In a fantasy universe you’re supposed to engage with the non-human races with IRL humanity and dignity.
in WoW, these races are heavily borrowing from various real life persons.
The Tauren are a playable race, though they are minotaur with North Native derived aesthetics and myths. They should be handled, lore-wise, with nuance and dignity both in the cultures they invoke and as a playable race.
? I’ve repeatedly stated that the in-game Humans (Stormwind) suck because they lack both the fun of Arthurian fantasy and the brutality of Colonial/Imperial history.
Zandalar and Kul Tiras were both good because they captured the fun fantasy of Southern Native + West African fantasy / Regency Era Naval Society + Idealized Settler Colonial (the founding of Stormsong and Drustvar with the magical elements) and the brutality of Decadent Kingdom + “Human Sacrifice” / Salem + Pirates/Sirens + Lovecraft (respectively).
They borrowed form real life idealization/myth of historical moments of specific cultures and the dark brutal histories and other myths of those same specific cultures.
Tauren lack any cosmological relevance to their North Native Fantasy, and we have received no meaningful development about intra-tribal tensions similar to Humans.
Repeating this a fifth time because heaven forbid I expect a balanced story that treats each race (and thus source material/IRL cultural basis) with dignity and respect and nuance.
Can you give non-human races dignity and respect when you need them to be amoral marauders? When you say words like it makes it seem like they should all adhere to our moral standards which homogenizes them.
The problem with the Tauren is the same one we with Dwarves or Gnomes. They get very little content. Otherwise they have not been as far as I can see disrespected in anyway.
Goblins though? They are comical fodder.
But you don’t have similar complaints about the Horde lacking this brutality as they keep getting to deflect their actions. Why is it that making the SW humans more brutal ok but not others?
Remember when I said you wanted everyone to become homogenized but with different costumes? This is exactly what I am talking about. This is all visual. Remove the look costume and gimicks and you just have a regular modern human left.
Have you noticed when you removed the accent speech in the dialogues, It’s like talking to another human?
What differentiates an Orc with a human? A dwarf with an elf and so on? Besides the cute accent, what’s the difference? How do you differentiate the two? You want to talk about lazy writing? That’s lazy writing.
Criticize Tolkien all you want but when the man had an Orc speak I don’t need catchphrases like “By the Warchief” or Zug zug to tell an orc is talking or its a troll because he says Mon at the beginning of every sentence.
They don’t though do they? Everything is toned down and made similar. I genuinely can’t tell Night Elves from Stormwind humans apart unless one says “By the Light!” or the other says some darnassian nonesense as a greeting.
Perhaps thats an issue. You want blizzard to lean even harder into taking real world culture references and then utilizing it as the culture of the Tauren. Shouldn’t Tauren have their own thing rather than Blizzard culturally appropriating more things from the native nations? Inspiration and cultural appropriation are different.
Tauren’s characterization in Shadowlands, especially in his early beta iteration where we had to buy him from Ve’nari was wildly disrespectful. And he hasn’t done anything all expansion.
The Horde doesn’t lack this brutality for the Orcs, Forsaken Trolls, Blood Elves, and Zandalari.
The Horde does like the “fun fantasy” by and large.
Zandalar’s vs Kul Tiras’s characterization and development are not all visual. Categorically false.
Vol’dun = exiles forming a society, “lost city” motif
Kul’Tiras
Tirigarde = Pirates vs Regency
Stormsong = Lovecraft with some Regency (vs Sea Monsters ie Naga)
Drustvar = Salem Witch Trials + British Isles Druidry\
Characterization and culture.
They should be good in different ways, and bad in different ways.
Categorically false.
Done with you for the day though, you’re so banally dishonest just like you tried to say that poor woman that asked Afrasiabi the question in 2010 was asking for “ugly women”. You’re a bad person with dishonest analysis.
There’s a fair number of quests involving the Grimtotems and the native Tauren tribes in both Northrend and the Broken Isles. Tauren history was even explored during Legion.
I was speaking about all races and how besides the visual motifs they are basically the same, talk the same, behave the same and hold the same values. Hence your ideal of homogenized story.
These have nothing to do with culture we were discussing.
Repeating myself a sixth time because having variety and nuance in a fantasy universe, presenting both good and bad, fantasy and horror, fun and tension, shouldn’t be a high bar expectation.
It’s bare minimum.
None of this is cosmological and you know it lol
Name one cosmological force (ie Light, Shadow, Order, Life, Death, Chaos) that the in-game playable Horde faction is better than the Alliance at or has ties to above Alliance races?
Because I can name multiple areas where the Alliance is cosmologically superior to the Horde narratively. Alliance has most Titan-construct races, has the superior Shadow users with Alleria and the Void Elves, has the superior Life magic users that are favored by Elune of the Pantheon of Life above all other races with the Night Elves especially with Tyrande and Malfurion, has the superior mages because Jaina is just so amazing Thalyssra/Rommath are shook, has the superior Light magic users because Turalyon and Army of Light Lightforging, and even in the Council of Black Harvest, the one “good disorder” group, the most powerful warlock is a Human.
This sucks dude.
Again, come Lifelands:
Malfurion will be the neutral characters
Mandatory Tyrande/Shandris cuz Elune
more night elf lore cuz Elune
Come LIghtlands/Voidlands
Alleria/Turalyon will be the neutral characters, likely Velen too
Lots of Human and Draenei lore, and Void Elf cameos
I honestly do wish there were more showcases on Horde races. The fact An’she hasn’t really popped up at all is kind of super disappointing. I just generally feel really bad for the Horde in regards to how they’ve been neglected in regards of being shown as anything but yes men meant to be stepped on by the villain for the x-pac.
You can totally have both the focus on Alliance races AND Horde races without making either some villain or neglecting them. I’d argue it really isn’t that hard.
I have a pretty strong suspicion that given they are apparently her most favored children anywhere that the Kaldorei were shaped by Elune in her image, which neatly explains why Cenarius and all his kids look half Kaldorei.
Now what would be neat is if they decided to make Belore an actual member of the Light pantheon, and say that the transformation they underwent was because they had abandoned Elune and they were ‘adopted’ by him, and thus changed to suit their new patron. they could even say the path of sacrifice that M’uru took was Belore’s doing.
I actually would rather it turn out that the Earth Mother is actually the leader of the pantheon of Life, but she has been asleep battling an ongoing void incursion for a very long time.
