WoW is very European based so as a Black person I don’t make a big deal of it, just like Lord of the Rings. That said I would like the character customization option. Darker skin tones and some afrocentric hair styles and maybe a few NPC’s. That should be the extent of it. We used to have the darker skin tones but they removed it.
It doesn’t need to be a big racial issue just give the player the option. I do appreciate that they have it to us with the Kul Tirans. That said, seafaring Scottish sounding Black people sounds so weird.
If they only provide white skin tones, then you could reasonably argue that they’re being exclusive.
If they provided customization options, but then treated human history and culture as totally homogenous in spite of these random differences…well, that’s probably fine, but it’s still kind of shallow and not what you’d call “inclusive.”
Finally, you can go the ESO route and have actual racial history along the lines of Nords vs Imperials vs Redguard, etc. That’s probably the strongest option, but it gets dangerous. Is it racist to make the redguards the best fighters, or that the protagonist-esque Imperials are white?
All things considered, I think the WoW writers should steer clear of racial politics when they can. They tend to handle sensitive issues poorly.
I think these two comments are interesting, because you can see how culture meets skin color. There is a fine line to walk I think, because on one hand, not everybody of the same skin color needs to share a culture. People of the same skin color can be very culturally diverse, and people of different skin colors can share a same or similar culture. It just so happens, historically irl, culture and skin color developed geographically, so they have a tendency to correlate. So, on the other hand, you have people of a particular skin color who would like to see characters of a shared appearance also sharing aspects of their own culture, but that can very easily cross into the realm of stereotyping. So from a PR perspective, it is easy to see why Blizzard made humans ethnically diverse (kinda) but culturally homogenous (kinda… Various European and American influences for distinct human kingdoms).
From a world building perspective, making humans mostly culturally homogenous is easier to avoid cultural overlap between other WoW races. Trolls, for instance, have a lot of African, South American, Haitian, Cajun, Carribiean so on and so on influences. I think one would want to maintain that as something unique for trolls.
The only cases of this I see are Gilneas and Kul Tiras.
In the case of Gilneas, Tess is the only heir left because Liam died. There’s literally no one else we know of.
In the case of Kul Tiras, Derek was the heir apparent and was dead, while Tandred was missing at sea and Jaina was off leading Theramore and Dalaran, so Katherine became Lord Admiral until her abdication. In the case of abdication, the Lord Admiral can apparently abdicate and let whoever they want take up the position, rather than going though any particular line of succession since Katherine almost named Ashvane as Lord Admiral (that being said, with Derek dead, Tandred presumed dead and Jaina trapped in Thros, and neither of the three had children, there was no line of succession to speak of at the time). Plus Jaina had essentially just saved the city (nepotism, yo, /s) and is already known to have leadership abilities due to having led both Theramore and Dalaran.
Another possibility to take into account is that certain kingdoms still have succession preferably by the male line (Lordaeron, Stormwind*) whereas others don’t (Kul Tiras). For example, since 1980 Sweden no longer has succession rules based on gender, and since 2013 neither does the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but Spain still does as of this day.
Of course, this is only speculation. Unless there’s a tidbit I missed from Chronicles or one of the books that says the line of succession for all the remaining kingdoms only requires descent and legitimacy - or don’t.
*Assuming they canonize Varian’s older sister Adariall from the Warcraft movie since they seem to like cherry-picking details from it, such as Varian’s mother Taria who originated from the movie.
There seem to be an awful lot of ‘bald’ or ‘balding options and for the life of me I can’t think who they are trying to appeal to with the fantasy of being a hero standing on the brink of the worlds destruction who happens to be suffering the embarrassment of male pattern balding.
The current WoW story is a disgusting white savior narrative. It’s where the “others” are either saved and enlightened by their blonde, blue eyed leaders or killed for not conforming to their perceived cultural norms.
… unless you can come up with some story reason for this.
There aren’t any “Europeans” in wow either, because there is no Europe. Real world demographic representation in a fantasy world is silly, and runs the risk of bringing forth more stupid ‘racial coding’ accusations.
No.
It doesn’t make sense.
WoW’s humans descend from the Vrykul, which were forged by Titans and plagued with the Curse of Flesh. It’s fantasy, it doesn’t need to work like real world.
Where exactly would these hypothetical humans come from? Also, pretty sure that the actual RACES of this world are meant as a supplement for that lack of human diversity. Tauren stem heavily off of indigenous North American peoples. The Orcs have some cultural roots in basic Mongol aesthetics. The Trolls CLEARLY have a lot of Central/South American cultural roots. The Pandarens are obviously based strongly off Imperial China themes. Etc…
Yeah its all very surface level and aesthetics based … but it is there. Humans tend to just be based more off western European cultural norms.
Diversity is also SUPER arbitrary if you’re shoving it in solely for the sake of having diversity, with little reason to explain WHY those different peoples are diverse from one another.
Like, there can’t be “Indians” in WoW … because there is no “India” (there is no Hinduism; Buddhism; or Caste System to be created by and help define the development of those sort of “Cultural Norms”). The “Asians” in WoW (as vague and overgeneralized as that is) are riddled throughout Pandaria. What you seem to be asking for is PURELY Skin Color.
Azeroth is not Earth. It doesn’t have to mirror all of our ethnicities just for the sake of diversity in humans. Most of them don’t actually exist on Azeroth in the first place.
And we have so many different fantasy races already that variety is hardly an issue.
I find it a little patronizing for the Haves to tell the Have Nots to not want something because it “doesn’t matter” or “isn’t important.” Just because it doesn’t matter to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. Honestly, what would WoW lose if it provided more character customization options? We’re A-okay believing some robots were cursed with flesh by a tentacle monster and that’s how humans came into existence, but we draw the line at believing that flesh could come in more shades?
It is the safe bet, though. I feel like the customization is already there, or nearly so. And if not, they should just add more, because more customization never hurt anybody. But, if they started trying to emulate real world cultures, delineated by skin tone, you can bet most of the people clamoring for inclusion would flip the script, and tear Blizzard apart for perpetuating racial stereotypes. Hell, a few people already try to do it now with Trolls (and to a lesser extent, Goblins), who don’t even look Human.
So yeah, I’m always behind more options to let players look however they want to look (be that exactly like themselves, or as different as possible). But I think the story of Warcraft Humans should stay in calmer waters, with its homogenous mix of skin tones and generic Western fantasy riffs.
