Should intolerance and bigotry be represented in game?

Now that LGBT+ people and people of color are properly represented in game, I can’t help be think: should homophobia and racism exist, too?

I know this sounds horrible, and those ideologies certainly are, but hear me out: Azeroth has seen genocide attempts, the bombing of Theramore, the burning of Teldrassil and so many terrible events inspired by real life events - by the real hatred that resides within the human heart.

Sugarcoating the truth and pretending that not a single person in Azeroth would have intolerant thoughts with regards to an individual’s differences is naive at best, but quite disrespectful if you you dig further.
Denying the very existence of racism and homophobia means acting as if they weren’t a thing, as if the struggles that LGBT+ people and minorities have had to endure, throughout history and throughout their own lives weren’t a real part of the world as well.

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Dangerous topic, Chex.

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It already has enough representation in form of the players.

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Speaking of which… Does Garithos ever get mentioned in WoW itself?

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If we were on Reddit, maybe. But I’m confident this community is mature enough to discuss serious matters without resorting to insults.

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I’ll pray for you cause this ain’t that community

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The dev team have already stated that homophobia doesn’t exist within the warcraft universe so the same can probably be said for traditional racism…

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Hope dies last.

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In B-Four self-righteous people swarm in going “Reeee” and point at the lore saying “It doesn’t exist” in order to justify calling anyone who suggests evil themes is evil themselves.

Anyway, on the topic, I would say that it would be a perfectly reasonable thing to suggest, that there might be characters that have SOME bias that goes against someone else. Sure we have “Racism” in the form of “Orcs not liking Humans” or vice versa, but that is the obvious part.

Really, it would be at least interesting to have characters with such villainous traits. But then again, there is that television show about “Flawed superheroes” (I can’t remember the name from the top of my head) in which a villain isn’t a very nice lady, and the show had to go in-depth to explain the logic behind it.

Why? Because I don’t know, you can’t have villains that have negative biases against “Protected classes”… For some reason.

Just wait until Velharia, Vixi and maybe someone else show up. The thread will quickly turn in to a round of “Who can throw out the worst insult imaginable?”.

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By traditional racism I meant more skin colour based racism.

Thats not how that works

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I am legit, no sarcasm, enjoying the topic on a base level.

There are some pretty good deep dives considering “can a hero be racist” and topics like that. I just… doubt that blizz dares to pull it.

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No idea who these individuals are.
But the beauty of the WoW forums is: you need to pay a monthly 13€ subscription to post here, so if someone really starts to misbehave and gets banned, they’re not likely to come back with another account. This is probably why discussions here tend to be more civil than in other online communities.

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Such innocence

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Garithos did even good things

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That’s totally how it works actually.
Garithos’ hatred was more akin to “specism” than racism per se.
Orcs aren’t a different race within the human species - they ARE a different species entirely.

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This but in 10 characters

Did you listen to Literature devil or something recently :smiley:

“Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”

Skin colour is not the main reason. It just makes it easier to claim “they be different!”