Stereotyping the Horde 217
Terra Nova is having a discussion today entitled Cultural Borrowing in WoW, looking at the cultural references made in relation to the Horde (Jamaicans for the Trolls, Native Americans for the Tauren) and what that means given the Horde's reputation as Evil. From the article: "I want to talk about how science fiction and fantasy often engage in this type of borrowing -- most 'new' things are just old things recoded. For instance, the Wikipedia entry on Klingons points to the Soviets, Mongolians, and Japanese Samurai. In most cases, I think this whole process of cultural encryption, mash-up, and recoding is fun -- perhaps what good art is all about. Looking particularly at WoW, though, I have to wonder sometimes..."
Horde IS supposed to be evil ?!?!?! (Score:1, Interesting)
Horde is a gathering of orcs, orcish, trollish races. Orcs, trolls were always EVIL - not talking about metaphors, real evil, really real evil - in celtic legends, and tolkien have brought them to the lotr as such.
But later on the net, as it always happens, some crowd has come up and SOMEHOW related the horde with "REBEL", the "ordinary man" - just like many ~13 bambino, punk/death metal enthusiast have related the EVIL sith to 'rebel' 'charismatic' and 'extraordinary'. Ah the elves, who are the mentors and protectors of humans in celtic legends have been made into some 'snob' race.
Bullshit. Everything to its place - if one enters a game of fantasy, based on myths, they have to stick to the core of the myths.
This seems more like an inner talk in the lines of "i want to be evil but i cant make myself accept it since the community wont accept people who are wanting to be evil, even in roleplay" to me.
unintentional, subtle racism? (Score:3, Interesting)
My own take on it is that it signifies not racism, but just some lack of creativity on Blizzard's part.
Re:Ugh. No. Wrong. (Score:1, Interesting)
Uh (Score:5, Interesting)
Klingons - black skin, brutish, unintelligent, hyper-aggressive, extremely athletic and possessed of a mystical earthy wisdom that's a direct rip of the "magic negro [wikipedia.org]" phenomenon. They're a condensed version of every stereotype about Africans.
Romulans - intelligent, devious, amoral, harsh semi-collectivist government, yellow skin, slanty features, related to 'emotionless' creatures. Condensed version of every stereotype about Asians.
Ferengi - greed-obsessed swindlers of the lowest sort with bulbous ugly noses, comical ears, and they are constantly lusting for Federation (read: Caucasian) women.
It's all there, plain as day. Obviously in the Klingon case there's been importation of 'good' cultural elements like an honor system, etc., but the basic stereotypes are glaring. Tolkein doesn't score much better, either. At least Dune, as the nerd classics go, has the decency to glorify a non-European race.
--Ryvar
Re:False Assumptions (Score:3, Interesting)
And Strangle Thorn Vale is just a clusterfuck. Both sides are out there ganking all day long.
In all, I find that the horde players tend to be eaiser to deal with, as allies. Barrens chat is bad, but the amount of crap spewing on the General Channel, and being yelled in Goldshire is just over whelming.
Re:Horde IS supposed to be evil ?!?!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Almost all of the prominent races, and hero classifications there are from celtic myths.
And in the celtic myths, there has never been a time that orcs, trolls, goblins were classifiable as non-evil.
They are still evil. just, many people want to play 'evil' for the 'thrill' and 'charisma' of it, but being good in heart deep down, and hence couldnt be able to accept playing an evil character consciously, they twist it.
Re:Confusing ugly and evil? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe at some point when he becomes a teenager this is likely to change and he will make some evil PVP ganking toon and spam "lolrz" everytime he whacks a low level player. *shudder*
Re:Uh (Score:4, Interesting)
You're probably right about the Klingnons and maaaaybe the Ferengi, but I disagree with your trying to add Romulans to the racist stereotype list. Intelligent, devious, amoral? Sure, all those were true. Harsh semi-collectivist government? I don't remember the Romulan government, other than it was harsh, but I'll go along with that assessment. Yellow skin? Erm, no, the Romulan skin pigment was the same as that of their white-bread cousins, the Vulcans. Slanty features? Certainly not in the facial features and eyes. The closest you might come is they all have bowl haircuts and long, straight eyebrows. Hell, all the Federation needed to do was give Deanna Troi a bowl cut and long eyebrows and she fit in in appearance with the Romulan society. So no, I don't think the Romulans fit into many asian stereotypes.
Re:Horde IS supposed to be evil ?!?!?! (Score:2, Interesting)
While WoW has a superficial impression of Good vs Evil, it's really rather morally ambiguous, and is better categorized as Us vs Them. Saying that Horde is evil because of the mythological sources is inaccurate, simply because Blizzard is no longer using the mythological sources to define the racial behavior. Arguing the interpretation based on the old definition won't get you anywhere simply because it no longer applies.
With that said, I think you've nailed the reason why Blizzard made both sides morally ambiguous - it lets the players be all heroic (or villainous) on either side without restriction. The distinction is that this is something Blizzard did by design, not something that the players are attempting to superimpose on the game.
Re:Others == animals (Score:1, Interesting)
You're trying to apply current standards and advanced concepts onto tribalism. As people advanced culturally, they would inevitably come to realize that pillaging everyone else is not a good idea. But they would understand this at different rates within the civilization. So things like "Civilizing the Barbarians" are used as rationales to get the more cultured people to go along with the raping and pillaging.
The Romans, the Persians, the Chinese, everybody did it. We just happen to be more familiar with our own civilization's rationale, which is rather pathetic looking back. So what you have to do is look back on it with contempt, not project it on every single facet of history. If you go back and read some of what people were thinking at the time, many even then knew the whole White Man's Burden thing was a crock.
Tribalism is instinctual. Just look at the Republicans today. Many of them truly believe that you're either a loyal Republican, or you're with the terrorists. Many Japanese today still believe that all gaijin are filthy barbarians. You think the Islamicists don't see the westerners as barbarians? Every tribe sets itself up this way.
The fact that the Europeans managed to conquer most of the globe was a mere quirk of fate. The Europeans were no more brutal or evil than any other tribe.
Re:Uh (Score:2, Interesting)
That's why they were called Romulans. In fact, the relationship between the Romulans and the Vulcans was probably conceived as similar to that of the Romans and the Greeks (during the time of the Roman empire.). The Vulcans are utopian intellectuals, while the Romulans are warmongering imperialists.
I mean the Romulans had Senators and Consuls, Romulus (and Remus) were the fictional founders of Rome. It's extremely explicit. They may have been intended to fill the role of the Chinese in TOS's Cold War metaphor, but they did not resemble the Chinese in their characteristics.