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Could You Forgive Arthas?
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Post by
Skreeran
Slyvannas outright views her people as possessions and use themAs an undead player, who has done all of their starting zones, before and after Cataclysm, I did not get that impression.
Post by
morginar
How is kael thas an anti-hero?
Used fel to solve the problem that otherwise would kill his entire race.
I see a narcissistic magic-addicted idiot who'd sell out his own race for one drop of mana. He's shown that if he can't beat something by slinging magic and soldiers at it, he thinks it's impossible (It was fully possible to beat the undead without naga aid), just more difficult. He always took the easy path.
He needed boats to get to the undead outpost and he didn't have an army to take it down.
Illidan was willing to do anything for his beloved magic, just plain and simple. the guy sold himself out and nearly ripped azeroth apart to appease his latest source of magic.
Illidan didn't feed on the eye of sargeras as it was to powerfull but insted he used it to try to kill the lich king. nThe skull of gul'dan was needed to A: kill a dreadlord and destroy a legion outpost B. to be removed so that it would be something left to save from the to be felwood.
And compined you have a super Illidan.
Post by
Behelich
This thread has both made me feel nostalgic about the quality of writing we used to see in Warcraft 3, and hopelessly derailed into people demonizing their least favorite characters and idealizing the most loved once.
Also, Malfurion is a lot bigger jerk than Illidan could ever be.
Post by
Rankkor
This thread has both made me feel nostalgic about the quality of writing we used to see in Warcraft 3, and hopelessly derailed into people demonizing their least favorite characters and idealizing the most loved once.
I agree with this so much its not even funny >_<
Also, Malfurion is a lot bigger jerk than Illidan could ever be.
I dunno man, what Illidan pulled off in outland wasn't pretty, kidnapping mag'har orcs and dumping them in the blood furnace to create fel orcs to bolster his army, along with all he did in shadowmoon valley, ect.
Malfurion is a jerk, no doubts there, but more than Illidan? I have a hard time accepting that.
One thing I'd love to see blizzard doing, is subverting this trend that if one member of a family is a jerk, then ALL in that family have to be jerks too.
All 3 of the windrunner sisters are crazy sociopath nutjobs who take far too much pleasure and glee into butchering and mass murdering anyone who even looks at them funny.
All 2 of the Stormrage brothers are self-centered megalomaniacs who are far too enamored of themselves to even see who they trample along the way, and where to put their priorities with the powers they've been given.
The Proudmoore family was momentarily a subversion, as while Daelin was a monster who attacked civilians for no reason, his son hasn't been seen yet, and his daughter pushed for peace. Now suddenly the Daughter is following the footsteps of the father, and the one drop missing from the bucket is that whenever Derek shows up he's also a sanctimonious asshat. (Which I'm sincerely hoping he's not, I'd rather have at least ONE member of the Proudmoore family not be an idiot)
At least there is one current subversion in the Wrynn family, because while varian was (is?) a jerk, his son is currently my favorite character in the game (previously it was thrall, then he got castrated and made into just a shadow of aggra, then it was jaina, but then she was turned into sylvannas 2.0)
Post by
Behelich
I'm talking Wc3 Illidan rank, before he got crazy after seeing Arthas and Ner'zhul merge.
It basically went like this.
Illidan: *deep voice* "Hey guys, I took out one of the undead top brass and pretty much saved Felwood from becoming a complete ecological disaster."
Malfurion: *hysterical* "NO! ONLY I CAN HAVE HORNS HERE! YOU ARE EXILED!"
Post by
Monday
This thread has both made me feel nostalgic about the quality of writing we used to see in Warcraft 3, and hopelessly derailed into people demonizing their least favorite characters and idealizing the most loved once.
This. This so much. I'm not going to even bother arguing with platy, since even when I pull out examples and facts, it doesn't help. It's not worth my time.
Post by
Lordplatypus
This thread has both made me feel nostalgic about the quality of writing we used to see in Warcraft 3, and hopelessly derailed into people demonizing their least favorite characters and idealizing the most loved once.
Something
EVERYONE
agrees on.
Post by
H3Knuckles
So, then, the thread can basically be wrapped up with the following resolutions:
A few could forgive Arthas, most could not. Some who think he's unforgivable do see some good in him, just not enough.
