Are Arathi good because they're racist zealot HUMAN villains, or bad because humans get more spotlight?

Lore Story Forum
163

Like Kagehiro said, they probably wanted to avoid another Shadowlands issue, where things feel so alien that it doesn’t feel like Azeroth, or even Warcraft anymore. Pandaria had a similar issue and fanbase reaction; pandas, monkey men and fishmen didn’t feel familiar enough, therefore “Warcraft” enough (even if Chen existed before).

And if you look at the other expansions where we went to strange new lands, they all had familiar faces; Legion had all the night elves and some tauren, BfA was all faces we’d already seen, Dragonlands was dragons we knew and a bunch of bland evil henches for the baddies made up of player races, and now? Rock dorfs, humans, driders and trolls. And casual fans feel it’s all Warcraft-y (except maybe Dragonflight, because dragon pals I guess).

And really, there aren’t many other options beyond humans and elves. I guess it could be another flavor of dwarf, but we already have Vanilla, Wild, Dark and Earth Dwarf flavors. It’s just as bad as human (Basic, furry, chunky and dead) and less bad than elf (Real Night, Superior Blood, Emo Void, Fake High, Temu Night). But beyond elves, humans and dwarves, who else has a habit of expansion?

Trolls have been in decline since before the night elves blew up their continent, so a whole other continent with more trolls feels wrong. Tauren aren’t expansionistic and neither are gnomes or vulpira. Pandas are from Pandaland, and have been also since the night elves blew up a continent. Draenie and orcs are aliens.

So our friendly familiar face that isn’t a human, elf or dwarf would be… Goblins? And they didn’t exploit every natural resource already… How? Or cause a total ecological collapse?

So more dwarves, more elves or more humans are really the only good options. At least with the Arathi, they get a baked in way to throw another version of elf in too by saying some of the elves that came with them got bored and made a kingdom or something.

It’s crappy, but WoW’s playerbase isn’t known for their embrace of different and unfamiliar things. It’s the boring option that at least won’t push people away.

And hey, humans get a pointy ear customization option now, so that’s a thing!!

EDIT: Sorry for the rant. And this isn’t really directed at you, just me venting my thoughts.

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Don’t know that I agree that much. I mean, I don’t give them an “A” for the effort, but I don’t think it’s that bad. So they didn’t change the buildings. I mean, I could see Blizzard not having spent money or time on a new building style and that fact that human culture that mixes with an Elven one might well have kept that same buildings.

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They are new, unique assets designed for this expansion. Hallowfall structures are not recycled content.

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166

Besides the fact the buildings are new, I’m just not buying into this. Because it wouldn’t require throwing together something brand new and unique. It could be anything as simple as reskinning some of the Suramar assets and mixing them in with the current buildings. Or throwing in some elf-style knicknacks scattered around, which already have assets in-game. Or changing the colors from brown wood and dull gold to something brighter and more high elf-like. Or when designing the outfits, make them look less like the Scarlet Crusade and more like high elven attire.

There are dozens of ways they could have made the Arathi look more “elf-ish” to show them as a blended culture.

Instead they just gave us things that would fit into Boralus or Gilneas without much effort to change them.

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167

I will echo again what exactly would make them feel elven to begin with; is any hope of that blown with their very obviously human silhouette?

Culturally they had very, very, very little to go on, nor will they until they get the chance to expand on high elven culture in Midnight. They have Lynxes, and their native language seems to at least be strongly Thalassian influenced.

Architecturally they do have some of the small embellishments you see in elven architecture, but it has taken on a harsher, more brutalist vibe due to being the product of a aggressive, militaristic nation. That, and what we have seen is what amount to a frontier town built with what could be scavenged.

I imagine the Imperial Capitol is a lot more refined in how it looks.

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Given their faith is tied to the Sacred Flame, and is also centered around Light/Arcane mixed, I would expect to see more Sun based elements within the faith. High Elven style in general tends towards sleek/elegant, while Arathi seem more might/holy warrior.

It is possible the expedition is going to be a not especially representative sample, however, as we are basically just dealing with a military faction.

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The thing is the Light/Arcane mixed thing is new with the blood elves following the Sunwell being fixed. It’s not some ancient high elf thing. The Sunwell was purely arcane prior to M’uru being chucked in.

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Today I spent quite a lot of time in Hallowfall because of discussions like this one and the Baladar one. I was absolutely looking for elvish embellishments, and… I’m not seeing them. Everywhere I’m looking, I see things that remind me of human places. Everything I saw correlates with what you find in Gilneas, Boralas, Stormwindian settlements beyond Stormwind itself. It’s all very much recognizably human. I couldn’t find even a hint of elf-like architecture.

And I gotta call shenanigans on how this is a frontier town. It’s decidedly not. Frontier towns don’t have massive church buildings the size of frontier towns. They don’t have interconnected settlements scattered all around a region, complete with roadways and bridges (you miss them if you just fly, but you can reach nearly everywhere on a ground mount if you’re crazy enough to try).

And this doesn’t look anything like a place that was scavenged together; there is way too much here to have been scavenged. At least eight airships actively flying around the zone, plus a few more parked and some crash sites. Large defensive walls protecting fully realized structures, complete with fountains and monuments. This isn’t scavenged; this is fully built and realized construction.

No, it all doesn’t make any sense given the story we were given about them. But regardless, it’s all what’s present.

