They do, then they completely change their reference point. It’s rediculously written.
Whatever they are or aren’t at this point (given blizzard can’t even write a basic text without messing it up) they are clearly a mistake.
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Those turkeys will be mine!
We got a Hearthstone tavern, it would be a shame if Hearthstone lore didn’t follow with it.
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I can swear to you that they are not, but they do commit a lot of writing sins, in my opinion. I try to avoid invoking Shadowlands because that was a unique sort of awful, but they share a surprising number of traits with the Jailer.
- Unfathomably ancient. Not quite to the same degree as the Jailer, but the haranir were written to be older than almost everything meaningful that ever happened on Azeroth.
- Retroactive importance. Again, not to the same degree as the Jailer, but the haranir are meant to be the tenders of the world tree, who tend to the health of the world at its very heart. They’re supposedly vital to Azeroth.
- Out of nowhere. While there were some hints to the existence of Harandar with the Elun’Ahir story in 10.2, no one expected it to be the nexus of all world trees and the cradle that the worldsoul was stolen from. No previous hint to the existence of those aspects.
- Surplants existing character(s). The Jailer tries to take the place of Sargeras as a cooler Space Satan, and the haranir try to take the place of night elves, trolls and tauren as the true natives of Azeroth who are closer to nature than any other.
- Belittling of prior lore. Perhaps this is the intended tone for the haranir and they are meant to come across as quite arrogant, but “we predicted all of Azeroth’s tragedies and did nothing to interfere with any of them” comes dangerously close to the Jailer’s “I orchestrated all of Azeroth’s tragedies.”
Hopefully I’ve made it clear that they’re nowhere near as bad as the Jailer was, but all of these are traits that make the haranir an unpleasant inclusion, at least for me.
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They probably aren’t but I also honestly cannot think of a worse fantasy race in my head right now so. . .
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Off the top of my head, wraeththu and chakats.
If neither ring a bell, you are blessed.
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It would appear I’m blessed. Although if the worst of the worst is the only thing keeping Haranir up. . .it’s a rather grim situation.
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Kender are worse by virtue of their lore actively causing inter-party problems (they are meant to steal from their party but tee-hee they don’t mean anything bad by it so you can’t get mad!).
Haranir make people mad at the writers.
Kender make people mad at each other, much more toxic.
I also do not know what either of these are.
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Fired? he lost his job?
So what? they just have an unemployed guy chilling in town now? did he get a different job?
Also with how reluctant they were to even talk let alone be seen by outsiders, I don’t know it gives me shadowlands writing vibes.
I mean you have an ancient race who makes it their business to safe guard nature or whatever but they can’t actually be proactive, because they might be seen? But they are super special and important, trust me bro, they are doing so much for azeroth, just wait bro, don’t look at the lore bro, look at them, they are defending azeroth for real bro, I am telling you.
I like how they look, I think I like their race as a concept, but this writing? it reminds me of the Jailer. They say a lot but the visual and actions don’t match the hype.
So its not just me who gets Jailer vibes.
Another contestant for worst is the gully dwarf.
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I got curious. And I think I lived better before I had this knowledge. It is a cursed thing
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Now THAT is blood knight armour.
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1248614.jpg
The “returning player experience,” for players who have been away for a while and want to catch up, apparently involves a “mongrel horde” invasion of the Arathi Highlands, featuring Thrall and Jaina as your buddies. You kill some ogres and kobolds and gnolls with your weapon or magic of choice, Thrall hits a few gnolls with his axe and Jaina accomplishes everything else as Azeroth’s most powerful mage as of late.
https://x.com/Portergauge/status/1984091085833228473
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Apparently, the leader of what remains of the Kirin Tor and the Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras has nothing better to do than going on a safari. Can at least put it that way.
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Since the intro stuff leads direct into DF for new players, I assume Jaina in this part of the timeline is still absent from any real Kirin Tor connection having abandoned them after the Broken Shore.
Still the Kul Tiras top dog though.
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“You were the chosen one! You were supposed to defeat bad writing, not join it!”
Jokes aside, I suspect Metzen’s position is mostly symbolic. He did say decision-making was more collective and democratic these days, which I take to mean that writers can just make up whatever they want.
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Given the current state of Kul Tiras in recent lore, she can have free time to quest and fix other people’s problems because the Kul Tirans already fixed their own.
They’re just built different in a way the Mainlander mind couldn’t understand
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Being generous - by the standards of naff genre fiction the novels are not really that remarkable. They’re certainly not worse than Piers Anthony or Terry Goodkind.
The TTRPG however…
But I’ll still never think about orchid flowers or sea anemones in the same way ever again.
I find it really hard to not look into something once I’m curious but just this once, I think I’ll give this one a hard pass.
Also I think the new intro gives a better insight into faction character narratives in a way I don’t think Blizzard intended.
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Me while skimming infos about wreathu : What a terrible day to have eyes, I was happier 10 mins ago.
I read the Wikipedia article on the author and was like, “What’s so bad about this?”
Then I read the TV Tropes article. Oh.
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