Trolls and female equality

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=7841575332&sid=1&pageNo=1

An interesting thread of Warcraft forums.
Now our current guild leaders, Zanick and Ryleen, are both female, which makes the question even more interesting.

People are always so very afraid of playing characters that aren't politically correct. They can be evil and nasty and want to destroy the world, but it would never cross their mind to treat a woman as inferior to men or to frown at a same-gender couple.

I'm looking forward to the day I'll meet a troll that actually acts on the fact that ey was raised in a culture where women have no say in anything and barely any rights (it was after all just a few years since their culture changed, and darkspears are said to have been among the very worst in their treatment of women). Ry isn't exactly allowing anyone to make her feel inferior, man or not. But that behaviour is pretty much based on an urge to hide insecurity, so it works out well anyway.

Snicka, polite and caring he might be, never hesitated to express his feelings against couples that were of different species or the same gender. He never treated women as inferior though, which can be explained by the fact that he learned a lot from his forest troll grandfather, and unlike jungle trolls, forest trolls don't oppress women.
I always found strange how liberal and politically correct people are in such a harsh and medieval-like world. I mean, for example, Lithaella and Teeboppity (both female, a troll and an undead), claimed to be not only living together, but being married; while same-sex marriage is still forbidden in much of the real world. But well, the Stormwind guards can be women-at-arms, which I also found odd - Blizzard tries to be as politically correct as possible.
I'd love to see a male-only or female-only RP guild, I guess I'll suggest it on WeAreLegion...

hehe, well why do you think Vyp has refused to take a -troll- male as a mate and picked an orc instead?

actaully, as i'm so very old, and started my education as the 1980's began, i remember when the career choices for women were pretty much restricted to secratary, carer or teacher....and then you were expected to settle down and have a family.

Mrs Thatcher, for all that she was a blight on the country (imo!!), was a huge inspiration to a generation of girls.
For those that remeber spitting image, she was the Iron Lady. You had be tough. You weren't -as good as- the guys, you had to be better to be even taken seriously.

Now, move that to WoW. teenage girls, just reaching adulthood are suddenly contronted by the Orcs. Their females share the jobs with the males and are seen as equals.

Then you're faced with the choice: stay home and make babies for the rest of your life or run off and join the horde for fun, excitement, adventure and above all, freedom.


Yes, Vyp followed the horde

and as snicka posted while i was writing this...How much of the taboo against same gender relationships is due to religion? Was it always frowned upon? Or only from a certain point in history?

Returning to WoW again, from the Darkspear's pov, yes i can imagine it -was- banned. they were nearly at the point of extinction after all. It was probably drummed in to them that it was everybodys duty to have as many kids as possible

Again, a celebration of their new found freedom might have resulted in more ppl being honest about their sexuality and or experimenting with other races.

Still, i would try to justify it as Vyp is Bisexual

Get in line wo'man! (only IC of course...)

My mother is feminist and wrote a few thousand books about that, she has a doctor title and so to say I cant hear this anymore...ehm so to say I IRL have no other way to tolerate that.

Hmm Shadowtroll was mostly gentle towards females till he got what he wanted, then he was more or less rude.

Now I became curious: are orcs and trolls biologically close enough to be able to cross-breed? Can Vexacus and Vypra ever have babies? (It's of course another matter if they want any babies at all, I'm talking about the biological ability.)

In Warcraft lore, we know about successful cross-breed between humans and high elves, orcs and draenei, orcs and ogres. However, humans and high elves (along with trolls) have evolved/been created on Azeroth; orcs, ogres and draenei are from Draenor. Can an orc from Draenor impregnate a troll from Azeroth?

Homosexual behaviour in the animal kingdom is a topic I could talk a lot about, I learned quite much about it, however I don't think it belongs to this forum.

Snicka wrote:

Homosexual behaviour in the animal kingdom is a topic I could talk a lot about, I learned quite much about it, however I don't think it belongs to this forum.

I share this opinion ^.^

And ehm cross breeds? Orcs and trolls sound to me more logical then orcs and ogres but huh who am I to decide?

shadowtroll wrote:

And ehm cross breeds? Orcs and trolls sound to me more logical then orcs and ogres but huh who am I to decide?

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/wowwiki/images/f/f6/RacesChart.jpg
The image I linked shows that orcs and ogres are closely related, both from Draenor; orcs and trolls are from an entirely different world. However, I think human-orc interbreeding is said to be possible...

Back on topic... I think it would be great to roleplay a cranky old troll who hates this new order and believes that a woman's duty is to serve her man, and doesn't hide his feelings.
I think the reason that we don't see any chauvinistic/homophobic etc. characters is that people are afraid that they're going to get reported and banned for harrassment if they speak such way, even if it's totally IC. Racism is a different thing, because the races in the Warcraft universe are different from the races in our world, so hatespeak against orcs or elves has nothing to do with real life.

