Look, I can recognise that a lot of human perception and/or unconscious reasoning is based on imagery and symbolism and casual association, and as such, simply seeing sexual or ethnic minorities in positions of independence, power or importance might well be helpful in challenging unfair stereotypes. Maybe, on balance, there's a need for role-models of this type, even if the context is a tad unreal. And this is particularly true given the amount of fantasy fiction that has no especial interest in mimicking any portion of reality, past or present, while still overwhelmingly sidelining non-whites, gays, and/or women. I get that.

But speaking as someone who happens to attach significant value to logical consistency and the acknowledgement of empirical fact, and who considers such preferences an intrinsic facet of my own identity, I also don't like when these values are denigrated, or automatically dismissed as an expression of some hidden ulterior motive. These are also integral aspects of the human psyche and just as deserving of representation.

Of course, you can question why someone with this inclination would gravitate toward fantasy at all, and that's a question whose answer is probably beyond the scope of this discussion, partly because I don't fully understand it myself. I hesitate to say that fantasy has no value aside from the applicability of it's lessons to real life, since for all we know aesthetics is a value unto itself. However, I think it's fair to say the continuum between the mundane and the speculative is a tradeoff between 'easy to accept or relate to' and 'forces me to think', which I think is also what Cavelcade is getting at.

And that's my two cents.