I was speculating whether time skips can be done well, not saying they can never work. Yrel and the Mag’har situation are an example of a badly written time skip. Note what I said (bold added for emphasis);
You keep making new comments that recycle the same refuted accusations, just as you have done in your latest comment here since, for one, you failed to explain how threads about different things happening to Velen and then Turalyon are making the same arguments.
Explaining how my statements about naaru are essentialism doesn’t make them wrong. And again, why give the Naaru a Void state? Are we going to see Old Gods with a Light state? I don’t want the holy war against the Mag’har to be portrayed as good. I say it’s badly writing and shouldn’t have happened.
My “idea for a better expansion” came from a few minutes of improvisation. I never presented it as good or comprehensive, just better than “Light Crusade”; at this point we’re just both making clashing values judgements.
You claim you understand the difference between skepticism, faith, and not having blind faith… then you keep trying to strawman me as endorsing blind faith; which would be as unfair as - hypothetically speaking - I dismissed all your arguments as being based on your fears for your drug-dealing cousin.
That quoted statement from the Scarlet Onslaught’s founder is backed up by actions including abandoning the Scarlet Crusade’s primary goal; it’s not about them heading to Northrend, but abandoning reclaiming Lorderaen and abandoning the Scarlet Crusade to die. I keep pointing out you’re ignoring actual in-game stuff including the words of the founder words because you’re ignoring the in game stuff that explicitly contradicts your view including her words.
I would stand up for my loved ones against the state depending on the situation and the punishment being presented. And I was talking about confirmed murder, not an ambiguous or unproven “they might be innocent” situation (what happened to the guy who lived near your uncle sounds horrible, but I can’t say more without more information).
You shoot down any imagined possibility that the state could be justified and your loved ones unjustified; I think your close-mindedness here might be due to personal issues given what you said about your drug-dealing cousin.
By the way, have you tried to advise your cousin by pointing out all the harm drugs cause to the users or by pointing out how cutthroat criminal gangs or organized crime can be? A bullet from a criminal is just as deadly as one from a corrupt cop.
Just saying I do something doesn’t make it so. And you do realize that larceny, fraud, aiding and abetting and bribery are serious crimes despite being non-violent? Evoking “non-violent crimes” doesn’t help your case.
Also, why did you bring up trespassing? If you meant Alleria, her actions were closer to sedition.
Can you explain what’s wrong with imprisoning people for using the Void when they’re guests on a warship made and owned by Light worshippers, especially when said person promised the ship’s CO that they’d stop using the Void?
What evidence is there that Xe’ra planned to lock up Alleria for eternity? The Necrolords of Maldraxxus are not exactly good and experiment using necromancy to transmogrify both the willing and unwilling, but they are explicitly noted by Blizzard to not be strictly evil and also serve as the military protectors of the Shadowlands; “rules for thee, but not for me”, eh? Use evidence, not buzzwords. If what you said was true, I say they shouldn’t have made her do those actions in the first place.
Constantly bombarding people with a message doesn’t always work; sometimes, it can have the opposite effect and help drive them to extremism. Plus “edgy nihilist” is a fitting description of Illidan and Sylvanas (especially the latter who literally helped to try tear down the cosmos because she’s afraid of dying). Your views about religious characters sound balanced… but could you name some names?
I strongly suspect at least one of the heroic (for now) Light-wielding characters you named who doesn’t get villain-batted will either apostatize or be killed off.
The cult of Forgotten Shadows has been portrayed as increasingly heroic, and the jury’s still out on An’she’s and the Earthmother’s existence and nature. Since Blizzard pulled back from villain-batting Voodoo homages (Bwonsamdi is even portrayed as between a trickster and heroic) and Shamanism wasn’t always portrayed as villainous even going back to Warcraft 3 - the belief being opposed was the demon worship Gul’dan and the Burning Legion introduced to their society, why expect complaints? How have those religions been treated poorly? Also, none of them got an entire expansion dedicated to them being villains.
