The Intricacies of WarCraft

or, "Wow, There's a Lot to This Universe"

by Ben 'Magic' Brown

Contents:

Introduction
Good and evil, black and white
Back to Warcraft, where all that glitters is not gold
Heroes and villains: the share of bastards
Links:

Introduction

The original reason for writing this article was due to a series of points that I have brought up in several forum threads that contained discussions of the WarCraft lore (That being the story, characters, fiction and such text which forms the background of the game) and I felt that it was time to put them together into one source of reference. This also gives me a chance to reasses and expand on certain concepts and I can write it at a higher level of English compared to lazily-made forum replies.

The WarCraft series has came a long way since the release of WarCraft: Orcs and Humans back in 1994 and, if World of WarCraft's eight million subscribers are any indication, the series is clearly more popular and well-known than ever. There are many reasons for its immense success and no single one can be attributed as being the only significant factor, but the lore has, I believe, been given some major attention as the series has grown. At worst, it is visibily present and appealing enough that some players, though certainly not all of them, actually pay it a decent level of attention. At best it's a masterfully-carved web of detail.

Blending shades of JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth, Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy Battles, Dungeons and Dragons (Indeed, the four universes share several aspects in common and I'll likely be comparing them in the course of this article) and other sources, WarCraft is a crucible of medieval-based mythical conflict. It has a well-established lore which has changed and evolved many of its aspects - from simple conflicts to political, cultural and racial intricacies with themes of good versus evil, war, corruption, hatred and hope.

Like Middle Earth, Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Dungeons and Dragons, WarCraft can be taken as a straight-forward saga about warring races as a means of selling a product (The computer game software in the case of WarCraft), that it is a generic fantasy setting and there is nothing more to it. However, I believe that some people honestly believe that Animal Farm is a kid's story about talking animals and that there is nothing more to it. For those who wish to do so, then, the fine detail is there to be studied and I believe there are some remarkable insights to be had - those people believe that many intricate details are not placed at random and did not come about by chance.

This article is for those people.

Good and evil, black and white

Before I proceed, I think it's necessary to elaborate on 'black and white' thinking. Even if it may seem obvious, I believe it's worthwhile to briefly study it for the points I shall be covering.

Person A has committed activity X which someone believes is wrong and because that action is wrong then person A is wrong for doing the act. This is the basic thought behind 'black and white' thinking - that an act which is deemed morally incorrect is absolutely wrong to ever do, that there is never a rational middle-ground (A grey area) for an action. This belief that there is only ever right or wrong is also known as a 'False Dilemma'. Person A may have actually committed activity X to do something else they consider to be 'right'.

It may be wrong to, say, drive a car over 60 Miles Per Hour on a road so the act is technically illegal due to the desire for public safety. However, it's not always that simple - what if it was an emergency where time is of the essence? What if a pregnant woman is in labour and urgently needs to be driven to a hospital? Would it be right for a policeman to arrest the driver? For another example, is it always wrong to murder? What about in self-defense if there is no other option? Life, unfortunately, is not as simple as black and white thinkers would like and there's a reason civilised nations have courts to attempt to adequately pass judgement over a crime, rather than some allegedly all-knowing figure such as a monarch or high priest.

It's no surprise, then, that sometimes the relatively uncivilised factions and characters in fantasy universes demonstrate such thinking. They are depicted as living in troublesome times of vast conflict where true, decent learning or compassionate wisdom is generally reserved for very intelligent characters like LOTR's Gandalf, while hatred and stereotypes run deep in the common peasant-like simpletons. This is much like certain periods of human life on Earth where, in fact, it's only been sixty years since someone convinced an entire nation to believe in wild fabrications, leading to the most destructive war in history, all the while certain world leaders could be said to be manipulating people once again today. None of it is truly justified, perhaps, but it does allow us begin to understand the mentality behind it, that unstable environments and simple-minded thinking only lead to further conflict, though fortunately in the fantasy universes we can view the potentially horrific and atrocious repercussions 'safely'.

Games Workshop's universes (Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer 40,000, though I will be focussing on the former) in this regard are more subtle and even satirical, such as the human Empire of the Fantasy instance and its stance on other races. It may initially be thought of as a great kingdom - after all, we're humans too and we like to be seen as great and 'doing well' - that is valiantly holding off its invading enemies in a bid to survive, but the members of the Empire tend to show absolute, open and wanton racism such as that towards "greenskins" (Orcs and goblins). While the author's need to create an on-going conflict, the Empire is constantly fighting - it is done so bitterly and unrelenting that there's never even a hint that the sides could be coexisting, as if both are so entrenched that they are unable to think about doing so. It is so over the top and seemingly exaggerated that one can scarcely believe it. While, to return to our own history for a moment once more, cultures have often violently clashed, many have eventually made peace with one another and coexisted despite their differences. The current status of global politics is certainly far from calm, but compared to other periods at least nations are not turbulently at war with their neighbours.

