Cultural Borrowing in WoW

Over two years ago, I was reading this pretty well-known Alpha tester review of WoW, and came across this description of some of the Horde races in Kalimdor.  I've been meaning to do a post about it ever since.

Trolls
...Lean predators, they're as tall as night elves when they stand fully erect, but normally bob along, hunched over, coiled and ready to spring. While Warcraft players know them by their Jamaican accents, voodoo-flavored culture and wild hairstyles, the trolls are also cruel, sadistic and evil...

Tauren
The closest things to true "good guys" in the Horde – perhaps in all of the World of Warcraft – the Taurens go far beyond just a simple Native American vibe to be true lords of the plains...  They are a spiritual people who put new Tauren player characters through a series of rites of passage, including following the path of a spirit wolf. Yet another of the moments in WoW that just feel intensely RIGHT, Taurens have a quest requiring them to chase a kodo herd across the grass fields of Mulgore, as close to a fantasy game recreation of a buffalo hunt as you'll ever come... The Tauren homeland of Mulgore is "big sky country," Montana to the Africa of the Barrens.

So to this Alpha reviewer, at least, it seemed the Horde "races" were all pinned, at least to some degree, to particular cultural groups and practices... does this raise any issues?

Cultural borrowing is nothing new to MMORPGs, of course.  Dark Age of Camelot organized Albion, Hibernia, and Midgard around European cultures and mythologies.  Puzzle Pirates snagged a pretty well known time and space as a starting point.  There were historical MUDs aplenty, I imagine. Grabbing your world components from history is a good way of avoiding the costs of licensing your world from others who own the IP rights and might want some creative control over the project.  One could query about indigenous IP rights, but I'd rather not go down that path.  (Perhaps "borrowing" is too loaded a term, even -- is "referencing" better?)

Instead, I want to talk about how science fiction and fantasy engage often engage in this type of borrowing -- most "new" things are just old things recoded.  For instance, the Wikipedia entry on Klingons points to the Soviets, Mongolians, and Japanese Samurai.  In most cases, I think this whole process of cultural encryption, mash-up, and recoding is fun -- perhaps what good art is all about.  Looking particularly at WoW, though, I have to wonder sometimes...

Ted's post a while back "The Horde is Evil" probably drew the most comments of any post we've had here in our three-year history.  I don't want to re-open that thread, but I want to ask for thoughts on how it connects to the cultural borrowings/references.  How does the arguably colonialist theme of WoW (pitting the technologically advanced Euro-Alliance against the "native" Horde) work for people?

Last year, one of Aaron's undergraduate students, Katie B., wrote an interesting paper on this exact issue in WoW, where she sought feedback from the other members of the class.  Aaron actually mentioned it in the comments before, summarizing, in part:

(1) Gnomes, dwarves and humans seem to signify the West, with gnomes and dwarves closely connected to capitalism and technology. The only alliance race with darker skin is the Night Elves, and they are viewed with suspicion by other alliance members.

(2) The visual iconography of the horde races suggests real-world cultures (e.g. totems, tents, face paint), and the horde in general are portrayed as "primitive."

(3) The trolls speak in recognizably Jamaican accents, and the emotes for the male reinforce highly sexualized stereotypes...

(4) The alliance actually locked the Orcs up in internment camps, a move which she compares to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. She writes, "The Orcs’s bloodthirstiness was subdued during their stay in internment camps, which is a disturbing sort of justification for the imprisonment and enslavement of another race of people."

There are a bunch of other interesting observations in the paper:

The clearest indication of colonial awareness can be seen in relation to the excerpts concerning the Horde and Alliance cities. The majority of the respondents note that, in some form or fashion, that the “Horde seem to be more tribal or barbaric. Much more primitive or backward.... The Alliance cities are paragons of sturdiness, whimsy, technology, and nature. This reinforces the idea that the Alliance are the ‘good guys’ by being more advanced.” Part of this thought process seems to reflect a certain measure of acknowledgement for the ‘European’ or Western bias built into the good vs. evil dichotomy in the game. As one interviewee puts it, “Alliance cities are cleaner and more epic. Even the music is epic.”

The whole paper is worth a look -- there are a lot of interesting reflections.  I found it fascinating as one student's reading of a MMORPG text.  But one of the most interesting claims is that most of the students surveyed weren't consciously tuning into the crypto-colonialist matrix that the author sees in the game: "Aside from passing references to the Scottish Dwarves, none of the respondents mentioned the ethnicity of the different races, skin tones, or even the use of internment camps, which, while empty, can still be visited ingame..."

I guess what I'm curious about is how people feel about cultural borrowing in WoW, and more broadly, about the appropriate limits (if any) of this kind of thing.  Is there a point where crypto-cultural references become offensive?  Can they be offensive if they are not perceived by the players?  Jar-Jar Binks seemed to create a little bit of controversy a while back, so much that Lucas himself reportedly commented that the way Binks talked was "definitely not Jamaican and if you were to say those lines in Jamaican they wouldn't be anything like the way Jar Jar Binks says them."

Thoughts?

p.s. For those interested in further reading on the topic of race in video games generally, Peter Edelman and others put together a nice list of resources here.

Update: Parallell discussion of this and Ted's "Horde is Evil" post on Slashdot.  Note: If you want to tell Ted that the Horde isn't evil and he needs to pay more attention to the Warcraft lore, it would be appropriate post your comment here (with the 1000 other comments that say that).

Comments

[Michael Fatten]

As a student of design and literature, the largest issues I see in pinning in-game races to real-world nationalities is one of the decline of good fictional development, and in setting those pins in poor places. Simply put, it's easy to communicate cultural identity of a fictional group by making it a shadow of or a mirror to an existing cultural group. It's far shorter a row to hoe than to develop a fictional culture from scratch. Second, when so many games (and films, etc) involve advarsarial relationships, pinning a real world culture into a position that may be construed as a 'bad guy' role is unfortunate for obvious reasons.

There's just so much baggage that comes along for the ride when a designer takes the shortcut of transporting cultural artefacts from the real world into games that I believe that baggage should incent the designer to do his/her homework and at least obscure any references to real cultures, rather than emphasize them.

[Charles Wheeler]

One interesting thing about any colonial undertones to WoW is the extent to which WoW does (or doesn't) adhere to the traditional Euro-centric view of the inherent superiority of the colonial powers.
As the history of the Warcraft universe has unfolded over the course of many games, we've learned that, contrary to early portrayals of orc as bloodthirsty savages, their pre-demon corruption culture was relatively peaceful.
Furthermore, we learn that the alliance races have their own fair share of unreasonable prejudices (the similarity of the orc internment camps to indian and japanese internment camps is not coincidental, nor are the, to our view, extremely questionable justifications for their existence).

The interesting aspect here is that Blizzard appears to be using their fictional world's unfolding history to mimic the dissolution of traditional (american) colonial narratives that has occurred in historical scholarship.

[hikaru]

Art imitates life. The designers will unquestionably draw upon the personally familiar. The magic is when it moves past basic derivation and becomes its own unique, breathing narrative.

Indigenous/low-tech cultures portrayed as the Bad Guys is the norm. That's what consumers buy, because that's what consumers find familiar to believe.

[Andy Havens]

And... er.... what do we mean by "cultural" references? For example, if we have a game based on the American West, is it the "real" American West, or the film version that we've all come to "know" through movies? And, even if we are using "real" historic cultural references, are we talking about references to one culture at one point in time, or to a culture who's own significant touch-points are based on many past cultures?

