Look… Baalsamael and I probably don’t see eye to eye, and I think he’s far too antagonistic for his own good - but telling him to reevaluate his consideration of the game and goading him into “gatekeeping” in a doublepost seems needlessly antagonistic. I don’t know if you’re an Alliance booster or not, but I don’t care. There’s no need to be this hostile and catty.
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I don’t consider such things necessary at all. In a world of war it can make sense though. It has nothing to do with a Song of Ice and Fire. It was a theme sins the beginnings of modern Fantasy. Racism is a part of Warcraft since at least Warcraft 2. Have you ever read how dwarves talk if they want to go on a Troll hunt?
There is a lot of racism in WoW already. I don’t even know where to begin or what I can say to this. Your notion is a misconception though.
One thing doesn’t really exist. Stupid things like humans hating each other because of their skin etc. This would be rather nonsensical.
I’m not so sure about Elves and some others though. My point still stands with the first paragraph.
I’m also confused why this topic turned yet in to another “no faction conflicts” argument.
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I’m sorry you feel this way, but I don’t see any reason not too. If he’s to antagonistic for his own good, then I’m only doing him a favor by encouraging him to stop pursing something he’s clearly losing his grip on. Gatekeeping is exactly what him, and the other one have been doing. Painting with broad strokes, and accusatory witch-hunting should be beyond them, but here they are doing it.
Why would anyone need to know if I’m an Alliance booster, or not. I may speak bluntly, but it’s tuned to what was dialed.
I mean, this is a guy who just straight up calls people stupid and idiot and racist if they don’t agree with him. At some point, being antagonistic becomes needful, rather than needless.
It is funny to me too, that if I acted half as combative as he does, I would be banned for at least a few days within a few hours of my first post. Yet, here he is, still going on with his nonsense.
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No you’re like, actually racist for thinking that in-game representations of real-world cultures don’t require Blizzard to put effort into their narrative depth within the context of the implied meta-narrative and the use of real world cultures found both in the imperial core (ie Global North) and the Global South that are both Subaltern (in the Spivak sense) or Elite (in the Mills sense) with zero sense of responsibility to our heritage, history, or characterization, or that WoW can use real world racist tropes for various gameplay races but it’s okay because that’s not their intent so they again have zero responsibility to balance out the racist trope they did use with a narrative depth that empowers that gameplay race.
Also you didn’t know the difference between representation and representative.
So nah you’re racist and dumb.
Let’s not even get into the fact
- Some of yall arguing Stormwind Knights aren’t European derivatives
- Some of yall arguing Night Elves aren’t partly European inspired because of Greek and Roman influences because Greece isn’t Europe apparently.
- Some of yall arguing that Tauren aren’t North American Indigenous derivatives
- Thinking Goblin real world modern depiction somehow predate European contact with Jewish people and thereby antisemitism that goes back literally to since the Hellenic and Assyrian Empires, if not earlier.
I could go on. Lots of terribad ahistorical takes, and especially by people who are posting on what are obvious alts. “I’ve been on these forums for a while” but your post history starts yesterday lmao doesn’t add up. Folks wanna go? Post on main, especially if you claim to have been on these forums for a while. Otherwise not worth my time.
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I’m not sure what you mean by that. What do you mean with modern depiction? In WC2 they were already inventors and well yes suicide bombers (just like Gnomes). I guess that’s the old depiction speaking about Warcraft. So the new would be the Mafia style Goblin right? The money part fit’s also to them.
Ye the later in-game developments of Goblins as merchants/bankers obsessed with money, building upon real-life antisemitic stereotypes (that were used by JK Rowling, among others), that are a result of Medieval antisemitism reshaping older folklore when goblins were just nature spirits and weren’t tied to money or markets or “settling where they aren’t wanted” etc.
WoW combined the antisemitic trope of “Banker Goblin” with the Italian Mafia trope combined with Jersey Shore references (due to the memes at the time)
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So, I think the biggest thing about “wanting to be hated” is that the Horde players are expressing the view that unless some steps are taken to reduce the constant narrative (for the last ~10 years) of the Alliance always being “in the right” makes the Horde always secondary citizens. If the Alliance is always “right” and/or justified, then anytime there is a disagreement the Horde is always “worse.”
It’s not that some Horde players want bigotry, it’s that bigotry has previously been seen in the Alliance and therefore seems like a plausible narrative to bring into play once more. And given the choice, bigotry is a better option (relatively speaking) than simply having the Alliance decide to simply turn into an evil villain at the drop of a hat (which wouldn’t make much narrative sense). Sliding into some of the older issues within the Alliance would at least have some plausibility.
