All the World's a Stage is a column for inquisitive minds, playing with roles every Sunday evening. The media usually portrays WoW as a "boy's game." That's not to say girls don't play too, of course -- just that the game is basically about qualities such as aggressiveness and violence, and our culture expects males to be interested in that sort of thing.
Whether such a designation is true or not, the "masculine equals violent" stereotype is very pervasive, and it is natural for many male players to begin the game with a powerful and intimidating character in mind. The player may imagine that his avatar is warm and kind-hearted inside, but outwardly, his character looks as though he could rip out your throat with a flick of his pinky finger.
But there are many men out there who don't like such exaggerated manliness in their characters, just as there are many women who don't want their character to look like a dainty barbie doll. Being a person isn't just about just one gender attribute, after all. Indeed, female characters in WoW can achieve a full range of human attributes in their appearance; they can look friendly and intelligent, yet lightning quick and deadly at the same time. However, the appearance of male characters is often so filled to the brim with "strength and honor" that there's not much room left for any other human quality.
Obviously, there are exceptions. Gnomish males certainly don't come across as intimidating so much as book-smart and goofy. They are great fun to play for laughs, but in general nobody takes a male gnome seriously. Blood elves and night elves, though often mentioned as the most effeminate of Warcraft males, are actually very imposing compared to most real-life men. If you put aside some of their hairstyles, emotes and dances (which can be entirely avoided if the player chooses), they have exaggerated muscles like all the rest, as well as their own special macho swagger.Personally, I don't look very violent myself, nor do I even aspire to physically intimidate any other real person. While I have the utmost respect for men who must survive in dangerous circumstances, the ability to kill people or scare them off just isn't required of guys in my corner of the world these days, and "macho" is not a masculine trait I aspire to. Manliness, for me, means cooperating with others to achieve a particular goal, using language and communication to achieve what muscles and brawn used to do in ages past.
So in WoW I'd like to be able to play a spellcaster who looks more like myself; or perhaps a cheerful and wise old man with a long beard; or maybe even a troll who can stand up straight for more than 5 seconds. I don't want my male character to look wimpy, of course, but I don't want his skin to burst from excessive musculature either.
I remember trying to create a male night elf, and being unable to find any face that didn't scowl or grimace at me. Trying a human, I found all the faces to have small, stupid-looking eyes, wedge-shaped noses, and heads resting directly on their shoulders without any neck in between. Suffice it to say, I tried every male of every race and felt disappointed with my options -- sometimes it was the prevalence of scowling faces, other times it was the wrist-less arms the size of tree-trunks. With the Horde races, in particular, I was universally turned off by their hunched posture, facial deformities, or in the case of blood elves, the same arrogant swagger I dislike in night elves. Many men look at these characters and think "cool," but I look at them and think, "not my thing."
Of course it's entirely a matter of personal preference. I'm glad that many men (and women) have the option to play the macho character they enjoy: cool-looking, muscular, and ready to kick ass. I fully appreciate their sense of fun in playing that sort of role -- I just don't think it's suitable for me, and I wish I had some other options. And why shouldn't I have options? As Elizabeth pointed out, female characters actually get a wide variety of visual appearance choices, from the tall and thin to short and stout, movie-star gorgeous to hideously grotesque. Sometimes, as in the case with female trolls, there's actually only one face which conforms to the prevailing standards of feminine beauty, but lots of faces with various grimaces and wrinkles for any woman who might be going after that special vicious look in her character. Yet, if these female characters were as limited as male characters are, they would all be variations on the barbie doll theme -- clearly designed for sex-appeal -- with the one possible exception of an anime cutsey girl with poofy pink ponytails.
To be fair, however, not everyone views these male characters the same way I do. When I asked female players which male characters they thought were attractive, I was most surprised when some of them mentioned that undead males looked "endearing" or "adorable." Tauren and draenei males are much easier for me to appreciate, in the case of players who see them more like gentle giants than intimidating monster-men. I have one male draenei character in particular who looks noble and graceful to me. His severe face and huge muscles don't bother me as much when I see them running along with a graceful gait, almost like a stag, as opposed to swaggering or wabbling about awkwardly as most males do.
Other players have created other exceptions to the imposing norm as well. Although I personally would not enjoy playing their characters, I nonetheless admire them as good male characters that break the macho mold. Some undead males, for example, look more scholarly than scary, and some people roleplay their blood elf males so shyly and timidly that I can almost forget their narcissistic posture. In addition, men always have the option to play the opposite sex if that would fit the kind of character they have in mind better. Obviously female characters can't represent the peculiarities that makes us distinctly male, but they can portray almost any other characteristic we might want them to have, from friendliness to intelligence, silliness to bloodthirstiness. Often one can reach a visual balance with female characters that mixes several desired qualities in just one look.
