Fan art is one of the many ways fans can express their love and admiration for a work. However, it can sometimes reveal biases (and a lack of reading comprehension) in the fans who make it. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros has been subject to these bad fan art interpretations, with many fans drawing the main male character and romantic lead, Xaden Riorson, as a typical tall, dark, and brooding white man.
Basically, the typical man Tumblr would have gone wild over back in the day. The problem? The character isn’t white.
Xaden is explicitly described as having dark skin in the book, but so many artists have shown him as being white that some readers are rereading the book to make sure they were correct.
Yarros herself commented on a question asking for clarification that “Oh he definitely is [dark-skinned]. Every time I see him whitewashed in fancasting I always hear that Schmidt scene, ‘a white man? No!’ play in my head.” Yarros has also exclusively shared fanart of Xaden with dark skin and promoted the artists who took care in properly representing Xaden.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped many fans on TikTok and other platforms, many of whom continue to represent Xaden as a white man.
Some have tried to defend their continued sharing of whitewashed fan art by saying that the issue has to be taken up with the artists instead. The artists bear the brunt of the responsibility, to be sure, but so do other fans for continuing to share that artwork and perpetuate whitewashing.
Others are claiming it’s no big deal because it’s “fantasy” and, therefore, not “real”—a claim to which Rebecca Yarros herself has an incredible response, posted all the way back in 2014 during #WeNeedDiverseBooks :
Honestly, I admire Yarros, as she’s clearly someone who talks the talk and walks the walk when it comes to representation. She is fighting against a long-standing trend in romcoms and romances where the POC love interest is usually the temporary or placeholder partner until the main (white) couple can get their act together and fall in love as expected.
Still, it’s discouraging to see that a lot of the most popular TikToks and fan art for the book seem to favor whitewashed Xaden. It feels like what happened with Rue from The Hunger Games, when racist fans rioted over Amandla Stenberg’s casting despite Rue having been described in the book as having dark skin.
What’s worse is that a lot of these racist fans can make fandom an unsafe and unwelcome space for POC and other marginalized groups, even when they are explicitly represented in the text.
If you’re in the Fourth Wing fandom, please share fan art of Xaden as he actually is in the book, and not the typical white Tumblr boy that some artists are trying to turn him into. Fight against racism and whitewashing in fandom. Representation matters, as does making sure POC fans are welcome and valued in fandom spaces.
(featured image: cokada/Getty Images)
