TWW Narrative Failure & Forced Ideology

Community General Discussion
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My lords, my ladies… and everybody else here not sitting on a cushion!

The forum has seen widespread upheaval on the topic of “inclusivity” and how TWW casts upon us modern tribulations in the guise of questlines and character depictions.
While reading one of the many debates going on when it comes to the subject, I had a thought I expressed I wanted to paraphrase here:

"The current story is terribly lacking, showing a tremendous amount of potential taking into account the characters and lore, but it being rubbish due to the forceful inclusion of “woke” ideology - which in turns means the exclusion of solid narrative and the total breaking of immersion a fantasy game tends to provide.

Faerin is blatantly a DEI character, and the Arathi, like all humans in WoW, descend from the Vrykul, a culture based on Norse mythology (do you all realise how much we could’ve been exploring the human forefathers legacy through the titans with such a trope? But noooo, lets just force fake corporate inclusivity down the players gullet).

Moreover, what always made WoW “inclusive” was the representation of other cultures, ehem, CULTURES, not races, through the use of fantasy races. Making Faerin black, mangled and a woman just reeks with political ideology.

WoW was created by mainly a white male team, but oh no, they’re the tyranical devils in the modern age!

Their work to pay homage to foreign cultures is being thrashed with this forced inclusivity:

• Tauren as Native Americans.
• Black Spears as African tribes / Caribbean descendants.
• Zandalari as other African tribes / South American natives.
• Vulpera as the desert nomads, i.e. Bedouins, Tuareg.
• Dwarves as Gaels and Celts.
• Pandarens as Chinese / Far East Civilisations.
• Gilneans and Kul Tirans as Brits.

But waaaaait a minute.

Gilneans and Kul Tirans are humans… and the Stormwindians have always been mainly white… why? Cause they’re based on European medieval culture (the latter) and early modern age Europenas (the former). BUT SURE! LETS BLACKWASH THEM TO PRETEND WE ARE AN INCLUSIVE COMPANY!"

Excuse the excited tone - it was a heated debate on one of the previous posts someone made on the subject (which clearly devolved into an entirely different topic than the original).

I wanted to post this to invite both parties that present opposing camps on the topic to make their thoughts known in a civic manner, as I am curious how people take to what I have quoted.

All in all, I am trying to showcase how “poc” have been tokenised by Blizzard and they are purposefully trying to erode the white, European culture and representation that humans in WoW have represented since the beginning of its inception - and pinpoint Faerin as an inflexion character when it comes to this. It showcases the forced inclusion of leftist western mentality and the view of their “New Europe” swarmed with foreigners.

I am looking forward to all the grounded opposing arguments and views on the topic.

If you cant be civic, move on.
If you are going to insult other posters, move on.
I you are simply going to give a bait / troll answer, move on!

And now, in the words of Beetlejuice:

ITS SHOWTIME!

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Inb4 lock….

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I think War Wtihin is some of the best storytelling Blizzard have done in a long time.

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That’s not hard. They haven’t done any.

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So what’s wrong with that exactly?

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It’s a superficial portrayal that reduces cultures to blatant, and sometimes offensive, stereotypes instead of offering genuine representation that enriches the setting. This is akin to the harmful idea of equating goblins with Jewish stereotypes and expecting praise for it. While fantasy races can be influenced by real-world cultures, they should never be used as substitutes for meaningful and respectful representation.

If you want to do it right, you create multiple human civilizations, each with their own distinct culture, history, and traditions, and use that to meaningfully expand the lore. Elves, dwarves, goblins, and trolls should not be direct analogues of real-life cultures to the point of parody. Instead, they should be treated as unique, imaginative races that contribute to the world-building without reducing real cultures to oversimplified stereotypes.

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Nothing, I am pointing these out as positive, and the blackwashing of humans in WoW as negative, with TWW as a main example, which started with the new starter zone for Alliance.

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I’m sure there are no ulterior motives behind this post.

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Again, this aint my point. I am pointing at culture over race, and having those examples as paying homage to these. While on the other hand, undercutting the portrayal of European culture by blackwashing humans in WoW.

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I know that’s your point but I also wasn’t responding to you.

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Meaning???

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Wrong region mate this is the EU forums we don’t make everything about race and what’s between somebody’s legs like they do over on NA should post there instead

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Oh we do consider looking at every election at this point.

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I wonder when the actual grounded replies and solid views will start coming in xD

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It’s not a portrayal of respective cultures, it’s fictional cultures inspired by real life ones, if you are offended by that it’s your fault.
I for one want stereotypical slavs in wow, why we don’t have one

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Tell me you didn’t bother to understand the point without telling me. :joy:

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you… are right, i’m so accustomed to see people being constantly offended on this forum that i literally didn’t read last part.
My fault, sorry

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That’s perfectly fine—I’d actually love to see more Eastern European and even Byzantine themes in WoW as well. A version of the Light inspired by the Orthodox Church would be metal.

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There’s taking inspiration from and then there’s basing it almost 1 to 1 on a stereotype, especially if that stereotype isn’t too favourable or make light of issues the group of people the stereotype is based on may have had historically. It’s why a lot of more modern depictions of goblins have been problematic but up until maybe the 2010’s it hasn’t been put under as much scrutiny as it should have.

Granted, it’s more so a sentiment that those writing fantasy universes have become aware of within the last 20’ish years. The Warcraft universe being as old as it is (think it’s either mid 80’s or early 90’s that it got fleshed out for the games) was written at a point where there wasn’t the same focus on this so it includes a lot of these more basic 1 to 1 adaptations of real life historical cultures.

Personally it’s more so acknowledging if there are particular issues but also realising that it’s near impossible to write any of it out since it’s so ingrained into the cultures of the different ingame races that have carried over from the Warcraft games.

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I did the entire campaign as Guardian but in cutscenes it took me out of bear form and I was wearing the Murloc onesie.

It was immersion breaking on two fronts and kept making me think one of the NPCs would do this:

So regarding immersion maybe people should go after store transmogs first.