He doesn’t care that the orcs are being exterminated, he’s just upset that the Light is being portrayed as having a less than pure agenda
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And since the Season that revealed the Vorlons’ Villainy was already released by that point Blizzard probably was merely making the Naaru look good just like the Vorlons initially looked good.
Velen being based on Valen just from his very name pretty much sealed the Naaru and the Light’s Fate.
That is a good point. The AU Draenei and Mag’har being friends would also be a good idea. I didn’t bring that up sooner because I was focused on criticizing the current story. I don’t want the Orcs exterminated or the Draenei fanatical.
I was focused on past grievances as casus belli because they made more sense for the lore than shoehorning in the fanaticism angle.
How many stories have you seen where a villainous religious character isn’t a villain because they got fanatical vs ones where fanaticism is the reason?
It’s perfectly valid to prioritise your faves over everything else in a story, god knows I’ve done it.
I’m just starting to think Thad isn’t admitting something either to us or himself.
Bro, it’s fine, you don’t need a complicated reason to not want Yrel or the Light to be bad guys. It doesn’t have to be “bad writing” or “overused” for you to not like it.
Whether it’s because of your irl faith or not.
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Favortism is widespread in the WoW fandom. I’ve done it too, and even said the morality of events in WoW seems to be based on “which character (does the fan in question) like the most?” While I like them, Turalyon, Yrel and Velen are not my favorite characters.
My favorite characters include Jaina, Darion, Shandris (what an underused character she is), Vol’jin and on the villains side Kil’jaeden and Azshara (I hope we see some big move with her in a future expansion).
And that is badly written or overused, regardless of how I feel about the characters involved (I wasn’t a fan of WoD using the "alternate universe to bring back long-dead characters as villains). I’d say it’s not because of my real-life faith, though I know other people here wouldn’t believe me.
Judge Claude Frollo has been used quite a few times ever since Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame(which was released in the same year the Vorlons showed their Judge Claud Frollo tendencies).
Times I can count:, Babylon 5, WoW’s Scarlet Crusade, the Protoss Conclave, the Angels of Diablo, Tales of Symphonia’s Cruxis(& the Church of Martel)…
Is it just me or does Judge Claude Frollo-type characters seem rarer than one thinks? Most examples come from Blizzard!
And don’t say the Warhammer 40K Inquisition is an example because they aren’t! Chaos and Tyranids cannot permit one mistake! One single man corrupted by either can undo the entire Imperium! The Inquisition needs to Virus Bomb(or preform Orbital Bombardment on) a couple Planets to save the Sector!
Incidentally most Exterminatus doesn’t even wipe out the entire Planet and just purges the surface which is most inadequate!
I much would rather have the Dragon Isles, Other Side of Azeroth, Azjul’Nerub, and etc than having a cosmic force expansion again since the cosmic force stuff is getting really dull and feels less warcraft at this point.
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While you have a point - especially about Warhammer (and yes, Exterminatus doesn’t help against daemons, Tyranids that can burrow underground and Necrons who can teleport or dimension hop) - there are a lot outside of the ones you listed, some of them predate Disney’s Hunchback film.
Two famous examples are most of the villains from Lovecraft’s works (he was an avowed anti-religious atheist - hence eldritch god-like monsters and their worshipers are major villains in his stories… ) and Halo’s Covenant Empire.
Other examples that I know of include;
- The Ascendants from Star Trek novels
- The Yuuzhan Vong from Star Wars Legends (the Sith might also count)
- All alien races from the “Uplift” book series by David Brin
- The Cylons from Battlestar Galactica
- The Thalmor from Elder Scrolls.
- The Minbari (also from Babylon 5)
- There have been series of Doctor Who that added a fanaticism angle to the Daleks
- The Heretic Geth and the Kett from the Mass Effect franchise
Most of these Fanatics lack an obvious Church/Angel feel.
Speaking of the Covenant: no one knew it but there was a genuine possibility of Apotheosis to what some might consider Godhood(which the Great Journey promised would come from the Rings) in the Rings: The Composers.
