Races and their real-life equivalents

[username993720]

orcish culture is based on confederate america.

slavery (still depicted in-game in multiple questing zones, so it is still a part of the horde to this day), endless warmongering and racism, love of war-criminal founding fathers, obsession with weapon ownership, culture entirely rooted in violence, i could go on but imo its pretty undeniable.

a lot of early metzen stuff was like this, you see a ton of confederate america love in the design of starcraft for example. the orcs have a lot of that built into them.

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Mod Edit: Don't use giant images in this fashion.

This is the most far-fetched, illogical, and outlandish claim i've ever read.

You do know slavery, racism, warmongering, war crimes, weapons ownership and violence were a thing way before america was founded, right? they didn't invent these things.

There isn't the slightest resemblance in Orcs to confederate america.

[sillag]

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This is the most far-fetched, illogical, and outlandish claim i've ever read.

You do know slavery, racism, warmongering, war crimes, weapons ownership and violence were a thing way before america was founded, right? they didn't invent these things.

There isn't the slightest resemblance in Orcs to confederate america.

your reply makes no sense. these things were all parts of other cultures, and don't originate from america, but that doesn't preclude them from being the essence of confederate america. in fact, america is the place most people on earth will think of when asked to name a culture that values slavery, racism, weapon ownership, and evil founding fathers.

no culture named in this entire thread is the originator of anything posted here. but strangely, very mysteriously, my post was the only one you took issue with... why could that be, i wonder...

i wonder....

anyway, you are objectively incorrect. the horde is based entirely on american culture, because that's what metzen found cool. recall that the starcraft marines literally wear confederate flags on their armor, and the human faction in that game is literally a confederacy. this is all documented. you cannot argue against it.

in later years, blizzard and metzen would begin to retreat from their idolization of conservative values. but it's still built into the orc and horde dna.

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recall that the orcs wage a manifest destiny war of conquest in kalimdor to carve a new homeland out by displacing and often enslaving the native populations. there are literally concentration camps in ashenvale where the horde enslave furbolgs.

but, uh, yeah.... it uh... doesn't resemble america at all, LMAO.

[Seasz]

This thread is going places...

[Tommi]

Gypsy being a term nowadays considered unpreferable in comparison to just Romani.

Can confirm this. Have gypsy family, they prefer Romani.

[matrix123mko]

Draenei have always seemed Jewish to me. Their accent, hardships and connection to religion fits.

[Vargrik]

This sort of thread generally gets locked because Goblins are always compared to Jews, which everybody knows is a very close representation taking into account racial/ethnic stereotypes.

[Daedius]

Agree with most but not the Gnomes or Blood Elves...

Not once have I EVER associated Gnomes with the Irish (Travellers), and I'm Irish! They're just generic Gnome folklore, which includes them tinkering stuff.

And Belves are as you already mentioned but veered, Arabic. Their style of architecture, clothing and internal design tapestries and such scream Arabic. Even their phrases when you interact with them kinda sound Arabic.

[Aucald]

This thread runs very close to Forbidden Topics, but can remain open so long as real-world politics, racism, ethnic prejudices, and other such things are assiduously avoided. This is the only warning the thread will receive in this capacity.

[username993720]

your reply makes no sense. these things were all parts of other cultures, and don't originate from america, but that doesn't preclude them from being the essence of confederate america. in fact, america is the place most people on earth will think of when asked to name a culture that values slavery, racism, weapon ownership, and evil founding fathers.

no culture named in this entire thread is the originator of anything posted here. but strangely, very mysteriously, my post was the only one you took issue with... why could that be, i wonder...

i wonder....

anyway, you are objectively incorrect. the horde is based entirely on american culture, because that's what metzen found cool. recall that the starcraft marines literally wear confederate flags on their armor, and the human faction in that game is literally a confederacy. this is all documented. you cannot argue against it.

in later years, blizzard and metzen would begin to retreat from their idolization of conservative values. but it's still built into the orc and horde dna.

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recall that the orcs wage a manifest destiny war of conquest in kalimdor to carve a new homeland out by displacing and often enslaving the native populations. there are literally concentration camps in ashenvale where the horde enslave furbolgs.

but, uh, yeah.... it uh... doesn't resemble america at all, LMAO.

This is not Starcraft, stop comparing Orcs to human marines.

Do you see Orcs using rifles like confederates? do you see Orcs wearing an outfit that even slightly resembles that of the confederate?

