Some Problematic Themes That Should Be Addressed..

Been playing for a while, I'm a level 66, and I do want to start this off by saying that the server is amazingly well-made, and I see a lot of love has been poured into its creation.


That being said, I noticed some problematic themes amidst the game's design that could use some re-working. I know that a lot of themes that Wynncraft draw from popular themes in MMOs and fantasy and RPGs, but with that there comes a lot of the inherent racism and anti-semitism that has been baked into the genre. I've had some friends who have joined the game who feel uncomfortable coming back online because of this, and I'm hoping that we can work to try to improve the game to make it playable to all folks without those kinds of themes;

- From what I've seen at lower-to-mid levels, the only all-black civilizations I've seen is Bremminglar and Iboju Village, and they're both depicted as primitive civilizations. Iboju is also depicted as the only civilization that's chill with sacrifices and other "Barbaric" and "Aggressive" themes. This plays on a lot of racist "Black people are savages" tropes that are seen within the genre, and all of the quests involving these groups feels gross to me as a player.

- The villager race is depicted as greedy bankers with big noses, and there's several points in the dialogue that I've seen that this is highlighted and made fun of. When you visit Thesead, they're depicted as aggressively against the human race, making them a perceived 'enemy' of humans even though they have stations in all of the human settlements and towns. This plays on a lot of anti-semitic tropes that are very harmful.

- The orcs (Which has typically in Fantasy been used to depict black folks) are (As far as I have seen in the earlier quests) a race that is dumb, uneducated, and only wants to kill. The humans and villagers really de-humanize the orcs, making it out to be that they’re beasts that should be killed as opposed to a civilization. Killing them doesn't feel good, but it's depicted as a good thing by the characters? I feel like this questline would be a lot better if there were quests that depicted the orcs as a civilization instead of savages, and allowed players to make decisions instead of having to murder and kill as a guard of Ragni (Which I know is possible as I've finished the "Iron Hearts 2" quest where you get to make a major moral decision.).

- The Native American-themed cultures over by Rymek are depicted with skulls on stakes in front of their civilizations, 'savages', and they're skinned as completely dark-skinned people. And, if I'm remembering correctly, there is light dialogue that depicts them as dangerous and insane by citizens of Almuj. Again, this depicts dark people in a bad light, and plays off of a lot of really harmful tropes.

- Almuj is in the same kind of heat and sun (If not moreso) as a lot of these cultures (So, theoretically, the citizens would be getting as much melanin as in these other sunny civilizations), and yet the general race theme of the skins is white, which furthers to associate "Refined" and "Sophisticated" with "White" while associating "Primitive" and "Unrefined" with "Dark-skinned".


I really love this server, and I understand how this happened - Fantasy has a lot of really screwed up stuff baked into it, that people might not realize are really harmful depictions. I think some re-writes and adding some quests to flesh out these civilizations, and possibly changing skins of characters could help a lot in this problem. As well as adjusting the builds to make them less dehumanizing. Adding more black people into other civilizations like Almuj would be good, maybe just making it so any human settlement is always mixed-race like Corkus? And if you do have a settlement that leans into one visual race, being careful to not lean into harmful tropes. I’m not sure how to fix the villager problem without major re-writes, but that’s still something that we should address. The Native tribes would be better if the skulls and blood were taken out of the builds, the writing reflected them in a better light. They don't have to be 'savage' and 'murderous' for the questlines involving them to make sense.


Overall, I wanted to bring this up because this is something that's difficult to talk about, but these tropes have aged poorly, especially with the state of affairs within the world right now, and this makes it hard for me to want to keep playing and bringing new people into the game. I know I can't be the only one, and I know I can't be the only player seeing this stuff.

Thank you for your time reading this.

 

I agree that these quests need rework (like many of other)

The Indentifier etc. is from pre-Gavel era (afaik)
I have no idea what villagers have common with antisemitism

 

I agree some parts are wayyyyyyy overblown, such as villagers, but I don't think it's trying to say things about specific races.

