yeah tldr past ten years:
- Monster Races But Good -> Monster Races But Bad And Self Destructive
- High Fantasy Races But Messy -> High Fantasy Races But Pure And Can Do No Wrong
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I donât want to say theyâre knowingly going with these racist stereotypes, but it does feel like they know what theyâre doing and donât care. 
Hope Iâm just being paranoid.
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Yeah I got this too. I kinda think their accent sounds Middle Eastern (Iâm an idiot tho so who knows) and the whole bazaar thing so probably Blizzard doing the whole cultural mish-mash like they always do.
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Yeah accent is firmly West Asian stereotype, Tazavesh is pronounced and resembles Budapest (Budapesh), architecture of Tazavesh uses the main entrance of Budapest Grand Market in the central courtyard, you get there by boat so thatâs one (1) possible Venice reference, and throughout Tazavesh you hookahs, spice bazaars in a non-western style, and all the food is Asian (strictly only saw chopsticks for utensils in the whole dungeon in fact).
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With the High Elves, it becomes this weird thing where the initial moral high ground of the Alliance loyalists is a promotion of not being isolationist and xenophobic, but Blood Elves doing the opposite ends up painting them in the wrong.
Come Burning Crusade and the Blood Elves are ultimately set them on the path to become part of the bad practically by default because they dared allied with the non Medieval European themed group and only wanted to leave in Mists because Garrosh was tyrannically racist. It even started with a very âwe need something out of itâ arrangement but there is an implication they retained a sense of loyalty to the Horde and its not just continued reliance on their support.
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Brokers are actually a perfect contemporary example:
They are built on stereotypes we are familiar with if you grew up in a US or general Westernly influenced culture.
But they are not inherently racist in so doing. What would make their characterization racist is if, idk, they were hiding âweapons of mass destructionâ for Zovaal and blew up the Mage Tower in Stormwind or something to that effect. That would be Blizzard invoking a racist motif for a thusly racist storyline.
But at the same time, curiously, Blood Elves are one of the few in-game playable races whose cultural motifs arenât as âdeepâ as the others.
You look at how Tauren are constructed and itâs agressively North American indigenous peoples, right down to the federation of tribes, totems as a symbol of multi-tribal unity, the use of war bonnets by the political/military leader, and even the in-game mythos about how Tauren were originally Yaungol (i.e., Mongols) who migrated (Bering Strait theory).
You look at Night Elves and yes, itâs a mix, but itâs a specific mix of NeoWiccan/NeoPagan + Roman aesthetics + Japanese aesthetics, with some Byzantine Roman architecture used for âHighborneâ stuff (e.g. Azshara cinematic, white base with blue domes), and in terms of their characterization parallels could be drawn between Elune-worship and modern Neopagan Goddess worship, as well as Night Elf isolationist policies vs Japanese isolationist policies, or the pseudo-caste system of the late Roman Empire between the Highborne vs Lowborne.
Blood Elves have some Orientalist motifs sprinkled about, some Tolkien sprinkled about, some D&D (Silverymoon was shamelessly plagiarized even though the city is neither lunar nor silver). But nothing deep like the other ones.
And so, it is harder for them to write in a racist stereotype for blood elves or a cringe storyline, so theyâre âsaferâ. Closest was Theramore, and the Purge of Dalaran, but even then, the Silver Covenant complicates it.
Likewise Gnomes are another âsafeâ race.
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Personally I think its more to do that Orcs and Trolls are easier specifically for the âsavage warmongeringâ stereotype, with Undead just written in a way that doubles down on their more questionable actions in the Vanilla era.
The ending of TBC, with a fundamental change in attitude it meant with the Blood Knights and Magisters especially, the lack of typical âedginessâ made it harder for them to paint with a wide brush, which is why its usually one or a few âmore loyal to the Warchief, super hawkishâ people that arenât just being pushed around by Evil Warchief.
They are also simply easier to fit into the âgeneric Americanized Medieval good guyâ mold when thatâs convenient to the plot.
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Iâd buy it.
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I think the bulk of the issue is in the fact that Blizzard has allowed all their worldbuilding to atrophy and has sanded away at a lot of the nuance and characterizations of their races, which in turn causes any similarities with real world cultures, however surface or in-depth, to become that much more obvious. Pulling from real world cultures is inevitable, but if those fictional races have enough unique aspects to them, using those real world cultures only as a base, then it becomes far less of an issue.
Guild Wars 2, for instance, has multiple races. The asura have architecture that draws from Mesoamerican styles, is anyone comparing them to those cultures? No, because they have enough added on top for it to be nothing more than a minor aspect.
Elder Scrolls, the bosmer have English accents, is anything in their culture English? No. Same can be said for the Redguard, who have far more in common with various real world African cultures and also have a vaguely similar history when it comes to empires, have so much detail put into their lore and worldbuilding that it again becomes cursory at best. A concerning amount of worldbuilding details in some cases⌠I donât know what the Elder Scrolls lore crafters were on when they wrote some of this, but I want some.
Drawing from the real world is fine, itâs when that becomes all a race is as opposed to the superficial base that problems arise.
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Pandarian reminds me China.
In Legion we clearly met Vikings.
We had also Egypt in BfA.
Blizzard need to find a new Tolkien, who will design totally new world, instead of copy of the real one.
P.S. All Pandaren are fat 
Its insufferable people like this that make the world a worse off place. Please do us all a favor and stop playing.
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I know your type⌠I do not like your type.
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People has romanticized various time periods, regardless of the various horrible portions of it:
Oh please, even back in Warcraft 3 there were already hints of problems to the blood elves. From their whole quote about how âdont let your anger control you, I should knowâ from Kael to his outright following of Illidan who himself was following orders of Kilâjaeden himself.
As for the topic at hand, no I donât think using certain archetypes is inherently racist. Various worldbuilding has taken inspiration from the real world. This include all their foibles. Iâd also point out Blizzard has never been shy about using say a white character be stereotypical racist. Look at the Scarlet Crusade! A bunch of dudes as racist as Garithos. Heck, the human Ambassador for the allied race is casually racist to the allied races sans lightforged.
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the whole obsession with relics and artifacts is what i think is a tamed version of what you suggest would be racist,
these themes are coded into the character designs and could be considered appropriation/racism
Some of the earlier lore has bits and glimpses of actual Realistic Bad Stuff That Was Common, like nobody being able to read or write, children getting beatings in school and infants dying because they just tend to do that. With time lore gradually became more modern, so I guess now everyone in Stormwind has access to medicine and running water 
.
I, for one, donât mind at all seeing some darker medieval stuff again. Itâs more fun this way.
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Honestly, Iâm surprised that no one here has mentioned Draenei. Draenei are heavily Jewish coded, and are aliens from outer space who suffered through a mass genocide. Itâs almost comical if you think of all the uncomfortable implications.
Blizzard champions the white humans and their friends while spitting on the Horde races. So yes this game is very racist because Horde races gets centered in that racist noble savage stereotype who are always inferior to the white human. Racism ruins the game and Alliance players need to check their privilige.
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As a Irish/Italian American, there a handful of racist stereotypes of my culture in game too. So the only person who needs to check themselves, is you Erevien.
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Irish and Italians are white too. I donât need to check anything since I am half mongol.
There isnât a culture in this game that doesnât have some form of racist stereotype attached to it. And the fact that you immediately attacked white people, as if weâre all your enemy speaks volumes about you as a person.
Get off the race wagon if you want people to take you serious
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