The real reason most Alliance think that Shaman ..

[nobbie]

An interesting, amusing read from the "World of Warcraft - Shaman Discussion Forums: Fear and Loathing in Ironforge" or "The real reason most alliance think that Shaman are overpowered":

The real reason most alliance think that Shaman are overpowered has nothing to do with actual game performance but has real reasons based in Western jingoism and racism. The Horde most closely mimic the archetypal dichotomy that exists between Eastern and Western ideologies. Most people that play Alliance are those unwilling to question the constructed historical geneological relationship that exists within the heart of the WOW experience. Alliance characters are thrust into a society that dehumanizes its opposition, which is reinforced by the structural settings of WoW. Note the name of Horde towns such as Undercity, and analyze the disparity between racial languages: Common versus Gutterspeak. In fact, the very names of the factions, Alliance and Horde, hold radically different connotations which privelege the alliance. This structural exploitation and denigration of the Horde faction reinforces itself by the player base it draws.

Alliance characters usually choose their race primarily on a residual self image that seeks to annihilate the non-Western other. The play characters such as Humans, Night Elves, Paladins, and Gnomes, which are all humanoid species with a slight change in features. The only few of these types who play Horde play Undead, which is the closest to Alliance that the Horde has to offer, and the only Horde race without access to Shamans. These players hate the Shamans, for they are a non-Western "other." The Shaman takes on the characteristics of the Native gurus, for he uses totems, gears himself in tribal imagery, and uses supernatural powers that draw themselves from the basic four elements. These vary same images that embody supernatural powers are the one that frightened early settlers on the Americas. These powers are not accessible to the alliance players in either realm. In real-life, their supernatural abilities fall outside accepted Western science, which is inherently reductionist, and are pagan to the predominant Judeo-Christian beliefs that are the basis for this destructive ethnocentrism. In-game the Shaman is the only class that the Alliance cannot co-opt, none of the Alliance races can be Shamans, and the only ex-race, the Alliance gateway to the Horde, is forbidden access to Shamanistic powers. Even furthermore, the most common Shamans are Taurens, a species based on cows, which were sacred to various tribes and are still held sacred to many in India. This imagery so closely plays on archetypal fears and hatreds that alliance players inherently discriminate against Shamans. Consequently, a loss to a Shaman is significant because it is not regular defeat, it is foul play, 'the Natives have cast a hex on us.' The cries of overpoweredness are, therefore, tools in the rhetorical dehumanistic arsenal of the alliance that seeks to otherize and dehumanize the Shaman by nerfing each unique characteristic. This development is analogous to the militaristic paths that Westerners have primarily taken again Eastern nations and Shamanistic tribes. The posts of Alliance players are the blankets on which the Smallpox of their nerfs is spread through our Shaman forums. This otherization creates the myth of the post-human Shaman that can destroy any class, and annihilate the inherent goodness of the Alliance. Consequent losses reinforce and reify this mythic construct and are used as tools to strengthen the hateful cries. Like Mussolini these Alliance dictators fashion themselves a 'mythic' enemy based losely on an actual figure to frighten their people and force them to rally under their banners of hatred. The shaman is the only class that the Alliance cannot coopt, and thus is the ultimate "Other" in relation to the Alliance Paladin that "cannot compete with the mythical nature of the other."

Thus, the Shaman becomes more than an overpowered class, it becomes the manifestation of a rhetorical myth that has been constructed out of Western racist ideology and carried into our gaming community. The Shaman is the only class that the Alliance cannot mimic or become, any other class is playable by both sides, besidesthe Paladins who are the crusaders into Eastern kingdoms, the settler outposts to our Native lands; therefore, the Shaman becomes the ultimate evil in the eyes of the destructive and jingoistic Alliance. This conclusively shows that Shaman are not really "overpowered" but, due to the geneological deveolopment of Warcraft, and given the current of our historical epoch, representive of a broader ideological struggle between the hegemonic Western hierarchy and those other forms of thought that function outside our ontological views...

Alliance that seek to nerf Shaman are racists!

[vor_lord]

An interesting, amusing read from the "World of Warcraft - Shaman Discussion Forums: Fear and Loathing in Ironforge" or "The real reason most alliance think that Shaman are overpowered":
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Very amusing -- and could be viewed as a parody of certain fields of pseudo-intellectualism.

[kandrathe]

I think the same prose twisting technique could be used to justify the extermination of all life on the planet. Rather, some Shaman with a social sciences major, trying to draw real world implications into video game motivations, let alone the complaints that some players have with the game is ludicrous at best.

In a nutshell the original author tries to say, "Horde = minorities" and "if you try to denigrate them, or claim anything is wrong with the Horde, then you are a racist".

I would personally like to find and slap the original author for playing the race card on something so trivial and meaningless. Personally, I do not really want to second guess my motivations when deciding between Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist when playing Counterstrike.

[Zarathustra]

I thought I chose a Night Elf Druid as my main because I loved the rich lore behind the race and in most game formats have found Druids to be my favorite.

I now know that I'm unwilling to question the constructed historical geneological relationship that exists within the heart of the WOW experience, thus my choice of an obviously "Western" race that dehumanizes its opposition, leading to my own racist loathing of the "others" that are shamans.

:whistling:

Oh, and I've got some oceanfront property in the Badlands to sell you.

[Assur]

It had to happen. WoW meets Cultural Studies. It can only be a matter of time before somebody deconstructs the the traditional gender stereotypes inherent to WoW :wacko:

[savaughn]

Oh, heck. Sophomoric tosh? Two can play that game.

The Real Reason Shamans are Overpowered

In observing the World of Warcraft, it's people and culture there are strong parallels drawn between the fantasy world and our own. One of the strongest influences on World of Warcraft are the various primitive cultures, especially as seen through early 40's literature. References to this jingoistic view of primitive culture abounds. The shaman class is pulled directly from this rich but culturally dated perspective.

Fortunately, in the modern era, cultural awareness has significantly improved. Race relations, once ignored as a problem and with active civil rights violations enacted daily as part of regular cultural interaction, is radically more balanced today. While we continue to strive for equality, the modern awareness of cultural issues is vastly improved. Because of this increased awareness, there has been in this modern age a significant reaction to the cultural practices of old. A significant amount of guilt lays thinly buried at the cultural level for the practices Americans have implemented in the past. The actions, including black slavery, the near genocide of the native American peoples, the imprisonment of Japanese during WWII, and others have impacted the actions of people today.

In World of Warcraft, this guilt has caused an interesting reaction. The primitive Shaman class has become the geist for this latent guilt and distress. While the majority of classes sit very comfortably next to each other in terms of power level, this class with it's healing, instant attacks, caster interruption, hefty armor allowance, etc. is clearly an attempt overcompensating the geist that is the collective cultural guilt over treatment of minorities in America's past.

[vor_lord]

Oh, heck.  Sophomoric tosh?  Two can play that game.

The Real Reason Shamans are Overpowered

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Touche and well done! /tips hat

[Watto44]

Oh, heck. Sophomoric tosh? Two can play that game.

The Real Reason Shamans are Overpowered

Ooh, the reverse-racism card. Touche! But if the guy in the OP quote really wanted to pull that off, s/he would have changed "even furthermore". It is, after all, a tautology - although I did like the way they tacked "ness" on the end of a lot of words. That always makes you look deep. Of course, if you really want to look like an intelectool you really need to put in a few pertinent references. In this case, I'd suggest the work of Homi Bhabha, particularly his "The Other Question – The Stereotype and Colonial Discourse", and Richard Dyer's "White". :wacko:

[/stupidity]

Bwwaaahahahahaha. That brought back some memories, that's for sure. Great find nobbie! :w00t:

(For those of you who are wondering, those two essays do in fact exist. Homi Bhabha's stuff made my eyes bleed. French post-structuralism ftl.)