There are a few black people in most big cities, such as detlas, who are darker skinned. I think the reason it's mostly in the Eastern regions is simply because it's hotter, and it's scientifically known that your skin is just naturally darker in hotter/sunnier areas. In Iboju village I don't really see where it is seen that they're very barbaric, it just looks like a normal tribal area. The village itself is a tribe without any tech nearby, and since it's in a hot area, they have black skin. It's just coincidence that there's a jungle tribe that doesn't have access to tech. I also don't really see how the Iboju village is seen as primitive, they're usually viewed very positively in the lore, with tribes giving the player a lot of items, and also being very polite.

I don't think the villagers are a play on them being a specific race, it's just more of the common thing in vanilla minecraft. Villagers in normal mc are usually known to be greedy, cause before the deals they gave were just shitty in general, so I think Wynn just plays on them being very greedy. However, I can see why you think it's perceiving it as racist, because the majority are seen as very, very greedy. This is more because of the fact that there's a lot of references to the government of Gavel being very racist, so it can be assumed that they just are uneducated on what they are, or the fact that they are villagers, and as I said, it's just a common meme for villagers to give players bad deals and generally are greedy.

Orcs are a pretty weird one, I don't really see how they can be seen as black people. Wynncraft probably just saw that Orcs are common in many games, and are seen as bad, and put that in Wynn itself. However, the quests really suck at showing what orcs are. They're seen as the "big bad" of Llevigar, and there's two quests that are literally just "kill orcs". So, there's a lot of room to do something like The Hunger of the Gerts where they're just seen as wanting to survive. It can also be thought for the intent was to play on a lot of common tropes about "haha x thing bad go kill it" and the player doesn't really say anything about it. The dialogue vaguely references that, but it's up to interpretation.

I just simply don't see the connection of Rymek Bandits to First Nations. Rymek Bandits are just that, bandits. They have the same skin tone as Almuj's, but they just wear different clothes because they're bandits. There's multiple npcs in Rymek that are both light and dark skinned together. They're seen as bad because in the lore, they're a splinter rebellion trying to get Hashr's Sceptre. This is because the Bandit group was there at the start as well, alongside Almuj. First Nations irl have no connection to the Almuj Bandits.

Almuj doesn't have a lighter skin colour than the other areas in my experience. If they did, I doubt it's because the CT were specifically trying to get a more "refined" look for lighter skinned people. In Almuj, there are actually many quest npcs who are very dark skinned. A lot of the guards are dark skinned, and if they really wanted to go for "x race bad haha", they would of just not done that. A good reason for Almuj being more light skinned would probably be just crossbreeding with other races, Almuj is a city at a large trading road. It'll be pretty normal to assume that just many people immigrated to Almuj, so it's just mixing races.

In the lore, it's seen that the more barbaric First Nations were just insane people. The lore states that the one's that are trying to kill you are heavily against new people coming in, and were exiled by the tribes themselves. This is why you see the larger one's as very peaceful.

Wynn does have some problems with civilizations being seen as "bad" or "good", but with new provinces coming out most of those are being polished out. Humans are seen as "good" in the lore so far, however, there's many references to Fruma, the "Human" province as being very imperial. The government is very, very much into abusing people.

As I said, I don't think Wynn was trying to be racist in any of those quests. Gavel was very, very, very rushed. There was just not enough time to actually flesh out quests, that's why there's just a lot of the common tropes in mmorpgs. There just wasn't enough time to think the quests out and make sure nothing was bad. This can be seen in the newer quests, where there's a lot of better stances. Take Hunger of the Gerts, it's a questline that both tackles how the meat industry is super bad, and how the Gerts aren't bad, but just oppressed by villagers. You can also see many quests where villagers are kind to you, such as the Thesead Mayor not being some racist asshole, and actually for Eltom. I think the villagers were ment to be seen as a colonizing force, where there's just a stigma going around as every race that's not villagers being bad. There's also the Elves who are seen as a sort of "Anti-Villager". They want everyone to be super good, but they also see themselves as wayyyyy above everyone else. In the newer quests, such as SE in general, there's the Olmics, who are victims of Dern. And it's assumed that most of the humans were buddy buddy with the Olm.

