing wonders like the Dwemer of Elder Scrolls.
Are other species the same as humans or humans are as other species? Being born, growing up and reproducing cycle of life, in different ways tho, wasn't invented by humans, not by far.
@@InquisitorThomas Warhammer dwarfs are craftsmen and engineers; but they never really recovered from the War of Vengeance against the perfidious pointy-eared gits, being followed, as it was, by Skaven warpstone fuckery that pretty much broke everything, and left Dwarfen civilisation vulnerable to the hated Greenskin.
With the way in-groups work, being human in our world doesn’t put you in an in-group. When there are orks, and elves, and dwarves, and goblins, suddenly humans start to look out for each other more. Suddenly humans are part of a common, meaningful in-group. Humans in fantasy are usually cruel, just not towards other humans.
Exactly, for example with the Humans of Thedas and Tamriel. While the Humans in both worlds (or at least Tamriel, as Thedas is a really crapsack place for everyone,) are usually cordial towards one another, and don’t oppress one other outside of stating stereotypes occasionally, it’s a WHOLE different matter towards the other races (the Falmer and City/Dalish say their brief hello’s, before being disemboweled by human’s for occupying land that they want, and the less said about the Orsimer’s constant oppression the better.)
To quote Terry Pratchett: "There is no racism in Discworld, because black and white gang up against green".
@@AAZ-yu5ss Also in Tamriel two of the major races the Nords & Redguard's litteraly built their nations on genocide
@@AAZ-yu5ss
Well, no, the Red Guards and Bretons have frequently fought one another, the entirety of Elder Scrolls 2 was set in the aftermath of just such a war, and the Nords have been oppressing the Reachmen for years too.
Also, the Falmer its less: hello and more: You massacred my city. Prepare to die. The Atmorans were chill with the Falmer before the Saarthal Massacre.
@@levongevorgyan6789 Wait, you believe complete and utter genocide (that includes newborns and children, along with thousands of innocent people) is ok if a city was massacred by a few pieces of shit high in power?! (And you do know that the Nords are an extremely patriotic people, who’s very xenophobic ancestors likely toyed with some of their history to make themselves look better.) But you do make a point that the races of men fought each other as much as the elves and beastfolk. (everyone fights each other in Tamriel really, even the gods invade to have some of that mortal action)
Actually, the kings of Numenor became exactly the same kind of conquerors as Rome and others did... and Sauron played them like a cheap kazoo.
It's part of the reason Numenor went the way of Atlantis, and why Sauron was able to gather allies among other human Kingdoms.
That make sense
Except that was more to do with him using his corruption to manipulate them.
@@AeneasGemini I would say it's more that Sauron was a master of using his enemies' weaknesses against them, he used the Numenorians pride and fear of death to turn them against the Valar. but that may have been what you meant.
@@AeneasGemini Their fall was mostly self-engineered. They would not have been susceptible to such corruption without the lows they had already arrived at.
You’re confusing “humans” with “protagonists”. The dunlanders allied with Saruman were also humans. The black numenoreans and pirates allied with Sauron were also human, etc. the good guys are portrayed as displaying virtuous qualities in most human narratives.
Not exactly, those humans siding with Sauron were already entirely corrupted by him for many generations.
@@midgetydeath
And generations more left to their own devices between his last fall and the war of the ring
@@midgetydeath The Dunlendings weren’t corrupted by him, but instead acted as throwaway allies for a single war because of less than favorable treatment of their lands by Númenoreans.
I think the Witcher series has the most realistic humans. Going through the towns and cities you see the types of people that exist in those times, rough people with all the dark qualities of humanity such as intolerance, treachery, and greed. But you also see people of honor, compassion, and understanding, and everything in between.
Ahh the warm messy circle of humanity.
Also they literally come from earth
I mean it is literally just medieval Poland so how surprised can you be
real middle ages people were actually probably more colorfully dressed than people today however thing like purple would be royal colors because the dye was rare some reds and blues would probable be the most common.
I just feel like the witcher is a bit too synical in its interpretation of humanity
That’s not realistic, though. Humans are cooperative and social and try to avoid conflict. Only fighting when they believe it is necessary for their well-being and they’re screwed if they don’t fight. Or out of their loyalty and trust being abused by greedy leaders in a time when there was no way to prove things and so living up to oaths was the only way to survive in a society.
The Witcher’s portrayal of humans is entirely inhuman and nonsensical. Even their living conditions are nothing like the time period being portrayed.
Isn't the Lord of the Rings mostly about how 95% of people can't resist the temptation of evil. Not just humans, but elves and dwarves too. (Orcs didn't really get to choose so, you know)
Not really. Sure, when is about the temptation of the power of the One ring, yeah that's straight forward that is bad. But what about other temptations on lower level, like temptation to steal (Marry and Pipin didn't resist too much on it in first movie when they stolen daily vegetables..), temptation of lying and manipulation, temptation of flesh (adultery) etc.
Aren't orcs fallen/deranged elves in lord of the rings.
@@umegaalfa5900 That is the main theme of the series you have to admit though, that our own greed an temptation can be our downfall.
The Elves were not corrupted by the power of the One Ring, but they were made INCREDIBLY cautious by the corruption they saw. The Dwarven Kings that held their rings for dwarves? Literally became the ancient Kings of Jerusalem, constantly lusting for more gold, for more power, for more of everything, until their kingdoms collapsed in upon themselves (the Dwarves of Middle-Earth HEAVILY parallel RL Hebrews), and many Elves and Men look down upon them for this.
In real world evil is build in feature but the society has hold it in by making rules sir
It was a regular occurrence in tolkien's books that elves and humans would just go on regular campaigns against the Orcs, not necessarily reacting in defense
So kinda like pest control?
@@lawindacera7219
Turbo Based.
Yeah that's what Faramir was doing isn't it, hitting the forces of mordor to keep them down, it's just with a will like Sauron behind them the orcs are neigh unstoppable.
Indeed, the valleys of the Misty Mountains were often targeted for - what is in essence genocidal extermination campaigns, making it harder for the goblins to support their numbers and denying them any chance of real aggricultural advancement. There are several passages that allude to wars of extermination waged against orks and goblins. Trolls, dragons, drakes, giants and troll-men (not the ones from far Harad) were often hunted to extinction or by culling their populations, and several of these are in varying degree intelligent species. And alot of this wasn't as a response to attacks but "preemptive" or part of expansionist politics. Even the Elves would hunt especially goblins and orks with no mercy shown.
@@DaDunge If I recall, at some points in the history of Middle Earth both the Black Gate and Minas Morgul were garrisoned by soldiers from Gondor? Basically enabling the Kingdom to conduct incursions into Mordor as they wished free from the threat of retaliation.
Meanwhile in the Elder Scrolls you've got the Nords driving the snow elves to extinction as vengeance for the razing of a single city.
>humans aren't humans because they aren't acting like the Imperium of Man
Well this seems like a spicy hot take to me.
@@IamOutOfNames Zoggin' 'umies muckin' about. Down 'ere wez all orks, even the 'umies.
Heresy
You mean humans aren’t acting like they have always acted throughout history. Wars, genocide, and the will to conquer their neighbors and assert their dominance.
Imagine if the Alliance of Lordaeron found the native americans in america instead of the spanish and later British. They probably would be allies. But in reality, and real life: exterminate anyone who doesn’t look like us 😂
Everyone will act like that if those around humans want to kill all of humans. Especially if they are different than us.
It's true
War is endemic to man
"on the brink of extinction" except not really. There's lots of humans fighting for Sauron. He wants to dominate them, to rule over them, not kill them all.
Which is even worse, considering what’s happening to the men of Nurn (being enslaved by Orcs and forced into factory farming)
@@AAZ-yu5ss I mean to be fair, the humans who willingly fight for Sauron seem to have it pretty well compared to the men who got enslaved.