The Composers convert beings to AI and allow them to obtain Bodies.
If the Prophets of the Covenant were told about the Composers in descriptions that would agree with the Great Journey they probably would have focused their efforts on that rather than the Rings’ Superweapons which were intended for the Humans.
I dare say having Composed themselves and discovered exactly what Reclaimer means the Covenant would have no objection to keeping Humans around to fulfill their role as Reclaimers of the Lifeworker Role stolen by the Lifeworker Rate of Forerunners from the Humans(who were to be given it by the Precursors/Flood) with one of their duties as the Lifeworkers of the Galaxy being to fire the Superweapons against the Flood.
The Covenant having become Mechanical “Gods” would continue to uphold the Mantle(which lacked a successor due to the fact that the Librarian didn’t value the Mantle when she declared Humanity her heirs) even as Humanity wipes out Organic Life to get rid of the Flood(not like Machine “Gods” would be harmed by the Superweapon going off).
High Prophet of Truth not knowing about the Halos’ Composers nor of what the term Reclaimer meant brought about the downfall of the Covenant.
He was duped into thinking his Religion was a lie when in truth the promise of “Godhood” was true while his assumptions that some Forerunners stayed despite Myths saying otherwise were ignorantly focused on Humans(who weren’t Forerunners) and not on the Didact the actual Prisoner denied Composition(due to immunity naturally).
The Iso Didact’s last message to the Librarian spoke of the Great Journey(which was undertaken by the Iso Didact and the Lifeworkers) and the Forerunner Leaders(the Judicials and Builders) got Composed into Monitors ruling over Halos(with only one Human given the honor of running a Halo: Guilty Spark) with the Supreme Leader of the Forerunners himself being turned into the Monitor of the Ark itself.
By definition all evidence existing(even if undiscovered) during the Covenant Era(though obviously not in the Novels which prove otherwise) indicates that the Myths of the Covenants(Rings ascending Forerunners into Apotheosis, the Forerunners going on a Great Journey after the Apotheosis and the Mantle belonging to the Covenant) and Promises of the Prophets(of Apotheosis) are true aside from the Didact(who dared ascend Humans into Apotheosis) being imprisoned.
That’s a very interesting point about the Covenant Empire. That the Prophets/San’Shyuum might have been right about the Great Journey and most of their religion (of course their approach and their literal demonization of humanity was wrong). Not to mention the Flood are devolved and mutated Forerunners. If I recall, in the first three games, they were introduced as villains in a criticism of religious extremism.
Apart from your excellent analysis of the Covenant, my point wasn’t about whether or not the religions have an obvious church/Christianity/angel feel… my point was that having religious characters be/become villains through fanaticism is an overused story trope. I didn’t specifically mean any single religion (Christianity isn’t the only one targeted, though it is the one most often singled out/targeted these days).
The Flood are Precursors not Forerunners.
The Precursors apparently tried to cull the Forerunners once they dictated they were unworthy of what the Precursors deemed the Mantle(in the Precursors’ case it was the role taken by the Lifeworkers not the rest of the Covenant whose Mantle was to serve as Guardians of the Galaxy).
The Fungus-like Precursors became the Flood(seeking revenge for the beatdown delivered to them as well as the theft of their role of constant overseeing evolution to see which race would go all Nurgle like them and thus take on their role as the new Nurgle) while the Plant-like Precursors(mentioned in a recent Halo Novel) were found by the Librarian, got Mindwiped and planted on some Planet.
So the Void is no different from the Naaru in which case.
Can we get some group of Villains who are Card Carrying Villains for once? Cults and their rantings of the Greater Good are overdone!
The Naaru have done it, the Scarlet Crusade have done it, the Legion has done it, the Void has done it, the Scourge have done it, the Mawsworn have done it and I’m sure Denathrius & his followers have done it and that is just WoW’s examples.