It's a very weird question, and one that, of course, pops up in every field of artistic endeavor, not just games. If I reference a mythic Old West hero, am I also bringing in references of the Roman ideals on which he is based and the Greek ones on which those are based, mixed in with various Norse and Celtic traditions, since those are also heavily laced into American folk stories?

And when folks start pointing at various game art/concepts like the Tauren and saying that it's clearly "Native American," but what it really is is an amalgam of popular, modern myths about such... well, you run into the question of whether your game material is truly based on cultures, cultural myths, myths of cultures, folklore, earlier fiction, etc. etc. So even if you *intend* to put cultural references in your games, is that what you end up doing?

A question I find more interesting, and one that hasn't been explored as deeply (that I'm aware of), is why racial boundaries are so often (and I don't mean to pun) "black and white" in games. That is, to use WoW as an example, why are humans generally allied with other Humans and Dwarves because of purely racial/cultural reasons, and the enemies of Tauren, Dark Elves, Trolls, etc., because of same? This seems to enforce an "earth-centric" and medieval view of where one gets one's allies and enemies; a view based on our own highly charged ethnic and cultural wars.

There are plenty of other instances, however, where allies/enemies are made based on philosophical, geographic, state, religious, class and economical differences. And in some great sci-fi and fantasy series, the big "break" between enemies can be found in terms of "do you favor nature" vs. "do you favor tech?" We don't have to look for enmity differences that are, essentially, ones of culture and race. Ones based on clear choices of character are certainly available. You can have evil, thieving humans and good natured trolls. I'd love a WoW game where the "race" of the characters had less to do with alliances than what kind of kingdom management they preferred ; )

So much high-fantasy is derrivative of Tolkien, that we have to acknowledge that stuff like WoW is going to rely heavily on preconceived (and, thus, easily sold) notions of elves, orcs, trolls, etc. So, regardless of "beardy" discussions of what's PC and right... we like our elves sleek and good and pretty and our trolls and orcs ugly and bad.

[illovich]

Great post. To add fuel to the fire, what about the construction of humanity vs. non-humanity in WoW? While we're wondering about what it means to co-opt/borrow from cultures of stereotypes of cultures, I think it's worth noticing another insidious bit of racialist re-inscription (god, I love writing all radical =P) in the coding of humanity as European.

It is completely unambiguous that, even though you can pick a number of skin tones in WoW for your human character, the culture of humanity is clearly European. There is no existence of non-european humanity in Warcraft lore whatsoever.

So when you look at WoW (and frankly a lot of western fantasy) under a filter checking for racism/nationalism you can see that in general humanity is portrayed as European and other cultures are coded not only as "other" but even not quite human. That's pretty disturbing, from my perspective.

[Agatha Palmerstone]

Well, as some have alluded to, Blizzard is aware to some extent of this crypto-colonial outlook, and is willing to explode it.
For instance, when speaking to the Orc leader (Thrall, whose story is interesting in and of itself), he comes across as a supremely wise and reasonable person. Whereas some of the Alliance leaders seem rather intolerant and shortsighted. I don't think this is an accident. One of the things I think Blizzard might be trying to do with this is to intentionally create an ambiguity, that gets the intelligent player to question the "official" viewpoint of history.

Personally, most of the Horde RP-centric players seem to regard the Alliance as corrupt and evil.

[Mojo]

I've talked this through with my guild, and we all thought it was obvious in Warcraft that the Horde were the "good guys."

Look at the plots of Warcraft III. Contrast Athras' destruction of half of the human-occupied lands and his creation of the Scourge with Thrall's narrative of trying to carve out a home for his people (and the Taurens) in the Barrens.

The Alliance are all about xenophobia, ethnic cleansing, inhumane experimenting on living beings, drunken-ness, expansion and superficiality.

The Horde (with the exception of the Forsaken) are just trying to build a home. To stay safe. To protect themselves. Yes, they are ugly. So what?

Look at the rulers of the two factions. Thrall leads the Horde. Who again leads the Alliance? Onyxia?

The great secret of Warcraft is that the Horde are the heroes.

[illovich]

I was talking about this with a friend of mine when a curious (if nasty) thought struck me: It's interesting that when Blizzard borrows from a culture you wouldn't expect to contribute a lot of players they don't hesitate to sort of make fun of the culture --e.g. the trolls and their ridiculous Jamaican talking).

But when they're borrowing from a culture that probably will be contributing a lot of players, they're a bit more respectful. I note the complete lack of Episode I Charlie Chan asian accents from the pan-asian Night Elves as an example.

[Arnold Hendrick]

Fantasy and science fiction has ALWAYS borrowed heavily on history for its themes. Robert E. Howard's CONAN is nothing but a mish-mash of ancient and medieval civilizations, overlaid with a dose of 30's jingoism.

Science fiction writers borrow historical events and institutions all the time. For example, the Royal Navy in its glory is clearly the paradyme for David Weber's very popular Honor Harrington series. In fact, historical cultures and events frequently make cameo appearances in SciFi, from medieval knights in Poul Anderson's High Crusade to the frequent appearance of nazis (or Nazi-like civlizations) in Star Trek episodes.

Personally, as someone trained in history, I am delighted to see historical paradymes being reused. I am even more delighted to see them used intelligently and carefully, with due attention to multiple views and aspects. The duality of viewpoints possible about the Horde in WoW is just one example. DAoC is actually a much better example, since the opposing factions there actually developed derogatory nick-names for their opponents ("Albs," "Hibs" and "Mids"), and all to frequently did rude victory-dances upon the fallen of the other side. It was amazing to see a "wartime mentality" emerge among the players, and how easily they switched viewpoints if they switched servers.

[T. Lassiter Jones]

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the glaringly obvious (to me, anyway) issue of the Goblins as broadly-stereotyped Jews. The Brooklyn cabbie accents, preoccupation with money-making schemes, presence in (if not outright control of) the banks and auction houses, and most clearly their status as unassimilated "neutrals" who profit from the war between Horde and Alliance. Sounds pretty much like a Fagin-esque, almost John Birch Society takeoff on Jews as money lenders and "international bankers."

[Chas]

"Cultural borrowing" has serves as an excellent frame of reference for assisting in immersion. When developing a game world for pen-and-paper, explaining that a community is similar to "celtic mythology" or "heroic-era greece" can fill in many of the gaps players may have in the culture faster than I could otherwise present them... and if they don't know the era, well, there's my vast array of GURPS sourcebooks to help them.

This benefit can be seen in WoW. By mixing scenarios that have real world emotional ties (the orc relocation camps) the emotional weight of these events can carry over into the game. By including a common symbolism, players can draw on their own experiences (or, more likely, stereotypes) to more easily slip into a role that could otherwise be unnaturally alien to them.

However, since most of WoW's 6 million players have likely never met a native american or nomadic people, how we read these symbols is largely based on stereotype, often a very unfair characterization. The question remains: does the use of these stereotypes reinforce the mental image of a people, or does the blending of stereotypes and fantasy help weaken these perceptions?

[hikaru]

The question remains: does the use of these stereotypes reinforce the mental image of a people, or does the blending of stereotypes and fantasy help weaken these perceptions?

"So I was at the county fair with my girlfriend last weekend and we're walking around she goes OMG, look over there Tom, that Indian guy with the horse totally looks like our guild main tank, Thunderhorns!"

