With both of these, the issue is litterally that the joke is “Haha guys(in this case belves) who look feminine(or just sleak/softer) are girls, and that is silly. Crying is also something girls do and is silly”.
Both things are pretty bad, with the sole joke and implication being that those things are girly, and that is bad and funny because girly things are bad/funny.
Which has alot of problems attached to it.
Why does Wowhead keep pushing their dumb trademark narrative?
Even instances of “green skin” (not written as one word) are being removed.
If that really was the case, they could simply replace every instance of “greenskin” with “greenhide”… it surely doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.
Honestly not sure what to think of this bizarre token crusade Blizzard has embarked on anymore but I’m glad to be an outside observer for now if not forever.
SHEEEEESH.
As I said, I think the greenskin thing doesn’t really makes that much sense to remove. That there is a deep hatred between orcs(who are literal demonic fueled creature from another world) and the humans primarily, has always been there as a cornerstone of the franchise.
It’s also why the narrative that spawned later, with the orcs breaking free and trying to find peace was interesting to me and pretty good for Blizzard’s standard. One of the better storylines. It also made the conflict with those within the Alliance who still held onto the hatred of the orcs specifically, interesting.
And it is also why the dumbening down of the orcs during BfA in particular(but previously as well) was pretty sad to see.
Greenskin was used to describe these creatures attacking them, but not a racial prejudice towards any race with green skintone.
That said, the speculation seem to be more that it’s to avoid Warhammer’s recent own crusade of hammering any slight vauge hint of copyright infringement.
But otherwise, as I said, i think the other changes in this article are all good.
Lydon is a cranky forsaken employed by the Royal Apothecary Society, the same people who on the regular wipe out entire settlements and repurpose the dead for inhumanely evil experiments. He’s not a spokesperson for Blizzard, he’s not an upstanding citizen, he’s a fictional character in Azeroth belonging to one of the arguably most vile factions. You can’t begin whiting out bits and pieces of a character and then keeping the rest, it’s hypocritical to the extreme. Lydon calling an elf “little girl” is perfectly in line with the forsaken’s attitude to others, it’s on the same level as the forsaken guy who visits confessor Paletress and says he punched a penguin on the way in there because he just wanted to see how she reacts and then laughs as she leaves.
Inane.
Nah you’re wrong
We’re evil and nasty but in a humane way
tink tink
I think you’re reading far too much into the character than Blizzard does or did. Making honestly sexist remarks is not something thats “in character” for the forsaken, or this character in particular.
The intent with this dialogue in particular was pretty clearly not some deep narrative about how the forsaken disregards other races. It was a poor taste joke how things seen as feminine is bad and funny, especially done by someone who would be considered masculine.
It’s litterally just “he got called a girl because he looks like a girl and cried, haha laugh.”
Which is wrong to have in the game.
And there is no deeper context.
Johnny Awesome’s whole schtick is that people don’t take him seriously. Lydon mistaking him for a girl instead of an intrepid adventurer adds to that recurring joke. Agree to disagree, it’s but one of many of these strange changes after all.
I didn’t even know Finkel Einhorn was a reference to Ace Ventura and upon rewatching it not too long ago I understand that change, along with the eredar shouting employee names in demonic.
The rest are bizarre. I keep rereading the lines for Gerard and Theresa and it gets more and more astounding.
ppl trying to defend every single asinine thing Blizzard can find and remove / change from the game
unironically putting that on loop btw
ah yes that well known forsaken belief of “girls can’t be adventurers” lmao
you should check the gangsta’s paradise version of Morshu, it slaps
I will make the bold statement that children (little girls and or boys) should not be adventurers, yes.
Johnny isn’t a child though, nor does/did Lydon think he was. “Little girl” in that sense wouldn’t/doesn’t mean “Ah, that character thinks the other character is underaged”, but rather used as an insult/way to belittle.
Which is/was also part of the joke I talked about before.
You can still make a character no one takes seriously/who is the target of jokes/mockery without going down that route or making the jokes about how they are girly/feminine.
That is the joke.
a bad one that justifiably got removed, yes
I’m fine with most of those changes, though I do agree with Fentonious (and only in this) about
The entire NPC should be removed or in some other way made better than just neutering the language used in this example. Maybe the NPC can be killed or the ‘experiment’ healed or idk, otherwise I’d rather not see it in my game.
However, one could argue it’s ‘arhgh but it’s forsaken being evil dudes !!!’ and like, yes, this is evil. Same for the Lydon person.
Hot take that’s been pretty lukewarm for some time now: make more interesting villains rather than just ‘hahaha look how evil i am i literally removed parts of her brain to be made into a breedable NPC lol!!!’. It’s closer to the ‘lol obviously i’m evil i’m yelling slurs lol!!!’ type villainy that’s just incredibly cringe. Johnny Awesome’s entire purpose in game is for devs to make queerphobic jokes at him, and it’s meant to be OK because (I think?) he’s also made to be unlikable.
It is not though. The joke is specifically that he is called a woman/girl, because its funny apparently?
Because the rest of the dialouge involving them is literally Lydos screaming at the top of his lungs “Get them, and the girl!” and constantly referring to Johnny as a girl/woman.
That’s not a joke about how Johnny is called a child, that’s a joke about Johnny is called a girl. Which is presented as funny in no other way other than “its funny to call him a girl because he isn’t one”.
Which is the problem.
They should remove almost every single line of dialogue from Cataclysm because it’s all late 2000s cringeworthy meme humor that’s ridiculously offensive to everyone on the planet due to how unbelievably unfunny it is.
Still in awe that they thought making a good portion of Westfall a CSI: Miami joke was a funny and cool idea. I started WoW when I was 10 and I can’t imagine Johnnyfortnite2011 playing WoW and enjoying his venture through a bunch of LOLWAFFLESPORK, LE EPIC DOUBLE RAINBOW CSI MIAMI jokes.
It wasn’t funny then. It wasn’t funny now.
The core of Johnny’s character/joke as one of those players nobody takes seriously who has a store-mount, acts all flashy and the hero while probably being awful at the game(see the black temple fight where is afk for most of it) can be pretty fun and easy to work around with.
Also having the character not be taken seriously and poked fun at for that is also fine. But it becomes so, so bad, when the way he is presented as someone to not take seriously is to call him a girl/woman/anything feminine. Because it not only implies, but pretty blatantly states that those things should also not be taken seriously, or anyone who is that shouldn’t.
It’s basically like people using gay as an insult towards a person, because of the implication that being that is bad in their eyes.
Half of Redridge just being a Rambo reference as well.
I think nearly every cata revamp zone has some huge chunks that are just references. Often in pretty bad ways.