Professor Paquette's Office

My writings on role-play, the epistemology of disability and cognitive science, esotericism and whatever eclectic set of topics I'm interested in at any moment.

[makanidotdot]

Honestly I'm glad the illusion she had over Forsaken has been shattered, they have deifying and been little more than her lackeys for far too long. Yes they owed her for a lot, but gratitude can only go so far. She probably noticed she was losing her sway over them for a while, so I think she milked it as long as she could with this war. In times of crisis people are far less likely to turn away from authority figures or strive for changes in leadership, wanting stability in turbulent times.

So, Cataclysm Sylvanas definitely did want to strengthen the Forsaken as a race.  She wanted to help herself by helping the Forsaken, there wasn’t some grand overarching two faced trickery going on there.  The whole point of Edge of Night is to establish her new goal, after achieving the only thing she was “living” for, Arthas’s death, is making the Forsaken strong. For her sake, and for theirs.  That’s the next thing for her to ruthlessly pursue, now that the Valkyr forced her to acknowledge that despite her initial view of them, something resembling concern and pride had grown for them, and thus she did have something to work towards on Azeroth besides simply avoiding death for herself.  

Anyway, that was Cata writers, and this is BFA.  Before the Storm definitely set up a simplistic bad guy Sylvanas/Forsaken relationship, because nuance is hard and Forsaken are actually mostly good guy care bears who are just tricked by Sylvanas who holds no real affection for them and just wants to control them 9_9.  Look, I think having some Forsaken be Horde Loving Good Guys who deny Sylvanas is great, but I think they should be the exception rather than the rule.    

My Cata Sylv headcanon of “YOU,,, ARE ALL,,, NOTHING” is once she knew it was time to peace out, she knew she had to sever ties with the Forsaken to save them potential grief from the Horde and Alliance once she was gone, and so they wouldn’t seek her out.  So that’s why she made a big show double down of calling everyone nothing lol.  But Cata Sylv is probably dead so rip slightly more interesting Sylvanas and Forsaken 

[professorpaquette]

What I liked about Sylvanas as Warchief was the idea of the cult of personality. Sylvanas bred a cult of personality around her in the Forsaken and Garrosh did the same for the Horde. I imagined that Sylvanas would have to shift gears and start talking the Horde’s language, while privately meaning none of it. That she wouldn’t even give a rebellion a chance, because Sylvanas was effectively addressing the needs of Horde citizens.

There’s nothing the Horde can do without some Alliance leader trying to meddle with them, it feels like. Sylvanas called for a retreat in Legion, reasonably, then was immediately suspected of wrong-doing. That is the reality for the Horde; no action they take will not be rationalized as a scheme to attack the Alliance.

If they tried to reinforce Orgrimmar, the Alliance would also interpret that as a preparation for war, never mind the fact that there’s always threats attacking and invading Orgrimmar. So, why not give them what they want? Sylvanas doesn’t have to like being in the limelight, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have to like how it can serve her own ego.

So it really bums me out that it ended up being this ideological rather than coldly pragmatic. When Sylvanas attacked Gilneas, she didn’t kill Liam Greymane to ‘kill hope’, she did it because A). she was ordered to take Gilneas by Garrosh, but also B). because the worgen had been a threat to the Forsaken since vanilla.

I wanted to see that pragmatic side of Sylvanas to be shown as a balance of beneficial as well as corrupting to the Horde. That the Horde doesn’t necessarily like the implications of efficiency. And not even because of blight or necromancy or other mustache twirling stuff; Just war and military crackdown at the foundation.

And, for all I care, Sylvanas could still have peaced out at the end. You can really keep most of the plot points in tact. Maybe the Horde doesn’t like being on the warpath. Show that Sylvanas is frustrated that she is doing what role she’s thrust in to and hated for it. She’s the best WAR-chief the Horde has ever had, but people keep whining to her about lack of honor. And then she just peaces out.

I would have loved it that way. But by making it so black and white and making it clear that Sylvanas agenda was to be the least efficient warchief possible (that is, causing the most deaths on both sides), it just drains me of all investment. Then there’s no tension.

I don’t remember where I read this, but the bigger the stakes are, the less relatable they are. Sure, plots where the fate of the world hangs in the balance are tense, but plots about whether someone is willing to turn the other cheek or react proportionately to attacks on their character (even when justified) are more tense.

I’ll always rant about this expansions plot. Supposedly, the Horde was divided this expansion, but the only division I’ve seen is “Forsaken are at it again”. Supposedly, this was going to be Horde vs Alliance, but it was really Sylvanas vs Saurfang with the Horde caught in the middle. And even then, they never gave Sylvanas’ side.

I remember playing Warcraft 3 and loving to see Arthas’ descent into madness, because I was there every step of the war. I don’t get to see that with Sylvanas, because it’s been ordained that’s not important right now and ‘You’ll love it once we reveal why you’ve been sitting through this guff for 5 years’.

[professorpaquette]

Update: It’s been a little less than 5 years, but called it.

[makanidotdot]

Weird question that's sort of related to my previous question: Do you think Nathanos is going to be a sort of narrative sacrificial lamb to appease those who want to see Sylvanas take a substantial loss without perma-killing her? In the sense that they perma-kill off Nathanos as a way to "punish" Sylvanas without having to kill her off. Also again in relation to my previous question, how would You want them to go about doing that sort of thing (Ion faced Genie and all).

Yeah I would put the chances of that being a way to punish Sylvanas at a very high likelyhood, yes.  Though I don’t think that the only event that would fit that description is Nathanos being obliterated per se, though it is an option... he could also just be idk turned into some other kind of imperfect spirit or be somewhere she can’t access often or easily.  

But yeah, certainly the odds of something very bad happening to Nathanos in shadowlands is pretty freaking high, and it being a type of punishment for Sylvanas is the GOOD option... the other option is it’s only a final punishment for Nathanos because Sylvanas is ultra evil and doesn’t care about him.  But I would actually be pretty surprised if they were just gonna salt the earth of her character that hard.  There’s def some salt on this earth but idk I would be surprised if they just 100%’d it.

And to finish up the Sylvanas half of this post: 

I want a bit of a limbo ending for her?  I dont’ think she should be allowed to achieve eternal rest or whatever it is she wants (destroy the cosmos maybe? whcih ugh makes me want to eternal rest knowwhati’msayin), but she definitely shouldn’t just be defeated and die.  I also think it’d be really terrible if she was left powerless or something so yeah like none of the total defeat thing.  

So I’ve always wanted to see her become some sort of god of death, in a way?  And I feel like the way you do it is some process of her trying to steal the Jailor’s power for herself bit gets disrupted in a key way, and she doesn’t achieve what she wants, but also is sort of unkillable?  Or maybe it’s an accident and she sort of just becomes the Jailor because it was an unknown side effect of kiling the Jailor?  And then it’s like hey it’s this or oblivion or super hell, and she’s like.. UGHH fine.  Basically just echoing her becoming the leader of the Forsaken.

I think she works best as a character who is always thrust into power outside of their own volition, but who always undeniably does a pretty solid job once they’re there- in that they are a natural leader and commander, someone who, if they have a true mission, they are compelled to achieve it and people who are compelled to follow.  So like.. what if she ended up with a ton of power but compelled to do some duty to the shadowlands or to azeroth.  She is the new Jailor or a new kind of Arbiter or idk.  I really wanted her to become some god of the undead in a way- not an eternal punishment or gift, just an eternal duty, where she has free will and power but also neutral obligation that does actually do a kind of good for the universe?    

The universe of WoW def suffers if you totally eliminate Sylvanas from the picture, I think she has to stay in there and just not be allowed to mess with people for a time.  Take her out of the picture for a time but let her have the potential for a little place in the story somewhere later.  Optimally I would like it if she did still have some type of contact with her sisters and Nathanos, AND I would like it if she used her new powers in some way that was good for Forsaken.  Like a little perk like you stop rotting or you can lift bro or whatever idk.  