Snicka got the point, being a sexist in a very rough way can be misunderstood and can result in a report which could and probably will lead to a bann.

Having a look on the pic looks interesting, and yes I know that Ogres and Orcs are from the same world and so on I just stated my own view of things about orc-trolls

You're probably right there, Snicka, there are far too many people who doesn't at all understand what rp is, and it could be misinterpreted. Nontheless, it's refreshing to meet someone who actually dares play such a character.

In a completely different rp a year ago or so, I played a female character who after much time realised she had feelings for her best friend, and they became a couple. No one as much as raised an eyebrow at it, as usual, except one character who was absolutely outraged by it, speaking how of how it was wrong and unnatural and so on. It was a lot of fun, and I was surprised to see someone dare to play witch such opinions. As I've said before, what makes rp fun is conflicts. To choose such impopular beliefs for your character is a sure way to find conflict.

Can't agree more Ry. Conflict is what make RP fun and I think it is fun that someone has the guts to play such a character. The problem I have with a long-time character with those beliefs is that they are so far away from my own. And as such it would be hard to play such a char for to much time. But I would think of a character as an alt would work. I even think I have a char that can work for it. When I start RP:ing more than I have done lately.
/Emil

Did anyone save the content of the linked thread? It seems to have been removed...

nope. and i doubt it was removed on purpose. If nobody relpies to threads, they eventually disappear off the boards

Personally, I don't think mny races in WoW can cross-breed, even if Blizz say otherwise. Anyone who knows anything about genetics is aware that whilst we share much of our DNA with the rest of the animal kingdom, breeding between disparate species is impossible. You can breed a lion and tiger, as they're not overly dissimilar (and both feline) but you can't breed a hyena with a leopard (even though they both share a genetic background, and though canine and feline evolved from the same animal all those years ago, they are now far too different to cross-breed). With WoW, we know evolution is fact in Azeroth. Some trolls evolved into elves, and so forth. We also know that there's evolution from an outside source (Orcs and Draenei, along with those little ones thats name escapes me).

I agree with Snicka that a troll couldn't mate with an Orc, but I don't know how genetically different a troll is from an elf. I'd imagine that there's enough difference to prevent one impregnating the other, or more likely, that the child would never come to full term. Having said that, we also know that in WoW, Gods are real, adn as such, it's entirely possible that such things can allow for cross-breeding miracles (I imagine Yogg-Saron would find it most amusing to play with such things, as would any more 'present' deity).

In all religious stories, where the Gods mingle with humans, cross-breeding is an accepted fact (The minotaur, Loki's horse offspring that became Odin's steed, Heracles, Jesus, etc) and if we take this approach and apply it to WoW then I do believe that much can be possible. Admittedly, religious ideas about breeding predate knowledge about genetics, but they also tell us that Gods were in existance. Which ever you have more faith in should aid n how you perceive what is possible in WoW (I'd think).

Yes, I went off on a bit of an overthinking rampage again

Can anyone please point me in the direction of the source that tells us that the Darkspears were especially bad in their treatment of troll women?

I've seen several posts that refer to this. I try to read everything I can find about troll lore and troll history, but I suspect that I've missed something. I've read plenty that refers to male dominance in traditional troll society, but I don't recall reading anything as extreme as this. Can anyone help me out?

It comes from the troll section of the rpg book Zan. If i can find it quoted on the web i'll link it.

edit: found references here and here

The first article raises some interesting points about how to rationalise the seeming difference between the approaches to playing trolls. The options are: stay true to the rpg, true to what is demonstrated by the npcs in-game or come up with some kind of mix of the two

I won't let us repeat the mistake from the beginning of the thread, when the linked forum topic disappeared and the info was lost

Is there someone out there who can answer me on these questions?

Age questions
1. How long is the lifespan of a troll.
2. When do they become teenagers.
3. When do they become young adults.
4. When do they become adults.
5. When do they become old.

Pregnancy
1. How fertile are trolls. (80 times a night? xD)
2. How long is the pregnancy for a female troll?
3. How long do the mother care for the child.
4. Is the father responsible for the child too?
5. Who get's to name the child?

Age-wise:

Adulthood: 17 years.
Middle Age: 30 years.
Old: 47 years.
Venerable: 69 years.
Life Expectancy: 70-89 years.

The other questions are harder to answer, since there really is no official stance on those things. Troll society is said to be sexist and males to be dominant, so logically I suppose it would be up for the males interests whether he would partake in the childs upbringing. One RPG book says that "Males control everything; females exist only to make more trolls" - which would probably mean that the males generally do not care for the children, nor that things such as families exist. Its just the tribe.