They do have lynxes, but that’s about it. And when the Shado-Pan have tigers that look a lot like night elf saber cats, it’s hard to call sharing an animal affiliation as much of a connection.

Architecturally they are far from high elves, and we do know what high elven architecture would look like, given the blood elves just apparently painted over all the blue with some red. They have spires, they have very open designs (often lacking walls), they favor round shapes over square. Verticality is very important, with the upper floors usually accessed from stairs or ramps outside circling the building. There’s patios and platforms on those upper levels just jutting out into the air. Strangely, high/blood elves and night elves share a lot of this, even ten thousand-ish years later, while Arathi have none of it.

And for me, that would have done rather a lot. The character models would be a barrier for initial acceptance, but if a place feels “elf-y” then I’m going to feel the people have some strong elf influence. If they have human models in human buildings, doing human heavy devotion to the Light things? It’s human with elf ears tacked on.

…

And just to be clear, this isn’t a knock against the Arathi. Between them, the Earthen and the quasi-good Nerubians, the Arathi are by far the more interesting group. Having spent too many hours just looking around Hallowfall, as much as I’m adamant that it’s not at all elf-like and fits well in other human places, it’s also my favorite human place. It’s gorgeous in a way EK human places are not. I’m really, really, really hoping when we eventually end up going to their lands, they’re not going to turn out to be the newest replacement for the Scarlets as token Light-affiliated bad guys.

I like the Arathi. They just are not presenting as elf-affiliated.

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171

Half-elf is a term used to describe the half-breed offspring of an elf, or half-elf, with any other species.

Kalecgos gives us the best example of their appearance:
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/images/4/46/Kalecgos_Dragonflight.jpg

So ‘humans with pointy ears’ is not an argument because half-elves have almost always had this appearance. Even back in the old RPG their description was like this:

Half-elves have much the same build as slight humans or heavy high elves. They are more heavily built than purebred high elves. Like their high elf parents, they tend to have fair skin and hair and brilliantly colored eyes, usually blue or green. Though lacking their elven parents’ longevity, half-elves still enjoy a long life span, reaching maturity at 20 years of age and living for two or three centuries on average

However, regarding the term ‘half elves’, it is true that traditionally this meant a 50/50 split, even if the term is no longer used so strictly by many. Some simply use it to describe a mixed race of elves and humans, regardless of distribution, as I did.

Of course, this is simply lazy speech and not entirely precise. But I’m sure you’re aware of this and are deliberately splitting hairs.

The 50/50 split won’t have remained consistent over generations, yes. For some families, it might be 20/80, 60/40, or 10/90. Arathi are clearly defined by their common origin rather than their species. The species or ‘gene distribution’ are irrelevant. This is explicitly stated by Lerrenai Fayn and ‘United Arathi’s Jerkin’. It’s therefore even more absurd to call them racist, or speciesist, to be more precise.

They’re probably the least xenophobic people in Warcraft right now. Which is ironic because some people think they’re some Warhammer reference. Their aversion is exclusively religious and limited to undead, warlocks, and stuff. And even there they are more tolerant than the Alliance in terms of lore.

And they’re not humans.

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What we are telling you, is that their culture and nation is sold (when you ask the arathi what definish them, they tell you its the mix of both elf and humans) to be mix of both elf and human, but when you look at their CULTURE it have little to none elven stuff in it.

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And why should culture matter to my point at all?

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I saw some people told me that Beledar name sound elvish because “ho but Belore means sun in elven!” but…its BELOre not BELEdar and also Mereldar sound pretty close to Beledar and its a human name.

Because its the topic of the thread, we talking about how the elvish part of them is shown in their culture, you cant just put them pointy ear and call it a day.

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Not at all. The topic is about whether the portrayal of humans in Warcraft is better as morally pristine with less focus or as prominently featured villains with flawed, irredeemable traits.

The OP assumes the Arathi are racist humans. That is one of the premises for this discussion.
The headline clearly indicates this. But they aren’t humans, they’re, in ‘lazy speech’, half elves - with an own culture, yes.
Another user denied this. I have just replied to this.
As I have previously stated, culture has no bearing on the ‘half-elf’ category.

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176

If they are not humans, why does the devs call them so? In the blizzcon panels.

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I need a source to answer that.

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178

I just gave it : Blizzcon panel about The War Within zones.

When the Arathi are presented, they are nowhere refered to as half humans or non humans, but humans.

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So you want me to find your source?

I did not hear the word ‘human’ once. But perhaps you’re referring to a different panel. You are welcome to look it up.

Even if it were true, it is no longer relevant because the current sources in the game contradict it. In other words, the panel would be ‘outdated’.

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180

Its not what i mean, sure in “univers” they are “not humans” i will not contradict that.

But, in the “mindset” of the writers and the way they wrote down them, and how they view them, they mainly see them as humans, for exemple, well, the name arathi you cant tell me when you hear it you think something else than human.

Another point is, the “arathi” customization is only on humans not on elves, its mainly the human model they touched not the elven ones.

You get what i mean here? Again its not “lore” thing.

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Quite missable actually. I tried the customisation on my human mage and it didn’t show. Then I belatedly remembered that she had a hair style that hid her ears. :slight_smile:

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they’re definitely not the least xenophobic group in wow. faerin only specifies that they dislike and mistrust dark magic users and products especially, but she also just says that the diversity of peoples in the alliance and horde would present a problem for the ‘mainlanders.’