I was watching a video of the Hunter lodge class/order hall and something dawned on me. Our order hall is decorated with trophy kills. Forgive the quality, I'm not in Alpha so had to snag these from the video (reference here)
I knew about these and was fine with it because it fits a trophy hunter perfectly, both IRL and in game (Nesingwary being the prime example of a trophy hunter, despite having pets of his own). Many of the trophies are big kills like dragons. Yet one of the main fantasies around hunters in WoW are those that bond with pets, making lifelong friends. Both are valid fantasies, let me be clear. However in my head, this means our class has clear archetypes that seem to be in stark opposition to one another (and not necessarily in a DEHTA way). One hunter wants to mount the head of the beast, while the other wants to tame the beast. These do not strike me as complimentary in any way.
I know none of the in-game hunter specs are really flavored toward the trophy hunter, but its still a clear part of the game world fantasy for hunters. As a hunter who wants to bond with beasts, part of me is strongly off-put by the beast trophies in the Lodge. However its the class hall so trophy hunters are welcome there too.
Priest seems to be the only other class I can think of with a similar in-class conflict, and that has been brought up in and outside of game before. For hunters though, this seems to be the first time our class has been forced to mingle so tightly. With these two archetypes being in such ideological opposition, seems we could have a real "baking soda/vinegar" situation in the works.
I especially 'like' the dragon head from a red dragon. You know, the sapient intelligent millenia-living things... how come we have no orc or nelf heads up alongside it?
Reading from the Wowpedia, apparently the line "Since the Legion's return, the Highmountain have helped restore the lodge" is said during the beginning of hunter questing. To me, that implies that the lodge hasn't been used for some time until just now, and as the Unseen Path was made to protect and not hunt, one could make a assumption that those trophies were brought in by random, minor hunters during the years who have used the place for rest and stuff. And with the end of the world all around us, we decide that we won't spend time redecorating the place as we reopen it.
But then again, this is just a huge assumption based on drawing lines between dots that might not even exist.
As for dragon heads, we've had a habit of putting them on display, especially during the older days, so maybe that is from times when mortals and dragons weren't as good pals as today. That way it isn't a big deal for me, but I can see how it would bug people off.
It could be that the Unseen Path aren't sympathetic to trophy hunting. Even so, the trophies are still hanging, even the full stuffed bear standing up. That being said, even if they don't like trophy hunters, would those hunters not also be welcome? It seems the inherent conflict of ideologies would be present either way.
As for dragons, I think that is interesting too. In this post Aspect world, I would think hanging a dragon head as a trophy is beyond tasteless. In todays world, whats the difference between a hanging a trophy dragon head and, say, a dryad?
I've also considered that the Blizzard creators of the Lodge didn't read this deeply into it. That would strike me as a little odd considering how much focus this xpac has on class fantasy and this is our class hall.
All in all, I think this conflict could make for some compelling in-game story. Hunters pitted against one another, a civil war if you will. Has little to do with the legion but would be a nice class fantasy thing.
I thought about IRL hunters here on earth.
They do have pets (dogs) but they still kill animals and mount trophies, don't they?
We humans tend to use some animals as friends, some as tools and some as prey.
Why would that be different in Azeroth?
Would someone with a specially trained truffle pig stop eating pork?
I don't think so.
I always play on RP realms and I actually have 4 different hunters.
Tauren, Blood Elf, Night Elf and, of course, my Troll.
Hanging up trophies on the wall would be some different affair for each of them.
While the Tauren and the Troll would honor the slain beast by having something to remember that one special hunt, the Night Elf would do just that: Have a trophy.
My Blood Elf being half a Tauren (Left Silvermoon and lives with a Tauren tribe in Mulgore.) would be different than any other Blood Elf who probably hunt for sports and therefore want a trophy.
Just like Nessingwary or any other Dwarf would.
To be honest, I'm quite upset about that Tauren hunter who joined Nessingwary in (old) Nagrand.
No Tauren worth his hooves would just tell people to go and kill masses of animals and then have them come back and tell him about it.
The Earthmother would shed tears about this paticular child of hers...
As for the dragon...
