Alright. Here's the thing. People are very interesting and dervser and in real life racial differences betwen humans are honestly, not very important or relevent. I mean that as nicely as I can, but an African person is wildly different biologically than a German person. You're both still humans, if from different place, but if I cut you guys up tou'd look the same.. But... Fantasy creatures, often dubbed races but I'm just going to call them creatures through this whole thing, should not be like that.
Just, hear me out, Dear Reader. Elves are wildly different to humans. They are creatures usually depected as hundred of years old and inherently able to be connected with nature or magic. You know, incidently non-human traits. I don't know about you guys, but they aren't many humans who are known for living hundreds of years or being able to literally talk to animals. Most humans die at double digits to the point that humans living into the triple digits are a big deal. Meanwhile most elves only reach maturity after hundreds of years.
Or take orcs. Depending on the world orcs can be many different things, but they are usually war-loving and fixated on strength. Namely, I'm thinking Warhammer 40K orks, but still. There is no real world culture that could be entirely watered down to endless war-loving and strenght fixating. Hell, even warrior peoples, like the Norse, had more than just war making. They people had music, culture, beauty.
And so on and so on. I think my point is getting clear right? There is no clear link between humans and completely different fantsay species should remain loose or non-exsistant. It's just better for the world building, man.
Take vampires for example. Vampires are much closer to humans as they usually are cursed humans. But vampires usually end up having to feed on humans for blood and sustainance and well, you see what I'm saying. Vampires aren't humans any more, as they are functionally immortal, have to remain out of the sun and need to feed on humans.
Or take werewolves, even if it's the curse varity, the human now has a wildly unusual condition which can't fully map onto any actual conditions or groups. Besides, I have a real dickish point to make.
Yeah, while more comtempary ideas and themes are important to explore, fantasy and sci-fi can usually use more unrealistic ideas. Like, at this current moment humans are the only known sapient species of our level that we know of. So, how would humans interact with other wildly different sapent species?
All humans have similar requirements and similar biological desires. Such as needing to eat, drink or eventually dying. But not all supernatural creatures need that the same way humans do or need to act on the same requirements. Some creatures just can't die or need humans as sources of food.
While humans don't biological need to harm other humans other sapient speices might need to. While humans are used to concept of death not all other sapient species might be. While humans have limited access to alternative forms of reality, other sapient species might not have that.
I remember getting into a nerding out session with my brother on how superman probably never felt pain until he encounter kryptonite. Wouldn't that make him behave differently than normal humans. Why be scared of a bullet if you know it doesn't hurt? Why be afraid to run into a burning building if the smoke doesn't choke you and the flames don't burn you?
So if these wildly different creatures are around humans how would they interact? Humans can relate to other humans with wildly different cultures because we are all still human. But how can a human relate to wildly different creatures like Vampires, Werewolves, Orks or Elves? And vice versa, how would these creatures look at us? We usually depict other creatures as vastly more powerful than most humans, so, would they look down on us?
I am not saying that you can't have a story with the supernatural or abnormal and contempary themes all at once. But that does mean you are now going to have to work around world building. I mean, in the real world how would vampires of all things fit into activism? I don't think it's a morally good idea to have vampires treated like real world peoples. It's not fair to people nor is it fair to the vampires.
Besides, humans aren't biological designed to be say... Predatory or need to target humans while... Well, vampires are literally blood sucking undead. They need to feed on humans. They need to drink blood. While humans rarely need to hurt other humans and... You see what I'm saying? It's a shit allogory.
Most fantasy words and sci-fi worlds have wildly fascinating creatures with wildly fasinating world building. Again, Skyrim is a good example.
Let's take the Bosmer. A species of "elf" which are often dubbed as wood elves. Now, wood elves aren't actually elves, rather being chaotic spirits shifted into the form of elves. Their patron god is connected to nature, namely plants. So, Bosmer follow a Green Pact, in which they always eat meat or solely animal products. Also, it includes stuff like consuming the flesh of any fallen friend or foe and so on.
Would you or would you not agree with me, Dear Reader, that Bosmer are not humans. Humans usually are biological required to eat meat or risk loosing their minds and turning back into a choatic spirit form again.
So, yeah, Bosmer-Human intereacts been rather odd and tense even without any other bias or bigotry. Imagine if your battle-sister or battle-brother just ate your other compainion who fell in battle or refuses to eat any food that isn't just animal products. I mean, yeah. Other cultures are unique, but like... Where in the real world do you encounter cultures like that? or even biological requirements like that.
Which is awesome to think about in a fantasy setting. Like, hell yeah. Fantasy creatures should be fantastical. And human relations with them should be wildly different than human to human interactions or else
Now a shitty story here would be to have the Bosmer just be, slightly elf-like humans. Instead of a wildly different lore behind how Bosmer came to be or how they biological function or how completely differently they see reality and so on.
Nope the Bosmer would just be boring and humans with pointy ears and... Fuck, okay, here's an example.
Say what you will about Twilight. Love it or hate it, but everyone seems to agree that the vampires are wildly different from all other vampirirc lore. And I firmly believe the weakest aspect of Twilight is the vampiric lore. The vampires don't need human blood. Vampires don't die in the sun rather they uh... Sparkle. Vampires don't even have fangs for fucks sake.
The biggest problem with Twilight is probably how bland and boring it's supernaturals are. For all of his "This is the skin of a murderer" bullshit Edward is gunning on about kinda doesn't work when other than a few tiny details Eddie's just a weird human.
