I don’t know how anyone can say Long as the good religious folks force themselves on others, than it’s glorious can be serious about it or say it with a straight face. 
And he wonders why practically no one agrees with him
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Yeah call him out on it. We don’t need that BS on the forums. Realigious zealots are a plague.
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Sounds like you’d hate “Illidan, Champion of the Light” even if it he willingly and gladly embraced Lightforing and that mantle with both hands.
I blamed Illidan for his actions, not his power level; him being able to one shot Xe’ra was just bad writing. I hadn’t considered that Illidan could’ve killed Xe’ra by accident, interesting point. She was supposed to be a Prime Naaru, inferring something more than regular Naaru, that is one of my complaints about that whole cinematic (which tends to get lost under people making strawmen out of my arguments).
One of the options I gave was Illidan could’ve used actual arguments instead of one-liners. Talk Xe’ra out of her course like Turalyon and Lothraxion did over Alleria. But Illidumb couldn’t make a reasonable argument and just had to stick to silly one-liners; edgelords gotta edgelord! “Nothing personal, kid” eh?
I like how you keep trying to strawman me as someone supporting forced conversion.
I’m not the one who made the sex parallels, and it’s funny that you you lie about me like this when saying out the other side of your mouth that you consider me a friend, Renautus.
While you make a good point, it wouldn’t make sense because Turalyon has been getting more moderate and tolerant as the story progresses - him relenting at his meeting with Faol, his respect for Liadrin and Faol and Velen being voices of reason and moderation. Him becoming a Light fanatic at this point would be like when Daenerys destroyed King’s Landing.
Most people here already say Xe’ra had no moral high ground and are glad Illidan killed her, what difference would that line really make? I think it would’ve been a good wake up call to remind Illidan he doesn’t know everything by having someone throw his words back in his face (P.S. “Illidan knows the way” my eye). And also, pun intended, taken the edge off that cinematic a bit.
Says the person who sounds like a Horde zealot. You’ve made more “Horde suffering bad, Alliance suffering good” threads than I have threads mentioning the Light… and that’s saying something.
Not being a zealot myself, I agree… and also point out militant atheists - the atheistic equivalent of religious zealots - are just as much of a plague.
You keep making a baseless assumption about my likes and dislikes.
It’s kinda wierd of you.
And as Xe’ra showed, she didn’t care about arguments. She did what she wanted to do to Illidan, no discussion.
Interestingly, it seems that everyone else is burdened with the task of keeping Xe’ra from making hasty judgments that endanger others. And you are fine with that. You’re fine with the idea that everyone else must show some degree of responsibility but Xe’ra gets a pass for being the one to actually make these hasty judgments. The burden of the holy creature’s choices fall not on the holy creature, but on those around it.
Interesting logic here. I’ll avoid going deeper into this, because you’ll definitely think it’s a personal attack.
Well, it’s because you do keep defending it. Hardly a strawman when you’ve time and again placed the burden of diffusing the situation on the clear victim, including the outright suggestion that he could have just let Xe’ra have her way with him and that would’ve been one of only two ways to peacefully end the situation (with the other, of course, still placing all fault on Illidan for not talking it out with the windchime who clearly didn’t care about talking it out).
It’s not a strawman when you time after time prove the legitimacy of it.
If you actually do oppose forced conversion, why do you continually blame Illidan for a situation he not only didn’t instigate, but make clear what his feelings were? Why do you keep giving a pass to Xe’ra, the one trying to forcefully convert someone, by placing all the blame on Illidan? Why is one of the, by your present arguments, only two ways to safely diffuse the situation require Illidan to just give in and let Xe’ra have her way? Why do both of those “only two” ways involve Illidan being the rational one, but Xe’ra can keep doing what she do? Why keep making snarky insults directed at Illidan while defending the character of the violating windchime?
No, it’s not a strawman. It’s the point of view you keep defending, the side you’ve clearly labelled as your own. If you oppose forced conversion, then what is it about this specific forced conversion that you’re clearly okay with and the only wrong-doer is the victim for not debating the merits of his free will while that free will was already being violated as he was being restrained (pretty weird that you keep ignoring all of that), or at least standing there and taking it because Xe’ra really wanted to do it?