I’ve also had to put up with a lot of Villains ranting about the magnificence of Darkness from Kingdom Heart’s Xehanort, Zelda Skyward Sword’s Villains, Sailor Moon’s Villains and quite a few Yu-Gi-Oh! Villains.
Villains who lack the pretense of Goodness or the mad obsession of Darkness are far more interesting to say the least.
I would prefer a Villainess who is a Cutesy Girl with Fruits and Melons growing on her Emerald Green Hair as well as Emerald Green Vines on her Body that casually seeks to choke the life out of all Living Things simply for the sake of Evil Card Carrying Villainy over some random Cultist or Fanatic of the Greater Good!
The opposition to this Force of Elemental Life Energy that embodies the Concept(though obviously not Elemental Energy) of Death(to the point where Death the Grim Reaper likes her)?
An Force of Elemental Death Energy that embodies the Concept of Life naturally(who is also opposed to the Omnicidal Grim Reaper Death who should be offended by Death Energy since anything gaining life from Death’s reaping of lives should be a personal insult to someone who seeks Oblivion for Oblivion’s sake like Death does).
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I’m not misrepresenting you and invite you to explain yourself. And you’ve explained quite a bit.
You’ve claimed that the majority of people are conspiring to upvote me purely out of dislike of you or only disagree with you because they hate Xe’ra, Yrel, Turalyon and the Light…
You criticize things that exist via retcon, but not when it benefits your idea of the Light as a (often uniquely) universally benevolent force. If you hate retcons so much on principle, surely criticize the existence of Naruu, Drenei, the existence of the Army of the Light, Turalyon traveling the cosmos for 1000 years, and other massive changes to the lore of the Light, all of which have been huge retcons.
You’ve stated that your criticisms of a Light Crusade come from your personal beliefs about how your religion and blind obedience to authority- which you see Xe’ra and the Light as an extension of- should be reflected in the story.
If someone using your own language/reasoning is to argue without facts or understanding, then you’re admitting your own arguments are lacking in terms of facts or understanding. Because you’re definitely not providing any sources despite constantly demanding them from me- despite later admitting you knew the evidence supporting my argument existed- and ignoring it anyway.
You’ve made many incorrect arguments based on your misunderstanding of or how to properly apply terms like “conviction”, “antipathy”, “brotherhood”, or the concept behind Yin and Yang. You’re doing the same thing by being wrong about “righteous anger”, as it is often very much a short term high that manipulators regularly use to exploit and motivate uncritical audiences.
You’ve stated that you will not change your mind on this matter.
I’m not misrepresenting you. On the contrary, I’m letting everyone get a clear look at exactly how and why you do what you do. In your own words, no less.
The void was not retconned into an evil beyond the Legion. Quite the opposite. In the titular expansion, the Void is explicitly presented as a force that can help the Army of the Light defeat the Legion. Shadow Priests and Void Elves wildering the Void are another example. Alleria’s interaction with the Locus Walker also explicitly stated that neither the Void nor the Light are as wholly good/bad as either makes the other out to be. This and other events certainly leave the possibility open for more Void based threats and mmore Void allies and plenty of narrative ground for Light based threats and allies as well.
A Light Crusade, for which the foundations already exist, would rely on fewer retcons and would have better writing than introducing the Naruu out of nowhere- which completely redefined how the Light and Elune’s relationships and the Blood Elves’ Sunwell worked in the lore. It would require less retcons than introducing the Draenei out of nowhere which required them to change the history of the preexisting Draenei, the and the history of the Eradar, the history of the Legion. And then, in Legion, Turalyon showing up as the leader of an until now unheard of army radically changed how he was supposed to have been on Draenor with Khadgar when he closed the portals decades ago. Say what you want about Illidan, he was not as big a retcon and the scene between Illidan and Xe’ra is probably one of the most memorable and well regarded moments to have happened in the Legion story.
The reason why combining a Light Crusade expansion with the Alliance internal conflict expansion is a better idea than doing both of them is because the matters are interrelated and it allows us to explore the Alliance from multiple angles while it has center stage. The elements for both already exist, so the alternative to not combining them would be doing a Light Crusade expansion and an Alliance civil war expansion.
