Exploring Kalimdor Criticism on Wowhead: Book Now Pulled

Lore Story Forum
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https://check-pvp.fr/ is the best site for finding alts, I think. This person’s alt only has one other post, that Ethriel linked. There are some classic posters here. For all we know, it is one of their retail toons. It could just be a lurker, who happens to be malicious.

Well, when it comes to that particular comment, they didn’t mention it as a racist thing. They said it was a judgemental comment about the Night Elves being aggressive. It was definitely an issue. The Night Elves were treated like garbage in this book.

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Not just in the book…

I still feel like the wowhead article gives the book way too much credit still, and ignores a lot of the lore inaccurasies and straight up nonsense, also regarding Night Elves.

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Welcome to the forums and congratulations on your very first post! You do not at all seem like a troll trying to bait people!

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This is disingenous. I don’t try to find anything. I simply encounter them by chance. If Blizzard didn’t have these issues, I, and others, would not see them

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It’s racists telling you to stop talking about it and to just enjoy the racisism and sexism that they are enjoying so much.

:face_vomiting:

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Orcs in Warcraft are Klingons.

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You’re right. The inaccurate lore should have been mentioned as well. Maybe Wowhead thought it would detract from the main issue. They might make a separate article for that.

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It is a fine line authors have to walk when creating fiction. For some authors, it’s pure ignorance and they unknowingly include such tropes and stereotypes. In my view, it’s better to educate those authors and creators and not just scream at them and call them names. That doesn’t mean there aren’t racists and other problematic authors/creators out there because there are.

In game/book/movie racism, misogyny, etc is a tool in an author’s chest. You can make that character that kind of horrible person. Examples: Garithos, trolls/elves hating each other, characters in To Kill A Mockingbird.

It’s okay to use real world cultures and influences for your work. But here is the thing. It’s how you use those cultures and influences. If you’ll undulge me a moment, I’ll use an example from my own work.

I created the city of Mezala. I pulled influences from Africa, Asia, South America, and Voodoo (Haitan, African, and Louisiana). We have everything from Lwa to elephants to bamboo to giant pandas (and I mean giant!). And, yes, the people who live there are black.

The Mezalans are also highly civilized, highly educated, and not a warrior culture. They may have an army but they only go to war when they have to. They are a good people simply living their lives. In fact, they help save the day in my latest book.

But my main character, a white half-elf young woman, coming in and teaching them to be better people or teaching them how to read/write, that would be a big problem. It perpetuates the White Savior trope that is, frankly, awful. It’s one of the tropes I truly despise.

Instead, when she visits, she notes that even the street urchins read/write at a high level. Something my character notes that her people (essentially white European) could learn a thing or two from.

So, as I said, it’s not using the cultures that is a problem. It’s how you use them.

Except authors and game creators can unknowingly or knowingly perpetuate harmful stereotypes and tropes and thus influence people with their work. That is why this book and past content has been a big problem.

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Lets hope when they will rewrite the book, they will not going to just roll back to Cata, and will actually write something new.
That sad that players have to hope for a new lore for their beloved game.

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As someone who has a passion for world building, my first thought here is that it’s unlikely these two parties would even be speaking the same language or even have the same alphabet. It kind of depends on the city of Mezala and the greater global role it plays. Is Mezala a multiethnic urban center? Perhaps with lots of foreign trade? If so, what language has that trade and migration brought to Mezala?

Of course, I know that is not what you are talking about. Melzala being your creation, I am sure these are questions you are already asked and answered. You are talking about a trope in storytelling that robs the agency of an ethnic group by having a character of another ethnic group “uplift” them. Now, mutual culture sharing can be an uplifting experience, but this is most commonly done via trade where both parties are obtaining something of value.

I agree the “White savior” trope is disgusting. It is at best a gross misunderstanding of how two different cultures cooperate, and it is at worst blatant racism, internalized or not. Though I think we should also be a bit careful with just slapping that label onto things.

I am not sure what all this Exploring Kalimdor book has, so I am not defending or attacking it. I am not really interested in monetarily supporting Blizzard at the moment. Though I think if we want Warcraft to improve, that has to start with world building. And I think part of that would be language… Would Zekhan know Common?

I am not sure he would… Hell, I am not sure Night Elves still living in Kalimdor would. Common is the Human language, the Darkspear probably had very limited encounters with humans, if any at all, prior to WC3. Since Warcraft 3, Zekhan has probably lived most of his life in Dutotar/Barren, or nearby coastal islands. He probably learned Orcish, maybe even the Tauren language, because those would would be infinitely more practical than Common.

Blood Elves and Forsaken would likely know common, perhaps even more likely than Orcish, because for Forsaken it is the language they knew in life, an for Elves, they have interacted with humans for hundreds of years.

So is Lor’themar teaching Zekhan Common a “white savior” situation? I don’t think so. When you look at it from an in-world perspective… Zekhan very likely doesn’t know it, and a book about Kalimdor is probably most interesting to people who don’t live there… meaning people from the Eastern Kingdoms, where the most widespread language is Common.

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Orcs in Warcraft are shaped by a bunch of white metalhead boys based off of rule of cool.

The whole franchise is fixated on rule of cool, but orcs in particular have always struck me as 80s EXTREME.

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Your logic from a worldbuilding perspective is solid. However, it is very in depth. I do not think they would give it this sort of thinking when they are getting basic lore facts wrong in what is supposed to be a lore book.

In this case, as much as would rather otherwise, I sadly think it is what it seems on the surface.

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The book is canonically written in Orcish. Zekhan says most of his reading and writing was from Lor’themar. I don’t think Lor’themar knows Zandali. I think Zekhan was taught to read and write in Orcish, but is still illiterate in his own native language.

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Yeah, that’s very fair.

Wait… WHAT?

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Yes, that’s what the passage says.

Here’s another article everyone.

Wowhead says the publication date was delayed, even though some have gotten copies. It did seen to be out of stock for a while. They think it’s due to the publisher covid supply-chain issue, and not due to criticism.

Also, they left their comments open, and they’re as ignorant as you’d expect.

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Hell yeah! One big W for Undercity!

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Blizzard’s use of language has always, or at least for the most part, been about gameplay mechanics. They ignore it when it isnt useful… like they ignore basically everything.

You’d think he would be writing in Zandali, but… it is likely orcish, or common. It often seems as if both of those share the same alphabet system as orcs can read human stuff and vice versa… but again, that is likely them just ignoring inconvenient things.

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I think Baal told me that the book was written in Orcish, canonically. Maybe the author’s wife said that.

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In fact, it should be the biggest point of the article instead of this so-called racism - and yes i’m of those who keep separating reality and fictional.

It’s doing the biggest harm to the lore by changing it sometimes dramaticaly (no survivors at Taurajo by exemple).
From the few leaks, it feels as a return to the Catclysm era in many parts while in Eastern kingdom, it felt that BfA happened.

Also, their trope to tell the victims that they are wrong to want justice is digusting.
To give some healing, is it that hard to do?

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The book even says that because justice has been denied to them, the Night Elves can never heal.

Before the victim blaming, that is.

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