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Why the Humans Are White: Fantasy, Modernity, and the Rhetorics Of WHY THE HUMANS ARE WHITE: FANTASY, MODERNITY, AND THE RHETORICS OF RACISM IN WORLD OF WARCRAFT By CHRISTOPHER JONAS RITTER A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Department of English MAY 2010 To the Faculty of Washington State University: The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation of CHRISTOPHER JONAS RITTER find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted. __________________________________ Victor Villanueva, Ph.D., Chair __________________________________ Patricia Freitag Ericsson, Ph.D. __________________________________ Jason Farman, Ph.D. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Greatest thanks go to my family guild, without whom I would never have played WoW for so long (or even in the first place, possibly): Dan Crockett, Annie Ritter, Dave Ritter, Betsy Ritter, and Peter Ritter. To my committee: Victor Villanueva, Patty Ericsson, and Jason Farman. Without your open- mindedness and encouragement, I would have succumbed to the derision of the Luddites and avoided studying what I love. To my colleagues/friends/professors at WSU, who helped me work out my ideas about this subject as they were born in several different seminars. Especially: Shawn LameBull, Rachael Shapiro, Hannah Allen, and Kristin Arola. To Jeff Hatch for his expertise with the architecture stuff. To The Gang, who helped me work out my ideas over beers: Pat Johnson, Sarah Bergfeld, Scott McMurtrey, Jim Haendiges, and Gage Lawhon. To my dad, Tom Ritter, for introducing me to Pong in like 1985 and indirectly putting me on the path that led me here. To Blizzard, not only for making a game that‘s kept me happy for approximately six times longer than any game had done previously; but more importantly, for providing the context and occasion for me to maintain long-distance relationships with people I love. And finally, thanks to all of my lesser friends and enemies in WoW. I came for the elves, but I stayed for the people. iii WHY THE HUMANS ARE WHITE: FANTASY, MODERNITY, AND THE RHETORICS OF RACISM IN WORLD OF WARCRAFT Abstract By Christopher Jonas Ritter, Ph.D. Washington State University May 2010 Chair: Victor Villanueva This dissertation analyzes constructions and representations of racial identity in the world‘s most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft, vis-à-vis the ideological and political-economic history of racism in the United States. Chapter 1 uses Ken McAllister‘s Grammar of Gameworks to map the game‘s racial design and its ideological influences. Chapter 2 shows how WoW operates upon biologistic definitions of race and then traces those definitions‘ historical and literary origins from the Enlightenment through the twentieth century. Chapter 3 offers multimodal rhetorical analyses of the game‘s ten playable races, finding each to be a pastiche of nostalgic, Eurocentric representations. Chapter 4 uses Ian Bogost‘s theory of procedural rhetoric to interpret the meanings generated in the context of WoW‘s player-versus-player combat, which splits its players into permanently warring, racially divided factions. It concludes that although WoW offers a simulation of racist war, the game (and its players) have avoided mainstream labeling as racist by re-framing the conflict in terms of of nationalism, following the racial discourse of the ―War on Terror.‖ Finally, through a critical reflection on my own continuing participation in the game, I discuss the ways that white privilege and neoliberalism let players ignore or sidestep the many varieties of racism inherent in WoW and other fantasy games. Ultimately, I argue that World of Warcraft is a metaphor for the ambivalence that mainstream U.S. culture feels as it questions modernity's ways of being and communicating, but has yet to shift into the next paradigm. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Topography ....................................................................................................................... 1 Acts .................................................................................................................................................... 1 Influences ........................................................................................................................................ 10 Articulations ................................................................................................................................... 20 Transformations ............................................................................................................................. 26 Theories ........................................................................................................................................... 27 Chapter 2: Races and Racisms .......................................................................................................... 30 Definitions ...................................................................................................................................... 30 A Really Brief History of Racism ................................................................................................ 33 Archetypes old and new................................................................................................................ 35 What is fantasy? .............................................................................................................................. 38 Whose fantasy is it? ....................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 3: Representations ............................................................................................................... 48 Humans ........................................................................................................................................... 53 Dwarves........................................................................................................................................... 59 Night Elves ..................................................................................................................................... 64 Gnomes ........................................................................................................................................... 70 Draenei ............................................................................................................................................ 74 Orcs ................................................................................................................................................. 79 Undead ............................................................................................................................................ 85 v Trolls ................................................................................................................................................ 89 Tauren ............................................................................................................................................. 96 Blood Elves...................................................................................................................................100 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................105 Chapter 4: Procedures .....................................................................................................................111 The procedural rhetorics of the faction system ......................................................................117 Racism and nationalism: ideological siblings ...........................................................................126 Chapter 5: Transformations? ..........................................................................................................130 Acts ................................................................................................................................................130 Transformations? .........................................................................................................................132 We can be heroes! ........................................................................................................................141 WoW and the crisis of modernity ..............................................................................................144 Works Cited ......................................................................................................................................149 vi CHAPTER 1: TOPOGRAPHY Acts Act 1: Late 2005/early 2006. My best friend Dan and I are in our 40s with our first characters, and we're in the Hinterlands. One group of quests in this zone involves fighting up a Troll city called Jintha'Alor. It's a nasty area for a level 40ish character because it's big - comprised of seven or eight tiers that have to be navigated linearly - and because it's densely populated with elite mobs - NPCs with higher-than- average hit points. (Or it was - it's been nerfed now, as part of Blizzard's ongoing effort to make the game easier; but more about that elsewhere.) So they're very hard to kill. Which means that the area isn't soloable - it forces players to group up. Dan and I, playing our hunters, are doing okay in here, operating more or less at the edge of our competence. And then we see a lone Orc. He's1 the same level as we are, but alone, he's going
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