Not a conversation that will ever happen.

PoMo for the win. Everything will borrow from everything, and becomes just as valid and deserving to exist in its own right. I think the Azerothian mythos and history, though completely derivative, still holds its own -- I would bet my job on the wager that people who play WoW are familiar with WoW history -- back story -- than with European and American history.

In that context, I think however Blizzard wishes to portray races in Wow is fine. No one will seriously bring up Admiral Proudmoore for comparison in a flesh world discussion of genocidal world leaders.

[Elizabeth Cox]

For my undergraduate thesis I studied gender stereotyping in the depictions of the armor and emotes of WoW characters. One of the most interesting findings to come out of the research was that the Trolls were highly sexualized and highly violent.

Six of the 11 emotes that refered to 'sexual eagerness' came from Trolls, and four of the six emotes that referenced violence behavior came from Trolls. The fact that the Trolls are coded as Jamaican makes these findings even more significant. It raises some interesting questions about racial stereotypes and what effect they could have.

[Chas]

hikaru: "So I was at the county fair with my girlfriend last weekend and we're walking around she goes OMG, look over there Tom, that Indian guy with the horse totally looks like our guild main tank, Thunderhorns!"

Not a conversation that will ever happen.

And thank goodness for that.

But really, the blending of stereotype boundaries, which that would demonstrate, would tend to weaken stereotypical models, and that would be a good thing.

Stereotypes serve a purpose: it helps us deal with the unknown before we have enough information to make our own judgements, but deeply-entrenched stereotypes often override direct observations and lead to prejudicial behavior.

The concern comes if these reinforce one's stereotypes. If the Jamaican parallels with trolls (and their sexualized emotes) reinforces a person's view of jamacans along these narrow constraints, then there is reason to be concerned.

The "Jar Jar Binks" controversy extended beyond just being jamaican. Many complained that the exaggerated facial features, behavior patterns, and even body language all took common racial stereotypes to gross characticure (sp?). Nobody was saying that Jar jar would be mistaken for a native down in Jamaica, but many were concerned that the exaggerated characteristics would still reinforce stereotypes, much as blackfaced-vauvillians might have a century ago.

[Bruce Baugh]

I spent some time talking with friends in a guild of quality roleplayers about this recently and was fascinated to find that the tribal aspect of the Horde was very much an explicit draw for them. They found it a neat change of pace, and some of them were actually reading up on real-world precedents, and sharing what they were learning.

The group also agreed strongly that both factions come with a pleasing amount of ambiguity - heroes and villains to spare. It's possible to read either side simplistically, but only by ignoring quest givers and overt stuff like that.

[LEKO]

I have concerns when people questions "Fantasy Worlds" in this way. These worlds are hand-built by imagination, unless World creators would create a complete lore/history from Day 1 to "today", it's impossible to judge their world/work.

Of course, we can do comparison or we can cross-reference with our real-world experiences and history. But, why a fantasy world could not exist without black people, "old-fashioned tribes" or disturbing contents (racism, violence, etc...)???

Virtual worlds take/took their own path to Evolution. I nerver judge or arguments about Virtual Worlds lore or values. I accept them, I "enter" the Worlds as they presented to me. I accept to fact that when I create a character in those world, I'll face the rules of this world. I will have to accept the History/Values of this Virtual Environment. I play a game, I don't live my life there.

I'm pretty sure, that someday a company will come out with an MMO that would be very open regarding values/content/etc... And this world will surely be full of racism, violence, sexual reference, etc... The majority of MMO are built around a world of conflicts and wars. And where combats take place, there is always inequity, judgements, racism, etc...

There would not be combats without that! Basically, if you want to fight in a game, you must create situations and background (lore, history) to give reasons to players to fight.

This means that you have to create Cultures. There would be oppresssed, dominants, violents, peaceful. Some would be more advance in technology, some would be ruled by politics, others by economics...

I stop here, I could go on and on and on!

[Eric]

A fascinating post, especially since I hadn't made many of these linkages, and here's why: I don't know what the races sound like. I've played WoW with the sound off from day one, because I play in a room with my family while they watch TV and one source of sound had to go. I've also set WoW so that the dang quest text doesn't scroll, so obtaining quests isn't a matter of reading, it's a matter of clicking ACCEPT. Between the two choices, I've eliminated two major vectors for creating cultural linkages (accent and written dialect), leaving only the visual. It's a strong reference - the Tauren totem poles, for example - but without some of the other cues, I'd have been hard pressed to say that Trolls were Jamaican/Carribean in nature, as much as just lanky/slouchy/bouncy. Of course, it may also be that I'm generally oblivious, just another culturally insensitive Night Elf... ;)

[Fearless]

First off, let's no read too many of our own prejudices into WoW and cry "racist!" or "sexist!" or "whateverist!" right away. The cultures of WoW are a bit more layered than initial reviews suggest. The trolls, for example, may sound Jamaican, but their architecture and worship of bloodthirsty deities (Hakkar, anyone?) remind me of Aztecs. The feral trolls (the NPC tribes, not the Horde-affiliated Darkspears) also practice cannibalism. And their religion is African by the way of the Caribbean... If the Tauren are the equivalent of Plains Indians, then aren't the Centaurs the U.S. cavalry, rather than the Alliance?
Any objections to the portrayal of goblins as money-grubbing bankers ought to be sent to J.K. Rowling first. And aren't most cabbies in Brooklyn Indian, anyway?
WoW is not black-and-white. Each race has its "evil" members: the Scourge, the corrupted druids, the Defias, the Dark Irons, the leper gnomes (good job nuking your own city, gnomes, how's that +5 Int bonus feeling now?), Dragonmaw and Blackrock orcs, all sorts of trolls... there are even renegade Tauren. of the playable races, only the Forsaken could justly be called "evil," as their agenda for a new plague is outright genocidal.

[Retsnimle]

The Jamaican connection to the Trolls in WoW most likely came from the fact that the trolls lived on the islands off Kalimdor and practiced voodoo.
I believe their violent nature portrayed in WoW comes from the standard fantasy lore surrounding trolls in general. But suggesting that developers purposely used a Jamican sterotype to reinforce a violent perception of Trolls will certainly be picked up on most academic's PC radar.

However, I think most gamers are smart enough to know the difference between real Jamicans and fantasy Trolls that sound Jamican. And even more likely not to care that much.

[Sov]

As others have said, one thing I enjoy about Blizzard's universe is the way that the concepts of good & evil are intentionally blurred and questioned. I have been impressed by the number of WoW players I've met who problematize "savagery" in the horde. They recognize that the cultures are more complex than it may seem at first glance. They also recognize, or come to recognize, that each group has its own motivations for its actions. Conflicts aren't as cut and dried as right vs. wrong. Really, given what I know of certain individuals with whom I've had this discussion, I almost feel like WoW has been a valuable teaching element for them (leading them to question Eurocentric histories).

I do agree that a discussion of cultural/racial stereotyping in videogaming is important. If left unexamined it could be harmful. In this instance, however, the very discussions that naturally arise from the plotlines around the cultural "borrowing" have been illuminating to those who may not have otherwise had such conversations.

[Fubo]

One of the problems involved in RPG design -- as in stage acting! -- is motivation. How do you motivate the players to care about their characters and to take in-character actions that further the plot? In a game that is meant to be combat-oriented, this means (in part): How do you get players to engage their characters in fighting rather than, say, hanging around telling jokes? How do you get them to care about the outcome of battles?

