New Customization Options for Blood Elves and Void Elves in Shadowlands

[Lubefist]

Black elves.....didn't see it coming..yet also not surprised in the long run.

I don't really care one way or another, and will probably even play one at some point, but this is kinda obviously playing into the PC world we live in now.

This "PC world" where we live in is absolutely needed to normalize things that are still obviously scary to some.

Funny how like 99% who whine about PC/SJW/whateverthefuck are always white men. My job includes providing safe space for sexual and ethnic minorities where they can express themselves with art exhibitions and music events and it's pure joy to see how happy they are with the improvements in how accepted they are in society these days and I honestly can't understand the wide outrage about the "PC world we live in".

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Blizzard uses unnatural colors to represent magical processes, grey, purple, orange, etc are fine for representing fel corruption. That said, Blizzard is never going to connect real world skin colors to any kind of corruption, magical or otherwise. It would be incredibly stupid for them to do that rather than simply saying that the Sunwell canceled out the night elves' magical purple hue and left skin tones similar to what we see in real life humans. Blood elves are already human inserts in the Horde - there's no reason that they shouldn't represent all humans in a similar way.

High elfs/blood elfs are litteraly caused by magic corruption There was no canceling out the natural colour for an elf is purple/blueish but the sun well turned them white due to arcane/holy magic soaking into them.

They litteraly turn white from feeding off holy/order magic if that wasn’t a problem turning darker shouldn’t be either and we already have examples of it where demon hunters turn darker because of fel.

[Lahis]

Blizzard uses unnatural colors to represent magical processes, grey, purple, orange, etc are fine for representing fel corruption. That said, Blizzard is never going to connect real world skin colors to any kind of corruption, magical or otherwise. It would be incredibly stupid for them to do that rather than simply saying that the Sunwell canceled out the night elves' magical purple hue and left skin tones similar to what we see in real life humans. Blood elves are already human inserts in the Horde - there's no reason that they shouldn't represent all humans in a similar way.

Every race with human skintones are receiving the same expanded options. Finally. I was actually shocked that regular humans didn't have proper black skins like Kul Tirans got.

[Queen of Hamsters]

This "PC world" where we live in is absolutely needed to normalize things that are still obviously scary to some.

Funny how like 99% who whine about PC/SJW/whateverthefuck are always white men. My job includes providing safe space for sexual and ethnic minorities where they can express themselves with art exhibitions and music events and it's pure joy to see how happy they are with the improvements in how accepted they are in society these days and I honestly can't understand the wide outrage about the "PC world we live in".

Indeed.

If living in a "PC world" comes at the cost of more people being represented and more customization options for everyone in a video game, then it's a pretty fucking great world to be living in.

As opposed to living in a "non-PC world", where there's societal segregation, Apartheid, laws favoring one group over the rest etc etc.

At least this thread drags them out into the light so one can remove them from the site using uBlock.

[Saltysquidoon]

This logic makes no sense.

Fel corruption has been shown to change the skin color of many creatures, yet when it turns one of the pretty races dark-skinned, it's racist...? Because by God, then WoD was racist as hell, nevermind the TBC depictions of Blood Elf NPCs... Hell, look how dark Bolvar turned from the dragon's fire! Racist WOTLK anyone?

It's safe to say that skin color doesn't function the same way in WoW as it does IRL. Same as literally anything else in the game, really.

You have to be pretending (much like Daemos daemonium) not to understand if blizzard officially stated that a "White" race ingesting to much demon power turns them "black"* it would be a PR nightmare.
Let me spell it out for you, it isn't the 1800s anymore you can't call brown people devils. How do people still need this explained?

*as in the definition of human melanin like the new customisation option. Not actually black like in wod or purple/dark red like felblood elves.

[Freighter]

This "PC world" where we live in is absolutely needed to normalize things that are still obviously scary to some.

Funny how like 99% who whine about PC/SJW/whateverthefuck are always white men. My job includes providing safe space for sexual and ethnic minorities where they can express themselves with art exhibitions and music events and it's pure joy to see how happy they are with the improvements in how accepted they are in society these days and I honestly can't understand the wide outrage about the "PC world we live in".

That's most likely because of the places you visit are in languages mostly spoken and visited by white people.

Go visit ilbe some time. This is by no means restricted to white men.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You have to be pretending (much like Daemos daemonium) not to understand if blizzard officially stated that a "White" race ingesting to much demon power turns them "black"* it would be a PR nightmare.
Let me spell it out for you, it isn't the 1800s anymore you can't call brown people devils. How do people still need this explained?