If you oppose violation, why keep defending the violator and demeaning their victim?
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I’ve brought up on multiple occasions that it seems like you have no respect for consent.
That’s horrifying. I gave you the benefit of the doubt for so long. I’m glad I trusted my instincts.
You side with any quasi religious figure violating the rights of another person or persons. This goes beyond faith into religious violence.
You are advacating for religious violence and you justify it in fiction. I can only assume you also justify and advocate for it irl unless you prove me wrong.
I don’t think friendship is about enabling toxic behavior. I’ll tell you when you’re being toxic.
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Saying it “sounds like” to someone playing coy and avoiding a question is not an assumption.
Xe’ra cared about Turalyon and Lothraxion’s arguments against her. We don’t know how she would’ve responded to Illidan’s arguments because he didn’t make any, just gave contrarian one-liners;
- “I gave up that destiny long ago.”
- “I’ve given my freedom for power before.” (me: yeah, right (!) )
- “It’s not yours to take.”
- “I am my scars.”
- “My destiny is my own.”
That’s everything he said to Xe’ra in the cinematic. Not even “whens”, “wheres” or “whys”.
So Xe’ra made two hasty judgements in over 25,000 years (gasp!), she’s a loose cannon lol. I agreed with Turalyon and Lothraxion calling her out.
I’ve said more than once that Xe’ra shouldn’t have forced it on him. If Illidan had rejected it without killing her, I would’ve had almost no complaints (almost none; his dialogue in Patch 7.3 was still gratingly edgelord).
If Illidan had freely agreed to be Lightforged, what would be wrong with him getting Lightforged? That’s the point I was making.
I blame Illidan for excessive force in self-defense and not making a clear argument, as much as I blame her for forcing Lightforging on him.
Ergo, your arguments against mine are wordy strawmen.
I’d tell you how you’re wrong, but I think you wouldn’t believe me and twist that into yet another defamatory personal attack. The fact that you’ve stopped making arguments and just resorted to baseless, malicious accusations shows how weak your position is.
Irony. Gotta love it.
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“Playing coy”? I’ve outright said I won’t answer your question because it’s irrelevant. There’s nothing “coy” about a simple and straight answer.
Right. He just said no. He repeatedly said no. And Xe’ra didn’t care about no.
She made two we are aware of. In the second case though, it’s hardly hasty. It was her plan since 7.0 and culminated in 7.3. Making a plan, waiting for your moment, then carrying out that plan isn’t hasty.
And yet, you keep placing the onus of diffusing the situation on Illidan, not Xe’ra. Rather, you keep defending her. You keep absolving her.
Except that is provably untrue. Scrolling through this discussion shows a clear pattern to your argument: " Xe’ra was a little hasty, maybe, but really the problem is Illidan."
I’ve repeatedly questioned why you absolve Xe’ra for her violation. You have repeatedly gone off on Illidan. This is historical fact, easily proven and seen.
Calling facts a strawman just calls into question your honesty.
You repeatedly defend the attacker by placing heavier blame on the victim. Even when you acknowledge the attacker was wrong, you place the burden of peacefully resolving the situation on the victim, not the violator. You’ve actually used the argument of “he could have just consented” to defend the lack of consent. Any arguments about what Xe’racould have done differently have gone unaddressed by you, if not outright ignored.
All I can conclude is you either have a serious issue understanding consent at all, or you’ve conflated your IRL religious beliefs with a video game religion and feel that attacking the latter attacks the former, therefore those attacks on the latter must be gaslit, waved off, twisted or diminished to defend the former.
Given how you have also brought every atheist hating a video game religion as a counter to allegations of just your own personal biases, the second possibility seems increasingly likely.
But I’ll let you tell me which, if either, it is.
Don’t be coy.
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You know Legion had good writing when people are debating merits of individual character actions.
Each character acted based on their own morality or what they thought was necessary.