The cheesy way to get people to care about fighting is to give them power rewards: items, leveling up, and all that. However, this only goes so far as a motivation -- observe the well-known parody, Progress Quest. Just getting higher stats is not, by itself, very interesting without an engaging world-story in which to _use_ those higher stats.

So, story. Motivation.

By presenting characters as embedded in cultures with histories, the game designer gets a whole set of motivations for free. Why does a human want to kill an orc? Because humans and orcs have been killing each other for centuries. And, because humans have racist beliefs about orcs. This is well illustrated even in WC3: almost every time an Alliance NPC expresses an opinion about orcs, it is a negative and racist one.

Hell, in TFT, we early on see human racism against elves too, providing an early motivation in the Blood Elf campaign. And in Arthas's pre-undead days in ROC we see that the Alliance's foremost military faction, the paladins, is founded upon notions of "purity" which are disturbingly Naziesque.

Tolerance is a great real-world value, as far as it goes. (How far does it go? Well, it doesn't make sense to be too tolerant of people who want to destroy your culture of tolerance and replace it with tyranny. Remember Pim Fortuyn.) However, tolerance is not nearly as dramatic a motivator for a fightin' story as is intolerance and hatred.

Playing a role-playing game is _rarely_ about behaving as you would in an ideal, utopian world. It is usually about playing in a world that is _more_ dangerous and harsh -- and therefore, more dramatic! -- than your own life. Most people who play WoW or any other online combat game do not themselves engage in mortal combat in real life, after all.

[Edward Castronova]

Why do we reify the loremakers at Blizzard, as if their creation of myth has similar standing to, say, the ancient legacy of Native American mythic culture? In c. 2000 AD a bunch of 20-something guys in Orange County, CA made a lore. It's now the basis for the funnest game ever, true. But does their lore work, aesthetically? Maybe if you've been totally into the Warcraft universe for the past five years, it may work. FCS there are people who read every Forgotten Realms novel that comes out. But relative to Dante, Shakespeare, Wagner, or even Peter Jackson - is the Warcraft universe worth five minutes of time? Does it make sense to spend time getting into these wierd, blunt, arbitrary rewritings of the cultural background? I mean, c'mon: Jamaican trolls.

Awhile ago here I argued that on the basis of the green skin, the fangs, the skeletons, the lack of pleasing humanoid features, etc, you kind of had to look at Horde as evil. And of course everyone here disagreed; I couldn't hold my argument up at all. I had to back down to an argument that Blizzard's lore is just kind of stupid. And I guess I'm still there. OK, so they decided to have Native American Cows and half-wicked Euro-Humans and Chernobylic Gnomes. Well, Power Rangers do Asian martial arts and the Wiggles are four Australian white guys. Long run, it's not a big deal.

[Juan Incognito]

Someone said that the playable human race is very much a European medieval model, and while I won't try to deny that I would note that each of the playable races is just one faction of the general race. We are allowed to play the Stormwind faction, which is far removed from the (historically) main body of humans in the north. The other human nations that are now destroyed ,(or hidden) could well have had different cultures. Although looking at the ruins they do seem european medieval as well (and if you look at previous WC games as well).

However this is just humanity, the other races do not seem to have quite this uniformity. Looking at the Dark Iron Dwarves, not only are they universally darker in skin, their architecture, weapons etc all look quite distinct from the playable Ironforge dwarves, as do the Wildhammer Clan. Night Elves are far removed from High Elves, Highborne etc. The playable trolls do seem quite far removed from the various troll cities one sees in instances like ZG, ZF and really all over the place. So there is evidence, whether intentional or not, of quite distinct variations within the races.

Regarding the alleged sexual eagerness of trolls, wow, I'd never really thought about that angle. I am not entirely sure what is meant by that phrase, however from my perspective the emotes of the Trolls do not come across immediately as being any more sexual than other races. Having played all the races, some more than others, I'd have rated Humans and Night Elves as being far more obviously sexual, and have you looked at Gnome dancing? Only Dwarves, Undead and the Tauren seem to escape the sexually explicit dance in my opinion.

[Andy Havens]

It's not a big deal...

That's what my wife says about every game I've ever played ; )

[oboreruhito]

"The only alliance race with darker skin is the Night Elves" and humans and dwarves. And maybe gnomes, but I'd need to roll one and click on the skin tone button once to find out.

Did you try that? Changing the skin tone? You can do that in WoW, you know.

[Kay Zeller]

Your argument is quite weak, I am afraid.

The humans locked the orcs in internment camps, which speaks to the evil that humans are capable of, not the orcs. Also, if you have done the 'Stockades' instance in Stormwind city, the humans are torturing their prisoners as well. Sadly, in the middle ages (as most fantasy is modled after) it was all too common.

The Tauren are quite naturalistic and nomadic, but by no means, barbaric. I do believe that Native American cultures are viewed as peaceful and spritual by most people in this day and age.

Your arugment gets even weaker when you consider that the Blood Elves are going to be on the Horde when buring crusade comes out.

They have blonde hair, green eyes, and pale skin. Also, they are quite advanced in their buildings and attractive. They look as European as can be. And they dance the -TWIST- an American dance.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[Rapter09]

I'll apologize for the length of this post. I felt compelled to respond in a complete manner.

I haven't completely read either of the two articles, merely skimmed through them. I've tried to skim through the articles and gather the general gist of them and I will try to relate my points as closely as possible here. I'm interested and fairly knowledable in the general "World" of WarCraft. As such i'd like to provide a counterpoint to this article's points, as well as the one called "Stereotyping the Horde" (but regarding that article more generally than directly.)

So, with that being said I will state this: The Horde are Not Evil. Chris Metzen will obviously be the only person to truly tell people 'what' each faction or race are in an over-arcing sense but it is my strong personal belief that the horde (in general) are not evil. To see this point of view you must deeply consider the background surrounding the Orcs, Tauren, and Trolls, as well as the Undead (I can't vouch for the Blood Elves at this moment coming in Burning Crusade... Honestly, i'm not entirely sure what's up with them, and they seem to be lumped in with the Horde just because the Horde's general perception is "evil" - which is very sad.)

This is the perception that I have taken from the game.

Firstly, I'd like to address some points made in "Cultural Borrowing in WoW" and I would like to refute a lot of the points brought up by comments made in the article; referenced therein as comments by "Aaron." I have not read any of the comments to the article, but I'm just posting this as a one-off. Perhaps I'll even create some discussion.

So, the horde aren't evil. WoW (as a game) isn't racist - or doesn't present a negative message of the cultures that it has been referenced from. It could almost be implied that the comments come from somebody who has not played the game, or has only taken a glancing look at what it has to offer. So I'll start with the points, first.

"(1)...The only alliance race with darker skin is the Night Elves, and they are viewed with suspicion by other alliance members."

Untrue. Yes, the Night-Elves color palette have generally a darker skin tone, but the choices available to you when you create a character allow you to create a black, brown, albino or "tanned" version of any of the species mentioned. Night-Elves aren't really regarded with suspicion at all; They are not "untrusted". In fact, one could go so far to say that the elves are distrusted because they distrust most other races. They are extremely old. They are the Keldorei, the first to awaken on the world. They are seclusionists, and they are very protective of their land and their world (for good reason). They have lived in peace and fear of the Burning Legion for thousands of years, and now that peace has been shattered, and those fears have been realized since the invasion of the burning legion and the destruction of the World Tree.