Many other universes often attempt to show the opposite of Warhammer - how many stories do you know that have a line akin to "I'm not working with HIM! He's an orc!"...? The situations typically have the 'goods guys' being forced to work with one of their enemies out of necessity, to achieve a greater good, and in doing so they begin to understand that the 'bad guys' aren't what they once believed and that there has been some misunderstanding due to their differences. A character with black and white thinking would never ally with a member of a race that has been deemed 'evil' by their morals, no matter the assurances or possible outcome. We rarely see such zealots (Indeed, I've always wanted to create a sanctimonious paladin who laughably sticks to a creed of ridiculous extremes) since it's an interesting subplot that allows the author to explore the cultures in their universes, it makes the characters and reader think about and even question their beliefs and it simply reinforces the notion that it is often ignorance most of all that leads to misunderstanding and bigotry. Again, I certainly believe that this applies to real life.

Back to Warcraft, where all that glitters is not gold

With this taken into account, we can finally look at WarCraft which I believe is a spectacular mixture of good and evil - and in turn there are details about the differences. The first and second WarCraft games are each very straight-forward in their initial plot - brutal creatures are invading a peaceful realm. The orcs are evil and the humans are good (Followed by the Horde and Alliance in WC2 respectively). I'm not criticising Blizzard for keeping the plot so basic - WarCraft 1 was one of their first PC games and keeping things like this was surely a requirement for several reasons, least of all the technical restriction in how the in-game plot could be divulged in the form of briefings rather than during actual gameplay. It is only in WarCraft 3 that things get far more intriguing and we find that that there is more to the orcs than previously suggested, that the reason they invaded Azeroth was out of servitude to demons and they were once actually part of a noble, shamanistic heritage. Though they remain savage but proud in battle and in their culture, the Horde of Azeroth is now honourable and merciful in their ethics. This is covered to a far greater depth in the novel Lord of the Clans (Read my review here), where the young orc Thrall rediscovers this heritage and the distinction between barbaric orc and gallant human is very much changed, something that continues in the WarCraft series to date. This is hardly a coincidence and I believe it gives great merit to the developers as a result.

WarCraft 3, its expansion pack The Frozen Throne and now World of WarCraft have done an excellent job of inverting overall fantasy cliche's like this and part of it involves challenging the users conception of how the races and characters will end up acting and treating each other. By this point in the storyline, the orcs are no longer crazed barbarians who show no mercy (Though this is not always the case in PVP but to this we can point towards the gameplay and desire by other players to maim one another), while humans, though initially prosperous and clean-cut like Warhammer's Empire, begin to show a few signs that they're not what their image portrays. Come the end of the Orc bonus campaign for The Frozen Throne, Thrall has been more than willing to have a truce with the Alliance, especially after they banded together at the climax of WarCraft 3's Night Elf campaign, yet Daelin Proudmoore (Jaina's father) completely refuses and acts to destroy all of the orcs for good. Daelin may have his reasons (The orcs were a threat in the past) but he's completely unreasonable in a very stark contrast to Thrall.

In WarCraft 3 itself we have Arthas and his descent into undeath, though I believe his actions were more of a specifically personal nature than necessarily a trait common to all of the humans as few are presumably in a position to seize an awesome but corrupting power in a bid to do good, to defend their people (While other actual characters like Grom Hellscream and Illidan Stormrage do the same at certain point). Despite their obvious good, generally the human nations show complacency, arrogance and simply an inability to prevent themselves from squabbling instead of acting as a united force. In World of WarCraft, any players who complete the Van Cleef storyline will realise that the bandits they've been investigating and fighting actually have a reason for what they're doing and the fault lies with the government of Stormwind (That the brotherhood were once laborers who went unpaid despite their help in rebuilding Stormwind). This is not some revelation hidden later on - it's right at the end of the first major quest line. Any sensible player will realise that Stormwind is nowhere near as squeaky-clean as they're made out to be. Blizzard put this detail in there for a reason - why did they when could easily have just had Stormwind as an upstanding nation that was simply quelling greedy and ruthless bandits?

In the Frozen Throne, the Alliance campaign is centred around the formation of the Blood Elves but we also get to see another negative trait of humanity. The main human character is Grand Marshall Garithos and despite his efforts in mustering a formidable Alliance resistance army to fight back at the Scourge, he is an absolute and utter racist. Also like Warhammer's Empire, it's almost ludicrous at how open he is about it - he actively shows his disdain at working with elves and dwarves, and his peeved lines - the responses he makes when clicked multiple times - are actually based on real racist jokes ("The only good non-human is a dead non-human."). Once again we have a noble race but it is being lead by a commander who, despite his tactical ability, is far from decent or respectable. Though it was once more a creative requirement - to give the Blood Elves a reason to leave the Alliance - one has to wonder why Blizzard went with Garithos, that they displayed such a negative character which shows that the humans aren't at all so innocent.