The Scarlet Crusade call to mind the stereotypical image of the Knights Templar and also various Islamic militant groups like the Taliban and ISIS (Scarlet Crusade want Lorderaen, ISIS wants a Caliphate). And I didn’t oppose their existence and portrayal, including when they were used for potshots at megachurches and Prosperity theology in Wrath.
By the way, what real-life religion do the Void worshipping cultists supposedly parallel for me to be supposedly passively/tacitly accepting or encouraging their demonization?
With Magic-Light-Boy Anduin in the story, there really is no way for them to write The Light as evil. (He’s all back to himself in that datamined scene.)
So this discussion is kind of moot.
They might write a Naaru who isn’t nice, but Magic-Light-Boy Anduin will tut-tut, and it will return to The Light; 'cause he’s just so gosh darn right. /eyeroll
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.
In just a couple of posts, you’ve simultaneously expressed a lack of belief in right/wrong and no interest in discussing her consequences while also labeling her as guilty of wrong doing and listing off several possible punishments- so no, I don’t think you’ll be happy enough whatever the consequences she faces end up being.
If this was just a thread to complain about “Light Crusade” expansion, I wouldn’t have bothered to give you my hypothetical scenario.
Your accusations and assessments of me are as inaccurate as ever, and your projectionism and cherry-picking undermines your commitment to research.
When did Xe’ra betray trust? Plus, you repeat your strawman arguments against me so much, I wonder if you’re part parrot.
The Onslaught went from “Scarlet Crusade foreign mission” to “splinter group who abandoned the Scarlet Crusade”; do you know what a splinter group is?
Even if you were right, every criticism you threw at me would also apply to you.
I said nothing about uncritical support of a life-sentence, and you know it.
Can you not imagine the state being right about anything, or just concerning your cousin, or can I give you a taste of your own medicine and use Ad Hominem arguments to frame you as blindly contrarian like you try to frame me as a blind follower?
You do realize the even the fallible legal system has knowledge, skills and resources that you don’t, right?
Telling how you try to strawman me saying family vs state is case-by-case as blind support for the state.
Why do you ignore my repeated statements about earthly authority figures being flawed but necessary?
What are you afraid will happen to your cousin, given you made a point of mention you fear for what could happen to him being a black man committing crimes in the state you cited?
There’s a difference between trespassing and sedition.
As good as Alleria’s actions are, the fact that she constantly has to fight the Void’s whispers show it’s not as harmless as you claim; it’s like the supernatural equivalent of weaponizing radioactive waste.
How is considering her imprisonment of Alleria understandable but harsh supporting her?
You keep wrongly claiming I’m making the same arguments and ignore any evidence to the contrary.
I think you missed the point of what I said about extremists not necessarily responding to repeated pressure.
I said people doubling down in response to pressure was merely a possibility, and you know it.
When did voodoo threaten the world, and were they ever retconned into villainy?
I don’t conflate the Light with Christianity any more than you conflate Xe’ra with government authority figures you fear will harm your cousin.
Your bias made you overlook how I directly compared the Scarlet Crusade to the Knights Templar too;
Your hit-and-miss analogies aside, the fact that you brought race into a part of the discussion about religions explains a great deal.
I see you’re now putting even less effort into your posts, not even actually bothering to make actual arguments so much as you’re simply denying doing the things you’ve clearly done.
What evidence have you provided that I simply disregarded and didn’t actually respond to with an equally lengthy counter-example? When did you provide quotes and references that weren’t countered in the same spirit? When have you ever challenged me on the proper definition/use of a word and actually been correct? Because I’ve been right here, going back and forth with you for as long as you’d have me.
And you still persist with the passiveness as you “wonder” if I’m a part parrot. Well no need to wonder. I am not part parrot. If you find me repeating myself it’s only because you’ve recycled the same false claim or attempted the same bad argument and the same consistent truths refute them.
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You didn’t actually describe how a “better expansion than the Light Crusade” would work until I called you out on it, and your idea was, by your own admission, bad and poorly thought out. Much worse than an actual Light Crusade could be.