Just my 2 cents on following this discussion.
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Why do you think the question is irrelevant? What’s the harm in answering it?
Refusal doesn’t equal argument or explanation.
The plan was Lightforging Illidan, forcing it on him was a spur-of-the-moment bad choice on her part.
In what world is saying “Xe’ra shouldn’t have done that” absolving her?
What is provably true is you’re making some strawman arguments against me. For one, when did I supposedly absolve Xe’ra of all blame?
I brought up the hypothetical example of atheists hating video game religions as a response to show how mean-spirited your passive-aggressive potshot at Christians was; doesn’t matter whether you’re an atheist or not, but apparently you can’t take a taste of something even similar to your own medicine lol
What irony?
We do not expect he same thing.
I don’t expect every human/panda in Demon Slayer, Star Wars, Parks and Rec or KKung Fu Panda to be good or bad (flawed or not) just because they’re a human/panda. But you seem to expect all naruu, even the ones who consistently do bad bad things like Xe’ra, to be treated as good just because they’re naruu.
You don’t just expect it. You accuse Blizzard and others of being fans of bad writers because they don’t subscribe to your essentialist ideas and create regular threads trying to argue this thing or that is (or should be) essentially good/bad by dint of what it is rather than what it’s actually done.
You not only try to deny/decry Xe’ra’s villainous portrayal, but you try to deny and then downplay her part in the Mag’har genocide and want to turn her from a villainous extremist into a misguided invidual who never actually did anything wrong. Because the people she was geociding deserved it. Even the ones who didn’t personally do anything.
That’s why your Light vs Shadow expansion requires a bunch of retcons in the form of dropping established plot points and bringing characters back from the dead- things you tried to criticize Blizzard for. It recycles a bunch of cliches- like having us fight another Old God, which we’ve done over half a dozen times now. And another example of a Church official corrupt because of Void/Fel influence. All to fit your essentialist views and ultimately blame it on someone other than the Light so they don’t have to responsibility for her actions or admit the Light is flawed in its tendency towards extremism. Something that’d actually give it a flaw like all other cosmic powers. Retconning the Light’s stated/illustrated flaw and whitewashing it.
Although I’m not quite sure if you realize what exactly you’re even asking for.
For example, you compare Yrel to Illidan and Sylvanas and want her to get the same treatment they did. Sure. I’m down for that. But remember that both Illidan and Sylvanas were villains for quite a while before getting their redemption arcs. For Yrel to be more like them, she’ll have to commit some more atrocities, betray some people, spend the majority of an expansion as the villain, be a raid boss, and only then does she get her redemption where the ultimate reason for their wrong doing was laid at the feet of a cosmic power that had granted them their powers in the first place: the Fel wielding Legion as led by Sargeras. The death magic wielding Maw forces as lead by the Jailer. For Yrel, that’d be the Light wielding Army of the Light as led by Xe’ra.
Also, I never argued Velen becoming an apostate was the same as Turalyon being villain-batted. You suggested that Blizzard would make Velen lose his faith as part of your mistaken belief they want to attack religion and “the man”. All because you heard a dev once describe Velen as not having blind faith and felt that meant that Blizzard wants to rhetorically beat up on people Police officers and Christian clergymen for some reason.
I already linked examples of Shadow Priests within the Scarlet Crusade. Did you already forget about them? So no, that’s not a difference between the two. There is no segregation between gameplay and story that exists for the Crusade that doesn’t exist for the Onslaught. Afterall, even though a member of the Onslaught claims they’re not members of the Crusade in text, they’re functionally the same as the Crusade in every other way, even down to uniform, ideology, and other elements. And we hear that there still exist elements of the Crusade.
Similarly, you can’t find any actual in game instances or developer commentary that contradicts the in game stated accounts/events of the genocide. All you can do is complain that you don’t trust Grey’ah and want Blizzard to retcon the story so that there’s a “legitimate” reason why they should be getting genocided so that you can whitewash the actions of Xe’ra and her Lightbound.
