A better expansion idea than “Light Crusade”

Lore Story Forum
714

You can suspect all you want. It’s still creepy that you’ve been so insistent I answer something I’ve stated I have no desire to answer.

I’ve also not even once dismissed any of your arguments because of your faith. Rather, I’ve pointed out why others might see your faith as coloring your opinions. When I’ve dismissed your arguments, it was based on the distortion of facts you’ve used to make those arguments. And I wasn’t dismissing them either; I was pointing out the actual, factual events you were dismissing.

Was being immediately restrained by Xe’ra and having Xe’ra’s goo shoved into him against his will.

It’s also a bit creepy that you’ve gone out of your way to ignore all context involving these two situations, just to find some way to lay the burden of the blame on Illidan’s feet. Do you have some personal vendetta against the edgelord? Did he spend ten thousand years pining for your girlfriend too?

And yet I hadn’t. In spite of you accusing me of having attacked you.

It actually was just that. You can scroll back up and re-read it, so I’m not sure why you’re lying about this.

If that were true, I wouldn’t have actually assessed your arguments and debated their points with you.

Which I did. Until you stopped talking about your own arguments and went right to attempting to mud-sling.

Well, frankly, given the sheer number of false and baseless assumptions you’ve made about me thus far, this one comes as no surprise. Why stop lying now when you can just double down on the lies and make some false accusations that the scroll wheel on your mouse can prove as false, amirite?

You left out the part suggesting why people might like the character? Because you “don’t fully agree” that others might like him for his flaws?

This is where I’d normally ask if you really meant to say what you’ve just said, but I don’t think I have to in this case.

You’ve gone at length to show either a lack of understanding of the concept of consent, or a belief that consent is irrelevant when a holy person is involved.

You’ve gone at length to defend an attacker when their motivation is at least religion-adjacent.

You’ve conflated your own biases as equal to the combined hypothetical opinions of every single atheist (the egotism of that one was pretty bold).

You’ve blamed me for the actions of others in this same thread.

You’ve chosen to take offense at the mere suggestion that your personal views might be tainting your views of a fake video game quasi-religion and called that suggestion a “personal attack” and a “potshot”, dismissed all evidence that disproves your claims.

You’ve continued to push a question I’ve repeatedly stated I don’t wish to answer, going so far as to get insulting over my choice because it’s a choice you don’t like.

So the suggestion that other people might even have opinions and tastes different from your own is something you just disagree with? That tracks. That seems very on-brand for you, given the way you’ve chosen to present yourself thus far. Consent, choice, opinions? These are things you have shown you have no respect for, especially when they involve a fantasy religion. Because clearly you’ve equated fantasy characters believing in a fantasy force in a fantasy setting of a video game franchise as somehow the same as your real-world, actual human being beliefs. You’re actually being offensive to your own beliefs, and you don’t even see it.

Finally, you can call this post a personal attack. It’s a rebuttal to your attacks, an “eye for an eye” if you will, but it’s there. Your desperate desire to have me personally attack you can be claimed to have been met.

Mind you like everything else thus far you’ll have to remove all context, ignore the events that brought us here, pretend that attacking your attacker somehow lays a heavier burden on you than your attacker, and otherwise ignore reality in favor of a fantasy world…

But you’ve got a lot of experience doing all that, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.

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715

I didn’t like Sylvanas committing horrible crimes and claiming Jailor made her do it.

I doubt I would like Yrel doing horrible things and claiming the light made her do it. Is it so hard to expect characters assume responsibility for their actions?

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716

Uther states even with his soul broken he still was responsible for his actions as a Forsworn. As he seems to be the test-bed for the logic they are applying to her, she likely will be deemed guilty of her crimes as well.

It is really a matter of how they will go about it, and what her punishment—if any—will be.

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717

That’s not what OP is looking for. He wants Yrel to be in the right.

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718

Given her past with the Orcs then I would say she is justified in her actions.
And Orcs and the audience are justified to refuse that justification.

