The World of Warcraft Class and Race debate....In My Mind!

OK, I start this post warning people that this is an argument that I happened in my head last night. In addition, it is a sort of spoiler, so if you like the lore of WoW and haven't read Christie Golden's Rise of the Horde, or don't like hearing the voices in my head Stop Reading Now!

For you guys who either have read the book, or don't care, and aren't afraid of the voices, thank you. And here we go....

So, lately the Rise of the Horde has become my bathroom book (sorry Christie, it isn't TP. I like it!), and I have been reading about how the Orcs came to be on the Horde side. Knowing that I'm only 130 or so pages into the book so far, I don't pretend to know it all yet. But! I got to thinking about how Orc's have Shaman, and it totally makes sense. I liked the idea that they could talk to their ancestors and they give good (mostly) advice. It sort of reminds me of the Taurens and their whole close to nature, almost Native American feel. I suspect if I looked around I could find the story of Shamans and Taurens being a similar story.

That got me thinking then about the Draenai and their ability to having Shamans. Now, I know in the game, it was added either with BC or WotLK at the same time that Blood Elves got to be Paladins. I know it was a mechanic thing, but being the kind of person I am, I decided there needs to be a reason for things like this.

Now, back to Christie Golden's book: There are some scenes early in the book about the Draenai's city, and how the inhabitants are old and wise, even their young ones. No where in the scenes that I've read does it sound like they are good at communing with nature. In fact, almost the reverse seems to be true since the book talks about the city being made of rocks and crystals and stuff.

So why is it that they have Shamans? Why not Night Elves, or Humans, or even Dwarves for heaven's sake? Why the Ancient Squid Faces?

So, I started to try to justify it to myself why Draenai are Shaman. So, maybe in their old age they figured out a way to talk to spirits, or maybe the abilities that they have that allow them to work with stone and crystal gave them some weird connection to the spirit world of rocks. That might explain why they can create stone elementals. Though this idea is probably toast since they can also do water and fire elementals.

Also, healing Draenai Shaman? How? Rock Healing? Crystals! Yeah that's it! There are those people out there who believe that crystals can  heal them. The Draenai have now validated their belief! Forget that there is no empirical evidence anywhere that says healing is done through crystals. In fact, if you sat on a crystal, I am pretty sure it'd hurt you, not heal you.

Ugh! Why oh why Blizz did you give it to Draenai? You are now to blame for late nights tossing and turning trying to figure this out.