I think sometimes we forget that there was only 1 Alexander, 1 Attila, 1 Genghis. Those are the equivalent of rampaging orc hordes. For the most part, humans have tried their best to be in peace with each other. And when a Darius, or an Augustus conquered a people. If he didn't wipe them all out, he integrated them into the kingdom.
We enjoy the stories of knights going into battle all the time, we forget that most of the time they were just trying to get a decent meal and a quiet bed to sleep in.
Actually, knights were pretty well off and were usually used to destroy rival lords' peasants and villages, ergo the term, "feudalism".
Real savages.
Humans don't want peace, we want stuff.
We want to check all boxes in our Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Unfortunately, other people have the stuff we want/need.
(And way back example, Homo sablis had nothing homosapiensapien needed and we couldn't even thrive in their environment, but we wiped em out anyway.)
@@manictiger "AKTULLY :B"
By saying "knight" he was just using an example mate, he could have very well said "soldier" and it would have had the same connotation, you've made a straw man of this real point. The point being that, humans (generally) are simply fighting for peace, security and a meal on ones table. Fighting to live a comfortable enough life without constant suffering.
@@PluvioZA
Soldiers do the same thing too, actually.
_"The point being that, humans (generally) are simply fighting for peace."_
Well that's just plain false. There wouldn't be any fighting ever, if dark triad sociopaths didn't keep floating back up to the top.
Gotta love how fantasy race discussions range from "elves, dwarves&etcetera are too humanlike to not be considered a human variant like neanderthal" to "fantasy humans are too nice to really be humans"
Putting Fereldan on this list and then mentioning a lack of bigotry as part of why they aren’t human… did you skip the whole alienage quest line?
Exactly. Or the fall of the Dales.
@@shammydammy2610 That one was on Orlais. They were the ones who did the Exalted Marches. At most the Ferelden just watched.
Yeah a major point of the Dragon Age mythos is that everyone is a bastard. Everybody is racist as hell against everybody else, until you have a world ending army of undead to deal with, and even then some people won't get with the program.
@@levongevorgyan6789 Yeah, but it's another facet of the fantasy game humans are better than we are question... Ferelden, Orlais, Tevinter. They're all awful. I've played many of the games mentioned here as examples, and while I disagree across the board, I'd say that Thedas/DA is the worst of the ones I have encountered in game.
Humans rely way too much on trade with the Dwarves to bother exterminating them. Dwarves need humans, humans need dwarves. It's a symbiotic relationship. Plus they live underground so competition is lessened.
Incredibly poor argument. My friend sent me this video asking for my thoughts on it, so I'll try offering my short version of what I sent him...
1) You failed to make the connection of genocide and racism to better martial prowess/military capability.
2) "These more enlightened, kinder, more tolerant humans..." have you EVER looked at Warhammer Fantasy? You know humans were on both sides of the war going on in Middle Earth, right? "...that's a scenario which having the more savage and cruel elements of human nature on your side might not be a bad thing." Ok, find me the people in Middle Earth, in Warcraft, in Warhammer who are looking at the most malicious elements of a setting and parrot the joke from the last Doom game; the one that said demons weren't evil, but just morally challenged creatures.
3) You invoked the Franks, the Romans, the Assyrians, the Huns, and the Mongols. However, the root argument (racism and genocide makes humans better fighters) fails to align with these forces as well. Hell, in none of them was racial or religious bigotry even a dominate ideology.
4) There's 0 effort in actually analyzing fantasy humans and trying to determine if the humans actually have the qualities he mentions (both tolerance and bigotry). Tbf, that would involve taking each setting and dissecting it individually, which couldn't be covered in 1 video. Instead you disingenuously put them all into one basket. Again, I you to bring up the humans of Gondor who believed that not killing every orc that lives and show how their tolerance is dominant to where it leads to Gondor's near annihilation. Also look at how Warhammer Fantasy's warring main 2 factions are fundamentally having a religious war against each other.
Counter-point:
Most fantasy settings do involve a high stakes threat to humanity that calls for an outlook that is genocidal in all but name (see Warhamemr Fantasy, Middle Earth, Goblin Slayer, and more). Sometimes it's shown (Goblin Slayer), sometimes it's just discussed (Tolkein), but the "us vs them" attitude is more often than not build into the fundamentals of a fantasy setting/conflict and accepted with little issue.
When fake geeks try to get intellectual = This Video
@@lucascoval828shut up Incel ur not even human u can't call others fake geeks lmao
People hate to acknowledge their darker side.
Most wars cover it up with pretty sounding propaganda... But if you truly get to the root of most wars, the real cause is tribal.
Cyrus the Great was actually the closest real man to those fantasy people, he was a genuinely good and tolerant king who was greeted not as a conqueror but as liberator.
But I'd totally love to see him defeating Mordor.
People forget just how Great Cyrus was. He’s literally the only non-Jew recognized as a “messiah” (not in the Christian sense) in the Hebrew Bible.
He and Aragorn would have a lot in common.
Persian pride for ever
nah, that's just a myth
CYRUS THE OG
I'm just going to go ahead and point out that the army Saruman sent to Helm's Deep was designed to storm Helm's Deep, a firtress which would have been expected to be garrisoned by horse soldiers and farmers. If Saruman had been expecting to fight a pitched battle against Carolingians, he'd have raised and equipped an army to fight a pitched battle against Carolingians.
“But I want my ultra manly, TECH using Caucasian Humans to slaughter the ugly, subhuman magic hordes of inferior creatures?!!🤬” (but I agree, Saurons army would eviscerate the Romans, along with the rest of the ancient and medieval world, if he doesn’t just feel like bending their wills to his.)
@@AAZ-yu5ss finally someone isn't kissing up the romans( the romans strong no doubt BUT they were not invincible)
I thought this video was going to be about an actual argument that due to the superhuman strength and agility of fantasy humans, they weren’t actually humans. Like, how a human can get so strong from fighting weaker enemies, building up strength and proficiency with no upper limit. Oh well.
I dunno that makes them more human than actual humans. like, the human quality of rapid adaptation in a physical form! Much like how Dragon Ball Saiyans are better humans than the Dragon Ball Earthlings.
Same
There's one obscure piece of lore with Tolkien, and that goes down to his general belief that history is a long slow path of degredation. Humans "back then" really were superior. Heck, ELVES used to be better. Silmarillion elves were basically powered by anime tropes having thunderous fights with the original dark lord while the land exploded around them. In middle earth, history is a battle not to restore what was lost- but to prevent losing any more with each passing generation. I don't personally share this viewpoint, but I do love the legendarium for what it is.
But hey- we do have better humans mixed in with the terrible humans here in the real world and always have. For every ruthless conquerer there's a Mr. Rogers.
The view that history is of a long, slow degradation is dreadfully wrong in my opinion too, but then again, Tolkien lived through the ultra-shitty first half of the 20th Century so I can’t really blame him.
The heavy presence of grimdark and downer tones in modern fantasy is precisely why I made sure my fantasy world celebrates progress and achievements over one’s ancestors.
@@mrviking2mcall212 I'm not sure Tolkien believed that that was currently the case, except perhaps in a moral sense. But he was definitely drawing on old ideas that were very prevalent in a lot of places at pretty much any time before the Renaissance. The idea of a lost Golden Age used to be a really big thing before technology started advancing fast enough to notice. This is another sense in which The Lord of the Rings gives us actual premodern attitudes in the characters, in a way most fantasy since does not.
@@purplelibraryguy8729 I suppose Warhammer is a big one?
I think you're too misanthropic. Immediate attempts at extermination are not the most common outcome of two cultures meeting. Incidents like those feel more common than they are because they're dramatic and memorable, but even in the middle ages, those violent conflicts punctuated a relatively peaceful status quo. When wars break out, it's usually because there's material gain to be had or someone's power is being threatened.
Agreed.
It's not two cultures meeting, it's two different types of sentient creature. Where are the other hominids?
@@bread1958 They all eventually went extinct, at least partly due to resource wars like the ones I described, but none of them faced an immediate conscious effort at extermination on first contact with anatomically modern humans.
