So after all we can safely put this book aside and say it is non canon right? Especially when some of the writers aren’t familiar with the Warcraft universe at all.
Well good.
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On paper - depends on the execution, when something like that happens.
In practice, we already have the devs going out of their way to undermine what the game was, to shove in their vision of things, which of course is going to be better. So, yeah.
Not a bad approach overall. Out of place given the current state of the game in general and the story specifically.
gl hf
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They hired someone not familiar at all with the Warcraft universe. That writer doesn’t even play the game yet we can all see why she was brought into it.
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Really, LGBT+ representation, female empowerment messaging, and anti-racism was what I was expecting from this one from the start. It’s a book about fairy tales from California. If it doesn’t leave children confused about their gender, it’s not doing its job.
And I can deal with that. I don’t really think that it fits the world, but that’s okay, because it really doesn’t matter. If people don’t like it, they can ignore it and nothing will come of it, if they do like it, it might make its way into one or two RP conversations and that’s it. Fine.
I very, very much prefer that to giving us actual lore in the fairy tale book, like they seem to have done in the Vereesa and Chromie stories. That’s just false advertisement. That’s not fictional folklore, that’s just their usual “quality” lore.
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Was it intended to be canon after all?
Honestly, i’m with Wimbert here with the original intent that if anything, it was something to be referred to as conversational nonsense in RP.
It would indeed be so much worse if it was sold as proper canon material and then this was the product…
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I hold my heart out for Warcraft. It will find a way in. All this mess, tokenism. I find it evil, these people are new to the setting. They do not care about the foundation. They hate the people that made it, but feel oh so good about taking over and steering its wheel to its downfall, but they do not care. They think they’re doing a good cause with it.
I do not want the lore I love, the game I love, be used for political californian garbage.
It’s complete nonsense and I am not a fan of Molly Ostertag either. This person has been writing fanfiction for Lord of the Rings while at the same time saying ill and disgusting words about Tolkien.
I don’t know how you get into the mindset of taking over a creation of something else while you speak ill about the person that created it.
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Also, to be fair, there are stories to be told about Kaldorei gender roles that could enrich the world of warcraft. Remember when druids were all males and warriors all females, and how it just suddenly changed because Blizzard didn’t thing gender-locking would work well? Well, it certainly left a bit of a gap in Kaldorei lore that could be filled, and people that don’t fit their assigned position in society, nowadays mostly associated with LGBT+, are a way to do it. It could give a bit of context to the softening of the Kaldorei’s stances on gender, that are already lore.
You have the best action in this case still open for you:
Just ignore it. Since it is not sold as proper lore and since it is disinteresting to you, I think it is a fair statement to say it is an okay thing to just let it go. I honestly hate any kind of blatant politicking in any fantasy universe as well.
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It was just gameplay mechanics at that time and I really wish they did make a few classes genderlocked.
I do not agree with it.
And for the record. We know where it ends up. Just look at Bioware, TellTale Games… it’s not looking good.
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That time is long past. It’s already lore now. If we like it or not.
With what? That stories like Mulan, that are about individuals that break with their assigned roles, can help to soften the stance on those societal boundaries? Or, to make the claim even weaker, that societies that are in the process of softening their gender roles might have stories that challenge them accompanying that process? That’s all I was saying here.
With Kaldorei it would just be the other way around. Stories about men who made their way into a warrior’s role for the temple. Sure, if they start arguing about how the wrong pronouns hurt people in the story, I’ll just laugh it off as a bit of propaganda, but I do think that the premise of a gender-challenging story from a Kaldorei perspective isn’t necessarily without merit.
Doesn’t work like that for story forum. We MUST know, what is real canon, and what is not. We cannot just ignore something.
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…Did you even read my post or the context surrounding that?
Can’t believe I have to spell it out for the third time: The book is a contexual title that immediately details that it is NOT canon. It answers it for you if you just LOOK and not fish for whatever post you can quote and point out mistakes of.
Seriously, after seeing this quote battle happen for the fourth time in the space of 1 hour, I feel like the Story Forums has - on top of being less interested in discussion - become a battlefield for some strange reason or need to outdo other posters.
Yikes.
They literally say in the book: “you were born a male, but now you consider yourself a female”.
How is that comparable at all? This isn’t tackling those gender roles like with Mulan.
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Don’t know if that’s because these are all part of the “conflicting” bits that people can’t shut about, but the more i hear about the book, the less it seems to tackle actual lore-relevant information.
Like, i don’t care either way about the whole gender thing of anyone involved. If you want to be trans, bi, gay, or whatever, then fine.
But of what relevance is it to the story??
I mean, there are like a TON of glaring lore issues that are being sidelined and demand attention. I honestly do not know what’s the urge to focus on stuff like this first.
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i always see comments like this and i point out the fact that even if it doesnt have relevance to the sotry its representes a often overlooked minority of players, and such a questions is almost never asked of straight characters, example Lorthremar is romancing First Arcanist Thalyssra yet very very few aks if that is relevant to a story.
inclusivity doesnt harm anyone at all, id prefer if it was written more natural to the story and actually relevant to the character but wow has rarely had decent character development in the last few years.
If it doesn’t have relevance to the story, it shouldn’t be told in a book destined to expand on the story. If it’s a notable story feature for some reason, it should be weighted and put in a scale that considered whether there are far more important story issues to be addressed first. Simple as that.
Specially in a setting such as WoW’s, where there are so many other relevant plot points that are still left unanswered.
If you are referencing that short story that featured the poem contest, yes. Many many people question of what relevance was the whole thing.
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I outright didn’t read this crap because it doesn’t interest me at all. It’s the fact that they always have to hamfist this stuff into other things. Wasn’t the Lor’themar short with Thalyssra an offside story without any other lore moments in it?
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That’s some crappy dialogue, but how is that the point? I didn’t read that story yet. I don’t particularly care to. I commented on what was said here.
It’s ok for some elements to be irrelevant to the story. It makes the world feel more alive and gives it relief, if only a bit - I mean if we only wanted factual descriptions of events we’d stick to reading Chronicles.
It has to fade smoothly into the universe though… and devs haven’t exactly shown much interest in depicting the lives of Azerothian commoners. Not that LGBT+ rep wouldn’t be coherent with Warcraft’s universe, I fail to see why it wouldn’t be. Rep is good but everyone should keep in mind that big corporates are just big corporates. Let’s stay defiant towards everything they do lmao
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Indeed. And the random inclusion messages aren’t really any worse than other corporate tropes. It certainly is annoying that it usually seems to be pre-planned to insult critics as bigots, which immunizes them to some degree from repercussions, but the inclusion isn’t the problem. The crappy writing is.
Like I just said, I haven’t read the story. But I don’t really hold much of any hope that it will be decent. And that’s not because there is a trans character. Indeed, I do think that if you want allegories about gender, Kaldorei are a good place to go. Not only were they created with strong gender roles, their gender roles were even contrary to human ones. Just like you could explore controversial concepts in StarTrek by pushing it to some alien species, you can do so in fantasy with races. You just have to honestly fit the story to the world and the societies, and not just throw the thing you want in and point at it.
So yeah, I think halfway decent writers with some creative freedom could certainly write a good story about Kaldorei with gender issues, and even sent a pro-inclusion message without being preachy. I just don’t think that’s the kind of writers or writing situation we have at WoW.
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