(2) The visual iconography of the horde races suggests real-world cultures (e.g. totems, tents, face paint), and the horde in general are portrayed as "primitive."

.

The Orcs are a new race to Azeroth. In fact, except for the Undead every race are displaced people. Orcs come from Dreanor (another world, for the un-lore-educated), they are not native to Azeroth, and in 10 short years they have constructed the mighty city of Orgrimmar. Their cities look primitive because I don't think the horde have been on Azeroth for any more or less than 100 years. unlike the Alliance, they haven't been on Azeroth for thousands of years to develop a solid foundation, or solid cities and thousands of years of history on this world.
The same applies to the Tauren. They have been nomadic for centuries, they have been hunted to near exctinction by the Centaur and are only now coming together, rallying under a single banner and leader, and in those 10 short years they have also established Thunder Bluff - an absolutely GORGEOUS city atop the plateu's of Mulgore, rich in the markings of their nomadic history. A newly formed city is hardly going to be made out of solid-stone the first time. The Tauren's are also far too close with the Earthmother to build stone structures. They are very into the land, much like the Night-Elves. IN fact, the two races are quite close fictionally sharing the "Cenarion Hold" faction.
The Trolls as well have a very sad history. Originally the mighty troll Amani Empire stretched nearly from sea-to-sea on the continent of Azeroth. Hardly to be considerd "primitive". If you play World of WarCraft and just walk through places like Stranglethorn Vale you can only began to imagine how glorious and powerful the ancient Amani empire was - some of its ancient stone structures still stand to this day. After the death of Hakkar, Troll civil war, and a bloody and terrible war with the High Elves, the troll empires shattered and splintered. They have never been the same since. The DarkSpear Tribe (the ones allied with the Horde in WoW) were saved from exctinction by Thrall and the horde. Since then, Vol'Jin has sworn allegiance with the Horde.

(4) The alliance actually locked the Orcs up in internment camps, a move which she compares to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. She writes, "The Orcs’s bloodthirstiness was subdued during their stay in internment camps, which is a disturbing sort of justification for the imprisonment and enslavement of another race of people."

Of all the statements above, these are the most unfortunate. For untold number of years the orcs lived peacefully on their Homeworld, co-existing peacefully with most of the races there, and developed a rich shamanistic heritage in-tuned with the spirits and laws of the earth. Then the Burning Legion came. Bending the elder shaman Ner'Zhul to his awesome power, the demon Kiljaeden had the orc chieftains drink the blood of the demon Mannoroth. They cursed themselves with bloodlust and savagery. The ensuing lust for combat saw the horde wipe out all living sentient life on Dreanor, and almost wiping the Dreanei to extinction. Through further machinations involving Ner'Zhul and the mind-controlled human mage Medivh the orcs came to Azeroth and waged war in the name of the Burning Legion all of its races. Twice they attempted to destroy all life in preparation for the coming of the Burning Legion, and twice they failed. After the second war the orcs were rounded into internment camps by the alliance - trapped on Azeroth after the Dark Portal closed - more because the Alliance races did not know what to do with them, and did want another war to outbreak and destroy the already weakend nations of Azeroth. During this time of internment for the orcs they began to become less-and-less bloodthirsty, their bloodlust somewhat fading with the absence of their corrupted leaders and the absence fo the Burning Legion. This was a trait noted by the human Archmage and then-head of the Kirin Tor, Antonidas. Soon after a small orcish child was born, and was raised as a gladiator by human parents. This was Thrall. In the final days of the Third War the WarChief Thrall and his long-time friend Grom Hellscream met and destroyed the demon that had infused the orcs with their bloodlust: Mannoroth was destroyed. His final words to Thrall were: "The bloodhaze has lifted. I have freed myself" - and as he died, Thrall realized that Hellscream's sacrifice to destroy Mannoroth had saved his entire race from the bloodlust. At that point, Thrall committed to going back to the ancient and shamanistic ways of his forebearers - to create not only a more peaceable Horde, but to release themselves from the bondage of the Burning Legion and to forge a new brighter destiny for his people. Thralls loves his people dearly, and he welcomes with open arms all those who would ally with the Horde in the name of a brighter future. The Horde, Orcs and all - are more or less peaceful, driven to war as everyone is by failing and suspicious alliances. Wars that Thrall loathes and does not want to fight.

The imprisonment of the Orcs had nothing to do with their encroaching lethargy, and had everything to do with a fading bloodlust brought on by the absence of a retreated and beaten agents of the Burning Legion. Their freedom from that bloodlust comes from the sacrifices made by Thrall and Grom during that titantic battle.

“Horde seem to be more tribal or barbaric. Much more primitive or backward.... The Alliance cities are paragons of sturdiness, whimsy, technology, and nature. This reinforces the idea that the Alliance are the ‘good guys’ by being more advanced.” Part of this thought process seems to reflect a certain measure of acknowledgement for the ‘European’ or Western bias built into the good vs. evil dichotomy in the game. As one interviewee puts it, “Alliance cities are cleaner and more epic. Even the music is epic.”

You can note my above responses for that. To reinterate the Orcs have been on the world of Azeroth for a very short period, not enough time to build a wonderous city. Because most of those years are spent in constant warfare the orcs have constructed cities for their defense; with burning shards of wood and reinforced concrete all throughout the cities to shroud and reinforce the city from sight-finders of catapults and trebuchets. It's an actual tactic used in medieval times. Very effective. They are a culture steeped still in war, and prejudiced against for their terrible past actions brought upon by the corruption of the Burning Legion. The orcs are the ultimate Wow story of racial redemption and great pain and sadness for all involved.

People that take these sorts of negative views towards the game also have to realize that without the divides - that are not always fictionally correct, mind you - there would be no GAME. The taurens are fictionally "friendly" with the Night Elves, yet for the purposes of the game they fight - but fictionally the Cenarion Hold is a bastion of peace for both sides. Fictionally, Jaina and Thrall are fast friends, and they both do what they can to maintain their friendship, and whenever things go aloof Thrall and Jaina are always concerned the impact it may have on their alliance. But for the purpose of the game, Orcs and Humans fight. For the GAME.

With no clear factions, there would be no game, but understand that things are not really so black and white in the World of WarCraft universe. Some orcs, and some humans are friendly with each other - fictionally. The Taurens and the Night Elves are friendly - fictionally. Some of the undead are not intent on destroying all life - they merely want to find a cure for their undeath and release themselves from the horrors they have to live, and the rejection they must face. This is echoed in many quests playing Undead, or taking quests from them.

Like all humans as well there are evil within them. The Warlocks of the horde, steeped to dark magiks and dwelling in the forbidden art that brought the Burning Legion to Azeroth. Several factions of Orcs known as the Burning Blade, or the power hungry orc Rend Blackhand; The False Warchief. There are the "evil" and displaced Taurens known as the Grimtotem Clan - refusing the summons of Cairn and refusing to join the Horde for unknown reasons. The "evil" humans which are prevalent everywhere whether you are Horde or Alliance, including pirates and bandits, the demented Scarlet Crusade, or the rejected Defias Brotherhood. Night-Elves even have members within their faction that are falling into their old 'evil' ways - the ways that lead to the first coming of the Burning Legion. The creation of the new World Tree Teldrassil - unblessed by nature - has disrupted the opinions of powerful druids such as Malfurion Stormrage. Even the jolly dwarves have evil factions within them - the Dark Iron dwarves of Blackrock Spire, warring with the dragon Nefarian and Rend Blackhand's Blackrock clan of orcs.