Even if we point towards the couple of decades of peace between the Draenei and Orcs we could argue Yrel at some point came to the conclusion that this wouldn’t work long term.
It all depends on how we write this story.

Anyway I am not really a fan of a universal right or wrong, I am in favor of proper consequences for actions. My days of arguing what the best consequence is over. I just think there should be one. Make of that what you will.

719

Oh, he’s got edgy “OC do not steal” energy no doubt. Warcraft 3, for all its good points, was a pretty darn edgy entry into the series. It brought us the Lich King and Sylvanas and playable Scourge, afterall. Even the Elves were edgier takes on how you usually see High/Forest elves in a lot of fantasy games. Interestingly, there was quite a bit of edge taken off the Horde races.

…
But the reasons why so many of Illidan’s lines are particularly notable and more likely to elicit reactions like memery/laughter/cringe/so-good-it’s-bad reactions is due in large part to the over the top delivery.

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720

Simultaneously insisting that characters face appropriate consequences but refusing to take a stand on what does/doesn’t count as appropriate consequences makes for a pretty untenable position.

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721

Alright, I think we’re in perfect agreement here.

722

If you don’t consider snark, passive-aggressive and snideness an attack, what do you consider an attack?

Why do you insist on only responding to a few sentences out of my entire comments? Please don’t ignore this question.

You have repeatedly said you think it sounds like my arguments all stem from associating the Light with real-world beliefs, and still repeated and clung to that idea like lint in a dryer even when I explained otherwise.

You haven’t even engaged with my entire previous comment here.

I find Illidan overrated and grating, I hope that answers those two snide questions. Speaking of creepy, I find you repeatedly associating Lightforging with sex creepy.

What “false and baseless assumptions” specifically do you think I made?

That reason some people might like the character is one I don’t share. So I responded with this;

Addressing the part I left out.

You’ve gone to great lengths to try and paint me as some consent-opposing zealot, even after I condemned Xe’ra’s forcing Lightforging on Illidan. So why are you still making a fuss about that? I said she was wrong to do it, doesn’t mean she deserved to die.

I compared your statement implying I oppose this due to associating the Light with my beliefs to if I made the hypothecial accusation that everyone who likes it is a religion-hating atheist (I’m not saying that’s the case, I’m speaking hypothetically, remember that if you decide to keep quote-mining me). In response you accused me of, quote “You’ve conflated your own biases as equal to the combined hypothetical opinions of every single atheist” when I did no such thing.

You accuse me of removing context after you repeatedly quote mine me, how rich!

Mind you, like most of this discussion, for your claims about me and my arguments to work, you’ll have to remove context, ignore large swathes of my comments, make strawman arguments against me, and otherwise ignore poorly handled retcons…

But you’ve got a lot of experience doing all that, though I hope you reconsider. What are you even hoping to accomplish in your comments to me?

I addressed the left out part with a written response. That part was;

To which I responded with;

Thus proving I wasn’t quote-mining. The fact that you quote-mined me to make this wrongful accusation shows, at best, your lack of self-awareness.

723

Its the position that Blizzard has pushed me towards. You should try it! I find it much healthier when dealing with this dumpster fire.
I used to get angry, sad… outraged even! Now? Just chuckle from me.

724

Good doesn’t equal flawless. Plus, why bother having the dichotomy of Naaru falling into a Void state if Light state Naaru can be villains too (I’m not sure if there was a reason the writers gave the Naaru a Void state initially… and if there was one, I fear it has probably been retconned out of existence by now or disappeared with the devs who left).

I accuse Blizzard of being bad writers because they indulge in subversion for the sake of subversion and ignore character development by swinging the villain bat with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop.

It might not even be AU Xe’ra in that situation with the Mag’har. It’s likely, but not confirmed yet. And remember, you can’t blame MU Xe’ra for AU Xe’ra’s actions.

