Also why I like how Gilneas and the forsaken have a sort of gothic theme to them. Gilneas with Victorian Gothic, while Forsaken has a more modern interpretation of “Gothic”. It also fits into the theme of how Gilneas isolated themselves from the world after the second war then suddenly after the Cataclysm they have to adapt to the new world with the Forsaken invasion.
It is pretty easy to tell that stormwind was based on the “american” version of medieval England from the start. And since that is overused in a lot of fantasy stories, it does feel like a cliche. But you have to start somewhere though.
Honestly I don’t see blizzard using real life cultures as inspiration as a bad thing. You can tell they have tried to be respectful when using them. It is hard to think of something truly original in terms of culture. But that is the nature of fiction as a whole. Fiction is meant to be a somewhat reflection of our reality. Sometimes they use real life events in their story. The wind elementals are based on ancient Arabia while Uldum is on ancient Eygpt, and how the history of the middle east and surrounding areas have changed over time.
That said I am still waiting for something themed on Aussie culture.
I do like the typical “American” Medieval fantasy world. It’s a classic tale but it could be improved upon ingame. I think part of the reason SW feels bland is because their themes have been given to the alliance as a whole. Bring back the Conjurors, The Clerics of Northshire, The Brotherhood of the Horse etc. Make the Cathedral district the Silver Hand’s bastion in the city. Simple things like that go along way.
It also doesn’t help that both Redridge and Westfall were largely popculture jokes when they could have been better served expanding the kingdom’s story after the war in Northrend.
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That is a problem with having a massive ongoing series with several characters and “cultures” to juggle. Eventually everything gets homogenized for the sake of simplicity. Also having the format of the story changing from RTS to MMO didn’t help with that either. Especially on how blizzards writing has changed from small scale stories that allows each sub group in the factions a chance to express themselves (like it was in vanilla and somewhat TBC), to massive end of the world threats that require a select group of cast members and generalized themes. WoD was the most evidenced of this with the Garrison system having just generic human & orc buildings with little to no room for each building to be truly unique and stand out for each race. Only like 2 buildings were themed around different races for both sides and that was mainly due to the naming of them. I mean how can you turn something called a Dwarven bunker into a human building?
Also every race ends up being a caricature of themselves. Even those introduced in WC3 like night elves ended up this way as early as vanilla. Night elves went from savage woodland fighters to hippies. Forsaken went from misunderstood people who were inflicted with a curse, trying to make the best of their new life into “DESTROY ALL HUMANS WITH BIO WEAPONS! WE WILL NEVER ABANDON ELF LADY WITH BOOBS!” Basically over time every race ended up getting flanderized. And since humans / orcs are the main races of both factions… it comes at no surprise that the general themes of the factions would be based around those.
Basically the entire cast of the Horde is “problematic”, but with that taken into account should every RPer stop roleplaying a Horde race that isn’t a Blood Elf? I’m not sure.
I also think “cultural appropriation” is a heavily misused word. Sharing culture, borrowing culture, cultural exchange is all a fine and normal part of being human. Destroying a people, along with their culture, and then creating mockeries of it, is what’s bad.
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I do like the Gilnean architecture quite a bit. But outside it’s ruin and a town in the Blasted Lands and Val’Sharah I never see it.
The Forsaken have more Gothic by way of Kirkland brand Tim Burton. Which was a nice start but I wish they’d do more with it there’s like three types of buildings. As excited as I am for Revendreth though I am a touch jealous that the Forsaken never got any of that gorgeous architecture.
But who knows maybe a rebuilt Lordaeron and Gilneas could expand on those themes. Just make everything north of Thoradin’s Wall Halloween Town.
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Or both sides of Thoradin’s wall. Stormwindian architecture hath no flavour.
True. It’d be neat if they gave Stromgarde any flavor whatsoever. I was kinda disappointed when I saw the place rebuilt.
“Huh you know they never went into Stromgardian culture much I wonder what their buildings will look lik-… oh…”.
Seriously Stormwindian architecture reminds me of the castle from Disney World. Which was fine for the strategy games when you just needed something to juxtapose the Orc structures.
But walking around it? Ehhh. It’s like exhibit A in why Blizzard should crib stuff from world history and culture.
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Even the Bible stated that there is nothing new under the sun!
Of course in my point of view that isn’t an excuse to not have vision! The Domain of Pain from GW Nightfall is wonderous enough that one could grab the Zone, swap the Margonite City with a European Castle and the Demons with Afflicted from GW Factions and make a Fantasy Cartoon!
Cartoons these days lack the vision that GW1 and WoW have! It’s heart-wrenching!
When you look at Stromgarde in-game, it’s hard to compare it to any other nation capital, even if you turn your head and squint. Well, except maybe Alterac Ciity, but at least that’s supposed to be in ruins.