To an outsider, you can take World of WarCraft at face value and have your misjudgements, but if you took it at face value you'd be missing a rich backstory, and very interconnected fiction that defines what I covered above - only a small fraction of the true story.

[Tony Carden]

I'm sure that many members of the colonised, conquered and dispossessed cultures in the real world would be well pleased if the balance of power that exists between the Horde and the Alliance in Azeroth, pertained in RL.
:-)

[animal]

i think you may have a bit too much time on your hands :P
but it is not good vs evil, it is 'good guys' vs the 'anti hero'. you can see this in many books, movies, tv shows etc. the best example is in xmen with cyclops and wolverine.

[animal]

i think you may have a bit too much time on your hands :P
but it is not good vs evil, it is 'good guys' vs the 'anti hero'. you can see this in many books, movies, tv shows etc. the best example is in xmen with cyclops and wolverine.

[torill]

Have you noticed the viking helmets? And the names? Dwarves are parodies of Norse culture, right down to their hanging out in the winterlands surrounded by polar bears, talking with a strong accent with rolling r-s and and a heavy liking to alcoholic beverages. Add to that the myth of the real size of vikings - all can see from their beds that they would have to be dwarves - and the strong flavour of the older sagas as well as the Edda poetry, and there are quite a few heavily-paying scandinavians who should be quite offended. Not to mention all the Americans of Scandinavian descent.

I think one reason why American Scholars react to the trolls is that we believe only non-aryan people have ethnicity, in much the same manner as only women have gender. Those whose ethnicity should be protected and whose feelings should not be harmed are "the others".

Personally, I love the thought of playing a creature from a tropical island, and I hope players from the tropics enjoy the thought of living in the snow. Both extremes have borrowed from corresponding real-life cultures, only the trolls got the better deal, I think.

[Wintrow]

Kay Zeller is 99% correct about his WoW-lore-facts (seems Night Elfs weren't the first sentient race, but were a magically-infused evolution of Trolls that discovered the Well of Eternity).

BUT he has kind of missed the point...
All the arguments he brings up using lore (like, Orcs haven't been in Azeroth long enough to build grand stone cities) are useless. How's that, you ask?

Why do Orcs not have more advanced settlements?
Not because "they haven't been in Azeroth long enough", but because Blizzard MADE them that way. If Blizz wanted Orcs to be more advanced, they could've just NOT made the lore say so. Example: WoW itself could've taken place hundreds years later than it is now (only 4 years since WC3:TFT).

This is but one example off course... The point is: if something is a certain way ingame (internment camps?) then it is not because the lore says so (bloodlust), but because the lore was made to say so.

[Michael Chui]

I haven't read all the comments in this thread, but judging from the few that I have, I want to make a blanket gesture.

I realize that, in this day and age, it can be pretty much assumed that the average fantasy gamer has NOT read Lord of the Rings. And even if you had, that's not enough; to understand the incredible depth that was the person of J.R.R. Tolkien is enough to be a specialization in a field.

That's not the point. The point is that Tolkien successfully created his own mythology based off Norse, English, and Christian histories and mythologies to color Middle Earth. It's possible. And while it might not be possible for a couple of 20-something guys in Orange County, you shouldn't be too quick to dismiss it, either. Tolkien made a statement on the nature of evil; he also made a statement on the nature of courage -- how many people see that? Around none.

I recommend the book by Tom Shippey: "The Road to Middle Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythoology".

[Stormgaard]

Has it occurred to any of the intellectual giants here that The Forsaken are modeled on Liberal White People.

DOH!! I guess the Horde REALLY IS Evil!!

Another stupid navel-gazing article trying to turn everyone into a Racist. Liberals aren't happy unless everyone's a victim and everyone hates each other. You people would find racism in fucking PAC-MAN.

[liqorice]

This is a really interesting article and definately worth exploring in greater depth.

I have come across this kind of "burrowing" discussion before in Lineage 2; I was hunting in a party in Cruma Tower when one of the party members commented that The orcs were like black people seeing as how you could not create a black/darkskinned or any other non-caucasion character from the Human side of the game.

Being Black, African, and one of the few lucky enough to work in the games industry; this vexed me sorely and left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. of course the guy did not mean anything by it and I had always known there has been an issue with race in games, which I dont think or see why there should be. But that is another discussion.

Anyway without going too far off track, what I really wanted to say is that the bigger issue and one this article hints and touches upon is that it is more indicative of the thinking and mindset of the west, in particular those who create games and last but not leasts our perceptions of there intentions and designs.

firstly let me start with our perception of beauty and ugliness. A lot of people have commented that Orcs, Trolls, Taurens, the Undead, etc ... are ugly, when I would actually argue that that is a subjective opinion. Example, a chinese female friend of mine, after seeing a caucasion guy and his girlfirend making out, commented on how western guys always seem to go out with ugly chinese girls, I commented and said that, the girl was really pretty, and she replied and said you obviously dont know how to look at Asian people, I started thinking about that and realised she had a point, I mean how many times have I heard jokes and comments on how black people all look alike when in fact that is so far from the truth. Not the best of examples but I hope it is clear enough.

WoW is not a racist game, and those that see the game as painting a deragotory picture of other racial groups are either misinterpreting the lore of the game or have issues of there own and are seeing things that are not there.

I do feel though that blizzard should take this oppurtunity to blur the boundaries and conceptions of WoW by making a third Rogue Faction, there are so many players who start playing or who have freinds that are an opposing force and would like to play with them but cant, maybe by creating a third rogue like faction, will balance and staid to the whole issue of this article and also help to add another aspect to the game; Basically players from opposing forces could join or form a clan/guild together and would then be considered outcasts of there race for siding with the opposition, anyways thats just me thinking out loud, that is probably another one for another discussion.

[greglas]

Welcome Slashdotters (and thanks for the link, Zonk). Some pretty cogent discussions going on over there.
Link

I'll reply more later, but I just wanted to make a few quick points (probably futile when a thread reaches this critical mass, but anyway):

1) the OP was not titled "Blizzard is Racist" -- I honestly don't think that at all. The OP was just an invitation for discussion about how people feel about recognizable cultural references in WoW (and in fantasy/sci fi generally). Zonk linked to a sentence with a potentially more critical tone (stating "I wonder" about the references) but only as a means of entry to the student paper on WoW, relating it to the "Jar-Jar Binks affair" etc.

2) I truly appreciate all the comments on the Warcraft lore. It's actually just as interesting to me to see that some people care so much about the lore as it is to hear what the lore is.

3) Though I referenced Ted's post re "The Horde is Evil", I don't agree with it, and in the OP I particularly hoped to avoid re-opening that discussion here. If you want to slam Ted again and tell him "The Horde isn't evil!" (it's been done before, trust me), I'd request you post to that thread, not this one. Then again, we're an anarchic forum here, so whatever...

[Mencius]

It's a game, and if the background is read it is clear to see that both sides...much like in real history...have a hand in the events. It is not the game that is labeling things, it is our culture its self that needs to have a "Good" and "Bad" side. Gray is where the world really is....in this case, as in most that is lost in the rush to find labels...or in this case, to damn them.