SO idk I’ve had more specific ideas formulated in the past but rn this is all I can solidify atm and not gonna be surprised if all this looks really fucking dumb in a couple weeks lmao

[professorpaquette]

My theory? They’re prepping lore characters to take over the leadership positions in the Shadowlands.

Sylvanas: Does her thing. Then becomes leader of Maldraxxus and becomes The Dark Lady. Sylvanas knows and respects power, but she also doesn’t suffer fools. She abhors it when people like Garrosh and Arthas become drunk with power. We’ll conveniently gloss over the fact that Sylvanas did herself last expansion, from certain points of view. In my view, she exercised power, because she could. She never twisted who she was, she was just always a megab*tch. That makes her the perfect candidate for a unifying leader of Maldraxxus or a new leader for the House of Eyes.

Arthas: Does his thing. Then becomes leader of the Venthyr. Say what you will about Arthas, his sins in life were that he was proud, arrogant and powerhungry, but not in the way that the Venthyr are dealing with corruption at the moment. Arthas, dead or alive, treated everyone with more or less an equal footing.

Bolvar: Does his thing. Then becomes leader of Bastion. Something something, ultimate sacrifice, something something, “I stared into the void and the void blinked”, something something. Really, though, Bolvar’s the pinnacle description of a Kyrian. Someone who’s so selfless that even the voice of the Jailer only made him an asshole rather than an active threat. He was close, but he never gave in.

And personally, I think that Tyrande will come back, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Malfurion became leader of the Night Fae for some reason. It’s just the Emerald Dream again, but this time, it’s the retirement home version of it. That’s not to say that he’s been sunset, I think that, if anything, Malfurion will get to play an even more active role afterwards, since the Night Fae are on the crossroads between death and life again.

[makanidotdot]

Compared to BfA and Shadows Rising's portrayal, how did you like Sylvanas's portrayal in Before the Storm?

I think BTS was basically the debut of BFA and Shadows Rising Sylvanas… though I guess I could say it did feel like it got worse as BFA went on (her part in SR is so short it’s sort of whatever), so technically I liked BTS more than BFA lol, if only because in BTS she still displayed other emotions besides “cryptically smug-bored”. 

And because it’s been a while since I’ve actually specified why I felt like BTS Sylvanas was such a departure from her previous character, here’s an attempt to get down to the core of it.

In Before the Storm, this introduces a Sylvanas that has no real connection to the Forsaken as a people. She is portrayed as purely possessive and pitying of them. One of the main narrative objectives of the book itself is to actively drive a bigger wedge between Sylvanas and the Forsaken.  

Taking her character in this direction does not directly contradict anything explicitly stated about her in earlier content, there’s just a number of implications and themes in previous stuff that make this seem like a suuuuper questionable direction to take the character.  There are other little characterization problems I had with BTS, but this is the core one.

I will explain further because this is an essay blog now.

Keep reading

[lily-orchard]

Honestly fuck Hazzikostas

[styro3-deactivated20201002]

I agree with most of the above, but I also feel that BtS had some attempt at providing political reasoning behind Sylvanas’s actions. When she kills the Desolate Council, she explains it to Nathanos: they were defecting, the mere act of bringing Arthas’s sister is provocation, Calia might be plotting to reclaim the crown etc. The readers could still stand behind her, and see her as a calculated leader, reigning with an iron fist and using questionable methods to achieve her goals. It aligned nicely with her general theme of ruthless-but-effective. The Sylvanas inner monologue on BtS suggests her ultimate goal was to raise entire Stormwind as undead, for “unity”, and to spare them the pains of living. This also aligned with her previous goals, of wanting to bolster the ranks of the Forsaken, to protect herself from death (did they forget about her remaining val’kyrs btw? Where did they go?) At some point on BFA, they just stopped explaining Sylvanas’s actions in a convincing manner. The burning of Teldrassil was done on a complete whim, to upset a low-ranking elf captain, without her standard careful plotting and scheming. The 4th war is only explained by hinting Sylvanas tried to get as many people killed, because she’s working with The Jailer to feed souls to the Maw and empower herself. This is not convincing, because the Jailer never existed in BtS or in Elegy/A Good War. The Jailer does not come up in the Sylvanas perspective chapters, and was definitely not a part of her plan. It’s obvious that The Jailer was fit into the story retroactively, rather than the lame “Sylvanas met him a decade ago during Edge of Night, and has been working with him since” explanation). There was never a good motive for the 4th war. They never wrote one. It was a conflict for gameplay purposes only. The BtS Sylvanas has a fine balance to her, because as merciless as she is - there are tiny bits reminding the reader that she’s not entirely a monster (I love the part where she thinks pandarens are soft, round and graceful, uwu). Shadows Rising has her just-evil, cartoonishly so, with poor explanation if any. In the past, they made her likeable despite everything, and all of a sudden that’s gone. We’re not crazy to like her - we’ve been told a very different story for the last two decades. Why would a storyteller try so hard to sever the emotional connection of the reader to their character, it’s just counter-productive. I hope they’re not clumsily mismanaging her story, and the situation might be irreversible. If Makani stopped drawing Sylvanas because she turned uninteresting, that speaks for itself (I miss her witty Sylvanas art more than anything!)

[poisonsaysbye-deactivated202109]

Reblogging again because added comments have my own thoughts that I didn’t have time to write since I feel like I’m running in circles when I try to think about Sylvanas and what I interpreted of her throughout fifteen years versus what I’m getting now or will get later.

[makanidotdot]

@styro3  ty for more input!  ill elaborate some more

The act of killing the council actually isn’t something I have a problem with, and similarly @asklittlepip‘s bringing up Koltira being mind controlled/tortured- I think both of these things fit just fine in the parameters I think her character should follow.

I think she should care about the Forsaken- like genuinely care, just like part of her still genuinely cares for her sisters and Nathanos.  Does this mean she never does anything bad to them, manipulates them, treats them unfairly?  Not at all.  I just think she should deep down care about them- the Forsaken people as a whole. I think she has and should pursue things for them that are arguably, at times, heroic… but I don’t think she herself needs to be a hero.  She can still be a nasty petty witchgremlin who gets pissed Koltira is out picking flowers or some shit with his Alliance buddy instead of doing his job.  

The problem with Arathi isn’t that she kills the council, it’s that when she does, it’s emotionless. It’s just like an inconvenience at best?  Or straight up convenient?  We hardly see any description that gives a window into her mind at all, she’s mostly like “Take care of this quickly!  Where’s Calia >:D”.  Actually you put it best- she DID do all that just for political reasons… and that’s the problem.  This should have been an emotional act for her.

And just listing more specific BTS things I had a problem with and why:

Keep reading

[professorpaquette]

What bothers me about Sylvanas is that part about her light touch. She’s a ranger general, not the mayor of the Undercity. She just randomly pops off and comes back, having accomplished or failed to accomplish something without anyone having to know the details.

Authoritarianism just doesn’t fit her style. Now, if the Forsaken organized themselves into a proto-authoritarian state without Sylvanas having to lift a finger, that’s fine. Interesting even. What if her most zealous followers simply decided it’d be better if people didn’t reminisce on the past. That’s fine.

How about this? What if Sylvanas just point-blank tells the Desolate Council, “oh, by the by, there’s no salvation after death. If you die, it’s eternal torment for you. I know, because I died like four times already and came back.” What if the Desolate Council then says “We like those odds”.

That is a good moment for Sylvanas to become pissy with them, because that version of the Forsaken is the version she saw in Edge of Night. They don’t know what the afterlife will be like for the undead, but they arrogantly believe salvation awaits when it doesn’t. Make it the fate of all undead.