With that said, I do think eventually there has to be a narrative shift to a point where the Horde isn’t constantly portrayed as having the short end of the morality stick, but rather as taking a different stance on issues (and a stance that is reasonable).
In that linked thread, there is a discussion regarding some of these themes that we could see plausible distinctions between the factions that wouldn’t simply lead to “Horde worse” but rather choices that are debatable.
One topic that somewhat fits the bill is the Culling of Stratholme and whether it was a reasonable decision of Arthas. There has been disagreement in these forums about whether this was right or wrong at the time.
As a couple of other (purely hypothetical) examples:
- If Garrosh (pre-trend toward a xenophobic war criminal) had spent considerable time on the question of whether to let his people starve while trying to negotiate some sort of agreement regarding resource exchanges, or steal the resources to help his people survive.
- If the Horde committed an act that in a vacuum would be horrible, but led to destroying an Old God that was churning through Alliance and Horde forces and threatening the entire world. The act itself was terrible, and some may wonder if it was necessary or whether there were other options, but the end result saved lives. The basic concept of whether (and at what point) do the ends justify the means.
It allows for the Horde to choose a different course of action that reasonable people may disagree about whether it was justified or not. It also can make the Horde fall closer to the anti-hero archtype, doing the thing they view as necessary for survival and freedom, at almost any cost, while not forcing the Alliance to follow the script that the Horde has hated.
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It’s not the bigotry people want, I mean, it makes sense for some of the characters sure. People just want blizzard to stop justifying the morally grey acts that the alliance does commit. Stuff like the interment camps, Stormheim, etc all eventually get buried under 42 mountains worth of justification because blizzard went out of their way and made the horde do something a thousand times worse, like yet another genocide.
You can’t have a morally grey/bigoted alliance if blizzard is going to continue to make the horde into actual monsters not worth trusting. I’m sorry and We’ll change loose their meaning when every few years one side decides genocide/mass murder sounds like a lovely idea.
It’s why it needs to go back to Wrath level storytelling, stop having the factions relying on each other for quests/lore. You can have them team up as the raids/big bad boss comes up but that should be it.
Hope that makes sense.
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The problem is that it doesn’t balance the status quo to simply cha cha slide back into that mode of storytelling
I mean true, but making the alliance just as worse as the horde isn’t going to fix the very real narrative problems the horde has you know?
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Sure but it’s two separate problems:
- Horde vs Alliance is unequal in Sins and Virtues/Moral Highground; thereby Alliance is always justified whereas Horde is never justified
- Narrative as a whole is a flaming hot mess.
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That what I was alluding too originally. It’s the Moral Absolutism of the alliance that’s a problem because, from a STORY perspective the horde are monsters and the alliance shouldn’t trust them and doesn’t help that blizz constantly writes the horde as monsters, so the alliance comes off as being justified with every action they take.
It’s a mess not easily fixed, and I haven’t seen anyone come up with a solution that doesn’t involve making the alliance just as worse as the horde is currently
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No, but the issue was never really about “being just as bad”, its about being allowed any “bad” at all. I know I sort of started this mass of a topic, but the issue isn’t that the Horde (which predominately is at least inspired by compilations of many RW non-European cultures) is flawed. Its that their counterpart (the Faction that, like it or not, is inspired by compilations of more traditional Euro-Fantasy tropes) is not.
Flaws are a good thing on a writing level. They can allow for internal turmoil, disagreement, weaknesses, self-reflection and growth. Even making mistakes, and consequences from those mistakes, can expand story opportunities and variety. Virtues are also a good thing, as they allow a group despite their flaws to take pride in themselves and continue working to overcome their weaknesses.
The issue right now is, the Alliance aren’t allowed tangible flaws, and consequently the Horde being allowed them is being used as an excuse for (or downright synonymous) with “Evil”. Thus, we have one faction kept nearly flawless, and is oversaturated in Virtues. While the other is miasmad in Flaws, and allowed very few virtues. In fact, its gotten to such an extent that the only virtue the latter group is allowed to really have anymore … is how convenient and submissive to the prior group they are. Its when you add in the prior’s Euro-Inspired roots and the latter’s mostly non-Euro Inspired roots where that thematic framing becomes way more questionable. Beyond just simple bad writing.
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Oh I agree, and it’s a complicated issue for sure. Me,Baal and others did have a lovely discussion in another topic about how the real life inspirations blizz draws from does complicate things, because like you hinted at multiple times, a lot of their writing does come off as a bit…disingenuous to outright racist when it comes to how certain races are constantly depicted.