Like, we know that anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals had actual children together. That seems very strange if the human relationship with them had been a simple matter of instant extermination crusade. I see no reason to think humans would be incapable of tolerating another sentient species if it did not compete for the same environmental niche.
I would concur.
But there is more than a cultural difference between humans and orcs and elves. I think this might draw humans closer together, but also make them suspicious at best and cruel at worst, toward other races.
Keep in mind that contrast can be a powerful social force. For example, during the World Wars, many German Americans quickly gave up aspects of their old culture for a more "American" way of life.
When humanity is fighting orcs and goblins or other brutal war loving groups, it's entirely possible that the humans would try to be more "civilized" in opposition.
They did not give up their culture or their names for that matter for a more american way of life, they gave it up for fear of ending up like the german colonists who came under brittish rule in africa, or later the japanese americans during WW2. It had less to do with wanting to be united, and more with simple base fear for ones life, and not wanting to end up in a work camp.
@@_Muzolf Many gave up uniquely German customs so that they appeared more 'American,' yes. Although it must be noted that you can find many stories about how folks disowned their ancestral homes not because they were afraid of their fellow Americans but because they truly wanted nothing to do with that place causing trouble for their actual homes.
Not that these are mutually exclusive or easily separated reasons. And the German case, especially, is helped because there's been Germantowns in the US since at least the Revolutionary War.
@@_Muzolf Fear for your life? In American internment camps? Are you joking?
@@supremecaffeine2633 Why would that be a joke?
@@wildfire9280 Because internment camps had the same mortality rate as the rest of the civilian population, at its worst.
I can confirm that I have neither killed anyone nor wished to wage war on someone for looking different from me. I also have not expressed the desire to kill, maim, or brutalize anyone or anything. I guess I'm not a human! Thanks for helping me figure that out, Templin Institute!
The logic of a human supremest am I right
My biggest problem with this type of thinking is that ignores the possibility for other fantasy races to be capable of achieving the same if not worse than what we've done, despite there being no reason for that to be the case.
Oh yes, the Numenoreans that are 8 foot tall and clad in full heavy armor, able to slaughter legions of orcs, are totally just normal humans. Or the Rohirrim riders who can evoke an image of Orome, with the ability to murder people with his barehands. Yes, these are normal humans.
Aye Tolkien took no liberties whatsoever in creating his humans
All joking aside J.R.R. Tolkien is my favorite author
Not like humans are supposed to be more mythic in the older ages of the world or anything
Mis read the first part as '8 foot tall chads in full heavy armour
Yes, there was a famous man that spent 5 years killing mercenaries as revenge for the death of his wife before dying from his injuries. He had never lost a fight even when outnumbered.
Are you telling me you can't do this stuff?
I thought I was in for the completely banal "fantasy humans aren't real humans because they didn't evolve/aren't on earth" take, but instead it was the much dumber "fantasy aren't humans because they aren't as savage and cruel as real humans" take - the kind that only a person who describes himself as "enlightened by his own intelligence" can make.
Templin Institute never ceases to surprise and disappoint me.
Its been over a year since I stopped watching templing regularly and can't help but agree, I feel I disagree with a lot of the takes going on... Its a shame I used to like it.
I feel that too many authors have taken this kind of 'realism' on board. Every author seems to have a fairly consistent cross-cultural human nature for their characters they struggle to ever deviate from. In the Witcher novels humans are basically officious and self-absorbed, while in Westeros humans are basically all cynical and ruthless; while this definitely makes them less nice, it does not make them more realistic when everybody has those traits. It also fits poorly into most depicted in-world cultures, in the Witcher world Nilfgaard is basically the logical result of the basic character of human beings in that world but then they are not exactly weak, so it works somewhat. In Westeros on the other hand, only the Wildlings are really compatible with the character of Westeros characters and they aren't strong at all.
I joke regularly with my friends that the 'humans' in the Monster Hunter series could be mistaken for Astartes, or Super Soldiers if they went anywhere else. These are people who, though human sized, can basically fist-fight T-Rexes into submission, tank energy blasts and all kinds of elemental damage, jump from a skyscraper height jump without a shoot, hero-landing it on impact and walk away without even muscle strain....and then go home for a 19 course dinner of some of the largest dishes I've ever seen.
Also if you think the humans of Kryta are weaker, less savage, less cruel than 'normal' humans... ya really need to play the game more. They regularly exterminate entire enclaves of centaurs, clans of Skritt that are trying to eke out an existence, and one of their oldest nations had forced the 'local' population of Charr -- 650lbs clawed, fanged, megapredator sentients -- out of their homelands and built a wall to keep them out. At least, until the Charr basically nuked that nation. And that's not counting the horrors of the White Mantle, Separatists, and any number of tinpot dictators that always rise up to try and carve out their kingdoms from what's left.
Mh....not your strongest argument.
The entire premise is that all humans and all cultures are basically the same when dealing with violence and aggression and that they are all equally good at crushing people with their military.
I'm not saying that fantasy is right, honestly humans are among the weakest races in most fantasy universes, and authors usually fails to represent how magic would completely change warfare (is so weird to think that Youjo Senki is among the best in this) but the idea that every kingdom would be an extremely militaristic state is just not believable.
Even in our world we had states that basically ignored war for centuries while every other country around them was busy killing each other.
Edit: i just realized that Switzerland itself sound like a fantasy concept...a kingdom in the mountains that has a past as one of the strongest military in the continent but then just stopped engaging in warfare and has lived in peace for centuries.
Because no one wants to exterminate them.
If let’s say the NATO Hegemonic coalition decided the Swiss are a threat in their center that doesn’t deserve to exist, the Swiss would be wiped out
Remember Switzerland isn’t neutral cause they’re so awesome, they’re neutral cause their last military engagement they got absolutely annihilated by the French who destroyed their way of life up to that point. It’s the same reason Japan seems so docile today. The Swiss know should they fuck up and piss off one of their great power neighbors or worse yet the superpower suzerain of said neighbors they’d be in for a bad time.
People often misconstrue Switzerlands neutrality as being from a position of strength. Rather it is something far more sane on their part, a recognition that they are in fact very weak and they only way to enjoy their quality of life is to just not get very political and risk pissing off someone they should and be dragged back into the dark 18th century. And also fortify the fuck out of their mountain so who ever wants to attack them only has to options
1) Don’t do it.
2) Exterminate them, don’t even bother to conquer or occupy.
And they achieve this with countless underground fortresses, and vast buried vaults of gold and wealth, that they use to make deals with anyone and everyone, making an invasion upon them so utterly unprofitable...
Alternate title: “Medieval Fantasy Isn’t -Grimdark- Realistically *_Medieval_* Enough”.
Laughs in Warhammer
“If 12 year old girls aren’t regularly r%ped to death by their relatives for our “enjoyment”, it isn’t historically accurate!😡🤬” (personally I’m tired of the more cynical, militaristic fantasies, I wanna see some more optimistic, slice of life fantasies, were people are just living their lives with magic and other weird creatures.)
@@AAZ-yu5ss Definitely agree. At the very least, i'd want to see more of said "simple pleasures" moments in grimdark fantasy, in order to make said grimdark life more bearable to be in (not only for the characters within, but also for the audience watching).
@@AAZ-yu5ss Doesn't have humans, but My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a good example of slice of life fantasy.
@@vgmaster9 and even it has racism.
Wars of "extermination" were pretty rare in human history. Very seldom was it profitable to "exterminate" people you want to be able to tax. In fact 'large scale warfare' has more often than not been more about logistics than "hardened battle loving soldiers". The Romans didn't win so often because they were inherently 'better' or 'stronger' as individual humans than the people they were fighting. But they almost always were way better supplied.
If you're fighting an adversary who doesn't need food, water, or sleep? Forget "pitched battles", how the hell would humans be expected to go out and attack an enemy that could at any moment outflank them and hit their supplies. Supplies that, being human, they need. Since 'magic' so often satisfies logistical issues, thinking too deeply about human warfare in fantasy settings is probably gonna send you down a very different rabbit hole from the one the creator/author intended.