Well, if you play WoW, you soon discover that there seem to be 2 different kinds of dragons.
Some of them are ancient, speak our languages and hatch plans, this includes the aspects.
But you also see them in the wild, not speaking, just wild beasts that attack you on sight.
They seem to be tameable too or would we otherwise have dragon mounts?
My mount never tried to communicate with me, it just roars and flies whereever I direct it to.
Yes, I guess it's save to say there are two different types of dragons: Intelligent beings and wild beasts.
Sadly it would not be the first time Blizzard didn't put too much thought into hunter things. Like say the countless bland earth toned tier gear where we're once again wearing bones and brown while everyone else is wearing interesting, eye-catching fashion. And don't tell me it's just because we need to blend in when we hunt. ROGUES HAD GLOW IN THE DARK ARMOR.
Word of Blizz is our dragon mounts deign to carry us, or are forced to such as the black/twilight drakes. As we see from Wrathion and others, dragons are intelligent as soon as they hatch. They're ALL sapient. They're definitely not tameable or we'd all have them as pets. I know I'd tame the crap out of one if I could. There are no 'wild beast' dragons except for protodrakes, which are a very different critter.
Since your mount only roars and never communicates and goes where you point it I guess when we use the elixir that turns us into sandstone drakes, or the one that lets us be the onyx nightwing, we're unintelligent animals since we don't talk to our riders and can just use the normal .ogg sound files. ... Not quite.
The a vast number of hunters irl are also not trophy hunters. Like myself and all the hunters I know irl. We do it for the meat. I would not hang a trophy, sticking a corpse on a wall is gruesome.
I thought about IRL hunters here on earth.
They do have pets (dogs) but they still kill animals and mount trophies, don't they?
We humans tend to use some animals as friends, some as tools and some as prey.
Why would that be different in Azeroth?
Would someone with a specially trained truffle pig stop eating pork?
I don't think so.
I always play on RP realms and I actually have 4 different hunters.
Tauren, Blood Elf, Night Elf and, of course, my Troll.
Hanging up trophies on the wall would be some different affair for each of them.
While the Tauren and the Troll would honor the slain beast by having something to remember that one special hunt, the Night Elf would do just that: Have a trophy.
My Blood Elf being half a Tauren (Left Silvermoon and lives with a Tauren tribe in Mulgore.) would be different than any other Blood Elf who probably hunt for sports and therefore want a trophy.
Just like Nessingwary or any other Dwarf would.
To be honest, I'm quite upset about that Tauren hunter who joined Nessingwary in (old) Nagrand.
No Tauren worth his hooves would just tell people to go and kill masses of animals and then have them come back and tell him about it.
The Earthmother would shed tears about this paticular child of hers...
As for the dragon...
Well, if you play WoW, you soon discover that there seem to be 2 different kinds of dragons.
Some of them are ancient, speak our languages and hatch plans, this includes the aspects.
But you also see them in the wild, not speaking, just wild beasts that attack you on sight.
They seem to be tameable too or would we otherwise have dragon mounts?
My mount never tried to communicate with me, it just roars and flies whereever I direct it to.
Yes, I guess it's save to say there are two different types of dragons: Intelligent beings and wild beasts.
How about that for a solution?
You are so right.
You can be an animal lover and still a hunter who mounts trophies VERY EASILY. I don't personally hunt IRL but I have many friends that do, and these are naturalists (I am a bio major and tend to take more environmental courses) so they usually care very deeply for the environment and animals, and they also usually have pets and most of the time it's a hunting dog but not always. I hate that hunting has a bad rep. Hunting is required unless you want the population of deer to get out of hand. How about the European Starling or other invasive species that the native animals just can't deal with so we have to hunt them or else they will cause the native species to die off. Using them as trophies is just something extra and I think it looks cool. Taxidermy is a really cool profession. If you don't stuff it then you're just gonna throw it away and it will slowly decompose, and most naturalists are firm believers in wasting nothing. Yes there's also hunters that hunt just for the trophy, and they tend to target bucks and then there's a skew in bucks versus does and it can be messy but it is still helpful for the environment most of the time unless you are poaching which is not the same as hunting!