*as in the definition of human melanin like the new customisation option. Not actually black like in wod or purple/dark red like felblood elves.

Mental gymnastics and gaslighting at its finest.

[Saltysquidoon]

Mental gymnastics and gaslighting at its finest.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

They're adding the option so people can play a character that more accurately represents them that is a good thing.

Saying brown elves are demons makes you a racist it's not 'gaslighting'.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

You have to be pretending (much like Daemos daemonium) not to understand if blizzard officially stated that a "White" race ingesting to much demon power turns them "black"* it would be a PR nightmare.
Let me spell it out for you, it isn't the 1800s anymore you can't call brown people devils. How do people still need this explained?

*as in the definition of human melanin like the new customisation option. Not actually black like in wod or purple/dark red like felblood elves.

You don’t need to do any pretending it’s in the game right now. Arcane/light turns you white it’s been that way since Warcraft. Fel turns you darker it was like that in tbc with the fel elfs wod with the orcs turning black and legion with the demon hunters being darker then normal blood elfs.

You litteraly have to pretend all these examples don’t exist to say fel doesn’t make you darker even on natural human scales as seen in DH’s.

[protip]

High elfs/blood elfs are litteraly caused by magic corruption There was no canceling out the natural colour for an elf is purple/blueish but the sun well turned them white due to arcane/holy magic soaking into them.

They litteraly turn white from feeding off holy/order magic if that wasn’t a problem turning darker shouldn’t be either and we already have examples of it where demon hunters turn darker because of fel.

Darker, sure, but "white people skin color = holy magic and black people skin color = demon magic" is never going to just be okay. If Blizzard did that, the entire company would be crucified in the news. The fact that it exists in a fantasy universe doesn't mean that Blizzard can get away with something that leaves those kinds of implications. Even if the consequence was only making a couple of people uncomfortable, there is literally zero reason for Blizzard to say that the Sunwell didn't give blood elves natural human skin tones rather than just turning them into white people with pointy ears and glowy eyes. There is room for a balance of magical and genetic influence that accounts for the same range of options that other races in the Warcraft universe have.

You don’t need to do any pretending it’s in the game right now. Arcane/light turns you white it’s been that way since Warcraft. Fel turns you darker it was like that in tbc with the fel elfs wod with the orcs turning black and legion with the demon hunters being darker then normal blood elfs.

You litteraly have to pretend all these examples don’t exist to say fel doesn’t make you darker even on natural human scales as seen in DH’s.

No one is pretending that magic won't turn skin darker in elves, but there is literally zero chance that natural skin tones will be explained by demonic corruption. That can be maintained easily using unnatural skin tones like purple, blue, or green, as with void elves.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Darker, sure, but "white people skin color = holy magic and black people skin color = demon magic" is never going to just be okay. If Blizzard did that, the entire company would be crucified in the news. The fact that it exists in a fantasy universe doesn't mean that Blizzard can get away with something that leaves those kinds of implications. Even if the consequence was only making a couple of people uncomfortable, there is literally zero reason for Blizzard to say that the Sunwell didn't give blood elves natural human skin tones rather than just turning them into white people with pointy ears and glowy eyes. There is room for a balance of magical and genetic influence that accounts for the same range of options that other races in the Warcraft universe have.



No one is pretending that magic won't turn skin darker in elves, but there is literally zero chance that natural skin tones will be explained by demonic corruption. That can be maintained easily using unnatural skin tones like purple, blue, or green, as with void elves.

Sure you can say it’s bad PR but that PR has been there since they made high elfs an off shoot of night elfs. There is no genetic precedent for high elfs to have turned white sure they can retcon one in bit for all of wows life purple/blue was the natural colour of elfs just like it was for the Dark trolls before then and the sun wells magical influence is the only thing that turned them white.

For fel and darkening it’s a bit different as fel has had a wide range of colour changes but as of legion Those ranges have been with in Darker human skin variations And given that said demon were around in tbc it’s safe to say that they have always been in human ranges.

[Hipnos14]

Darker, sure, but "white people skin color = holy magic and black people skin color = demon magic" is never going to just be okay. If Blizzard did that, the entire company would be crucified in the news.

What the hell are you talking about? do you know that the reason why white/light colors tend to be used to represent good things and black/dark colors to represent bad things comes from the fact that we (humans) fear the darkness? It's so unbelievable that some people actually believe that using dark colors to represent bad things comes from racism, like, what the fuck?