You keep using the word essentialist. I don’t think it means what you think it means. I never said my idea was good, just better than yet another “extreme order bad” schtick. Besides, the Yogg-Saron sha is a plot thread so far left hanging, and that stated/illustrated flaw of the Light is itself a retcon.

I don’t want Yrel to get the same treatment as Illidan or Sylvanas, I’m criticizing the double standard that Illidan and Sylvanas get whitewashed while we’re expected to swallow Yrel’s villain-batting and ask for more. Sylvanas was only a flat-out villain from BfA to Patch 9.2. and she wasn’t really treated as a villain since Horde PCs were still at her beck and call until Patch 8.2.

You accused me of repeating the same arguments on numerous threads. I brought up the Velen thread and the Turalyon thread as part of my rebuttal. Do you realize there’s a difference between not being skeptical and having blind faith?

You keep claiming they’re functionally the same and try to downplay the words of the Onslaught’s founder as “text from a member”, so you ignore in-game content; the accusation you keep hurling at me. How can you say they’re the same ideology since, for one, they’ve abandoned the Scarlet Crusade’s raison d’être; reclaiming Lorderaen?

What would you do if there was an in-game instance or developer commentary contradicting that? Acknowleding the consequences of the Iron Horde is not a retcon, if anything, the Iron Horde was subject to retcons in a ham-fisted attempt to darken the Draenei and whitewash the Orcs.

I wasn’t talking about the Locus-Walker, I was talking about the Void itself. Why shouldn’t Xe’ra be able to make the rules on her own ship? Would you let a stranger into your house and let them invite whoever they want into your home, even if it’s specific people you tell them you don’t want there?

I asked about a hypothetical scenario where you family members were in the wrong. Would you criticize or attack the authorities for arresting them if they murdered or dealt drugs? You cherry-picking form my argument about criminal loved ones doesn’t exactly present you as someone who understands nuance.

Turalyon defied Xe’ra, I was just saying as wrongfully heavy-handed as she was with Alleria, Xe’ra calling her out had valid reasons; Xe’ra in that situation was a combination of the “Jerkass Has a Point” trope…

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JerkassHasAPoint

… and the “Strawman Has a Point” trope.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrawmanHasAPoint

Neither trope means the character is completely right, just that they have a valid argument (maybe even more valid than the author intended).

I’ve already read how there’s heroic and villainous examples of the Badass Preacher trope on that page, which addresses your claim about what’s said in those sources.

I said the pendulum swings too far the other way, not that it’s at the exact opposite point. Correct me if I’m wrong, some of your words sounds like there’s religious individuals you want to see portrayed as villains, yes?

There has been plenty of criticism of Christianity and the Church throughout the centuries, from Christians and non-Christians; Voltaire, Edward Gibbon (a devotee of Voltaire) and Marquis De Sade come to mind, and two of them are from one country. Perhaps it’s not as privileged as you think. Nuance is fine, but you do realize there’s a difference between nuance and demonization?

725

Using “you do x” statements are accusatory statements. These are attacking statements.

Using “I think x” “this is why I think x” are not accusatory statements.

Aylnsa has not once attacked you.

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726

:exploding_head:

It sucks when someone matches your energy right? Hint hint.

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727

Aylnsa has repeatedly made “you do x” statement against me, and veiled attacks are a thing, though I will reconsider giving Aylnsa the benefit of the doubt with a few of their earlier comments.

I think you have an inability to admit when you’re wrong, one example is how you didn’t acknowledge my explanation for how I wasn’t quote-mining Aylnsa. Then you quote-mine me again in your next comment;

This is why I think people make veiled attacks against me, and with so many inaccurate and/or passive-aggressive personal attacks against me from you… this is why I think you’re untrustworthy.

728

An attack.

You are aware that you do exactly this too, right? Why is it perfectly fine for you, but somehow questionable when I also use this very simple shorthand to avoid large quote blocks? Why can you snip a single sentence that sums up a paragraph and that’s fine, but it’s foul play when others do it?