Xe’ra betrayed our trust when she turned on Illdan and hid the truth from Turalyon. It’s been pointed out before. It’s been pointed out to you serveral times. With links.
The Scarlet Onslaught splinter group exists as aa “splinter group” in name only and even that flimsy distinction is contradicted by the fact that they’re functionally the same as the Scarlet Crusade. This too has been pointed out several times With links.
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The state can be right, but not because it’s the state. Being the state does not confer upon it any essential “rightness”. And no, the existence of authority figures are not some kind of fundamental necessity, and even when we do accept them, we do not need to suffer their flaws and should stand up for what is right.
My cousin is more likely to face a disproportionately longer/more severe punishment by the state if accused of trafficking drugs or something worse. Even if he hasn’t actually done what they accuse him of and doubly so if he has.
Also, don’t try to cry that the conversation has become a referendum on peoples’ character when you made it out as such.
You decided to make this some kind of judgement about our personal ethics in the face of authority.
You disapproved of my stance that we not lock up non-violent offenders for indefinite/life sentences by rattling off non-violent crimes you think people should be locked up indefinitely/life for.
You insisted that you’d support the state and that Tyralyon should support locking people up indefinitely/life because they’re authority.
I’m not contrarian. I am willing to acknowledge authority figures. The difference between us is that you, by your own admission, believe that you (and all the rest of us) must have someone ruling over us as and accept their abuses by dint of their authority. That’s just classic textbook authoritarian mindset right there.
I would and have defied and spoken out against authority in support of my loved ones being locked up forever for not commiting crimes. Apparently you and Turalyon would not and you think that’s fine and reasonable.
Xe’ra was wrong to lock up Alleria indefinitely/for life because Alleria did nothing wrong. Turalyon never defied Xe’ra on this.
And refusing to follow someone’s arbitrary rules and then not getting out of their home when they tell you to is trespassing, not sedition. Are you really ready to be wrong about how to properly use words correctly again? Like how you didn’t know how to properly use “conviction”, or “brotherhood” or “righteous anger”?
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If you think some people will hate a message they hear too many times, why do you continue making these threads and repeating the same arguments? I mean I’m only here because you felt I was ignoring you and you clearly want engagement, or else you wouldn’t be making the same threads an average of every month. I’m also learning quite a bit about you and your outlook from this back and forth…
Also, what I know is that people like to threaten others with doubling down and refusing to change their mind because they’re committed to being stubborn. I know because I’ve seen people publicly disagree with me in one thread only to go into a different thread and sing a completely different tune.
If you actually cared about how religion is depicted in WoW, you’d know about the times Voodoo threatened the world. Is this yet another example of you being ignorant of major elements in WoW and needing me to explain them to you? I will, but only if I have to because you don’t actually know.
You have already complained about how you feel Blizzard’s treatment of Xe’ra and the Light is part and parcel with society’s greater lack of respect for Christianity and respect. And you’ve used people’s views on Christianity and state authority to try and prove your point about what should and shouldn’t happen in game regarding the Xe’ra and the Light. You conflate the Light with Christianity and the state.
I didn’t bring race into a discussion about religion. The people who combine their views on those religions with their views on race did. It shows I actually pay attention.
Which is also why my understanding of Scarlet analogues is better than yours. That’s why you mistakenly think seeking to establish theocratic kingdoms is what makes the Scarlets like ISIS, despite that being something the Knights Templar did and ISIS not even existing when the Scarlets were created.
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Your biases are blatant, your methods passive aggressive, and your attempt to pass it off as neutral/benign are disingenuous. 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.
If you’re going to glibly dismissive, try to at least wait 24 hours before you turn around and prove me right.
Because here you are, inseting yourself into a discussion to explain how you’re not-so- happy with what you believe to be consequences Sylvanas is facing and then going on to debate what does/doesn’t constitute proper consequences!
People can scroll down. You go back and forth for a couple of hours on the topic you couldn’t care less about discussing and would be happy with the outcome with either way.
