Leave it to Horde players to try to shout down someone who experiences irl racism because it interferes with their moral high horse, and the “colonial coded” Alliance.
Honestly, the fact anyone thinks the Alliance is European coded just shows how ignorant people are about European culture and history.
Europe is more than just England, and Europe didn’t have a monopoly on fuedal systems of government where birthright determined whether you where nobility.
Right, because we’re definitely not given that impression in virtually every novel and game of the original Warcraft era…
Also, name-dropping “Garithos” isn’t an argument. And Daelin Proudmoore was very much an example of the “old” Alliance at the beginning of a new era—that was the whole point of the Orc Campaign “Old Hatreds.” It was to demonstrate that Thrall’s Horde wasn’t Gul’dan’s Horde, and used Daelin as a villain to demonstrate that.
It is when his entire character is a direct and obvious contradiction to your point.
…except it isn’t? My point was that men like Garithos, who stood for human supremacy, were the rule of the Alliance of Lordaeron, not the exception.
His character—along with a whole host of other examples in the supplemental material I have already cited—is in no way a “contradiction” of that.
Even in Wrath of the Lich King we have Varian Wrynn going on a full-on rant where he talks about his dream of “a world without the Horde,” in which he specifically refers to orcs as “green-skinned aberrations.”
You may not want the traditionally human-dominated Alliance to have been racist in the past, but there is a heap of glaring evidence that it very much was.
Yeah, this is a quagmire best not gone down tbh. The slightly creepy reality that the majority of the non European inspired racial cultures happen to be on the by default evil, flawed faction. While the Alliance is overwhelmingly inspired by classic European cultural tropes, and is increasingly portrayed as flawless and pure. How the most “by-default” good portrayed races on the Horde are the Horde Elves, the most traditionally Euro-Inspired Horde races. And even they get some flak.
I don’t think this is intentional by any metric, but I do think the Blizz writers have a few comfort zones that results in these sort of strange phenomena.
First off Varian had to live as a gladiator for orcs entertainment, plus his father was murdered by one at a young age. He’s kind of given leeway for not liking orcs, but does overcome that eventually.
… But it is
Which European Cultures, exactly?
England I guess? Vrykul are definitely based off of Scandinavian Viking specially being overly exaggerated.
I guess all you need to be culturally coded is an accent.
Does that make him any less prejudiced?
No, it doesn’t.
By the same token the original Alliance of Lordaeron had reasons for why they believed the orcs of the original, pre-Thrall Horde were nothing more than warmongering, demon-crazed monsters—that was their only frame of reference from having fought the Horde during the Second War.
Had the Scourge and the Cult of the Damned not struck when they did, it’s entirely possible that Thrall and the Alliance might have come to an uneasy, but peaceful understanding eventually, especially after Blackmoore’s death in Lord of the Clans—Jaina herself notes that Blackmoore will likely not be missed even by his fellow humans. Not to mention that in Rise of the Lich King, Antonidas actually suggests studying the orcs in order to devise a method for curing their addiction to felblood, for example.
And that’s my point; none of the other leaders in the original Alliance of Lordaeron were cartoonishly-racist ala Garithos; Garithos was more a symptom/product of that society than anything else. The average Alliance leader was far more nuanced ala Daelin Proudmoore: “I’m not ‘racist,’ I’m just protecting my people from this ‘lesser race of murderous brutes.’”
Well Terenas (who was king and not racist) didn’t even want to put them in camps, he believed with time they’d calm down but considering other kingdoms wanted them dead camps where all he could do.
Also Garithos is an outlier not the rule.
I’ve already provided examples that prove that isn’t true.
Humans have English overtones with a dash of Germanic. Dwarves are overly stereotype Scottish in their aesthetics. Gilneans again English. Draenei share a lot of themes with classic Byzantium (Eastern Roman). Including the names of their government officials being called Exarch, and their conflicts with the Mongols/Huns (which the Orcs are a compilation of). And despite the strangely “eastern” inspired construction of the NEs, they do have a lot of Celtic undertones. Then of course the Light is clearly rooted in some Christain themes, with even the Naaru being Angelic beings and guides to the Light.
All races of Warcraft tend to be hodgepodge compilations of various RW cultures mashed into a High Magic setting. But yes, the roots of most Alliance races come from traditional Euro-Fantasy cultural themes.
Even high elven architecture has been linked to French Art Nouveau, with the Kaldorei, of course, being based off of Ancient Greek/Celtic cultures.
There are Korean and Japanese influences as well, including in the architecture and the introduction of Kimchi as something that they eat.
If only that influence would have included Hwatchas. 
Then when compared to the Horde. We have the Orcs, a compilation of Mongol and Hunnic cultural themes. We have the Trolls, depending on the tribed we have indigenousness Mezo and South American; Afro-Caribbean; and even a dash of Indigenous West African with parts of Zandalar. You have the Tauren, who clearly are a weird miasma of Indigenous North American peoples. And now the Vulpera, a loose combination of Roma and Bedouin aesthetics. The Forsaken have serious Leper Colony vibes too.
Akiyass point is this, you do understand that England isn’t Europe right? That it has a varied group of countries, each with it’s own unique and beautiful but complicated culture right?
I think we can trace that back to Tolkien. It’s not that Blizzard is malicious, it’s just that they tend to do what already works. They’ve allways been like that, with a few exceptions.