He was an Englishman from 1940ies. Of course he was.
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In the interest of fairness, it should also be pointed out that Tolkien famously ripped on…well, on a certain leader of Germany during the 1930s-1940s, calling said leader an “imbecile,” and remarking on how said leader’s “philosophy” pretty much perverted Europeans’ noble ancestry.
Alright, since we are all now agreed that tolkien wasn’t a monster we can get back to criticizing some of the tropes he invented!
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Certainly. I absolutely hate the “always evil races” and I was very happy to find out that races like orcs and trolls were given neuance in Warcraft.
There is just something that feels very nice about seeing how someone you would normally expect to be “evil” get humanized.
I remember when watching AtlA for the first time, I was very happy to see that it was Roku, a Firebender, who acted as Aangs spiritual guide.
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Which is precisely why Reign of Chaos was such an awesome turnaround; I have to imagine Chris Metzen knew exactly what he was doing when he decided to break that traditional mold.
You know, considering he actually voiced Thrall himself.
Zoku! Oh, you must be one of those Earth-Benders! 
No, I mean Avatar Roku
They seem to like some Inuit like inspirations were used.
No, because in-universe, “nonwhite humans” have always existed and there has never been a racial hierarchy in-game stated. Humans in WoW are Robots With Tentacle Monster Curse, and Human Kingdoms in WoW came about with different Former Robots settling/moving around. There is no “Asian Looking Human” Kingdom, there is no “African/Black Looking Human” Kingdom, etc.
It’s not like “Actually all of Lordaeron was white and blonde, but Alterac was black skinned” is a thing they can even do, given the only Human Kingdoms that continue existing are what they are, and all of the human major lore characters are white.
To make Kul Tirans, Gilneans, or Stormwindians the “Black Kingdom”, you’d have to alter and retcon Jaina, Anduin/Varian, or Genn/family. And if its Stormwind, you’d have to retcon all of Booty Bay since it’s originally a Stormwind colony, and now all Human Pirates in WoW are Black.
If you make Lordaeron “Black”, you’d have to retcon Arthas and Calia, and then assign Blackness to all the Forsaken NPCs within the narrative. Which makes things worse.
If you make Strom “Black”, you’d have to retcon Trollbane.
If you make Alterac “Black”, you’d have to retcon Lord Ravenholdt, as well as assign Blackness to the Syndicate (big oof).
If you make Dalaran “Black”, you’d have to retcon… someone? Who is even from Dalaran? Isn’t it just all the mages of the other human kingdoms?
So no.
Within the narrative, having IRL-POC-Looking-NPCs-and-Players does not do anything for the meta-narrative of metaphors of racism, and trying to do so would require a lot of retcon’ing and would create even more problems if done badly, which it would be.
It’s not just Blizzard. It is a cornerstone of “high fantasy” that non-human races = POC.
First God no, but did she revive the trope for the 21st century, yes I think it’s safe to say she popularized the notion for the masses (and sterilized it too).
On a side note: Katherine could’ve easily been darker skinned, or Taelia could’ve been outright Black. People have this idea that “Oh no, if you’re dark skinned it means your parents are dark skinned, and if you’re light skinned it means your parents are lightskinned or one parent is white”, and that is completely and utterly incorrect.
Someone who looks phenotypically “White” can have a Black parent, and someone who is very dark can have a white parent.
But what can I expect from a franchise that didn’t think to have a single Black Human be a central lore character during the whole trajectory.
Which, the fact all Human Central Lore Characters are white just reifies the whole dynamic lol
The Greedy Goblin trope was dead by the end of the 20th century outside of Tolkien-derivatives (D&D, Warhammer, WoW, etc) until Rowling revived it for Young Adult Fantasy Romance Novels™
Precisely, which given Taunka are a Tauren offshot, just reaffirms that the “Yaungol-Taurent-Taunka race family are all mean to be Amerindigenous Metaphors”, with the Yaungol serving the role of reifying the “Bering Strait” narrative (as they are also based on Mongols).
Nobody is saying that lmao but everyone lacks self awareness
Hell, I got a nosejob when I was a teenager, because I felt ugly, because everyone said it made me ugly. It wasn’t until years later I understood it was because I had inherited the “Black” nose from my mother’s side and the white-mestizo side of my family constantly made me feel bad about it and I didn’t have the confidence to love my body as an adolescent against that narrative.
e.g.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdyin6uipy4&ab_channel=CollegeHumor
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I can like both, it really depends. But WC3’s story was really something I enjoyed and liked the change. Heck I even loved the Trolls in WC2 because they were described as a long attacked people.
I read that Tolkien thought he possibly made a mistake with the always evil Orcs. It’s something, if true.
