Prejudice

Anaxas

Despite being in many ways one of the most progressive nations in the Ten Kingdoms, Anaxas nevertheless suffers from the innate prejudices of its people. Prejudice is most commonly meted out against the differently-abled (that is to say, magically), though there is also some lingering prejudice against those of different genders, religions, nationalities, ethnicities and sexual orientation.

Galdori

Probably the forerunners of the kingdom's prejudice are the galdori, who receive the lion's share of the blame for being prejudiced. An intelligent and logical race, they nevertheless have formed strong negative opinions about other races. In many senses they are more fair-minded than most of the kingdom; for example, they have attained near-complete gender equality, and their attitude towards homosexuality is surprisingly accepting. However, their views of the other races (humans, wicks and passives) are not nearly as progressive, tending towards ignorant assumptions, stereotypes and general disdain.

This stems mainly from the very real differences between galdori, humans, wicks and passives. As the primary magic-users (and the only proper ones, in their view), the galdori see themselves as the natural leaders and indeed owners of the world. They view other races as violent, unpredictable and ungrateful. While their treatment of other races might be seen as cruel by outsiders, they imagine themselves as the patient protectors of the world; generally, they deny humans the right to govern themselves because they believe that humans would only engage in pointless warfare (such as the type they observed in tribes of humans, before galdori rule was established) and become horribly unhappy without the technological advancements of the galdori.

Galdori are enlightened when it comes to acceptance of other nationalities and ethnicities, for the most part, though they have quite a lot of disdain for what they see as "savages" (mainly the tribes of galdori in Naulanon, whom they often refer to as 'greenbacks', and the Shothans, with whom no one has had contact in many years). There is some residual dislike of Hesse, as Hesse and Anaxas entered a brief armed conflict around 300 years ago.

Humans

Humans are not without prejudices of their own. In addition to an understandable resentment of the galdori, they have a long history of hating and mistrusting the galdori - even as far back as the days of Estua, and the War of the Book. They have a relatively good relationship with the wicks overall, but cultural and magical differences render them ultimately unable to fully understand them. Even their views on passives (with which they share a common inability to perform magic) tend towards the unequal - many view passives as spoiled galdori children that got what was coming to them, while others merely pity passives; some fear their diableries.

Their society has other ills, as well. Women are considered generally less capable than men in most professions, and in society women are expected to be somewhat subservient to men. As humans have no natural ability to defend themselves, rape and assault on women is unhappily common, especially in the city. Racism (when referring to nationality) is also fairly common, but not usually vicious in nature. Stereotypes exist of almost every kingdom apart from Anaxas, from 'snooty Bastians' to 'hairy Hesseans' to 'frigid Hoxians' to 'caveman Giorans'. However, Anaxi humans have very little animosity for Mugrobi people; in fact, they generally consider Mugroba to be a country to aspire to and emulate, and have high regard for Mugrobi culture, even adopting portions of it. Homosexuality is widely condemned among humans; it is seen as a weakness in men and a coarse, desperate trait in women.

Wicks

Despite being (for the most part) open and accepting of most people, lifestyles and cultures, even going so far as to create their own culture based around a hodgepodge patchwork quilt of other cultures, the wicks have a virulent hatred of the galdori - perhaps owed, in part, to their common heritage. As magic users, wicks have a very different approach to spells and the uses of magic, and resent the galdori attempting to deny them their abilities because they are not 'pure' enough. Although the galdori government takes a generally non-agressive approach to dealing with wick tribes, even considering them sovereign, wicks sympathize with the plight of humans and passives. Their opinion of the galdori is mainly formed by a combination of word of mouth, individual experiences (for wicks who were born of galdori) and their own cultural history.