Yes… I don’t view the “saving of souls” to be a consequence. Because its not addressing the things that need a resolution. That freeing of souls doesn’t address any of the things I mentioned and keeps them unresolved. So its not a consequence.
I have explained this to you several times but you don’t get it. I tried to disengage with you and here you are.
You missed my point entirely, and now you are playing forum cop? Really?
Will this hopefully be your last reply to me or are you going to keep going?
Edit: Here Officer. I will throw you a bone, find me a quote where I acknowledge something as a consequence and debate that person on why another consequence would be better. Until you do I won’t be replying to you anymore
Good luck.
While I admit it would have been better if I actually put my hypothetical Light expansion in the topic initially, the repetitiveness of their replies lately makes me think you might be right about the tantrum (for all that Tammy claims it’s justified, then projects that onto me).
You accused me of only criticizing time skips, so I shared a quote of mine from that thread which wasn’t a criticism, refuting your accusation. I also think you’re just salty that I proved the Mag’har recruitment scenario had a badly written time skip.
How do you define passive-aggressive? You keep using that term. I do not think it means what you think it means. I also wonder whether that accusation of yours is attempted trolling or you’re lashing out because I hurt your feelings. You claim you came because you thought I felt ignored by you… as if you care what I think lol
I outlined my expansion idea; just because your values judgement doesn’t match mine does not change the fact that I still gave it. In fact, part of my point was even my bare bones, first-draft-script-level idea is better than the “eeeevul Light!” shtick Blizzard’s gunning for with Yrel and AU Naaru.
Trust regarding Xe’ra wasn’t invoked outside of Turalyon, the Army of the Light and maybe Velen. How were “we” betrayed? Did you ever trust that character prior to what happened between her and Illidan?
They’re not a name-only splinter group when the founder officially renounced them, they employ Death Knights - which the Scarlet Crusade does not, and they’ve abandoned the main mission of the Scarlet Crusade. This too has been pointed out several times, with links and in-game content but you’re in denial and moving the goalposts.
I never said the state is always right just because it’s the state. I’m not authoritarian. I am willing to call out authority figures and have done so. Your claim that I must accept abuse by dint of authority is a strawman (not to mention, how is abuse of power defined – there are criminals who try to play the victim when getting arrested while caught committing crimes); textbook contrarian tactic. And find me a quote where I endorse life sentences for non-violent crimes.
By the way, are you aware that when you said this;
That paragraph is incoherent and sounds like you’re saying that people have threatened to lock up your loved ones forever for not committing crimes. Since I don’t think that’s what you mean, could you explain this?
Turalyon defied Xe’ra’s attempt to harm Alleria, you just keep spouting your headcanon that Xe’ra never intended to harm her. I have explained this to you several times but you don’t get it.
The refusal to leave is trespassing, but not following those rules beforehand is not mere trespassing (what evidence do you have that such rules are “arbitrary”?)
I haven’t repeated the same arguments in threads for awhile. But you keep repeating the same debunked accusations against me. I have explained this to you several times but you don’t get it. I’m learning quite a bit about you and your outlook from this exchange; the prognosis is not good.
You claimed that Voodoo has threatened the world in WoW, but how? The burden of proof is on you. When has shamanism threatened the world? Not every air or fire elemental fell in lockstep behind Deathwing in Cata. And the water and earth elemental leaders opposed his plans. Or did shamans become limited to using only one element when I wasn’t looking?
You use my disapproval and real-life religious beliefs for an ad hominem dismissal of my arguments, and nearly everything else you say against me is either cherry-picking or sophistry in the form of strawman arguments.
Funny that you say you paid attention. Was it like when you “paid attention” by accusing me of overlooking historical Christian references because I also compared the Scarlet Crusade to Islam…
When I’d actually also made a comparison to the Knights Templar.
What theocratic kingdoms did the Knights Templar supposedly found? And don’t tell me to find out for myself; you made the claim, the burden of proof is on you.
