making my fantasy MC a POC and other questions

hello all,

I'm in the beginning stages of a new wip, and I figured now rather than later is a good time to sound out a few ideas and try to ask questions.

My preferences as a writer rn are to write POC MC's. if there's a choice between having a white MC, or a POC MC, I would much rather actively choose a POC MC. This is because I'm pretty tired of only watching and reading things where the main character is a white dude (i'm not white or a dude so I don't have to add to the already abundant material out there). I figure that unless I have valid reason not to, my works will feature FMCs who are POC.

I'm fine with writing contemporary books with POC, but when it comes to fantasy (which I haven't written as much of), I really get unsure about how to handle things.

The story I'm currently writing is sort of a loose retelling of a bunch of German, Greek, and Scandinavian fairy tales and literature mushed together. My intent before starting it was to cast an Asian FMC. But I started to get confused as my worldbuilding interacted with the myths I'm trying to build off of.

For example, I was going to name my MC something like "Mei" or "Lin," as a sort of cue to readers that You Don't Have to Default Her to White. But other than that, I'm kinda questioning how I can make my character a specific ethnicity that corresponds to a real-life one. For world-building, I'm pretty much keeping Earth's climate and general geography, but I'm wasn't planning to carry over the specific history and countries.

I was thinking that you would have people of all different skin color, according to where they are in the globe, and who looked like say, Asian people, if they lived in the equivalent area in this fantasy Earth, right? I mean, people would look the same, based off where they live? I think.

But I kind of ran into some problems about dealing with culture. If I'm not specifically trying to carry over, for example, an Asian-influenced fantasy culture, what does this imply for an Asian looking MC? My MC would look Asian, and possibly have an Asian name. But I wouldn't necessarily have the "markers" of an Asian fantasy, such as an Emperor ruling the kingdom, or kung fu magic, or the same cultural practices, social hierarchy, or a lot of markers that would cue readers into this being an fantasy set in an Asia equivalent.

And if I'm basing this off European/western myths does it follow that my MC should then be white, since that's their cultural heritage? (I'm not sure.)

The way my setting plans are as of now, the book starts off in a small town where the MC is born, but then she travels a bit and works as a servant in castle in the far north of the world.

I'm especially concerned that since I've mostly read British types of fantasy, that this influences how I write fantasy, so I'll have a lot of western "markers" in my story. But then I'm trying to make my character Asian, when she's a baker's daughter who works as a maid at a manor, and I'm talking about footmen and ladies and castles an such, which I feel like are more associated with western culture.

I'm wondering if this is a kind of mutually exclusive thing: most of the fantasy I've read, if you're writing about an equivalent area, you carry over the culture: like they'll be "Sultans"if it's supposed to be based off India, or kimono-like clothes if it's supposed to be Japan-influenced, etc. Maybe it's necessary to write fantasy versions of already existing cultures? I mean, what would it imply if I create a 18th century western-like society in what would geographically be Asia? Isn't that kind of problematic, bc it's like I'm creating a world that supports colonization and imperialism? In that case, it would be a lot better just to make my MC white in Europe.

Another possibility is to set it geographically in Europe (probably a Germany-equivalent), but to have a POC MC anyway (like Beethoven at that time!!), who would be a minority among mostly white people. I feel like this would actually be more helpful than erasing POC cultures and only retaining character's appearances based off race. I know how an MC looks can still be important to readers hoping for representation, but disregarding the corresponding culture, even if it's fantasy, is something I feel very uneasy about. Are there any books that people can recommend me which deal with POC society but in cultures not based off their real-life equivalent? I've only read fantasy books that retain cultural markers of wherever they're equivalently geographically set.

But then, I'm kind of worried, cause whoops I was planning to make my MC cursed into the form of basically a harpy and so maybe that also would have notsogreat connotations? (I remember a tumblr post going around about how in disney movies like emperor's new groove, princess and the frog, and brother bear, the POC MC spends most of the time as an animal and that's kinda sucky.)

I don't know. As you can tell, I'm really confused and probably making a bunch of wrong assumptions. This is the first time I've tried to write a POC MC in a fantasy. I'd welcome any thoughts/ corrections/ objections/ suggestions all of you more wise people can spare

lolchemist said:

I have a fantasy WIP too and I just made it like modern-day America where all races already are living together. In my story they've been living together and intermarrying for so long they don't even see themselves as different races anymore. It's totally normal for one family to have literally black, white, Asian looking, Hispanic, looking, Persian looking, and all sorts of mixed-race looking people in it. Andof course, the MC and pretty much everybody are mixed. Except it's not earth so I can make their culture whatever I want too.

I'd say since you're writing your own fantasy now, don't chain yourself down whats going on here on earth. You're allowed to make up your own cultures!

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Oh, I like that-- as a mixed person myself, I'd love to read a book where a lot of the characters are mixed.

And duly noted, I think it might be best if I made up a whole new culture that's not based on a particular place.

J.S.F. said:

Sounds like you're doing a mashup of everything out there. Since it's not exactly like Earth, you can write it however you want it. As long as you stick to the basic rules of world-building and make your characters consistent in what they say and how they act, there's no reason you can't have a mixing of various cultures/myths/manners of dress or whatever. Just make it interesting and readable. To me, it sounds like a good story!

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Thanks! And I think you and Mr. Flibble are right about being to mix myths as I want, especially since it seems like a lot of myths have influenced or have echoes of myths from very different countries.

Mr Flibble said:

Nope. It's your fantasy -- you can do what you like as long as it's internally consistent.