I’m glad you agree that moral grayness isn’t restricted to teenagers and edgelords, but you still fail to recognize that it’s more appealing to the overwhelming majority of adults too. You also fail to recognize how even when there are failed executions, the vast majority of the most celebrated narratives of theater, videogames, television, cinema, and novels have included elements of moral complexity and the nuances of the human experience in some way.
You also refuse to admit or acknowledge that black and white thinking and blind obedience to authority (not nuance and suspicion of authority) is even more often utilized by people pushing a dangerous political/religious agenda. You fail to realize that it’s not necessarily better or the fact that when it’s done poorly, it can be even more harmful than badly done morally gray because it makes even less effort to consider the complexities of the human experience, interrogate it’s all biases, or promote empathy people we may disagree with.
Calia has not been crowned queen.She’s already acting as their leader, though. Lilian has already stated she has no desire to be leader, and it was Calia who represented the Forsaken arm of the Horde in Icecrown at the beginning of Shadowlands. Calia is a more prominent character than Lilian at this point. Velen is not skeptical of the Light. He is skeptical of Xe’ra. I think they will continue to have him be skeptical and have him, along with Anduin, fight the more extremist elements of the Light alongside the main player characters. I definitely do not think he will stop wielding the Light and become a member of some other class. And then there’s Anduin. Don’t tell me you’re genuinely afraid that Blizzard is going to throw Priest King of Stormwind under the bus and not have him give us all a lecture about the right ways to wield the Light at some point.
And again, Turalyon never argues with Xe’ra. He begged for mercy on Alleria’s behalf and then ended up going right along with the Xe’ra edict anyway. That’s not arguing. And yes, I (and Blizzard) are using Alleria as an appeal to fans’ emotions. Good writing and stories utilize appeals to emotion and the audience’s bonds to a character to keep us invested in their stories and its consequences. You said you want good writing. A story based entirely around air-tight logical plot advancement and a lesser emphasis on characterization or themes or emotion or exploring ideas in nuance makes for even worse writing.
It is indeed sloppy that Blizzard was forced to cut Warlords short, fail to expand upon Yrel’s dark secrets or the consequences of Grom leaving the Iron Horde and its subsequent defeat. Here’s hoping that they do the not sloppy thing by actually doing a Light Crusade expansion and as part of the backstory, give us a play by play about how Grom actually atoned, how he and Yrel became friends, out and how Xe’ra showed up and turned Yrel and the Lightbound against everyone. Just throwing it all out, which would be an even bigger and sloppier retcon that leaves even more questions unanswered…
Also, why are you asking me if we see Mag’har getting Lightbound to if know they’re actually getting Lightbound- something that you should know the answer to if you’ve actually seen the scenario? This is like how you demanded a citation regarding the existence of the Mag’har language, only to admit you already knew what I was talking about. So before I go through the effort of explaining, just like then, I want you to first admit you don’t know what I’m talking about. Despite having seen the scenario.
And if you haven’t seen it yet, you really need to do that so I don’t have to keep answering all these questions based on things you should already know.
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The short answer to your question is: more than you seem to think.
Your question is also a bad one. If religious characters villainized simply for having a religion, that would indeed be condemning a religion in general.
But having religious characters being bad because they are prone to doing extreme and harmful things in uncritical pursuit of their faith’s teachings or under the manipulations of someone else is showing that fanaticism leading to disregard others and even the original tenets of the faith is the enemy, not (a) religion itself. And that’s true even of non-religious characters who are fanatical in their beliefs.
WoW has plenty of characters who are very strong in their faith. Best example would be Anduin. I don’t think anyone else hews as closely to the tenets of their faith as he does. But his intense devotion does not see him being villainized. Quite the opposite. He’s pretty much the moral pillar of the main cast.
