There definitely are darker story elements, but the overall narrative (largely on the side of our protagonists) winds up in a very neutered-feeling place that leaves something lacking from the outcome.
Many of these story arcs are good, but when all of them are put together for the expansion, the “common thread” being communicated feels heavy-handed in a way that leaves things feeling pacified rather than empowered, if that makes sense.
Cause Warcraft is now in the 10th age of Middle Earth. The elves are back, but they’re mortal and the humans are still fighting in Gondor against the Robot forces of Morgoth…aka Dreadlord Jaina.
And Smaug actually was a robot dragon engineer who built an army of flightless lizard dragons that have to ride other dragons because he still wants to take over GoldShire because it has red goats now
It all makes perfect sense
It’s embarassing to like WoW.
Is it more embarrassing to post on their forums if you don’t like wow?
The races haven’t ‘lost their teeth’, the world’s just come together enough times that everyone sees that cooperation is infinitely preferable to constant and endless warfare.
I kind of feel like society has finally scooched into a place where this and many other mental health issues are finally becoming de-stigmatized, demystified and just really, general knowledge.
I’m so proud of humanity as a whole because it’s a huge milestone for us sadly.
I mean, I grew up in a house where my parents were involved in a Christian cult that blamed everything on demons, including depression, anxiety, fear, stuttering, panic attacks, nightmares… you know, all the stuff they were afflicting their kids with ironically. That was the 80s and 90s and I had no understanding of what was going on or that I even needed help.
Kids these days have so much more education and support on these matters, and that’s awesome, and really, its only natural that this cultural paradigm shift works its way into our entertainment too.
I’m not saying everything should be carebears holding hands or something, but, we aren’t going to pretend anymore like war and abuse don’t trainwreck a soul either. That would be laughably (or disturbingly?) unrealistic.
Says the expired, rotten human named after the Nightborne’s own leader.
Humans are the most boring thing you can be, because we are all humans IRL and don’t get a choice.
You’re wasting that choice, basically. You’ve got a world of stuff that isn’t real, and you choose the one thing you’ll be IRL, no matter what.
It’s lame as hell, lol.
I get people do it for self-insert reasons, but imo these folks just need to try harder, imagine themselves as an elf or something.
As for OP- It’s because every race is made ‘by humans’. Every single race in this game, is a caricature of some human emotion, cranked up to 11. Goblins are just humanity’s greed, incarnate in a race, for example.
100% agree!
Yes, but this also is a fantasy world that doesn’t necessarily need to reflect our own perfectly.
There’s a balancing point between ‘badass fantasy escapism’ and ‘maybe we should be implementing irl lessons learned to our fantasies’ and I just think Dragonflight has erred a little too far towards the latter.
Yeah it’s such a weird theme and doesn’t feel anything like Warcraft.
Races are not just cosmetic decisions, they should reflect their culture. Dwarves are materialistic, but craft amazing works. Trolls practice dark magic, Orcs are a warrior race that feel lost without conquest. Humans are noble, but often flawed and have ulterior selfish motives, etc.
This sudden amalgamation of races and factions and effortless soothing cooperation is cringey and so out of place.
There’s plenty of lore and culture behind every race in the game that you don’t need to think about it too hard.
Example questline:
Baine and …the highmountain one, whatever her name is. They finally want to get married or tie the knot or whatever cows do. You can choose who you want to help prepare for the event, either Baine, or Baine’s wife, if you go with Baine you have to do a series of events revolving around proving your worth to her people and showing that you’re strong enough and wise enough to handle the responsiblity. Baine has some doubts, because he’s baine and he’s been doubting himself since his father died, so you two go back to Mulgore and decide that the best way for him to move past the doubt is to speak to the reason behind it, and try to commune with Cairne and get his blessing for the event. Cairne shows up and explains to Baine that he’s been through so much already that has proven these things, etcetc We Tauren are hardy not just in body but in spirit, the Earthmother guides us etcetc. Baine is ready.
It’s simple, it’s true to the race/culture of the race, it’s not humanized. At least I don’t think it is anyway.
What you described here, none of this isn’t human though.
Unless talking to spirits and praising their chosen deity, which humans can do, is somehow not human.
It comes across to me that it’s only the “particulars” that people actually care about. Take a character, replace the terms they use around and suddenly that’s culture.
That’s true. Although I see these themes as just general for any sentience and not just our world.
I think oldschool star trek actually does a superb job of having varied, different races, that feel different, act different, think different… there is no mistaking them for humans, and yet they are still relatable because we are all just here, fumbling around, trying to make sense of what it is to be alive, and trying to find happiness too…
Storytelling and fairtytales and myths though, it should be said, evolved to reflect different shades of humanity. Monsters were our dark sides… angels, the good in us… the weirder a story got, traditionally at least, the deeper into the human psyche you were delving. I think its a deeply entrenched habbit in us, thats a little hard to shake, this somehow always writing about ourselves.
Pretty much? That’s all culture is really. What I described is a human issue, but told through a very Tauren way of viewing the world.
Which circles back to my point and confusion.
Why does everyone cry about every race feeling like they are human, when every race is basically human with terms swapped around?
Nothing says lovey-dovey like genocide and terrorist attacks
I would like for there to be a third faction that just wants to see the world burn. This way I can go join that group with my Forsaken and hang out, maybe have a few world burning parties.
I think it’s because all the races are acting like humans, like when you read about the culture and lore of a race and see how they do things, to have them suddenly just acting like a regular human is weird.
The Night Elves are a good example, suddenly Maiev is perfectly fine with her culture changing out of nowhere? Why? There’s been no build up or conflict within the Kaldorei society to warrant it, they’ve had plenty of things happen to them from the outside but why would that suddenly make them change 1000’s of years of beliefs? It’s a very human decision and not one we’d expect from a near feral, stoic and culturally stubborn race like the Night Elves.
So a culture can only exist in fantasy if everyone is a “race of hats” that are unchanging then? That is what makes a culture a culture, at least as far as fantasy goes.
That’s usually how fantasy races work, and in most of those cases I can think of, they are like that to show the human exceptionalism that they are able to adapt and grow.
Which to me is like…far worse lol.
It’s not about not changing it’s about suddenly changing without a proper reasoning or story behind it to fufill the beliefs and understanding of the humans writing it instead of the pre-established lore built beforehand.
So what you’re saying is, for a character or a race to have any type of changes, it would need to be a very long process?
For mages for example, night elf characters would need to first level up a character, then do a quest long questline, before then being allowed to make a mage?
Or for a character, to have a belief, and stubbornly hold to that belief for multiple questlines before they ‘learn a lesson’?
Because that’s just how questing in WoW, hell in Warcraft has just always been. The “lesson” learned is done over the course of a questline and then we move on. That’s not necessarily a “human” trait either. The only time it has ever really “taken a while” has been in books because well…those are books.
EDIT: If you do not laser focus on the ‘learn a lesson’ part I will be very disappointed with myself lol