Sig drawn by the amazing Lupis! and avatar drawn by the wonderful Senna!
I will say this messes with my head a little bit-I've never seen my hunters as people who go out and hunt for sport. I know the good that hunters do for populations of animals in the wild, but I also know the bad that unlicensed trophy hunting can do for endangered species. Trophy hunting has not been something I have ever been really fond of, though I know it can do some good.
So while I see the arguments for the trophies to be mounted and shown off, I don't particularly like the idea of them being there. I'll live with it in the game and it won't be that big of an issue for me in the long run-I'll be out in the world hunting down rare tames or playing around more than I play on being in the lodge anyways.
I hope that they do not dominate the lodge-I'm not in Alpha so I cannot look around for myself-and I hope there are some areas of the ledge that embrace the "master of beasts/companion of beasts" class fantasy as well somewhere in the lodge. If we have to embrace one, do we get to see the other as well?
I personally think it would be neat to see Nesingwary and the DEHTA both at the lodge and get a little story of their conflict with each other there-would be interesting.
I thought about IRL hunters here on earth.
They do have pets (dogs) but they still kill animals and mount trophies, don't they?
We humans tend to use some animals as friends, some as tools and some as prey.
Why would that be different in Azeroth?
Would someone with a specially trained truffle pig stop eating pork?
I don't think so.
I always play on RP realms and I actually have 4 different hunters.
Tauren, Blood Elf, Night Elf and, of course, my Troll.
Hanging up trophies on the wall would be some different affair for each of them.
While the Tauren and the Troll would honor the slain beast by having something to remember that one special hunt, the Night Elf would do just that: Have a trophy.
My Blood Elf being half a Tauren (Left Silvermoon and lives with a Tauren tribe in Mulgore.) would be different than any other Blood Elf who probably hunt for sports and therefore want a trophy.
Just like Nessingwary or any other Dwarf would.
To be honest, I'm quite upset about that Tauren hunter who joined Nessingwary in (old) Nagrand.
No Tauren worth his hooves would just tell people to go and kill masses of animals and then have them come back and tell him about it.
The Earthmother would shed tears about this paticular child of hers...
As for the dragon...
Well, if you play WoW, you soon discover that there seem to be 2 different kinds of dragons.
Some of them are ancient, speak our languages and hatch plans, this includes the aspects.
But you also see them in the wild, not speaking, just wild beasts that attack you on sight.
They seem to be tameable too or would we otherwise have dragon mounts?
My mount never tried to communicate with me, it just roars and flies whereever I direct it to.
Yes, I guess it's save to say there are two different types of dragons: Intelligent beings and wild beasts.
Well remember I believe trophy hunters are a 100% valid type of hunter. There are even individuals who are okay with having pets and trophies on the wall. Thats fine, thats one side of the coin.
The other side of the coin (within the confines of the same class), are those hunters who are think beasts are companions and not trophies. This is the ideological conflict I am referring to, the conflict between two opposing viewpoints centered around a core part of hunter fantasy (beasts), and that all within the ranks of the same class.
If a hunter who loves bears, for example, walks into the Lodge to find a full body stuffed bear trophy on display, it could cause friction. Some are okay with it, I imagine some are not. When they are forced into a single place where one side of the coin is so evidently put on display, I could see it ruffling feathers.
In my head, both sides are valid. Its the potential clash of opposing deeply held convictions that I find compelling. Two hunters find the same wild beast, one swells with pride at the thought of making a trophy of it while the other swells with as much pride at befriending it.
Quiv wrote: Two hunters find the same wild beast, one swells with pride at the thought of making a trophy of it while the other swells with as much pride at befriending it.
I see no reason why there has to be such a division. Surely one particular hunter would not always see beasts as "friends" or "trophies", but rather somewhere in between.
A hunter can have a loyal animal companion, but still live for the "thrill of the hunt" in tracking and slaying other beasts. Or perhaps the hunter kills not out of bloodlust or a sense of challenge, but only when it is necessary (a sickened wolf that needs to be put out of its misery, a rabid frostsaber terrorizing a village), and takes its hide or skull not as a trophy to boast of, but as a way to venerate the beast's spirit and remember its strength in life.