 

Oh boy, just wait til you do AHC.

that being said I think most of this is overthinking and very exaggerated. Mapping certain groups in A BLOCK GAME to real life races seems like a stretch. Also the Iboju Villagers are closer to being a race closer than Native Americans than black in my opinion. The orcs being depicted as black just doesn't make sense, and comparing SKIN TONES IN MINECRAFT just seems unnecessarily complicated.

 

Its a minecraft server in a fantasy world, i think you might just be looking too much into this

 

I assume that was referring to the Eagle and Owl Tribes.

 

Still doesn't make sense because both the tribes want peace but don't know how to get it, I don't see how they're savages

 

It's a symptom of the larger poor wynncraft lore in general.

 

So to further expand to show what I'm talking about, I've nabbed some photos from the game, and some reading materials that can help shed light on why the way the Orcs are treated/depicted is bad, as well as why the way that the villagers are depicted is a little anti-semitic. There will be spoilers to many quests in this, so if you aren't familiar with the quests, you might not want to read.

- So, starting off with the Iboju specifically, look at how skulls and blood are featured in their decor;


Take note of the striking similarity to the entrance of the nearest dungeon, in which a lot of their lore is tied to;

Iboju are some of the first Shaman characters we meet in the game, and the shaman, Skylaar, is depicted as evil and spooky. His story is pretty rich and intense and brought up some interesting moral problems, but while Troms said "Sacrifice is bad and we don't want it no more" Iboju seems fine with it as they decorate their city in a fashion that showcases sacrifices and the practice of sacrificing.
So what's the difference between Skylaar and the Iboju? Also, if they share morals, why didn't Skylaar move to Iboju instead? Skylaar is made to be a villain, so why did we code an entire civilization right next to where he lived that also sacrifices/kills people, but they're somehow supposed to be taken as not bad?

- Villagers are up next, and here's some reading material on why big noses+banking+Golems=Coded Jewish.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Jews
2) https://www.theguardian.com/comment...isemitism-open-your-eyes-jeremy-corbyn-labour
Big noses+control over money mirror depictions used in Nazi Germany to turn the public against the jewish people. Here's some, unfortunately, vivid depictions;
1)
2)
Villagers are the only people groups we see running the banks in this game, so they're known as the bankers and the people group in charge of everyone's money. If we saw bankers of all kinds of people groups, that would be different- But Villagers made their names by being bankers. Part of this, I think, which is why it likely happened the way it did, is that Villagers in Minecraft are the only interactable NPC that you can exchange money with. They all have big noses in the base game, and they're known for handling money in the base game. The biggest difference, I would say, is that they're known as a trading society in base Minecraft, while in Wynncraft they're depicted as Bankers who take up trades on the side. In base Minecraft, they're known for using money because villagers take up different professions and it's a society that's advanced enough to have an understanding of economics. We see some of that in cities like Olux, where the primary focus of their civilization is farming, but we don't see enough of it to draw the same conclusions as we would in Base Minecraft.
Onto their golems. The villager race is depicted as being the race that created the golems, originally for protection against the undead and other dangers of the world. Golems actually originate from Jewish history. Here's some reading materials for that;
1) https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/golem/
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem#:~:text=The oldest stories of golems,anthropogenic golem is fully human.
So here we have a very Jewish-coded race, which says things like "What's a small-nosed human like you doing here? Your kind isn't welcome here!"

