Blizzard: Good point, they should be more than just chefs and monks. And farmers, but I mean EVERY culture has farmers… hmm, I know! Let’s have them also do laundry!
Actually, I don’t see why making it turn out Wrathion is also a good cook, and we’re just never seen him cooking before would be a bad thing.
Ngl tho I’d love it if I can karate chop my laundry and instantly have it dry, fresh, and folded
Than they roundhouse kick your clothes and they all fly into your closet and dresser draws as if by magic 
I’ll put it simply. It’s been quite a widespread thing for bigoted people to complain about that middle eastern and south asian people “smell” (although they use a more negative word) of certain things such as oils, sweat and some spices.
just to be clear, you guys are aware that I the joke I was making was about Blizzard foolishly making pandaren even more stereotypical, right?
Oh dear. Well that’s another good example of how people can be ignorant of a culture that isn’t their own.
What I mean is that adding the bit about expensive oils shows that he deliberately chooses to smell that way and it’s not just accidental.
I would point out his “smelling of spice/expensive oil” does not seem to be portrayed in a negative light. At worse it seem to be a neutral “this is how you smell” deal.
Wrathion HAS always struck me as someone very vain, self-conscious, and not as confident as he desperately WANTS everyone to think he is, explaining why he secretly smells of sweat when a really experienced sniffer catches his scent… not that he hasn’t shown bravery, but then I consider bravery/courage to be overcoming your fears, not being fearless in the first place.
So breath being bad is racist now as well?
This is another thing that bothers me. We’re looking at characters in Azeroth right? Vol’jin is not the first character to be described as having bad breath, because, yeah, dental hygiene probably isn’t a widespread thing. Hell, every single Forsaken is going to have breath that could flatten a Kul Tiran if they breathed on them.
It’s not a racist thing to point out, within a context of a story or character detail, that someone’s breath is bad. This is a case of major over-reactions to something that is extremely harmless, especially given the context of the world of Azeroth. You see any toothpaste, toothbrushes or mouthwash?
This reminds me of the rage surrounding that line from the exploring Kalimdor book where it was revealed that Zekhan was getting taught how to read and write from Lor’themar Theron and people flipped the hell out because it was apparently racist.
But here’s what those people completely overlooked. Educational standards are not high on Azeroth. Schools are few and far between. Zekhan isn’t even the first character in a WoW book who has been described as being unable to read. Long before Zekhan was even a character, Thrall was taught how to read and write by a human tutor, much to the initial displeasure of Aedelas Blackmoore, but it was his Sergeant Master of Arms that convinced him that it was important for him to be taught and when Thrall escaped he was captured by soldiers from Major Remka’s camp, who confiscated the letters that Taretha had sent Thrall. They couldn’t read them, and one of the guards even points this out in the conversation they’re having. Even when they get the letters to Remka, who is again a Major within the Alliance military. She can’t read them either. Because when one of the guards who confiscated the letters hands them to Blackmoore, he sheepishly states that she ‘hadn’t had a chance to look at them’ which Blackmoore immediately realized meant that Remka couldn’t read.
He however, being a wealthy nobleman, absolutely could read, so he was the first person to read those letters other than Thrall and Taretha, exposing the fact that Taretha had been helping and was extremely kind to Thrall, which is what led to her death at Blackmoore’s drunken hands.
How was Taretha able to read and write since she was a commoner? Well when Taretha and her family were able to prevent an infant Thrall from dying (Thrall needed milk since he was a baby and the older Foxtons, Taretha’s parents were unaware of this and had been trying to feed him solids until Taretha spoke up about it) they were elevated to well above their station, and part of that elevation for Taretha meant she got an education and, unfortunately for her, also became Blackmoore’s mistress.
No, i was wrong. I said in the final version of the questline, it had nothing to do with Vol’jin smelling but the whole camp, only to follow that specifically with “also Vol’jins breath stank”. Which was classy lol.
The rest of your post ill address later, at gym lol
Since his very inception as a character he styled himself a “Prince.” That has been a facet of every aspect of his character from wearing expensive looking clothes to presenting himself as above everyone else. It is deliberate and it’s not even out of character for his flight. His father, brother and sister all masqueraded as Arathi nobles of royal lineage.
He smells like expensive oils and spices because he’s a Prince.
Another possible facet could be that the majority of spices native to Azeroth are grown in Pandaria, where Wrathion made his home. It’s part of his established identity and he would wear perfume to honor his home and his culture, and his family, and position as Heir of the Blackdragonflight.
Baal already explained the issue w the wording they chose.
And to be very clear I feel like this is a good opportunity to point out it’s important to listen to people instead of speaking over them on topics like this.
I was about to say, we just had a whole conversation about why the wording they used is really bad. Even if that wasn’t their intention, it just looks, well, really ugly from the our perspective
Out of morbid curiosity.
Had they had gone with something significantly more American like “cologne” or something like that would that still run foul?
Like I said earlier in the discussion, they could have simply had the NPC say something along the lines of Hmm, he smells nice and left it at that.
But the wording, combined with Wrathions dark complexion, it’s just super ugly as it currently stands
We’re listening, but just because someone speaks, doesn’t mean they’re correct.
Baal’s argument relies on making broad assumptions about what influenced Wrathion’s character development at Blizzard Entertainment. Which has never been confirmed. It also relies on using an outdated character model that is, I believe, only used in Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria quest chains, as Blizzard has not changed Wrathion’s model there with the new one as far as I am aware. He’s also ignoring the fact that spices have been used as fragrance for generations by multiple cultures across the globe.
If Blizzard was still using the old model for Wrathion, slightly updated to make it look better, then yeah, Baal’s argument would make more sense. But they (Blizzard) listened to feedback surrounding Wrathion’s model and changed it, so now he’s a vastly different character, and clearly one that likes to smell nice.
Could it be someone at Blizzard trying to throw in something racist? Maybe, but I doubt it given how Blizzard has worked really hard on Dragonflight to remove stuff like that and work with the people they theme their cultures after so make sure that it’s not offensive/racist towards those people.
Hell when Baal and others complained about Orc and Tauren Priests being ripped from human culture (with their NPCs being titled ‘Brother’ or ‘Sister’) Blizzard listened and made changes so that the NPCs were culturally appropriate. So I seriously doubt something like this would fly under their radar. It’s likely been vetted and seen as harmless.
That seems like projected racism. Who ever came up with the idea that “because he’s brown and smells like spice this is inherently racist” should probably check his own ingrained racism.
People don’t jump to those kinds of conclusions naturally. Wrathion is styled after Arab people, with his clothing and his style. Arab people are culturally very clean. cleaner than most Americans or Europeans. And like Zerde pointed out, the Niffen are not being negative about it other than the implication that he’s nervous and they can smell his nervousness.
Does Baal think Arab and Indian people are dirty? because thats racist.
I wish Alynsa was here so she could give her first hand accounts on how Baal made her feel as an Indian woman in this forum.
So because of his dark skin a joke that he smells bad is racist? Had he been white the joke would have been fine?
Interesting.
How is taking an Arab coded character, and then have another character say he smells of Spices and flop sweat not racist sounding?
Not that I think it was intentional, but it seems they implied the dude smells so he has to cover it up.