Does racism exist in wow.

[Taygames]

Before I start the thread I have no intention of creating racism on this forum nor breaking the rules I am neither racist or anything else like that I am purely against racism anyway(Feel free to lock if this thread is against the rules or people get out of topic)
Does racism exist in world of warcraft? if i am correct I sometimes hear highborne related npcs call us lowborne

[Boogums]

Yes. It's one of the main storypoints of the universe.
/thread
/10 char

[Hammerfest]

I don't know about WoW, but it was definitely visible in WarCraft 3, particularly with Garithos and his contempt for the High Elves.

[Deleted]

Yes, soooooo many people hate us gnomes

[Calfredd]

Before I start the thread I have no intention of creating racism on this forum nor breaking the rules I am neither racist or anything else like that I am purely against racism anyway(Feel free to lock if this thread is against the rules or people get out of topic)
Does racism exist in world of warcraft? if i am correct I sometimes hear highborne related npcs call us lowborne

Umm yes. Garithos was vehemently racist toward elves and in fact sent them on what amounted to a suicide mission because of it. He almost single-handedly made the blood elves join the Horde's faction with open arms.

Also holy crap do you get around. How many threads do you make before going silent?

[Friendlyimmolation]

Did you ever actually read quests? Racism is everywhere in WoW.

[Krawu]

Ironically, some races in WoW seem more prone to racism than others.
But the most simple and obvious example if the Human/Orc dynamic. Humans think Orcs are a bunch of overly aggressive towering brutes hardly capable of coherent thought, Orcs think Humans are a bunch of pathetic weaklings, not only in body but in spirit as well.

But honestly, I couldn't even imagine fiction without a hearty dose of racism. In fantasy and certain kinds of science fiction I'm usually a fervent racist myself, usually against Elves and for Dwarves when given the choice
Others have this thing about Gnomes...

[Thage]

It does. Elves are prone to it big-time, but every race has its racists. One third of the reason the faction war keeps being reignited is because someone on one faction believes the other shouldn't exist (the other two-thirds are because nobody thinks to send a damn letter anymore; the entire faction war subplot revolves around a total lack of communication between faction leaders and everyone jumping to conclusions to get that ol' cycle of conquest and revenge started again). In the Council of the Three Hammers short story, Moira exploited underlying racism against the Wildhammers in an attempt to weaken both the Bronzebeard and Wildhammer dwarves to facilitate a Dark Iron takeover. Garrosh's increasingly-racist rhetoric pushed out all but the most fervent hardliners or those whose loyalty to the Warchief outweighed their loyalty to the Horde (or who, like Nazgrim, felt the two were one and the same and thus refused to abandon their posts) and ignited the Horde civil war from 5.3 and 5.4.

Lor'themar is a pretty open-minded guy for a blood elf, but racism is a recurring issue with blood elves and, before they were reduced to a small faction of remnants, the high elves were really bad about it, to the point that they would only offer token support to the Alliance until the Horde directly attacked them. On joining the Horde, again, there's a strong undercurrent of "We're better than you even when our culture is in shambles" when dealing with blood elf NPCs as a non-blood elf back in TBC, for those NPCs whose dialogue changed depending on race.

Humans give as good as they get, too, with quite a few human NPCs displaying openly-racist rhetoric toward orcs and Garithos's men throwing the blood elves to the metaphorical wolves in the aftermath of Lordaeron's Scourging for no other reason than racism (as confirmed by the creative team in one of the Ask CDev threads). Even the gnomes get in on it, though they're more the condescendingly-compassionate flavor of racism wherein they generally assume everyone they deal with is an idiot.

The pandaren also have a bit of an issue with that; Taran Zhu often outright ignored the finer points of the faction war in favor of telling all those foreigners to get the fuck off his land. And again, there's more than a few pandaren who, while mostly benign, have that undercurrent of, "You can't help it, you're just a silly foreigner." According to Chen Stormstout's POV in Shadows of the Horde, the mainland pandaren even get in on it with the Wandering Isle pandaren, with the former referring to the latter (even the Tushui, who follow a philosophy more close to that displayed by mainlanders) disparagingly as 'wild dogs.'

Draenei have a long-standing and notable grudge against the orcs, though this is one of those things where it's kind of a faux pas to be open about it (Maraad is the odd man out here) and they're willing to admit when an orc is 'one of the good ones.'

Pretty much the only race without some kind of racism problem (that they're dealing with to varying extents as they cross-pollinate with the other cultures in their factions) are the tauren. They're just kinda doin' their thing most of the time.

[Sam the Wiser]

I actually went to a rally once in, Orgrimmar. Something about sending the Orcs back home.

[Aucald]

Yes, it does - although none of the Warcraft universe's various nation-states or factions espouses it as a matter of course it is still a private belief individuals or groups have against other races. There are examples of humans racist against allied races (e.g. Garithos), orcs racist against races considered "weaker" (e.g. Garrosh), trolls who believe in the inferiority of all non-trolls such as the Zandalari priestess Khal'ak, and Blood Elves who believe that humans are barbarian scum such as Zendarin Windrunner.

