the dude’s calling a black girl character “exotic” and expecting to be taken seriously. bit of a closed book tbh. makasa was from booty bay cos her family were pirates, not cos of some WeirdChamp theory that black warcraft humans come from a literal jungle lmao
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Don’t forget that literally every example he used to show that non-white humans come from other areas of the world are easily disproven.
Makasa comes from Stromgarde, the “arabic” Wastewanders only arrived in the desert after Warcraft III.
But they clearly evolved and had unique cultures because they came from STV or Tanaris. (also those cultural traditions of Makasa are from Stromgarde, not STV or Booty Bay).
Wait til he finds out africa is a continent not a country that’s a lush amazonian jungle far as the eyes can see 
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If you were to go over the entire thread just to nitpick from a paragraph and create enough strawmans to feed the cornfields of the entire USA, you sure must have quite the free time in your hands.
Just for giggles, I currently have some spare time myself, let me check on a few of these:
Yes.
Much like any Viking-themed story, or any other fantasy that aims at making some approximation regarding how medieval societies were.
Story setting develop better if writers bother giving its distinct ethnic groups the proper background.
Even if they afterwards end up mixing them all together.
That’s why we have distinct troll and tauren tribes, or dwarf and orc clans.
That’s why they bothered creating an entire theme around Dalaran, Gilneas, and Kul Tiras. Going as far as giving humans that inhabited either, physical differentiation.
Multiculturalism isn’t bad, and is often quite positive in order to not spread the narrative thin with a wide cast of characters to deal with. But it requires from actual development of all the elements involved in order to create a plausible and better setting.
That’s how you create stuff like the council of the Three Hammers.
It’s immersion breaking to have disparate ethnic groups coexisting under the same kingdom without an explanation that tackles how that came to pass. Specially if there isn’t enough information regarding said kingdoms encompassing differentiated territories that could have eased the inclusion of said races.
It would be as weird as having Sandfury skins for Darkspear guards, or Tauren braves patrolling Thunderbluff with Taunka skins.
Not going to bother with strawman number one. Gonna wade my way through this cornfield trying not to bump into them.
Yeah. Much like all Dwarf clans come from Ironforge, and still we have clarification regarding physical differences between Dark Iron, Wildhammer, and Bronzebeards.
Name me a single protagonist for the story, that sported these sort of features, and wasn’t in some way tied to the “exotic” parts of the world.
EDIT: Lol, just read you taking issue in the exotic bit. Take “exotic” (note quotation marks), as in “Not following the stereotypical White Knight fantasy trope”.
I get that having you pointing out the above was just some desperate grasping while being disingenuous, but well, i’ll humour you with this clarification.
You mean the NPC planted solely as reference for Woo Ping Yuen?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuen_Woo-ping
That’s where you are leaning on to defend Blizzard’s handling of the story and the features that would be logically tied to a more developed background?
And the point being that it’s rather weird how people grasp at it as an explanation for anything, when it does nothing but highlight a necessity that accompanies the inclusion of different ethnic groups.
Stuff that Blizzard did seem to care about when they created 10 different troll tribes, 3 major dwarven clans, 7 or so Orc ones, 4 important tauren collectives, and like 5 different elf breeds.
But hey, you wanted to argue against “angry whities”, so you better get a hold onto these things, and get all bristling the second anyone dares speak against it. Why bother think critically.
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Actually, why does that matter to you?
You identified yourself as “PoC”, basicly degrading the whole world into two camps based on skincolor alone.
On one hand you degrade yourself to some amalgamated mass called “PoC” against the other side wich you degrade to “The Whites”…but now you want to talk down to people about how diverse Africa is, while also handwaving away it’s different peoples, customs and beliefs under the offensive, onedimensional banner of “PoC”, while simultaneously doing the exact same thing to all European people and people of European descent.
Yeah, clownery…
How do people come up with this shett, I mean I’m pretty sure I know what it’s really about, but you’re not quite ready yet to come out and say it, are you.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/733854918187679755/734183350897737818/image0.jpg
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Real life =/= World of WarCraft cultures tho. Also, there’s black vrykul (though without the african facial structures).
Remember the stories about flying boats in our medieval era? The elves? The magick? The scuba divers? if you want a better approx of medieval societies in fantasy, LotR:O might be your thing, friend. Or TES, or Kingdom Come: Deliverence.
