“…negative stereotypes towards the Horde.”Do people even realize this is all imaginary? You’re allowed to be “racist” toward fantasy characters.
Don't put your back out over this one
I think the issue is with using real-world comparisons in a fantasy environment.
Crying about racism in a game that's actually about a to-the-death racewar between different species at least one of which is an invader from another world is basically a demonstration how people have lost touch with reality and how society is now a race to the bottom.
To think people are pissed off because of "racism" In a fictional game and fantasy world is so PC it makes me sick. In one sense it is blizzard that ruined wow but at the same time the consumers have ruined it as well. Cancel culture ruins everything
What I found the most absurd in the previous article was the part about Zekhan not knowing things … This is a fallacy made by people from the XXI century: They have access to more knowledge than any other period in human history (at least for the people reading & writing this) so they believe it has always been like this. Anyone ignorant is therefore perceived as “inferior” because they should have been taught by then.This is just plain wrong.Ignorance is not a sin or a crime, for many, many, many years and in most human culture, the average person in society knew very little thing and was very proficient in a tiny skillset depending on his job.Therefore it’s not shocking that, in a fantasy game, characters here aren’t necessarely educated at young age, because it was not necessary to do so in their culture, like in many cultures in human history.
All out racewar with genocide... well that is completly ok.Book where you could draw parallels to real world ethnicities... how dare you!Tribal war orphan turned soldier can't read? Oh the humanity how dare you!Ultra capitalist Goblins use slavery... like... sooooo many other races in wow. (we litteraly enslave demons who are just races in itself as player) how could they.This getting ridicoulus... seriously... a few month ago i would have described myself a woke as #$%^... i fought for Pelagos and Shawn/Flynn. I fought for the changes of NPCs to reflect more ethnicities... but this?What do you want? Teletubbies with massmurder? Don't be racist to the race that killed nearly all of your people. Just KILL them... so much bette and no thinks that is problematic at all^^
Isn't the book already out?
How can a fictional character reinforce stereotypes when none of the original stereotypes are present…?I’m as liberal as I come and even I don’t get this. The original article says they’re “heavily criticized” and then they give zero links or references to anyone else critizing them except for the writer of the article.
I don't think something being published and then unlisted is a "production delay" issue. Virtual copies were available from the 7th until today and now are no longer able to purchased. Given the immense amount of negative feedback this book has gotten not only for its reliance on vacuous and hurtful stereotypes (I get it, fictional world, go ahead and tell me what accent Trolls talk in) and nonsensical character work (Gazlowe as a tyrant, Zehkan, a shaman, somehow doesn't know what erosion is) but also its massive continuity errors (The Dark Portal was opened 1000 years ago during the War of the Ancients), I think the removal of virtual copies likely is unrelated to the difficulties of publishing right now.
I think the criticisms of Rexxar and Gazlowe are valid but everything else people are whining about is kind of silly.
The book is terrible, but it's a self-contained kind of terrible, not racist-kind of terrible. It does disservice to the world it's trying to paint, undermines many characters and contains blatant continuity mistakes. It is for these reasons that it deserves criticism.People should really stop trying to project their own issues on fantasy characters.
Regarding Zekhan and the whole erosion thing: I think folks got the wrong idea about that. I think it's entirely possible to know what a concept is while also not necessarily knowing whether or not there's a word for it. I think that's the case here. Zekhan knows what erosion is, just didn't know there was a word for it.
UghIt's not that in-universe characters are in-universe racist to reach other, people, that's fine and it makes sense from a story perspective. The criticism is about stuff like Jamaican-accented non-white character needs to be taught to read and write by white skinned english-accented expert despite trolls having had writing before the elves ever evolved, and needing to have elemental interactions explained to him by a hunter despite being a shaman. Basing the Warcraft races on real world races leads to interactions between those races being suspect, intentional or otherwise.
The only problem I can see here is that EK book was as it was mentioned in other article "love letter to the Alliance", while they want to make Kalimdor one about how Horde races hate and mistrust each other.This clearly shows which faction is Blizzard writers' favorite one...
I don't really think it's so much racist, as Goblins poisoning water isn't because they're spiteful like sterotypes, it's because they really don't care about safety and sainitation. They have had suicide units pretty much from day one. Gazlow acting like Gallywix is 100% a problem but the novels don't always maintain consistent characterization so I don't put too much on it. I think we should prioritize real world racism before we start tackling fantasy counterpart stuff.
"How can fantasy races be compared to real world races" is not as thoughtful of a response to the criticism as some people think it is. Things come from places. These character races do not exist in a vacuum - trolls are very clearly modeled upon several groups of people, foremost among them the people of a number peoples from the Caribbean, as a topical example. For this reason, the inclusion of stereotypes that have been invoked in non-fiction regarding these people are reflective of that real world stereotype being just the same applied to these groups. So when someone says "This is a stereotype and that kind of sucks", they are specifically speaking about the fact that these stereotypes have been applied to minority groups from whence much of the influence for those races in World of Warcraft are derived. It is not a particularly good faith response and I feel that this is a crucial piece of understanding that people should come to when faced with POC speaking on a topic.
You know. With how many times Wowhead has blocked the conversation from happening on other post, I always assumed it would just be people agreeing with the changes. But its good to see people standing up against real world politics in a FANTASY WORLD THAT HAS 0 - ZLITCH - NADDA connection to our world / reality. Lets keep it that way. Let races hate each other in a FANTASY STORY DRIVEN WORLD. It's NOT real life. Stop treating it like it is. Games are an escape from our reality.
