I don’t have an essay for this one. It was recently shared with me. However, as it also specifically includes incidents from the World of Warcraft team, I want to raise the question as to whether this culture has negatively impacted the narrative that WoW has promoted.
Examples in my mind include depicting an abuse-survivor allegory as prone to murderous emotional outbursts, or being ridiculously hesitant to ever portray a female-facing race as being effective against their hypermasculine typical opponents.
The Amazonian/Matriarchal nature of Night Elf society and what that entails through the lens of Blizzard’s narrative is something that’s been covered before.
This lawsuit would only be taken as further affirmation of their narrative treatment in World of Warcraft resulting from underlying misogyny.
normal, non-psychotic people: damn this seems awful, i hope these people get compensation, a lot of punishment is doled out, and that work culture changes fast
kyalin: is this the true cause of the suffering of night elves?
Night Elves won in Cata. They continue to be near the face of the setting. Even in vanilla, they were the literal face on the cardboard box.
their first and maybe only real defeat was the War of Thorns
and they promptly mopped the horde up with only the worgen as their allies
Given that Afrasiabi was cited as the chief architect of Sylvanas’ narrative arc post-Warlords, it wouldn’t surprise me that his misogynism bled into his work (he is listed explicitly in the suit, apparently).
Regardless, the information in this lawsuit is incredibly damning to the company. Whatever the result of the lawsuit and injunction is, I would encourage everyone here to remember they can condemn or condone these actions with their wallets.
It would explain why Helya talks like a scorned SJW when she is banished by the Primus. No matter how dumb they make her look, though; it will never save Odyn from being a dude-bro frat boy that needs to piss off or get murdered.
The Odyn/Helya dynamic is probably the most concerning example. Even now in SL, Odyn is still depicted in a positive way even though his backstory makes him out to be a complete tool, and everything bad that happened to him and Ulduar is directly his own fault.
Indeed, and the fact the culture subsists despite his leaving makes me wonder who else is “in” on it.
Short list of misogynistic trope characters:
Jaina, Emotionally Unstable Pancake
Sylvanas, Genocide Survivor turned Suicide Survivor turned Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss who only becomes self aware because her boyfriend is MIA, the local twink is sad, and Sauron Lucifer McSkullface said her trigger word
Tyrnade, Emotionally Unstable Murder Crazy Woman not given resolution but just taught “vengeance bad silly girl”
Helya, the most obvious sexual assault metaphor that even Chronicles gestures towards, being “shut up” and banished by the Primus (could’ve been a moment of the Primus realizing she’s been abused and going to punish Odyn for attempting to usurp the Shadowlands and abusing this woman)
Arguably Draka, who was given no characterization until now
Holy…I just read the Alex Afrasiabi stuff…guys he was the guy in charge of the lore for years, even before Chris Metzen left.
This explains soooo much.
Wow. I don’t know how you even go forward from here…and Blizzard didn’t even address this in all this time? They just let him quietly leave after tainting the game’s lore for over a decade? Dojo of positivity…what a joke.
