The title of your thread was “Are Time Skips Lazy Writing?” (a negative bent right off the bat) and only speculated on it’s negative aspects, never once actually considering the good ones. You’ve done nothing but criticize the use of time skips here.
Just like in this thread you claim you claimed was about expansions that would better than a Light Crusade is actually just a thread for you to complain about a hypothetical Light Crusade expansion to the point where you’re now admitting you didn’t even actually put much thought into a better alternative or even a good one by your own standards.
Your biases are blatant, your methods passive aggressive, and your attempt to pass it off as neutral/benign are disingenuous. Especially considering how upset you got before when people used qualifiers like "“seem”, “think” and “feel like”… then responding with your own “suspicions”.
You defend blind faith when you try to argue that characters who do not have blind faith have lost their faith and then try to portray this as a bad thing. You argue about how all naruu, particularly Xe’ra, should be good and should be trusted despite her clearly betraying said trust on several occasions.
The forces of the Scarlet Crusade have fought abroad and away from Lordaeron before. That was the whole impetus for the Onslaught campaign in Northrend. In the wake of the devastating attacks on New Avalon and Havenshire by the forces of the Scourge, they decided the best way to save Lordaeron was to take the fight to the source. And in every other way, they’re functionally the same as the Crusade. The actual content of the game contradicts your claim that they’ve denounced the ways of the Crusade.
Again, if you don’t want to be accused of doing the things you do, then stop doing them over and over. Until then, they’ll continue to be pointed out, which will include some repetition.
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Regarding your inquiries into my personal relationships/experiences, your uncritical support of authority and your desire to see non-violent offenders serving life sentences…
I can imagine the state being right.
However, that does not mean the state and I always agree on who counts as a “confirmed murderer” or not. The state can be wrong too. In fact, it often fails to hold people accountable for murder. That’s why have no problem holding my loved ones accountable and do not leave it to sole discretion of the state. It’s also why I will and have defied the state when I consider it to be in the wrong and will not try and defend its decisions when it’s wrong.
You claim to support your family and be willing to defy the state, yet you still explain how you’d agree with the state’s decisions.
It’s the kind of thinking you’ve presented: the idea that the state’s authority and decrees are not to be challenged- that’s cost many an innocent person decades of their life, their reputation, subjected them to abuses and trauma, and worse. You support the state’s decisions and you’d support them again if they brought him back in and once more declared him a “confirmed murderer” whether he actually was or not. I do not believe you’re actually sorry, especially since you’d have supported him and others being locked up for life for even less.
You also know far too little about my cousin’s situation to lecture them by proxy on what risk they are/aren’t exposed to and what they should/shouldn’t be doing. That you think cannabinoids are harmful or that getting shot by gang members and police is anywhere near the most likely of risks shows an incredible amount of naivety in general.
I mentioned trespassing because the matter your presented about kicking out people who don’t follow the rules is a matter of trespassing. I don’t think they should be indefinitely imprisoned for that. And I stand by statement that non-violent offenses should not result in indefinite/life imprisonment. Including larceny, fraud, aiding and abetting and bribery. That you would have the state lock these people up indefinitely- up to and including for life- is downright cruel.
Similarly, Xe’ra was wrong to indefinitely imprison Alleria for using the void. Alleria did not hurt anyone, or harm anyone, and was actually saving lives while making inroads with a potential ally in the Locus Walker. Working with the void to do good and not harm anyone in the process is not a crime. It’s just an example of Xe’ra being so terribly extremist and self righteous in her fear/dislike of the void that she indefinitely imprisons otherwise innocent people merely for being associated with it. All while withholding knowledge of the naruu void cycle from Turalyon.
And yet you support her- even when she’s wrong- based entirely on the this image you’ve cooked up of her as an authority figure that’s therefore deserving of deference and a positive portrayal.
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If you think constantly bombarding people with the same message over and over doesn’t work, then why do you keep bombarding people with the same messages over and over in your threads? If you think making the same arguments can sometimes make people extremist, why do you keep making them?
I, of course, disagree with that assertion. I think people who end up being extremists all too often either haven’t heard about, come to understand, or come to accept the existence of nuance. Often because it frees them of the obligation to consider the shared dignity/humanity of other certain people. However it’s only through repeated exposure to that nuance and by challenging extremist views that they can be prevented from spreading. The solution to extremism is never to simply stop talking about it and certainly never to simply let it continue unopposed out of fear they’ll double down if challenged.
The idea that speaking out against something makes people more likely to embrace it out of spite is a mostly a hollow threat made by people who've already made up their minds on the topic. Don't buy it.
It’s right up there with, “The reason so many people are racist/mysgonist/anti-LGBT+ is because people these days won’t stop talking about civil rights.” in terms of bad takes.
You support Xe’ra’s violation of bodily autonomy and genocide if it’s for what she considers the greater good- even if it’s bad for us- because that’s pretty much what Illidan and Sylvanas are about when we opposed them. You and Xe’ra are pretty much in the same boat as the “edgy nihilists” you condemn in that regard. Xe’ra did choose Illidan to be her champion, afterall.
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Regarding depictions of religion in WoW…
We have indeed had positive portrayals of elements of other faiths. We’ve also had several instances of the world being threatened by forces wielding shadow/void magic, and voodoo, and shamanic powers. We’ve also seen both good and PLENTY of examples of bad shadow/void entities, bad loa and bad elemental/spirits. If you think all these portrayals mixing good/bad representations of faiths are fine and not attacks on religion like you claim, then you should be okay with the Light, naruu, and the like getting a similar mix of good/bad portrayals as well.
But you aren’t fine with it.
It’s because you don’t actually care about religions being demonized in WoW or fiction. You’ll even passively/tacitly accept it and encourage it. You just conflate the Light with Christianity- seemingly representing your ideals regarding proper religion/authority- and insist it be uniquely presented as the one morally good cosmological force in WoW.
Your bias further exposes itself in how you once again overlook the blatant historical Christian references in the Scarlet Crusade just so you can erroneously claim it’s based on Islamic groups. The crusading Knights Templar were fighting in part to establish a Christian Kingdom in Jerusalem, while the the Scarlet Inquisition were fighting to expel what they considered subversive elements after the Christian Reconquista finished retaking Hispanola from the Moors. THOSE are the religiously motivated/connected land grabs the Scarlet Crusade are historically based on. Not some organization that didn’t even exist when the WoW was released was created. Not that Christianity and Islam are particularly unique when it comes to the idea of religious groups fighting for territory in the hopes of establishing some sort of theocratic state either.
As for the shadow/void worshipping cultists. They’re WoW’s take on the well worn trope of the evil fantasy cultists, which is broadly derived from real world Christians portrayals of various non-Christian religions as dangerous cults obsessed with darkness, death, spoopy magic, and trafficking with evil powers. There’s been more Lovecraftian stuff (madness, tentacles, transmogrification, fish, etc) as the years have gone on, and that author made no attempts to hide the the fact that he was using such cultists as indicative of his fear of various non-white peoples and his false understanding of their religious traditions. Call of Cthulu, for instance, takes place in Lousiana and the largely black/mixed cultists shenanigans were originally believed to be them practicing Voodoo.