Except the story in World of Warcraft is clear: Humans descend from Vrykul, who descend from Iron Vrykul (which were Titan soldiers). The humans came about through a curse, were abandoned by the vrykul, formed one nation, which splintered into seven nations.
It is more lorebreaking to say “Hey, there are distinct nations of black and asian people now” then to say “Humans are humans, and they all lived in the same seven kingdoms”.
Your idea of black refugees from STV, or asian refugees from wherever would cause two problems:
- Apparently non-white people couldn’t make a powerful, independant nation.
- Non-white people are dependant on predominantly white nations and their white civilians, soldiers and leaders for their continued existence.
And what kind of story would that tell compared to they’ve always been here, they are equal, they are humans like us?
You can try and defend yourself all you want, but you’re the one that keeps insisting that non-whites must be explained to come from somewhere, it is impossible they might’ve been there all along
Also, your example of tauren tribes is bad, since tauren tribes are basicly split up on:
This tribe is the blacksmith tribe, and this tribe is the druid tribe, and that tribe is also the druid tribe, and the tribe over there is the scout tribe.
Blizzard has been expanding the lore of the seven human kingdoms, Kul Tiras, Stromgarde, Gilneas, Stormwind and Dalaran are all distinctly (or sometimes subtly) different from eachother already (Makasa Flintwill explains some of the stromic traditions, Gilneas is heavily Victorian-england inspired, Stormwind has their more knightly approach etc).
Look, I’m abit rambling now but this isn’t TES, where every human race has it’s own unique culture.
Edit: apologies I can’t be as smooth with words as Mogi, Brigante or some of the better posters 
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Figures you like to keep things simple for yourself, mr. “PoC”
Said no one.
He was talking about Tauren, Yaungol and Taunka, actually.
I mean it’s literally there in his posts.
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We have ample proof that in Warcraft, ethnic groups are formed following the exact same pattern as RL ones.
And regarding this bit:
I’ll refer again to this:
No. The Titanforged excuse doesn’t work.
We have a mirrored example with dwarves. They had their distinct features explained in a similar way as the rest of races that got said privilege.
Grasping at said circumstance with humans, does not work.
I never implied there should be. I said that we could have splinter groups of humans whose features were backed by the conditions that defined them where they grew up.
Like it or not, Blizzard gave humans in Uldum and Tanaris the Arabic theme, and Stranglethorn is the only place that could back up black skinned humans, given its environment, its proximity to the rest of human nations , and the fact that those few notable characters it had (Makasa) had the equivalent of our African traits. But again, those were just examples.
Blizzard could also create out of nowhere a new island in the South Seas with a new stranded civilisation of men that followed had said traits.
It would explain how is it that Stormwind managed to have people with disparate racial features with something other than a randomise button or some handwaved explanation that no other race needed.
Again i ask, if trolls can have minor background regarding their most notably differentiated features, why shouldn’t humans?
That’s because its true.
There is simply no way you can explain disparate ethnic groups converging under the same roof without either (a) some solid reasoning regarding a territory big enough that would facilitate such or (b) having different collectives being brought together at some point.
Not even magic works in this case, as we have examples that showcase how little it meant for other Titanforged races.
Let me ask something, why do you think the Sanfury skin tone should have an expanded reason to be part of the playable troll options?
I don’t know if it’s already been mentioned but humans in warcraft are titan constructs made flesh. So some have light skin because they were made from light material/stone and some have black skin like Sargeras
I’m gonna go ahead and say this “jungle humans are black” narrative you’re trying to hard to push is incredibly misguided. Africa is not a densely jungle-d region, besides central areas like The Republic of The Congo. This idea that black people are from jungles comes from a lot of colonial-era eugenics that suggested Native Amazon peoples were black, as well as Pacific Islanders and many peoples of South East Asia. It was not in honest reference to African natives, and was just an example of racist terminology. Black didn’t always solely imply African.
For the last time: black people are not from jungles, so please stop embarrassing yourself by making that assertion. Stranglethorn Vale does not in any way make sense as place for a “splinter race” of Warcraft humans to originate with dark skin.
