wow Every Man For Himself Human Racial Renamed to Will to Survive in Shadowlands

[Stan 5,240]

Blizzard renamed the Human Racial Every Man for Himself to Will to Survive in Shadowlands.

The subtle name change was spotted by MrGM, who posted it on Reddit. At this time, we do not know if it has anything to do with gender, but it is worth noting that Blizzard recently posted an update on Pelagos' Pronouns on the Alpha and Shadows Rising made one of the most fan-requested pairings reality. 

"Every Man For Himself" does sound somewhat cowardly as pointed out by Reddit user audioshaman, so maybe the change was just made to give Humans a more positive racial name.

Card

Will to Survive from the Alpha spellbook.

[Aderiven 2]

To be fair, humans are kinda cowardly n a lore, so Imho the name fits really well... And I say this as a human paladin main...

[durdyenglish 298]

The name was pretty bad, seemed more like the name of a Rogue PVP ability. It was also gendered in kind of an unnecessary way, so it's a solid two birds move by Blizzard.

[GBeast 33]

all I can really say to this is "ok"

[Fredfuchs 5]

"Current" year pandering?

[em2000 1]

"man" is gender-neutral in this sentence, but I guess the previous name implied that you were meant to flee after using it, which is not always the case.

[Halock 156]

I don't think it was necessarily meant to imply cowardice -- rather, something like -- well, a will to survive. Obviously it does seem to imply something selfish though, and I always thought it an odd tonal clash with the Diplomacy and Human Spirit traits.

55 minutes ago, durdyenglish said:

It was also gendered in kind of an unnecessary way

struggles

must not repeat endless argument

gah

[durdyenglish 298]

1 hour ago, Halock said:

I don't think it was necessarily meant to imply cowardice -- rather, something like -- well, a will to survive. Obviously it does seem to imply something selfish though, and I always thought it an odd tonal clash with the Diplomacy and Human Spirit traits.

struggles

must not repeat endless argument

gah

It's literally called "Every Man for Himself" - it's not about being PC, it's just plain inaccurate when used by a female human.

[dartbodman 64]

7 minutes ago, durdyenglish said:

It's literally called "Every Man for Himself" - it's not about being PC, it's just plain inaccurate when used by a female human.

"Man" isn't necessary gendered. It's a generic term for humans, people, such as "mankind", "manmade", etc. It's used in fantasy games generally to separate from other races (men and mer in elder scrolls) or from beasts and monsters.

[durdyenglish 298]

1 minute ago, dartbodman said:

"Man" isn't necessary gendered. It's a generic term for humans, people, such as "mankind", "manmade", etc. It's used in fantasy games generally to separate from other races (men and mer in elder scrolls) or from beasts and monsters.

"Every Man for HIMself" - read it again please.

[Teufel 331]

Between this, suddenly gay fanfics and a trans angel, Blizzard are getting more and more SJW approval by an hour.

Not like it is a good thing.

 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Teufel

[Halock 156]

1 hour ago, durdyenglish said:

It's literally called "Every Man for Himself" - it's not about being PC, it's just plain inaccurate when used by a female human.

My (poor and possibly wrong) understanding is that this is not inaccurate, though it is an oddity.  English isn't gendered but has gendered holdovers from the languages it's based on -- mainly Latin in this case, I believe. The result is that you refer to inanimate (?) things like ships as 'she', as you know, and animate things as 'he'. 

So 'every man for himself' could be used to refer to a specific man running for himself, but it can also be used to refer to a (generic and not necessarily male) human running for theirselves (but referred to as 'him' because the not-gendered-but-gendered language defaults to it).

Although ships are an obvious way to test out this informal gendered stuff on the female side, there actually exists a pretty fun one for the male side too -- worms! Worms don't have a *filtered*, right? But it's natural to refer to a worm as 'he'.

In fact, I work with cows and when they're young and their *filtered* hasn't entered into it much yet I occasionally end up calling them 'he' even if I know they're a heifer. It's the natural default. 

You can, of course, call a worm 'she', just as you can call a ship 'he'. It works. But I think you begin to characterise them at that stage -- which I suppose you're doing anyway? But it's a less natural characterisation, I think. Less automatic.  