All of us fear dark places because we can't see what can be lurking around that might hurt us, and feel safe in illuminated places because we can see if there is something that might hurt us, simple as that. Jesus christ...

[deplorable]

it would make lord of the rings a lot more fun to watch if they did this with their elves, samuel l jackson as Thranduil

[Lorgar Aurelian]

No one is pretending that magic won't turn skin darker in elves, but there is literally zero chance that natural skin tones will be explained by demonic corruption. That can be maintained easily using unnatural skin tones like purple, blue, or green, as with void elves.

There is likely to be no official explanation ever given for any of these customizations so that leaves it up to speculation and going off of what we already in the lore there is a precedent and a reason for these to exist without any retcons even though some might say there isn’t.

But as blizzard is unlikely to ever make a mention of this it’s pretty much just something to point to when people say darker elfs have never existed.

The same thing goes for humans blizzard is likely never to address why there are different races but when people say they don’t exist we have examples of them in the lore just like the elfs.

[ShinMaxwell1982]

This "PC world" where we live in is absolutely needed to normalize things that are still obviously scary to some.

Funny how like 99% who whine about PC/SJW/whateverthefuck are always white men. My job includes providing safe space for sexual and ethnic minorities where they can express themselves with art exhibitions and music events and it's pure joy to see how happy they are with the improvements in how accepted they are in society these days and I honestly can't understand the wide outrage about the "PC world we live in".

You didn't really get what I meant, but like I said I have no issues with these new customization options myself. By PC world, I mean where you have to have everything be diverse now and not strictly one skin color/tone for fears of someone crying racism or something like that..and it does happen, believe me. I'm glad you have a job like you do though, because honestly they deserve a chance to express themselves in good ways for once.

[protip]

What the hell are you talking about? do you know that the reason why white/light colors tend to be used to represent good things and black/dark colors to represent bad things comes from the fact that we (humans) fear the darkness? It's so unbelievable that some people actually believe that using dark colors to represent bad things comes from racism, like, what the fuck?

All of us fear dark places because we can't see what can be lurking around that might hurt us, and feel safe in illuminated places because we can see if there is something that might hurt us, simple as that. Jesus christ...

You can't just go and apply that to human skin tones. That's completely ridiculous, and if you don't see how making that connection in creative work would be irresponsible, you're frankly not worth replying to.

There is likely to be no official explanation ever given for any of these customizations so that leaves it up to speculation and going off of what we already in the lore there is a precedent and a reason for these to exist without any retcons even though some might say there isn’t.

But as blizzard is unlikely to ever make a mention of this it’s pretty much just something to point to when people say darker elfs have never existed.

The same thing goes for humans blizzard is likely never to address why there are different races but when people say they don’t exist we have examples of them in the lore just like the elfs.

From Chronicle:

After being exiled from the Well of Eternity, the Highborne began to feel the effects of aging and disease. Their skin had even lost its violet hue, and they had begun to shrink in stature. The Highborne feared that the effects would only worsen over time.

High elf skin only has to be less purple according to the lore. There are examples of dark skinned high elves in various pieces of Blizzard media, and there's no need to explain further. The implication is obviously that beyond that magically rooted violet hue, high elves have a broad range of human skin tones rather than just pink ones. It's really not a big deal.

[Mosha]

What the hell are you talking about? do you know that the reason why white/light colors tend to be used to represent good things and black/dark colors to represent bad things comes from the fact that we (humans) fear the darkness? It's so unbelievable that some people actually believe that using dark colors to represent bad things comes from racism, like, what the fuck?

All of us fear dark places because we can't see what can be lurking around that might hurt us, and feel safe in illuminated places because we can see if there is something that might hurt us, simple as that. Jesus christ...

People are way too sensitive these days. There is no speaking logic to someone like this.

[Sharby]

You can't just go and apply that to human skin tones. That's completely ridiculous, and if you don't see how making that connection in creative work would be irresponsible, you're frankly not worth replying to.

Thank you for this I swear I feel like I'm losing my mind watching some of these people speak on this topic.

[Yarathir]

Wow, this thread has become a mess and a political battleground for no real reason.

It's always over the elf skins, too. Not the Gnome or Dwarf skins.

[protip]

Wow, this thread has become a mess and a political battleground for no real reason.

It's always over the elf skins, too. Not the Gnome or Dwarf skins.

Honestly, part of me understands, because the typical fantasy elf concept was originally always white. This is different from that, and I'm sure some people find that weird. That said, that elf concept has been through 100 years of reimagining, and now that it's 2020 I think we should all be able to get over some brown elves.