It is a historical genre so
it’s veryyyy racist trope
The kurkans are representative of the ottoman empire or the middle east. Khan/kan as in Kurukan also means king or lord in Turkish. Historically, Europeans even while admiring the middle east/ottoman empire for its advancement and "exotic" culture (orientalism) still frown upon it and deemed it as barbaric due to various reasons like difference in religion, the ottoman empire not having family ties with the other european aristocrats as well as ethnicity. So it's more an attempt to be historically authentic and portray the relationship of europe and the ottoman empire/middle east than the author being racist
idk about Europe but i'm pretty sure there were light skinned people in the middle east and south asia. so yes portraying every kurkan character with the same dark skin tone does seem stereotypically racist (when in reality there's like a variety of skin tones there)
Pretty much like the real world
Not really because people in middle east are not that dark.
I'm not talking about that. I replied the original comment, so I mean the "white skin supremacy" and "dark skin barbarians". It's not far from what historically we are used to see, the characteristics that are given depending of the skin color. Pretty discriminatory and racist.
Thats true.
I noticed that the author specifically chose darker skin color for the kurkans which they call them “barbarians” and literally porcelain white for the royal family and the rest of the kingdom are also white. I kinda interpret that as like “white superiority” and how the white ppl are seen as ppl with manners and etiquette meanwhile the kurkans are literally seen as the opposite vulgar idk inferior ppl. I also noticed this in other manhwas