It's been some time
since I wrote anything on this blog. The truth is that, after
spending most of the year working in Special Education, writing five
novellas and two full novels, as well as helping out a project for
Wycliffe Associates by checking the English text of a translation
against the Greek, I've been taking a break from pretty much
everything except my nine dollar an hour summer job and waiting until
my regular twenty dollar an hour rest of the year job resumes in a
couple of weeks.
And I've been
playing World of Warcraft all summer.
It started out being
just me, but eventually my whole family got into it and so my wife,
son, daughters and I have been running through the Eastern Kingdoms
and Kalimdor seeing new sights, killing monsters, going on quests
together, and, in some ways, running the ultimate family summer
vacation road trip without ever having to leave the house.
Up until now, I've
created human characters, night elves, blood elves, orcs, Tauren,
Dreinei and dwarves. Most of the time I've played either Paladins or
priests, warriors or hunters depending on the race. I've identified
more with the Paladins and priests than any of the others, but I've
found that all the races have interesting and engaging histories and
story lines. I've felt like I could empathize and come to understand
the position and situation of all of them.
All of the races,
that is, except one.
Up until today, I've
been steadfastly avoiding the Forsaken or creating a Forsaken
character. Let me explain why. The Forsaken are undead. For all
intents and purposes they are a nation of zombies a la “The Walking
Dead” except retaining all of their intelligence and personality.
They look like rotting corpses. They excel in dark shadow magic, and
most of the quests that I had encountered previously where they were
involved seemed atrocious and dishonorable. I had absolutely no
desire to be involved with them unless they were on the receiving end
of my holy attacks.
But, after several
months of playing very similar characters and seeing the same terrain
over and over again, I decided to go ahead and try one; just to see
what their starting area was like if nothing else.
It turns out that
the Forsaken are, essentially, the people who got caught in a
devastating plague during the events of Warcraft 3 and were left
behind to suffer the plague's effects. They were transformed from
living breathing husbands, wives, sons, daughters, farmers, soldiers,
and loyal citizens of their kingdom into almost mindless zombies
enslaved to the Scourge, a demonic, brutal faction that is a mutual
enemy to both the Horde (orcs, trolls, Tauren, Blood Elves, and
Forsaken) and the Alliance (humans, night elves, dwarves, Dreinei,
and gnomes).
The undead who
became the Forsaken were able to free themselves from their
enslavement, and began to fight against the Scourge like everyone
else, but found themselves rejected and hunted by the friends,
family, and nations to which they had formerly once belonged. They
are a broken people, angry and in pain on many, many levels, and
unable to get any kind of relief. Even the relief which death was
supposed to bring.
I've found, in the
story lines of the starting quests, a woman who just wants a blanket
to keep warm because she's always too cold now. Another woman wants
to bring peace to the soul of her friend by making sure her husband
is buried in the grave next to hers. Still others just want justice
for what has happened to them; something which always seems just out
of reach. And yes, there are others who are so angry and in pain that
they want to take their revenge by seeing all of those who are still
living and breathing either become like them, or dead.
As I played through
the first few levels of my undead priest, I couldn't help but think
about all the very real people I have encountered and know about who,
on first glance seem equally twisted and atrocious; the kind of
people whom I would just normally try to avoid. How many of them are
also that way because of a “scourge” to which they were just
innocent bystanders? How many of them are now equally as broken,
hurt, and angry and have become “forsaken” by all the “good”
people, that is, those who claim to represent the light? How many of
them are just trying to put their lives back together the best way
they can, even if it's not the “right” way, because that's all
they can do? And how many of us condemn them for it when it doesn't
live up to our standards of “the right thing to do”? How many
times has such an attitude driven them even further into anger,
revenge, and shadow?
Warcraft is just a
game. But the attitudes and story lines it presents are something of
a reflection of real world problems like self-righteousness, racism,
intolerance and pride and the damage all of these can wreak on both
the least significant of families and the world as a whole.
I plan on returning
to writing and reflecting more here in the near future. I think my
time binging in Azeroth is coming to a close, although I think I will
still visit from time to time. But, as with everything, I think it
will have been worth it if I can learn from the lessons those stories
try to teach.
