“Race” in the fantasy sense is a metaphor. Tolkein’s Elves don’t represent a particular ethnic group (or even borrow much imagery from one) they represent a particular set of ideas (wonder, magic, mystery). Tolkein’s races of *men* are a different matter, but his non-human races are designed to represent concepts (wonder, wisdom, evil, rural England) not real life ethnic groups.

Looking at WoW as a more specific example, I don’t think it’s true that the Humans code “white” more consistently than (most) of the other Alliance races (which isn’t the same as saying I don’t think Humans code as white, they clearly do, but so do Gnomes, Dwarves, and for that matter Forsaken and Blood Elves). I’m not sure it’s useful to identify “racism” in the fact that Dwarves are good at finding treasure and shooting guns, while Draenai have an Aura of Heroism and Humans are good at Diplomacy, because within the Alliance “race” is essentially a code for “what your character is interested in and good at”.

Essentially “race” in fantasy often means “archetype” – are you a bold warrior (Orc), creepy and sinister (Forsaken), proud and vain (Blood Elf), quirky and into gadgets (Gnome) or noble and in tune with nature (Tauren). The problem comes with the way some (but not all) of the “archetypes” presented by WoW races overlap with *stereotypes* of real world races. I don’t think it’s racist to have a type of player character which is characterized by “savagery and dark mysticism” – what’s racist is the fact that the “savagery and dark mysticism” is *specifically* coded as African/Caribbean.

Does that make sense?

1. I hadn’t thought about the interbreeding thing with WoW. You’re right – it’s there in the lore, but not very much. (WoWWiki’s entry on Half-Elves suggests that they’re all over Stormwind, but I never noticed.) Thing is, the ability for two organisms to reproduce doesn’t necessarily make them a species. According to Wikipedia, that’s no more than a working definition amongst scientists. There are lots of organisms that don’t fit the definition for one reason or another – some members of different species are able to interbreed, while some members of the same species reproduce asexually. I’d still be inclined to say that, say, the Gnomes and the Draenei, who not only have drastically different bodies but in fact come from different planets, are different species. But actually, whether they are or not isn’t really my point. My equation, race=species, is an imprecise way of summarizing my observation about game’s use of the concept of race. By having characters with appearances and abilities that are firmly linked to something it calls “race,” WoW posits that race is a biological concept – maybe not the same as species, but like it. Maybe race=subspecies?

2. Definitely! In fact, I usually call my own game alter-egos “characters.” The delineation between “avatar” and “character” comes from a delineation between “game” and “story,” the idea being that a game is a sequence of events that its participants enact in the present tense, and a story is a sequence of past events that its participants are recounting. But then of course videogames contain both games and stories, and a lot of the actions we take in them are performances of characters in those stories, so it’s all kind of muddy. So it goes with a new medium – we’re using terms from older media to describe new-media features that are, well, new.

3. My readings of the Horde females aren’t personal judgments of their attractiveness, though I find it interesting that there’s debate about that. (I hadn’t heard about the one “pretty” Troll face, actually.) I’m just saying that the Horde females (except the BEs) are purposely designed to fail our society’s mainstream definitions of beauty and femininity, and that we’re supposed to notice it. (Conversely, how many of the male characters’ /silly jokes refer to their attractiveness, or to their appearance at all?)

4. They both look awesome! It’s really interesting, too, that the Alliance will get a scary monster race to choose from. It reminds me of how the Horde got one pretty race with the Blood Elves. Flipside of the same coin, maybe.

Thanks again for reading, and please do pass this along. And I’d love to hear more about how you feel about your own avatars – the game “text” offers us a set of meanings, but we always bring our own meanings in too.

1. I have a bit of a problem with your idea of “race=species.” Scientifically, a species is defined by its ability to produce viable offspring. A race, according the way most people I have heard use it, is an ethnic and/or cultural group within a species.

In WoW, the “races” are not really species because they can all interbreed. There are half-elf(human+elf), half-orc (human+orc), and possibly draenei+orc (Garona). Of course, it’s usually human+other race. I wonder why in their societies that interracial relationships don’t happen often. There are not too many examples of it in actual lore made by Blizzard, but it happens often enough with roleplayers in WoW.

2. About the term “character” instead of “avatar”… Some people prefer “character” because they write/act out their own narratives and like to think of their representation in-game as more than just a representation: it’s a person with a history, ideas, and feelings. Naturally, I am referring to roleplayers. Of course, there’s also the idea of one’s avatar being an alterego.

3. You made comments about undead, troll, and orc females being “unsexy” or “unfeminine.” They are played out to be this way by their /silly jokes and such, but in reality a lot of people think female trolls and undead chicks are hot (there aren’t as many of those people as there are people who like female blood elves, but there is a significant amount). Orc females get the shaft like dwarven women, though. Also of interest: I’m sure you know there is only one “pretty” troll female face which every troll woman uses.

4. Cataclysm. What do you make of the goblins and worgen so far? The goblin city looks like something straight out a crazy futuristic film noir! And a lot of people are so worked up about what their /dances will be! Haha.

I had fun reading it. I’ll probably pass it along to a few people, too. Ever since I played the game I had wondered things like “Why are the trolls Jamaican?” or “Why are the humans so European?”

Take of this what you will. I’m just another WoW player out there (female undead priest as my main, but I have a very diverse array of alts). Heh.