I mean you’re not wrong. Flop sweat has been used as a joke in comedy movies and other TV skits, take these two GIFs for example:
Both would be considered ‘flop sweat’ which is a nervous sweat. It’s heavily exaggerated in both of these examples. But in most cases it’s like the first gif I posted. A few drops of sweat rolling down the face, because the individual is nervous about what could happen.
Captain America: Winter Soldier shows this off quite well too:
It’s not something that most people would ‘smell’. Very faint sweat like that generally has no odour at all, or at least not one perceptible to most people. But to a mole-person like the Niffen? They’d pick it up easily enough.
When we first met him in Dragonflight, he was secure in his belief that he was the heir to the Black Dragonflight, that it was his legacy, that no other Dragon, save perhaps Ebyssian, could take it from him, and Ebyssian seemed to be perfectly happy with staying in Highmountain and protecting the Tauren there.
But after Sabellian showed up, that upended everything. Not only is Sabellian also a son of Neltharion, he has far more draconic support than Wrathion does (most of his support comes in the form of his Blacktalons, who are not Dragons and after Sabellian shows up he actually loses what little draconic support he has when his blacksmith switches sides to Sabellian).
And after what happened with the Black Dragon Eggs, now Wrathion is nervous, nervous that despite all his efforts, he may not become the aspect of the Black Dragonflight after all, that Sabellian may usurp him and take that position that he feels is his.
Horde is good until Blizzard decides they want to advance the plot in some trashy way. The fourth war was just a plot device for sylvanas. Can’t do it to the alliance because of how awesome we are and also because some of the characters are writer pets. Anduin is a king and since anything the alliance does as a result is tied to him we will never get the alliance doing anything bad.
To me, this isn’t a matter of whether it’s racist or not racist. It’s simply an opportunity for people in my community to speak about this matter and how they personally feel about such word usages in fiction. I can’t speak on behalf of 1 billion people. Cause I feel like we don’t really get much representation or a place to discuss what aspects of our culture we feel is nice to be represented, and what aspects would make us uncomfortable. I feel like it’s not really right for that person to invalidate that or to speak over our personal experiences. Let alone pulling the racism card against us.
You have to thank the writing for this. With the general push and bias for Horde, the Alliance-players not only suffered a victim complex (rightfully so), but the shift in playing Horde mandatory also moved many Alliance-players towards the non-war situation. Blood Elf-players are also a problem, which caused an immense shift.
The developers put themselves into a corner, including the writers. What WoW lacks are a LOT of quiet moments where the current situation is just discussed within the characters, which also clarifies where everyone stands.
Fear/stress/pain sweat absolutely has a distinct smell from excercise sweat or heat sweat or “oops I’m a teenage boy and I forgot my deodorant god help anyone nearby”.
Like anything else, once you get a “search image” for it, you can pick it up. Now where the shrew man is finding anxious dragons…
And hygiene and food tend to be easy targets for "other"ing outgroups. I’m not sure that’s the intention with this – I suspect the humor is Wrathion’s projected persona vs his massive insecurities-- but it’s not surprising that it could potentially read as problematic.
Sure, but the point I was making is that generally speaking, you wouldn’t be able to smell that type of sweat (especially if there’s a fragrance being used) unless there was a LOT of it. BO on the other hand, the type you get from working out or doing any sort of manual labor for a long time, or sweat from being outside in hot weather, that can be picked up on real quick. In this case there isn’t a lot of sweat, we mortals wouldn’t be able to smell it over the fragrance that Wrathion uses, it’s just that the Niffen have a really strong sense of smell so they can pick up on that.
And again, I’ll stress this point, spices have been used as fragrances for centuries. We mainly associate spices with foods, because most of them can be used in cooking as well but there are a LOT of spices that can also be used as fragrance. For example, cinnamon, saffron, nutmeg and mace.
I seriously doubt that the Niffen is pointing out spices because Wrathion is an amazing Chef and uses all sorts of spices to cook.
Yeah, I really feel it’s a combination of wanting to have a humorous bit with the flop scent next to smelling classy combined with something with a sensitive nose listing scents kinda like flavors in a wine tasting, and the fact that “Spices” covers such a broad range of things, and unfortunately that term also covers something that’s connected to nastier stereotypes.
If they want to eliminate the confusion but keep the same feel, they probably just need to go a little more precise and use some specifics that we know are used for pleasant scents still. Like I mean, I use a body wash with a juniper and sage scent to it so list a couple things like that that should make it clear it’s not referring to the other thing but still lets the Niffen’s line have the feel of scenting notes.
Nah, the nervousness, I expect is coming from him being intimidated.
Since Sabellian challenged his claim to the heir of the Black Dragonflight he’s been puffing himself up, trying to make himself appear worthy, but unfortunately for Wrathion, Sabellian has more draconic support than he does (especially since he lost his blacksmith to Sabellian, one of the only Drakonid actually supporting him before the assault on the Obsidian Citadel).
Sabellian intimidates him, that I suspect is where the flop sweat comes from.
Fine, maybe he’s nervous because he made lots of great %#$&&$ing cinnamon rolls for all the black dragons, their hangers-on, and local freerange organic champions… so he really hopes we all like them.
I think he’s still upset that he had Sabellian where he wanted him, he had tattled on him to Mommy Dragon that he got all the eggs broken and he was going to be in troubbbblllee. Then that mean older dragon tricked him and ended up having saved the eggs after all.
(this post brought to you by 4am and the fact that I just got my DH to 70 earlier tonight and did that bit of questing to help get there)
