Interview with Madeleine Roux

Here is the link to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnOLtUgl4cY

I have to say it was very informative and I had quite a positive reaction to it.

Here are some highlights from 2-hour long video:

  • She describes how working with Blizzard works, they get the rough outline and constantly communicate on what they are meant to deliver and if it’s correct with warcraft’s lore.

  • She doesn’t want to “punish anyone” she wanted to delve into each character’s perspective. She is aware that various readers hate/love certain heroes but she wanted to explore their perspective, their point of view. There won’t be split for good guys and bad guys but more like in Games of Thrones where each side has it’s own agency.

  • There are “3 factions” in this book, it’s a split between Horde, Alliance, and the Sylvanas loyalist faction, and there are 14 character perspectives.

  • Her background as horror writer will have it’s use in this book because there will be darker elements in it, and one escalation scene is very graphic and violent.

  • She doesn’t want to enforce her personal beliefs on fictional characters but explore them for what they are, it’s a fantasy world and we’re meant to explore themes, morals, perspectives, which aren’t reflecting our personal values.

  • She didn’t want to write a book with essential for the next expansion plot because she was aware of criticism previous books had, that they had to read the book to understand what is going on in-game. She wanted to explore characters and get into their perspective. She didn’t want for character to be defined by his job, but for other minor stuff, he does in life to make them 3-dimentional. And one of such attempts was with Lor’Themar doing poetry (because rugby didn’t sound fitting for elves :stuck_out_tongue: )

  • she Would like to write more stuff like above, to explore each character and give them their own perspective. But she realized that the cast of characters keeps on growing and it would be even more difficult to give them the spotlight in-game

  • if she could, she would create a third faction and slightly decrease the caste to balance out the spotlight, so we don’t have lots of nobodies that sit in the background but give organic development to established cast.

  • She is not against “big swing” plots, she is big night elf/ Tyrande fan and Teldrassil was a very upsetting event but she sees a huge potential in what kind of plot it could kickstart for nelves, she also likes Nathanos a lot and had a blast writing Bwonsamdi - he was very easy, natural and pleasant to write and despite not having his character perspective he will also get his own arc. The Blizzard stuff said to not get into Bwonsamdi’s head to maintain his mystery as a deity.

  • She wanted to give Alliance more depth, showing that their Alliance starts to crumble due to too many conflicting interest and inability to keep everyone happy, it doesn’t mean that Alliance is case to be gone but to give them internal conflict, flesh them out and show that they’re not as bland and boring as people claim for them to be.

  • She said that the Horde just started a journey to work as council and they had a rocky beginnings also to realize that each subfaction has different needs, and Talanji is the most glaring example out of all. And she will have a journey to maintain control over her kingdom and figure out -together with Tyrande on how to deal with the need for vengeance as she said it would be one if not main theme of this book.


Personal thoughts: I really liked what I heard, even if the book will turn out to be hit and miss, her principles speak out to me and I like her approach to the writing and her awareness of many problems so I’ll know that at least she tried. It was good to hear her personal thoughts and perspective and it made it easier to understand the writing process for Blizzard. She did her best in doing research and she was constantly communicating with team to get green light on stuff she wanted to introduce.

The most impressive things she said was :

  • To give characters their own point of view and agency
  • to not insert her personal beliefs on a fictional character and instead explore them for the potential it has
  • very realistic understanding of conflict within the faction, that nothing can be solved easily.

This book sounds very interesting to read.

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Could you give me timestamps on where she talks about Tyrande and the Night Elves? I’m curious about that specifically

I like this. Roleplayer energy.

I have to say overall I like what she told.
If the book is going as she has told then I’m all for it.
Her approach seems so much better than anything from Golden or Knaak. It sounds interesting to look through different characters lenses. I also like that she want’s to keep character consistency and so far it seemed to fit for Talanji and Rokhan (even though Zandalari were not Horde members, but that’s on Blizz).
I have to wait and see, but the interview was overall positive.

I am looking forward to read this story. Shadwolands itself seems off, or even silly for my taste. But this book could be a good read.

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Same exact feeling.
Honestly, I’m surprised I feel this way, but she seems to acknowledge to some degree several of the key issues the story has. Or at least talks about them more openly than the average writer.

She seems like “one of us” to tag her in some way. Some WoW player yet to be swallowed by the corporate, and fresh enough to know where to go with the issues of the story.
The fact that she wants to stir clear out of pivotal events and rather focus on character depth and overall world building beyond the archetypal “Protagonist Job” certain characters have, is a bonus in my book.

I may end up disliking her view on it, but still I find said mindset quite positive.

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Thankfully someone else bothered with it:

38:00 - 43:10: Talking about tensions in the alliance
46:00 - 47:00: Talking about Elune who won’t really have much there is “some”
47:11 - 47:40: She can’t say if Tyrande is featured in the book because she’s not allowed to talk about anything that aren’t in the excerpts, but says there are 14 character perspectives.
01:17:20 - 01:17:50: Cost of revenge is a big part of this book
01:19:40 - 01:21:00: She talks about Sira here and it will explore her reasoning for doing what she’s doing, I guess she says some things will be answered “directly”.

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Yep, she also notice, that someone from chat asked about Ashenvale Forest, but it was not allowed to ask such.

Thanks for the timetamps, l might listen to a topic here or there.

“I think it’s a mistake to assign characteristics to either faction, necessarily - especially at this point where we are in the lore. I just think that’s a mistake.”

Heh. So… she also thinks factions are nothing more than “Team Red” and “Team Blue” I guess.

:frowning_face:

There are quite a lot topics missing, but its a nice summary for the NE bits.

There is a new tool for youtube videos that allows the uploader to create “chapters”. It’s a shame the interviewer didn’t use it. It’s specially handy for long videos such as that one.

She can’t give away specific information regarding the book. The interview was about having some general idea about its tone.
If you want specifics, you simply buy the damn thing, jesus.

Nah, I’ll just wait you to post the summary and the most important points in your next thread, once you’ve read the book.

Yea, I’d rather just wait and see if Night Elves are properly featured in a way that’s not insulting.

I didn’t watch the interview but from what I’ve read here this book sounds interesting to me.
I’m not buying SL because with my full-time job I simply do not have enough free time to justify paying for gametime and I also don’t want to feel obligated spending every free minute on goldfarming for tokens.

But I do like reading and I have the Chronicles (which I’m currently not sure I regret getting with all the retconning but they’re pretty and look good in my bookcase) so how long does a Dutch player have to wait before being able to order a new release?

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It sounds interesting.
It’s also great that Madeleine wants to add depth to what is happening in the Alliance. I hope this book is worth reading.

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