Perhaps not enough for people to forget reading and writing, but certainly enough for younger generations to be born without learning it in favor of more practical survival skills.
This is of course ignoring the fact that they were constantly fighting for survival in Stranglethorn, having to flee because other tribes were trying to wipe them out. When you are facing extinction, reading and writing falls on scale of importance.
The Darkspear has more excuse than most to lack literacy, and we are not even sure how literate Azeroth is as a whole. “The Pig and Whistle” Tavern in Old Town Stormwind follows naming conventions that, irl, originated to combat illiteracy. Naming a pub that can be discerned with an easy to recognize sign for people who cannot read.
Azeroth may be largely illiterate as a whole, and the presence of ancient Zandali tablets in Stranglethorn doesn’t necessarily mean the majority of people living near them know what they say.
Discounting All Elves, The Draenei, and Dalaran which are are each a special cultural exception, in most of Azeroth it is likely that the average citizen knows how to do basic mathamatics and can read enough to understand signs. We just, as bigshot heroes, so rarely interact with normal people that we do not see that in world so much.
The years given to us by Chronicle. The Darkspear fled Stranglethorn sometime after the Dark Portal Opened, and the beginning of WC3 was year 25 after the Dark Portal.
There is also the simple possibility that Zekhan didn’t have any teacher or had any problem in his life that prevented him to learn how to read or write.
Frankly, i wish that the writers do something they should have done since age: Doing a book detailing for each race their traditions, educational systems, way of life, funeral rituals (something that Grimoire of the Shadowland should have done for the later).
You know, doing actual world building focusing on the races playable or not but given the quality of Exploring Kalimdor, i doubt that they are good enough to do even a book of average quality.
Trolls are not only influenced by African-Caribbean culture. They also have a very strong influence from Mezo American cultures and Brazilian black culture. The troll dance that is capoeira itself comes from the Brazilian slaves’ culture of using a martial art disguised as dance to resist their oppressors, and which was used extensively in the slave civil wars that took place in colonial Brazil.
Furthermore, the LOAs are very close to the representations of the Orixás of Brazilian black culture. Since we’re showing the parallels with IRL cultures, it’s nice not to overlook one of the fundamental traits of trolls.
And about the fact that there is racism in the way trolls are portrayed I completely agree.
Sure. And it’s be great if we had even a hint of that being the case.
Instead, all we know is that Zekhan was an illiterate, naive troll until the civilized Lor’themar brought him enlightenment in the form of reading and writing.
Herp derp. You’re right. I was looking at when the Portal closed. You’re right and thank you for the correction. 25 years does make more of a difference than 10.
Both races are coded.
Goblins are big nosed individuals who like macaroons have new jersey accent (New jersey is 1 of the top 2 states with a jewish population) who are seen as physically weak who control others who are physically stronger to do their fighting for them and are very greedy. That has a lot of anti semitic tropes.
Draenei struck me more as inspired by Romani people, specifically the eastern European ones most people are familiar with. The accents, the constant traveling from persecution, metalworkers jewelry and gemstones, etc.
I can see that, though I lean more the way I do because… they even literally follow a prophet. The awkwardly too-on-the nose Romani presentation is probably the Vulpera and their caravans, I suppose.
Of course, the right racism poster of the forum see no problem in in real life white human using the white european representative npc race to teach the dumb indigenous first nation representative race how to be civilised…
‘‘oh but in game race doesn’t represent anything irl’’ said no one with a brain who played MoP. I mean they even had to put a great wall just to be sure that we knew that panderan were the ‘‘asian people’’ of azeroth.
The weird thing is, goblins are only like that about half the time. When they aren’t being the “gold-hungry merchants looking out for their own necks” archetype, they’re portrayed as the old RTS-era “manic lunatics with a gunpowder fetish and little regard for self-preservation” instead.
It presents this weird dichotomy where the boss goblins are all very concerned with preserving their own lives so they can keep making money, while as often as not their employees seem hell-bent on blowing themselves to pieces before they can cash their latest paycheck.
He got the position in Shadows Rising for saving Talanji’s life from an assassin while in Orgrimmar. As such, the simplest alternative to Lor’themar would have been Talanji teaching Zekhan while he was with her in Zandalar.
Ironically, most of the pro-Horde crowd in the Blizzard Developer circle agreed with Daelin. They wanted Orcs (and the rest of the Horde) to be mass murderers and serial warmongers because its “metal.”
Thrall’s Horde in WC3 was an abomination to WC2 Horde fanboys. That’s why the WC3 Horde’s ideals got regularly attacked and dismantled in several expansions.
Another cringey racist example in the game: a race of mostly women need a human man to explain basic tactics to them.
I don’t see it as inherently racist for a European of the past to teach an American Indian how to read and write in English.
Forcing it? Of course that would be racist if (and they did) a European did that towards a native to “kill the indian”. But if the relationship between the two was of mutual respect and the native wanted to learn English (including reading/writing it), I don’t see it as evil/racist for a European/American to teach him.
So Zekhan wanting to learn more knowledge and an elf teaching him, I don’t see as bad. How would you see it if it wasn’t an elf teaching him?
Anything can be non-racist if we do this exercise in which there is no historical context for the facts to take place.
The point is that it’s not racist because we can simply abstract the whole reality in which a white man taught English to an Indian by being a good Christian soul and that this Indian was learning this to later have a process of cultural erasure and insert this Indian into the context of the culture that subjugated them.
If we’re going to erase the historical context of everything, then it’s just stupid to discuss racism, and I could even tell you that whites suffer racism, because without a context where there was no domination of whites over blacks it’s totally acceptable for you to say that racism against whites is a real problem.
In other words, your point to be sustained needs something that nobody uses to analyze a historical fact, lack of context, that is, you want to discuss historical facts by being ahistorical.