…
You’re making a hypothetical argument about how the authorities should be justified in locking up your loved ones in a way you’d support. Not exactly presenting yourself as particularly averse to blind obedience.
But even then, your comparison falls flat.
The Locus Walker was not the avowed enemy of the Army of the Light during its fight with the Legion. The Locus Walker is actually a potential ally and reached out as an ally. Alleria broke no just laws associating with him because Xe’ra says it’s her own personal policy not to associate with anything Void related, not Alleria’s. She unjustly punished Alleria based on her own bad essentialist thinking.
And no, I don’t need authorities to be able to tell right from wrong and hold my family members accountable for their wrongdoing. I hold them accountable independently of what authorities think. And when authorities try to jump in and punish them unjustly, better believe I’ll call them out too and try to help my family. Especially when they haven’t actually hurt anyone.
Which apparently is more than you and Turalyon are willing to do. You’re actually here trying to argue why Turalyon was correct in obeying Xe’ra while simultaneously arguing that he defied her.
…
Read the TV Tropes links provided again.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodShepherd
Badass Preacher appears in contrast to the Sinister Minister and the Good Shepard. Along with a whole host of other religious related tropes. Adding more examples of how religious characters are non-villainous isn’t moving the goal posts. It’s just showing that there’s even more examples of non-villainous religious characters than even initially presented.
You ask for all this evidence and citation and then turn right back around and ignore what’s in said sources.
The pendulum hasn’t swung back in the other direction. for that to happen, there’d need to be codes actually banning positive portrayals of the clergy. Not merely absence of a law banning negative ones. That’s why even after those codes were eventually dropped as something that was officially enforced, but the cultural tendency to treat certain religious individuals as non-villainous continues.
That’s why there’s so many more examples of non-villainous clergy in media and when we do find villainous portrayals, it’s the non-Christian coded ones that are more likely to get the villain treatment. As pointed out by others, the reason why the most widely practiced and systemically powerful religion in the country is considered fair game for criticism is precisely because of it’s centuries of privileged status. The codes came into existences precisely because of this long standing cultural taboo against criticizing clergy being applied to new forms of media.
If you’ve seen an uptick, it’s because people are recognizing less cliche tropes and are more willing to handle religion in general (and Christianity in particular) with nuance and more consideration for the complexities/vastness of the human experience.
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Because it has no bearing on the conversation. Whether I like the unrealized and never-planned-to-realize concept of “Lightforged Illidan” or not does not change Xe’ra’s actions and violation of consent.
There is no argument to be had. You asked a question about taste and preference. Those do not change facts.
No, it was not spur of the moment. It was the only plan. It was Plan A, the go-to. No other tactic was employed; Xe’ra went straight to excessive force to get what she wanted.
Every time you shifted the onus of defusing the situation to Illidan, which was every discussion on the topic. Even when you acknowledge wrong-doing on Xe’ra’s part, you have to shift to blaming Illidan.
Wow, jumping right to provable lies?
Your atheist comment was made well before I made any potshots at Christians. Point of fact, I also never made any, beyond acknowledging ajoke could be, but would not be, made.
So two lies there.
As for irony? Ironically, you’re the one claiming people are attacking you. I’ve continuously stated that your Christian bias may just be a matter of perspective. I’ve never attacked you or your faith. I have avoided doing either, in spite of your comments that I have, and in spite of your repeated snide comments, blatant lies, willfully pushing against my stated desire not to answer a question unrelated to the discussion, and actual personal attacks.
It is ironic the boy who cried wolf was the wolf in sheep’s clothing all along.
You clearly have no desire for discussion and must have realized your position was untenable. You’ve resorted to personal attacks when each of your arguments were broken down.
I’ll assume then that you have simply run out of ways to justify violation for holy causes.
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I chalk most of it up to the voice actor’s delivery.
“You are not prepared.” can be delivered a million ways and not illicit laughter, but the voice actor’s booming, “YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!” is practically meme worthy. Same with “I AM MY SCARS!”
Illidan is just a big ham and often infuses even the most mundane interactions with lots of emotion and gravitas.
