April Copeland's reponse to the new Kalimdor book

Ideally, sensitivity reading would be their only job. Blizzard puts out enough material to keep a dedicated team busy.

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And this is my issue with this. Was the Alliance biased toward male leaders? Yes of course because intially it was a game focused on male gamers BUT it was still a faction that tried to give some spotlight to women.(unlike the Horde)

In Warcraft 2, the first playable character was Alleria. In warcraft 3, we actually had a female unit and ended it with Jaina become the defacto leader of what we assumed was all that remained on the Alliance at the time.(heck the Horde was the ONLY faction in Warcraft 3 that did not have any female units)

I would point out Jaina was also considered an Alliance leader and I will show proof of that later.

Aysa is as much a leader as say any of the allied races. Regarding MoP, it was actually female characters on the Alliance that got a decent amount of screen time. Moira, Jaina, Tyrande, Aysa. All had some moments in it. On that note:

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Call_of_the_Packmaster?file=Call_of_the_Packmaster_-_Wrathion_and_Alliance.jpg

Based on the questline, Alleria and Fareeya are very much considered leaders. Yes, the nature of who actually “leads” is actually debatable. Even WoWwikia has Fareeya/Alleria considered racial leaders.

More to the point, you can see the Alliance has a near 50-50 gender split between those considered faction leaders.

This is a bar. You can’t profit from their IP without permission, it’s classed as IP theft.

My memory is that Blizzard’s lawyers have always been super aggressive about that.

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As always Zerde, your Alliance propaganda game is 100% on point.

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Genuinely, how is that different from freelance artists making and selling WoW art?

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And your blindness to the fact the Horde was always the “macho” faction knows no bounds. Could the Alliance has been more female focused? Sure, but at least it had some elements to it where as the Horde has next to none.

Tell me, how many female leaders in the Horde were there in MoP? Actually let Wrathion tell you:

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Soul_of_the_Horde?file=The_Soul_of_the_Horde_-_Wrathion_and_Horde.jpg

There are um…2…no just 1. Oh my gosh. Compared to how the Alliance had 1,2, 3, 4, oh, prominent female leaders given the spotlight.(side note, poor Ji, apperently Wrathion didnt consider him a Horde leader or maybe they didnt want to highlight the gender discrepancy further)

Edit: a likely funny coincidence is that in a lion pack, while is a male is the leader it is the females who do a good bulk of the work, which pans out quite well in MoP, where a good chunk of female characters take center stage.

Enforcement.

It’s silly, but it’s just that.

If you can get a written letter allowing it, you’re totally safe. Otherwise there is a chance they’ll demand any money made and the media be removed.

It isn’t “the only excuse”. It is one reason among many. And it is a reason that is being discussed in particular in this thread, and Mrs. Copeland’s tweets.

And even in her twisted version of evasion, she acknowledges things may be wrong, as she deflects blame from her husband to editors.

Blizzard as well has mentioned hiring more diverse backgrounds, and making their hiring process more open to diversity. They acknowledge they have an issue there.

So this take you describe is coming from Blizzard, they just haven’t fixed it, yet.

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rofl

When did I make such a claim, Zerde? You know I didn’t, you’re just upset because I highlighted some problems with how the Alliance is presented.

But speaking of that presentation, you’d earlier mentioned a character I unfairly omitted. Let’s talk about her.

As nothing much was done with her in Vanilla and TBC, let’s skip to when she started showing up in-game in any meaningful way. Wrath.

Varian is repeatedly treating Jaina not as a peer, but as an underling. This culminates in ICC where after Varian lets a father take his son’s body away, Jaina’s words make clear what her standing as a leader is in the Alliance.

“It was nothing your majesty. I’m proud of my king.” Varian is her ruler, she is his subject.

But don’t believe me? Well, then we have Cata. When the Alliance wanted to build a path to assault the Barrens, Jaina’s kingdom was made the staging ground for that assault, in spite of her own stated wish for peace and diplomacy. It’s worth noting that this was all before the “High King” nonesense.

It wasn’t until MoP where she was treated as a ruler in her own right, after having actually lost said kingdom. Prior to that, everything the developers put in the game portrayed her as a ruler of a vassal-state at best, subject to Stormwind laws and proclamations.

White leaders:
Anduin, Jaina, Alleria, Turalyon, Moira, Muradin, Falstad, Geblin, Genn, Umbric, Erazmin (since you feel lesser leaders should be included).

Non-white leaders:
Tyrande, Velen, Fareeya, Malfurion, Asya

11 to 5 there.

Also, your male-female ratio is off.

Male: 10
Anduin, Turalyon, Muradin, Falstad, Geblin, Genn, Umbric, Erazmin, Velen, Malfurion

Female: 6
Jaina, Alleria, Moira, Tyrande, Fareeya, Asya

Not the near 50-50 split you claim, after you had to bring in the less recognized leaders in (and conveniently avoided the qualifying male ones).

Heck, I could have pointed out that of those female leaders, the only women who aren’t relegated to co-leader of their represented playable race are the oft-missing Asya, and Jaina. But y’know, I didn’t.

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Thinking about it I decided to expand some (caveat: there are legal questions in play and seeking legal counsel protects you):

Using a skill of yours to entertain, without it being your main or substantial source of income, is something that can be explained based on the facts of a given case. Thus people asking for donations without a link to a specific thing based on the IP.