Yeah, this is less based on actual human history and more just a sort of vague modern idea of what human history was like.
Yeah if magic SOLVES issues of logistics and supplies, why go to war?
You have it backwards. It is highly unprofitable to attempt to tax people who will revolt every decade once you took over. Romans specifically learned it the hard way. Almost every other major empire until Renaissance were based on underlying cause be it religious, cultural, or historical differences which made peaceful coexistence impossible on a large enough scale.
I've studied in both High Schools and Universities on both Western and Eastern hemisphere in highly respectable schools and colleges. Let me tell you, Western history is exceptionally redacted compared to Eastern. Sure Cortez bringing Small Pox killed 95% of the local aborigines and USA had The Trail of Tears which was viewed as *the* worst of genocides as Dr.O'Donnell taught us, but it was mere displacement of people. I am from Kazakhstan, and we didn't have a single year of history where we didn't cover at least two total genocides committed by us or our neighbors. I am talking hunting refugee kids and mothers with dogs across a thousand-mile steppe during the aftermath Kazakh-Dzungar Wars, I am talking Imperial China vanishing entire regions of revolting people like Sogdians, I am talking of going through entire genealogical trees of your own populous to exterminate any possible semblance of distant ancestry, I am talking of genocides so total and so complete they kind of faded from memory because there simply aren't any people left to complain or demand reparations. And you won't find them unless you look for them specifically. Seriously, you don't hear of most successful genocides because they were so thorough.
That is what I think the author of this video is talking about. In a world where goblins existed, Holy Crusades would be committed at any given point by the dozens 'just because' of their different looks and cruder language as opportunistic and charismatic people ride the wave of hatred and intolerance to profit on expansion. Add in the fact that goblins are generally homicidal and rapists and it's an instant 'kill' button for humanity of our world who would exterminate those creatures for perceived threats and slights. There is a reason we are the only 'homo' genus left on the planet even thou there was more than a dozen at one time. Because despite being able to peacefully communicate and even REPRODUCE we still viewed such tiny differences as such irrevocable that we genocided our way into their total extinction bar those that already intermixed with Homo sapiens.
In Warcraft lore, the humans of Azeroth are descendants of the barbaric half-giant Vrykul of Northrend, their progenitors.
The Vrykul used to be a race of sentient metallic beings created by the Titans until the Curse of the Flesh afflicted them to lose their metal forms and gain flesh and blood bodies.
specifically they were the "sickly" offspring that the king of the vrykrul ordered killed, but the mothers didn't want to and hid them and whatnot
So Humans are technically giants due to being descended from Vrykul the same way Orcs were descended from the Ogres, who were descended from Ogronn, who also finally descended from Gronn. That means both species are just small giants!
@@temporary67315 So basically there's actually a Lore reason that all the shop keepers look like they spend all their off time pumping 'roids' at the gym. It wasn't just reusing the same character models for NPCs!!
Yeah this is why the humans of Azeroth just look so big.
@@governorofwesttaiwan4865
I thought it was just purely art-direction.
That's a cool tidbit.
Reminds of me of the "humans" in Gears of War.
Maybe someone already mentioned it, but regarding why the 'good' races hadn't just wiped out the bad ones, the simple reality is that orcs are in some ways more like forces of nature, and you might as well ask why our ancestors didn't wipe out rats or mosquitos, since no matter how many we kill, they can disappear into places where we can hardly follow and replenish their numbers. I know that if I just won a massive land battle on the surface and forced orcs to retreat into mountain caves, I wouldn't be thrilled to chase them into dark underground tunnels where they could easily kill and eat me. It would be easy to justify the risk of a few raids and maybe one big battle every few generations.
Middle Earth humans also aren't nearly as generally nice as the video implied, and there were some insanely brutal things happening between members of the same race - they just weren't the focus of LOTR or the Hobbit. The Kinstrife between the elves was literally a bunch of the most heroic "good guy" elves going for revenge against Morgoth, and deciding to brutally wipe out another group of elves to steal their rides. The following war included lots of betrayals of other human, elven, and dwarven groups for various reasons. Then we have the humans of Numenor (the "best" of humanity) murdering and sacrificing each other, colonizing and conquering all over Middle Earth, and declaring war on the elves and Valar out of jealousy. Discussing Rohan, the implications of Saruman's speech to the Dunlendings/Hill-men is that they are effectively held as an oppressed lower class by Rohan, and finally, what humans would Rohan actually need to fight? They are friendly with Gondor to their south and east, and previously with Saruman to the northeast, so other than some pirates on the western coast and the Dunlendings in the north, there's basically no one other than orcs in the mountains to fight.
There are really just the two isolated human realms to the West of Mordor, and plenty of empty plains and forests for expansion, so neither of them seem to have the kind of population pressures that would force them to do something suicidal like invading magical forests or getting horsemen to dismount and fight in mountain caves to hunt goblins. Rohan is separated from the Shire by hundreds if not a thousand miles and almost no one knows it even exists, Dale is even further, and anywhere else with humans involves going around Mordor, so forget that. There will always be some conflicts between people, but societies always try to define an outsider, and that's going to be a lot easier if you have an entirely different species showing up to murder you every few decades, as well as an actual evil demon dark lord running the hellscape nation next door. If you don't have that kind of threat, society will pick something like a person's language or accent, skin color, or hair color and declare them to be the outsider. If those kinds of divisions start to fade, someone will make up a new way to define themselves and exclude others, and then declare that anyone who doesn't accept or understand the new division is an oppressor and the real enemy.
Rohan is also on good terms with Gondor because the proto-Rohirrim came to the aide of Gondor in a war to turn the tide (which was repeated again at The Battle of the Pelennor Fields), they were gifted that land to rule as long as they maintained friendly relations (it also worked in Gondor's favour as their Northern lands were basically lost, and lessened logistical concerns, why waste dwindling resources on a bunch of land that isn't nearly as occupied while also getting a new buffer state between you and potential hostile states?).
Can't blame Tolkien though, since he was literally sitting in a trench at the front lines in WWl when he started laying the ground work for Lord of the Rings. He def probly had a enough of our/real world humans. lol
True
And then saw his son shipped off to fight WW2 after the "Great War" which was supposed to end all wars just sewed the fields for another conflict.
"Newsflash: the genre's called FANTASY! It's meant to be UNREALISTIC you myopic manatee!"
-J.R.R. Tolkien
Odd idea but... you know how there are good elves and evil elves? Are the fantasy humans more good or are we just more evil?
Are we the dark humans?
Did we get banished to this magicless wasteland for our crimes?
Hol up
Sometimes life on Earth does feel like a damnation.
But, that's always felt in regards to the actions of humans...the planet itself was dope.
At least where Middle Earth is concerned, *someone* didn't read the Silmarillion
This just in: The Templin Institute discovers the fact that different societies behave differently.
They’re still human my guy. There have been tons of peaceful, non-bigoted human societies in the real world. They just tend to get wiped out by their more aggressive neighbors. Please read up more on history.
I think the kingdoms of the Witcher and Dragon Age would be more like what we would do. Using magic AND being militaristic.
I always thought that having magic would make life simpler for many, at least in general. Easier construction, medicine, etc. Maybe this helps reduce strain on some aspects of society that would push people to be more militaristic. Then again, if WE had magic we would make magic nukes, so eh. Maybe it depends on the period of development it's discovered. And if there are demons and such, maybe people would be more united and chivalrous?
One thing that always bothered me is how the sorcerers, and magic users in general, are misplaced in fantasy settings. See, in a world where magic was present even before humans created the first civilizations, the magic users would totally dominate the political landscape. The magic users would be like god-emperors, no one can even challenge their power. They would be the kings, not just their advisors or doing their own thing.
No, mages would be the first to rule early civilizations. In a magical world, they would be the first pharaos, and their rule would last... forever, potentially.
