I have a question

[Xickin]

I've been mulling over a story for quite some time and I have a question to ask the community. First off, let me start by saying I am in no way racist towards the below mentioned people and that it is in no way terrorist propaganda, second, I want to tell you how I came to this:
Awhile back I was thinking of making a story in a completely fictional world with characters that had our world names. The setting was kind of inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender, and at the time I was like "oh, fire=bad" so I started off by giving all of the bad guy characters names from really hot places, like: South America, Africa, the Middle-East etc. But then I was like "they're too diverse; I want them to be more of a collective, but still show the good and bad of both sides" so I looked up the hottest place on Earth (which was Libya) and gave the antagonists names that were native to Libya. I went DEEP into research for each character's name so that each one meant something. I'll give some examples: Muammar Saab=Long Lived/Morning, Marid Nagi=Rebellious/Close Friend, Shahin Rostami=Falcon Bird/unknown etc.
Now at first they ARE the antagonists, but as the story progresses we see the good and bad of not only them, but also the other 4 fictional places I made up that were inspired by real-world places (Africa, the Americas, Eastern Asian, and most of Europe) and gave the nations made up names (Middle East=Orisuphar, Africa=Kapher, Europe=Eurzhou, Asia=Asugea, Americas=Novumeric).
Now, this always bothered me because if I ever came out with an actual story like this, people might think of my intentions as intolerant and racist, but like I said before, we see the good and bad of everything. The only difference is that at the start of the story Orisuphar is the antagonist for war, but then we see Eurzhou getting involved with some questionable shit (i.e. kidnapping, creating monsters, and ruining civilian lives), Kapher turns out to be disorganized and filled with crime, Novumeric is also out of control with constant smuggling/drug trade/political imbalance, and Asugea is very intolerant/strict.
However, my story also portrays some very nice and upstanding people from those very places. It also shows the good and beauty of each nation, and how they see the world.
Anyway, it turns out very political in the end.
So what do you guys think? I think the character names are pretty set in stone but I wanted some feedback.
PS Please no joking.
PPS I would also like to mention that because I was already worried about negative feedback, I made 5 of the main characters from different ethnic backgrounds: Hebrew, European, Indigenous American, African, Middle Eastern.

 

[KingdomKey]

From my perspective on all of this is that you're over thinking it. I don't think people are going to scream racist and point fingers at you for picking names from certain countries around the world. And if it's a fictional story, then there's no real harm done. It's a free country to write what you want as long as it doesn't harm any one in the making of it. So I say you're good.

 

[Xickin]

All right, so long as I'm not being crazy and paranoid.

 

[Lonbilly]

If your main antagonists are representative of Libya, regardless of if they turn good/are morally grey later on or not, I'd recommend having representation of the same group in the nice and upstanding group, otherwise it would come off as either intolerant or ignorant, in my opinion. It's like if you decide to make all the villains gay but all the heroes are straight, bi, lesbian, etc. Without any positive representation from the group you're basing "the bad guys" on, it would look like you're trying to send a message that you really did not intend to, even if they do turn good by the end of the story. It could even be inferred or implied that said characters only went good because of outside influences or playing into the trope of "these savages need to be taught OUR values," even if that isn't at all what you are intending.

That's just my two cents, at least. There's nothing wrong with diverse villains, but just remember that if you have a certain group of people depicted in a bad light without positive rep, fictious or not, it will look very ignorant and can subconscious make the reader internalize negative feelings without that being your intention.

 

[Xickin]

All very good points.
1. They're not meant to represent Libya (I misspoke (my bad)) I took names from the countries around it (mostly countries that speak Persian and Arabic) and just threw them in there.
2. I'm two steps ahead on the "representation" part. See, in the story, there are plenty of characters that are met along the way that don't agree with what their home is doing and have put up an active resistance (causing a small civil war within Orisuphar's borders (but that's kept hush-hush from the general populace for propaganda reasons)).
It's kind of a side-story bit where the main characters meet a set of different characters fighting in the resistance, but even after the main characters leave, those resistance fighters' actions do affect the story still.
3. One of the main characters is actually native to Orisuphar, but his home was destroyed by them.

See, I'm pretty sure I've done everything I can to "soften the blow" (so to speak) but I'm just making sure there's nothing else I could do.