Hey all,

My novel-to-be is a fantasy novel, set in an entirely new world. But one of the major issues I've written into the setting is something similar to a Race issue. My peoples are elemental, and while the four-main elementals (earth, air, fire, water) get along great, there's a "fifth wheel" elemental that is generally shunned. The fifth element, I've been labeling as "Dark". I chose dark for several reasons -- including the connection I have to a concept similar to Dark Matter, as well as the relation to dark/black being all encompassing of the other colors/matter types.

However, this has me worried that it's too touchy and brings up too many current opinions about racism in modern-day America. I refer to my peoples as Aspects.. Fire Aspects.. Earth Aspects.. Dark Aspects. So slurs towards the Dark Aspects are mostly going to refer to their "Dark" connection.

Is this a big Taboo in peoples' minds?

I've considered re-naming the "Dark Aspects" to another concept -- Chaos, Void.. but neither of those words really encompasses what I'm picturing for the Dark Aspects. I've also considered re-naming ALL of the Aspects, just to get away from the somewhat obvious naming conventions. But my mind is mostly blanking on options for that.

What do you guys think? Is this naming convention asking for trouble?