Kinda agree at this point. But I think it more depends on the role, that humanity plays in comparison of other creations. Like if there were no thinking species other then humans, they would still be almost the same side as in our world. However on the other side, when there are a lot of other civilisations we would be highly affected by their presence. It just depends on a lot of circumstances.
Demons aren't even real, but humans have and do believe they are, and use that as justification to torture, murder, and or disenfranchise people with different beliefs (political and religious), or that they just don't like. Imagine how much worse it'd be if demons actually existed.
@@Vitalis94 They'd also start learning quickly how MAYBE it's not the best place to be after the first few 'god kings' got their heads taken off or poisoned by the normal people serving them and it's better to be high in the power structure but not be its face. IE, the right hand advisor. Trust me, eventually people learn that the throne comes with all kinds of problems as well as benefits, it's better to be just close to it.
@@TheSuperRatt if they existed there’d be concrete evidence to prove or refute accusations of such. Doesn’t mean humans wouldn’t still use such accusations for their own selfish, zealous, or dictatorial reasons but there’d be precedence set.
Speaking of fantasy, there are many other topics that we can discuss: how fantasy modern warfare works, Industrialization in the fantasy world,.... I’m a big fan of Magitek and anything like that :3
Hello? Is this the Ordo Xeno? Yes, I found the alien sympathizer.
Yeah, the fact that most fantasy settings either have no advancement in technology or it is sooooo slow tends to bother me. And far too often the blending of magic and science is just ignored. I can only think of a couple settings that avoid these problems, namely Warmachine and Shadow of the Conquerer.
Like Science Fantasy with Star Wars and Destiny
I can't help but think you not only have a cynical view of humanity, but are failing to read a lot of (usually unintentional) racial coding. The humans in a lot of these settings aren't reflective of the diverse cultures of real life humans. They are almost uniformly white psuedo-Europeans, and the non-human groups are very racialized. Tolkien himself described orcs as resembling the "least lovely Mongol types", and the humans who side with Sauron are coded as non-white, resembling people from Asia or North Africa. The Alliance in Warcraft is basically NATO. I didn't play a lot of WOW, but in the goblin starting zone, while fleeing destruction, you witness the humans violating the terms of a truce by keeping Thrall as a prisoner, and when they realize the goblin refugees saw the whole thing, they order the ship to be sunk. The Horde certainly isn't without its sins, but the humans clearly have some bigoted feelings or at least a deep mistrust of peace. Bigotry against non-humans is prolific in almost every fantasy setting, and it's clear that those non-humans are in some way reflective of real life racial minorities.
To quote Terry Pratchett, “Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because-what with trolls and dwarfs and so on-speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.”
I think it's not totally out of the realm of realism for a fantasy world to have humans that are united and benevolent. I think humans, by nature, are social and cooperative creatures. Absent of the influence of bad actors who manipulate our more base tendencies, humans tend to want to band together in times of crises. But, also, I just don't agree that humans in fantasy are by-and-large more noble than they are in our world. If they are, it's usually due to a racialized coding of the "Men of the West" banding together to prevent the hordes of others from storming the gates.
Great comment!
Really well put. What humans stand for in any work of fantasy, contrasted with other sentient species, depends on the author and their intentions... but racial subtexts are everywhere.
You know that your argument basically boils down to "how dare these escapist fantasy stories be escapist" right? And that's the charitable interpretation btw.
0:57 he is generation tech
I think you're forgetting complacency. If the threat isn't active, constant and immediate, it's difficult to rally the mob to support a wars without end.
This happened irl with Churchill identifying the Soviet Union as the next major threat to the world after Germany was defeated and wanting to go to war with them before the Soviet Union could rebuild their military strength.
The people more or less replied with "Look, you're right but we're tired." and voted for someone else.
Look man, I'm just trying to get a goblin girlfriend. I'll cooperate with the horde and be a bit nicer if I have to
I respect the hustle
hey, if you want to go degenerate, pick a dark elf! or blood elf if it's in WoW because they're always 'thirsty' for magic. don't know about you, but my BIG MAGNUM is great source of some great magic!
BEWARE OF BB_baalbuddy ELVES
I'm calling for the Goblin Slayer
By the emperor, better cease your heresy!
I respect your quote, Skeletor.
3:27 they would have lost and humanity would be extinct. There's a reason they don't go into Mordor looking for a fight. 'One does not simply walk into Mordor"
I think it comes down to the genre being fantasy allows the author to present an idealized society as a mirror to the readers. In the novel I am working on, all the different fantasy races are simply different subsections or physiologically distinct ethnic groups of humans, (kinda like a German Shepherd, Great Dane, Bull dog, etc are all the same species but have different traits.)
well no, i'm gwessing that that's the result of having a common enemy as a species, the main divergences smooth out with time cause people have to live with all the dangers that also aggregate in great numbers to kill humans indiscriminately
constant friction with these creatures ended up creating the situations we see
they probably already hunted them down ecc ecc, but try it yourself to defeat a whole race who's doing the same from the start and almost always has greater numbers or superior streinght
They are ideals, meant to, in a similar vein to fairy tales, convey a notion of what humans are capable of being. What they should strive to be. The Nobility of a typical Fantasy human is meant to inspire us by showing us what we ought to be.
Same thing with Starfleet in Star Trek hanging in the ropes every other war because humans are just too good to build straight up warships unlike the Klingons, Romulans or Cardassians.
First of all, I'm pretty you sure you missed some of the evil human factions in Middle Earth. Some of whom allied with Sauron! Not to mention the Scarlet Crusade from Warcraft.
Now on to the main argument, while I do see you point to a degree....but. To me complaining how human in some fantasy setting aren't bastards is like complaining that Superman uses his powers for good. Sometimes people want to see people be heroes. Especially after hearing about backlash from Game of Throne finale.
Yes Inquisitor, this heresy right here
Already surveiling him, I'll get him soon.
This Heresy is thought provoking.
@@VoiceOfTheEmperor
Provocation of Thought is a terminal offense in the Imperium of Man. But then the human in WH40K aren't human either. Literally everything about the IoM requires humans to be far more sheepish and less mentally and morally resilient than they really are.
@@DocWolph 10.000 years of propaganda, indoctrination (of multiple forms), and publicly torturing to death anyone that dissents might well do that
@@Petterwass
That doesn't work either. Humans, REAL Humans, would rebel even unto death, They would bend fold and spindle that indoctrination, and most certainly would NEVER allow Knowledge and/or the ability to attain it to be lost or so controlled as to cease to be a HUMAN thing.
Further every regime that has tried to rule by force and intimidation has ultimately failed by factors within and without. Lies and Propaganda only last so long.
It is simply impossible for anyone to attain and maintain the level of control the IoM is supposed to have across A planet, for get 100s of 1000s in a Galaxy where it might be centuries before that planet ever sees their so-called conquerors again, if ever.
Do not kid yourself, the Humans in WH40K are NOT REAL HUMANS.
Tolkien actually draws a lot of attention to the failures and weaknesses of his human characters in Arda, as well as the many failures of his elven and dwarven characters.
The entire Akallabeth is a cautionary tale of how what was once the most advanced human civilization ever fell and was nearly completely destroyed due to their pride, greed, lust for eternal life, unearned feelings of superiority... and their final ruler being prideful and foolish enough to fall for Sauron's temptations when he brought him to the homeland as a prisoner. Tolkien doesn't exactly mince words about his humans and draws attention to bigotry, selfishness and unreasonable stubbornness in the case of Túrin, some of his human bandit pals, but also with the people in Bree, in Dale and Lake-town, in Rohan and Dunland, the hobbits often behave in an ignorant, idle and hoarding manner, and last but not least, also in Gondor (their culture often teaches people to look down upon less developed human countries) and Harad (the rulers of Harad serve Sauron out of sincerity or simple fear, and their ordinary subjects have to fight in wars they likely don't want).
