Dehumanization through sound: Musical representation of fantastic cultures in World of Warcraft.

During the last decade, video game music has experienced a notable improvement in terms of academic consideration. Nevertheless, there is still scarce research that applies an ethnomusicological approach for analysing connecting aspects of sound and culture in video games. Furthermore, the complex processes of globalization and homogenization – undoubtedly more extreme every day – , affect its creative strategies and reception. Understanding that video games are mainly governed by a principle of fiction, and that all fiction can be analysed as an alteration of reality. In this chapter we will outline a methodological approach to understand how fantastic cultures are solidly represented by an amalgamation of truncated elements of real cultures. We will also show how this compositional practice (probably unconscious) translates into a line of dehumanization that tends to use Western sounds for the good guys and music from non-Western cultures for non-human creatures, sometimes evil.
The music of World of Warcraft does not withdraw from this conception, and integrates fragments of very diverse cultures, whose disposition hints at the cultural and ideological background in which creators – both composers and developers – as well as gamers are immersed. This work aims to deepen the musical and sonic representation of the various roles and characters in World of Warcraft to reflect on the relationships between culture and fantasy.