I think I’d also be a little less annoyed at it/Blizzard in particular if they didn’t think so highly of themselves for it.
You’re right on the quality, as is also that it’s Blizzard atop of both point A and B, and they have generally always been good at entertaining, but kinda shlocky writing that you just roll with.
But particuarly towards BfA and onwards through it, they, or atleast Ion & some of the top ones, have started to both see and paint themselves as masterful writers.
Best:
-Rommath (Consistently a good’un)
-Lor’themar Theron (Pre-Nazjatar Consistent)
-Lady Liadrin (Consistent)
-Taran Zhu (Because he never suddenly wavered on his values and remembers that if the Horde and Alliance didn’t show up the Sha wouldn’t of ran so rampant.)
-MY MAIN MAN RHASTAKHAN (Talanji shouldn’t of replaced him.)
Worst:
-Jaina (Inconsistent… Little miss war to little miss peace in the second patch of BFA)
-Anduin (Too consistent on the “peace” drivel even during war when BFA made an effort making it seem that he was actually going to fight in more than just the Lordaeron thing)
-Geya’rah (Inconsistent/Supports Sylvanas’ actions on arresting Baine and killing that Tidesage guy because “She shows honour and strength” yet ditches her at Orgrimmar going “Nah didn’t like her entire time honest)
-Plain Baine (Just Anduin but a Bullman)
-Genn Greymane (Inconsistent)
Honourable worst mentions:
-Kalec (Because he uses a filthy half-elf as a humanoid form spit )
-Saurfang (Hypocrisy)
Honourable Best mention:
-Nazgrim (Lad’s been about since Wotlk, showed more development over the expansions from a Grunt to a General. Like a sort of “Grown side by side” thing. Loyal to the end. Best orc.)
Best -
Worst -
I genuinely just hate these boundlessly powerful mage characters like Khadgar and Jaina. Three expansions now we’ve had everything solved by those two throwing magic around willy nilly. Sylvanas was ruined when she became Warchief, it would have been cool if she did all she’s done by exploiting the Horde from the shadows, Calia isn’t a very good replacement, she puts the Forsaken in an awkward ‘bow to your enemy’ position.
Oh, and you won’t believe how much I purely hate Sky Admiral Rogers, all my hate for little miss endless war crimes but never imprisoned for them.
It’s weird how she was completly absent in BfA(not even a cameo in Boralus or anything, she just doesnt have an NPC at all in it) when it would have been a good expansion to play with her Garithos-like character & actually portray the Alliance doing bad deeds, on both sides(Not the weird war campaign one where our agressive things like the vulpera enslavement is non-existant for the Alliance).
She could have also easily been in a boss in Siege of Dazar’Alor for the Horde to actually kill, instead of having two bossfights end with the characters escaping. (Where as the Alliance raid got to kill all of their bosses)
I still keep forgetting Sky Admiral Rogers and Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth are separate people.
Unbelievably forgettable characters.
Grand Marshal Tremblade is also casually knocking on that door ever so slightly
Just now realizing how many black-haired, aggro-tempered, high-rank members the Alliance has
You’d be aggro-tempered too if you had to deal with Anduin all the time.
And Sylvanas
she just reminds me of those garbage elf rp characters who are super OP and very rarely take a hit
hope she dies in Marketinglands
Oh snap, I totally forgot my bae Chromie! Now I feel bad…
Best
Absolute worst of all time:
Completely agree. I actually forgot about her. I’m happy she’s not in the game anymore, though.
Also, I’m bored, so I’mma elaborate on my own list.
Top 5:
The Lich King: Now, I cheated with this one a little, having Ner’zhul, Arthas and Bolvar in one character. But I really do love all three.
Ner’zhul has an actually tragic and relatable story. He turns into the pure evil Lich King we see in Warcraft 3 because Ki’jaeden twists him into it. And he still rebels. What a chad.
