I know my opinion might not match the modern narrative, but I feel little attachement to genderless and faceless characters.
When I interact with dracthyrs, tuskars or other similar races, they all look the same to me. They have zero aesthetic appeal, form no emotional bond. As a result, I sense distancing myself from this sanitized content more and more.
It is hard to put it into words: in art part of the beauty comes from human forms and expressions, their captured poses and movement, perceived personality. All this seems lost.
I stopped encountering stunning women, charismatic men - the kickass characters, who make you want to become part of their gang (examples: Black Lagoon and Gangster animes).
Iâd give the Tuskarr a pass, because, you know, they are walruses (walri?), AND especially because they are by far the most likable and well written characters in the entire expansion.
Ironically, itâs the centaurs who canât shut about gender, but they are also the worst of the worst.
But aside from the Azure Span, generally speaking, yes, WoWâs laters expansions have the problem that you described, and the root cause is not a secret. Their writers and designers suffer from California brain disease which sucks out all creativity and joy out of you.
Thatâs the problem. The supposed âinfinite variety of expressionâ in reality turns into a genderless flavourless blob of uniformed conduct with no actual variety of expression in sight
I do struggle a bit with telling tuskarr apart⌠less so with dracthyr, but thatâs probably because those come in varied colours. Tuskarr suffer from all being dressed for their environment with no room for flair or personal taste. You donât get one of them wearing bright pink and standing out from the crowd.
But I love how tuskarr characters are written! They are a wholesome family/tribe and I instinctively want to help with their problems.
It does. Especially when you just lazily wrap the same old sanitized corporate product into the rainbow flag and then try to sell it as something new. So much for âvarietyâ and âstunning and braveâ. Itâs boring, bland and lacking in flavour. Itâs hard to write a compelling narrative when everything is off limits, taboo and âoffensiveâ.
The mascot characters rarely drive the story though. Their over-abundace is a characteristic of products oriented towards children. It could be that brightly coloured dragons and little cute tuskarr is an attempt to attract younger audience.
Characterâs single trait being that of a masculine man, feminine woman, or any of the 154 flavors of gay doesnât make it good or bad. However, making that single trait the sole defining revolving point of said character does make it bad.
Iâm glad we agree on something. The generic âmasculine man, feminine womanâ weâve always had in the past is bad.
However, youâre clearly very confused about what âgayâ means, so Iâll clarify for you. âGayâ means âhomosexualâ which means âattracted to the same sexâ. Thereâs only one flavour of gay, exactly as thereâs only one flavour of straight.
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Iâm glad we agree on something. The generic âmasculine man, feminine womanâ weâve always had in the past is bad.[/quote]
Yup, just like current expansionâs generic gays are bad. You canât write a compelling character by making the body orifice he likes to clog his sole character trait.
Thereâs straight male, straight female and about 154 flavors of gay.
Some were written better than others, but at least it was possible to read their faces and tell them apart.
The way things are going weâll get Silithids as the next allied race.
Tbh I donât have much of an issue with it, itâs the beauty of being human and thus most of the humanoid races have such a distinction.
Alas tuskarr are literally walraus people, and dragons never had much gender telling looks either. Even irl outwards physical difference is mostly a human thing.
Ofc I get for some it can make a character harder to bound to but for me, I quite enjoy the distinct personalities they have. Like Emberthal, or the chief of Iskaara, Brena.
I canât grasp a point: are you advocating that all previous expansions had not boring and generic NPC looks? What in the actual f⌠anyway. How many highmountain tauren you remember aside from huln and their chieftain (who is female I think? Idk).
