So hey guy’s i know this topic might be a bit controversial, but i think racial coding is an important part of writing, and isn’t inherently racist. If done poorly it can be, but when care is put into it, it allows fantasy races to seem more human.
WoW has a history of racial coding, ranging from extremely minor (Nerubians are named after the Nubians) to so blatant that it becomes obvious (The Gorian Empire is the Roman Empire). Most wow races have at least some racial coding to them
Humans- Honestly their just Vaguely Medieval European
Dwarfs- Pretty Obviously British though taking parts from many different time periods, their archaeologist, have Scottish accents , live in clans, and at least in vanilla, very Imperialistic.
Night Elves- Maybe Celtic? The Celts weren’t theocratic though, and were far less unified. Some people argue greek and while i could see that for the old empire, the current night elves, are not the old empire.
Gnomes-Not based on a real life ethnicity, but the Tinker Gnomes of Dragonlance. Significantly Less annoying then them.
Draenei- I think Romani?
Worgen-Victorian English. Easy.
Horrdewise we have
Orcs- Mongolian.
Tauren- The nomadic native american tribes of the middle USA, but only the surface elements
Undead-Vaguely Gothic? The undead really don’t have any society because their lore has been entiraly focused on sylvanas.
Trolls-Mix of Caribbean, Mesoamerican, African, and Polynesian cultures (AKA The “Savages” of the age of exploration) Zandalari are obviously Incan though.
Blood Elves- Once again, vaguely European.
Goblins- Gilded Age of America, with the Social Darwinistic Society, being lead by what amounts to Robber Barons, a poorly treated lower class. Typically they have accents from New York or Jersey,
Racial coding in writing is not required, or even important, and should be avoided. Taking influence or inspiration from different cultures, times and ethnicities certainly is and can add a lot to a narrative or setting, but I would be strongly against any notion of racial coding. Meaning, the race we play should not have a strong tie or stand as representation for X or Y. What becomes even more difficult is when you take influences at a very surface and steryoetypical level, especially of previously oppressed peoples. Tauren and the First Nations come to mind very easily.
Certainly we can trace most of these influences fairly easily. However, I would argue Draenei take more from the Jewish narrative than the Romani, especially with the introduction of Vulpera.
Cultural influence is fine and good, any sort of racial coding should be avoided.
It’s really bad when you do stuff like say, frame the european humans sacking a mesoamerican city and killing their king as a good thing. Or retroactively justifying the British imperialist wiping out an entire tribe of native americans.
Absolutely, and its not just recently either. Every troll raid and dungeon is like that given how its presented after the fact.
That becomes the issue with racial coding. Narratively you corner yourself or at the very least you create problematic situations like this. Even influences can cause this but to a far lesser extent. You repeat these settler colonial mindsets in the stories and products you make which really help no one ever.
I feel like if we had writers who actual realized and avoided the unfortunate implications of their careless writing mistakes it could work, but blizzard never really pays attention to that.
Zul’Aman i feel was the worst though, it has us raiding an African city for their treasures on the request of a redneck.
We both, as well as most everyone where, know that their writing is mediocre at best.
Certainly an easy thing to change, without switching up the baseline narrative, that would be to change the invading force to primarily non-imperialist or colonial races. Far, far, less humans, dwarves, and gnomes and plenty of dreanei, night elves, lightforged, pandaren.
How do you start to deconstruct that though? Its humans and dwarves almost all day every day and the Horde has been labled as the ‘misfit’ races. Those misfits take from, as already said, peoples who have been the victims of colonialism, imperialism, genocide, stagnation, etc. Greater equity among the races of both factions is a start.
If Shandris can start making more military incursions against trolls or tauren it would be helpful. Need to narratively explain angry expansionist Night Elves, which shouldn’t be difficult now, but it changes that perception of the colonial humans and the like doing it instead. Reclamation of troll land, of tauren land, specifically against the colonial races would be as well. Within the Horde itself dialog between Blood Elves and Amani to discuss reparations, cooperation, and mutual aid.
Do I really expect anything of the sort from these writers? No. The writers themselves come from a settler-colonial culture/nation. I expect even far less for the company who definitely profits from that very same mindset/culture and its a real shame.