We've slowly been shown good orcs and evil humans, but it doesn't end there.

Let's look at another race. The High Elves were previously suggested as being arrogant in WarCraft 2, but such is a typical foundation for this type of fantasy race. After all, the common 'variety' of elven nations are mighty, wise and long-lived, so how else should they treat 'lesser' races who do not match them in their potential existence? By WarCraft 3 they are certainly no strangers to tragedy, such as when Arthas burns their homeland of Quel'thalas, but their general attitude nonetheless veers towards extreme arrogance like when they blame the Alliance for the catastrophe. The original High Elves (The High Bourne) were also responsible for the Sundering of Azeroth when they attempted to meddle with the powers of the divine Well of Eternity. By World of WarCraft, they have renamed themselves to Blood Elves (It could even be questioned whether this is actually in honor of their fallen kin, as they claim, or whether it's even an arrogant attempt at receiving attention!) and though they have reclaimed much of Silvermoon, they rely an enormous amount on their image. Silvermoon is the North Korea of Azeroth - full of propaganda proclaiming it to be great, lavish and gratuitous decor, a huge feeling of desperation for some sense of 'power' from the population, large desolate areas with a terrible ratio of space to the actual amount of people and a very dubious leadership.

I sometimes wonder about younger players, who are inexperienced in terms of culture and wisdom, or players who don't care about paying much attention to the lore, whom believe Silvermoon is just a shining elven city and there is nothing at all wrong. To go back to something I mentioned in the introduction of this article, it reminds me of children (And, I must confess, this once included myself) who watch a movie version of George Orwell's classic Animal Farm and believe that it's just a movie about talking animals who take over a farm and nothing more than entertainment, rather than a metaphor about Stalin's implementation of communism and what happens when a revolution goes terribly wrong (It also seems apt to mention this since I just compared Silvermoon to the last communist state in the modern world).

The other elven faction, the Night Elves, are not dark elves - at least to Dungeons and Dragons Drow or Warhammer's version of Dark Elves, both of which I believe to be the standard - as you would expect by their appearance and even though they are a race that adore the darkness, who worship a moon goddess and who are paranoid of outsiders. They have a sacred charge to practically do the latter and the other traits aren't actually evil despite what one may first think. Whereas the High Elves tend to be selfish and ultimately only work with others if it benefits themselves, the Night Elves are concerned with the balance of nature and the state of other races in their forest realm. They are occasionally extreme (And their creation of Teldrassil, in bid to reclaim their immortality, has not worked out at all), but their heart is certainly in the right place.

One way of describing the High Elves and Night Elves is that the former are arrogant and rather impulsive while the latter are relatively humble and benevolent, in another contrasy such as that of the "goods orcs and evil humans". These aren't absolutes but the overall cliche's themselves have definitely been twisted to some degree, practically under the facade of a standard fantasy saga.

Heroes and villains: the share of bastards

For much of my life I've attempted to be open-minded and rational, especially in regards to history and culture. I've found that, to put it very simply, every human faction appears to have had and still contain its "share of bastards" and one can not seriously state that one side acted without fault or without questionable ethics. War and conflict, unfortunately, often bring extremes out into the open - there aren't simply good heroes and evil villains strictly on opposite sides to one another like pieces on a chess board (Under the presumption that white and black coloured pieces are contrasting to good and evil!).

Going back to World War 2, for all of the glorious crusade in liberating countries that the Allies carried out we still have the bombing of Dresden, the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or Soviet Russia's conquest of Eastern Europe as several tarnished aspects of their ultimate victory. Militarily those issues may have had some form of merit, whether the destruction of some of a major part of Nazi Germany's infrastructure, an enforcement of Japan's surrender or a buffer zone against potential new enemies, but the human suffering and deaths - or decades of occupation in Eastern Europe's instance - are extremely difficult to encapsulate and truly comprehend. If those forces were of alleged good but, arguably, they committed these atrocities despite whatever the Axis powers may have done then are they actually still to be considered 'good'?

With the share of bastards on all sides, one might think we're left with shades of grey instead.

We're not perfect beings but we should strive to reach a higher level and should constantly evaluate our actions at the same time, otherwise we risk becoming that which we attempt to fight. Compare a zealous knight who mercilessly wipes out an entire village of his enemies to a sorcerer who consorts with evil demons but only so that he may destroy an even greater threat.

The fantasy races in World of WarCraft are simply not all black and white, despite what some might think about the lore being a tacked on feature for nerds to enjoy, as something to engross them even more. There are specific details and inversions which are apparent, there are challenges to pre-conceptions of standards in fantasy universes and it is, as a result, something I believe is worth looking at with a fair and open mind.

It's a real shame as those that miss the point likewise miss also the rest of the spectrum - the broad range of colours that are those details that have carefully been placed within it.

After all, if you don't have those colours then you're viewing the whole as being black and white, which is surely a more boring, if simple, experience.

- Ben 'Magic' Brown

Links: