Is "ugly" the new beautiful, and "evil" the new good? [Updated]
by David Bowers 
Sep 16th 2007 at 4:30PM
I have a question for all the Horde and warlock players out there -- as well as anyone who plays their character in a so-called "evil" way. But first, let me explain where I'm coming from.As you know, one of the main differences between the Alliance and the Horde is their sense of style. In fact, the question of what looks and feels good to players of either side may be one of the biggest areas of disagreement that actually exists between them. To a lesser extent, this sort of disagreement exists between classes as well. Warlocks give off a very different feeling from Paladins for example, and different people are attracted to each sort of "aura."
Like many players, my sense of aesthetics and beauty fits in squarely on one side of this aesthetic equation, and the other side can be rather difficult for me to understand. I play in the Alliance, and my favorite races are usually the ones that are "beautiful" and noble-looking in a traditional sense. To me personally, the Horde races are hard to relate to.
I do sometimes start up a Horde character if I have a funny idea for roleplaying him or her, but eventually something about them starts to bother me. Now that the Horde has prettier blood elves to play, I admit this helped me a lot -- I am gradually leveling up a blood elf alt in my free time -- but somehow being a blood elf in the Horde feels rather out of place, as if I'm not really part of the Horde because I'm not hunched over with a ready-to-kill look on my face.
For a long time I couldn't play a warlock either for similar reasons. The class just seemed inherently evil; summoning demons and stealing people's souls seemed wrong somehow. Even though I knew it's just a fantasy game, I still had no desire to mimic in the game something that would be abhorrent to me in real life. I often wondered: what is attractive about the look and feel of these characters to Horde and warlock players?
Now before you start pointing out to me the various inconsistencies in this sort of feeling (such as "how come you have a problem summoning demons when the whole game is about killing people?") keep in mind that this is not really an intellectual or moral issue. It's an emotional one. It's about that instant feeling you get of attraction or repulsion to something without even thinking about it at all. You just know you like it or you don't. In this case, I have one of those negative gut reactions to hunched-over monstrous player characters, as well as summoning demons and stealing souls, while many of you out there are deeply attracted to these things. While my eyeballs instinctively look at draenei or night elves and see "good," then look at trolls and undead and see "evil," many of you may look at trolls and undead and see "badass," as far as I can tell, then look at draenei and night elves and see... "goody-two-shoes" and "prissy" perhaps?
Now, nobody here actually summons demons or has rotting flesh or horns or whatnot -- far from it: you may even pray for world peace, volunteer at the soup kitchen, and sponsor a poor child's education. In real life (I assume) we all see ourselves firmly in the "good" category, or at least we "live and let live." I'm not questioning anyone's morality or suggesting that the Horde players really are evil or misguided at all. I'm just wondering, when you log onto WoW, do you like to pretend to be nasty, evil, or "ugly" in some way? Or is it not ugly to you at all? Would you insist on another word, like "badass" instead? What attracts you by the "darker" races and classes in the game? What repulses you by the "lighter" ones?
Update: I'd like to thank all our commenters for sharing their perspectives on this topic, and remind everyone that this is one of those posts where it's really important to read the comments below. I knew, as I was thinking about writing this post, that I had a certain bias based on my cultural background and upbringing, and actually one of my goals was to help myself get rid of that bias by understanding how other people thought and felt differently from me. I now feel that I have a much better understanding of what you all love the Horde so much, and I hope other readers who had thought as I did previously have gained a new perspective from you as well.
Also, I should have probably said earlier that I don't view all the Horde characters as ugly or evil looking. Mainly I haven't felt comfortable with the males hunching over and bearing their teeth a lot -- but the females have a few cases where they're actually quite adorable. I was playing around with some of their appearances a long time back, and I found some that were pretty neat. I even had a female tauren shaman for a while, and I might have gotten into that character if the guild she was in hadn't petered out (and if I didn't miss my friends on the Alliance side so much). She was a traveling "griot" or oral storyteller -- but she didn't get many chances to tell stories, unfortunately. If she had, I might have continued leveling her and come to understand all this through my own experience.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, RP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Tiodi Sep 16th 2007 4:39PM
Horde isn't evil, with the exception of Blood elves and Undead. Trolls are crazy, Tauren are Honorable, noble, and food, and Orcs are Noble savages. Likewise, Alliance isn't good except for Draenei and Night elves, and Night elves are disputable, seeing as they have blown the world into pieces twice, and set a one of a kind tree on fire.
Michel Sep 16th 2007 4:44PM
ho my ! ... you need 2 things :
- relaxing
- be more tolerant
--
well, I simply love Trolls. there are nice, wild, just plain fun dance and they have Style !
a real style, the cooool style.
When they walk, all the seventies are back, baby! and it's great.
Female Troll are classy too. maybe not their feet, but they are nice with that serious look and crazy hairs.
--
Horde is interesting, more diverse, more interesting and tragicals stories.
there are many to relate with them.
--
human are dull, hopefully, quest tells a story of corrupt nobles, old workers robbed and so on. it helps to make Stormwind more lifelike.
but in alliance, I just prefer Gnomes and Draenei. more weird, more different. more crazy!
it's fantasy, and in fantasy there others way to be "good" and "beautiful". and the ugly ones is not always who you think.
for one thing, I think Blizzard did a great job on the sporregears people and Ethereal.
Sporregears are just so tragic little fungi-cute things
and Ethereal are noble arabian styled-like extra-dimensional energy people ! I would totally love to play one of these. with choice of colors, shape, and so on :)
are they ugly ? not typical of human beauty? maybe, but they are great fantasy creation.
Pål Sep 16th 2007 4:45PM
I like to burn things. With fire.
Xino Sep 16th 2007 4:49PM
@1
By the sound of the post it doesn't seem like lore is a factor for the original poster. It's looks wise he's talking about.
Nati Sep 16th 2007 4:50PM
The blood elves and forsaken are definitely evil these days - not every single individual, of course, but as races/nations, definitely. The trolls are traditionally really evil, but the Darkspear have stopped some of their more vile practices because Thrall told them to. Orcs are not evil, but they are inherently violent. Tauren are noble and, for the most part, peace-loving.
On the Alliance side, draenei are definitely good, but with an ongoing struggle to avoid the corruption that taints their eredar cousins. Night elves are for the most part good, they just have a troubled past. The various human nations are just like humans in real life, very varied. There's a lot of corruption among the nobility of Stormwind, but Theramore under Jaina stands for nobler values. The dwarves are about equal to the orcs - they tend to exploit the land and claim territory for themselves without really caring who might've lived there in the first place (WSG as compared to Alterac Valley are good examples). Gnomes are neither here nor there - good and evil doesn't matter much to gnomish culture.
Elf_Skinner Sep 16th 2007 4:54PM
First things first, to quote Oxhorn, Elves look like woman. Its true! I see a nelf/belf and i cant help but think the person behind th keyboard is either a chick or about 6. But thats just me. Orcs on the other hand look badass, like theyre gonna rip ur face off and eat it. =P
Juneau Sep 16th 2007 4:54PM
I can play on either side, although I favour the Alliance slightly for aesthetics. I can "relate to" any race really, I've gotten both Horde and Ally toons up to max level.
Pex Sep 16th 2007 5:04PM
Gnome warlock ftw.
Crazy race, evil class.
How cooler can you get? (IMHO) ;)
graxlos Sep 16th 2007 5:09PM
When wow came out I wanted to be a human priest or perhaps a nightelf hunter.
But then a friend of mine insisted on playing horde so I rolled an orc.
After playing warcraft 3 I really dont see the horde as evil at all. But instead it is the alliance that are a big bunch of xenophobes.
The horde is an alliance of people that the alliance cant accept, your enemies enemy is your friend.
I have the same preference of feeling good and when I play my tauren druid I feel like a good guy, in touch with nature and such.
I play on a pvprealm but never engage alliance players in pvp unless I am attacked first(carebear yes).
Nathan Sep 16th 2007 5:27PM
The Alliance is a coalition of frat guys and sorority girls. Sure, everyone wants to join them because they're good-looking, but they'll stab you in the back the minute they think it's to their advantage (just ask Edwin VanCleef).
FOR THE HORDE!
thecapuchin Sep 16th 2007 5:32PM
Having played Horde from day one, I have to admit that I'm on the other side of this.
I view the Alliance races as somewhat trite, boring and completely uninteresting. Don't get me wrong, I'm not slamming them, I just don't care to play them as much. All of my main characters are Horde (two at 70 and another on the way). I'll freely admit that I like Horde because they *are* made up of the races that more often than not make up the evil races in most fantasy. It makes them feel more interesting to and offbeat for me.
At the same time, I've just recently begun playing a Dwarf paladin on Area52 and it's almost like playing a whole new game due to my complete unfamiliarity with Alliance towns, quests and zones.
Oh, and I loathe gnomes. Just my opinion, no offense to gnome players.
Dierle Sep 16th 2007 5:45PM
very few of the alliance/horde races are distinctly good or evil. I would more say "lawful" or "chaotic". there are exceptions of course. the Draenei are almost frighteningly good. except if you bother to notice that most of them are busy leading the burning legion and we're only dealing with one faction of them. there's evil broken, there's evil eredar, there's the guys in auchenai crypts...the species is not inherently good, we're just dealing with one particular group of them that is distinctly good. same with night elves, the evil members of their species are just all satyr and naga and such at this point. you might remember that the top end boss of the game currently is a night elf. there's evil dwarves, evil gnomes, certainly evil humans. it's just the factions of these races that banded together to form the alliance are good, and share common goals. but even so they certainly have their share of intolerance and issues. even Uther, the pinnacle of morality usually, refers to all orcs as "disgusting beasts" in WCIII due to the actions of just a few. I think that's the biggest social problem with the alliance, intolerance. it's a very common theme with them, so I would certainly say they're the more lawful faction, for good or ill.
the horde on the other hand is chaotic. they're rather loosely organized, except for the orcs and their fanatical devotion to their warchief, but they're no more evil than the alliance, for every Magatha, there's a Cairn. Thrall himself is certainly a decidedly noble, moral figure. Trolls are sort of goofy, free spirits, at least the darkspear tribe who are in the horde. some of the troll tribes, like the ones in ZG, are CERTAINLY evil, but they're not in the horde. and that's the first thing you have to remember, the alliance and horde are not comprised of races, they're comprised of political factions. the nation of ironforge, not ALL dwarves anywhere, are in the alliance. the darkspear tribe, not all trolls everywhere, are in the horde. this is especially important to remember when it comes to the blood elves. your average horde blood elf is not evil. they're surly and pissed off, but they have good reason to be. but they are not involved in or responsible for Kael'thas's actions. he's even bull@#$%ing silvermoon about what's going on in outland, hence the existence of the scryers and blood elf players being able to help kill him. the sunfury army is a separate organization from silvermoon, for all intents and purposes. as for the forsaken, I think most of them are more "disgruntled and misguided" than evil, though they certainly have a fair number of evil members. largely, I blame that dreadlord, Varimathras, for them. I think he's slowly corrupting Sylvanas to use the forsaken for the same purpose Balnazzar is trying to use the scarlet crusade. destroy the scourge and score brownie points with Kil'jaeden. so Sylvanas is definately getting bad advise.
jijno Sep 16th 2007 5:49PM
@orignal poster, for a fresh perspective on good + evil in their classical sense, i suggest you read 'The War Of Shadow And light' series by Janny Wurtz, might give you an insight into the hordes character. I enjoy playing my undead because of the sense of dark pleasure i get when devouring someones corpse, but mostly becuase of that awesome dance, no more need be said. i cant stand alliance becuase of the (in my opinion) lack of any variety between races, all are along the lines of "go forth and defend us from tyranny / evil / the horde" sounds to much like recent american attitudes for me to enjoy playing, whereas horde are much more in depth with their storylines, especially undead, as you get insights into the people they were before (the classic example being Martha's grave or w/e its called in forsaken starting area) allowing me to enjoy doing the quests more. All in all, alliance are for people who just want looks, and dont enjoy the RP / lore side of things, dranei anyone?