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What we’re told, but not explicitly shown, is that between that time, Grom and Yrel became friends. How they became friends isn’t elaborated on. But she explicitly refers to him as an old friend and laments things have come to this. He didn’t just redeem himself in the eyes of the Mag’har at some point over 30 years, but also in hers.
So no, Yrel can’t be waging war on the Mag’har because she’s mad at their association with/acceptance of Grom. She has also associated with and accepted him prior to falling under Xe’ra’s influence.
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Gonna disagree. Illidan, from start to finish, is an absolute edgelord, whipped right out of a 90s comic book.
He ate demon power. He chases his brother’s girlfriend and pines over her for TEN THOUSAND YEARS!! He has edgeboi tats, went duel-wielding double bladed swords, got fancy demon wings, “fights evil with the power of evil”, and takes things so far to the extreme that he nearly broke a continent trying to kill a single dude.
Everything about him screams edgelord even louder than he screams about his scars and my prep. His voice actor is delivering the same Illidan we met in WCIII, the Illidan we grew to love/hate/cringe/all four in novels further expanding his character, and whom we finally defeated in Black Temple until his edginess was so badly needed after WoD that his own edgelord jailer frienemy broke his friends out to help rescue him.
Illidan is an edgelord. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It might even be his charm and appeal.
Sometimes you need an edgelord.
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I thought Illidan was channeling War from Darksiders not the Illidan from WC3 who had a different Voice Actor…
War was a better Edgelord than WC3 Illidan and BC Launch Illidan who committed all sorts of crimes against others!
Black Temple was released in Patch 2.1 and it was then that Illidan’s Voice Actor changed to become War’s Voice Actor… Upon which we don’t hear a word from him about pining over Tyrande(instead handing her over to Malfurion) or his rivalry with Malfurion…
It’s as if War straight up took over Illidan from 2.1 onward!
I wasn’t claiming they’re the same VA. I was more pointing at the Illidan we got in WCIII was just as much of an edgelord as the Illidan who growl-yelled out “I AM MY SCARS!!!”
Like, of course Illidan would say that as a massive proclamation of his identity. That’s exactly what the guy we met in WCIII would say, had the situation happened in that game. Because he was as edgy as can be back then.
I suspect you were afraid I’d use your contempt for the “Lightforged Illidan” concept as an excuse to dismiss your arguments like you you’re using my faith as an excuse to dismiss mine.
An explanation of reasons worked when Turalyon and Lothraxion tried it. But Illidan was too edgelord for that. Speaking of which;
Finally, something we agree on! (don’t fully agree with the part of your comment I left out).
There’s also the fact that Illidan nearly joined a world-destroying demon army because of cravings for magic, envy of his brother and his childhood crush rejected him (joined genocidal world-killers because his crush rejected him; the incel levels were over 9000).
I think the only uses for an edgelord in a story are pandering to edgelord fans, showing how unhealthy being an edgelord is in real-life, showing how people can rise above it and/or as a villain. I think people considering Illidan being an edgelord as part of his charm and appeal would prove my point (that one would consider being a toxic, violent contrarian charming or appealing).
I was telling the other side of the story by supposedly shifting the onus. Poor communication can kill (and did).
My comment about atheists and video games didn’t come after that potshot you made; mea culpa there. It did come up after you raised the topic here;
People have been attacking me on this before you joined this thread.
That potshot from you wasn’t simply saying it might be a matter of perspective, which was also a personal attack. You’ve lied about me with strawmen arguments. You’ve also been snide to me as well, so don’t play innocent about that. Funny wordplay with those wolf quotes, but the wolf in sheep’s clothing here isn’t me here.
You clearly have no desire to actually assess my arguments.
I’ll assume then that you have figured the best approach for you was being in denial or attacking a strawman and quote-mining.
So you are cherry picking and quote mining too. The irony is you do the exact same thing to other people as you accuse them of doing to you, then you deny it. That’s gaslighting.
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After fighting the Legion in two expansions, a faction war stretching out over 3 expansions and now the afterlife…
Less warcraft, more world. That’s what I want.
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