So basically everything major wrong with WoD and BfA from a character writing point of view.
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You could summarize it as that, yes.
I don’t hate Baine, but he’s not necessarily my favorite either. I am simply complacent with where he is now. What he did seems necessary and in line with his interests for his own people as well as the Horde. People call him an Alliance sympathizer, but I just see him as looking out for his people and doing what needed to be done when it comes to Sylvanas. As a Tauren player I would find it even more insulting if he had not tried to stop the war.
It needs to be said that Tauren are my favorite race (being very closely followed by Vulpera at this point), and I would like to see more of their pride shine through their leader and that leader’s actions. I definitely think we could be due for a change in leadership, someone with more character, someone with more spine. In fact opposing Sylvanas is the only brave thing Baine has ever done, as I see it. But I don’t think Baine has done a complete disservice to the race he represents.
Best, in no particular order:
Oculeth - Dude has character and is a perfect portrayal of the genius and naivety of Nightborne without descending into the condescending “I r superior lulz” magical elf stereotype.
Bwonsamdi - Largely attributed to the quality of the VA, but his personality jumps out the screen. It’s a shame I suspect he’ll get hammered in SL.
Kael’Thas - Pre “Kiljaeden is my homeboy” moments, Kael had some convincing writing that marked him as a great possibly villainous but tragic character. There was nuance to him that made him complex. Sadly this got destroyed by his conclusion and he just turned out to be mouthbreather evil. SL must set this right.
Gul’dan - Even though he is a potentially simple villain character, I like that about him, probably because he was one of the first. He’s just a bad guy, because he makes the wrong choices (and knows it) and he’s unapologetic for it. I also like that he’s a villain orc who isn’t defined by his rrrraaaaargh factor or brute strength.
Lorewalker Cho - Guilty pleasure here, but i’m a sucker for the “let me tell you a tale” types, when they have Cho’s charisma and manner about them.
- 5 Worst -
Keeshan - Is a walking meme whom blizzard have tried to make into something serious by involving him in the war campaign but still can’t resist the urge to make him nothing but buzzlines and easter eggs references. Ugh.
Shandris Feathermoon - Talk about fall from grace. In WC3 she was something. In WoW she’s raising her eyebrows at anyone who can swing a sword and bowing to their majesty. A younger elf, I get it. But Shandris? Get out.
Kalec - I don’t really like the whole “I’m a dragon but you only see me as a human” type characters. There’s something really annoying about someone who combines all of the impossibly good traits of a dragon but walks about as a human because of the likability factor or whatever.
Chromie - See above. Additionally you have one of the principle representatives of the bronze flight (who are typically portrayed as quite wise, impersonal and aloof, probably due to presiding over time) behaving like a sugared up kid. Sometimes I think the writers forget that she’s actually a dragon, not a Gnome.
Varian Wrynn - I never really liked much about him. He just seemed to be a bit all over the place in terms of his character. Being a personal favourite of a Wild God with inherent not only Human potential but Dual Spirit potential probably sealed the deal. Sometimes it seems like Blizzard write main human characters as just a bit too over the top in order to compensate for the fact that they’re cpompeting with races who live ten times the length, or have natural magic. So it just so happens that humanity happens to give birth to Greatest Warrior Ever types like Varian whom can somehow have spirits they know nothing of favour them which sets all of those elder races and warrior races up to fawn over them. eeewwww.
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Maiev has that rare, special power where she manages to win hearts - even if there’s story issues if you look too closely - just because she is so damn cool.
Lich King Arthas would be most comparable. His performance in WotLK was honestly ridiculous, repeating basically the same scene five times over. But because he is so silly cool everyone loves him anyway.
I feel the same about Maiev. Sure, maybe she is off to some weird things in some novel. But she is unspeakably cool as a character - her armour, her voice…
Sometimes that is all you need to sell a character.
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Arthas became very one-dimensional in WotLK and it made me very sad. He became your generic, “I am very evil” antagonist.
Pre-WoW Arthas was super cool, though.
I think her and Gallywix are the two only characters BfA has been good too. Literally every other character I can think of that has been featured in any major way has come out for the worse.