And Makasa isn’t from Stranglethorn, she’s from Arathi. Buy the book and read it if you want to use her as your “exotic” (
) example, and please refrain from referring to black bodies in that way again. Her mother, Marjani, is the captain of a pirate vessel; the fact her ancestors are stated to be Arathi implies that Marjani herself is Arator-born prior to sailing the high seas, once again disproving your headcanon that humans from Stranglethorn Vale are black. If humans from the very cradle of civilisation are capable of being black, then it is in no way a stretch to say that humans from all kingdoms are.
Educate yourself before trying to make claims like that.
sources/further reading:
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/K-12/adib_africa.html (“Others believe that the African continent is a huge steaming jungle or rainforest. In fact only a small percentage of Africa, along the Guinea Coast and in the Zaire River Basin, are rainforests”)
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Makasa_Flintwill (“Makasa Flintwill is a 17-years old human girl who comes from Booty Bay with her ancestors coming from Stromgarde.”)
https://www.rifemagazine.co.uk/2016/09/why-calling-me-exotic-isnt-a-compliment/ (“Exoticism is often to fetishise, and fetishisation of the body when you are not white is a huge issue.”)
https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/shadowlands-event-server-interview-with-ion-hazzikostas (“Because frankly I think we see this as correcting an oversight on our part, over the years. And just trying to improve representation more broadly. We are custodians of a fantasy universe and a world that we build and we don’t want to not do the right thing because we feel shackled to a decision that was made creatively in a different era that was fifteen plus years ago.”)
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This thread makes me simultaneously angry and laugh and frankly astonished at the lack of world awareness and lack of tact,it’s like they’ve lived in a cave all their lives… “Exotic” “Black=Jungle” “Arabic=Dessert” 
Someone needs to lock this thread before more ignorant idiocy is spouted and those that need a “lore” reason for black/brown/asian NPC’s in SW so as to not break their emersion even though those skin tones have existed in the game for 16 years 
…
Well tough 
for you innit because you’re not getting one, Blizzards game and they can do what they want (even though these additions are noway close to lore or emmersion breaking) and you don’t like it go play another game and leave those of who do to enjoy it rather than listening to little man childs crying over a non-issue you innane little turds.
There are many games out there that have a completely white NPC main and background cast that will cater to your “lore and emmersion” needs.
Even Vrykul have different skintones, ranging from a yellowish to dark brown. And there’s no problem with that in my eyes since they’re mutated Titan Constructs.
And since humans come from degenerated Vrykul, i see no problem in them having different skintones from the get go, without special explanation.
The races you talk about, who have explanations for differences, are “real” natives. With Trolls and Tauren being the races with the biggest differences between their sub-races.
But there is no proof for any evolution of the descendants of titan-seeded races in WoW.
We don’t really know the lore-reason why dark-iron dwarves have grey skin, or why the Wildhammer are taller. But the few hundred years of seperation of lifestyle are not really enough time for differences like that to emerge, so maybe they were brought over from the earthen as well, they range from light brown to dark grey as well.
tldr: We have no proof for “evolution” with the titan-seeded races on Azeroth. All differences and changes of them can be explained with differences in their titan-forged ancestors, and the influence of the old gods.
Again, Dwarves. 3 clans.
And we know their differences aren’t bound to stone or metal colours.
Also, there is more to these features than skin tone. Slanted eyes, hair, facial features,…
Regarding this:
—————-
I know that at this point there is nothing left for you other than grasping or picking out of context stuff, but i id caution you against wasting your time with it. Its rather easy to quote the rest of the post, and I could answer any of it with a simple emoji.
You could spare yourself from having to create text walls with elaborated wiki entries.
Ps:
All I see here is Blizzard grasping at their own laziness regarding a feature that they felt the need to expand and explain when applied to other races.
They seem to now want to fill in the PR checkbox, but without doing the work required to make it plausible.
Just look at the variations in earthen colours. They vary from a cley like light brown and nearly white, over beige tones, dark brown, reddish brown to a nearly black dark grey.
And what would explain the grey skin darkiron dwarves have? They lived in the same conditions the bronzebeards did until they blew up the redridge mountains when they woke Ragnaros.
And they had the skin and hair-colour differences before.
The glowing eyes and burning(?) hair, again, is not by evolution, but a gift from their (former?) master Ragnaros.
No real evolution without direct interference from outside.
For the wildhammer-clan they are lighter built and a bit taller, but we don’t know if they always were like this, or if they evolved that way.