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See, I actually don’t have a problem with this as a general rule. And no, I’m not saying that “because I’m cracker-white IRL” (I actually am).
The thing about this is, if “non-human races = People of Color,” then they actually have to be shown as…people.
Shocking, I know, but this was the whole point of the original Warcraft III days, that “fleshing-out” of this multi-racial world where humans are not only not the only race in the world, but they’re not even the defining race of the world. From the night elves to the tauren to the trolls and yes, to the orcs themselves fighting to prove that they’ve redeemed themselves of demonic corruption, there was that theme of, “well, there’s only one ‘human race,’ but there are multiple races of people, of intelligent living beings, each with their own traditions and culture.”
All of that has pretty much been lost in translation ever since Garrosh dropped the bomb on Theramore, and it’s steadily gone downhill from there.
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Unironically using College Humor to make a point. That’s sad.
I can see some merit in this idea, but wouldn’t it work just as well with the non-human races having characteristics mostly associated with historically white cultures? Imagine if the gilneans had simply been British wolf-people and not cursed humans, for example!
And It certainly doesn’t require nearly all of the many POC cultures present in the story to be nonhumans, right?
You’d also probably want to make them… not elves. Add a little bit of “ugly” in there or make them animals, so it’s fair.
I wouldn’t mind my culture be represented by uhhh… what’s a stereotypical animal round here? A woodland boar?
Oh, absolutely—that’s my point. Orcs don’t need to be human to be compelling; they were plenty compelling all through Reign of Chaos and into Vanilla.
By the same token, sure; the worgen being a race of “natural” (druid-friendly) werewolves instead of humans who got bitten wouldn’t make them any less badass.
It’s when we start getting narratives of, “well, orcs/trolls will always be barbaric, because that’s just how orcs/trolls are” (which does go back to Tolkien and the Alliance of Lordaeron) that the trouble starts.
Hey, man…elves and phoenixes? Imagine if the blood/high elves were instead arrakoa and we had bird people to play with in Quel’thalas.
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What, you don’t think the fact every single location of the South Amerindigenious + Caribbean + African race has been rendered an instance where we go in and kill Living Trolls, Undead Trolls, or Dead Trolls (ZG, ZA, ZF, ZD, DA, AD, and even the damn Other Side) is problematic at least on some level? While also having one of the most iconic Troll leaders be killed in an act of imperial aggression by the Alliance? While Blizzard originally also planned to villain bat one of the most important Loa of all Trolls that is one of the only in-game Loa based a upon real-life Voodoo Loa?
Ignoring Elluriah (as I usually do), but especially because she is ignoring the entirety of my previous post to do “gotcha” crap.
I mean that’s what we have. None of the human races, or human-looking races (Dwarves, Gnomes) have any aspect of their world-building aesthetic as a derivative of a subaltern people from the Global North or of a people in the Global South.
Could they have at any point in the past 30 years before the lore solidified and fermented into what it is such that retcons are obvious and egregious, yes.
Did they? No.
“Ah but you see, Garrosh being an Orc-Supremacist was just like White Supremacy!”
I think it’s safe to say the writers have a bit of a chicken/egg problem when it comes to the Horde.
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Oh and lets not even get into how all the Human Kingdoms, Gnomes, and Dwarves find their origin in the Hellenic-Roman-Norse (with token “Ra” but he still looks Not African lmao) Titan Pantheon of Order, that until five minutes ago were the highest level of power in the game.
Chronicles then came and “revealed” Orcs aren’t indigenous species to Draenor but actually also Titanic.
But Everyone Else is either Animal-Wild-God based species (Tauren ie Amerindigenous, Pandaren ie East Asians, Vulpera ie Romani) or still a “mystery” (Trolls, and all Elves derived from Trolls, as well as Draenei)
I’m not disagreeing with any of what you just said—that’s my point. It’s problematic in that
and
and
That’s what I’m saying; emphasize the culture. Emphasize the people. Emphasize the fact that “non-human =/= barbarians.”
Oh, absolutely.
With more than a hint of “Lore Tone-Deafness.”
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(that was me being sarcastic and pearl clutching for dramatic effect 
lol )
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I think it would, actually. I figured the whole point of introducing a werewolf theme is the drama and in-game fear of infection, turning into a monster and possibly going crazy because of it. Ignoring all of that in favor of them being natural is already close to how they are now, where the curse was all-but-cured and only referenced again in the heritage questline.
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Because, yeah—at the end of the day, this is a fantasy game. It should be fun.
And it is fun to have big, musclebound green people running around with cow-people running around with trolls who have tusks coming out of their mouths, etc.etc.
As long as it is established that these are people.
And not, “Oh, monsters 'cause they look different and go around killing people!”
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