I’ve known about this since Arthas died and said “I see only darkness before me”. It’s a phrase that comes up a lot in Warcraft and it’s always been with undead people and we had no reason to assume this wasn’t unique to undead. They are the damned, after all.

So, even if Sylvanas knows better, she could just say, “death is no salvation for the damned. Even Alonsus Faol couldn’t escape eternal torment if he tried”. If the Desolate Council calls her bluff, that’s when she can start thinking of them as poisonous. Not because of hope, but arrogance masked as bravery.

This is a consistent character trait of Sylvanas. She associates everyone who attributes heroism and bravery to themselves with the likes of Garrosh, Arthas and Saurfang, and likes Varian Wrynn because he’s more self aware than that.

Urgh.

[anoia]

honestly yeah big agree with @sellanor.  That was actually one of my headcanons earlier on too- that Sylvanas was like hey it’s not right for anyone to go here and who knows how many people will, and there’s no reason she wouldn’t want to tell them ‘i died and there’s nothing’.  Even if that’s not true for them, like if goodest boys and girls did actually go somewhere nice, it would be in her interest to lie about ‘everyone goes here’ to try and get them to stay so she doesn’t start losing more people to true death.

but then again, she KNOWS everyone is going to the maw right? 😏 because THAT wasn’t clearly made up after BTS was written lol.  

[professorpaquette]

Clearly.

But that’s the thing for me. The Maw was clearly just a twinkle in someone’s eye during Legion, so nothing could be written in the affirmative yet. This is why Sylvanas story was cut short in Legion, I’m willing to bet, because they realized they had no idea where BFA or SL would go yet.

And they still had only a small idea during BFA. The broad strokes were established; She’d be disillusioned by the end and abandon the Horde and something-something, “this world is a prison”, something-something.

They knew they wanted Sylvanas to be in certain places at certain times, but in Legion, after she became Warchief and got to Stormheim, I imagine someone sighed a breath of relief when they realized they could just have Sylvanas GTFO the storyline for most of it. At least they wouldn’t have to flesh out what her deal is.

In BTS, they still couldn’t go into details, except “at the very least, undead are überf*cked in the afterlife for some reason and maybe everyone else too”. Which they then just didn’t do, even though that’s the one thing we’ve known since WotLK.

So they keep some of Sylvanas’ motivations out of frame (since her motivations are still being worked out) and make her purely “logical” and “mean”, so they can retrofit her with motivations once they knew what they were.

Then in BFA, people started scrambling to make sure the story would hold up to scrutiny. “Oh shit, we still don’t know why Sylvanas does these things, people are going to think she’s only evil”. And then a Dungeon Master-y type had a brainwave “AHA! Brilliant! Then let people just think that!!”

Presumably, Master E., Dungeon jumped on the tables and started walking victory laps right after to golfclapping writers.

World of Warcraft does this a lot. To say motivations are an afterthought isn’t doing it justice. No, in fact;

The writers will go so far out of their way to keep motivations ambiguous to keep themselves from writing themselves into corners in the short term, that they write themselves into corners in the long term.

Writers in Blizzard write canon characters like they’re playing hot potato with characterization.

“What, no you tell them why Tyrande being the Night Warrior is bad!” “No, you tell them!”

It’s not better than just writing lore characters as “going insane and a case of the purple lootz” if you make them seem insane and devoid of reason because they’re written by commission 80% of the time.

[professorpaquette]

Like, the point of Edge of Night was explaining the plight of the Forsaken. It wasn't "sure sucks we can't reproduce oh wait". It wasn't "undeath is not so bad".

It was "what motivations do the Forsaken have to stay alive after the Lich King?"

The answer was "Sylvanas knows she's überf*cked in the afterlife and you can connect the dots that most of her people are as well; there is no sweet release after death. But Forsaken will die before all this is over. Here's Sylvanas' plan; sacrifice what needs sacrificing to spare as many people as possible from falling over the edge, into an abyss of eternal torment".

She's literally this, but played straight. So play it straight! It's a good characterization, even if it's a simple one!

[makanidotdot]

Compared to BfA and Shadows Rising's portrayal, how did you like Sylvanas's portrayal in Before the Storm?

I think BTS was basically the debut of BFA and Shadows Rising Sylvanas… though I guess I could say it did feel like it got worse as BFA went on (her part in SR is so short it’s sort of whatever), so technically I liked BTS more than BFA lol, if only because in BTS she still displayed other emotions besides “cryptically smug-bored”. 

And because it’s been a while since I’ve actually specified why I felt like BTS Sylvanas was such a departure from her previous character, here’s an attempt to get down to the core of it.

In Before the Storm, this introduces a Sylvanas that has no real connection to the Forsaken as a people. She is portrayed as purely possessive and pitying of them. One of the main narrative objectives of the book itself is to actively drive a bigger wedge between Sylvanas and the Forsaken.  

Taking her character in this direction does not directly contradict anything explicitly stated about her in earlier content, there’s just a number of implications and themes in previous stuff that make this seem like a suuuuper questionable direction to take the character.  There are other little characterization problems I had with BTS, but this is the core one.

I will explain further because this is an essay blog now.

Keep reading

[lily-orchard]

Honestly fuck Hazzikostas

[styro3-deactivated20201002]

I agree with most of the above, but I also feel that BtS had some attempt at providing political reasoning behind Sylvanas’s actions. When she kills the Desolate Council, she explains it to Nathanos: they were defecting, the mere act of bringing Arthas’s sister is provocation, Calia might be plotting to reclaim the crown etc. The readers could still stand behind her, and see her as a calculated leader, reigning with an iron fist and using questionable methods to achieve her goals. It aligned nicely with her general theme of ruthless-but-effective. The Sylvanas inner monologue on BtS suggests her ultimate goal was to raise entire Stormwind as undead, for “unity”, and to spare them the pains of living. This also aligned with her previous goals, of wanting to bolster the ranks of the Forsaken, to protect herself from death (did they forget about her remaining val’kyrs btw? Where did they go?) At some point on BFA, they just stopped explaining Sylvanas’s actions in a convincing manner. The burning of Teldrassil was done on a complete whim, to upset a low-ranking elf captain, without her standard careful plotting and scheming. The 4th war is only explained by hinting Sylvanas tried to get as many people killed, because she’s working with The Jailer to feed souls to the Maw and empower herself. This is not convincing, because the Jailer never existed in BtS or in Elegy/A Good War. The Jailer does not come up in the Sylvanas perspective chapters, and was definitely not a part of her plan. It’s obvious that The Jailer was fit into the story retroactively, rather than the lame “Sylvanas met him a decade ago during Edge of Night, and has been working with him since” explanation). There was never a good motive for the 4th war. They never wrote one. It was a conflict for gameplay purposes only. The BtS Sylvanas has a fine balance to her, because as merciless as she is - there are tiny bits reminding the reader that she’s not entirely a monster (I love the part where she thinks pandarens are soft, round and graceful, uwu). Shadows Rising has her just-evil, cartoonishly so, with poor explanation if any. In the past, they made her likeable despite everything, and all of a sudden that’s gone. We’re not crazy to like her - we’ve been told a very different story for the last two decades. Why would a storyteller try so hard to sever the emotional connection of the reader to their character, it’s just counter-productive. I hope they’re not clumsily mismanaging her story, and the situation might be irreversible. If Makani stopped drawing Sylvanas because she turned uninteresting, that speaks for itself (I miss her witty Sylvanas art more than anything!)

[poisonsaysbye-deactivated202109]

Reblogging again because added comments have my own thoughts that I didn’t have time to write since I feel like I’m running in circles when I try to think about Sylvanas and what I interpreted of her throughout fifteen years versus what I’m getting now or will get later.