Arthas. Do I need to say any more than that he is the most recognizable Blizzard character? His story in Warcraft 3 was amazing. They pulled good guy turning bad so effectively and he didn’t get a senseless, Disney redemption bull 
story. And while he was a tad more generic and less interesting in WoW itself, as the Lich King, he’s still epic.
And Bolvar is the classic Priest of Rathma type character. The sort of bad guy on the good guys’ side. Sure, he pulled some weirdly evil stuff in Legion, but we know he’s still pretty clearly on our side by now. I’m a fan.
Illidan Stormrage: I’d say Illidan is, after Arthas, the second most recognizable Warcraft character. He had a good story in Warcraft 3, and while BC did a huge disservice to him (same with Kael, which is why he only gets an honourable mention), Legion did try fixing his arch up. Same with Bolvar here, he’s the bad guy on the good guys’ side. I utterly love that. My main RP character is also a demon hunter, so I’m pretty biased in that regard as well. Just love illidari lore.
Lor’themar Theron: Aside from the fact that he’s my favourite race’s leader, and his voice actor is also incredibly amazing, he’s also a good character. He has depth, he’s not goody two shoes Anduin. He doesn’t want to rule, and he refuses to be called King. But he also isn’t mopey about it, he doesn’t mind being Regent Lord. He’s proud of it and wants the best for his people. But he also keeps himself grounded and doesn’t lust for power.
Now that, there, is a good leader. And an amazingly written and portrayed character. Just wish he had more spotlight.
Alleria Windrunner: I understand a lot of people do not like Alleria, because of the running gag that Windrunners suck. I will admit. I dislike Sylvanas and Vereesa as much as the next guy. But first, let me praise that voice actress. She’s perfect. Alleria sounds, while not elderly, but still mature and it’s obvious she’s not young, by both her delivery and the words themselves.
Beyond The Dark Portal was also one of my very first WoW books, and I couldn’t help but grow very fond of her in that. The moment when Khadgar acts the wingman and convinces her to be with Turalyon is one of the most both said and wholesome moments in Warcraft.
She’s also been around in the lore for a very long time. Gotta appreciate that, with Blizzard killing off a ton of original characters.
But the most prominent reason that I love her, and she’s uncontestedly my favourite female character is because she acts like a woman. She isn’t one of those modern “female” characters that would have nothing changed about them if they were written a “he” instead of a “she”. She has a son and husband, she cares about them, she has goals and motivations, a complicated family and a lot of history to her.
Just overall an astoundingly well written character.
Korialstrasz/Krasus: So this is one character not a singel person in existence likes other than me. I’m not going to waste too much time trying to convince people to read and appreciate the War of the Ancients trilogy, but I’m just going to note that he’s a fairly well written character in my opinion. He was my favourite underrated character for a long time. His personality just appeals to me. He acts posh, but also isn’t afraid to be humble and affectionate. We see into his thoughts a lot in the books, and I think his musings are a pretty interesting read.
So, you probably don’t know about him, and you probably don’t like him even if you do, but to me, personally, he’s a good character.
Bottom 5:
Anduin Wrynn: Hooo, boy. To put it simply, he’s just everything that is wrong with WoW lore as of recent years.
This bloody guy, is just so, so powerful and so, so kind hearted that you just cannot relate to him. He’s absolutely perfect without a single character flaw. Not a one. He’s so disgustingly dull, that it irritates me to no end. And with how much Blizzard actually licks his boots and shoves him into the spotlight all the time, his boringness just comes through even more.
Maiev Shadowsong: So, this is a simple one, I won’t elaborate much. She was just fine, I didn’t mind her, up until Legion. She wasn’t the most fascinating character for me, but people liked her, so ehh. I maintained a firm indifference. But that 180 they pulled, when she just casually gets forgiven by everyone and goes unpunished when she has several murders under her belt, is, truth be told bugging me a bit.
Go’el: Nothing to say here, same as with Anduin. Thrall was interesting up until he became Green Jesus in Cata. He stopped having flaws and thus became boring. While I’m hopeful now, for his return, the period from Cata to Legion is disgusting and should not have happened.
