WoW: What the hell is this nonsense?
Mar. 13th, 2011 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadedmusingsI'm doing some research on WoW so I can develop a Horde character for role-play on Steamwheedle. Of particular interest to me at the moment are the Blood Elves and to that end I'm going through the wikis and the WoW forums to find out the general "rules" for role-playing Blood Elves. One thread on the forums provided a helpful link to a page detailing the history and story of Blood Elves. Toward the end were some helpful hints with the basic suggestions of "Don't be an emo kid," "Don't be a horndog," and "Don't be a Mary/Marty Sue/Stu."
And then I saw this:
Blood Elves are not homosexual either. Blizzard may of [sic] made the jokes seem homosexual in nature, but the blood elves still hold their overal [sic] straight ways.
*record scratch.* What?!
*pauses to let her eyebrows come back down from her hairline*
Sure, it's not outright saying, "You can't be a gay Blood Elf," but that seems to be a pretty sweeping statement. Obviously, I'm going to ignore this tidbit and let my Blood Elf be whatever she wants to be (I honestly don't know yet, much like I never know with most of my characters until someone sparks their interest...okay, okay, Selene was a hedonist long before I rolled the dice, but that's besides the point). However, it rankles me to see such a statement and makes me wonder why, in light of Blizzard even making jokes (not that jokes are necessarily a good thing), there was a need to say this. What's the problem?
Yes, I'm a noob to WoW, but I know homophobia when I spot it, no matter how "innocent" the posters' intentions may have been. (HINT: Intent is not magic.) I could look at the real world and say nearly every culture that ever existed has "held to their overall straight ways." We live in a heteronormative society which ignores the existence of other sexualities (or fetishizes them) and assumes heterosexuality is a given. It's stupid to think that just because there aren't loads of gay blood elves making out in the middle of Silvermoon City that there are absolutely no gay blood elves.
Stating that blood elves are only straight makes this statement about not being a horndog confusing: "Blood Elves are not sex addicts. This cannot be stated enough. Yes they do have sex, but from research into other elves of various sources, including tolkien's elves, they tend to keep their sexuality to themselves and their life long partiner." So if they keep their sexuality to themselves and don't talk to outsiders about it, how the hell do we know who's gay and who's straight? It'd seem more likely that, just like the real world, there's a mix of sexualities and it's more than a little stupid to try and minimize one or the other. I'd more likely believe that [alternate]sexualities exist, though the culture makes it difficult to love freely. (Then again, I play fantasy games as an escape from the real world and it'd be nice to pretend once, just once, there's some society out there in the Land of Make-Believe that just doesn't care who you fuck, or if you fuck at all, so long as it's all consensual.)
(Also, am I the only person who gets a little weary of seeing "But Tolkein elves do X!"? Yes, he's thought of as the "father" of modern fantasy, but he's scarcely the only source, and it seems to me that Tolkein elves are worlds apart from WoW's elves, or even Dungeon and Dragons elves. Yes, I've committed fantasy blasphemy.)
At any rate, that statement really caught me off-guard in a place where I didn't think a potential character's sexuality was even an issue, or rather, it shouldn't be an issue.
Okay, back to brainstorming for my Warlock.
And then I saw this:
Blood Elves are not homosexual either. Blizzard may of [sic] made the jokes seem homosexual in nature, but the blood elves still hold their overal [sic] straight ways.
*record scratch.* What?!
*pauses to let her eyebrows come back down from her hairline*
Sure, it's not outright saying, "You can't be a gay Blood Elf," but that seems to be a pretty sweeping statement. Obviously, I'm going to ignore this tidbit and let my Blood Elf be whatever she wants to be (I honestly don't know yet, much like I never know with most of my characters until someone sparks their interest...okay, okay, Selene was a hedonist long before I rolled the dice, but that's besides the point). However, it rankles me to see such a statement and makes me wonder why, in light of Blizzard even making jokes (not that jokes are necessarily a good thing), there was a need to say this. What's the problem?
Yes, I'm a noob to WoW, but I know homophobia when I spot it, no matter how "innocent" the posters' intentions may have been. (HINT: Intent is not magic.) I could look at the real world and say nearly every culture that ever existed has "held to their overall straight ways." We live in a heteronormative society which ignores the existence of other sexualities (or fetishizes them) and assumes heterosexuality is a given. It's stupid to think that just because there aren't loads of gay blood elves making out in the middle of Silvermoon City that there are absolutely no gay blood elves.
Stating that blood elves are only straight makes this statement about not being a horndog confusing: "Blood Elves are not sex addicts. This cannot be stated enough. Yes they do have sex, but from research into other elves of various sources, including tolkien's elves, they tend to keep their sexuality to themselves and their life long partiner." So if they keep their sexuality to themselves and don't talk to outsiders about it, how the hell do we know who's gay and who's straight? It'd seem more likely that, just like the real world, there's a mix of sexualities and it's more than a little stupid to try and minimize one or the other. I'd more likely believe that [alternate]sexualities exist, though the culture makes it difficult to love freely. (Then again, I play fantasy games as an escape from the real world and it'd be nice to pretend once, just once, there's some society out there in the Land of Make-Believe that just doesn't care who you fuck, or if you fuck at all, so long as it's all consensual.)
(Also, am I the only person who gets a little weary of seeing "But Tolkein elves do X!"? Yes, he's thought of as the "father" of modern fantasy, but he's scarcely the only source, and it seems to me that Tolkein elves are worlds apart from WoW's elves, or even Dungeon and Dragons elves. Yes, I've committed fantasy blasphemy.)
At any rate, that statement really caught me off-guard in a place where I didn't think a potential character's sexuality was even an issue, or rather, it shouldn't be an issue.
Okay, back to brainstorming for my Warlock.