[makanidotdot]

@styro3  ty for more input!  ill elaborate some more

The act of killing the council actually isn’t something I have a problem with, and similarly @asklittlepip‘s bringing up Koltira being mind controlled/tortured- I think both of these things fit just fine in the parameters I think her character should follow.

I think she should care about the Forsaken- like genuinely care, just like part of her still genuinely cares for her sisters and Nathanos.  Does this mean she never does anything bad to them, manipulates them, treats them unfairly?  Not at all.  I just think she should deep down care about them- the Forsaken people as a whole. I think she has and should pursue things for them that are arguably, at times, heroic… but I don’t think she herself needs to be a hero.  She can still be a nasty petty witchgremlin who gets pissed Koltira is out picking flowers or some shit with his Alliance buddy instead of doing his job.  

The problem with Arathi isn’t that she kills the council, it’s that when she does, it’s emotionless. It’s just like an inconvenience at best?  Or straight up convenient?  We hardly see any description that gives a window into her mind at all, she’s mostly like “Take care of this quickly!  Where’s Calia >:D”.  Actually you put it best- she DID do all that just for political reasons… and that’s the problem.  This should have been an emotional act for her.

And just listing more specific BTS things I had a problem with and why:

Keep reading

[professorpaquette]

What bothers me about Sylvanas is that part about her light touch. She’s a ranger general, not the mayor of the Undercity. She just randomly pops off and comes back, having accomplished or failed to accomplish something without anyone having to know the details.

Authoritarianism just doesn’t fit her style. Now, if the Forsaken organized themselves into a proto-authoritarian state without Sylvanas having to lift a finger, that’s fine. Interesting even. What if her most zealous followers simply decided it’d be better if people didn’t reminisce on the past. That’s fine.

How about this? What if Sylvanas just point-blank tells the Desolate Council, “oh, by the by, there’s no salvation after death. If you die, it’s eternal torment for you. I know, because I died like four times already and came back.” What if the Desolate Council then says “We like those odds”.

That is a good moment for Sylvanas to become pissy with them, because that version of the Forsaken is the version she saw in Edge of Night. They don’t know what the afterlife will be like for the undead, but they arrogantly believe salvation awaits when it doesn’t. Make it the fate of all undead.

I’ve known about this since Arthas died and said “I see only darkness before me”. It’s a phrase that comes up a lot in Warcraft and it’s always been with undead people and we had no reason to assume this wasn’t unique to undead. They are the damned, after all.

So, even if Sylvanas knows better, she could just say, “death is no salvation for the damned. Even Alonsus Faol couldn’t escape eternal torment if he tried”. If the Desolate Council calls her bluff, that’s when she can start thinking of them as poisonous. Not because of hope, but arrogance masked as bravery.

This is a consistent character trait of Sylvanas. She associates everyone who attributes heroism and bravery to themselves with the likes of Garrosh, Arthas and Saurfang, and likes Varian Wrynn because he’s more self aware than that.

Urgh.

[anoia]

honestly yeah big agree with @sellanor.  That was actually one of my headcanons earlier on too- that Sylvanas was like hey it’s not right for anyone to go here and who knows how many people will, and there’s no reason she wouldn’t want to tell them ‘i died and there’s nothing’.  Even if that’s not true for them, like if goodest boys and girls did actually go somewhere nice, it would be in her interest to lie about ‘everyone goes here’ to try and get them to stay so she doesn’t start losing more people to true death.

but then again, she KNOWS everyone is going to the maw right? 😏 because THAT wasn’t clearly made up after BTS was written lol.  

[professorpaquette]

Clearly.

But that's the thing for me. The Maw was clearly just a twinkle in someone's eye during Legion, so nothing could be written in the affirmative yet. This is why Sylvanas story was cut short in Legion, I'm willing to bet, because they realized they had no idea where BFA or SL would go yet.

And they still had only a small idea during BFA. The broad strokes were established; She'd be disillusioned by the end and abandon the Horde and something-something, "this world is a prison", something-something.

They knew they wanted Sylvanas to be in certain places at certain times, but in Legion, after she became Warchief and got to Stormheim, I imagine someone sighed a breath of relief when they realized they could just have Sylvanas GTFO the storyline for most of it. At least they wouldn't have to flesh out what her deal is.

In BTS, they still couldn't go into details, except "at the very least, undead are überf*cked in the afterlife for some reason and maybe everyone else too". Which they then just didn't do, even though that's the one thing we've known since WotLK.

So they keep some of Sylvanas' motivations out of frame (since her motivations are still being worked out) and make her purely "logical" and "mean", so they can retrofit her with motivations once they knew what they were.

Then in BFA, people started scrambling to make sure the story would hold up to scrutiny. "Oh shit, we still don't know why Sylvanas does these things, people are going to think she's only evil". And then a Dungeon Master-y type had a brainwave "AHA! Brilliant! Then let people just think that!!"

Presumably, Master E., Dungeon jumped on the tables and started walking victory laps right after to golfclapping writers.

World of Warcraft does this a lot. To say motivations are an afterthought isn't doing it justice. No, in fact;

The writers will go so far out of their way to keep motivations ambiguous to keep themselves from writing themselves into corners in the short term, that they write themselves into corners in the long term.

Writers in Blizzard write canon characters like they're playing hot potato with characterization.

"What, no you tell them why Tyrande being the Night Warrior is bad!" "No, you tell them!"

It's not better than just writing lore characters as "going insane and a case of the purple lootz" if you make them seem insane and devoid of reason because they're written by commission 80% of the time.

[styro3-deactivated20201002]

Seriously, what’s going on with Arator Windrunner

Arator “The Redeemer” Windrunner is a canonical mess. 

‘Beyond The Dark Portal’, the first novel that told the story of Alleria and Turalyon, had no mention of a baby at all. Distraught and overwhelmed by her grief, Alleria did pop into Turalyon’s tent one lonely night, mumbled “help me forget” in Elvish and you know the rest. While it’s not specified she got pregnant, it’s not an unreasonable twist, and is an acceptable retcon IMHO.

The next time we heard of him, we were told Alleria and Turalyon vanished in the Dark Portal a few months after Arator was born:

(Source: ‘A Thousand Years of War’ by Robert Brooks)

The new Warcraft novel, ‘Shadows Rising’, has a heartfelt moment in which Alleria remembers little Arator wielding his first wooden sword in Stomrwind. 

So you’re looking at a “few months old” baby playing with swords already. Weird ti think of either Turalyon or Alleria arming a toddler. Turalyon is from a priestly background, so perhaps this is a Windrunner family thing? 

The best way to explain Arator’s age discrepancy, I reckon, is the Kinder-Guardian program, from this Sacha Baron Cohen skit:

“In less than a month, a first-grader can become a first grenader!”

Perhaps it’s for the best Sylvanas and Nathanos died before they had a chance to have kids. I can already imagine the little brat running around shooting blight balloons from a paintball gun at gnomes.

[styro3-deactivated20201002]

Apparently I’m not the only one who spotted this, and the wowpedia page now mentions Arator’s new age inconsistencies too.

[ytdn]

See this is why I always preferred the assumption that Arator had been born in Outland after the Expedition got trapped there, and then Turalyon and Alleria disappeared a few years later as said in Father Malgor Devidicus’ dialogue. No retcons needed!

But it’s actually interesting to think about because the Beyond the Dark Portal novel was released after Burning Crusade came out, so it’s funny that they never communicated between Christie Golden and the quest writing team that oh yeah, Turalyon and Alleria had a baby. And with them writing up Arator with increased narrative importance as Alleria’s morality chain we’re naturally getting inconsistencies and retcons to fit his new expanded role.