Talanji: She’s just her dad, only, less interesting and worse in every aspect.
It isn’t really Talanji’s fault that she sucks. It’s just that they should have kept her as a princess and had Rastakhan as the racial leader. I mean, they’ve been hyping him up with mentions for a fairly long time. And then went on to kill him off as soon as his arch started becoming interesting.
Thura: Now, you may ask “Thura, who?”.
Exactly. Which I am incredibly thankful for. She only really appears in the novel Stormrage, but that was enough for me to wish her to not exist at all. This is the typical feminist character the modern day’s media seems to so annoyingly push so hard. She has no feminine traits whatsoever, she’s tough, acts like a man, and no one really treats her any different than how they’d treat her if she was one. She’s poorly written, her motivations are lackluster, her goals are nonexistent and her personality is the dullest I’ve seen in a long time.
Maybe this is a Horde perspective, but I don’t get this…
The dude’s first reaction to seeing Wrathion was to punch him in the face, which seems neither kind-hearted nor flawless to me.
But even ignoring that, his whole character is that he wants to be peaceful, but has to constantly deal with hawkish advisers and allies like Genn, Tyrande and (formerly) Jaina; and the fact he sometimes does take military action, like in Lordaeron.
I’m not gonna say he’s perfectly written, but I think he’s fine, especially in more recent years. But maybe I’m just biased, because I quite like seeing a character who isn’t just the fantasy trope of “rawr, kill them all, war all the time, my race first!” like most of the racial leaders are.
As for his power level, do we even see him fighting anywhere at all, outside the one battle at Undercity? Where he did like, one big healing/rez spell, and that’s pretty much it.
Do you have justify being a woman in order to be one?
I play Alliance too and I stand by my opinion.
My interpretation (and I see several people agree with me) of that cinematic, is that N’Zoth was getting to him before Wrathion pointed it out. When he’s looking at his palm, then sees a vision of N’Zoth, then right after, he turns and accepts Wrathion’s advice, it’s a fairly clear indication he wasn’t himself.
Do you justify poor writing by supporting gender equality? If I see a woman in a story that is written to be a man, but has the words “him, he, his” replaced with “her, she, hers” then that’s lazy and crap storytelling.
So basically what you are saying is that women can only be super duper girly and feminine, or they are bad characters/poor storytelling?
Yikes.
Women can behave how they want, but…
…that doesn’t mean they would be treated the same way by other characters as a man.
Of course maybe the writer didn’t really want to explore that aspect, or just wanted to write a fantasy where characters are basically gender blind… which, to be fair, is a fairly good fit for WoW, characters seem to care fairly little about gender in general.
But all that aside, it kinda seemed he was more commenting on a generally poorly written character who was coasting on “but muh diversity”, which does keep happening in recent media a lot…
I wouldn’t know either way personally, I’ve not read the book.
One of my favourite authors remarks that the majority of societies in his work are remarkably egalitarian because magic made a level playing field between men and women.
You could also throw biology into that, seeing as wow’s races are also quite diverse.
I dont agree with this guy for 99% of times but he did not say that
I feel like ot was too forced and therefore felt really bad. Warcraft lore sets some normal and expected lore points, but then just breaks them when it’s needed for the “further story”. Yrel talking about rebuilding Draenor together and then just going insane is kinda weird. They needed it for us to see that Light people aren’t always the good guys, but it was super forced and turned out awful. At least in my opinion.
Hate any character that always pushes to stop all conflict because peace is the way!! A few of them can be fine but it feels like pretty much any major lore character is a peace lover these days and any character that is not 100% peace loving is a bad guy and has to be put down.
So least favourite currently gotta be:
Anduin, Thrall, Baine, Saurfang and Zekhan.
And of course, love all conflict pushing characters as long as their motives makes sense.
Most favourite currently:
Nazgrim, garrosh (miss u), nathanos, krom’gar, gul’dan.