When Orcs go woke

"Warcraft: The Beginning" ia a 2016 fantasy film based on the video game franchise "World of Warcraft", produced by Blizzard Entertainment. At first glance, it´s just another LOTR rip-off, and I do mean Peter Jackson´s LOTR, although I suppose Tolkien is still left in there somewhere. You can easily find parallels to Sauron, Saruman, Aragorn, the Council of Elrond, the White Tower, and so on. There are also similarities to "Game of Thrones". Maybe I was just imagining it, but surely there was a hidden reference to "Superman", as well? And, of course, the Bible! The more I reflected on the story-line, however, the more differences with the basic fantasy concept became apparent. 

Some are very obvious, such as the human queen being colored or mixed race. One of the main characters is a female human-Orc hybrid! The treatment of the Orcs is obviously different from that of regular fantasy, 

 Usually, Orcs are simply evil, cuz reasons, period. In "Warcraft", by contrast, the Orcs comes across more like a warband of American Indians or very rowdy Japanese samurai (or perhaps even Klingons from "Star Trek"!). Despite being brutal killer-machines, they nevertheless abide by a certain code of honor, show paternal and maternal affection (yes, there are Orc women and children in this film), and have enough free will to negotiate with enemy factions if it suits their tribal politicking.

Of course, every fantasy story needs *some* villain who really is evilly evil. Or does it? Strictly speaking, there is no such person in "Warcraft". Evil is an entirely blind and impersonal death force, which from time to time infects good people and turn them bad. One of the plot twists is that the Orcs have been duped by a tribal chief infected by "fel magic", as the impersonal evil is called. I even got the impression that the conflict between the Orcs and the races of Azeroth could have been solved peacefully, had it not been for key people on both sides being infected by the death force. Contemporary social concerns are visible in the film: sexism, slavery, immigration (the Orcs are refugees from a dying world), even loneliness (perhaps a euphemism for autism?). The Guardian was infected by fel due to his loneliness, rather than some more serious character flaw. The only thing missing is man-made climate change, but maybe I just didn´t see it. The climate change movement had only just started in 2016. 

It´s interesting to reflect upon what this implies. The more alt-rightish wing of the gaming community consider Blizzard to be "woke" (i.e. liberal or left-liberal, here intended as an insult). It seems Blizzard has added new characters to the WoW universe, characters which rather inevitably are gay, lesbian or trans. No surprise there, I suppose. But what is the message of "Warcraft" on a deeper level? As already mentioned, its evil is impersonal and works by infection. Get rid of the infection, get rid of evil. Get rid of "loneliness", be a rational guy (or a rational Orc), and you can´t even be infected. Note also that the evil is simply a death force. Is this how liberals see evil? Death is evil, since it stops you from pursuing your individual hedonistic interests. That´s all there is to it. COVID is easy to interpret as a kind of "fel magic" of this kind.

Of course, this isn´t how "liberals" really see the world. In the liberal worldview, evil is extremely personal. Indeed, it seems strongly connected to just one guy! Yes, I mean Donald Trump, the Necromancer of Amerikkka. Nor do liberals seem to think that Trump is at bottom a good guy who has simply been infected by the darker shades of mysterious extra-cosmic substances, the way you can catch, say, a viral infection. Nah, he´s evil like a Tolkienesque Orc, cuz reasons. Note also how fast the liberal elite got onboard *Trump´s* claim that the COVID virus came from the Wuhan lab, the moment the Necromancer had been safely exorcised. So "fel magic" isn´t impersonal, after all, but really controlled by evil *persons*. 

Perhaps "Warcraft" is the kiddie version of how liberals "should" view the world. Well, it seems the kids have grown up. I wouldn´t be surprised if a woke reworking of LOTR is the next logical step. Indeed, isn´t there actually a woke version of LOTR already? I haven´t seen it, but I wouldn´t be surprised if it rectifies some of the "problematic errors" of "Warcraft" in a post-Trump, post-COVID world...