Everyone has their own favorite punching bag among the cast of Warcraft, and they rarely match more than a couple other people's.
The storytelling in Warcraft has severely degraded from the heyday of War3 and the early books.
I'd like to discuss further why that last point is true, but should it be moved to a new thread?
Personally, I think that they still put out some really good writing in small doses, such as cutscenes (the ICC thing with Saurfang's son; Evie Stormstout's eulogy), and particular quest chains, and they also generally do good with the larger strokes of setting and world-building. Where I feel the writing has fallen apart is in regards to things like campaigns, and character story-arcs. Again I think a lot of it can be laid at the feet of having to set up bosses for the next cycle of raids, and not being able to figure out how to have a truly proactive main villain through questing zones and across multiple raid tiers. This is not meant as an "I hate raiding" rant, just an observation that it's not very conducive to the kind of dynamic storytelling we're used to from Warcraft.
Also, I'd be willing to guess that the rapid increase in the sheer volume of licensed fiction (books and comics) over the course of WoW's lifecycle has a lot to do with the declining average quality people talk about (personally I've barely scratched the surface of that stuff, and mostly just read Wowpedia and other online synopsis to keep up with the overall lore). Back in the day when that stuff was coming out at a snail's pace it would've been a lot easier to better supervise the quality of the output and work more closely with writers to cover the plot points in a good way, but the way they're popping them out nowadays would make that very difficult. Christie Golden gets handed a list of plot points that she needs to cover, and probably has no real input into whether they're good ideas, or if they should all be in one book, and then no-one's really got the time to babysit the draft-editing process to make sure she's bringing her A-game and not just phoning it in or making ham-handed attempts at writing styles she just doesn't seem to grasp (romance).
Post by
Rankkor
I really have no idea what's going on with blizzard's writing, and how can the be capable of at the same time deliver such great stories, and such bad stories.
Its mind-boggling.
Regarding who's your punching bag, there's 2 sides of this coin.
There's on the one hand a character that you hate simply because in your opinion was badly written or badly handled, and a character that you hate because you severely dislike what they've done.
Kael'thas was handled poorly. Back in War3 he was conflicted but still somewhat morally good, he genuinely wanted what was best for his people, and saw the fel tapping as a way to maintain his people alive when there was no sunwell. He still felt conflicted about having to work with the naga, he felt conflicted about having to support Illidan, but did so anyways because that's where he believed his people's future laid.
Cue wow, and suddenly all of that was tossed out of the window, and he's just a terrible character who's only motivation is raving about power, his main character trait (his love of his people) gets discarded and instead screams
YOU WILL DROWN IN YOUR OWN BLOOD, THE WORLD WILL BURN, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
This to me is poor handling of a character, in an effort to make players hate him they just took whatever about him that could had been likable and replaced it with generic villainy.
And this is just Kael, the same can be applied to Illidan, and the Lich King, and a whole plethora of characters, They've been (and I'm borrowing the term from TVTropes) "Flanderized" into caricatures of their former selves.
However the minor characters of the game have fantastic stories to tell. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED the Dragonmaw Revolution questchain in the twilight highlands. I loved the "of blood and family" questline in vanilla, I loooooooved the story of darrowshire and of the redpath family, I seriously loved the revamped story of redridge with the bravo company, along with the updated defias history on westfall and the updated Silverpine with the forsaken&worgen war.
It seems that in the minor scale, blizzard's storytelling is still great, on the larger scale, they've just dumbed everything down to appease to the most common denominator. Perhaps we should be happy that our favorite characters are not in the spotlight, and get worried when they do? (I actually LOVED jaina when she was the bookish, diplomatic mage. This new jaina is just a piss poor clone of Sylvannas)
And regarding the character I consider the most evil unredeemable monster in the entire franchise, who deserves eternal pain and suffering and more than just that, on this life and any other life, is Gul'dan.
Post by
Skreeran
I really have no idea what's going on with blizzard's writing, and how can the be capable of at the same time deliver such great stories, and such bad stories.
Its mind-boggling.I got sick of WoW's writing (lorewise at least, the quests are still awesome) a long time ago.
Let me tell you about something with the best writing I've ever read instead.
