Cold War analogies of the faction conflict

[Athragena-arathor]

As a hobbyist historian of the Cold War of the 20th century, here are some parallels I’ve noticed between the Alliance and Horde races and the IRL countries which took part in the Cold War:

Alliance - The West / NATO

Humans - USA: The flagship race of the Alliance, the other allied countries are aligned to their core values. Has the most influence and wealth in the group, sees itself as the defender of Alliance values

Dwarves - Nordic countries: Laid-back and egalitarian culture, where people take care of eachother without a second thought. Generally aligned to Human values, though critical of some and culturally somewhat different

Night Elves - France: A reluctant ally, has a unique culture which is frequently in conflict with Anglo-Saxon/Human values, somewhat isolationist and nationalist

Gnomes - West Germany: Leaders in Alliance technological innovation, industry and economy. Co-operative and hardworking people, staunch allies of Humans

Draenei - Greece: An Eastern culture with core Western values and alignment. Geographically far away from other Western/Allied countries, but staunch defenders of said values.

Worgen - Britain: Need I say more?

Tushui Panderen - Blue China (Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan): Alliance/Western aligned Chinese/Pandaren

Horde- The East / Soviet Block

Orc - Soviet Union: The flagship race of the Horde, their allies adopt some Orcish values and political organizations. The Kor’Kron is the KGB.

Undead - Romania: One of the most repressive and mistrusted races of the Horde, well-known for its independent path and strong cult of personality. (Read up on Elena Ceausescu, possibly the closest IRL equivalent to Sylvanas)

Tauren - Hungary: Somewhat independent and peaceful, uneasy friendship with the Alliance. Nomadic past with a shamanistic pagan culture with some similarities to North American Plains Indians.

Troll - Cuba: Need I say more?

Blood Elf - Czechoslovakia: A mixture of bohemian decadence and nationalist repression. You round a corner and either encounter the most boneheaded policeman or the most sex-positive, beautiful woman with a 100 fetishes.

Goblin - East Germany: The main engineers and technological innovators of the Horde, but their industry is polluting and their devices are shoddy.

Huojin Pandaren - Red China (Mainland China)

Have you ever thought about a similar analogy before? What ideas do you have?

[Malaficus-argent-dawn]

I accauly compaire it more with both world wars.

We have the alliance.
Self-rightious snobs who believe they are the good guys.
And the horde aka the obviously evil guys.

The first war against garrosh ended with the alliance pretending to win against a orc that was clearly villian battle.
Often refeert to as orc hitler.

If garrosh is orc hitler then sylvanas is stalin.
Evil to the core yet manipulative enough to keep people in line.

Like both world wars there is alot of destruction and death.
Scaring azaroth for generation to come.

Tho i doubt blizzard has planned this it could be used as example of how to end war for decade’s atleast.

The alliance is going to win because of the simple fact that if the horde wins there is no more alliance as the horde doesnt spare its enemies.
And both factions must survive works both ways.

I did not compair the nations like you did and find them very good compairion.
But i think both faction wars the azaroth version of both our world wars.
Aka the horde needs to be smacked down twice before it learns not to conquer.

[Brigante-argent-dawn (Brigante)]

I don’t think it is that simple. There -are- parallels, to be certain, but they are parallels, not direct equivalents, for example there is nothing in Orcish culture to make them seem like the Soviet Union. There are some similarities, in that Humans in Warcraft are a massive Self Insert by the USA, and the whole ‘Blue vs Red’ thing is rather telling, but Kaldorei as the French? Huojin as Red China? They have nothing to do with those cultures. The Huojin are about as far from Red China as you can get. Having recently read a book about post war Czechoslovakia, I like the slant you put on them being the Blood Elves in this scenario, but it still doesn’t add up. They are different things, with different cultural imperatives, I mean if we look at the races with their influences, it isn’t as easy as NATO/Warsaw Pact.

Humans: Yeah, pretty much the USA, massive self insert.
Kaldorei: a mix of Korean and Nordic (Blizzards words, not mine)
Dwarven: a mix of Celtic and Nordic.
Gnomish: Entirely separate culture, no influences.
Draenei: Heavily Russo-Romani, Eastern Orthodox Church basically.
Gilneans: Industrial age Britain.
Tushui: -a- Stereotype of China, not Blue China, they are too conservative for that.

Orcs: Mongol culture.
Trolls: African/Caribbean culture.
Tauren: Native American culture.
Forsaken: North Korea; Cult of personality as leader, no one really gets out, highly militarised, rest of the world doesn’t trust them. I mean that’s how I see them, that’s not a racial influence, I’d actually agree with you on Romania, but lets face it, we’re all kind of going Romania=Dracula.

Blood Elves: Very tricky, in so much as they have a cultural influence it is middle ages Arabia/Persia. Their architecture certainly is, they have drapes and Hookah’s all over the place, even their political infrastructure is based around a cadre of heavy Cavalry, Explorer Skirmisher types, and Learned Scholars.

Huojin: They don’t really have a separate culture from the Tushui, which I believe is the point. If -anything- they would be the reverse, the Tushui being naturally more conservative in their leanings, the Huojin have their finger firmly on the ‘Fast Forward’ button of life, making -them- more similar to Taiwan and Macau, than the more sedentary Tushui.

Basically, whilst there are parallels with NATO and the Alliance, there really are not parallels with the Horde and the Warsaw Pact. Closest races we have seen in Wow to Communism? Mantid and Gnomes.