I must be stopped.

[snarp]

Cataclysm is coming out soon. I cannot be permitted to restart my subscription to see what the lead-up events are like. I'm probably not high enough level to access most of them, but I will be sucked back in nonetheless. My heart will be broken by the Orgrimmar redesign. My nerves will be shattered anew by the ethnic stereotypes and poor storytelling decisions. Dudes will say stuff about my hat.

Comments

[darkelf105]

But are you going to play as a goblin? Because if you are, despite all the things I have to say about WoW, none of them good, I feel that I shouldn't stop you. I want to play WoW so I can be a goblin, but I tend to project my desires on others, so maybe you don't?

[snarp]

If I were to play a goblin, I'd end up getting kicked off the RP server for playing a goblin from this dark AU where the orcs keep accusing my people of killing and eating their children and confiscating our property, and Varian Wrynn is a thinly-veiled representation of Hitler, and everyone thinks we caused the zombie plague by poisoning the wells, or something.

(I feel that the goblins are Jewish stereotypes. This means that I found the Fizzle Darkstorm quest unsettling, because I felt vaguely as if I was participating in the final scene of the blood libel narrative, where the wicked Jewish sorcerers are killed by righteous men, and their demonic associates banished.

It bugs me that this game has forced me to say, "I found Fizzle Darkstorm unsettling.")

[mikkeneko]

Well, *I* sure plan to play a goblin. :)

[scribbled_lore]

Tauren paladins?!

[snarp]

They use the power of the moon goddess or something. Personally, I'm not yet over the fact that the Native American stereotypes are also frequently Druids. I feel that the Pyramid Collection should sell some kind of figurine or matching tapestry-and-duvet set depicting this situation. They've already done St. Francis of Assisi as a Druid, it's unfair to stop there.

[nagaina]

Actually, they use the power of the heretofore little dealt with in Lore sun god An'she, who may or may not be the same entity as the Holy Light. People are falling all over themselves trying to find a reason why the Light followed by the Tauren paladins and the Light followed by the Sin'dorei paladins (since the redemption of the Sunwell) and the Light followed by the human and dwarven paladins are three different things despite the pretty explicit and undeniable indenticalness of the Light they all follow.

Also: the goblins are not so much a Jewish stereotype in the new stuff so much as a hysterical, cackle-out-loud funny commentary on the horrors of modern corporate culture. No, really. I've been playing one since the friends and family alpha test.

[mikkeneko]

I always thought that was the Consortium, really, more than the goblins.

[snarp]

My issues with the goblins are as follows:

1) Small stature and oversized noses and ears - all stereotyped ways of portraying Jews.

2) Nasal voices - see 1.

3) The women's Valley Girl speech patterns - the Valley Girl stereotype is considered kind of an offshoot of the Jewish American Princess type.

4) Obviously, all the money stuff.

See also: Space Jews.

[nagaina]

I can see where your argument is coming from -- there are, in fact, some stereotypical traits on the goblins, just as there are some stereotypical traits on most of the races in Azeroth. I am, however, saying that as a playable race, the goblins do not strike me as a Jewish stereotype so much as a combination of modern corporate entity gone horribly horribly wrong mixed liberally with entertainment-style depictions of the Mafia. Their traits also ping hard on the Mambo Italiano goodfellas and gun molls scale, particularly the women -- who do not particularly have "Valley Girl" stereotype speech patterns (that is, alas, the playable blood elf women -- really, my paladin does not come from California) so much as a rather broad New Yawk accent with accompanying Mafioso attitude.