Sylvanas and Jaina especially would’ve easily ranked among my top 5, yet now I wouldn’t bat an eye if either got retconned out of existence. Same for Genn, actually.
i hate bfa so freaking much i wish this trash expansion never would have happened, i’d actually make that wish if i could lmao
Comparing the Malfurion of Legion to the Malfurion of BfA is pretty distinct, too. Beaten by the Shade of Xavius to eviscerating the Horde and being regarded as practically a demi-god.
BfA has done Night Elves really, really well.
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- Bwonsamdi. Just perfect. Absolutely encapsulated the essence of what he is based on, whilst still being troll specific, the VA and animation were brilliant, especially the cinematic where Rastakhan makes his deal. I loved Bwonsamdi’s almost seemingly whimsical gait and faux flamboyant gestures…If there was a God of the Afterlife, you’d want it to be like him, rather than a humourless harridan like Sylvanas or a cypher like Arthas.
Genn Greymane is one of the most human characters (The irony does not escape me) who is a surly old grumpy man (with good reason) he has the terrible thing of having to bury his son, an aberration of the normal order of things, but also a case of Cassandra Complex. He, Trollbane and Anasterian were -right- and Terenas Menethil and Llane were -wrong-. If the Alliance had listened, there would be no Horde to oppose. He’s tragic.
Gelbin Mekkatorque and Lor’themar Theron, both for similar reasons, they’re both genuine leaders who seem to be popular amongst their people, they are both not ridiculous god-tier Elf/Bear/Pigeon/Stag/creatures, nor some stupid Avatar of Death woman like a bargain basement Kali. They’re both just very good at what they do, and their people like them, they are believable rulers, and yet they both have the exact same flaw.
They were both betrayed by one of their best friends, to the loss of most of their people, Dark’han Drathir, and Sicco Thermaplugg, Flaws are cool in Leaders, also, neither of them -wants- the job, they just do it because someone has to, and they seem to be doing a pro-job.
Flynn Fairewind. Why? Because even more so than the prior two, he is what the Actual Player Character was and should have been right from the get go. Flynn is just a wisecracking hero in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time. He is just a Murderhobo with just enough charisma for people vastly more important than him, to listen to him.
Worst?
Jaina. Her story is done, she has reached Malfurion levels of stupidity in power, and they aren’t even making a pretence of it being a logical progression anymore. She is not stable -even- for an unstable character, even people in her position of trauma have definable ways of behaviour. BFA just made her even more weird. She feels so guilty about her dad being a racist, and her boyfriend being a psycho jerk, but she doesn’t feel guilt about personally attempting genocide and infanticide? About successfully committing genocide? What about all the human and non human wreckage she has left in her way?
Oh, Wait, She purty…
Sylvanas. Just enough. Her story started with WC3 and should have ended with WotLK, She has now become so ridiculous that people have even started not comparing her with Kerrigan in terms of redemption, because she has already kind of exceeded Kerrigan in how stupidly powerful she has become.
They managed to give her a moment of nuance, during the Warbringers comic, then just threw it all away in favour of her being a zombie queen with no actual redeeming features whatsoever.
Lets add Nathanos in there, as they pretty much are the same coagulate entity. Nathanos is such a weak character that he couldn’t hack being a ranger in life, because nasty Lor’themar was mean to him, and he also can’t handle the fact that any other character is shown any respect by Sylvanas, he is constantly having a pop at the ‘Champion’ despite the fact that as we now know, Sylvanas did suffer from Windrunner Pox, and had the family degeneracy. How can an individual so massively insecure end up in a position over anything apart from perhaps a pet hamster. He’d be funny if he was dissing the ‘Champion’ for good reasons, but he just looks like some bad insecure teen worried that the chad ‘Champion’ will steal Sylvanas’ attention from him.
He was better, (Shocker) when he had an Actual Forsaken model, not this bizarre monstrosity.