The Nazgul and the Black Númenoreans and their corsair descendants are some of the most evil-minded humans in Arda, even though they mostly descend from that once-great civilization, much like Arnor and Gondor.
Though Tolkien does show the good sides of his human cultures, and does show believable idealism (after all, most people tend to be decent and mundane-minded, and even most of their bad actions are petty, not those of masterminds), but he's pretty explicit humans can be very, very evil, moreso than largelly disposable henchmen like orcs. The orcs don't have as much free will and fully autonomous agency as the human characters, or elven or dwarven or other characters.
Oh, I thought this video was gonna be about how humans aren't physically Earth humans, given their proclivity of surviving get thrown into buildings or getting superpowers from vats of chemicals. My bad.
For real though, I think this is giving some of those fantasy nations too little credit. I feel like it'd take more than humans being stone cold edgy badasses to outfight monster races that overpower us one on one. Not to mention this video ignores that many of those worlds HAVE darker and more violent humans as well.
Problem is Warcraft didn't had a human kingdom among the seven kingdoms who was taking notes from the brutality of the horde and the organization of the humans and forming an imperial seat with no regards to the well being of others to persecute total war against the Horde and uncooperative alliance factions
Think if Archaon the Everchosen led the humans, he would havent fall to the same flaws as Arthas did and ensure Lorderon didn't fall and instead become the new imperial seat
Not sure I agree with this. It’s a pretty narrow view of our history imo. Yes, people of our past were a lot more sexist, fanatic, and all those other attributes than their fantasy contemporaries, but not by too much, to be honest. For example, you mention Cyrus the Great at the end, and I find this odd since he’s pretty famous for being one of the less awful and oppressive rulers in pre-modern history. He was very hands-off with those he ruled as long as they paid their dues, and even fostered their cultures (the Jews went as far as to declare him the messiah as he allowed them to return to Judea and funded the construction of a new temple in Jerusalem). Ultimately, with some notable exceptions, people are far more concerned with their money than they are with their prejudices. In the case of the Uruk-Hai and Orcs I can agree with you that, yeah, those humans realistically should be far more vicious towards them. But for others, I’m not so sure. I’m also not too well versed in fantasy so maybe there’s a better explanation for all of this, I’m not sure.
Lore wise the humans of Stormwind are extremely aggressive. The story just happens at a point where they aren't as aggressive and have been the recent victims of sudden aggressive groups.
They're literally what you said. The only difference is they're the ones who were more recently thwacked.
I have often asserted that fantasy and sci fi that have different races in it reflects different aspects of humanity. The elves are what we may reach for and by reaching for it we become the more noble humans, who are nobler, less aggressive, etc. than we are in the real world. Uruk-hai represent who we could descent into if we fall for our baser instincts. You can even see this in ancient mythologies. The Ettins or Jotuns of Norse mythology are not a different race from the Aesir, but a more savage and less noble version of what humanity can be. This is also why humans or heroes in the stories seem strange, because they are what we should reach for.
what>>>>
I’d like to think that, when literally faced with the outright hostile existent of evil, humans would see “goodness” as a survival strategy, at least toward each other and their allies
In a lot of fantasy fiction, factions and races are written to represent good/evil, or other facets of human nature, distilled into that form, based on the author's views, impressions, and philosophies. They aren't meant to be mirrors held up to whatever someone thinks is "realistic."
So this is when supremacism engenders paranoia and turns xenophobia inwards; it's truly sad to behold.
Along with all the other people who have pointed out that you've failed to properly account for the effects of humans developing alongside other sentient species and the fact that ancient and medieval humans were not all always savagely and ruthlessly violent but rather were frequently curious and friendly, I'd like to add that you've also failed to account for the wearing down of violent societal tendencies after long and just as often deadly wars of attrition have depleted resources, production, learning, matériel and population, as happened in Europe after the World Wars as well as many of the alternate-world examples you claimed to give.
Also, even humans here aren't necessarily guaranteed the "luxury of living in our more modern world", not with factions still striving to cover the world in blood under their own medieval or even twentieth-century banners.
This is a good answer. Killing orcs sounds good when you are talking about doing it from your armchair in the modern world. It's rather harder when there's a shield-wall of orcs in front of you and their spears will kill you as dead as yours will kill them. And there's nothing much to get from doing it. The orcs typically have weapons just as good as humans do!
@@Feaelen Thank you for your compliment. In most of the works I've seen, orc and goblin weapons are more crude and rough-hewn, while elven and dwarven weapons are far more finely crafted or forged, with human weapons falling somewhere in the middle, yet they all inflict the same lethal effect in combat! Your comment suggest another good point that hadn't occurred to me when I typed my first post; in such a situation where there is little immediate profit to be gained from warring, the remaining major reasons are: capturing/holding a specific strategic location, or fighting for survival, along with ideological conflict, or seizing a particular economic resource. I think such a situation would plausibly result in the geopolitical stagnation we see in these alternate worlds or like the historical examples of classical warfare in the ancient world whenever major powers in contact with one another had similar levels of technological advancement.
The guy is a misanthrope and the video honestly was terrible
@@Feaelen Wouldn't the orcs be mostly physically stronger than most humans too on average?
After reading this and remembering this video I'm starting to think Marc has some hidden shit in the closet outside of the whole FSM fiasco
Maybe we were the real Orcs all along?
Humans are space orks.
@@inquisitorbenediktanders3142 WAAAGH!!!! DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!!!
@@VoiceOfTheEmperor exactly! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!!!!!
@Genkiro Senji BY THE EMPEROR, CAN THE XENOS GET ANY BIGGER?!!
@Genkiro Senji we found out that humans are orks that have degenerated drastically.
Not really a thing I’ve thought guess I’ve always just accepted it for the sake of the story
3:59
Oh yes, I'm certain Cyrus the Great would have done a wonderful job invading the main headquarters, and seat of power, of what is essentially a Fallen Angel wielding Powerful Magics and Ancient Lore not seen since the dawn of Time and his army of Orcs, Fire Breathing Drakes, Fellbeast mounted Undead Warrior Kings (Nazgul), Massive Shock Troops who had "hide was as thick as stone" and were "nigh-impervious to physical attacks" (Trolls)
I'm sure he or the Romans would have done great/Sarcasm
Likewise, I'm sure that MORE Racism, Sexism, and Bigotry would have done the Humans of Azeroth wonders when they found themselves interacting with the Giant, Flying, Extremely Long Lived, (Sometimes)Fire Breathing, Magical Lizards who were essentially empowered by an ACTUAL DIVINE MANDATE (The Dragon Flights), or when they had to interact with the Regenerating, Long-Lived, Vodoo Witch Doctors (Trolls), The Nigh-Immortal, Pointy Eared people who were natural born wielders of Magic (Elves in general), the stumpy short bois who could make actual Mechs, Fuckhuge Bombs and who could make better Armor and Weapons in their sleep than a Human could make in their entire lifetime (Gnomes, Goblins, and Dwarfs respectively). I'm sure that would have won them plenty of allies for when the ACTUALLY ENDLESS LEGION OF DEMONS comes to knock on their door/Sarcasm
From a Transhumanist to a Human Supremacist, I'm afraid that we are going to have to disagree here. The Humans in these Fantasy Lands NEED to be more "noble" and "accepting" because they need allies, otherwise they would get their shit kicked in and probably go extinct.
Blind fanatical hatred is actually incredibly detrimental.
Creating enemies when they don't need to is not good for your long-term survival.
This probably ties in to their decreased aggressiveness, but many of these worlds with less violent fantasy humans also have far fewer wars than our own due to there being either no or just a handful of rival human nations, and/or long periods of peace where the world is ruled over by a single superpower. This means these civilizations had far fewer opportunities or incentive to innovate their tactics and technology.
Additionally many of the hyper-aggressive non-human species you mentioned also have enhanced strength, durability, and haling capabilities. Making them far deadlier to face in combat than any normal human.