Your biases are at least as blatant as mine, and if there is any passive-aggressive from either of us, I think it lies in mockingly repeating each other’s wording in places. I think your repetitive strawmanning of my arguments and ad hominem attacks is an attempt to unbalance me, either for trolling or a tactic to try and “win” the argument.
All this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and I don’t know which of us is which.
Will this hopefully be your last reply to me or are you going to keep going?
Questioning what the consequences actually accomplish is arguing about is arguing about what constitutes appropriate consequences.
You do indeed do a lot of debating about what does/doesn’t constitute Sylvanas’ appropriate consequences for someone with no stated desire to debate it. And you’re definitely not expressing any happiness at what Blizzard might possibly do despite you claiming you would.
You asked us to “make of it what you will”. I made of it what I would, and you responded with dismissive snark. I too was ready to end it. But then you couldn’t even let 24 hours go by before proving me right.
It’s okay to care about what happens to Sylvanas. You don’t have to try and put up a front here to try and convince people you aren’t as invested as many of the rest of us.
I won’t push it anymore, though. There is a difference between self-contradictory attempts to try and create some emotional distance from an admittedly lackluster narrative in order to avoid disappointment and Thadeus making 10 threads featuring the same handful of bad arguments, only try and play as if there’s something amiss about other people.
As of right now, there’s only 2 people on the forums I’ve ever replied to more than 40+ times with a max in the 60’s. You, despite having only been visiting for around ⅔ as long as I have, already have at least 6 people with whom you’ve gone back and forth at least 40+ times. And even one you’ve gone back and forth with over 100 times! You’ve also replied more times to me on the forums than I have to you. I also only have around 800 posts in that time frame while you’ve accrued over 1.9k in around ⅔ the time.
You spend way more time going back and forth with the same handful of people on this forum than I do. This is in line with your earlier admission earlier in the thread about how you like to try and get the last word in.
I am not biased against any one religion over others. I’m not biased against the Light. I’m just aware of basic elements of WoW’s story, their sources in various media and basic high school facts. These facts don’t agree with your position that Chrisianity and Light be treated as uniquely superior in media in general or WoW in particular. Or your claim that a hypothetical Light Crusade is an attack on either any more than it is an attack on any other religion in the real world or WoW.
I do not make a habit of using passive language like “I suspect” or “You believe” or “probably”, and then try to backpedal and claim I didn’t actually suggest these things the way you do. Rather, I use active language like, “I know” and “you said”, “you admitted”. I also base my arguments on what I know and have evidence for, unlike you, who make many more arguments phrased as questions or rooted in your own and what you hope is others’ ignorance.
I only repeat myself because you keep repeating the same bad arguments. And I keep providing definitions because you don’t know what various words mean. And I keep educating you on basic WoW lore and high school history because you refuse to educate yourself on such simple things while trying to speak on them. I don’t strawman you either. You’ve had months to behave differently, but have refused to do so. This thread is living testament to pretty much every bad argument you’ve ever been able to conjure.
I can’t tell you when my last post in this thread will be, as I can’t see the future. All I do know is that barring some incident, you’ll inevitably create another thread in which you make a bunch of the same bad arguments.You’ve been doing it consistently for the better half of a year. You want people to keep going back and forth with you’d stop making the threads in which to continue the arguments anew.
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.
Passive-aggressive behavior is a pattern of indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them, which is how you addressed time skips in your OP.
You claimed I was ignoring you. It’s not a feeling I had. Again, you indirectly express disagreement without openly addressing it.
Not that you don’t occasionally say things directly that also happen to just be wrong. Like below…
You didn’t even give a “bare bones, first-draft-script-level idea”. You eventually, and only under criticism over a month or two later, barebones pitch. A pitch which -by your own admission- wasn’t actually well thought out.
Your poorly thought idea was not better than what Bizzard’s been gunning for than Yrel and AU nauru and your poorly thought out idea relies on more retcons, cliches and bad writing tropes than they have. That’s why it’s not a better idea than a hypothetical Light Crusade.