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But if you are indeed looking for examples of religious characters that are villains for reasons other than being fanatical- just look at any story where villains express their religious beliefs at some point, just a couple well known examples…
Shawshank Redemption- the corrupt prison warden was religious and often invoked his faith, but he wasn’t a villain because of it. He was a villain because he was corrupt and greedy and petty. That meets your criteria.
The Godfather parts 1 and 2- Lots of practicing Catholics, but none of them are portrayed villainous because of they take their faith too far. Really, just about any gangster film meets your criteria.
Pulp Fiction.- Jules (a hitman) is definitely initially villainous and even “quotes scripture” before executing every hit- although he later admits he just does it to sound cool and not because he’s motivated to kill by his faith. He is shown to uphold other religious practices though, and when he does actually decide to uphold his faith in a serious manner, it leads to a realization that he’s been the villain this whole time. So he peacefully resolve a robbery without the use of violence and gives up his work as a hitman entirely. That definitely meets your criteria, as him taking religion seriously is what ultimately SAVES him from being killed like his partner.
Someone else mentioned Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, and indeed, it wasn’t Frollo’s faith that made him a villain. He was just a jerk of a judge/official who decided if he couldn’t have Esmerelda that nobody could. In fact, they made him a Judge in this version, whereas in various previous versions, he had been a priest. All the actual priests and members of the Clergy in the film are depicted as compassionate and nice and the one really good thing Frollo does out of his strong faith is not kill Quasimodo.
There’s so many examples of religious characters who are villains for reason unrelated to their religion that it’s got a webpage with it’s own list of examples. On a site that collects tropes and cliches.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChurchgoingVillain
You know what’s even more overused and cliche, though? Having the one religion with “Priests” and “Paladins” and “Churches” and constant references to the “Light” be the one good one and having all the other religions be relatively more bad/wrong/less important in some way.
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I know about those characters you listed, @Tammy , such as the Corleone crime family from The Godfather films and Jules. The existence of characters characters like those doesn’t change the fact that having religious character be/become villains because of their religious beliefs has become an overused trope.
That includes, but is not limited to, characters villainized for simply being religious. Plus, people from the Churchgoing Villain trope can also be used that way, and I have more examples than the ones I listed.
And we both know that just as there are religious characters that are villainous without their religion being to blame, we also know even more examples of characters whose non-villainous/heroic status is chalked up to their religiousness. Characters portrayed as non-villains or heroes due of their religion is an even more overused trope.
And when you include characters that are non-villainous or heroic and just happen to be religious, the number absolutely skyrockets. And I’ve got more examples than you do.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodShepherd
To me, the Illidan and Xe’ra cinematic seemed straight out of an Illidan fanfic from the crusty underbelly of r/atheism. Plus, even some Illidan fans admit he’s a fedora-tipping edgelord.
Again, you go with the personal attacks, strawman arguments and lies. Stop it. Where did I supposedly say the majority of people disagreed out of dislike for me? Claiming I’m arguing for blind obedience to authority is a strawman. And what are the arguments I supposedly avoided?
I criticize the story arc for several reasons, predominantly and including relying on retcons and bad writing. I agree that how the Naaru were introduced into the story, WoD, the Mag’har recruitment scenario and the huge retcons to the Draenei plus how the Army of the Light were added is bad writing. But those are the only major changes to the Light apart from hitting the Light with the edgy bat to give it a bad side. By the way, what sources would you consider acceptable sources?
Also, why single out the Alliance for this holy terror stuff? There’s Light worshippers among the Horde too and beyond. I asked about the Mag’har scenario to show how wrong you were about claiming that we see it happen, when at most we get a one sided account from the dubious character Geya’rah.
The Void was retconned into an evil beyond the Legion… and retconned again to supposedly have a good side (despite its leaders trying to make a Void Titan to unmake the universe). But there is such a thing as two evil forces opposing each other (see the “Evil vs Evil” and “A Lighter Shade of Black” tropes); remember, the Burning Legion opposed the Old Gods.