And have an entire set of questlines that are dedicated to explaining golems and how they were made, as well as how they can turn violent and hurt people. The original story of golems in Jewish folklore generally goes as follows;
"The classic narrative of the golem tells of how Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague (known as the Maharal; 1525-1609) creates a golem to defend the Jewish community from anti-Semitic attacks. But eventually, the golem grows fearsome and violent, and Rabbi Loew is forced to destroy it."
Which is very close to how the entire Iron Hearts part 1 quest goes. The golem was made for the safety of the people, but turns violent and has to be put down by the player.
Iron Hearts part 2 showcases a greedy villager still mutilating people for money's sake. He emphasizes how much money he makes and how he's a powerful man because of his wealth and sway in the world. He made his wealth on a pile of bodies, and the golems are changed from "Ahh, golems, animated inanimate creatures" to "Oh. Golems. Mutilated souls trapped in iron and stripped of their identities to serve the banks and protect cities across the world."
All of that is just kinda. Yeah. Not good.

- To the orcs! One of the best resources I could find which explains the racial implications of Orcs and their origins is here; https://muse.jhu.edu/article/177550/pdf
Even without the racial implications, orcs are depicted as being intelligent enough to build camps and homes and hierarchies and communicate with the humans coming out of Ragni- So why aren't they their own civilization? Why are they depicted as evil and dumb and blood-thirsty? That entire questline would be vastly more interesting (And much less uncomfortable) if we shifted the narrative from "Controlling their population" and "A good orc is a dead orc" to "The people of Levigar want the orcs dead, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the right choice". They don't have to be depicted as unintelligent, and they don't have to be depicted as More-Beast-Than-Person for those questlines to work. You could just start to add in choices that allow players to either stand with the bigotry of the people leading the attacks on the orcs, or try to learn more about the orcs and mediate more peaceful measures between the groups. You could even add a questline which allows the player to understand a language of the Orcs, showing that their broken English isn't because they're dumb, it's because they just speak a different language. That's another thing that's kinda screwed up- Broken English is typically associated with unintelligence BECAUSE it's a racist trope on all of the different people groups that England and later America would go on to interact with, who were JUST learning their languages.

- The Eagle and Owl tribes are depicted as such;
1)
2)
3)
These snapshots alone tie totem poles to skulls on pikes, which is pretty disturbing for anyone seeing their culture emulated in these designs. They're also depicted as a dark-skinned people "Because they live in the sun and at the elevation they do", but literally between them at the same elevation and in the same biome, we see a group of thieves that supposedly have lived there for all their lives and for several generations, who are depicted as white;

Same with the citizens of Almuj;

Which kind of goes to show that the concept of melanin is something we can easily suspend in disbelief for the server's storytelling concepts. It's much less to do with location as it is to do with the cultures they're tied to.
So why are the dark-skinned cultures depicted as decorating with skulls and blood and/or living out of tents and teepees and huts (Iboju, Bremminglar, Eagle/Owl Tribes)? And why are civilizations we see of similar development considered to be mindless brutes (Orcs)?
It's because a lot of the tropes that Wynncraft is drawing from for its writing and design are rooted in some pretty racist tropes, which, as you can see, are harmful.
I don't think any of this is much of a stretch, in fact, a lot of this is pretty darn on-point when you look into the histories of these tropes and how people have used them to justify certain worldviews that are based in hate.

I love this server, and as someone who has been in Fantasy games and RPGs and MMOs for a long time, I know these tropes are easy to miss when you're not familiar with the cultures they've taken from, or the effects that these tropes have had in alienating people of color and people of Jewish descent. I don't think any of this was done intentionally, which is why I'm bringing it up now. I think we can fix these problems and make things better, making the rich world of Wynncraft more accessible and enjoyable in the process.

 

Use 1.12.2

 