I think in dragon age they have the human aspect you talked about. 40K has the same but put to the extreme so much so that our human crusades and inquisitions would be like “those fanatics are crazy.” But in terms of Lord of the Rings perhaps it comes down to populations and troop numbers. Also geography that determine convenient locations and barriers. Imagine if all of Russia was inhabited by orcs? Yes you have the burning hatred of the none humans but will that keep you warm in the winter?
For my understanding orcs are stronger and have higher pain tolerances making them ideally suited to the brutality of medieval warfare. Perhaps humans of that time period were more savage than we are today but I think it would be an even fight. If I recall correctly it was inter-human strife that handicapped humanities ability to stave off the orcs
"i think every human in fantasy should act like my civilization at the worst moments of our history, since they don't, they're not human" ok dude, i mean, ok
"Also, I will ignore Lore parts of fantasy which actually tell about humans being assholes to make a point."
@@mikhaelgribkov4117 "I will also completely ignore the very reason as to why fantasy exists in the first place in order to make my argument seem like it holds any strength, and completely fluff up, exaggerate, or completely lie about the fantasy works that I do like and enjoy to try and assert my bias."
This is the kind of take one reaches after having only read about the worst, moost violent parts of history and deciding that's all that matters.
You read about one empire going genocide that one time and ignore the hundreds of years before and after where people coexisted in peace in the same land
In some regards your right, but I want to point out risk/reward for some settings. Why invade mordor? Thats a lot of resources you would have to dump into the invasion, what would you gain? A desolate hellscap? Far easier to just bottle them up in the long run and more easily justifiable to your citizens...
I'd say it often has a lot to do with fantasy escapism. We want to imagine a world that has the cool violence we want, whilst still being nobler, less complicated. Humans fighting humans is messy and we already have our fill of it IRL.
There are no bathrooms in 90% of these fictional worlds so the humans of those worlds have evolved to fully process 100% of all the nutrients and matter they consume. They also don't have to worry about disease from waste disposal issues. Thus they effectively have super powers.
Every fantasy human: don’t hurt anyone or conquer!
Witcher,Westeros,Warhammer: fuck that
Warcraft even, to an extent. Oh, let’s not forget humans in the Elder Scrolls; the first prolific human nations were built on a mountain of elven corpses - the Nordic and Alessian Empires. The former was just a straight up invasion and colonization, while the latter was the result of a slave rebellion that went zealous. Tiber Septim’s Empire also made a point to slaughter khajiit left, right, and center.
except none of the worlds listed in the video are like that
@@theinquisitor8112 *grabs Wuuthrad* YOU WOULD DENY THE NIGHT OF TEARS, KNIFE-EAR??
But seriously, calling almost any fantasy humanity as mostly peaceful is quite a stretch, even LotR, the fantasy standard. Wild tribes, open xenophobia, expanding empires.. About half a dozen "evil" factions of men, with as many good ones, almost all of which have been killing without cease since their factions began.
@@SirAroace yeah, I watched the video
@@SirAroace Because the dude who made the video was cherry picking and trying to overgeneralize in an attempt to make it seem like his argument holds any water.
Oh yes, the kingdom of Stormwind that conquered its territory in the war against the trolls is not aggressive at all. This whole argument is simply striking in the amount of deliberately omitted information to make it work. Warcraft is just one example. Thedas people are also extremely bad at fitting into your narrative.
But once they settled. Did they do anything ? No
Stormwind stood there in their borders. Looking for peaceful agreements. Same for Lordaeron and the other kingdoms. There wasnt expansion wars.
And I think that's what he explained, if it were us human in theses worlds there would have been far more wars. The elves wouldnt be allied with us because we would try to take as much ressources as possible.
I'm not saying human race would dominate the world as there is many great opponents. But that humans in Azeroth (for example) are quite different.
It shows even more nowadays when Varian softened and Anduin pacifist reign. Humans are depicted as theses "noble and rightgeous"
Again, not saying its a bad thing they are written differently. Just pointing out
@@Eroll-dw8ex The problem is that there are a bunch of equal forces. Trolls do not quite sit on their ass and wait until they are killed. Stormwind was once part of Arathor's empire that fell apart. In any case, the situation does not stagnate just because people are passive. It also happens because authors don't write hundreds of years of history.
The reason for Varian's pacifism is that if you kill the horde in history ... you will suddenly piss off millions of real horde players. It's the same with the Alliance. This is not pacifism, but the self-preservation of the authors.
*dying elf noises*
Humans in modern fantasy often represent the "knights in shiny armor"/"wise wizards" archetype, but there's also plenty of examples in many fantasy worlds, where the worst parts of humanity are shown, and even some where they're the norm. In Westeros, you can't make it as a "good guy". Heck, even in Shrek, the "ugly" ogre is the hero, while the knights are the bad guys.
I feel that most fantasy worlds seek out peace instead of expansion and have slow technological advancement.
And I highly respect that, being more peaceful and living happy lifestyles instead of fighting one another and living in shit hut’s like a bunch of backstabbing savages (looking at you, Westeros Humans, at least get out of your ridiculously long medieval stasis.)
Hmm. It seems you're really stretching the concepts you talk about in these latest incoming videos. I mean most of them can be explained in like three sentences. I don't really see how fantasy humans not acting "human" warrants a video.
One of my favorite parts of ROTK (book) that wasn't in the movie was all the other human factions besides Rohan that showed up to party/defend Gondor. One of my least favorite bits of both (especially movie) is the reliance on the army of the dead. The humans were perfectly capable and eager to fight and win on their own.
I feel like the sections of this video on Azeroth, Ferelden, and Lord of the Rings were made by someone who never interacted with the material beyond looking at trailers. There is backstabbing, racial and cultural tensions, and all manner of evil in each setting. So much so that it is hard to miss.
You're not the only one noticing it.
Good to see other people pick up on that.
Who really wrote this video?
I mean, the Easterlings, the Southrons, and the Corsairs of Umbar were pretty willing to beat the brakes off Gondor for a laugh because Sauron asked (and paid) them to, and it's interesting to note that every named dragon killed in Middle-Earth met its end at the hands of Man, but oh _boy_ have I got a story for you that makes those oliphaunts pale in comparison.
I give you *Ar-Pharazon the Golden.*
He was a Numenorean warrior-king who was so hardcore that he
-defeated Sauron by fielding an army (of just Men; no alliance-of-free-peoples nonsense in this Man's army) so overwhelming that the forces of Mordor took one look at it, broke, and ran without a fight;
-dragged the fallen Maiar through the streets in chains and disgrace; threw Sauron in prison and pumped him for info; and (I kid you not)
-launched a _land invasion of heaven_ after slapping Sauron around for kicks got boring.
Not only that, when Ar-Pharazon's fleet showed up for D-Day at the Undying Lands, the demigod Valar living there were so freaked out about what Men might do there that they appealed to Eru Iluvatar Himself to intervene.
For a bit of perspective, the last time the Valar decided to wreck face, a _continent_ died.
And Ar-Pharazon had them on the run.
To stop this threat, Eru Iluvatar had to pull out _all_ the stops. He vaporized the invading army and fleet, sank the island of Numenor Atlantis-style, and *REMADE THE WORLD* from a flat map to a globe to keep this from happening again.
(Incidentally, that's why the 'last ship of the Elves' at the end of ROTK was so special: the Grey Elves were the only ones who could build and sail ships that would make it to the Undying Lands. Anyone else, and they'd just circumnavigate the world at best.)
But yeah, Middle-Earth humans are the only ones who were so hardcore that they captured and interrogated Maiar, killed every dragon with a name, and singlehandedly pissed off the creator of the universe so much that He literally redefined physics and cosmology from first principles to calm things down again.
_(edited to clarify dragon kills)_
I agree with most of your comment but I am pretty sure some of the dragons that were out about during the massive first age battles must have been killed by non-humans at some points (like by Manwe's eagles or whatever).
