Automatic alignments in games and other media bother me.

Like you know how you'll have an RPG or fantasy novel or whatever and it'll have multiple races but the various races are automatically aligned to good or evil and whatnot? Like, humans and elves are always good, trolls are always evil, so on and so forth? Sure, there are a few exceptions, but for the main part the universe will follow that rule. Like how in Redwall (lol Redwall), all the, uh, goodbeast will nearly always be good and all the vermin are evil (and stupid), or how in Everquest (I've only read up on it and never played the game so you'll excuse me if I make any mistaken assumptions; it's 4:00 A.M. and I can't see straight anyway), certain races will always be aligned to good or evil which then restricts your class options and other things.

Personally, it bothers me, and it just doesn't make sense in my opinion. We all know that people aren't inherently good or evil from when they're born but develop that way, so why make characters like that? I mean you could say it's the culture but even then culture has never been a predictor of morality (and on an aside, why are races in fantasy media seemingly one-culture exclusive? It's not like all white or black or hispanic or whatever people have the same backgrounds across the land, and that doesn't even account for all the various subcultures that probably aren't racially defined to begin with). So what's the deal? Why not have all races in a fantasy setting be able to choose their alignment rather than ramrodding them into them? Is it because it's easier that way, lets the viewer not have to think? Well screw that; I don't want the easy way out, I want to actually have to figure out where characters stand morally by their actions, words, relationships and so forth, not just because of the way they look. I mean, to me, having whether a character is good or evil be so simply defined as race comes across as something only for children's stories (and even then it's questionable)--or, at worse, xenophobic.

What do you guys think?

Like you know how you'll have an RPG or fantasy novel or whatever and it'll have multiple races but the various races are automatically aligned to good or evil and whatnot? Like, humans and elves are always good, trolls are always evil, so on and so forth? Sure, there are a few exceptions, but for the main part the universe will follow that rule. Like how in Redwall (lol Redwall), all the, uh, goodbeast will nearly always be good and all the vermin are evil (and stupid), or how in Everquest (I've only read up on it and never played the game so you'll excuse me if I make any mistaken assumptions; it's 4:00 A.M. and I can't see straight anyway), certain races will always be aligned to good or evil which then restricts your class options and other things.

Personally, it bothers me, and it just doesn't make sense in my opinion. We all know that people aren't inherently good or evil from when they're born but develop that way, so why make characters like that? I mean you could say it's the culture but even then culture has never been a predictor of morality (and on an aside, why are races in fantasy media seemingly one-culture exclusive? It's not like all white or black or hispanic or whatever people have the same backgrounds across the land, and that doesn't even account for all the various subcultures that probably aren't racially defined to begin with). So what's the deal? Why not have all races in a fantasy setting be able to choose their alignment rather than ramrodding them into them? Is it because it's easier that way, lets the viewer not have to think? Well screw that; I don't want the easy way out, I want to actually have to figure out where characters stand morally by their actions, words, relationships and so forth, not just because of the way they look. I mean, to me, having whether a character is good or evil be so simply defined as race comes across as something only for children's stories (and even then it's questionable)--or, at worse, xenophobic.

What do you guys think?

[edited] It's easier to figure out who the enemy is if one race or ethnicity is the "enemy." Game designers also wouldn't have to create n(n-1)/2 number of possible combat scenarios. Vilifying the enemy may help players feel better about mercilessly slaughtering hundreds of enemy beings by being exonerated from guilt.
Your point about ethnic ignorance makes sense but is it realistic to expect everyone to know every subculture in the world? It's hard enough figuring out cultures (do you know about the Muslims? or sub-Saharan Africans?) let alone individual subcultures. It's simply too much to ask of people (including you and I).

There is absolutely nothing stopping you from enforcing different alignment rules if you're the DM. Paladin with chaotic evil alignment? Cool. Everything that's in the D&D handbook are suggestions, not laws. There are even people that do away with alignment completely.

Hope that addresses it.

I am not talking simply about role playing games like D&D, where the player has control over the proceedings of the game. I'm talking about the over-arching backstory, culture, and whatnot of a world that the creator made, and not just in games but in all sorts of media from books to MMORPGs to TV shows and so forth--hence, the "other media" portion of the title. Going back to my Redwall example, it's a book not a game, therefore there are no enemies for me to fight only battles for me to observe, and I cannot change the rules. I mean, I could write fanfiction or something, but that doesn't change the fact that Jacques decided to make all the mice, moles, hedgehogs, hares, and so forth good, and all the rats, ferrets, stoats, foxes, ferrets, and so forth evil backstabbing bastards. This applies to a lot of media where--and I hope you excuse me for the TV Trope reference--there are sentient races that are Always Chaotic Evil.