Each person has their own vision of how they want their characters to look and feel, and it only makes sense that there should be as many options for different sorts of people as possible. What do you think of the male characters in WoW? Are you satisfied, or do you wish you could make some change?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-13-2008 @ 9:54PM
Gryphon Hall said...
The one reason why I am playing a nightelf female is because the nightelf males look like they're on drugs or in trouble with the law. It is no accident that my guildmates who are nightelf men wear their helms to be seen, so that it would cover their faces.
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1-13-2008 @ 10:16PM
Xiphus said...
My choice of race (usually race) is really based on class. Normally, I prefer to play a male, because I am a male and I'm not exactly comfortable with playing with female characters. When I want to be a rogue, I pick undead, because the undead are scrawny, not muscular. I don't want my sneaky murderer to look muscular. Muscles are for warriors. Same thing when I play non-physical characters. I stay away from muscle-bound characters. I mean, mages with muscles?
As for playing warriors, I pick orcs because orcs are really muscular. And their face isn't as ugly as human faces. They looked rugged, tough, really fit and outright intimidating, fit for the warrior look.
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1-14-2008 @ 12:32AM
Hollywood Ron said...
I agree, Orcs look like warriors in the way that Klingons on Star Trek always make me think of noble warriors.
1-14-2008 @ 12:59AM
Aerei said...
I honestly roll just as many male as female characters. Unfortunately, the males just never hold my interest for long. I simply cannot connect with the alpha-male look that most have going on. It's gotten to the point where my home server is full up on female characters.
Even the less muscular males have things that make them unappealing. I really like the male troll build, but the tusks and huge nose put me off. Gnomes are great, but I don't like to be a walking punt joke. As for undead, I simply can't get into the mindset of a male Forsaken.
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1-14-2008 @ 1:30AM
Shalkis said...
I've never really tried a male troll, but playing a Forsaken male was surprisingly easy. I started out on his backstory and worked up from there. My character, a priest, was very aware that the world saw him as a monster and in time he began to believe them. His slight crouching is more due to psychological factors than from physical, and the hand movements associated with his talking animation fit his personality perfectly, because he's struggling to justify his existence. Sometimes he just can't bottle it all up inside and lashes out, and that's where the casting and /laugh animations come in.
1-14-2008 @ 1:43AM
Xiphus said...
It is very easy to roleplay an undead because they were once humans, only not quite alive anymore. The undead can have a wide variety of motivation, just like humans too. That's the reason why I like playing undead.
1-14-2008 @ 1:19AM
Shalkis said...
While I'm somewhat pleased with the variety for my Horde characters (troll female, two orc males, tauren female, undead male & female and a blood elf male), I've had considerable difficulty finding any Alliance avatars that I could watch for more than 20 levels. In my opinion, the most serious offenders are human males. Although the face and hair variety is decent, they direly need more body shapes. A caster should not look like a bodybuilder.
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1-14-2008 @ 4:58AM
Fizzl said...
I gave up on my human male priest because he looked too much like a steroid using transvestite body builder O_o
When i created my mage i new from the start I'd spend most of my time in a dress again so created a female character in order to be less of an eye saw.
Its a shame we don't have the CoX level of character customization because when we all start getting tier items everyone looks the same.
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1-14-2008 @ 8:08AM
Roxton said...
What I would really like to see is different builds for different classes. Warriors can be as big and bulky as they like, due to heaving around about a hundredweight of plate all day, but my mage has the same muscular build as a warrior, and all the exercise he does is throw fireballs at people. And how much does fire weigh, really?
Of course, the classes wouldn't have to be completely different. To save time in coding different shaped items and gear, all the clothies could have the same slight academic build; rogues and hunters and possibly humanoid druids and shamans could share a more muscular and sinewy form, more wiry and strong than the clothies but still less stacked than a warrior or paladin. After all, you use different muscles in firing a bow than hitting people with a mace. Of course, these are only rough ideas, and a fair bit of work would have to go into them to make them tick, but I think it would be a vast improvement on my mage, who currently looks as though he could bench-press and elephant
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1-14-2008 @ 9:22AM
Thijz said...
That's epic, seriously, I love this idea!
1-14-2008 @ 8:21AM
Korek said...
I'm another person who has a hard time playing a male avatar as a caster type in WoW. Staring at a "caster" who looks like they just spent 12 hours at the Gym pumping iron while slurping down steroid smoothees just completely destroys any sense of believability in a fantasy character.
Consequently, my males are all melee character types. I have a blood elf prot pally (male), an draenei elemental shaman (male), a tauren boomkin druid (male - and I need to get him out of that cloth robe, he looks ridiculous!). I've also got my girls: a night elf priest, a night elf druid (also a boomkin - she looks better in a robe), and so on.