But that’s blizzard for you 🤷

[azureflight]

The part in Shadows Rising is a blatant mistake. Everything else that came before, sure there are gaps, but they do fit in chronology wise as long as you understand Beyond the Dark Portal has that mistake of not mentioning Arator. The reason Shadows Rising doesn’t count as a retcon but rather a mistake, is because of timeline. Unless Blizzard comes and explains to us that yes, the entire chronology of events and dates of the Second War and the Alliance Expedition to Outland is changed, there is no way that part in the new novel works.

Now, Alleria can see a young Arator playing with sword in Stormwind. A Thousand Years of War established a mechanism for that. She cannot, however, talk to Arator. The most she can do is send “feelings”. Now, she might have looked at Arator like she did in A Thousand Years of War at any point, and then thought to herself of that sentence and tried to communicate those thoughts and feelings to her son, but that’s about as much as it can go without being a blatantly impossible lore mistake, and even in this scenario I am stretching.

There appears to be a lack of understanding and communication regarding timeline between Blizzard and Madeleine Roux, because she also said something like Nathanos being early 30s, late 20s during the Third War and that just does not work, no bloody way. Not to mention it practically makes Sylvanas a pedo and groomer.

They basically did not pay attention to their own timeline and Arator’ lore is already all over the place. 

[styro3-deactivated20201002]

They’ve been purposely vague about ages and years everywhere and all the time (even the ADP/BDP figures are ballpark), probably out of fear of making such chronological errors. But perhaps the story would have been far more manageable, and less prone to mistakes, if they did keep a timeline.

I actually like the idea of Alleria imagining her kid waving a sword, the same way she imagined him seeing her statue in Stormwind. That’s a rather clean solution, I think you just solved the inconsistency (though it would have been easier to sell if they clarified it was a remote-view sort of thing). 

You can probably add this interpretation to the wowpedia page, actually.

[valessari-deactivated20220916]

Yeah but didnt A Thousand Years War technically set up the scenario to retcon Alleria being a mother who essentially abandoned her child, being able to magically be in his life emotionally if not physically through X'era and the power of the Light? Which in my opinion was absolute white washing Alleria’s maternal abandonment.

Her “memories of experiencing Arator’s childhood” was basically her watching him grow up through a “magic mirror”

And somehow that redeems her as a mother? I wish they had the balls to explore the emotional wounds of maternal abandonment.

[anoia]

Hah I forgot about this part (distracted by enough other things to complain about) but yeah I was like yeah just more confirmation roux hasn’t read much herself, and blizz is prob also like eh who cares abt how old he was, as long as he was young.

And to be fair the timeline should serve the story, rather than the other way around, and be malleable and all that, but this arator bit here just felt like ok this didn’t even serve a purpose this is just someone who doesn’t know stuff and just thinks the image of alleria watching her young kid play with a sword is cute.

Doesn’t really matter story wise? It’s just kind of more… ‘sigh’ lol

[professorpaquette]

For me, Alleria's unconditional love for Arathor was always contrasted by the fact she never knew him. She just knew the idea of him. She had no precious memories to hold on to. That always felt like it was the point of her character.

She gave up everything for an idea and when she ever comes to know that idea in enough detail, maybe she wouldn't have made the same sacrifices.

Like, Arathor never being able to live up to the expectations of his parents, who literally laboured a thousand years for the glimmer of a hope he'd be happy without them; that's intriguing.

What if Alleria really just isn't cut out for the mundane nature of being a mom? That's so much more dramatically ironic. "Alleria thinks she knows what she's fighting for, but she's really only needed Arathor as a foundation of her self-mythologization and is afraid of mundane attachments" is wickedly epic.

[makanidotdot]

Compared to BfA and Shadows Rising's portrayal, how did you like Sylvanas's portrayal in Before the Storm?

I think BTS was basically the debut of BFA and Shadows Rising Sylvanas… though I guess I could say it did feel like it got worse as BFA went on (her part in SR is so short it’s sort of whatever), so technically I liked BTS more than BFA lol, if only because in BTS she still displayed other emotions besides “cryptically smug-bored”. 

And because it’s been a while since I’ve actually specified why I felt like BTS Sylvanas was such a departure from her previous character, here’s an attempt to get down to the core of it.

In Before the Storm, this introduces a Sylvanas that has no real connection to the Forsaken as a people. She is portrayed as purely possessive and pitying of them. One of the main narrative objectives of the book itself is to actively drive a bigger wedge between Sylvanas and the Forsaken.  

Taking her character in this direction does not directly contradict anything explicitly stated about her in earlier content, there’s just a number of implications and themes in previous stuff that make this seem like a suuuuper questionable direction to take the character.  There are other little characterization problems I had with BTS, but this is the core one.

I will explain further because this is an essay blog now.

Keep reading

[lily-orchard]

Honestly fuck Hazzikostas

[styro3-deactivated20201002]

I agree with most of the above, but I also feel that BtS had some attempt at providing political reasoning behind Sylvanas’s actions. When she kills the Desolate Council, she explains it to Nathanos: they were defecting, the mere act of bringing Arthas’s sister is provocation, Calia might be plotting to reclaim the crown etc. The readers could still stand behind her, and see her as a calculated leader, reigning with an iron fist and using questionable methods to achieve her goals. It aligned nicely with her general theme of ruthless-but-effective. The Sylvanas inner monologue on BtS suggests her ultimate goal was to raise entire Stormwind as undead, for “unity”, and to spare them the pains of living. This also aligned with her previous goals, of wanting to bolster the ranks of the Forsaken, to protect herself from death (did they forget about her remaining val’kyrs btw? Where did they go?) At some point on BFA, they just stopped explaining Sylvanas’s actions in a convincing manner. The burning of Teldrassil was done on a complete whim, to upset a low-ranking elf captain, without her standard careful plotting and scheming. The 4th war is only explained by hinting Sylvanas tried to get as many people killed, because she’s working with The Jailer to feed souls to the Maw and empower herself. This is not convincing, because the Jailer never existed in BtS or in Elegy/A Good War. The Jailer does not come up in the Sylvanas perspective chapters, and was definitely not a part of her plan. It’s obvious that The Jailer was fit into the story retroactively, rather than the lame “Sylvanas met him a decade ago during Edge of Night, and has been working with him since” explanation). There was never a good motive for the 4th war. They never wrote one. It was a conflict for gameplay purposes only. The BtS Sylvanas has a fine balance to her, because as merciless as she is - there are tiny bits reminding the reader that she’s not entirely a monster (I love the part where she thinks pandarens are soft, round and graceful, uwu). Shadows Rising has her just-evil, cartoonishly so, with poor explanation if any. In the past, they made her likeable despite everything, and all of a sudden that’s gone. We’re not crazy to like her - we’ve been told a very different story for the last two decades. Why would a storyteller try so hard to sever the emotional connection of the reader to their character, it’s just counter-productive. I hope they’re not clumsily mismanaging her story, and the situation might be irreversible. If Makani stopped drawing Sylvanas because she turned uninteresting, that speaks for itself (I miss her witty Sylvanas art more than anything!)

[poisonsaysbye-deactivated202109]

Reblogging again because added comments have my own thoughts that I didn’t have time to write since I feel like I’m running in circles when I try to think about Sylvanas and what I interpreted of her throughout fifteen years versus what I’m getting now or will get later.

[makanidotdot]

@styro3  ty for more input!  ill elaborate some more

The act of killing the council actually isn’t something I have a problem with, and similarly @asklittlepip‘s bringing up Koltira being mind controlled/tortured- I think both of these things fit just fine in the parameters I think her character should follow.

