[Tumblr crosspost] why I don't like the dragon argument

Sometimes, it seems like every discussion about how fantasy (especially high fantasy) tends to be focused on white, straight dudes rehashes the exact same points:

Person A: It’s just being historically accurate!

Person B: …there are dragons.

Person A: Yes, but–

Person B: DRAGONS.

There’s some variation depending on which work comes up in discussion, but the basic rebuttal is “the setting includes something that blatantly diverges from the basic laws of reality; therefore, there’s no reason not to diverge from reality in much smaller matters.” I do understand it, but I … um, don’t agree. And I actually dislike it quite a lot.

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[Tumblr crosspost] dragon response!

Tumblr user bookwormusings responded to the previous post with:

So what you're saying is that people writing and defending fantasy seem to perceive dragons as more realistic than gender equality and poc/lgbt representation?

I replied:

Rather the opposite. I’m objecting to the specific argument, made by people criticizing fantasy for being non-representative, that if authors can make up DRAGONS and MAGIC, they can make up POC and LGBT people in quasi-historical settings too!

The argument lumps marginalized people who actually existed in with universe-altering departures from reality. The existence of marginalized people is not a departure from reality. It’s what reality is and was.

On a lesser note, it’s also simply a bad argument on the writing level. The idea that if you depart from reality in one way, anything goes–it’s terrible, terrible advice that nobody with the faintest concept of good writing will accept. Fantastic settings have to be grounded in reality to work. Otherwise it’s meaningless esoterica. The issue is what’s being presented as reality, not that it is.