For many years there was an actual framing done by the writers of Blizzard about which characters to root for, what races count as the good guys of the story, conquest only being done by one side and not the other and of course stealing culture from IRL human civilizations who don’t exist any longer today.
So this is my questing. Should the whole plot be rebooted, since “some fans” use it as an excuse to feel themselves as superior beings when they chose , let’s say, any human or elf? I saw this on twitter and MMO Champion forums and the toxic behavior there is mind blowing.
No, the entire past 20+ years of storytelling should not be thrown out because some people were being annoying on MMO Champion and the site known for having annoying people on it.
Human supremacy is an actual problem and 99% of racist memes come from that trope that Blizzard decided to make them the drivers of the story as much as them being better at all professions then any other race. That is why the obvious colonization of the Amani is never seen in a negative light. Just one example but Tauren, trolls, Goblins and Orcs ar ethe major victims of this writing style.
I’m not sure reboot is the word you are looking for.
Rebuild is perhaps more appropriate.
Personally, I think it would be a good idea to rebuild the Warcraft setting to make it more appealing to more people.
And to temper some of the problematic elements of the setting.
However, just as viable would be perhaps story elements that call out these problems and attempt to correct them going forward… Not that it wouldn’t be a dangerous path to walk as it has many traps and some aren’t as obvious until you are fairly far into the mess you’ve made.
Maybe I just don’t go to these sites for WoW content, just really sticking to these forums, YouTube, and occasionally Reddit, but I’ve never really seen any issue with “human supremacy”.
Regardless, this would be a really goofy reason to reset the entire lore that would do more harm than good, if it even did any good at all.
Old lore treats alot of the non-playable races weirdly, like how Dragons were treated like sentient beings one day and animals the next depending on whatever the plot called for at that moment, leading to Dragons getting hit with tragedies that would probably bump the ESRB rating up to M or higher if it happened to any other race.
That said, Dragonflight helped make this characterization more consistent.
Given that the majority of the fanbase that I’ve seen on these forums and on YouTube all agree that the Amani got a raw deal, I wouldn’t be surprised if this plot thread is returned to and made better in Midnight.
Well its kind of hard to reboot or change anything when some of the old lore WC3 characters that are still alive are “literally forbidden” to be written to be killed in any expansion because they are too profitable. (“Old gossip I know but I just wanted to add to the fire”)
Am I missing something? I mean yeah, racists are everywhere, but I thought the whole [Insert Villain Here] Did Nothing Wrong gag was literally just that, a gag.
Sure some people are edgelords who defend these character’s actions, but for the majority, it looks like an obvious joke.
Only times I really see it be used as less of a gag by a lot more people is in the case of characters like Zul’jin, in which case it is the exact opposite of the OP’s issue since he even used the poor treatment of the Amani as an example of human and elven supremacy.
Now on a more serious note, I agree with Nightsong, Legonar and Xoroth there is a LOT of lore that can be use to tell such good stories… plots, quest or side quests!
A rebuild and re-telling would be more appropriate than just reboot. (IMO)
Let me tell you, if WoW had a linear story even if its just to rewards cosmetics, mounts and title with little to no exp, but with full scenes of our characters like FF14, SWTOR… or even ESO or GW2 do, it probably be sooooo goood and long!!!
You could be month doing it and not finish… so I think a rework/rebuilt/retelling should be better than just a reboot. (Again IMO)
I don’t say it about Gurubashi who successfully defended against Stormwind expansion or Drakkari who got eaten by the scourge or Farraki who just got plundered but otherwise the tribe is doing fine.
Amani are the prime example of this mindset because not only are the guilty still alive, they also still occupy the land and are part of a playable faction(high elves and humans that is the lore says Alleria was present when it happened).
And since the humansa re your average european fantasy kingdom and high elveshave the palest skin possible while most trolls take after indeginous cultures the paralels are so obvious only a blind person would not see them.
WC3 (and I suppose that one cartoony Thrall adventure game that got canned) kind of did do a soft reset of the lore, from picking and choosing parts of both WC2 campaigns to canonize to recontextualizing certain connections between civilizations. It’s just that the new contexts were often dipped in stereotypes that people are more passively unaware of because they’ve lived for centuries and woven into the social fabric.
I think the classic/RTS era Horde in particular are a minefield for this because their visual design is roughly “a bunch of traits mildly associated with the occult”, and an unholy connotation is the fuel for the engine of dark ages racism that often extended to the middle ages, and has been preserved due to the long shelf life on art and culture.
This problem doesn’t exist so much for humans and elves as long as they’re racially diverse, and the cast of important characters reflects that diversity. Blizzard doesn’t have to explain why humans are more ethnically diverse than ancient Europe, other than simply “this isn’t Europe.”
Such tropes have no place in the modern world. The only reason Bioware don’t get crap for the way elves are treated in Dragon Age is that we can actually punish those responsible. But that is just not possible in Warcraft where everyone bends over backwards to always pretend high elves and humans are the embodiement of nobility.
This is part of the problem, however. Most people aren’t overt/hateful racists or sexists; I say that having talked to people who didn’t process how racist/sexist they were being as to them it was just how things were…
Sadly, this is another example of the problem people forcing us to react to them.
This is actually something you see in some of the older literature. An indigenous person tearing down their own people while pointing out the superiority of the (usually) “European” people the story was really about. This is a common technique used by racists to pretend they aren’t the ones being racist by putting the words in the mouths of others.
More recently you see this used by those making sexist arguments with females being the ones pushing to see their own rights stripped away.
Humans are often zealots, the only difference is that humans and orcs get the chance to “rise above our worst instincts” whereas many of their ‘sidekicks’ do not. I was amazed when they introduced Turaylon after how many years and of all things made him a Zapp Brannigan-like devotee of the Light to the point of absurdity.
Like it’s funny you made this thread today and yesterday you were complaining about who is a “real goblin” when these kinds of concerns are why goblins are possibly changing, hopefully for the better.
I can bring 20 years of experience and entirely too long with the forums to bear and say that a mere lore reset would absolutely NOT stop people from being smug just because they rolled a blood elf.
There is racial presentation and then there is just lore breaking stuff. The Goblins are not evil in nature just extra greedy. And what Gazlowe is doing is something no other Goblin in the game does. With the monster races it is not being about good but right. And if the only way to change is doing the exact opposite of what all other goblins do then they should just drop Gazlowe out and focus on those characters who put the profit first again.
And Orcs aren’t giving any chances they just get punished and dumped on the worst possible land approved by Thrall. While humanity has no less then 6 nations to call their own by now.
IIRC that was intended to be a reason for them to better themselves, to be so focused on survival they didn’t have time for old grudges and the old warrior ways.
Incidentally it does play into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Though I imagine that was more accident then intention as it’s also an old standard for how to deal with any issues, “get back on the grindstone.” is a common argument around here for the only accepted way to deal with trauma and depression.
Oh no who could have seen people telling to hate themselves for generations could create backlash and restart the old hatred While all human nations live in the highest luxury possible. I surley hope talanji blocks all sea trading routes until the Orcs finally find the spine forcing Thrall to adbicate for good instead of making the situation worse every time he gets control again. Same goes for the trolls.
And warrior culture is Orc culture. You can’t be stuck in the stone age ways of hunters forever. Even tho humans needed elves to crawl out of their caves they eventually found a way for a real civilization.