Really. Go for it. Why does an Asian(-like, if this isn't Earth) MC have to live in a culture based on a particular Asian culture? There's no real reason, especially if this isn't Earth. Why shouldn't a culture of non-whites have footmen, if they are rich enough? Footmen are not a factor of being white -- they are a factor of showing off your wealth through 'having my man do that for me'. Maybe the Asian-like people are the colonials, so that would work. Or perhaps you want to find a different cultural marker that shows off wealth. You can mix and match and clash to your heart's content (and I hope you do, that's my fave type of fantasy) The choice is endless, and yours.

Really, all you need to do is a) write what you'd like to read and b) be internally consistent.

If you set it up right, pretty much anything will fly. That's the beauty of fantasy. You can make a new world, and make it right this time.

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Yes, the footmen work at one of the richest houses in towns--but perhaps I'll just call them all "workers" or "servants" (which is a universal thing that rich people have had in all cultures) since I feel like "footman" is a term specifically from European aristocracy?

I think I will try to dream up some more "markers" for class that are not completely taken from one culture.

Rachel Udin said:

I'm going to caveat it a bit.

As long as your MC doesn't have an explicitly ONE Asian name saying something like "Aigoo", while wearing samurai gear and saying she practices "Kung fu" rather than "martial arts" while practicing pseudo-Hinduism it should be fine.

Mei and Lin are both Chinese (Mandarin) names. Mei *can* be Japanese (But the name meaning would be different), but that excludes Korea, Mongolia and the rest of Asia. Iran....

In another words, avoid the major usual pitfalls and don't use the world building as an excuse to put in subconscious amounts of racism.

=P

In option 1 of taking an equivalent area, most people do fail. Because they don't realize basics, such as Sino-chinese language is not grammatically related to Mongolian, Korean or Chinese. And is definitely not related to a lot of SE Asian or S Asian or Russian or Farsi... Not to mention the mess of languages in India... Tamil is not related to Sanskrit/Hindi.

Putting an Asian character in a European setting usually fails too. Most people force the character into being white. Plus it kinda defeats the purpose. (You'd have to really research Anthropology to cleanly get away with making it no particular place on Earth) And even if you got away with it and pretty much did the say, Indian in Britain thing, you'd still have another culture to build so you can write for an against it in the identity. (Being the only one kinda sets up for issues).

The other thing you can try is to research as much as you can about the history of Asia, borrow bits that OVERLAP, (which is how scenario 1 fails) for a specific part of Asia and loosely build on the overlapping bits and then use the overlapping bits+Anthropology to build it up.) It's tricky, as Jemisin puts it, but you can do it well with care and thought. The problem is subconsciously falling into pitfalls, even if you belong to that group, for example, thinking that Asians always have a good income... (Which is proportionately not true) Which just means doing more research and kicking yourself when you make a wrong turn.

Either way, unless you've been working at it, you'd have to research a whole bunch to do it well. Even people who write about their own groups claim to had to research a whole bunch in order to do a good representation.

So I compliment you for being anxious--being worried and pondering isn't a bad thing in this case.

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I agree about it being really tricky with approximating languages and names; I was a bit worried about this too. If I'm not trying to set it in real-world China, it wouldn't make sense to give my characters Mandarin names, and try to imply they're speaking Mandarin. But trying to create pseudo-Mandarin, like naming a character "Qeng" (which i don't think exists in Mandarin) is worse, I'm thinking. I feel like it can be pretty easy to be racist trying to create a naming system and language that approximates what American people think the Mandarin language sounds like (I feel like the average Americans have no idea how to tell apart Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese names and language, judging by all the racist as hell jokes about Asian names, and the recent fiasco with making fun of the Korean air pilots by using Chinese names *shudder*). So unfortunately, I can't say I trust the average reader to know the differences between Asian cultures, and how an Asian language should be written in Latin script. Plus, I'm worried about how people just amass all Asian cultures together into this one blob, when they're quite different. So yeah, appropriating Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian cultural elements and setting them in one Asia-like place could be really problematic, as you mentioned. So I definitely won't be going that route.

I definitely will be doing more research

patskywriter said:

I'd say just be fair, thoughtful, and mindful of what you're doing, and you'll be fine.

I could write a story based on my people, African-Americans, and easily come up with a fantasy/science-fiction scenario. This could be because some many different types of blacks were brought here to the USA and pretty much thrown together. As a result, as a "newer" group, we often to live our lives as a mash-up. I personally know black people with names like Keiko, Adolf, Jean-Pierre, Muna, Elizabeth, Aasim, Bouna—they're all so different from one another that I can honestly say that the only thing they all share is an Africa that for some is in the distant past. Don't overthink what you're doing—pay attention, but don't overscrutinize every little detail.

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Thank you for the advice -- it was a good reminder that people who might have the same race can have different mash-ups of culture. And i think I have a problem with over-thinking ha ha

To everyone, thanks for replying! It's definitely set my thinking/word-building on a different path. I'm thinking of either upgrading the hometown to a city, where it would make sense that there are tons of people from different races and cultures mingling, and cities around the world seem to have a lot in common with each other, so it could more easily be "anywhere".

Or I'm also thinking, to just try to invent a non-Earth culture that doesn't closely parallel any currently existing culture. My MC would still be a POC, and I would definitely state her appearance so it's very clear she should be imagined as a POC and not a white person, but I wouldn't try to carry over the characteristics of a specific real language to name people and places, and would invent things that don't specifically recall a real culture.

I think this route makes me happier and more at ease than trying to write a culture that's supposed to be a stand-in for a POC culture that exists in real life!