Also -- and here my recollection becomes even more shoddy -- I think this is actually something different to the already-agreed-upon 'man' which you and dartbodman were discussing. I seem to recall 'man' is a word which descends from some other, very old word indeed and in origin was closer to 'person' -- whereas the 'himself' part is more to do with this gendered stuff. Although, by this point, it probably is to some extent gendered... ?

... I don't know. English teacher, anywhere? ?

Edited July 14, 2020 by Halock

[Shackelbolt 5]

Okay. ?

This change does not offend me because I'm not 8.  

[dek1979 3]

I wish they'd put ot back to where it was originally how many mobs use stun in the game alot use fear or worse spells so yeah the racial doesnt seem that great as it is now.

[dartbodman 64]

13 hours ago, durdyenglish said:

"Every Man for HIMself" - read it again please.

Again it's something that's been used as gender neutral. It's not some name that Blizzard just came up with, it's a very common phrase that's been in use for hundreds of years, used to mean each person is responsible for their own survival and success.

[Shackelbolt 5]

2 hours ago, dartbodman said:

Again it's something that's been used as gender neutral. It's not some name that Blizzard just came up with, it's a very common phrase that's been in use for hundreds of years, used to mean each person is responsible for their own survival and success.

This is objectively not accurate. [Everyone For Themselves] is a gender neutral term. What you're describing is an unnecessarily gendered term.
 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Shackelbolt
Simplicity.

[dartbodman 64]

1 hour ago, Shackelbolt said:

This is objectively not accurate. [Everyone For Themselves] is a gender neutral term. What you're describing is an unnecessarily gendered term.
 

It objectively is accurate. "Everyone For Themselves" is another way you could put it, but it is not one that's seen much usage throughout the years. If you google search for the phrase it even corrects it to "Every Man For Himself" to bring up idiom definitions.

[Shackelbolt 5]

8 hours ago, dartbodman said:

It objectively is accurate. "Everyone For Themselves" is another way you could put it, but it is not one that's seen much usage throughout the years. If you google search for the phrase it even corrects it to "Every Man For Himself" to bring up idiom definitions.

Uh. What does placement on the google search engine have to do with you saying the words "man" and "himself" are gender neutral words? 

[dartbodman 64]

5 minutes ago, Shackelbolt said:

Uh. What does placement on the google search engine have to do with you saying the words "man" and "himself" are gender neutral words? 

I said it's being used as a gender neutral term. Obviously they do also have a gendered meaning, but they can be used collectively for humans. Again, it's a very popular age-old idiom that people have just fairly recently started to cry about being "gendered."

[Shackelbolt 5]

1 minute ago, dartbodman said:

I said it's being used as a gender neutral term. Obviously they do also have a gendered meaning, but they can be used collectively for humans. Again, it's a very popular age-old idiom that people have just fairly recently started to cry about being "gendered."

I don't know what to tell you. This just sounds like a bunch of tap-dancing around the subject to me.  The vast majority of World of Warcraft players aren't offended that Blizzard is renaming a niche spell, and many on this thread are saying the new name makes more logical sense. I'm more than happy letting our comments speak for themselves and hope you have a lovely rest of your week. 

[durdyenglish 298]

56 minutes ago, dartbodman said:

I said it's being used as a gender neutral term. Obviously they do also have a gendered meaning, but they can be used collectively for humans. Again, it's a very popular age-old idiom that people have just fairly recently started to cry about being "gendered."

I think the point is that people who are not HIM/HE/MAN are tired of always having to assume the vantage point. By constantly using the gendered male perspective, it establishes it as the dominate perspective, which is awkward and flawed when considering all people are created equal. It actually matters - if every story we tell is from the male perspective, so many people will feel excluded and detached.

[Shackelbolt 5]

14 hours ago, durdyenglish said:

I think the point is that people who are not HIM/HE/MAN are tired of always having to assume the vantage point. By constantly using the gendered male perspective, it establishes it as the dominate perspective, which is awkward and flawed when considering all people are created equal. It actually matters - if every story we tell is from the male perspective, so many people will feel excluded and detached.

And if the lens of our society is so overwhelmingly male-oriented that we have someone actually trying to argue that "he" and "himself" are gender-neutral words in a last-ditch effort to maintain that male-oriented lens, that's pretty telling. ?