I think she should care about the Forsaken- like genuinely care, just like part of her still genuinely cares for her sisters and Nathanos.  Does this mean she never does anything bad to them, manipulates them, treats them unfairly?  Not at all.  I just think she should deep down care about them- the Forsaken people as a whole. I think she has and should pursue things for them that are arguably, at times, heroic… but I don’t think she herself needs to be a hero.  She can still be a nasty petty witchgremlin who gets pissed Koltira is out picking flowers or some shit with his Alliance buddy instead of doing his job.  

The problem with Arathi isn’t that she kills the council, it’s that when she does, it’s emotionless. It’s just like an inconvenience at best?  Or straight up convenient?  We hardly see any description that gives a window into her mind at all, she’s mostly like “Take care of this quickly!  Where’s Calia >:D”.  Actually you put it best- she DID do all that just for political reasons… and that’s the problem.  This should have been an emotional act for her.

And just listing more specific BTS things I had a problem with and why:

Keep reading

[professorpaquette]

What bothers me about Sylvanas is that part about her light touch. She's a ranger general, not the mayor of the Undercity. She just randomly pops off and comes back, having accomplished or failed to accomplish something without anyone having to know the details.

Authoritarianism just doesn't fit her style. Now, if the Forsaken organized themselves into a proto-authoritarian state without Sylvanas having to lift a finger, that's fine. Interesting even. What if her most zealous followers simply decided it'd be better if people didn't reminisce on the past. That's fine.

How about this? What if Sylvanas just point-blank tells the Desolate Council, "oh, by the by, there's no salvation after death. If you die, it's eternal torment for you. I know, because I died like four times already and came back." What if the Desolate Council then says "We like those odds".

That is a good moment for Sylvanas to become pissy with them, because that version of the Forsaken is the version she saw in Edge of Night. They don't know what the afterlife will be like for the undead, but they arrogantly believe salvation awaits when it doesn't. Make it the fate of all undead.

I've known about this since Arthas died and said "I see only darkness before me". It's a phrase that comes up a lot in Warcraft and it's always been with undead people and we had no reason to assume this wasn't unique to undead. They are the damned, after all.

So, even if Sylvanas knows better, she could just say, "death is no salvation for the damned. Even Alonsus Faol couldn't escape eternal torment if he tried". If the Desolate Council calls her bluff, that's when she can start thinking of them as poisonous. Not because of hope, but arrogance masked as bravery.

This is a consistent character trait of Sylvanas. She associates everyone who attributes heroism and bravery to themselves with the likes of Garrosh, Arthas and Saurfang, and likes Varian Wrynn because he's more self aware than that.

Urgh.

[makanidotdot]

Compared to BfA and Shadows Rising's portrayal, how did you like Sylvanas's portrayal in Before the Storm?

I think BTS was basically the debut of BFA and Shadows Rising Sylvanas... though I guess I could say it did feel like it got worse as BFA went on (her part in SR is so short it’s sort of whatever), so technically I liked BTS more than BFA lol, if only because in BTS she still displayed other emotions besides “cryptically smug-bored”. 

And because it’s been a while since I’ve actually specified why I felt like BTS Sylvanas was such a departure from her previous character, here’s an attempt to get down to the core of it.

In Before the Storm, this introduces a Sylvanas that has no real connection to the Forsaken as a people. She is portrayed as purely possessive and pitying of them. One of the main narrative objectives of the book itself is to actively drive a bigger wedge between Sylvanas and the Forsaken.  

Taking her character in this direction does not directly contradict anything explicitly stated about her in earlier content, there’s just a number of implications and themes in previous stuff that make this seem like a suuuuper questionable direction to take the character.  There are other little characterization problems I had with BTS, but this is the core one.

I will explain further because this is an essay blog now.

 In Edge of Night, even though she maybe doesn’t realize it, or lies to herself about it, she ultimately does end up taking the Valkyr rez not just to avoid death, but also to tell Garrosh to stop using the Forsaken as cannon fodder.  Sylvanas herself also reflects on the fact her attitude toward her people has shifted.  

Her main mission during the following expansion (Cata) was to strengthen the Forsaken, not only in numbers, but as a fully fledged people who have a secure place in the world (and who intend to take more).  The questlines in Silverpine Forest are centered around showing you some of how Sylvanas is planning for the future of the Forsaken.  Sylvanas takes you on a horsie ride and tells you the deal after you’ve helped her and the Forsaken there.  In Legion, she tries to secure the lantern not just for herself, but the Forsaken too, as a further means of stopping death and ensuring their future.  She is definitely interested in saving herself, but is also invested in her people as well.

BTS -> BFA regresses Sylvanas’s character development to Wrath Sylvanas, who doesn’t care about anything except the goal she’s tunnel visioning (in wrath it was Arthas, in BFA it’s a series of McGuffins), and the Forsaken are just a means to an end, just another part of the Horde. And, making the situation worse, the characterization of the Forsaken themselves has NOT regressed back to Wrath. They seem to be getting gooder and gooder as time goes on. 

As I read it, one of the main points of Edge of Night was to show Sylvanas actually being forced to face the consequences of one of the things she’d done in her time as Banshee Queen: create a race people to which she is their only true leader, and who, if she disappeared now, would crumble without her.  It’s not a huge stretch to draw a parallel from that to her former role as Ranger General.  And it seems that she accepts this role again as she returns to life.

Sylvanas being given this new goal to pursue after Arthas, of truly being the Queen of the Forsaken and securing a real foothold for the Forsaken on Azeroth, suggests that not only did her iron will and unrelenting nature persist from life into undeath, but a part of the ranger general who was compelled to defend those who depend on her, so much she died for it, persisted as well.  And...isn’t that sort of the whole reason Sylvanas was ever an interesting character in the first place?  Key pieces of that once great hero persisting into undeath, basically out of her sheer strength of will?  Sylvanas did some terrible things in her pursuit of Arthas, but part of her pursuit would always be something players could sympathize with- everyone wants to kill the fucker that killed them and /spits on their corpse.  Likewise, Sylvanas could do terrible things in pursuit of strengthening the Forsaken as a people, but people would always be able to empathize with wanting to protect and lift up your own. This dichotomy makes her a likable villain/antihero.  People like those.  

If Sylvanas loses all the traits that made her living self special, then Arthas really did truly kill her, and following her character after she died in WC3 is pointless, because it’s just a totally new character that just has Sylvanas’s body and memories.

Soo yeah, BTS -> BFA comes along.  She doesn’t really -get- the Forsaken, she wants to do war things because she touched Azerite.  Remember Azerite?  Remember how progress bar filler rocks that make you smart and power hungry kicked off this whole new war?   Aren’t you interested in THESE MAGIC ROCKS AND WHO GETS THEM???? Hmm hey does Azerite maybe help the Forsaken stay alive?? Oh... no actually Sylvanas doesn’t care about the Forsaken anymore really, she just cares about killing hope I guess?  She wants to get a dagger and uh.. Azshara.. Nzoth...anyway Sylvanas ACTUALLY wants lots of people to die to go to the Maw because this will help her get more power so she can eventually destroy all existence?  And she’s helping the Jailer, this rando big bad we’ve never heard of and don’t care about and she has the same goals him now so maybe they can both destroy the world or something uhhhhhhhhhh

Who caressss this could be ANY character that is fed up with existence and wants to tear it down!  Wanting to lift up the Forsaken and secure their future possibly to the detriment of other races is a motivation that would be unique to Sylvanas!  And the Future of the Forsaken is still a problem whether or not Sylvanas is worried about it, so what are they gonna do? Just take that away from Sylvanas and give it to someone el-

oh

[professorpaquette]

That's genius. Just replace Sylvanas and Voss with Calia in BFA. Sylvanas kills her and raises her in BTS out of spite, Calia becomes very good at strategizing genocide, becomes a problem.

Whoops, Calia accidentally causes Fourth War to escalate out of Sylvanas' control. Angst ensues.

