I just thought to myself, after reading a good amount of TV tropes on their wiki, what to categorize those fantasy races that are good. And those that make no sense and are over the top done in Warcraft especially.
And I think we can do them all in order. In a way that actually feels like they belong in fantasy. When we think of “A totally different world”, alien to us and full of magic and all that. Not to mention strange creatures.
Starting with the best examples of “good” Fantasy races.
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Elves(of all colours and shapes). Nightborne, Sin’dorei, Kaldorei, Ren’dorei. Almost can’t think of any fantasy universe that lack these. Some are good at magic. Some are good at shooting arrows. Some others do bonding with nature. There ain’t no bad cookies. And I like that goth stuff was given it’s own theme now with Venthyr instead of the cringe San’layn. So Blizzard did good. We covered the good taste.
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Trolls. Usually just used as stupid brutes and mongrels, but that one is covered with Ogres for Warcraft. Our trolls however are exotic, smart, advansive and pretty much the OG Race of Azeroth that isn’t titanic robot people. Made of stone or metal.
Sadly, Blizzard uses them as joke at this point. Whenever they need massacre more mobs for loot dungeons and raids to cover. And then Trolls of all kinds gets dumped. Trolls have a lot of potential but Blizzard could do them more justice instead of throwing them under the bus every now and then. -
Dwarfs. Just like with Elves, it is hard to imagine fantasy without these. Short, but stubborn and strong people, full of good mood, exploring and advanced tech. With their brethren the gnomes, for Warcraft only here, they are the backbone of the Alliance and it would have failed ages ago against the multiple enemies, without dwarven resources providing, literally everything.
Thumbs up to, pretty much, the peak fantasy race of the Alliance.
The Aliens:
A more rare cases, but not totally uncommon, since I know many aliens to the original world(In Guild Wards it is the humans actually, invading Tyria because their God’s turn the place into a free real estate. But more on that later on.).
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Orcs. We all know Tolkien and Warhammer. But Warcraft, tho not originally intended by anyone that wasn’t Chris Metzen, decided to go a different way with their default “muh evil” race of fantasy. Green or brown skinned. Strong, tall, versatile, sometimes brutal, low in culture advance.
Despite issues the Orcs had a long walk all the way from their origins in Draenor to the present where they settled in the dry desert of Durotar and the Barrens. They are, slowly, recovering. But Blizzard treated them, just like with the Trolls, rather bad most of the time. SoO, Saurfang and WoD were the latest prominent examples. Apart from Thrall they ran completley out of noticable faces, that could represent them for the story. And I hope Blizzard will now finally stop focusing on them for a while. -
Draenei. Just like with the Orcs, they are alien to Azeroth and have a long journey of suffering from evil schemes behind their backs. But unlike the Orcs. They are not as spend or close to irrelevance yet. Blue skin, tails, hooves, you would not expect such people to go unnoticed on our real world without thinking “Yes, clearley aliens, better not approach.”. Regardless, as the original race that worshipped the light first and made the bulk of the great army of the light, fightning off demons with passion, they earned their place among the protectors of Azeroth, and a concept unqiue to Blizzard, that other franchises don’t have. We know Velen, Akama and Nobundo. I am pleased with them, despite never leveling one as Alt to the max level. Good job Blizzard.
The odd cookies.
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Goblins Where in other worlds, Goblins are usually comedy input, digging in the dirt, not being very smart at all and only appears as mob groups for the heroes to kill off. Warcraft does a unqiue take and turned them into a dystopian society run by american free bound capitalism. Greed for money and gold. And an explosive nature that fuels their intinuity. Azeroth’s Goblins are cunning and responsible for some of the most popular inventions, always rivaling with the Gnomes for the top engineering race. They might not be AS successful as the Gnomes, but their total control over the important trading routes all over Azeroth make up for that.
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The Undead. When you think any classic Fantasy. It ranges from mindless Zombies and Skeletons, controlled by Necromancers towards Vampires and mummies, maybe even Wight dragons. But The Undead that we will see most of our questing time are free willed and sentient. Whatever that might leads to, I really like it and Blizzard hopefully elaborates of what any undead can do with their free will and abilities of noticing the world around them. For the better and good or darker purposes. Very interesting.
And now the the last few categories.
A total waste of space on the character slot.
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The Tauren. I apologize big times for this one here, but it is a sad truth. Ever since Cataclysm started off and maybe even since Warcraft 3 ended, they turned from angry minotaur people to soft giants with an utter lack of spine to fight for either their faction or even themselves. I don’t know if we can blame all of it on Baine alone, but it is obvious they lack any self preservation instincts and loyalty. I don’t even know why they are even part of the Horde, with how constantly they backstabbed them to make sure the Alliance scores victory. Twice at least when it mattered the most. It was a long walk of shame from “Death to the enemies of the Horde!” towards “Anduin and the humans are our best friends.” It is sad how far they have fallen. And I didn’t even mention the obviously racist native american vibes they plastered all over them.
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The humans. Bland, boring, overused, annoying, a black hole of story telling and completley unneeded. They are just humans. Nothing special. Normal people you can find in daily life. They are weak and would, by all logical means, not stand a chance against most other races populating the Warcraft universe. But that’s no issue for Blizzard because it is the default race for self inserts for hack writers, who writer the overall lore. More commonly known as
https///tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumansAreSpecial
trope. Without these cheatcodes, that make the humans destinied to be the very best at everything they do, the brightest and bravest and your generic(mostly white) hero that saves the day, get’s the girl, leads all the other, clearly inferior races and get away with it just because they are humans. They would be nothing at all.
In Warcraft, a normal squad of human soldiers can waltz all over everyone, without big issues and claim victory. There is nothing more boring than knowing the outcome of a story before it even begins. Humans are the utter summery of all those bad stances. They don’t bring anything interesting with them to the table, because they have no place in fantasy, when they are normal people from our real world. They have a huge “we are special” plot armor, that will make sure they remain the face of the Franchise no matter if it makes sense or not. For more information, see this video here.
The good cookie that did nothing wrong.
- Pandaren. Good apples. In the most literal sense. Not only that they always respected was true neutrality really means(Looking at you here Dalaran). They also give me the most positive vibes from any other race in the game. They love sleeping, food, protecting their family. Very relatable. And have an entire set of asian themes combined in them, and their respective expansion. If you look past the Panda aesthetic of the model, they are the best company you can have around yourself. Well done, again, Blizzard. I didn’t regret creating my Monk for these guys. More peak fantasy.