Concerning the ethnic ignorance and subculture thing, I'm not saying that everyone in the game or everyone reading the book should know everything about every culture or subculture in the work, as that would be unrealistic. Hell, I'm not even saying that the creator should show us 150 different cultures according to each race to the viewer. All I'm saying is that they can maybe breeze over 2, 3 examples so that all members of a fantastic race aren't carbon copies of one another--don't say say that all the so-and-so fantasy race act like this and be done with it, show us a little variety by saying, say, the so-and-so in this city are like this but the so-and-so in this city are like this.

Hmmm, okay, I can see where your coming from. I think it would be even more diverse if the races could be polarized. For example, playing as the Orks all of the humans appear evil and vice versa playing as the humans.

I think the only reason why an author would not create something in between good and evil, or rats/ferrets/stoats that are good is because this inherently creates a problem. The story is then revolved around the thing that is different from all the other rats/stoats and not on what the author wants to talk about. For example, in Pirates of the Caribbean, much of the plot surrounds Jack Sparrow and his Chaotic Neutralness. If Jack were always bad and the English were always good, then there would be no question about their future actions. The plot would have to be about something else other their motives.

There's nothing stopping the genetics of other races from being inherently good or inherently evil. Perhaps trolls literally feel pain if they do good.

The story of Warcraft broke out of the generic mold - Orcs/trolls/ogres and humans are at war. While human did have holy-spell users and orcs did have dark magic users, it's ambiguous which side is good and which side evil; we only know that each side are fighting for their own greed. As the plot further develops, the story lived more up to it's name - a world of constant warfare, Warcraft. There was no right, there was no wrong. There were only multiple races (elves, undead, human and orcs) fighting for their own reasons and most of the violence spilled from previous bloodshed (vengence begetting more vengence).

Elfen Lied, the anime somewhat broke out of the mold, but the anime had many similarities with Mary Shelly's Frankenstein so I'll use that example: Frankenstein's monster was in actuality a "good guy" (in addition to being the protagonist). It had feelings, it had heart but was hated upon by humans, thus the story portrayed humans as the "bad guys". Humans were afraid of Frankenstein's monster because of it being hideous.

The story of Saya's Song (Saya no Uta) is all about alternate perspective. You won't find another story that portrays grotesque, foul, flesh and cannibalism as beauty and what is normally defined as beauty to be disgusting.

We all know that people aren't inherently good or evil from when they're born but develop that way, so why make characters like that? I mean you could say it's the culture but even then culture has never been a predictor of morality (and on an aside, why are races in fantasy media seemingly one-culture exclusive? It's not like all white or black or hispanic or whatever people have the same backgrounds across the land, and that doesn't even account for all the various subcultures that probably aren't racially defined to begin with).

You're thinking from a modernist perspective where human cultures have extensively intermingled for thousands of years and we have very little competition with each other for resources.
If you look back even a couple hundred years ago our own world was similarly divided. Native americans were completely ensconced in their culture and to the invading christians that made them evil heathens.
In fantasy settings most races have not not had extensive contact with one another. They're all bound in their own cultural beliefs with the so called 'evil races' being defined by having traditions and beliefs in conflict with the so called good races. It's all perspective. Differing ideologies brook wars even today as Israel and Palestine show us weekly.

You're thinking from a modernist perspective where human cultures have extensively intermingled for thousands of years and we have very little competition with each other for resources.
If you look back even a couple hundred years ago our own world was similarly divided. Native americans were completely ensconced in their culture and to the invading christians that made them evil heathens.
In fantasy settings most races have not not had extensive contact with one another. They're all bound in their own cultural beliefs with the so called 'evil races' being defined by having traditions and beliefs in conflict with the so called good races. It's all perspective. Differing ideologies brook wars even today as Israel and Palestine show us weekly.

This is a good point, and those sort of situations are interesting. However, that's not what bothers me; what bothers me is when an entire race is evil--not just differing ideologies, not deep-rooted conflicts--just flat out evil and created and intended that way by the creator of that universe.