So, I was confronted the other day for one of my characters being, as they put it, a “Gross, racist caricature”.
Now this character is a human Paladin from Kul Tiras, her backstory is she is a surviving crew member of the fleet that accompanied Daelin Proudmoore to Kalimdor. Fleet was sunk, she washed up on shore, realized she was stranded, and fled into the wilds to eventually wind up in Tanaris/Uldum to become a Wastewanderer.
The main inspiration for the character are Barbary Pirates with a little bit of Egyptian folklore and Mythology. Now, I am not really looking for any validation here, instead I am using this experience to propose a question that is in alinement with another thread. The Unfortunate Racist implication of Human Exceptionalism.
What are some of your opinions regarding using real-world cultures as man influences for characters and races in Warcraft? Is it problematic that Trolls, for instance, are essentially caricatures of African/Caribbean/Indigenous Meso/South-American cultures? Same thing extended to Tauren and First Nations peoples? What about Vrykul and Nordic/Scandinavian cultures? And so on, you get the point.
Drawing inspiration from real world cultures is something Blizzard does a lot, which is why I thought it interesting someone playing such a game would call me out for doing it as well.
Is this appropriation of cultures in the design of these fantasy races problematic? If so, why? Does Blizzard draw from that influence in a respectable way? or is there something you rather see them do instead?