I’m not so sure about that. The Belves are maybe the most iffy. Their lore is they’re essentially colonists who drove the indigenous inhabitants into near extinction. But are depicted as correct if not heroic for doing so. Plus they’re all fair skinned people who are often depicted with blonde hair and, until WC3, blue eyes.
The Orcs remind me much more of pre Christian Nordic and Germanic culture than anything else. Seriously I doubt the Bloodaxe were a refernce to the Danish King of the same name but - fact it’s there kinda highlights the similarity.
The Tauren certainly have American Indian vibes but really not much of them outside tipis and totem poles. Not really my place to declare if anyone should be offended by that but it’s not like they’re depicted with any hurtful stereotypes of Native Americans I’m familiar with.
I guess the Forsaken could be considered insensitive to the horrors of WW1 for making chemical weapons look awesome? They don’t resemble any real world culture I’m familiar with.
Goblins seem more like they wandered in from Soviet anti-capitalist propaganda than anything else.
Blight is lame it makes the forsaken seem like they suck at war
And? Who’s culture is that appropriating from? They don’t strike me as Italian themed.
Badum Tss
Well, what I take “problematic” to mean in the case of the rest of the Horde is like, one could argue roleplaying as them is akin to, I guess, “doing black face”, like Carms example was “Jar Jar Binks” which was a character viewed that way. I’m not going that far myself, as I think it is a little different… but as has been noted, and as has been a pretty crappy trend in all fantasy, making the non-euro-christian coded people into “monster” non human races is pretty ‘problematic’, and why I could see someone trying to make that argument with returns to RPing them.
Eh, I love the Tauren but it’s kind of a noble savage thing going on.
The problem with this is that I think the Goblins are less “Soviet depiction of capitalists” and very very unfortunately closer to “German Supremacist depiction of we-know-who”.
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Eh, on the Goblin note, I think that’d be the Dwarves. Well according to Tolkein at least,
“The dwarves of course are quite obviously - wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic”
And I really don’t think he meant that in an antisemitic way, either. In a letter to the N@ZIs when they questioned his heritage to see if they should burn his books or not he wrote, amongst a total academic smackdown of their ideology,
“I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people”
But if the WoW Dwarves are based on Tolkien - and they are - then that’d be the ones coded that way. The Goblins are greedy that’s about all you could say really. Unfamiliar with any stereotype that paints the Jewish people as prone to making cheap, potentially dangerously defective, products. Gallywix strikes me as more a parody of Activision’s CEO than anything else.
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My assumption was that orcs were loosely based on the medieval Magyar (Magyarok)
Reasons:
-Similarities in name (Magyar is even sometimes rendered as Maghar.)
-The Magyar were divided into clans, like orcs.
-Their clans were ruled by chieftains, like orcs.
-Their chieftains elected one particular chieftain (Almos) as military leader of a loose federation, like the orc clans did with Blackhand when creating the Horde.
-The Magyar chieftains used a blood oath to bind their loyalty to this new high/military chieftain, the Horde similarly use a Blood Oath.
Etc.
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Huh you know never caught that before. But it does sound awfully similar when you say it out loud. Though who much of that is intentional is unknown.
We know at least one person knows their south eastern European folklore though as Scholomance is lifted outright from Romaninan folklore.
Are you sure you are not familiar with “cheap, money grubbing, large nosed people” being an ehhhh kind of anti-Semitic image? To go back to the Jar Jar Binks thing and Star Wars, people had a problem with Watto for this reason. He was this weird short greedy thing with a large nose and accent.
It’s not just the greedy part that’s the problem to me, it’s certain other characteristics. Having greedy characters which are painted as bad is fine. Having greediness be the biological trait of a whole race with large noses is where I think we are entering weird territory.
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I can see the physical similarities to certain monstrous stereotypes but the Goblins culturally seem like more of an insult to well, Americans. Their accent is even distinctly American.
The Trolls actually culturally appropriate aspects of Afro-Caribbean culture. The Goblins though? I guess if greed and pointy nose is one’s only frame of reference for Jews you could get that but, honestly, seems more like a them than the game’s problem.
I read them as a pretty point blank critique of specifically American capitalism at any rate. Because it didn’t even cross my mind to think Blizz was intentionally drawing allusions to propaganda from one of Europe’s most barbaric regimes.
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I love it but it does have a sort of “Zamunda/Wakanda” feeling to them.
Problem is, that the haven’t changed in 15 years. The entire game was ALL Default Fantasy schtick but as more was added to the game, Stormwind got left behind/in the past.
People get offended even by breathing this days lol, like using left nostril to do so is racist and excluding.
In all my years I’m yet to see a fantasy tale absolutely Not based at all on any human cultures (or subcultures)…
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