Race, Ownership and Authority in Fandom Discussions: An Analysis of the ‘green-Taako-debate’ within the The Adventure Zone Fandom

Abstract

The relationship between fandom and race has traditionally been understudied. Even though more studies are being done on this relationship in this last decade, a lot of focus is still put on cases about racism within fandom. This thesis adds to existing research by focussing not only on instances of racism, but on the way fans make sense of racial representation and who has ownership over a character. Taking a conflict regarding the racial representation of the character Taako from the podcast and graphic novel The Adventure Zone (TAZ) as its case study, this thesis studies the way fans form their argumentation in their discussion on what the characters’ race should be and who has the ownership to make this decision. To analyse this case study, this thesis takes an ethnographic approach, using thematic analysis, to study both comments left by fans on three posts regarding the release of the TAZ graphic novel, as well as fan-to-fan interaction on both Tumblr and Twitter regarding the controversy. This thesis concludes that fans often refer back to three different kinds of authority within their argumentation: identity, knowledge of the rules of Dungeons & Dragons and the creators themselves. Additionally, this thesis also shows that fans, when creators refuse to give a final ruling on the racial representation of a character, in this case, still look for authority to use in their arguments on what this representation should be and who gets to decide it. Finally, as fans discuss ownership amongst each other, it becomes clear that ownership within fandom is complicated and the distinction between affirmational and transformational fandom is blurry.