So now that you’ve admitted that she did betray the trust of Turalyon and the Army of the Light and maybe Vele, there’s the fact that she also betrayed the trust of Illidan and the Horde/Alliance Champion when she had us retrieve the Illidari, only to suddenly her plan included forcibly transmogrify him against his consent.
You complain about how repetitive I am, but keep repeating the same bad arguments with no new evidence.
The Scarlet Onslaught splinter group exists as a “splinter group” in name only and even that flimsy distinction is contradicted by the fact that they’re functionally the same as the Scarlet Crusade. The Crusade has been willing to employ Undead, Worgen, and other people they disapprove of and has fought beyond the bounds of Lordaeron, and the Onslaught is in Northrend specifically to take the fight to the forces that struck a blow against them back in Lordaeron. I’ve maintained from the outset that there is no functional difference in the threats provided by any of the Scarlet groups, whether they be Onslaught, Crusade, Brotherhood, or other.You’ve been the one trying to take functionally meaningless differences to make it seem like the Scarlets are completely opposed to one another.
In an attempt to try and justify why Turalyon was correct to abide by Xe’ra’s unjust decision to imprison Alleria indefinitely/for life, you asked me if I’d do any different if a loved one of mine was sentenced to a crime.
I explained that I would defy the state because I think it’s wrong to lock up people up indefinitely/life based on unjust and/or non-violent crime. I explained how I would not support the state’s decision. I explained how I would continue to argue against the decision of the state and even violate its other dictates in support of my loved ones. If I did not, I could be considered to have defied them.
You continued by insisting that that they (Alleria and hypothetical loved one) are guilty because Xe’ra/state “confirm” them as such.I pointed out that in this instance, the state is wrong and its law unjust and said I would still defy them, especially in the case of nonviolent instances being met with indefinite/life impositionent.You said this position hurt my argument, and in your incredulousness, listed several non-violent crimes worthy indefinite/life sentences asking if I still agree. I did and do.
You insisted that the Xe’ra/the state would be justified in the actions, even when they are wrong, because it’s their ship and their authority should be followed. You even argued that the state’s authority is “flawed yet necessary”, which I disagreed with.
When Xe’ra sentenced his loved one to indefinite/life imprisonment without having committed any crime, especially no violent crime, Turalyon supported Xe’ra. And you stated you’d do the same as Turalyion if the state dealt with one of your loved ones in a similar manner by the state. Turalyon did not defy Xe’ra and neither would you defy the state.
Your whole argument is not just about why you think Turalyon was right in not defying Xe’ra, you tried to make it by turning it into a metaphor about how we shouldn’t defy state authorities, even when we think they’re unjust.
Is this yet another example of you being ignorant of major elements in WoW and needing me to explain them to you? Because, like below regarding high school history facts about the Crusades, I want to first hear you admit that you just don’t know, but that you also have no intention of actually educating yourself.
If you don’t consider it an attack on religion if Blizzards shows differing opinions and positions among the authority figures and practitioners. Therefore, an expansion in which Xe’ra being different from other naruu, sides with some bad Light users and gets opposed by other Light users is not an attack on religion like you previously claimed.
It’s not ad hominem when you yourself admit you’re basing things on your own biases against other religions and an unwillingness to educate yourself on various topics.
I stated the Templars sought to establish theocratic kingdoms, not that they were successful in founding any, which makes them like the Scarlet Crsuade. You left that fact out during your comparison to the Scarlets so you could instead compare them to an organization that didn’t even exist when the Scarlets were originally written.
If you were actually open to educating yourself instead of relying on me to do it for you, you’d have learned that the Knights Templar fought to take Jerusalem in order to establish it as a Chrsitian Kingdom alongside the other Crusader states.
I specifically referred to your conduct towards me when talking to Smallioz; my conduct and anyone else’s doesn’t change what you’ve said and how often you’ve said it. And at least, unlike you so far, I can admit I’m someone who likes to get the last word in (and try to fight against that).
When I said biases, I wasn’t referring to religion or your stance on it in real-life, I was actually referring to the story and our opinions of it. You mistakenly assumed I meant religion in that paragraph of my last comment.
