A Tiefling Matter: D&D movie character is a big risk

When I heard about the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons movie Honor Among Thieves, I had a lot of mixed reactions. First of all, the original 2000 D&D movie with Jeremy Irons remains, to this day, my all time favourite terrible movie and nothing will ever replace it in my heart. Secondly, as someone wearied by the "witty" and insincere humour of modern superhero movies, I am concerned about how the writers will find the balance between irreverence and sincerity that TTRPG games often excel at. But finally, I am a sucker for the type of fun, fantasy romp that the trailer suggests this film will be. Overall, I would say I am cautiously optimistic.

Except about the Tiefling character. I am worried about the inclusion of a Tiefling in the main party.

And it seems I'm not the only one. While this ScreenRant article posits that the inclusion of a Tiefling presents an opportunity for the movie, my concern comes from knowing that the film industry as a whole (along with many other institutions) have a pretty significant racism problem. So if the film industry can't address core problems of real world racism, can we really expect them to handle the fantasy racism that goes hand in hand with Tiefling characters in a sensitive manner?

Tieflings & Racism

Tieflings are a race available for players in Dungeons & Dragons. They are humanoids whose bloodline has been infused with a demonic essence, leaving them with inherit magic, varied skin tones and demonic features such as horns and tails. The core rules discuss in detail the constant suffering and distrust Tieflings suffer, seen as outsiders and almost universally hated purely for their demonic ancestry. See the problem here? I am certainly nowhere near the first person to point out this issue.

The Tiefling in Honor Among Thieves

Sophia Lillis' character, Doric the Tiefling Druid, is the only non-human member of the party. On top of this, her design is very human for a Tiefling. Her horns are so small they are almost hidden by her hair, her tail is so unobtrusive I had to play the trailer frame-by-frame to confirm she actually had one and her skin colour is completely human. So not only is she the only non-human, she is designed (deliberately or subconsciously) to appear as human as possible. In the age of CGI and special effects, surely we are able to have a massively-horned, purple-skinned, glowing-eyed Tiefling? The trailer includes a sequence of her wild-shaping into an owlbear, surely her design could have been a little more ambitious?

While the cast does show some diversity in terms of gender, as well as the inclusion of People of Colour, by keeping Lillis' character as close to human as possible, the designers seem to be implying that human (default, normal) is good (the heroes of the story), while non-humans (other, abnormal) is bad (the villains). This othering is the core of bigotry, and while a fun, fantasy adventure movie doesn't need to completely dissect institutionalised racism, classism, sexism, etc., it is certainly worth questioning why these are the default storytelling structures we have.

The inclusion of a Tiefling in the main party of Honor Among Thieves raises questions about the consistent narratives of racism and social outcasts within our stories, and while I believe the movie has the potential to be a great, fun-time comedy adventure, it will be very interesting to see how the story handles (or, more likely, fails to handle) the themes of racism that can be presented by the character.