The villager comparison isn't relevant here, as I'm pretty sure literal physical coding restrictions make it so that you can only have villagers have custom menus/inventories for shops. It's an unfortunate coincidence, but in literal vanilla minecraft villagers are greedy (terrible deals, generally) and are the only thing that trades with you- it makes perfect sense that they would be the bankers, as their race uses emeralds as the currency.
Also, about the orcs: their skin is GREEN, not black in Wynn. This imo makes your whole argument irrelevant, and another thing: light representing good and darkness representing bad is a thing from before racism even existed. The darkness of night, back when humans were very simple creatures, was bad, because it held many beasts and killer animals, as well as not being able to see- both very bad things to primitive people. Light, on the other hand, generally meant you could see your surroundings, hunt, get warmth from the sun, etc.
As far as the iboju tribe goes, how do you even know those skeleton heads are human? They could EASILY be zombies, or some other corrupted creature that they HAVE to kill in order to keep surviving.
About the owl/eagle tribes: it's much more than possible that they have been around for a LOT longer than the bandits, leading to them having the darker skin. Also a few other things to note: the bandits live in a canyon, which gets much less sunlight than the tribes' open mesa areas, and other bandit groups are seen living in caves, which contributes to the lack of melanin as well.
Golems may have jewish origin, but that doesn't guarantee that the villagers are automatically jewish- corkus produced robots instead, with the EXACT same goals (protection, security) and ended up with problems so much they had to shut down the factory because the bots were going rogue. Also, golems aren't even clay- they're iron, which makes them a lot closer to robots than jewish golems.

 

Nemract, Rymek, Corkus, Li, Rodoroc, Lutho

Because primitive tribes usually have darker skin (I am NOT saying people with dark skin are primitive) and usually doesn't build?
However the skulls are a good question.

I will be completely honest. Half of this looks like "Who wants to find racism will find it"
This really feels overblown, finding new meanings in a normal game

Also what do you mean by this?

 

I can tell ya'll this much; I didn't make this thread to start a debate. These are real problems within the genre that needs to be addressed. You can try to justify it in all sorts of ways, but I'm letting the server know that this is how people can - And do - interpret these themes and tropes as. When someone makes a post in the "Feedback" thread, it's not so people can go "Hey, wait, I don't have that same feedback to give to the server, so that's not a REAL problem!" it's so that people can point out something that needs to be worked on that would make the game better for themselves and/or their friends, and bring it to the attention of people working on the server.

Even if you personally are not affected by what I've listed here, that doesn't mean it disproves what I've laid out.

The fact that I was capable of showing a lot of overlap between some really harmful problems in the world and the way these tropes are written is enough to make a point that deserves to be heard.
Besides, Minecraft is a game that people pay to play - If a server perpetuates harmful stereotypes of races/ethnicities/cultures, and someone who is affected by that stereotype logs onto it and is hurt by that stereotype, then that person just paid to experience a micro-aggression. Even worse if they got really into the server and paid for VIP or other server additives, only to discover later while exploring that the server they just paid money to depicted their culture or their race or their ethnicity in such a harmful way.

I cannot stress enough that this isn't an "Everyone ever absolutely feels this way, and it needs to be fixed!" problem, it's an "Enough people I've spoken to feel this way, including myself, that it's something we can do better on" problem.

 

Everyone can interpret everything as everything

This is like posting a suggestion and refuse to listen to other people when they say it is wrong.

The discussion is here to tell people if they are wrong or to support them. I think we can agree that the feedback is more important if more people agree with it.
The same way it is valid to say that the feedback (partially or as a whole) is only your (the original poster's) personal view. The fact that you assume something is a problem doesn't mean it is in reality.

I agree that some things (like the skulls near Owl and Eagle tribey) could be questioned and changed, but I think that other things (like Villager are compared to Jews) are just your opinion and aren't valid.

 

Thing is, they really aren't. Most of these are either overanalyzing minor details, or making connections that are quite stretches.

I actually have never seen someone with the same opinion as presented here, if others have expressed it, I (and most likely others) would like to know

This just seems like a lame excuse to refute any negative feedback.
This is just my quick responses as it's currently 2am.

 

This should be put into Wynncraft section so it is not only me and few others, to see how other people feel it

 

Wynncraft aside, I really think you need to read more within the genre.

 

This honestly reads like a really, really elaborate joke, especially the part about the villager noses.

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... You know, most of Wynn/Gavel are actually very, very poor?

 

Okay come on, this is obviously not what they meant.

 

Except for ragni soldiers.

But I have to agree with Druser. Even I got it.

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Can anyone explain what does he mean by accessible?