So, receiving donations to work on creative projects, and fund things like a laptop for it, internet access, drawing tablet for an artist, is going to be a spot where you’re not just trying to “make a buck” from someone else’s property.

Using someones IP as the source of your income, or a considerable source of income (monetize), becomes an issue. (Or, if your work starts to impact, or damage, the income and interests of the owner.) For that case, getting direct permission, in writing, is the safe route.

While I admit Blizzard was always pretty bad about consistency about Jaina’s status, I would says that was more a prelude to the High King thing then anything else. Jaina is and has always been an autonomous leader of Theramore Varian could not force her to do anything she did not want.

You assume she didn’t agree to it. She has ALWAYS been a member of the Alliance and has a very heavy tie to the night elves(to the point Shandis considers her battle sister). This wasnt forced on her. She realized her ALLIES were in danger and agreed to help them.

I never talked about race representation, just gender. And that is because the Alliance has general been western coded but even then I think it is wrong to say Blizzard wanted them western coded in the sense that the clearly want Stormwind to be a more “diverse” metropolitan city now composed of nearly any skin color you can image, same with most of the races.

Except Erazmin is not leader(if you want him included, then I want Katherine Proudmore included), and Malfurion is still subordinate to Tyrande. The question here is Turaylon/Fareeya and Alleria/Umbric. The lore has been quite vague as to who among them is the actual leader. Still if you want me to aquisent that is still 60-40(a relatively NEAR 50-50 split). And I wonder, if the Horde leaders were lined up in the same fashion if you would get as close a result.

ICC was two whole expansions before that.

You used the wiki to talk about who’s listed as a leader. Malfurion and Erazmin are listed as leaders.

Your math is absolutely wrong here. Six of sixteen is not 40%. It’s closer to 35%. A 15% difference is hardly “close enough”.

You know I started off the post you’re taking issues with like this:

And ended it with this:

You can read that, right? I’m assuming you couldn’t before, so I made sure to highlight them for you this time.

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And Jaina/Kul Tiras as a whole has a whole “we are not kings/queens but we are also suppose to be equal them” deal that means Jaina might have just wanted to show respect to Varian. Also, I expect MoP(or at least the faction war and Varian’s eventual role) was already being planned.

Which we know is wrong to Erazmin because he gave up leadership claim to Gelbin.

Except you decided to look past what was done, and in absolute terms the Alliance has gotten more female characters, more instances of female characters having major lore. And general, just female characters actually being portrayed in a positive light.

As a side note: The pandarens are ruining the gender balance on the playable race page - #22 by Zerde-sargeras

Interestingly they made the Alliance pandaren character(in order to fix the gender imbalance I mentioned which was tilted male) female AND now make it so the gender balance is 7-5 and female/male on the Alliance and 5-7 female/male Horde side.

And yet, you cited it. So either we drop the citations to it or we don’t. You probably don’t want to drop it. You lose two female leaders that way, and the percentages get worse.

Except I didn’t. I addressed it. You’re just clearly mad that someone had to go and point out the amount of white male characters in the Alliance, and you’re floundering to come up with a defense.

We’re literally not even discussing player preferences. We were discussing the presentation of both factions in regards to racial issues, which upsets you for some reason.

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Alysna points out the problems on both sides, how the alliance has a white male dominance problem and Zerde comes in with his propaganda.

This forum and some you alliance posters…I just can’t. Some y’all need help :wolf:

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Jaina had a good number of quests in vanilla for the player to take, as much as any other faction leader if not more. It was clear she was important as the leader of Theramore.

I noticed this when doing ICC the other day and thought it was weird. At no point before Wrath is Jaina subject to his rule but she suddenly is here. Jaina is connected to three kingdoms, which are Kul Tiras, Dalaran and Lordaeron. Kul Tiras left the Alliance before Classic, Dalaran has never been under Stormwind’s authority, and if people from Lordaeron are under Stormwind’s authority that just gives credence to Lordaeron belonging to the Alliance. Wrath was pushing Varian as a major Alliance character with his introduction and I think this is an example of them doing that.

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If that is the case, then you can’t cite:

Because we don’t really know who the official void elf or lightforged draeneie leader is and it could either be both Alleria/Umbric or Fareeya/Turalyon or neither of them or just one of them.

I am not, in fact, I have shown to you even back in MoP Blizzard(heck even back in Warcraft 3) how Blizzard was already trying to course correct for the Alliance being a relative men’s club. You know all those male leaders we once had? They are all mostly dead/replaced with a female leader when possible. (see Katherine Proudmoore) Or only now has a female heir(Genn and Tess)

And I am saying in terms of presentation the Alliance has always been presented as a more egalitarian society at least in terms of the gender divide. Racial representation is another matter and that is generally a more complex one for the Alliance.

And this latest change to the playable race page is just another proof of that.

Jaina crying and Varian getting mad annoy me everytime I do that raid on my Alliance characters.

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Getting mad? He didnt get mad at Jaina in ICC. Also, I would like to think Jaina has always been a character that always liked showing her emotions, positively or negatively and she was caught up in the moment of seeing Varian act in a kind manner. Especially considering half the time both seemed to be in constant conflict.

He says “Bah!” in an angry tone and brushes her off.

I know how emotional Jaina is portrayed as. That is part of the problem.

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