Perhaps we should consider if author has fallen into the trap they accuse Blizzard of. Rather then looking at the lore and finding the ills in the Alliance races, or the good works of the Horde...The Horde is slanted as "Evil" to validate a point.

[RedWolf]

The Jamaican connection to the Trolls in WoW most likely came from the fact that the trolls lived on the islands off Kalimdor and practiced voodoo.

Firstly, the Jamaican connection to Trolls in Warcraft has been present long before WoW. Secondly, the trolls (or more accurately, the Darkspear Tribe) moved to the islands off the coast of Kalimdor during Warcraft III. Their ancestral home, like other troll tribes, is Stranglethorn Vale. STV as a zone, in my opinion, is far more influenced by the jungles of India and South America.

The question why trolls are linked with Jamaica is a valid question, but I think that it's roots can be found in the game development process. Sometime during Warcraft 2 or 3, when Chris Metzen was looking for a voice actor to voice the trolls, he chose one with a Jamaican accent/impression. It worked well, so it became part of the lore.

[Sov]

Responding to Edward Castronova's comment -

I don't think anyone here is arguing that this body of lore is equivalent to Shakespeare or Tolkien. Obviously, it can't have the weight of what you call "the ancient legacy of Native American myth culture." It is new, as you point out. However, dismissing it as not worth 5 minutes is shortsighted. Artifacts from pop culture certainly shape our society as much or more than those of high culture. It would be foolish to ignore the impact of this particular body of (pop) literature because you think it's poorly written.

[Chas]

Welcome Slashdotters ...Some pretty cogent discussions going on over there.

... I just wanted to make a few quick points (probably futile when a thread reaches this critical mass, but anyway):

1) 1) the OP was not titled "Blizzard is Racist" -- I honestly don't think that at all. The OP was just an invitation for discussion about how people feel about recognizable cultural references in WoW

Emphasized again, just in the hope this can get back on track.

Seems to come from the habit of a vocal slashdot minority never reading the article before posting. They see others speak about race and culture and assume the worst of the original author...

Ed's "the horde is evil" post the OP cross-linked to is getting similar attention- responses that almost guarantee that the OP's only read the 2 titles before responding.

---

As was mentioned before, cultural "borrowing" can help with immersion by allowing players to make assumptions based on what they know of the borrowed culture. It can really help players get into the role faster and easier.

One of the problems I've run into is where players assume TOO MUCH from the related culture. Perhaps they haven't played enough to discover the books explaining where the cultures, histories, or perspectives DIFFER. Perhaps they'd already defined their character based on the original assumptions...

As a basic example from a less-controversial "fictional" culture: TSR's "Drow." While popularized by TSR, the idea of an evil dark-skinned elf race wasn't entirely their own (references to "dark elves" go way back). EQ and EQ2 made their evil elves similar in appearance (black skin, white hair) but the culture is notably different. (It's not matriarchial, for example) Read the bio of many dark elves in games, and it's clear they used TSR's backstory and culture to define their character.

It's the bane and benefit of cross-borrowing. A player can assume a certain style without every nuance being exposed to them, but they also may assume characteristics that you DON'T want associated with your world.

(To tie this all the way in to Ed's piece on "the horde is evil"...) Now, imagine a new game that draws WoW players in. In it, orcs really ARE evil, in the tradition of old lore, but players brought up on WoW's lore bring over their own assumptions based on orcs there, trying to write off the evil tendencies as simply misunderstood. Now, a truly "evil" character is seen sympathetically when it shouldn't. It's one of the problems with cross referencing anything creations...

but is anything truly unique? When will pattern-recognition cause people to make associations that I didn't intend? When will a more-or-less "unique" game culture reflect a real world culture, or a popular work of fiction's, through just sheer coincidence?

[Chris]

Honestly, the Tauren are the least evil race in the game. I challenge anyone to name an "evil" characteristic about the race.

[Phaltran]

This article has provided a viewpoint I hadn't considered before. I noted the obvious parallel with Tauren and Native American and the Jamaican accent of the trolls, but I never looked any deeper. I won't let this article color my vision and think the races in WoW only represent the stereotypes mentioned here, but it will open my eyes to look for symbolism and relationships amongst the races.

I chose to play a human paladin as my first character because it gave me a known platform from which to explore the world. In D&D and numerous PC games, I typically chose the paladin-like characters because it suited my personality and my ideal of how I would act in the presented situations. Once I became comfortable with the interface and the world, I immediately started making other characters of various races and classes. I've tried almost everything.

I dislike numerous aspects of several races, but I definitely do not see real life racial connections to my dislikes. I don't like the troll accent simply because it gets tiresome. I dislike the undead's ability to consume their victims, so I simply choose not to do it when I play my undead. Orcs are a mirror to humans. If I hadn't played several classes as a human, I might be interested in playing an orc, but there's nothing new there. If I'd played an orc first, I'd feel the same about the human. I dislike the gnome voices and the simple fact that you cannot see over shrubbery. I'd have preferred halflings. I dislike the night elves always bouncing, how difficult it is to hear their voices and how much more difficult their starting zones are compared to any other race. I have no complaints at all about the dwarves or tauren. If I could create every class as a dwarf or tauren, those would be the only races I'd play.

Cultural differences, race and other social differences only matter if we make a big deal out of them. I think Blizzard took shortcuts on making some of the races by borrowing from history, but they don't make a big deal out of THAT. What they do make a big deal about is the war between the Horde and Alliance, to me a completely fabricated, racial war. A war in which I cannot help but be a factor, but one in which I can choose how much I participate. I choose to be peaceful with the opposing faction whenever possible.

[thanks]

- (To tie this all the way in to Ed's piece on "the horde is evil"...) Now, imagine a new game that draws WoW players in. In it, orcs really ARE evil, in the tradition of old lore, but players brought up on WoW's lore bring over their own assumptions based on orcs there, trying to write off the evil tendencies as simply misunderstood. Now, a truly "evil" character is seen sympathetically when it shouldn't. It's one of the problems with cross referencing anything creations...
-

things have this way of being evil if its not understood. its prejudice based on ignorance, and I think everyone can see examples of that in history. when considering what to call good and what to call evil, you have to look at the motivation for that person doing what they do. Is it out of a sense of duty, for their faith, out of fear, because they believe it will help others, or is it out of selfishness, or pleasure? the first four could be done in a way many consider evil, yet its the misguided act that is evil, because the intention is to do the right thing. With the latter two its just about sadism or not caring at all. that seems more about evil in a person than the others. Nazi war criminals didnt cry because they were never again going to be able to kill someone, they cried because they knew the wrong they had done. This tells me that they did the dutiful thing at the time, believing it was right to do that duty, even when it felt wrong. I can see and understand this even though I would like to see naziism disappear this instant, because I don't let myself become bigoted and fearful because that clouds my ability to examine the reality of it all. Doing so is to deliberately blind yourself so you can villify everyone associated with a particular group without having to feel bad. Doesnt that sound like racism/sexism?

In short, a person who is at least half alive playing that game should realize from the motives of the characters who is evil and who isnt. its motives that are the tell-all, and if people stop being able to label good/evil via the motivation as you fear they may, than I am really concerned for the real world.

-
Has it occurred to any of the intellectual giants here that The Forsaken are modeled on Liberal White People.

DOH!! I guess the Horde REALLY IS Evil!!