Post by
Rankkor
I really have no idea what's going on with blizzard's writing, and how can the be capable of at the same time deliver such great stories, and such bad stories.
Its mind-boggling.I got sick of WoW's writing (lorewise at least, the quests are still awesome) a long time ago.
Hmm bro? quests are still blizzard's writing.
Don't dare tell me you did not enjoyed the bit in the jade forest about Yu'lon the serpent and the Jade Statue, and how the war between the Horde and alliance tore the forest down. That was brilliant Blizzard Writing right then and there.
Or the opening of the gates by the August Celestials.
Or the Sunwalker quests in Krasarang.
Just as the game has poor writing, it also has great one. Which leads me to suspect (even when I lack any proof of it) that they MUST have 2 different writing teams. One that handles the small-time stuff, (and is awesome at it) and another that handles the larger story (And MAJORLY SSSSSSSUCKS)
Post by
Skreeran
I really have no idea what's going on with blizzard's writing, and how can the be capable of at the same time deliver such great stories, and such bad stories.
Its mind-boggling.I got sick of WoW's writing (lorewise at least, the quests are still awesome) a long time ago.
Hmm bro? quests are still blizzard's writing.
Don't dare tell me you did not enjoyed the bit in the jade forest about Yu'lon the serpent and the Jade Statue, and how the war between the Horde and alliance tore the forest down. That was brilliant Blizzard Writing right then and there.
Or the opening of the gates by the August Celestials.
Or the Sunwalker quests in Krasarang.
Just as the game has poor writing, it also has great one. Which leads me to suspect (even when I lack any proof of it) that they MUST have 2 different writing teams. One that handles the small-time stuff, (and is awesome at it) and another that handles the larger story (And MAJORLY SSSSSSSUCKS)Hence me differentiating the quests from the mainline lore. It seems like quests and minor characters are great, but as soon as a minor character becomes a major character they're ruined, and the center stage lore is poor and confused.
Post by
588688
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Lordplatypus
Arthas;
WC3: Badass Anti-Hero paladin turned Badass Death Knight who kills demons and doesn't afraid of anything. Values friends and his subjects.
Supplimentary: EVUL
WoW: EVUL BUT REDEEMED AT END BY CRAPPY STORYTELLING
Don't dare tell me you did not enjoyed the bit in the jade forest about Yu'lon the serpent and the Jade Statue, and how the war between the Horde and alliance tore the forest down. That was brilliant Blizzard Writing right then and there.
Subtle as a sledgehammer. I would have prefered the thing to have fell by a over-time result of the jinyu vs. hozen not to mention the shado-pan being basically aloof asses with the War just being the tipping point. as opposed to the crappy WAR IS BAD they hammered our faces in with.
Post by
Vynillin
Rankor, you just don't like him because he killed blood elves.
Heck, that was one of my favorite parts of the undead campaign.
never gets old.
Technically
speaking, he didn't kill blood elves. They weren't known as blood elves until Kael returned from Dalaran and pronounced them as such due to the Scourge-wrought devastation.
/justsaying
/out
Post by
Rankkor
Rankor, you just don't like him because he killed blood elves.
Heck, that was one of my favorite parts of the undead campaign.
never gets old.
Technically
speaking, he didn't kill blood elves. They weren't known as blood elves until Kael returned from Dalaran and pronounced them as such due to the Scourge-wrought devastation.
/justsaying
/out
/sighs
The horse was dead. Why did you had to bring it back up?
(You are right though, when Arthas invaded Silvermoon, he wasn't killing blood elves, he was killing high elves.)
Post by
Lordplatypus
And we thought we could finally put this godamn page to rest.
Can we just get a lock here?
Post by
Rankkor
Generally speaking, threads are only locked for extreme reasons. Just because WE have exhausted all venues of discussion regarding this topic doesn't mean that in the future this can't be brought up again.
Having said that, it really did felt annoying that it was brought up again so quickly without adding anything really new (as that bit had already been discussed)
Post by
Lordplatypus
Yea-
O.O
We just agreed again didn't we?
Post by
Rankkor
Yea-
O.O
We just agreed again didn't we?
hmm, yes, well, it must be because Chavez died, so stuff has been weird around here lately.
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