World of Warcraft Fans Are Not Happy With New Dragonflight Codex Lore Book
World of Warcraft Fans Are Not Happy With New Dragonflight Codex Lore Book
- World of Warcraft fans are upset about racist tropes and inconsistencies in the Dragonflight Codex lore book, disappointing readers.
- The book portrays Night Elves as “lithe and graceful beings of superior intellect” in comparison to Dark Trolls, which is seen as problematic and ignorant.
- Previous World of Warcraft books, such as Grimoire of the Shadowlands and Exploring Azeroth: Kalimdor, also had clashing lore details and depicted marginalized cultures negatively.
World of Warcraft fans are upset about some details from The Dragonflight Codex: A Definitive Guide to the Dragons of Azeroth, Blizzard’s latest lore book. Though the codex offers some interesting worldbuilding, certain parts of it rely on outdated racist tropes, and seem incongruent with things presented in World of Warcraft itself.
The Dragonflight Codex is the latest World of Warcraft lore book, which promised to delve into the history, culture, and physiology of the dragons of Azeroth from the perspective of Khadgar, a popular WoW character that was erroneously identified as a dragon in the book’s original summary. After being announced over a year ago, World of Warcraft finally released The Dragonflight Codex on December 26.
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However, now that the book is out, fans are not impressed by what they’ve read. World of Warcraft fan, critic, and inclusivity advocate BaalTheWarlock got a copy of The Dragonflight Codex shortly after its release and poured through its pages. As he shared his findings on Twitter, he was disappointed with what he found. Several parts of the book rely on problematic racist stereotypes towards the Trolls, such as one passage that calls World of Warcraft Night Elves “lithe and graceful beings of superior intellect” in comparison to the Dark Trolls they once were. What’s more, putting these words in Khadgar’s mouth makes the kind and compromising wizard seem ignorant, disappointing his fans.
There were some strange inconsistencies with recent World of Warcraft events as well. Despite being the new Aspect of the Black Dragons, Ebyssian only gets one page to Sabellian and Wrathion’s two each, and is mentioned after both of them. Likewise, Merithra’s page doesn’t bring up that she is the new Aspect of the Green Dragonflight in World of Warcraft, leading some fans to wonder if Blizzard changed its mind on some story details after this book was already written.
This isn’t the first World of Warcraft book to cause problems. The Grimoire of the Shadowlands and Beyond and Exploring Azeroth: Kalimdor also had clashing lore details and painted races like Tauren and Trolls – both of which take inspiration from actual marginalized cultures – as foolish. Of the two, Exploring Azeroth: Kalmidor was especially egregious, as it threw several popular World of Warcraft characters under the bus while doing so. It seems The Dragonflight Codex has followed its predecessors’ troubled footsteps.
That said, some recent World of Warcraft lore books, like Exploring Azeroth: Eastern Kingdoms, plus its Northrend and Pandaria counterparts, have all been well-received. Hopefully, World of Warcraft can do better with its future books, avoid falling into racist stereotypes, and correct its course like it did with groups like the Ohn’ahran Plains centaur.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight was developed by Blizzard Entertainment and is the ninth expansion pack for the iconic massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft.
Dragonflight features an overhauled user interface, raises the level cap to 70, and introduces a new race and class.
Franchise Warcraft Platform(s) PC Released 2022-11-28 Developer(s) Blizzard, Activision Publisher(s) Blizzard, Activision Genre(s) MMORPG