The only male avatars I can stand in a robe or as a caster are the blood elves and the gnomes. Trolls and undead are believable, but the hunched back gets to me after a while.
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1-14-2008 @ 10:15AM
Wildhammer said...
More than anything this is the artstyle of the WarCraft universe, and I like it. I like the whole alpha-male look, and I don't mind that they don't look realistic. With me, the problem lies in model quality. I.e., lack of wrists or necks.
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1-14-2008 @ 2:11PM
Fenom said...
iif looks could really kill
then my profession would be staring
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1-15-2008 @ 7:12AM
Dan said...
I played a female nelf warrior and, generally, the ott 'lithe ass kicker with a sword the size of Africa' look was good, but sadly, the rampant sex appeal attempts of the art team meant that I spent most of my time in chainmail underwear. Disappointing all the way to 70, frankly.
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1-15-2008 @ 6:58PM
Ayl said...
The alpha male look of the characters is exactly why my 2 70's are women. A human female warlock, and a draenei female paladin.
I find it really dissapointing that Blizzard chose to make the males in WoW look so brutish and one dimensional.
But the downside of playing a female, especially as a plate wearer are the skimpy breast plates and thong pants I would come across while leveling. I would get really excited to find an upgrade to my gear, only to find that it makes my character look like a skank so I would just end up selling it.
WoW is a great game, but its one gigantic failure is taking customization away from the player.
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1-18-2008 @ 10:08AM
Cynra said...
As an avid roleplayer (and a confirmed alt-aholic), I have toons from every race. However, I invariably roll females every time. Part of this is probably due to the fact that I am a woman, but a big reason is the fact that the male character models leave little flexibility in roleplay due to the initial perception that results in their appearance. As you noted, women can look similar yet be sleek, dangerous, meek, genteel, and so on with little imagination. Most of the male models are hulking monsters (with the main exceptions being the undead and trolls).
Roleplayers can get around that, however. Add ons exist that let you control how other characters should initially perceive their appearance by including a [b]short[/b] (emphasis) description of [b]only their appearance[/b] (emphasis. No back stories in your profiles, please!). Of course, this requires that people possess similar add ons and accept your character's description as canon rather than utilizing their in-game appearance. This can be a bit of a hassle, but it's an acceptable work-around for some people.
I dislike the idea of character models being based on class. That's closer to improving this problem, but it's still far too limiting. Why can't you play a hulking, intimidating human who desires to be a mage? Imagine the difficulties you could have with that and the quirks you could have with the character: his larger size makes him feel uncomfortable around his more normal-sized counterparts; his inherent strength leaves him feeling awkward when dealing with some of the more intricate and delicate tasks required of mages; maybe he uses his strength to bully others, using it as a crutch rather than focusing on his more magely talents; or the mage found this calling later in life, having had a career as a blacksmith/warrior/guard/farmhand/whatever in the past.
For example, one of my toons is a battlepriest. While I rolled her as a female kal'dorei due to the prevalence of the sweet, endearing, "Blessings of Elune be upon you" archetype common of my server, the concept could easily be applied to a male kal'dorei. She embraces the belief that healing is not the sole domain of the priest and so strives to improve her prowess on the battlefield in every conceivable way. This suits her build and purpose, since she's a 42/19/0 Discipline priest intended for PvP, Battlegrounds, and Arena (as opposed to my human Holy priest and troll Shadow priest - I'm a priestaphiliac).
The best solution is some sort of character creator that allows you to change the body shape of your toon. Even if it's limited (perhaps only three shapes), it would still allow for greater flexibility. Though I never really played City of Heroes (or its villanous counterpart), I did spend hours creating unique characters. While we may not need that much control in the appearance of our characters, it's still a step towards the right direction!
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3-07-2008 @ 11:18AM
liesandperfidy said...
God, I would love to have mutable body types. Not even a CoH-type slider (though obviously that would be amazing), but just like...a height-weight index, five choices for each, from short to tall and skinny to bulky. Maybe if we're feeling ambitious a muscle definition choice as well, so you can range from roided-out to obese, or twiglike to frighteningly sinewy (and everything in between).
When I play my human rogue, I basically don't look at the screen, considering that his avatar probably weighs about half again what he's supposed to.
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3-24-2008 @ 5:19PM
prudychick said...
My first rogue (not RP) lives up to the assassin that she is. She wears her hair pulled back in a pony tail and never wears dresses. During Lunar Festival I got her one of the dresses for one reason only. I created a little slide show in PowerPoint called Azrothian Extreme Makeover. The final slide is Adriea (my rogue) after the the makeover. She's in the dress and is quoted saying, "Just because I'm in a dress doesn't mean I won't hesitate to slit your throat."
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