I’m not the first person to post this article here, but I feel it deserves its own thread. Wowhead talked about various issues with this book, like some of racial stereotypes, and gow Gazlowe was portrayed like Gallywix, how Zekhan didn’t know what erosion was, and others. They, unfortunately, did not mention the Habitual Be problem, or how Lor’themar teaching Zekhan how to write was a stereotype.
No mention was made of inaccuracies, like the Well of Eternity being confused for the Dark Portal. Nothing was said about how their were no survivors of Camp Taurajo. I feel this should have been mentioned as well, but alas.
Anyway, does anyone think Blizzard will do something now? More people will see this stuff now. April Copeland has her account set to private now.
Why do I get the feeling wowhead doesn’t even have a copy and has just decided to use what is on twitter/the leaked portions/the portions twitter is currently railing against?
Knowing how Wowhead works, they likely intend to get two news stories out of this and will go over lore issues in another posting. They really like stretching stuff out.
It is certainly not the sort of optics they need atm.
The publishing industry has been in turmoil the last few months. If it hadn’t already been printed it probably would have been delayed again already. Not sure that Blizzard can fix this problem now…you can’t patch a book. You have to do the due diligence ahead of time, which was not done in this case. Completely mismanaged/bungled.
Even if you don’t see the racist element (which is somewhat willful in my opinion) it’s still patently absurd that the Regent Lord of Silvermoon has time to teach a random troll Shaman how to read. It’s just indicative of how little thought Blizzard puts into any of their plot points these days.
Trolls however do have a written language. It is partly how they went about it. The implication was that the PoC coded troll needs the european white guy to teach him how to read, which is sort of ugly optics.
Blizzard has a bad habit of stepping on rakes they set on the ground themselves.
High/Blood elves are based on the general european elven archetype. Trolls are strongly rooted in Afro-Caribbean motifs. Of course people are going to notice that.
I feel like the racial influence into the Warcraft races was always known about, but everyone just sort of accepted it without realizing how problematic it was. And now years down the road after we’re supposed to be more aware of these things and after everything that has come out this year the fact that there are still so many people (like the ones commenting on the Wowhead twitter) that are acting so surprised and indignant at Blizzard being called out for this stuff…like it’s fascinating watching people realize their blind spots in real time and immediately go into defensive mode.
I look forward to Blizzard’s response here. It’s beyond time for Blizzard to own up to the Horde being BIPOC-coded. Come on Sean, Christie, Steve, Ion. Own up to it.
racism fits in world of warcraft i dunno why people have to compare such topics with real world. this is fiction it is good for every race to be diferent in wow, alliance is so boring i wish that book was the alliance one
I expect ABK’s response to be resounding silence, hoping that the storm will blow over and people will stop paying attention. That is the standard corporate response to this sort of bad press.
Except that only works for few new cycles. They keep stepping on rakes and making people look at them when they are trying to tip toe away.
I don’t see how they do that here. There’s a whole month of bad news awaiting ABK between now and when the book actually releases and dominates the headlines again.
If they are willing to step-up with regards to the bro-culture that they have so far with regards to sexism and inclusiveness, they should be willing to step-up to the toxic left-overs of the bro-culture that is how the Horde is racially coded (in my opinion).