Brilliant.

Also. Paaaaaaaaaiiin. This is exactly why I can never leave Warcraft. When you can see the potential that was lost for no good reason, it just gets you hooked on rewriting characters even harder.

[makanidotdot]

Compared to BfA and Shadows Rising's portrayal, how did you like Sylvanas's portrayal in Before the Storm?

I think BTS was basically the debut of BFA and Shadows Rising Sylvanas... though I guess I could say it did feel like it got worse as BFA went on (her part in SR is so short it’s sort of whatever), so technically I liked BTS more than BFA lol, if only because in BTS she still displayed other emotions besides “cryptically smug-bored”. 

And because it’s been a while since I’ve actually specified why I felt like BTS Sylvanas was such a departure from her previous character, here’s an attempt to get down to the core of it.

In Before the Storm, this introduces a Sylvanas that has no real connection to the Forsaken as a people. She is portrayed as purely possessive and pitying of them. One of the main narrative objectives of the book itself is to actively drive a bigger wedge between Sylvanas and the Forsaken.  

Taking her character in this direction does not directly contradict anything explicitly stated about her in earlier content, there’s just a number of implications and themes in previous stuff that make this seem like a suuuuper questionable direction to take the character.  There are other little characterization problems I had with BTS, but this is the core one.

I will explain further because this is an essay blog now.

 In Edge of Night, even though she maybe doesn’t realize it, or lies to herself about it, she ultimately does end up taking the Valkyr rez not just to avoid death, but also to tell Garrosh to stop using the Forsaken as cannon fodder.  Sylvanas herself also reflects on the fact her attitude toward her people has shifted.  

Her main mission during the following expansion (Cata) was to strengthen the Forsaken, not only in numbers, but as a fully fledged people who have a secure place in the world (and who intend to take more).  The questlines in Silverpine Forest are centered around showing you some of how Sylvanas is planning for the future of the Forsaken.  Sylvanas takes you on a horsie ride and tells you the deal after you’ve helped her and the Forsaken there.  In Legion, she tries to secure the lantern not just for herself, but the Forsaken too, as a further means of stopping death and ensuring their future.  She is definitely interested in saving herself, but is also invested in her people as well.

BTS -> BFA regresses Sylvanas’s character development to Wrath Sylvanas, who doesn’t care about anything except the goal she’s tunnel visioning (in wrath it was Arthas, in BFA it’s a series of McGuffins), and the Forsaken are just a means to an end, just another part of the Horde. And, making the situation worse, the characterization of the Forsaken themselves has NOT regressed back to Wrath. They seem to be getting gooder and gooder as time goes on. 

As I read it, one of the main points of Edge of Night was to show Sylvanas actually being forced to face the consequences of one of the things she’d done in her time as Banshee Queen: create a race people to which she is their only true leader, and who, if she disappeared now, would crumble without her.  It’s not a huge stretch to draw a parallel from that to her former role as Ranger General.  And it seems that she accepts this role again as she returns to life.

Sylvanas being given this new goal to pursue after Arthas, of truly being the Queen of the Forsaken and securing a real foothold for the Forsaken on Azeroth, suggests that not only did her iron will and unrelenting nature persist from life into undeath, but a part of the ranger general who was compelled to defend those who depend on her, so much she died for it, persisted as well.  And...isn’t that sort of the whole reason Sylvanas was ever an interesting character in the first place?  Key pieces of that once great hero persisting into undeath, basically out of her sheer strength of will?  Sylvanas did some terrible things in her pursuit of Arthas, but part of her pursuit would always be something players could sympathize with- everyone wants to kill the fucker that killed them and /spits on their corpse.  Likewise, Sylvanas could do terrible things in pursuit of strengthening the Forsaken as a people, but people would always be able to empathize with wanting to protect and lift up your own. This dichotomy makes her a likable villain/antihero.  People like those.  

If Sylvanas loses all the traits that made her living self special, then Arthas really did truly kill her, and following her character after she died in WC3 is pointless, because it’s just a totally new character that just has Sylvanas’s body and memories.

Soo yeah, BTS -> BFA comes along.  She doesn’t really -get- the Forsaken, she wants to do war things because she touched Azerite.  Remember Azerite?  Remember how progress bar filler rocks that make you smart and power hungry kicked off this whole new war?   Aren’t you interested in THESE MAGIC ROCKS AND WHO GETS THEM???? Hmm hey does Azerite maybe help the Forsaken stay alive?? Oh... no actually Sylvanas doesn’t care about the Forsaken anymore really, she just cares about killing hope I guess?  She wants to get a dagger and uh.. Azshara.. Nzoth...anyway Sylvanas ACTUALLY wants lots of people to die to go to the Maw because this will help her get more power so she can eventually destroy all existence?  And she’s helping the Jailer, this rando big bad we’ve never heard of and don’t care about and she has the same goals him now so maybe they can both destroy the world or something uhhhhhhhhhh

Who caressss this could be ANY character that is fed up with existence and wants to tear it down!  Wanting to lift up the Forsaken and secure their future possibly to the detriment of other races is a motivation that would be unique to Sylvanas!  And the Future of the Forsaken is still a problem whether or not Sylvanas is worried about it, so what are they gonna do? Just take that away from Sylvanas and give it to someone el-

oh

[makanidotdot]

Finished up the book today.  How about a whole reviewwww

Keep reading

[professorpaquette]

The OOC-ness part seems to hit the nail for me. I am a roleplayer, so I'm pretty well used to bad technical writing. What this reads like to me is like a manuscript. A first draft. Something an editor should have caught.

In fact, I'm willing to bet an editor looked at this, then looked at the deadline and went "... f%$k". Editors aren't cheap, nor is their job easy. I think that a good editor would basically hand this manuscript back to the writer and say, "nah mate, try again".

That's not an indictment. That's just kind of the relationship a writer and editor have to have sometimes. It's hard to know if your work is ready for editing if your life has been nothing but you and a page quota for the past months or weeks. An editor has to be ruthless sometimes and give it to you straight. "Woah, I can't edit this without rewriting this. I'll give you some notes, but you really need to try again."

And I think Blizzard just kind of stepped in, grabbed the draft, maybe ran it through some interns and then put it up.

That's my theory, based on the pieces of writing I have seen. The bit about Sira going "try again, I'm too edgy" is that grating. Not in the "woah, undead are predisposed to be assholes, huh?" and more like "it's like I'm listening my twelve year old cousin retell the coolest moment in a series I never watched in too many words".

My conclusion; Blizzard needs better editors or give their editors more time, as much as they need better writers with more investment.

[makanidotdot]

Abbreviated complaints: we know Tyrande is angry, we needed the book to show us something we didn’t know. What makes Night Warrior Tyrande different from just regular angry Tyrande?  The dynamics between her and Shandris and Maiev were crap, there was basically nothing evocative of their actual characters there, and, because it revealed nothing new about the Night Warrior state, and because she was portrayed so simplistically, it (further!) weakened the role, it made her less intimidating, because the flaws of her current state of mind are SO exaggerated, so obvious and one sidedly flawed, there’s no actual threat left, no mystery about her power or where it’s going.  The story literally did the one thing I really didn’t want to happen- it ALREADY Temple of the Red fucking Crane’d her again!  HURR ME TYRANDE ME CRUSH oh… thank you for guiding me, other people, I would have just gone totally apeshit otherwise.  

HMM, nice rich Night Elven flavor there, the Night Warrior, a dark boon granted by the moon goddess, and- …hey wait a second  

More specific complaints?? WE GOT THOSE TOO

Lees verder

[professorpaquette]

I would have expected the Night Warrior to be more like a cool, “angry as the grave” kind of rage and vengeance. Maiev is the hothead; She’s reckless and righteous and a go-getter. I feel like the Night Warrior would more, like... Stride forward and smile with the same enjoyment as when she’s covered in the blood of an orc as she is when taking care of a deer.