Blizzard is usually more careful about this than, say, George Lucas [cough Phantom Menace cough]. But still, it is very easy for racial coding to become broad stereotyping.
I don’t think it’s their intention for us to say “well this group clearly represents those people”. Once you start doing that, reading those comparisons into the story, you can come up with all sorts of negative or erroneous conclusions. I just take everything at face value.
Most of the time i’m like that, it’s just trolls and tauren are very obviously based on existing ethnicity, or more accurately, stereotypes of those ethnicity. In particular, troll’s are the result of old age of exploration romanticized “savages” basically the natives of places that europe colonized or encountered. I normally wouldn’t have a problem with this, but blizzard seems strangely willing to repeat those narratives.
First I want to say that I appreciate how respectful this thread has stayed.
I don’t take issue with using real life inspiration for some if the other races as long as it doesn’t become stereotypical and disrespectful. It’s a fine line and I think that sometimes they come really close to it. I read a blog post from a Native American player that was insulted with the depiction of the Tauren, he named a few aspects that were in the game were stereotypes. I think going foward Blizz might want to be more careful about that. The main ones they should be really mindful of are the Taurens and Trolls as they clearly represent a mix of different ethnicities most which have a history abuse, subjugation, and of being taking advantage.
I’ve often wondered how First Nations players felt about that particular Warcraft race. The Tauren combine so many elements from vastly disparate First Nations cultures (teepees! totem poles! head dresses! face paint!) that the whole thing just comes off as a hodgepodge, kind of like the generic “Indians” in the old western films.
And trolls are a similar mix of broad stereotypes, though they have been given a bit more cultural distinctiveness in game, from broad rastafarian stereotypes to Mesoaamerican stereotypes.
I do think that Blizzard is generally careful not to play these stereotypes for laughs most of the time, which is something, at least. Except for the goblins, but I guess it is okay to laugh at people from New Jersey?
Edit: oh, and WoW’s pygmies are shocking. I know that Blizzard are trying to stay away from the classic racist depictions of pygmies by making them kind of like little headbangers, but it is still seriously pushing it. Best not to use pygmies at all.
And don’t get me started on Budd and gay stereotyping.
Goblin’s are based off of america in the late 1800s to my knowledge, which i guess makes them ok to make fun of as were basically laughing at ourselves?
Oh, okay. I thought they were sort of a Jersey Shore thing.
Comedians talk about the difference between “punching up” and “punching down.” Making fun of yourself or people with power is considered okay because it’s sort of the point of a lot of comedy - to challenge the high and mighty. But making fun of those who have been disadvantaged, victimized, or are weaker just comes off as mean.
For example, I am the parent of a child with autism. Humour at the expense of people on the spectrum, or people with other cognitive challenges, is just so petty and hurtful. But humour at my expense, I’m totally okay with as long as it is fair.
I had someone in my guild who was native and they did not last too long. Nothing about me and the guild, but about RPing a tauren and what that entailed. Even with my own awareness and stress on decolonizing our RP, the tauen aesthetics still just did not sit right with them.
To trolls though, if we isolate them from the current story, they did a really good job on the Zandalari in their depictions. A large, well kept, highly developed, densely populated, city with a seemingly (at least as far as WoW goes) complex and deep culture presented positively and with pride.
Now place it back in the story and we see the glaring issues given context. That despite all of that some humans were able to outsmart their entire navy and ransack the city with a far lesser force. There can’t be a bigger ‘yikes’ moment in the past few years than that.
The North East as a whole has always been america’s industrial center, so a lot of the Robber Baron’s the Trade Princes are based off of likely did live Jersey. The Gilded Age i think is the exact era.
I won’t be surprised if this thread gets deleted, but as long as it’s open…
Night Elves do a pretty good job of taking small bits from various cultures without directly mapping to any one in particular. Their old-style architecture is kind of Greek; their moon gates are reminiscent of east Asian architecture (especialy Japanese torii), and they use more-or-less Celtic/Art Nouveau ornamentation. Plus, they eat kimchi and pound rice.
I don’t really see any connection here apart from the accent. And even that is iffy (sometimes it strikes me as Greek-sounding).