At the end of the day, our class name IS the hunter. So while a minority of hunters might feel uncomfortable with having taxidermied beast parts on display, it would be strange for a hunter lodge to not have such things.
As a hunter in real life, trophy hunting is a....touchy subject.
While it is recognized, many hunters truthfully are in it for the meat and the thrill of the hunt, though we do occasionally find one kill that we think is particularly beautiful and want to show it off. My family has always hunted for meat, but we have had a few taxidermied pieces throughout the years.
The thing is, there's a fine line between killing for meat and coming across a pretty animal and hunting specifically to kill an animal to just show off. While some trophy hunters will point out they have good reasons for their kill, it still can come off as callous and wasteful to others.
Being a hunter in real life is just as varied as it is in game. Some people who go out on a managed lot, with lots of corn, to shoot a deer that was chased in there consider themselves hunters; While I myself consider a hunter someone who actually experiences a true hunt, waiting for the prey animal, possibly loosing the prey, giving just as even chance of them escaping me as I am of capturing, and respecting it's sacrifice by eating and using everything it has given to me.
In my eyes, a hunter must know the interworking of nature, and understand the circle of life and their part in it, and respect nature which provides for you.
Being a hunter in game is understanding this too. And there is good bit of leeway to it because unless you're rping, the depth really is that of pixels in a video game. We can kill as many animals as we want without destroying their population. In an rp situation, you must use the understanding of a real hunter, know about conservation of species for their uses to a habitat, why you are hunting this animal, ect. But in normal situations, there's not much thought into it.
Azeroth is like the real world to hunting. We see animals as friends, as prey, and as tools, which is what we do in real life. That doesn't mean we don't respect them even if they are prey, some prey is quite powerful and frightening in it's own right. We use mounts, which a good many are animals, as tools for getting around and carrying things.
Think of the mighty Kodo. They are a pack animal and moutn for tauren, but also a provider of meat and hides. And now they can be a pet. The kodo falls along the range of all 3: prey, tool, and friend.
Now, as to the mounted red dragon? Yeah, that's not cool. I'm sorry, but all are sapient, just cause your mount doesn't talk to you doesn't mean they're not. For most dragons, they either want to interact with mortals, or find mortals as annoyances and rather bite first and ask questions later.
But as someone said before, it won't be the first time that Blizz didn't think something fully through. Unless they can reason out the mount is of an evil dragon that some hunter was specifically asked by the red flight to get rid of, it's tasteless and disturbing on some levels.
And personally I just don't much care for the room because I find too many mounts as tacky. You might as well throw some mardi gras beads or some hat on one of the trophies. I'm okay with a few mounts, but when it's taking up a good percent of the room, yeah, not pretty. Mount your guns and cool weapons instead.
((This isn't to say there isn't any validity in pure trophy hunting, some people really are into it. IT's just not my cup of tea since I stick to more of a naturalist stance.))
I think hunting just for sport is 100% wrong. But even if I need to kill a beast for meat,fur,... I don't want to make a trophy from it (ingame or rl). Imo thats not respectful.
There is only 1 reason I can accept the trophyroom: the heads are from (raid) bosses we killed in the past. For instance the right dragonhead can be Sapphiron from naxx.
We've made garments out of intelligent dragon's scales. And humanoid skulls are common decorations. I think the proverbial cat is out of the bag. The characters are well acquainted with trophies that would be considered brutal and disturbing in real life.
I like the idea of trophy kills. They are a testament to the trials you faced in besting your foe, and rather than letting them become nothing more than fertilizer and memories, you place their head in a dignified form to show their ferocity and/or cunning.
I had a friend who went hunting often, and he brought back lots of good meat. Always had a good barbecue weekend every month. He collected the antlers from the bucks he took down, too; they were HUGE. Turning those into tools or furniture would have been a joke. He always hung the antlers on a wall, and would only replace them if he ran out of room (which he did quite often).
