AMALENA

“TIME IS MONEY, FRIEND.”

Yeah, these guys suck. 

I’m not sure if they’re worse than the goblins in Harry Potter, but at minimum it’s a tie when factoring in Hogwarts: Legacy, which might win for worst goblin because of possible intentional cruelty, while World of Warcraft just wants to have fun.

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for about 10 years now, on and off and casually. I’m not as intimately familiar with all the lore as my diehard fan husband and I didn’t care for Classic (camping… yuck), but I’m fairly familiar. I enjoy quests, new expansions, and raiding with my guild once or twice a week when I’m able to. I do Mythic+s, I have my main and an alt or two. I favor a frost mage blood elf with a long braid cause she makes me feel like Elsa.

And I’ve always really loathed the goblin faction of the Horde side in World of Warcraft. 

“Always inventive and often reckless, goblins are known as skilled engineers and talented merchants.” These are the words on the character creation as a description of the goblin race/species. It’s a nice way of saying “negative Jewish stereotypes played off as comedy”.

These goblins are extremely similar to the Ferengi in Star Trek, who are basically space goblins. My opinion is that the creators wanted to make a hyper-capitalist evil society. And in so doing, ended up making greedy, cheap, large nosed, short, evil, ugly, banking antisemitic stereotype goblins. 

We just finished a whole expansion centering a goblin plotline for the first time. They’ve come up before, and there’s been bosses and fights with goblins, but this was the first time they were truly front and center in my memory. The first time main questlines took everyone to the main goblin city, the Undermine.

I will say, credit where credit is do: they kinda tried? The intention isn’t cruelty, so I can appreciate that much. But, intention is different from effect and once art goes out into the world, if you find it doesn’t have the effect you intended for the people you’re representing, it’s on you to correct for the future. You don’t *intend* to crash your car every time you go out driving, but if you do, you need to take responsibility for the wreck.

The writers have designed these goblins as an homage to mobs, and I don’t think the intention was Jewish stereotypes. They’re very much dirty steam-punk and 1930s coded. Which… there were/are Jewish mobs and stereotypes about that so… I think they tried and it just didn’t work. The emphasis is on capitalism and the evils of money and exploitation… which is fine to portray as evil… except these are all stereotypes that have been lobbed at Jews, and in combination with specifically making the large-nosed, short goblins have this trait is antisemitic. People say we run the banks, we control things from the shadows, we do whatever other evil money-controlling fantasies you can imagine. And World of Warcraft has a whole race (species?) of people based on that stereotype.

Not only that… I want you to listen to this and tell me you don’t hear a typical Brooklyn “Jewish” accent. The goblin female voices sound like Kyle Broflovski in South Park’s mom, Sheila, a notable comedic example of stereotypical Jewish American mother. At least Sheila is intentionally the way she is and the writers know she’s meant to be Jewish. These goblins… I’m not sure what the writers intended to be honest. So many people are oblivious to the historical connection between antisemitic propaganda and fantasy goblins, even some Jews who don’t get it and pretend it isn’t real. Yet the stereotypes and tropes used are so obvious it’s hard to believe no one pointed it out during development.

I suppose I appreciate the emphasis on tinkering and building that goblins in World of Warcraft get. Jews have a history of crafting and ingenuity, in part because historically we’ve had a lot of professions we were legally barred from. So, we became bankers, doctors, artisans. Things that didn’t require owning land or joining a guild. In modern times, we value education a lot and strive to better our community and the world we live in, as well as to protect ourselves. Jews have invented Intel, innovative medical treatments, laser keyboard, nanowire, modern drip irrigation, super iron battery, and the Iron Dome. I feel like our ingenuity, skill, determination, and intelligence is a positive part of Jewish culture, so I’m not really upset about it. It would be nice if goblin-made machines in World of Warcraft weren’t the butt end of every single joke, constantly exploding, but hey. Hilarious.

As I’ve previously discussed, goblins as a general concept are not always inherently antisemitic in nature. But the word goblin in combination with greedy tropes and a physical depiction indistinguishable from Nazi propaganda? That’s antisemitic. World of Warcraft goblins check off almost every antisemitic goblin trope that exists, and maybe a few extra.

Thankfully, it’s not all awful.

I do like the character of Gazlowe as he’s evolved as the main goblin protagonist of The War Within. He and his allies are supposed to be the more noble of the goblins. Giving goblins dignity is good. It’s why Tolkien dwarves work well as Jewish representation (a blog for another time!); they are written with dignity and respect. Even Gazlowe’s character design as it’s evolved in this expansion is an improvement because you can see empathy and kindness in his little animated expressions rather than… just sharp pointy teeth and a hooked nose. Some of that has to do with technological advancement, but it really does make a difference.

Part of the problem with goblins isn’t just their greed-based culture, but obviously their aesthetic. They’ve moved away from all goblins adhering to the the original grotesque, large-nosed green monsters, which is good. I don’t have an issue with the shortness, the weird ears, or the green skin. These things are fine in fantasy creatures. Trolls are blue, Draenei are purple-blue space goat people, Worgen and Vulpera are furries, whatevs. It’s casting an entire race that is based intentionally or not off of my people as grotesque that’s a problem. Gazlowe still isn’t going to win any beauty contests… but he and some other goblins have more dignity now. And, when you enter character creation, it is possible to create beautiful goblin player characters. Sorta.