If Calia leads the Forsaken, why is Lilian Voss on the Horde Council representing their interests instead of Calia? It was a dev (Danuser iirc) who said Velen’s skeptical of the Light; not Xe’ra, the Light. Xe’ra’s verdict on Alleria changed after Turalyon and Lothraxion appealed to her according even to Wowpedia; any claim otherwise at this point is just theorycrafting or headcanon.
Citation needed on how popular moral greyness and edgy content is. And it needs nuance, fairness and accuracy to be done well, not simply whitewashing evil and blackening good. Memorable doesn’t equal good, and well-regarded depends who you ask. Appeals to emotion aren’t facts and can break suspension of disbelief.
Illidan is indeed an edgelord. And Xe’ra’s a holier than though extremist who likes to manipulate people so she can try and violate people’s bodily autonomy and promotes genocide. They can both be bad. That you compare the dialogue to " crusty underbelly of r/atheism," and not from the writers of the most critically/commercially successful WoW expansion in nearly a decade shows a clear personal disdain.
I’m not lying about anything.
Did you not claim that the majority of people who had liked my post were conspiring to upvote me purely out of spite for you? Did you not later claim that you were suspicious of the motivations of the 20 something people who upvoted another one of my posts?
Did you not criticize things that exist via retcon? Are you okay with retcons that do not benefits your idea of the Light as a (often uniquely) universally benevolent force? Do you hate retcons so much on principle, and criticize the existence of Naruu, Drenei, the existence of the Army of the Light, Turalyon traveling the cosmos for 1000 years, and other massive changes to the lore of the Light, all of which have been huge retcons?
Have you not expressed beliefs regarding how you don’t think people show enough respect for authority and religion - and how you dislike seeing this reflected in how Blizzard handles Xe’ra and the Light?
Did you not challenge the legitimacy with my use of terms like “conviction”, and “brotherhood”, only to admit they were legitimate? Did you not misunderstand that “antipathy” is not the opposite of conviction or that “brotherhoods” can often contain women members? Did you not claim to understand the concept of Yin and Yang , yet still try to argue that it means the two forces must be of equal power?
Did you not try argue that “righteous anger” is not a short term high?
Did you not state that you will not change your mind on this matter?
Those are things you’ve done in this thread. They are not strawmen. You actually did it. They’re not personal attacks. They’re facts about things you’ve posted.
You never acknowledged that the Scarlets in general and the Scarlet Crusaders in particular are gone. You had nothing to respond to the fact that they still exist. Why?
You never acknowledged that the Titans did not make Gnomes, Vrykul, or Humans- that they made unliving constructs and that the Old Gods shaped transformed with the void just like they shaped the unliving matter of the worlds Titans order to create the Aqir, which you argue are void entities. Why?
You never acknowledged the on-villainous Aqir we meet in Northrend. Why not?
You never explained why you continued to argue against my legitimate usage of several terms, only to turn around and then admit they were legitimate. Why not?
You never acknowledge that Xe’ra, Yrel and the Lightbound forces are engaging in genocide and forced conversion of Mag’har Orcs. Why not?
You never acknowledge that Illidan meets all the criteria you put forth for what constitutes “The Man”. Simply repeated how you don’t like him.
You never explained why you keep trying to argue how things are better/worse based on relative popularity one moment, only to dismiss the idea of popularity being a reflection of what’s better/worse.
You never acknowledged that while ISIS does not pose an existential threat in the form of being able to install regimes in countries such as France or Russia, that it still active, it’s activities have been expanding and that it still being actively resisted by several world powers.
You never acknowledged just how much the Light has changed since it was first introduced into the Warcraft franchise.
You have not acknowledged that the majority of people who are capable of enjoying stories that critique extremism and blind obedience to authority are adults. And you keep constantly suggesting that the prime target are "edgy’ or “teenagers”.
You never explained what edgy aspects of the Death Knights you enjoy.
You don’t acknowledge the literal brainwashing techniques employed by Xe’ra.
And you never explained exactly how many threads you actually made about this topic on these forums in the past 9 or so months. Are you unable to count them?