Would your american orcs help the native american Tauren and ally with them, instead of taking their lands?

I would somehow understand if you said the Humans were based on confederate america, but the Orcs? you do realize the Orcs are brutish and savage, something that the Humans distaste.

If anything, racism is something i would associate with the Humans against the Orcs.

Americans is not the first thing people think about. Maybe as an american you do but, most people would think about mongols and genghis khan when thinking about things like savagery, raiding and pillaging villages, conquest and warfare.

[Cyanu]

imo in all games Elves represent a fantasy mix of Celtic and Ancient Greek elements with Wood/Night Elves leaning celtic while High/Blood Elves leaning Greek

Elves always appear as an ancient people with it's golden age long gone, now they're few scattered and bitter, always dreaming of their past, a time in which their society was more enlightened and advanced than what humanity could ever hope to be (->from a medieval point of view in which most fantasy games are forever stuck- the so called medieval stasis)

even their sidestories (Azhara and the Naga) are obviously inspired from the ancient Greek myth of Atlantis and the sunken ruins we seen in various Naga zones are obviously inspired from ancient Greek architecture

High Elves dressed in white, all about politics, arts and science strongly resemble the golden age of Athens, while wood elves with their hunters, druids and warriors of the forest strongly resemble the Celts

[Syegfryed]

while some things are spot on, others are "shallow", cause they do not are based around just one culture/civilization.

By example, trolls are every latin american/caribbean thing, aztec but also inca and maya, zandalari even have the african as a big thing.

Goblins are also based around jews, Orcs also based around northenmen and the bushido, I know that ogres, even if not playable, are based around the roman empire.

and i disagree about dark iron being celtic, that make more sense to be add to worgen an kul'tiran druids, and wildhammer dwarves

[Cyanu]

orcish culture is based on confederate america.

slavery (still depicted in-game in multiple questing zones, so it is still a part of the horde to this day), endless warmongering and racism, love of war-criminal founding fathers, obsession with weapon ownership, culture entirely rooted in violence, i could go on but imo its pretty undeniable.

a lot of early metzen stuff was like this, you see a ton of confederate america love in the design of starcraft for example. the orcs have a lot of that built into them.

seriously now?... slavery has been a thing for thousands of years before america was even discovered and the orcs are obviously a fantasy mix of various warrior cultures, savage, nomadic, they don't even have politics just a tribal rite of single combat so the strongests becomes the 'warchief'

any inspirations for the orcs is taken from ancient times and not so civilized places

[Syegfryed]

seriously now?... slavery has been a thing for thousands of years before america was even discovered and the orcs are obviously a fantasy mix of various warrior cultures, savage, nomadic, they don't even have politics just a tribal rite of single combat so the strongests becomes the 'warchief'

any inspirations for the orcs is taken from ancient times and not so civilized places

dude is just trying to shit on orcs, even other warcraft races do the exact thing h sid.

[username993720]

seriously now?... slavery has been a thing for thousands of years before america was even discovered and the orcs are obviously a fantasy mix of various warrior cultures, savage, nomadic, they don't even have politics just a tribal rite of single combat so the strongests becomes the 'warchief'

any inspirations for the orcs is taken from ancient times and not so civilized places

Thank you.

This was the most bizarre thing someone claimed about Orcs.

[Dazmalak]

I'd say the flavor of different culture and ethnicities is there on a surface level only. Obviously the nuances of said cultures have been glossed over. But, by and large all the races have sort of become blended together and have no real actual diversity or individuality outside of appearance, with cultures being homogenized over time from individual races into general Horde and Alliance and even further after BfA into just one Alliance group with no real differences outside of aesthetics.

Realistically, just about every fantasy trope or race comes from something in real world history or mythology. Some things get more of a twist to make them unique, and occasionally a completely unique creation is made. But Warcraft has always been completely unsubtle in its ability to rip-off of pop culture or real world equivalencies even if they are only skin deep.

[Sharnie786]

Fair enough, I stand corrected on the belly dancing. I did want to say Middle-Eastern and I thought Indian women belly danced too. Pakistani culture I'm not very familiar with.

Nope, Indian cultural dance is more Yoga and Bharatanatyam. The belly dancing has been made popular by Bollywood movies because there is an audience of over 2 billion people consuming it. However, it is very Arabian/Turkish. Kebabs are also Turkish, Iranian and Pakistani.