Another stupid navel-gazing article trying to turn everyone into a Racist. Liberals aren't happy unless everyone's a victim and everyone hates each other. You people would find racism in fucking PAC-MAN.

Posted by: Stormgaard | May 18, 2006 7:20:04 AM
-
to add to that.
I didnt know liberal white people were forced into servitude by being killed, raised as undead, and mind controlled to commit genocide against an entire world, then freed in a rebellion and are hunted by every alliance race(in the warcraft world) simply because they are undead, which is (mythologically) inherently unnatural and evil. Paladins ( in the warcraft world ) would love to wipe the forsaken out completely, simply because theyre undead, and just for extra measure, were also part of the scourge, and most living humanoids probably fear and hate them simply because they are undead.

As another put it so simply, anyone who glances at it gives their opinion, which is simply to say it is racism by cultural borrowing putting certain views on certain cultures. Since it takes work to create something, the value of that something created is based on how long it takes to complete it, and if someone is taking a whole minute to look at a discussion where they know nothing of WoW or its lore, than writing something like, WoW is racist, they have merely done the same amount of work it takes to shit. And we all know the result of that job.

[Raz]

"I was talking about this with a friend of mine when a curious (if nasty) thought struck me: It's interesting that when Blizzard borrows from a culture you wouldn't expect to contribute a lot of players they don't hesitate to sort of make fun of the culture --e.g. the trolls and their ridiculous Jamaican talking).

But when they're borrowing from a culture that probably will be contributing a lot of players, they're a bit more respectful. I note the complete lack of Episode I Charlie Chan asian accents from the pan-asian Night Elves as an example." - illovich

Obviously, illovich either has not played WC3/TFT or wants to completely ignore it, but the Asian accent that illovich mentions is used by the Pandarens. Also, anyone dwarves derive their accents from the Scottish, which no one has seemed to mention either.

[Raz]

Also, anyone *that's played WC3/TFT knows* dwarves derive their accents from the Scottish, which no one has seemed to mention either

[Heather Sinclair]

>>Also, anyone *that's played WC3/TFT knows* dwarves derive their accents from the Scottish, which no one has seemed to mention either<<

well, ignoring the fact that it's culturally acceptable to make fun of the Scots (when was the last time you heard a sheep joke?), the dwarves in WoW or other settings generally don't borrow anything *cultural* - for all intensive purproses, they're all tolkien dwarf clones rather than lightly armored, kilt-clad, claymore wielding, bagpipe playing, woad-painted, clan-oriented scots of yore.

[Warren Grant]

I think its probably worthwhile to keep in mind the fact that the typical (North American at least) player is fairly ignorant about human history, culture, other cultures etc. The crowd who posts here is fairly erudite, and its probably easy to forget how deeply ignorant the typical player probably is concerning many cultural and historical facts. They don't care, they don't care to know and they sure don't care to be educated by a game. Thats not its job after all.

Using Stereotypes of different cultures allows the designers to provide a background to the various races (note that should be "species" but the misuse of "race" is endemic in Fantasy and RPGs sadly). So the Taurens are not Native American based, they are based on stereotypes of Native American cultures that bear little resemblance to actual cultures for the most part (ie Plains indians never used West-Coast native Totem poles). I think the designers merely played off the various cultural stereotypes to provide an easy anchor for otherwise ignorant players.

Tolkien more or less created an entire world based on human culture, history and mythology. He was a professor of Medieval English though and its probably a bit much to expect game designers to devote the same level of detail in designing their worlds. Most modern fantasy is derivative of Tolkien but I thought it was a good point that someone raised when they said the typical player probably hasn't read Tolkien. I would amplify that to suggest (without evidence mind you, its supposition) that the typical player doesn't *read* in all likelihood. I have met a lot of people who read they say - at best - a novel or two a *year*. I have met a lot of gamers who evidently considered the Dragonlance series of books (or Robert Jordan's endless series) to be some of the best literature ever written, certainly the best they had ever read. My wife and I read a novel or two a week, sometimes one a day, so I know I am not typical. Keep in mind that the average TN poster or reader is not the average person, and most likely not the average player in this regards.

As a result I think stereotyping, no matter how unfortunate it may be in some regards, was a very viable way to differentiate between the various species/cultures in the game. Now, kudos to Blizzard for not making it cut and dry. If you read the history of their world, all species/cultures seem to have reprehensible actions and attitudes or questionable motives at various times (Taurens excepted perhaps). No one is pure, no one is viewed as undeniably "good" or "evil" per se. I think that was a very smart direction to take. Obviously smart enough to spawn this discussion.

I think the best approach to this sort of constructed animosity between cultures was that of Dark Age of Camelot. There, each culture was at war with their opponents and each was unique, each viewed themselves as the "good guys" and each was justified in doing so. The reality is that no one thinks of themselves as "evil" and can rationalize any viewpoint or actions they take as a people. Its only when you contrast their actions and attitudes with your own that you can make a judgement as say you view them as wrong. There are no morale absolutes - only conventions we agree on as being morally correct collectively. I think its very clever of the WOW designers to implement that after a fashion. I think it was even cleverer the way it was done in DAOC. Mind you I know I have a bias as I think WOW is a remarkably poor game overall and DAOC at its inception was a remarkably great one :)

[Stormgaard]

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I didnt know liberal white people were forced into servitude by being killed, raised as undead, and mind controlled to commit genocide against an entire world, then freed in a rebellion and are hunted by every alliance race(in the warcraft world) simply because they are undead...

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And I suppose you didn't know either that they dress and dance like goths, speak in a well measured, pretentious, and vaguely british tone of voice, have sadomasochistic fetishes, and secretly want to dominate every other race on the face of the planet...

But it's okay for Jamaicans to chuck spears.

JACKASS.

[Crazyhawk]

Which of the First Nations/Native American Nations ever built a 50 storey-tall totem? How many Hatians do you know who practice Voodoo and speak with a Jamaican accent? And regarding the Panderen, are you guys suggesting that all Asians are all booze-hounds who know kung-fu-tyle martial arts? What are you guys going to do if it turns out that the Blood Elves, the Horde's only "white race" speak with a French Accent? Will you chastize Blizzard if they have the Draenei speak with a High German dialect, like Hessian? Why doesn't anyone show concern that Goblins sound like they're from New Jersey? Maybe some people from the East Coast would rather not be identified as small, green little tech-heads.

Stereotypes are just that: they're a commonly held misconception about a group/culture. Anyone who shows this much concern about "cultural borrowing" are idiots who are trying to pat themselves on the back with the belief that they're sooo sophisticated with a broad, intellectual scope. Because if I follow your lead, I could just as easily make the following statement based on the commentary I've read so far:

"This debate consists of idle ruminations of a bunch of bored, white people who harbor some guilt about stereotypes that they bought into."

Some of you guys need to get over yourselves and learn more about world cultures before riding in on your horses to defend cultures that don't need defending.

[Mr. Bungle]

"And I suppose you didn't know either that they dress and dance like goths, speak in a well measured, pretentious, and vaguely british tone of voice, have sadomasochistic fetishes, and secretly want to dominate every other race on the face of the planet..."

The narrowness of your worldview is appalling. What are you, fifteen? You cannot extrapolate the nature of such a widely-ranging group of people based only on your observations of the handful of only partially representative individual you have come into contact with personally. The world is much bigger than your experience of it, and the truth is much more complex than "All liberals = stupid goths."

This is where racism comes from.