Like. Imagine if one moment, Tyrande heals a deer along with a druid, showing great care and patience and the moment that she learns that there’s a food shortage, she cleaves the deer into bite-sized pieces with the same “love” that the druid just admired. To the horror of the druid who, despite being told not to have attachment to wild life, can’t help but feel sickened to see love and care so easily discarded.

It has to be “Galadriel with the One Ring”-stuff. A personality so alien and extreme that it’s unnerving. “I will do whatever I need to do and I will do it all with a psychopathic smile. For peace and with incredible violence,” is a version of the Night Warrior I could go for. 

Basically, this comic. Source: Shencomix.

That would also explain why Maiev might be unnerved by her. Why? Because in Wolfheart, that is almost verbatim what Neva was like. Heck, maybe that is why Maiev is concerned. “Oh, f*ck, I’ve seen this movie and last time it’s because I wrote and directed it and it was shit, f*ckf*ckf*ck.”

Look, I just want Maiev’s shitty apprentices to be acknowledged and how creepy they are. Maiev should feel remorse for inflicting her misanthropy upon other people, without it coming at the cost of “vengeance is still totally my gimmick, tho”.

[professorpaquette]

Quick Rant about the Rise of the Lich King Novel

So, one of my big problems with Rise of the Lich King is the central theme that I took out of the Frozen Throne campaign. “Does Arthas know or care about what he’s doing?”. The central tension of the campaign seems to be that Arthas, who’s basically still just an impulsive teenager, struggling with what it means to become king one day and what it is to take responsibility.

Over the course of his trials, Arthas is convinced by the Lich King that he can be king, but he needs to make a sacrifice.

When Arthas comes from Northrend and when he eventually rises to the Frozen Throne, I took it as a journey that was directly opposite to what we see as “enlightenment”. To Arthas, the question of what it means to be king is what’s central and what I thought to be so chilling is that, when Arthas rises to the Frozen Throne, he joins with Ner’zhul and “becomes one” with the Frozen Throne. A Frozen Throne who’s only flaw is that it’s made out of ice. Ner’zhul doesn’t need new ice; he needs a flesh and blood body to inhabit. And Arthas goes along with that.

And I was left with the question, “so, why is this acceptable to Arthas? Isn’t he giving up exactly what he joined Ner’zhul for? Gone is all the witty banter that I grew to love Arthas for even when he became evil. He has lost all individuality and become nothing more than the ghouls he controls.” And the chilling answer that I took away from it was, 

“This is exactly what Arthas wants. Because Arthas has become convinced that it’s not the soul of the king that matters; it is strictly speaking the performative aspect that needs to be preserved. Just like a kingdom made up out undead, unquestioning servants is no longer different to Arthas than a kingdom of servants who can think for themselves. Arthas is happy, because his body, his performance as king is what he is loyal to. Not the wisdom of his decisions, nor the good he does.”

What I dislike then is that in Rise of the Lich King, Arthas and Ner’zhul bicker over control of the Crown of Domination. For me, the whole point was that Arthas was basically just a hollowed out intellectual zombie and happy being so if it made him king and Ner’zhul is the only intellectual power left in their union.

By having Arthas take control of the Lich King persona, I think that the purpose of the journey was lost. The whole point is not just that the good, moral Arthas is gone. Even the evil, immoral Arthas is gone. All that is left is the vessel; a phylactery. A piece of furniture. A trophy on the Lich King’s mantlepiece. A trophy that grins and walked happily into the slaughter.

[makanidotdot]

still have a bunch of WotA things that have piled up.. this is a scene from the end of The Sundering.  

 Sometimes Illidan’s written as like too much of an asshole in the series, but sometimes it’s just right.  Anyway my edits from the book are extremely minor here

[professorpaquette]

I adore how in this comic, you are able to portray Illidan’s idea as possibly good and poetic, that you can empathize with how taken Illidan is with this idea and how someone might have been impressed by this. And that that someone is definitely not Tyrande.

[phana-banana]

Look, I’m not saying if Herman Melville was alive today he would totally have an A03/fanfiction.net account… but that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Still went a little over my time limit for this one, but getting faster I think.

[gwengrimm]

@theeinkibus these…. Are good points.

[theeinkibus]

Herman, thanks for creating the ‘AND THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED’ trope for all of us writers, forever in your debt man.

[makanidotdot]

Next wow book: Sylvanas: "Nathanos be a dear and kill that pesky Bwonsamdi for me while I FLEX on Bolvar. And take Sira with you." Nathanos: "Dark Lady thy will be done and thank you for the red shirt" Sira: Red Shirt?

I hope so?  I don’t get the point of Sira and the undead night elves being a thing at all.  Who wanted that?  It makes the Night Elves look fickle and muddies the whole turning people undead and Elune thing.  Like Derek is his same self as undead but Sira instantly fights for the Horde?  We just get some dead night elves instead of maybe featuring some Skelly-brand Forsaken?  

I don’t find dead nelves interesting at all and I hate that they exist almost as much as I hate Warcraft’s Baby Nut, Zekhan

ANyway I drew Sira and Nathan off on their adventure 

[professorpaquette]

I heard a theory about Sira that I prefered far above what is probably going on. That Sira being killed was coordinated with Tyrande. That Tyrande wanted to plant an agent in the Horde. And that the wardens were so spooked by what happened to Cordana Felsong and the Forsaken assaults on the warden towers that they immediately began researching what happens with undead if they’re turned and if there was a way for them to resist and make it look like they were on board with the whole undead thing. I still hope some writer will pose that as a possibility, even if it makes no sense anymore.

[makanidotdot]

I wonder what Shadowlands house Fandral will be in 🤔

[professorpaquette]

I really hope Onyxia will make an appearance at that AA-meeting.

“So, why are you here,  Fandral?”

“Well, you see, the old gods corrupted me and perverted my vision.”

“Yawn...”

The Revendreth counselor gives Onyxia a hard look. “I see, Fandral. And what would you tell Onyxia?”

“Oh-- Well. Onyxia, I know that we share something.”

“-cough-- bullshit--”

“And that you can change as much as I have.”

“Look, you hippie, I might have been corrupted, but I ruled a kingdom and I was good at it, because humans suck and I got to kill them.”

“O-oh, I see.”

“Yes, I’m sure, treehugger.” *angry wine sipping*

“Let’s take a break.”

Having her be a wine-drunking spirit aunt to Wrathion would be the greatest.

“Kill them all, Wrathion.”

“Auntie, I thought revendreth purged you of old god corruption?”

“Yes?” *sip*

[sticksandsharks]

Her fans seem to adore her as much as they are scared of her. Harli spends most of her time in the wilds of the Grimwood, hunting for and catching the powerful Pokemon that might menace her town.

harli as a galar gym leader… and ghost hunter??

[truntechgodhead]

listen i try to be tolerant. i try to stay in my lane. but australians call sprinkles “hundreds and thousands” and that just fucking crosses the line i cant take it anymore

[truntechgodhead]

[zosonils]

no it’s because sprinkles and hundreds and thousands are different things

sprinkles are these long bastards:

whereas hundreds and thousands are the round and crunchy lads:

they’re VERY different things, not at all interchangeable terms. i guarantee that if you come down here and try calling any old shitass long sprinkles 100′s and 1000′s then you WILL have a mob of fairy bread enthusiasts directly up your ass within a fraction of a picosecond

[truntechgodhead]

those are all sprinkles theyre just different breeds

[professorpaquette]

These Dutch sprinkles are like hundreds and thousands, except much bigger. They are called “Mice”!