The hunter's lodge is a great show. Those are the trophies of the best hunters, the memories of the greatest hunts. Especially considering the Warcraft universe is not the same as our own, it's a great aesthetic touch. It's fitting with the game's cultures and world, which makes nothing stand out as wrong or out of place.
Personally, I'd mount the heads of strong foes. Worthless monsters like orcs, kobolds, and minor beasts? I'll just kill them, take a handful of teeth, and leave the corpse rotting in the middle of nowhere. Give me a Proto-Drake skull or a giant Murloc head, and I'll put that monster up on display with candles and tapestries.
I have things I'm not supposed to have!
My Blusky account, aka "I want Twitter but worse somehow": @campaigner.bsky.social
if you want to feel better about the red dragon head, assume it's an elven/human trophy circa the 2nd war. most of the the red dragons from back then were about as destructive as dragons come. grown by warlock magic, pressed into service by the old horde and less intelligent as your average horse 'cause you don't want your mount asking 'why?' when you're charging into battle.
Shade wrote:I will say this messes with my head a little bit-I've never seen my hunters as people who go out and hunt for sport. I know the good that hunters do for populations of animals in the wild, but I also know the bad that unlicensed trophy hunting can do for endangered species. Trophy hunting has not been something I have ever been really fond of, though I know it can do some good.
I just want to clarify that it is not trophy hunting when it's an endangered species or if you kill even a common species during it's off-season. That's called poaching, and is hugely looked down upon by most hunters IRL as well. There's a whole ethical code when it comes to hunting IRL that I don't think most people know about. Most hunters try to be ethical, and you have a few stragglers, then you have poachers which only do it for the money, not the "trophy" itself, and yeah, that's the really ugly side of things but I don't think Blizz is trying to make us out to be poachers. I'd look at it as ethical hunting.
Sig drawn by the amazing Lupis! and avatar drawn by the wonderful Senna!
Chaix wrote:if you want to feel better about the red dragon head, assume it's an elven/human trophy circa the 2nd war. most of the the red dragons from back then were about as destructive as dragons come. grown by warlock magic, pressed into service by the old horde and less intelligent as your average horse 'cause you don't want your mount asking 'why?' when you're charging into battle.
You have dragon story mixed with Garona's. Day of the Dragon, which is still canon, outs that they were not grown by warlock magic, OR less intelligent than normal dragons, simply raised from hatching to think of themselves as slaves and servants and destroyers, and thus acted 'appropriately' ... until they found out otherwise and rebelled or were freed. A three year old dragon is big enough to ride, horses are rideable only a year less. The orcs had many times longer than 2-3 years to hatch and raise the dragons.
Shade wrote:I will say this messes with my head a little bit-I've never seen my hunters as people who go out and hunt for sport. I know the good that hunters do for populations of animals in the wild, but I also know the bad that unlicensed trophy hunting can do for endangered species. Trophy hunting has not been something I have ever been really fond of, though I know it can do some good.
I just want to clarify that it is not trophy hunting when it's an endangered species or if you kill even a common species during it's off-season. That's called poaching, and is hugely looked down upon by most hunters IRL as well. There's a whole ethical code when it comes to hunting IRL that I don't think most people know about. Most hunters try to be ethical, and you have a few stragglers, then you have poachers which only do it for the money, not the "trophy" itself, and yeah, that's the really ugly side of things but I don't think Blizz is trying to make us out to be poachers. I'd look at it as ethical hunting.
This, so much this. So many people lump us real hunters in with poachers, and a majority of hunters actually tend to be some of the most ethical and conversationalist minded people.
You pit a real hunter up against a poacher, there's a chance the poacher might be the one skinned. I know some poachers claim it's for their families, but seriously, they're just in the wrong as the people promoting hunting of endangered species.
On another subject:
Xota is right....we do have a tendency to be um....kinda disturbing in Azeroth. I mean for some measly tickets we slaughter 250 somethings for grisly trophies....which we keep in our bag then...And we aren't adverse to wearing humanoid skulls or dragon scales so...and lets face it, even as hunters, we've killed our fair share of humanoids and other races...so....I guess atleast we're not mounting human heads??
I like the idea that they're trophies from raid bosses though, that would be kind of interesting.