Here’s what I get when I pull up a default warrior goblin female:

She looks like a person, not Nazi propaganda. There’s an unfair stereotype that Jewish people are ugly because of our ethnic features not being European centric (because, you know, we’re not really Europeans, some of us just moved there for a bit) and honestly… I love the idea of a fantasy race given our common ethnic features and not forced into ugly caricatures. She still has a distinct WoW fantasy race aesthetic. She still has a massive, bumpy nose. She’s not soft. She has sharp teeth, large ears, 4-fingered clawed hands the size of dinner plates, and green skin. But, her eyes humanize her. She *can* be beautiful in her own way. She’s not required to be covered in warts and/or wrinkles or twisted into a sneer. She isn’t hagified by default. There are some severely wrinkled options for her, which I’m not against, people can have wrinkles, but she’s not default grotesque. I’d kiss a face like hers.

Now they just need to fix whatever this is…

I mean, come on. I cycled through all 5 face options for this dude compared to the 10 options lady goblins get and they’re all variations on this. What even is that? There’s no sexy goblin male option and I would not kiss that face. Even the Undead faction have options that look better than that, and they’re the only one I would say legit have a reason to all look grotesque because they’re all decayed corpses.

There’s no one entire population anywhere in real life that is all beautiful or all young, so it’s fine to have options that are not traditionally beautiful and young. I’m not against that. It’s just when those are the *only* options and those options are based on negative stereotypes that it’s a problem. There’s also the manner in which features like those found in the elderly are portrayed. For example, these illustrations are from a Jewish perspective and a Nazi perspective of Jewish rabbis. One has dignity, the other does not. World of Warcraft goblins don’t lean towards the dignified one.

The handful of improvements aside… I can’t get over the goblins as a whole in World of Warcraft. It feels like a step in the right direction to have Gazlowe’s character take over as a trade prince (aka, leader) of the Bilgewater Cartel group of goblins to replace Gallywix. Cause, oh boy. Gallywix is something else. I’ll just leave you with this image, complete with gold and rats.

I don’t think this treatment of goblins is unique within the world. World of Warcraft generally has a stereotypes problem. The Tauren being Native American cow/bison/moose people who are ‘noble savages’ in touch with nature while living in teepees with totem poles is… a choice. The savagery of the orcs draws on old negative tropes and the drips of African culture attributed to them are also… a choice. I love the beauty of Pandaria, but the whole ‘mysterious and mystic wisdom of ancient Asia’ is a stereotype, for sure, even if not entirely negative. I think maybe the trolls being Jamaican and Aztec coded is a more interesting choice and not necessarily negative, though I’d recommend talking to someone better versed in Jamaican and Aztec culture for their opinion on that.

I think that the biggest problem with the goblins is people want to deny the Jewish connection with World of Warcraft goblins because it is so negative and comes from a game beloved by many. My husband, other players, other Jews, the game writers and developers, and even I want to overlook it or maybe pretend it’s not so bad.

But… it kinda is. Unlike other representation, you can’t pretend goblins are a noble tribute to Jewish culture, so I get why it’s easier/less hurtful to pretend it’s not related. But other represented culture isn’t denied the way this is. Chinese, European, Aztec, and Native American cultures represented are all very obvious in what they mean to be, and whether done well or not, they’re not intended to rely on malicious stereotypes. Now that we’re aware of the problem, why can’t Jews get that treatment too?

How can it be better?

There will be more expansions, which gives opportunity to improve. World of Warcraft goblins can’t be retconned into magically no longer being offensive stereotypes. Pretending there was never a problem is no solution. Writing them out and trying to put on blinders isn’t a solution. Instead of looking backward, we need to look forward. How can the goblins in World of Warcraft be improved from where they are now?

Take inspiration from real Jewish culture instead of negative stereotypes. Acknowledge the representation and do it better. For example, broadly speaking, Jews have a very strong sense of community, value education, value family, and value tradition. So present these things in a fantastical way that doesn’t insult or undermine the real people being represented.

Let’s start with Gazlowe. He’s now a leader of his people and he wants better for them. Have him give them better. Start a goblin university. Have that create a boom [pun intended] of new GOOD goblin inventions that revolutionize their society for the better. Do fantastical versions of things important to Jewish culture presented positively.

For example, write Gazlowe as King David reference. He’s deposed “King Saul” aka Gallywix the ‘bad king’, so now he can unite the ‘tribes’ of goblins. He creates good alliances, he cleans up the Undermine. The rats and roaches are gone, and goblins create drip irrigation to grow beautiful native underground vegetables like glowing mushrooms or something. Perhaps Gazlowe or a son he suddenly has (as a King Solomon reference) creates a grand capital building, not a shitty incontinental hotel or gambling hedonism palace.

In fact, turn the gambling palace *into* the new grand hall. At the center hanging above the entrance, they could light a ‘Lantern of Eternal Unity’ of ever-burning magical flame to symbolize their peace and cooperation as a central fixture for all to see when they enter. This would be an homage to the Jewish ner tamid aka eternal candle, a light that burns perpetually in Jewish shuls, synagogues, and temples as a reminder of the Menorah from the Temple of Solomon. This grand capital building can become a home of charity helping those in need. It can connect to the new Goblin University. It can spark a new goblin culture textile industry as a reference to the women who wove holy cloth for the temple. There can be an embassy for trade and other nations/races/factions can be eager to be a part of it. There is so much you could do with this that will make Jewish people smile instead of cringe. You could even make a theater with a comedy talent show side quest – Jews are proud of our comedians! Make us be proud to play the fantasy race based on us instead of make us make excuses or deny our connection to this representation. All it takes is a little bit of creativity to move away from the stereotypes instead of leaning into them.

Oh, and don’t ever do a quest where a goblin turns into a rat again. My literal first thought was, wow, they made Nazi propaganda calling Jews rats into a quest. Great.

Seriously, the amount of rat-related content in the Undermine is offensive.