Vampire the Maquarde: Bloodlines on the other hand, handles vampires interestingly. You see, most vampires fit into a clan, each clan has a unique complusion or curse and thus each vampire part of a clan has a complusion. Therefore every vampire while buy in large human, aren't totally human. I mean, it's hard to be human when your clan complusion is madness or when you have to drink human blood to not die.
My own bullshit universe I've been on-and-off working one. You see, why should non-human entities mimic humanity to be given compassion? Animals aren't human. Animals don't expression emotion, desire, distress the same way as humans, right? So why would wildly different creatures behave the same as humans and why are humans so fixated on humanising creatures to have compassion to them anyways?
AI is also a fasinating issue here. While you could argue for days on what AI sapience even would look like and if it's even possible but what if it was? Would humans epathise with AI? Would AI even be able to empathise with humans? What would the relationship be?
I personally don't believe AI would be humanlike. I mean, Humans are more or less like we are now because of how we evoloved through numerous stimuli. In other words, a creature or entity created without the same experiences as humans wouldn't behave like us. I mean, a considerable amount of human behaviour is based around avoiding pain, but how or can an Artifical creature without nerves in the same was as humans even... feel pain?
And again, why are humans so self-centered to believe that all sapient entities behave like humans? Why must we antropermorphise creatures to have compassion to them? Are we so limited in our imagination and compassion that the only creations we can make are humans and they only thing we can relate to is a reflection of our own species?
I'll be honest, nothing is sader to me than this weird fixation on humanising fantasy creatures or sci-fi creatures. Elves should not just be palette swaped humans. It's not fair to them. It's not fair to real world humans. It's wildly boring to story telling. Hell, it breaks your allorgories most of the time.
You can have fantasy creatures dealing with real world issues, like Mutants in the X-men being a symbol of otherness. But it really falls apart when you deny these creatures the right to stand on their own.
Besides, it denies way more fasinating ideas like say, transhumanism, the logistics of completely different entities who are also sapient, the level of personal responsibity of a creature that can not entirely control their actions, the limits of how far the different species can police eachother, what the relationships between humans and these non-humans would be and so on.
I just find it sad and honestly annoying how limited humans can be. How can we be so smart as to break off of our planet and visit our moon, preform open-heart surgeries, build cars and wage wars on a mythological level but when it comes to concept of alternative sapient species we land on the idea of a human, but green. Or a human, but undead and fangy. Or a human but tall with pointy ears.
We can do better guys. We can honestly make real good fictional creatures. Question the bounds of what humans consider sapient. I mean take AI. At what point do we as humans consider actual sapience and not a sick simulation or mimicry of it. What do we consider as a creature worth being given care. We grant some animals special care, eat others and allow others to survive in their natural habitate. We see animals like Ravens and Chimpanzes use tools but we don't really label them as close to humans.
This is a real question. I want to know how people see this. I think considering our consistant flirting with the bounderies of science and logic that these are considerable questions. And if not, than it's still fun and entertaining.
I get why we humanise creatures. Humans relate well to humanslike things. But there's no real reason to just throw in the towel and give up on getting humans to be compassinate to completely non-humans creatures. I don't even know man. I'm just done with the idea of stories not asking this wildly tricky questions. Or the weird trend of people looking at wildly non-human entities and mapping them onto humans. It's... Stale, boring and really boring.
I honestly was mostly thinking about this because I've been trying to create a sort of world with non-human sapient species and well. It's fun to think about how a vampire would behave or how a group of humans might treat and act around a vampire. I mean, what is the morality of a creature that needs to drink human blood? I would say you shouldn't be as angry at a bear mauling a human, as that behaviour is in their nature. Shouldn't it be the same for a creature like a vampire? Vampires have no choice but to drink blood. Besides, how should humans treat vampires.
With the story I was working on, I came to the idea that vampires ought to be given respect enough to act as free willed creatures, but still treated as predatory. A smart circus lion is still a lion. Certian safety precautions must be upheld, but because Vampires are sapient, we can reason with them. Explain to them that working with humans would be more profitable in the long run than just trying to kill us. But again, vampires are no longer human. They have wildly different needs.
I mean, it somewhat helps that the humans are part of a supernatural vet group more or less. So, they want to help supernaturals and abnormal creatures. Plus, like real vets, they mostly have to learn about the creatures they are working with to help the creatures more effectively than just trying to read them as humans. For example, humans show their teeth in a smile, while dogs snarl to threaten other creatures. So, someone who only understand human behaviour could easily misread a dog snarling would accidently see it as a "smile".
Besides, I feel like there's something special about humans ability to pack bond with other non-humans. We domesticated wolves and cats and horses and so on. Partcually for our own convience, but not all humans look at these creatures as utility creatures but it is a rather cute aspect of human behaviour. I firmly believe that we should promote the idea of treating non-human creatures with similar levels of respect. I don't mean not eat beef, but understand that a cow is still a seperate creature with a different view of reality than us humans have but still a living entity worthy of being considered as alive as us.
I'm cutting it there before I go on a hour long rant here, Dear Reader. But my point is fantasy creatures aren't human. Please don't just make them human. it doesn't work as neatly as fantasy creatures have wildly different exsistances, biologies, lived experiences and so on and so on. As a result, trying to either force a human narritive onto them or use them as an allorgory for real world people as it's not fair to either humans or fantasy creatures. It also weakens your world building. If you want to interact with a real world issue through a fantasy creature, be prepare to have a shit-ton of answers for wildly complex ideas that engages with all sides of the arguement.