Also, that is my answer.

Because even your “otherwise explanations” come across as a conflation of religion and fantasy. Again, you constantly shift blame from the holy figure to the one they’re attacking. Even when you acknowledge the wrong-doing of the holy figure, you go out of your way to explain why the person they instigated the attack on, the person they continued to attack, is somehow more wrong.

I did it once and immediately dropped it when you questioned it. Why lie about this? Are you that bothered by your actual creepy insistence that you need to create a means of accuser of acting the same way as you?

Scroll up, I already told you.

And immediately in the same paragraph went at length for how wrong Illidan was, and kept placing the onus of a peaceful resolution to the situation on the victim. I’m not the one portraying you as a consent-opposed zealot (interesting word YOU chose to use to describe yourself with here, and one I haven’t used to describe you at all); your arguments that diminish Xe’ra’s fault in favor of placing greater blame on Illidan is what portrays you as a consent-confused individual.

Here you are again, comparing your singular, personal alleged bias with the entirety of all atheists.

Ahahahahahaha, look up just a little bit to see you doing just that.

Or really, all I have to do is continue seeing the things you say, see them in the context you’re saying them, and point out how they come across. You could choose not to double down on them if you feel they don’t accurately represent you, but you don’t. You could offer to clarify why you keep blaming Illidan heavier than Xe’ra with something other than “rofl edgelord”. You could do dozens of things other than doubling down on the argument that “what Xe’ra did was wrong, sure, maybe, but did you HEAR what Illidaddy said??? SO CRINGE!!! Instead of saying no, why didn’t he just say no??? He didn’t need to kill Xe’ra, I’m sure she would have stopped if he just said no for the fifth time!!!”

And that’s not even touching the whole “both sides tho, we need to see the perspective of the religious forced conversion campaign, because they might have good reasons to force convert” bit.

You’re very uncreative. If you insist on trying to turn my words against me, the bare minimal effort you should exercise is to ensure it makes sense in context.

I mean, when did I poorly retcon anything in the lore, buddy? I’m not a dev. If I were, you’d know by the abrupt focus of every single story to focus on gorlocs and how they are the secret saviors of the universe.

I’ve been wondering that same thing.

Clearly you’re incapable of seeing things beyond a narrow perspective. Clearly your own allaged religious biases run so deep, you daren’t acknowledge they might exist. Clearly you’ll resort to poorly thought out lies to hopefully “win” an internet argument.

By your own definition of the term, you were. You’ve accused me of “quote mining” for leaving out unnecessary parts of a paragraph, when a sentence or two succulently sums up the point.

If that’s quote-mining, then you’re quote-mining.

I think you might want to better learn how these terms are used before using them.

Thadeus smells like old butts and his hygiene is atrocious.

Now he can correctly claim I’m attacking him.

Not as attacks. I’ve pointed out you do make statements that read a certain way. That isn’t an attack. If I say you walk in a straight line, that isn’t an attack. If I say you cannot spell ALYNSA, that is not an attack. POointing out something you have provably done isn’t an attack.

Don’t.

You’ve repeatedly lied about my comments. Your benefit of the doubt is meaningless until you can argue with a degree of honesty.

And before you ask, I’ve called you out each time you lied. If you want to know where, scroll up.

Ok, for really real now.

You realized what you’ve just said reads as “the reason I think people are attacking me is because they’re using the same energy I’m using”? You see that, right?

I’m sure you don’t mean it that way. But that interpretation is pretty obvious.

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729

Realistically Thad you are projecting attacks to your faith because you possibly are used to it and you expect it, based on your previous experiences and encounters on the internet.

No one has ever attacked your faith. But everyone here does see that you conflate your personal faith with The Light. It’s possible that because you are so used to being attacked for your faith that you conflate criticism of The Light with criticism of your faith.

