No I'm not going to shame you for liking feet. If you like feet I don't care.

The problem I'm theorizing about is: memes like "Xala'tath feet lol" that are embraced by the community and humored by Blizzard (don't pretend they aren't, these camera angles aren't accidental) are proof that everyone is willing to indulge in humor based on titillation, but they will only do so if it's either A) a "safe" fetish or B) a joke.

What do I mean? Well there seems to be this ridiculous hierarchy where some sex-jokes are fine and some are not. If Calia Menethil became plot relevant and wore a gown that showed off her huge breasts, and camera angles made subtle jokes where her cleavage was very noticeable or peeked into frame 3 minutes before the rest of her did, and the community began making milk truck jokes, I believe that would be considered "crossing a line" and Blizzard wouldn't do it to begin with.

Similarly if Sally Whitemane went back to wearing that outfit everybody actually knows her for where her ass is hanging out, would everyone be as comfortable making jokes about it? I don't believe so. This does exist in another Blizzard property - Overwatch - but the character design in that game is night & day compared to something like Alleria's redesign for TWW. Would the same offense manifest if it was, say, Baine's ass? I don't think so. That would be discouraging 'pride' which is verboten.

So we're left in this awkward situation where the character designs, game community and Chris Metzen all speak out against sexy character design, but then introduce this character with lovingly-modeled feet because a foot fetish isn't something soccer moms will picket against. Foot fetishes are strange and to a lot of people humorous. Feet don't make sense to most people; therefore all those repressed impulses and desires to poke fun can be dumped into it.

The post-ironic millennial terror of being genuine also comes into play here, I think, but that's getting way too into the weeds.