Again no proof for evolution.
Even Bronzebeard-dwarves range from a near black skin, to a pale pink skin, and Dark-Iron dwarves didn’t “evolve”, they were changed by Ragnaros influence, but as far as i know they had the same skin and hair-colours before, even with the same living conditions the bronzebeards had. again no evolution.
Not really sure about wildhammer-dwarves tbh.
Aethil, i truly respect you as a player and as a person that has been around these forums for quite some time, but this is getting disingenous.
There are several sources that point at dark-greyish skin being the result of extended periods of time underground, specially in regards to Blackrock Mountain (orcs had this too), Wildhammer developing taller and leaner was implied to be heavily tied to cultural traits that made them adapt to a particular way of life regarding gryphon riding
And glowing red eyes, as the Shattering novel goes, are tied once again with the need these dwarves had to see better in the deep tunnels underneath Blackrock.
How Blizzard then pushed these differences in order to create a more defined allied race, is beyond question. But the core differences between dwarf clans still rely almost exclusively, on the most basic natural adaptation.
Much like any other “native”, or “natural” race on Azeroth, had.
And if you want another example to highlight this, you have the Frostborn. Who are basically, Earthen that became EXPLICITLY adapted to living in frigid areas such as Northrend and developed Ice-like skin.
Again, we have an example about the race evolving due to natural circumstances. Not because their metal was brown, yellow, blue or grey.
And this sort of explanations, are what human features need in order to bring plausibility and logic to the setting. Handwaving it as “Magic” doesn’t work in a setting that has taken care to expand on how environmental circunstances have impacted Azeroth’s species. Yes, even titanforged races.
Holding on to “metals” as a way to explain this simply does not work when these features go beyond skin-tone alone.
Accepting Blizzard’s lack of investment in developing this for humans, may be something people might or might not be willing to do. But it can still be called out as some cheap, lazy and bad way of addressing storytelling.
I may have reached there with the dwarves, sorry for that.
Not meant this way, i’m just saying that the different skincolours of Vrykul are for me enough explanation for different skincolours in their descendants.
I know it’s not really a satisfying explanation, but i’m fine with it, as long as we get representation for people who have until now not had it in the propably still most influential MMO ever.
Maybe they’ll expand on the differences in features and skintone later, maybe not. I’m fine with it
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It’s surprising that i have to repeat this again and again, although i think that has to do with a mixture of forum trolling from some people (not you), and a healthy dose of people being overly defensive and bristling the second anyone argues in any way that seems contrary to these things, but i’ll repeat the bit that prefaced almost every post i made expanding about this:
I’m not against the implementation of this as much as i don’t like the laziness of how it was done.
And it’s been weird having to defend this stance from guys that brandish the racial flag while openly standing against an argument that wanted nothing other than to give these features something other than being some kind of skin cancer. Like every other races has.
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I know what you mean, i would have liked a better explanation as well, but i don’t think it’s needed.
The term racist is used far to liberally by many people in the internet to try to discredit people with a different oppinion.
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Keep fighting the good fight but try and communicate with the people you seem to care so much about. And I don’t mean some make believe “all my friends are black”; I mean actually talk to some people of colour, or read some opinions online, and you’ll very much find that the consensus is that people don’t want to play as fetishised jungle humans. We are so much happier with playing as the humans we always have, hailing from the seven kingdoms they always have. Very few people of colour have any issue with humans being black/Asian in-game/lore, and if you can have cite a source from an actual PoC (not a white person “fighting for the lore”), then I’ll happily debate that topic.
And for all our sake, don’t you dare refer to dark skin as a “skin cancer” again if you have any shred of respect for the people you claim to care so much about. That shouldn’t need to be said.
EDIT: And for the record, having a “stranded tribe of South Seas humans” is as much of a problematic concept as having them be from a jungle. This isn’t 1920s Hollywood; black people are not jungle-dwellers or island savages. Having them come from the rest of the kingdoms the light-skinned humans do is the lore and canon, and luckily for PoC it’s staying that way. You aren’t winning. There are black humans because there are black vrykul; that’s all the explanation you need, and that’s all you’re getting. The day a 2020 fantasy video games come out with “the black people actually from some deserted island and not the prosperous kingdoms” is a dark day indeed, and I can promise you will never happen in this game’s lifetime.
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