There is that undertone of White man good, those backward savages are evil/bad and at times they hit you over the head with it repeatly, if that makes any sense
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This is how it used to be back when the Alliance were “mostly good” but allowed flaws as well. But, in no small part becuase of BfA and its fallout … we’re truly threatening on a different (more heinous) message here. Albeit, one I would guess is totally accidental. “That the only way a member of one of these Non-Euro Inspired Races can prove they are good, is by how convenient and submissive they are to the Euro-Inspired ones”.
Again, not deliberate. I’d wager that they didn’t think about the consequences and themes of their writing beyond “we need to settup a future villain, and future expansion; and we can’t do that with the Alliance”. Though, there is certainly something to be said about their discomfort even considering such a thing with the Alliance; and seeming “more comfort” doing that repeatedly with the Horde.
EDIT: But, we’ll see. Maybe they actually do something with Turalyon to flip that script a bit in our absence. We can only hope. I still say, the Lightbound showing up and giving the Alliance the power they need to act on their aggression and grievances would be a solid way to go while the peaceniks are gone.
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Yeah, I doubt it was intentional at all, it obviously wasn’t very well thought out. But there are times where I sit back and ask myself Did they really mean to send the message they just did?.
The problem seems to stem from the disconnect between the various teams, like whatever message they originally intended gets lost in translation and we get these situations that just look really bad.
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And when one token (or three) of those “Backward Savages” sides with the “Good White Man”, it then falls onto “Noble Savage” Trope, which as I stated at the start of this thread via a post on another thread:
Now,
IMO it’s simply because the WoW Writers that remain see themselves more in the Alliance. It’s really that simple. And all the Horde-main writers we knew about literally left. They are literally all gone.
“Intentional” as in “mwahahaha lets oppress the POC metaphors!” no, but as in “Lets make the faction I personally identify with perfect and always having the moral highground and make the other faction always bad such that even my faction’s sins are always justifiable” (which is a sort of passive, narrative racism) due to a general lack of self awareness yes.
There is no way in a company as large as Blizzard, who have put out statements for Black Lives Matter in the past (albeit, well after the onset) so at least have someone dedicated to these sorts of “optics” and perceptions, isn’t aware of the meta-implications of the story they are writing.
If the art team is putting in research into real world cultures to such an elaborate detail, they know what they are doing.
It just isn’t a priority.
Until/Unless someone writes a very complex book doing an in-game ethnographic analysis with research into countless world cultures and forces Blizzard to look in the mirror. Which in theory I’m working on since undergrad, but lord knows this ain’t easy lmao (also med school).
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This is part of why I am so adamant about the Lightbound showing up while we PCs and Peaceniks are away, and serving as the means for the Alliance to finally get some serious “grey” shoved back into their veins. While not subjecting the Alliance player to being forced to go along with villainous acts. We get back when things are really hitting the fan and go from there. And the beauty is that such a narrative pushes certain groups that need positive development to the Forefront of “the Good” side of the story. The Forsaken and AU Mag’har on the Horde, the Void Elves and LightFORGED on the Alliance. And has a villain learn from a past one’s mistakes (the Iron Horde) on how best to invade Azeroth. Come as a friend, and BIND yourself more forces. That way, by the time your “friends” realize somethings wrong … they’ll be fighting just as many of their own people as yours.
Because, we know a Light Cosmology expansion is likely coming. And the beauty of the Lightbound is that not only do the Alliance not have a window into their evil (especially now that all the peaceniks are gone, and communication between both factions has likely ground to a halt); but also because they aren’t trying to “destroy” their enemies. They are trying to convert them. Trying to “save them from themselves”. Which on paper, seems far more humane right? They’re doing the “right thing”. Saving us. No genocide necessary if you can just make us “good”. It would also give the Alliance the power they need to offset the cost preventing many of their leaders from wanting to destroy the Horde at the end of BfA. All that’s really needed is a catalyst. A single event (like the assassination of Genn or Faol and pinning it on the Horde to prove without question that we are what the Alliance believe we are) to trigger it.
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Don’t forget not only are the Lightforged Alliance, so are the Void Elves, and Natalie Seline was given a Perfectly Alive Human Model instead of a Forsaken Model 
SO Alliance got Church of the Light, Lightforged, Void Elves, Cult of the Forgotten Shadow leader, etc
Now if we get to the Light Bad Expansion and Alliance doesn’t get some grey or God forbid one Terrible Sin… I give up lmao
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