That’s sort of a tonal problem built into a lot of the fantasy genre and I think it’s at worst unconciously racist.
Suffice to say I think Gary Gygax put a lot of chaotic evil humanoid races into D&D because he was making a game that needed fun monsters to fight. Not because he was a secret fascist sympathizer.
WoW has a similar problem that’s all the more notable because it largely bucks the chaotic evil race trope. Orcs, trolls, minotaurs and the living dead - all common fantasy fodder - are basically just people who can be reasonable and friendly. That was a real cool idea that I think is largely responsible for Warcraft’s enduring popularity.
Trouble is - it’s also a fantasy adventure game, and needs fun monsters to kill. So you do get certain races or aspects of races that are all lunatic slaver, cannibal occultists who know only violence.
The Horde’s not immune from this either. It’s still amusing to me Classic Durotar says “These filthy humans are encroaching on our land! Kill them! Now go encroach on the Quilboar’s land!”. But again, I think that was just a quick justification for a fantasy fight not a writer’s attempt to justify Manifest Destiny.
And yeah giving the Trolls both the jungle savages routine and the Afro-Caribbean cultural vibes was a pretty bad idea. But it’s there now and all they can really do is course correct, which is what they appear to be doing.
Anf frankly I also think it has a lot to do with just playing to an American audience. For another example some Scarlet Crusaders and Cult of the Damned have vaguely German and Russian accents. You know, the bad guy European accents not the good guy English or Scottish ones.
Not necessarily “multiple persons” because that’s not really how games are made. Sure, it’s possible that one person put the whelps in game and that person intended for them to be children. Then another person who wrote the quest put those npcs as the target of the quest, without realizing they were children and not just “whelps.” Of course, small kill quests like these hardly get noticed by the approval stage, so it gets green lit without stopping to consider the implications.
But that all assuming the artist in question actually intended for them to be children.
I’m trying to say this as nicely and delicately as possible, but the issue is they were clearly targeting a white American audience because a good number of the cultures they borrowed from and bastardized are also American cultures.
I’m not pointing this out as a way of saying the people involved in these decisions were terrible horrible people. The issue is implicit bias, which affects everyone.
I do agree that it seems like they want to course correct, but if they do not acknowledge and address that original mistake they will only continue to make it.
I’m considerably less charitable than you about the awfulness of unconscious racism in fantasy when it’s as straight-up as 'yeah we took racist stereotypes and put some tusks and blue paint on ‘em’, or the amount of criticism that should be aimed at someone woopsy-doodlying into writing a story that justifies Manifest Destiny, but I do agree that the problem’s built straight into the foundations of the modern fantasy genre, from Tolkien’s evil ‘less lovely mongol sort’ orcs in the east and Robert E. Howard’s ramblings on degenerate effete civilization vs manly iron-thewed barbarism vs inhuman animalistic savagery on down through their descendants.
But…I got bad news 'bout Gary Gyax .
Paladins are not stupid, and in general there is no rule of Lawful Good against killing enemies. The old addage about nits making lice applies. Also, as I have often noted, a paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good. They are then sent on to their reward before thay can backslide !
Cheers,
Gary
Chivington might have been quoted as saying “nits make lice,” but he is certainly not the first one to make such an observation as it is an observable fact. If you have read the account of wooden Leg, a warrior of the Cheyenne tribe that fought against Custer et al., he dispassionately noted killing an enemy squaw for the reason in question.
“Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians! … I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians. … Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice!”
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Chivington
Hey look, we circled back to talking about killing kids again!
They would attack you regardless of whether you were on the quest or not. So, no. Just Trolls being Trolls.
You mean the Soothsayers like Rikkari who’s telling the children that they’re going to take over The Valley?
Yeah, you’re not helping your case much.
I agree, that is a perfect description of your argument.
Especially on account I didn’t even START this argument. You did. I was perfectly satisfied with agreeing that the quest was effed-up. But you STILL wanted to argue, like you always do.
“Rationalizing” the murder of children like that is disgusting.
They are helping very much so. They have to comfort the children which are full with fear.
You simply went full over board and went “Nuh huh, they aren’t children. They can’t meant to be children.”
Sometimes you have to know when to stop. Especially if you arguably don’t disagree.
.