With a multitude of intelligent humanoid races running around a world it stands to reason you're going to have a good deal of racism or speciesism to contend with.

[Maruka]

My boy Go-el was treating like a negro by the humans.

[Golden Yak]

I doubt it. Specism is probably a lot more fun. Black and white come together in harmony to beat up on green.

[Lastlivingsoul]

Yes, it does - although none of the Warcraft universe's various nation-states or factions espouses it as a matter of course it is still a private belief individuals or groups have against other races. There are examples of humans racist against allied races (e.g. Garithos), orcs racist against races considered "weaker" (e.g. Garrosh), trolls who believe in the inferiority of all non-trolls such as the Zandalari priestess Khal'ak, and Blood Elves who believe that humans are barbarian scum such as Zendarin Windrunner.

With a multitude of intelligent humanoid races running around a world it stands to reason you're going to have a good deal of racism or speciesism to contend with.

TLDR;
...Genus, Species, Race
...Genus, Species, Magic?<-->Race?

Same Intelligence, Different Species --> Xenophobia"Speciesism"
Same Intelligence, Same Species, Different Race --> Racism

Warcraft is more about Xenophobia

It's funny you bring up speciesism because it sounds like that was OP's real question. I think that "speciesism" is more Xenophobia and ignorance and actual racism exist only in members of the same species. Does magical corruption effect the specie's biology create hatred within said species or is simple Xenophobia? "I hate you because your different and I don't/won't understand why?" Most of that can be explained by how well most subraces of Orcs, Elves, Trolls etc work together.

Elves that despite the superior and haughty attitude still acknowledge a common ancestry with pride despite the mistakes that have been made. Orcs may come in Brown, Green and even Grey but they seemed to work well together in Draenor just as the Elves did in Suramar. Trolls came together repeatedly in Zul'Aman, Zul'Gurub and awakening the Thunder King. Pandaren get along just fine until choosing a faction. Most Titanborne like Dwarves, Mogu, Gnomes, Vrykul actually transcend their races between Metal and Flesh (If it can be cured is it a race?) Humans and Undead are tricky as one cannot reproduce and is still the same species with a condition that separates their appearance. In every instance of those races joining together they were doing so to wipe out everything that was not them, Xenocide.

Undead/Forsaken could be accepted into Human society but face immediate prejudice right off the bat. The fear or corruption, negative stereotypes or still being Scourge, the Religion of the Light will only classify them as damned, and personal appearance seem to frighten and instill hate for what they are. That is a clear example of targeting a member of your own original species that was separated and perceived as a threat before judgment can be made. In the end they are/were classified as human at birth no matter what they do in life/undeath. If you can call undeath a sub-race then I would say racism but if you call it a whole new type of being unclassifiable by science then it falls back to Xenophobia.

I'm sorry I get so long winded on this but this does seems like an interesting concept. Might even write my own short fiction about it...

[Deleted]

No, since there aren't any different races, only different species. An Orc hating Trolls isn't racism, it's one species hating another, which doesn't qualify as racism. Even Trolls or Elves of different variaties differ too much from eachother to be called races.

- - - Updated - - -

Did you ever actually read quests? Racism is everywhere in WoW.

So by your definition a cat hunting a mouse is an example of racism towards mice? Because that's what cats do, right? But don't you forget they're completely different species? Ohhhh

[Manabomb]

Oh for sure. At it's very core "Orcs vs. Humans" is racism. But to delve further, there are tons of racist-type one liners faction leaders have told one another and very racist common-folk npc types.

Fundamentally it's one of the few things that keeps the whole faction conflict alive, if not relevant.

- - - Updated - - -

No, since there aren't any different races, only different species. An Orc hating Trolls isn't racism, it's one species hating another, which doesn't qualify as racism. Even Trolls or Elves of different variaties differ too much from eachother to be called races.

- - - Updated - - -



So by your definition a cat hunting a mouse is an example of racism towards mice? Because that's what cats do, right? But don't you forget they're completely different species? Ohhhh

Your logic starts failing when cats and mice start to question why cats always chase and hunt mice. At that point, it's no longer a definition of natural selection, but racism on an intellectual level.

It's hard to comment on, considering the only race humans have is homo sapiens even though we constantly define ourselves through race.

[Wyrt]

Yeah, but it's justified when it's against elves.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Play the game and find out. Seriously, you make these threads that are easy to find out on your own.

[Andromedes]

Yes. It's one of the main storypoints of the universe.
/thread
/10 char

Do you even known what 10 char means and when it is used?

[MikeBogina]

There's tons of racism in warcraft, but there's barely any whiny people to point it out. I would call it more tribalism as most conflicts are between groups of completely different levels of society, technology, gods, powers and ways of thinking. The Orcs didn't hate the humans because they were humans. Infact I believe Orgrimm and others saw them as a worthy race to fight in combat.

Also Garrosh did nothing wrong.

[AlmightyGerkin]

Of course racism exists in WoW. Look at Garithos and the blood elves. A good example would be Garrosh's Horde.