An animation in World of Warcraft was simply too offensive. Sneakily, it was removed and replaced with something else: A death threat.
In recent years, World of Warcraft has made sure to remove problematic content bit by bit. Many old jokes, sexual innuendos, or outright sexist content have been gradually removed or replaced. Now, in Patch 12.1 Curse of Ula’tek, one of the oldest animations in the game, belonging to male undead, was quietly affected: The animation could be interpreted as sexually offensive – at least, that is what the community believes.
When rude is just too rude
Which animation was removed? It’s about the animation “/rude”. Depending on the race, a different animation is played, clearly showing people around that they can shove it:
- Night elves kiss their hand and then slap it on their behind – a clear “You can shove it.”
- Blood and void elves lean far forward, place their hands on their heads, and apparently ridicule their counterpart.
- Gnomes show others a long nose.
However, Blizzard apparently found the animation of the male undead problematic. They grabbed themselves with one hand in their crotch and waved the other hand up and down to the sky. A gesture that could certainly be understood as a sexual innuendo or even a threat.
What is there instead now? In Patch 12.1, this animation was quietly removed and replaced with another gesture. Now the undead places one hand on their throat, spreads their thumb, and makes a gesture as if to cut their throat.
Of course, one can debate whether replacing a sexually interpretable gesture with a death threat is much more sensitive – but I gladly leave the discussion to you in the comments.
This is how the community discusses it: In the WoW subreddit, this change has immediately caught attention. Many do not wonder that Blizzard removed the animation, but rather that it was even in the game. However, there are also a lot of people who find the removal of the animation excessive. Some voices from the post:
We can’t have anything sexual here! Let’s replace it with a brutal threat instead.
– Care-EuphoricIt really needs to be examined how a society can be both sex-positive and so morally strict at the same time.
– SpunkMcKullins
Cortyn thinks: This is yet another decision where I sit here with a long, deep sigh. Yes, I can understand that one might view the gesture a bit critically, as it could certainly be interpreted as intrusive – something one does not want in World of Warcraft. I also don’t find the new animation so bad, and had it always existed, people probably wouldn’t complain now.
But it brings up a lot of memories from the first “cleansing”, when WoW removed almost all sexual innuendos from the game. Back then, there was the infamous “women replaced by fruit” scandal and a large part of the jokes and flirt lines were removed from the game – in a world where you can only hear those lines if you are grouped with corresponding characters.
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