I don’t mind Anduin. Tyrande and Malfurion are, like Sylvanas and Jaina, examples of Power Creep. “She is the vengeful aspect of the only defined Goddess in the setting! He is a vengeful Elf/bear/wolf/pigeon/stag who is also a DemiGod!” “Together they make an unstoppable team. Yawn as they inexplicably get nixed by some bad thing and we have to save them” “Gasp in a lack of awe as Blizzard realise making Gods national leaders is a -stupid- idea” “Sigh in anticipation at the threads created about how these two superpowered entities, husband and wife team, should have been able to blast through everything, like the Vindicaar, or Jaina, or Thrall, or…just whoever really”
OP characters are the fallback of lazy writers, who hype up a character, then realise that their use in the story cannot possibly allow them to use their abilities without everyone seeing that the Emperor is in fact naked.
Seen it done once (Better in the novel, but the film is cool to the max) Dr Manhattan in ‘Watchmen’. Literally can do everything, is immune to everything. They pretty much win by making him think he has nothing in common with mortal affairs and should just do one off to Mars to contemplate his navel.
We don’t even get an option like that so far, with Sylvanas, Thrall, Malfurion, Tyrande, Jaina, They just keep getting built up and built up, until they just are not viable as serious characters to drive plot…
I really had a hope that Deleryn Summermoon was going to pull a Doc Manhattan on Sylvanas, but no…real shame that. That could have been an awesome story that would have set Shadowlands up perfectly…
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Best: Lady Vashj, Azshara, Kaelthas, BwonSamdi, Ashvane
Worst: Thrall, Tyrande, Sylvanas, Khadgar,Vol’jin.
Best:
Council of the Black Harvest (some legit interesting characters with a fairly dark story)
Arthas (good or evil)
Jaina (in BfA, yeah I said it)
Khadgar (some cringe notwithstanding)
Worst:
Tyrande (I might just really really hate her VA)
Thrall (started out good, got tossed around between roles way too much)
Jaina (Wrath to MoP)
Magni
Just like, all of Pandaria?
Most characters are really in the “meh” or “some good some bad” category for me. For example, I wanted to put Malfurion, but he’s really more just a nothing character than bad. Garrosh is more “some good, some bad”, I like the general idea of his character arc, but not really the actual portrayal; Sylvanas is the same in ways too, especially in BfA.
I think a lot of this is gonna depend on simple salience for a lot of people, more recent characters coming up more, etc. I don’t think N’zoth is that much worse than most of the villains, but obviously he’s on everyone’s minds.
Similarly, I’m a lot less familiar with Horde lore, or lore from some of the expansions when I wasn’t playing , so it’s possible I’m misjudging or missing some characters based on that… Let’s not even get into “well they’re way more interesting in the books!” discussions either.
Best: Rommath, Tirion, Arthas, Khadgar, Runas the Shamed.
Worst: Sylvanas, Jaina, Thrall, Anduin, Illidan.
Its funny how like 95% of people dislike Anduin. Doesnt matter if they are from Horde or Alliance
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Through the sacrifice of Anduin, we find unity.
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Was this the light’s intention all along…?
The King was made a Pawn…
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I’m still super annoyed at the whole “prophecy” thing and how Blizzard wrote it, because the way they did it doesn’t work in a setting where players don’t have any agency to their character’s choices.
Even prior to 8.1 coming out, most people I saw & know had figured out what it mean(Not really rocket science) & that the HoA would probably lead to us freeing N’zoth by misstake etc.
And even if we KNEW that, or think things aren’t a good idea, we have zero impact on the story ourselves. It’s very much a theme park ride, we can choose to not pick up a quest(Not ride) but that’s it, it won’t continue until then.
So it just felt and feels condesending and really really dumb for Blizzard to then ego-stroke & pat themselves on the back by having Azshara litterally with a kind of /e winks to the audience approach go “Muhaha, I fooled you all along! You were just puppets who didnt see my plans. You followed mindlessly & now you pay for it!”
It’s really peak Blizzard stupidity & whoever wrote that entire arc/segment is on the level of “The Legion trascends all realities”, and should probably just legally never be allowed to write anything again, not even a postcard.
The game is written for 13 y/o ppl
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I think we can still ask for them to be a little more creative. I also get frustrated when really really bad writing for shows/books is shoveled at kids with the excuse being “they are kids”.
You can ask for whatever you want but being realistic is generally healthy.
A: it’s for kids
B: it’s an MMO
Neither are notorious for quality/deep storytelling
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This is true yes.
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