It feels like you’ve developed either a defense mechinism or a comfort zone in victimization relating to your faith, and this comes across as disingenuine whenever you try to talk about The Light, because that’s your favorite topic. Everyone else wants to talk about the Light, but you conflate the Light with your faith so you take every criticism of the Light as a personal attack.

Do you see how this can be detrimental for honest discussion?

Some self awareness is needed here but not from me.

Everyone here just wants to talk about Warcraft in a disconnected way to real life. This is a safe space to criticise things like religious extreemism because the Light is not real and it doesn’t hurt anyone by disecting, and examining, and labeling it.

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730

What is your criteria for words to count as an attack?

I address all of your points, even the few times I snip a sentence, you don’t always address mine. Your use of “shorthand”, aka parsing, in previous comments left out the majority of my points.

What about my “otherwise explanations” comes across as conflation? Speaking of which, your remark about Xe’ra filling Illidan with her goo came across as conflating Lightforging with sex.

Xe’ra was wrong to force it on him, I don’t think that needs any elaboration. Illidan’s position does, especially given how many people lionize him.

You repeatedly say things like this;

This is one of several examples. Saying things like this is why I think you try to portray me as opposing consent (other statements from you make me think the zealot part is implied).

I understand why you thought I was comparing my position to the entirety of all atheists. To clarify I was comparing the type of accusation you seemed to be making; it was about the subject matter, not the people cited, do you understand now?

I’ve made my arguments about Illidan, you haven’t refuted them, just gone into denial and made assumptions regardless.

What’s wrong with seeing both sides of the story when the targets of the holy war had previously attempted unprovoked imperialism and cultural genocide on their attackers?

You’ve tried to turn my words against me too, so would that infer the same about you?

You keep using “lies” as a snarl word against me, and your repeated statements about “how I come across” look ever more like increasingly thinly-veiled accusations. Do you consider that last sentence an attack? You’ve also make statements that can be read in a certain way.

You claim a sentence sums up your point, but you fail to address large swathes of what’s behind that sentence.

Read some comments from Renautus and Cursewords to name a few. How is name-calling, mockery, snarl words and buzzwords the same energy I’m using? Note who used it first, because it wasn’t me. Or even check out the exchanges on other threads.

And you are responsible for some of those experiences and encounters. You have attacked my faith in other threads, Renautus. And you’re not the only one. So can I really be blamed for being on guard?

I think this comment from you is a personal attack disguised as constructive criticism because of our past talks. If your assessment is genuine outreach, then all I have to say is your assessment of is inaccurate except for the part about me having bad experiences.

I don’t mind dissecting the Light, I oppose specific retcons, especially the ones which feel like author agenda.

731

Or it’s just constructive criticism.

Again, you seem like you are presenting the idea that the writers have a ‘secret agenda’ to attack your personal faith.

What if there is no hidden agenda? What if the writers are just writing the Light as a flawed cosmic force just like they have written every other cosmic force in this franchise?

As many people here pointed out, the Light is just a vehicle of expression. Some expression is objectively good, some objectively evil.

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732

Take out the words “seem”, “think” and “feel like” and there’s no difference between this latest comment and our most common exchanges. Do you see why I suspect there’s veiled accusations?

733

No because these are actually words used to soften criticism and turn it into constructive criticism. It serves a purpose and that purpose is to be constructive and not accusatory…

That’s the point of constructive criticism.

Snarl words? Are used in media literacy it’s relating to politics, it’s to understand how biased media defames other political parties or opponents for thier own gain. This isn’t to be used against people giving you criticism. Like people calling you a “liar” because you have lied.

You are not a politician, nor are we the media. Your use of “defamation” and “snarl words” mean nothing here.

You are treating yourself like a corporation or a political party. You are not either of those things. You are just an Alliance Death Knight player of World of Warcraft here. The accusation that we are publicly defaming you in the Warcraft forums is absolutely absurd.

If you are being called a liar for lying, that is a valid criticism of your behaviour. It’s accurate and factual.

You use a lot of fancy buzzwords yourself to deflect accountability.

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