Vodkarn Sep 16th 2007 6:13PM
I don't understand how you think the Horde are evil. The Orcs, for example, were put into concentration camps by the humans. That doesn't exactly make the Humans seem 'good' to me.
I don't play alliance because, well, why the hell would I want to play as a human in an RPG when I have other choices? I play as a human in every game ever. To me, the Alliance are simply too boring. The Horde have stout green muscle-bound warriors, with slightly pig-like faces (Orcs), blue/green/etc lanky, bent-over but massively tall tusked humanoids with elongated skulls (Trolls), towering bull-men/minotaurs (Tauren), and dark and haunting skeleton/zombies with large claws and a hunched-over stance (Undead.) On the Human side, you had Humans, Short humans (Dwarves), shorter humans (gnomes), and tall, purple, elegant humanoids (Elves). There's no character, they all look like humans to some degree. The Draenei actually add some character to the Alliance, with their horse-legs, glowing blue colouring, demon-horn appendages, and so on. The blood elves, however, have essentially no character. They're angry teenagers at best, which is why they don't seem to 'fit into' the horde; their entire definition is that they're pretty. Which is precisely the problem I have with the Alliance. The Horde are based on their uniqueness and dispairity, whereas the Alliance is just that, an alliance of 'pretty' people.
Fuzzfuzz Sep 16th 2007 6:18PM
I, generally speaking want something that just looks like it can pretty much crush you or everything (i.e. Tauren). I look at it as an intimidating and dominant aspect on the primal level. I just use that as a tool for the rest of my function.
So I guess I don't see so much as 'evil' or 'good' but more like 'intimidating,' or 'creepy,' or 'funny.' And all these traits act to how I would want people to react to me. Everyone's intention is good, it just depends on the means and who its good for!
Sephirah Sep 16th 2007 6:18PM
Alliance good?
Humans that builds lager for orcs, start the Scarlet Crusade, have corrupted nobles (remember VanCleef)?
A Night Elf that imprison his brother for 10000 years in darkness just for creating a new Well of Eternity?
Gnome rulers that exterminate a city full of gnomes?
Fruition Sep 16th 2007 6:26PM
Well, to be quite honest, when I started playing WoW, I would have completely agreed with this post. In fact, if it weren't for the friend who invited me being on the Horde side, I'd be playing Alliance right now. But since he's my friend, of course I rolled Horde. At this point (been playing over a year now), I've forced myself to believe Horde is either innocuous or just badass. One day I'd like to roll Alliance just for the heck of it to see all the Alliance zones and perspectives. Mostly though, I like the horde now. Initially I thought Undead were disgusting, but now I think they look cool. As a result, I think most alliance races look too good, too perfect.
Slayblaze Sep 16th 2007 6:28PM
I like the "slightly wrong" feel of playing a Human Warlock. I know what I'm doing is wrong - the summoning of demons is not right (just look what happened with Medivh) - and that's why I'm drawn to it more than any other class. The thought of playing with forces only just barely controlled is interesting and a little scary in a way.
rob Sep 16th 2007 6:28PM
alliance are the evil ones.the horde fight for there horner and the right to exist.besides the people who think they are good are the evil ones and the people who think they are evil are well lame. for one thing anyone trying to push there culture and beliefs are evil.but to my point the horde ant evil any of them are to blood elves to the trolls and the orc even the
undead are not evil
shkss Sep 16th 2007 6:28PM
Unlike you, I personally have no problems with summoning evil demons and sucking peoples souls. And horde look evil and blood thirsty? The draenei look like Davey Jones from Pirates of the Carribean.