But yes, Glaurung the First, Ancalagon the Black, Smaug the Golden, the most famed dragons of Arda were all killed by Men.
@@gokbay3057 Possibly. It's speculation, but if we're comparing tallies, "killed by rival dragon" probably tops the draconic cause-of-death list. I'll amend my comment to specify _named_ dragons, because all of those are credited to Men.
maybe, maybe not. but in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series it has human in pretty savage manner, though bit refined
That’s a bit too racist and xenophobic “ideas” wouldn’t you think and + different humans different universe duel with it.
The best part of the video is readin the Tolkien, Dragon Age and Warcraft fans ganging up together to fact-check this guy
Rant: Alot of stories have to focus on the new differences that they forget to show us that the humans in the story truly are the same or something else entirely. Though it might be hersay to declare but the Space Marines aren't as human as the Imperial Guard if you get what I mean.
I mean, in a lot of fantasy settings our specalities are taken from us and given to the other races. Elves are wiser, dwarves are craftier etc etc.
In most situations humans in a world with other humanoid races, should specialize specifically in nomadic life. Stamina is like a huge thing for us, its part of why dogs and horses are some of our oldest friends. Where peace and war blur through the life that is the constant hunt.
It also pissed me off how human are so rarely show being amazing at throwing and shooting. Makes SO much sense the tree huggers are master bow weldiers, such great hunters they are dispite how most media claim they are animal friends.
We're not even that terrible of swimmers, not fast but we have stamina to go to sleep before sinking.
I don't think humans are intrinsically violent or hateful. We are creative, curious, enterprising, competitive, exploitive, and hierarchical. These traits can cross each other in such a way that inspires violence, and it is certainly natural behavior, but it is not our primary method for approaching new situations. War and strife are overrepresented and even romanticized because they elicit a reaction, but most of our recorded history is a product of commerce, politics, and innovation.
Also, the reason humans are often at a disadvantage in fantasy is because we like to root for the underdog. This is because the underdog embodies the ideals we value: things like determination, valor, cunning, etc. No one wants to hear the tale of how a knight slew a caterpillar, but a story of a knight slaying a 3 ton magical flying lizard bears repeating. Likewise, who cares if a powerful human kingdom crushes a band of roving mauraders, tusks or not? The joy isn't in being the best, but in becoming the best, against all odds.
Exactly. Most people aren't hateful, racist, sexist etc. But much like the famous Christian preachers that were strongly against gays, drugs and sex outside of marriage and then get caught doing all of those things, the people who claim to be anti-racist and anti-sexist tend to actually be those things. But they project their own evils onto innocent people so they can virtue signal.
Humans deep down love violence
@@whiteeye9584 If that's true, then why has the number of violent crimes has been decreasing for decades?
@@Archmage9885 simple anwser violent video games
@@whiteeye9584 What about them? There are a lot of video games that let you do many different things. People enjoy being able to do things you can't or wouldn't do in real life.
For example: I enjoy playing space sims. It's fun flying spaceships but I'm terrified of heights. I have trouble riding planes in real life, so I would never be able to fly a real spaceship.
The lack of social media might be the one major thing.
Without the ability to speak out loud to the entire world, without propaganda going through them in a large dose, people tend to be tamer.
People back in the middle ages might've been the same. Docile and passive. They had no knowledge of the world other than the ones they see and hear.
They can only imagine everything and are confused on other cultures and society.
That's my take on it anyway.
The nobler side of humanity does exist, and has been shown throughout history. Showing only the noble side can get tedious, but constantly showing the darker side of humanity would get pretentious. I'm glad that some fantasy human factions each have a certain mix.
I see that nihilism and self loathing are taking over here as well, pathetic. I mean what’s even the point if this, whinging about how bad humanity is?
feel free to watch the video we did on Ted Lasso. :P
@@TemplinInstitute I just watched it and it didnt contradict what Korpiz said. Its clearly meant to be sarcastic. This video seems to me like you WANT Humans in fictional series to be xenophobic, which makes them stronger, in your warped mind. It seems that 40K has started to effect you a bit too much. Nevermind that history has proved time and time again that the world does not run on fascist logic.
Also, you got LOTR wrong, Sauron wanted Humans to worship him and his might, not exterminate them.
We only see a very small time period and community of humans in fiction. In Middle-Earth history, Gondor had plenty of conflicts other humans, plus with themselves (and don't forget that Gondor was founded by Men fleeing from ANOTHER human vs. human conflict). And if you think the humans of Azeroth are "enlightened", you haven't been paying attention (they're just as backstabby and supremicist as we are, looking at you Gilneas and Scarlet Crusade). The peace and tolerance that we see is just one small blip in their history, and humanity of Earth has shown similar attitudes, in some place and some time. Humanity can't be the "rawr-rawr kill everything" cynical view all the time, otherwise we'd never get anything done, and history is biased: wars and conflicts get talked about, not peace and kindness.
Not when you look at Warhammer
I have enjoyed all of your videos. This is by far the worst video I have seen from your channel. This had no real correlation to anything other then the videos creators biased political views on how he feels about humanity in general, which no supporting evidence was even provided for that either. It's telling how many dislikes this video already has.
I often wondered this myself about middle earth. About the closest thing it has to real world humans are the dunlandings. Who are essentially just a placeholder group of dark age barbarians for Rohan to fight against.
Just imagine what it would have been like if an uruk-hai or orc warband had defected to fight on the side of the main characters to gain some sort of redemption for their race or something like that. Its even expressed in the series that orcs display other interests besides simply being minions of evil.
oh lord.......that is not the story tolkien wrote - go read/watch GOTs if that's what you desire
This seems a far cry from the normal standard of content here. Cherry picked examples which have unique origin stories for the races known as human are not representative of most fantasy humans.
Everything in a fantasy world is a plot device to help tell the story as the Author imagined. In most fiction, the goal is to tell a story, not to construct a logical parallel to our own reality. I’m certain JRR Tolkien created Middle-Earth to present the themes and messages to tell the fantasy plot as he imagined it.
To be fair, your logical analysis is spot on and I find your content to be very entertaining and interesting. I look forward to many more of your high quality and thought provoking probes into various stories, ripping to shreds any oversight a creator may have made.
I agree to an extent, but I also consider the possibility that sharing a world with aggressive non-human sapient species' meant that Humanity could not afford to be fighting itself or weakening itself with things like bigotry, sexism, etc... towards their fellow Men and Women. All of their hatred and their thirst for conquest would instead be directed outwards to their rival species'.
this channel still see in a Limited One Single Isolated [Flower] view in other franchises.
Congratulations! You have discovered that contemporary humans have WAY more bad karma than all the fantasy humans you encountered - In the fantasy worlds, that bad karma is concentrated as the enemies of humanity, but in our world, there is no such thing, thus the bad karma is diffused among the humans themselves...
Did Templin just try to get political? I really hope not.
Man, I thought I was cynical, but man is this take super-cynical. Calls for extermination are not ALWAYS the go-to response for humans even on a general level, and the desire for self-defense and survival can take more forms than pure fear-driven racism. It is ignorant to portray human responses and their motivations in such black and white terms.
I think, what always struck me, was the amazingly noble kings.
I may be way off, but if I recall, real life kings often payed little to no mind to the lives of their peasants. What’s a couple commoners getting eaten by a dragon in the grand scheme of things anyway, as long as it doesn’t set it’s sights on the king’s gold.
Fantasy Humans: RUN WE'RE BEING ATTACKED! AHHH!!
Realistic Humans: CHARGE, WE GOT THEM ON THE RUN BOYS! GRAB THE CATAPULTS AND TRBUCHETS!"
Sounds interesting.
Edit: Also I just want to point out that some fantasy worlds have relatively realistic humans. Many worlds of Dungeons and Dragons have somewhat realistic nations, also Westeros as you mentioned. I agree with this video though, it’s very noticeable that humans in other worlds seem to be very unrealistically good hearted.
In a fantasy world with weekly apocalypses and war I'd understand humans trying to be nice