Culturally though, there is no single Indian or Pakisyani culture because both nations are made up of people speaking more than 200 languages each and different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. They're truly multicultural. The only defining things about India is that it is Hindu majority and is 90% or so vegetarian. The only defining thing about Pakistan is that it is Muslim majority and consumes a lot of meat. Another thing is food in the west that is labeled Indian is usually Bangladeshi or Pakistani.

Pakistan is a mixture of Aryan people from the east theyre mainly Punjabi and Sindhi, from the west theyre mainly Pashtun and Baloch. Even though the national language of Pakistan is Urdu only 8% speak it as their first language. However, everyone understands it and speaks it as a lingua franca. It has a population of around 220 million people and is home to the 2nd highest mountain in the world, K2. There are vids on YouTube if you're ever interested.

India is a very culturally diverse place. This is why there have been many separatist movements that still continue today. They are q really fast growing economy but a lot of India's modern culture is inspired by the west. They like to dress in jeans etc instead of the cloth wrapped around their legs. The tech industry is booming there too. There are a lot of internal problems such as public defecation but I think their PM is sorting that out, even though his party is inspired by the starters of ww two. Sorry to have bored you but there are videos on India on YouTube too.

[Isilrien]

Most of the races are amalgamations of various cultures and time periods. If you look at the food of the Night Elves, for example, some of the items are Korean. Elven architecture varies--Greek/Roman, Middle Eastern, Japanese/Korean/Chinese. The NE language is slightly reminiscent of Arabic. Tyrande's accent is none of these (and why does she talk like this when none of the other NE characters do?). So, I think Blizzard pulls from all kinds of cultures for each race with some races not being as diverse (Gileans seem Victorian English, for example, and not much else).

[Maljinwo]

I never got the "jew goblin" angle

They are just a stereotype of someone greedy with an italian american accent because mafia and stuff

[Destinas]

I gotta clear up some.confusion in the OP about Troll culture. It's not quite accurate to label them as dominantly Mesoamerican. It's actually quite linked to the real world history of the Caribbean.

Trolls are meant to be a mix of Mesoamerican and African - thus Caribbean and South American. They have Afro-Caribbean accents, they have Afro-Caribbean masks, the males' dance is Capoeira (an Afro-Brazilian martial art), and their homes are more reminiscent of early Afro-Caribbean huts than mainland African huts.

The Zandalari are likewise a mix, but they lean more heavily toward Mesoamerican with their cities, masks, clothes, and overall aesthetic. However, their accents, dances, and wooden buildings are meant to be more mainland African, to seem fancy (and in fact, most of the Zandalari were voiced by African people or people with African parents).

The thing that all Trolls share is Loa, which is a word from Lousiana and Haiti originally ("lwa"). The word was originally olúwa, meaning "lord" or "god" in Yoruba. However, when slaves were taken to the "new world" many African religions became homogenized into different types of Voodoo, with the original religion being called vodoun in Africa. Today, voodoo is mixed with Catholicism and other religions among many places in the Caribbean, North America, and South America.

As for Loa themselves, in WoW they're a mix of three different things: Lwa/Loa, Mesoamerican deities, and southern Native American deities and spirits. That's why there are Troll Loa of African/Caribbean inspiration (Bwonsamdi = Baron Samedi), feathered serpents of Mesoamerican cultures (Hakkar/Quetz'lun = Quetzalcoatl), as well as general animal spirits/Loa representing different parts of nature.

And, to clear up something else:

The new Troll skeletal body paint customization, for example, is very reminiscent of cinco de mayo (Day of the Dead) skeletal theme:

Yeah, no. Cinco de Mayo means "fifth of May" which is a celebration of the Mexican army's victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) is an Aztec holiday to the goddess Mictecacihuatl that was homogenized with All Saint's Day when the Spanish colonized Mexico. This holiday lasts from October 31st to November 2nd.

As far as the new body paint, it has more in common with West African Vodoun/Haitian Voodoo than Day of the Dead. It's more reminiscent of images of Baron Samedi than it does body paint for Day of the Dead, which is meant to mirror a Calavera. The image you showed was basically a cheap Halloween costume version of it, and not accurate. This is traditional Day of the Dead body paint, notice the difference from the one in the OP:

And here's an example of West African body paint:


As you can see, Trolls have a much more monotone type of face paint, similar to Voodoo face paint. Calavera face paint is intricate and full of colors.

So, I hope that clears up some things about Trolls.

[Ardenaso]

I thought Silvermoon was practically Rome?

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can't wait to see Stromgarde and Alterac in their revamped versions