Disregarding your lie of omission regarding my arguments, you called my direct criticisms and mockery of you “passive-aggressive” when you clearly know it doesn’t fit the definition; why do you do that? You have made strawman of my arguments several times, such as trying to frame me as using Turalyon as a metaphor for blind obedience to the state. Your latest comment is a microcosm of every bad argument you’ve made against me in this thread.
I also suspect you’ll make the same debunked accusations anytime I make a thread where something Light-related is mentioned, even if it’s not the focus of the thread.
Passive-aggressive or not, the fact remains that I’d proven how badly written that time skip in the Mag’har recruitment scenario was. And no amount of accusations and quote-mining from you or anyone else will change that. Plus, even my bare bones pitch still has less retcons and bad writing than what Blizzard put out.
For Xe’ra to betray Illidan’s trust, Illidan had to trust her… which he never did, not even when he met her in the Illidan novel as the “Elder Naaru” and she saved him from Kil’jaeden. And I said the Army of the Light to be generous – only Turalyon expressed an expectation from Xe’ra that she didn’t meet (Lothraxion didn’t even have a quote to react to Xe’ra’s death - even Veeresa, Boros and Arator had one); there’s no confirmed indicator that Xe’ra violated any obligation she had to them apart from keeping naaru’s Void form secret from Turalyon (anything else is speculation, headcanon or paranoia at this point). You being in denial about the Scarlet Onslaught being a splinter group doesn’t help your case, either.
You used a lot of words to build that strawman about my stance and Turalyon. I’ll destroy it with one sentence. A hypothetical endorsement of Turalyon blindly obeying Xe’ra would not also be an endorsement of not defying state authority.
As for the rest of what you said; your explanation of what you’d do regarding a loved one ignored the scenario I presented, because you keep projecting your drug-dealing cousin onto them, and let your fears and assumptions about what would happen to them if the police caught them cloud your judgement. You even ignored or forgot when I said Xe’ra’s disapproval was reasonable though the sentence was excessive in a previous comment.
You didn’t prove or explain how Alleria’s Void use wasn’t a serious crime, how or why the state’s authority isn’t necessary (are you an anarchist?) or why Xe’ra shouldn’t be in charge on her own ship; what you did instead is called Bulverism.
Explain to me when Voodoo has threatened the world in WoW. I don’t know but if I didn’t want to educate myself, I wouldn’t be engaging with you and fact-checking you.
You almost had a point when you brought up shamanism… but shamanism didn’t get a bad side retconned into it, unlike the Light. Plus, there’s precedent from other Blizzard games and how they like to recycle character types and story arcs… and this “Xe’ra and Lightbound” business is a badly-written rehash of the Tal’drim Protoss and Malthael’s Reapers type stories. All the ways Xe’ra alone is a badly written character could make its own thread.
Side note, when you’ve used my character as an excuse to dismiss my arguments, that’s Ad Hominem. Getting back on topic, who are the “Scarlet Inquistion” you referred to here?
I also compared the Scarlet Crusade to the Taliban, who did exist when the Scarlet Crusade were written.
The Knights Templar weren’t trying to establish a Christian kingdom themselves, but aiding nobles and royals seeking to do so, as stated in the link you shared. And the Taliban comparison still stands; check out the Taliban’s actions and goals in Afghanistan from 1996 – 2001 (7 - 3 years before the release of Vanilla WoW) and compare those to the Scarlet Crusade’s goals, or do you want to call me an Islamophobe for pointing those facts out?
We’re not the same person. Ironically, I think Tammy would find your theory offensive (Also ironically, I’m not offended despite my disapproval of Tammy’s position, actions and attitude).
By the way, if I used sockpuppets, my comments and threads would have even more upvotes.
No way. Tammy’s not as hyper-defensive. No offense, Thadeus. You’ve admitted as much, in this very thread. This is not an attack, just a reminder of a truth you have already confirmed true. Please, do not take this as some sort of insult, as that is not my intention.
