With Shadowlands comes a bit more diversity in World of Warcraft. An important character is transgender – the Shadowlands make it possible.
When it comes to diversity, World of Warcraft lags a bit behind the current zeitgeist in its variety of characters – especially regarding transgender characters. Guild Wars 2 has had one for many years. While there are here and there a few lesbian characters and occasionally hinted relationships between same-sex partners, a transgender character has been missing. It’s actually strange for a world where magic can accomplish so much.
With Shadowlands this will change. Because there is a transgender character that is even part of the “mandatory program” and an important character during the quest experience.
Which character is it about? It is about Pelagos, a Kyrian in the Shadowlands. He is a male Kyrian whom players see early in the first area “Bastion”. He is quite emotional, and that brings him many problems. Together with his soul mate Kleia, we try to help him and cope with the trials of ascension.
What one quickly learns during the quest, if one follows the dialogues and quest texts: Pelagos was not a man in life, but a woman.
Because: In the Shadowlands, souls can choose a new form that they like. Therefore, Pelagos is also able to choose a male body, even though he was physically a woman in life. He can now choose a form that corresponds to his true personality.
What exactly does Blizzard say? Blizzard has brought Pelagos’ case a bit into the spotlight. They have already revealed in advance that there will be some changes to the dialogues that mainly concern Pelagos. They wanted to communicate clearly in advance why these changes are being made and said:
In an upcoming build of the Shadowlands Alpha, we are updating some dialogues and quest texts that reference a key character in the story of Bastion: Pelagos. (…)
A key aspect of the story of Bastion is that aspirants are able to choose a physical form that corresponds to their true selves. Pelagos, who was represented as a woman in his life, chose to be a man in the Shadowlands. The team had originally written him to use the pronouns (they/them), but received feedback that he/him would be more respectful of the character’s wish to identify as male. This change is simply the result and response to this feedback.
Community Manager Kaivax in the official WoW forum
In the German translation of the Alpha, this was already quite clear.
This is how the community reacts: Depending on where you look at the comments, opinions are quite varied. On wowhead, most users comment quite positively. There are many comments like “Nice!”, “Good!” or “<3” to read. The general mood here is positive and appreciates this sign from Blizzard.
Considerably more negative is the comment section on mmo-champion. Here there are many (though by no means all) comments that feel attacked by this change. They do not want to see “Political Correctness pressed into games” or bring the usual “what if he identifies as an attack helicopter?” jokes.
Cortyn says: Honestly, I can only shake my head at the negative comments. Many players probably wouldn’t have noticed if Blizzard hadn’t announced this change in the address. Because it really only comes into play in the quest texts, which a large part of players do not read attentively anyway. Anyone who is upset that a few “inclusive” characters are appearing in MMORPGs that send a positive signal to the LGBTQ community – well, my God. Then I’m glad those people don’t have real problems.
How do you see it? Is it cool that Blizzard includes such a (rather important) character in WoW? Or should they have definitely skipped it?