Though if you are planning to RP a pregnancy and so forth, its probably a different thing because essentially you as a female troll have already broken free from your place in the tribe. Might sound farfetched to think that all female trolls are "exceptions" like that, but lorewise a large part of the darkspear tribe is leaving their traditions behind and learning their way of life from the orcs and tauren. So basically you can also choose to be a troll couple that has moved to the "modern days" of orcish ways where both sexes are equal and the families are more human-like, with both the mother and the father involved.

Largely it depends on the type of troll society.

Jungle Trolls are extremely sexist. Females exist solely to increase the tribe's size and are seen as property of the male trolls. They are a symbol of status: the more wives a warrior has, the larger his prestige within the tribe. The Darkspear tribe (player trolls usually hail from this one) however is bound by Thrall's edict of equality within the Horde, so they do have to allow females who wish to join the Horde directly to leave the tribe.

Forest Trolls and Atal'ai/Hakkari seem more equalized when it comes to genders. The sourcebooks do not mention any distinguishment between sexes here like in Jungle Troll society, and the number of priestesses and female warrior NPCs in the game within these cultures also seem to suggest equality. Or at the very least the possibility for a female to gain respect by distinguishing herself in combat.

((And also: I've got my hands on some of the warcraft rpg books. I'll make a thread full of the info on troll lore I can find there ))

So Darkspear are basically liberal free-thinkers and very foward with progress. This would certainly imply that a strong female troll (such as Ryleen/Yrjial/Zanick/Vypra) would be in fact commended for showing the way.

On a side note: I thought that trolls had a shorter life expectency than humans, bt according to that post, it's in fact about the same. If anything, going by the medieval setting, most humans were lucky to live into middle-age, and what with troll healing, it's entirely possible that people have appended the current life expectency onto the humans, rather than a more realistic one (this is a world without hosptials, and where diseases run rampant, in addition to all the conflict).

Ry, it would be great if you had the Horde players guide and it had some more about this subject as i only have the core rule book.

Lyranne, the age tables i've seen posted from time to time seem to suggest that our current human life expectncy has indeed been transferred into WoW. However, the humans of WoW have one thing our medieval folk didn't: Magic. It certainly helps in the prevention of death from disease and injury and famine never seems to be a problem on Azeroth either

Vypra is correct in this last thing: with the priests and paladins running around, wounds and diseases can be healed easily. So they can likely have the same life expectancy as us, modern humans with our hygenie and medicine. And against famine, you have mages, who can conjure food for the hungry.

Trolls' natural regeneration perhaps allows them a slightly higher life expectancy - but their violent lifestyle compensates it. An old troll is rare in Stranglethorn Vale because warriors are most likely slain by the rival tribe at a young age. On the other hand, Darkspears lived on islands, isolated from other tribes - so probably there are more elderly Darkspears than, for example, Bloodscalps.

This also explains why jungle trolls could have more than one wife - since they die at a young age, it's necessary for them to have many babies as soon as possible - and the easiest way to do that is to impregnate more than one woman. Also, it's the men who are slain at war, so the number of females is higher - which also leads to polygamy.

Live young and have a life full of violence and sex? Well, explains why we rolled trolls does it?

Vypra wrote:Ry, it would be great if you had the Horde players guide and it had some more about this subject as i only have the core rule book.

Fun fact: The core rulebook doesn't even seem to admit that trolls exist. The Alliance and Horde Compendium seems to contain some interesting stuff though. Just as that blogger says, trolls are much less pleasantly portrayed in the rpg. Oh, and I found a very interesting reference to a rite of passage that could be what our own finding of loa ritual evolved from. I will post more on this when I've had time to read it more in detail.

It doesn't? *goes to see which book she has...*


ok, well, it has Jungle trolls in this one on pages 49 (where the contentious line 'Males control everything; Females exist only to make more trolls.' is written) and 50

I guess jungle trolls appear in it as a monster race in the corebook instead of a playable one; but they become playable in the Horde Compendium.
Anyway, it seems we roleplay trolls as a much friendlier and more cheerful race than they actually appear in most sources of lore - savage, bloodthirsty people. But I guess these are all written from the humans' point of view, and you always see your enemies monstrous.

My point was more that would priests and Paladins et cetera really be employed to work as medicine men and women and can they really cure every disease? Humans do not have an overy resilient immune system, and certainly in WoW there are incurable diseases/plagues (such as that which creates the scourge). In addition, I don't see that the trolls would have a more violent life than the humans, and so wonder if the life expectentcy attributed to humans is more out of laziness than an application of logic. One could also wonder about what affects magic and spiritual cleansing have on the aging process: Does it retard, or encourage it to speed up? Does it affect people at all. Then we have the simple ponder of whether humans age at a realistic rate or if again, they've appended modern numbers onto them.

Thyis goes for all races, and personally I find it interesting (even if I'm simply overthinking).