Do I need to go back to quoting everything you say so that you can’t run away from your own words in your own thread? Or should just repost the post you ignored all so you could start making the same bad arguments again?
If you want to provide acceptable sources; game content, official published material, and commentary from the developers themselves count. If you take everything on WoWpedia as gospel in and of itself without checking their sources, then I’ve got a whole bunch of BS to sell you on. I’ll elaborate later.
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In addition to the introduction of the Naruu, Draenei The introduction of the Church of the Light in Warcraft 3- as it didn’t exist in Warcraft 1 or 2 is an even bigger change. By comparison, Xe’ra and Yrel and the Mag’har scenario doesn’t fundamentally change anything about the cosmology or lore. It’s just new story drawing off of stuff we already know.
The Alliance is not being singled out for “Holy Terror” either. WoW has featured extremist cultists, druids, voodoo practioners for a while now. And on the flip side, we’ve seen the the Light and Alliance get plenty of high profile heroic characters, of which Anduin remains the posterboy.
The Void was not retconned into being an evil beyond the Legion ever. It was retconned into being Sargeras’ personal obsession, but he obviously went further than any Titan would. Although that too was a retcon, as originally, Sargeras was consumed with fighting the demons and merely became corrupted by them. And before that, he was just supposed to be a really big and bad demon, as the Titans themselves didn’t exist and had to be retconned into the franchise later.
Lilian Voss is on the council because she said she’ll sit there until someone replaces her, because she doesn’t want the job.
I’m not familiar with the claim Danuser made wherein Velen’s supposed to be skeptical of the Light. I’ve tried to find it via Google with no luck. Care to share it?
WoWpedia is often itself theorycrafting and headcanon-unless it’s presenting actual in game content, quoting published material or a developer. For example, WoWpedia’s claim that Turalyon and Lothraxian’s arguments swayed Xer’as mind cite the Lightmother Quest as their source. And no such thing happens in thaat quest.
Here’s the WoWpedia article: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Xe%27ra#cite_ref-Mother_1-0
And here’s the quest they cite: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Light_Mother
The actual scene went down in a Thousand Year war.
https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/template_resource/U5IQKY6K35271505861653212.pdf
Page 43.
Turalyon begged for mercy and never actually knew what Xe’ra was going to do and definitely didn’t tell her what or what not to do. Xe’ra gave her verdict. Turalyon went aa long with it. Begging for mercy and then going along with their verdict isn’t resistance or changing someone’s mind.
This is why proper citation is important.
“Citation” for the popularity of morally gray and edgy content would be the fact that Legion, the expansion you decry for being so edgy and introducing Xe’ra as a villain, and had us working with all kinds of shady former enemies was the most commercially/critically successful WoW expansion since Wrath of the Lich King and Burning Crusade, one of which was about a fallen Paladin and hist Death Knights and the other, which featured Illidan and evil naruu. Both Illidan and Arthas were also major players in the WCIII game, which also gave us Scourge as a playable faction. And the Horde and Alliance finally work together against extremists in their own factions. It was the most critically/commercially successful of the 3 Warcraft RTS as well.
Appeals to emotion are not facts, but they don’t break suspension of disbelief in a story either. They get people invested in a story and impact them, which is what good writing does. Writing that is little more than factual accounts of events without the context of emotion doesn’t make a story better.
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The existence of heroic religious characters characters who are heroic despite or because of their faith still doesn’t disprove religiously-motivated villains has become cliché.
Funny that you say you have more examples than me… when you only cited 4 franchises while I cited 10 franchises. Also, if we’re going by number of characters in each franchise, the Yuuzvhan Vong characters alone outnumber the characters you cited. We both have more examples to share, but still…
P.S. I’ll answer your latest comment too, but first I’m tracking down the interview where the dev/(possibly) Danuser said Velen got skeptical of the Light.
Tammy, do yourself a favor and stop giving him attention. You are too intellegent for him and he’s just a bottom feeding troll.
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Is the best idea EVER. It is all that we need right now.
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