When half the writing for elves on all sides since Cata is obviously intended to cater to dudebro insecurities.
I figure this might be a hot or obvious take depending on people reading this.
Night elves are constantly reduced to the alliance’s damsels in distress, even the men.
Every gender joke about thalassian elves.
Treating care for your appearance as vain and unwarriorlike which is a fundamental misreading of historical warrior cultures (vikings were vain and accused of seducing women with their barbaric ways of having personal hygiene; Persians (a noticeable influence on elven architecture) were notoriously obsessed with personal care and were by far the toughest enemy of Rome through its history)
Elves, of all groups, being increasingly reduced to becoming arm candy to humans (even joke character humans), a trend Knaak basically kicked off with his self-insert that’s gone into overdrive since his death
All this nonsense just makes the whole “we’ll make male human paladin god king Blanduin a perfect non toxic man” (which is already a joke in itself with the way he’s handled in interactions with both Tyrande and Sylvanas) feel incredibly silly in view of the writers’ way of projecting their personal high school insecurities on elves since Cata.
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I am posting in a thread.
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He’s a good guy as bland as every character nowadays
Horde bad, Alliance good
And so writers can earn that paycheck
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Literally one of the worst Alliance characters written to date. It’s a shame they killed off Varian.
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OP with zero posts and 2/3 responses are sub-20-posts
Curious!
Lazy bait.
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EVERYONE NEEDS HELP! Stormwind was destroy before, they went to Lordearon for help, the draenei have gotten help from everyone when the Legion decided to attack them. The gnomes were helped by the dwarves when the lost their home, the humans/worgen of Gilneas needed help from the night elves when they were attacked by the Horde.
The Dwarves would have never freed themselves if not for the rest of the Alliance. Jaina needed people from ever corner of the Alliance to try and fight for Theramore!
This horrible idea that the night elves are the only ones that have ever needed help needs to die a horrible death. Rant over.
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Also here, Anduin is suppose to be a “Paragon” and they have always preformed an important in many stories. They are created to inspire/change people around them.
One of the biggest examples is Genn. Genn was a character that would actually never thought peaceful coexistance was possible and would have ripped off any forsaken’s head. He has change to a more “we don’t have to like each other/work closely togather, but we don’t have to kill each other”. Even Turalyon has change his position on the Undead due to Anduin reintroducing him to Faol.
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The degree to which any of these groups besides Gnomes and Draenei (both of which also get treated like garbage by narratives) pales compared to the damseling of the night elves. Worgen barely show any hint of needing help past the intro story, at this point they’re just mildly cursed humans.
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So we ignore the fact that of the 8 human kingdoms(which includes Theramore), only 4 currently remain? Not to mention the worgens have lost their homes TWICE(they lived in Teldrassil as well)
Or how about the fact until BfA all of Kul Tiras was in shambles until the Alliance actually came to the Island and managed to fix most of their problems? Oh, let us not forget the Wildhammer of Twilight’s Highland were actually scattered back in Legion.
The entire point of the Alliance is none of the individual nations can actually survive on their own. Those that have tried(Stromgarde, Quel’thalas, Kul Tiras, Gilneas) have all experienced horrible things and sans Quel’thalas have rejoined the Alliance.
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I love how people like Christie Golden don’t see how disgustingly sexist this crap is.
Seriously does no-one see how bigoted it is for a female writer to use a male character to show how men are ‘supposed’ to act?
Imagine the backlash if a male writer wrote Jaina as the example of how females are meant to act because she gave up her delusions of being a leader or world saving mage and decided instead to become a full time housewife, this is basically the same thing.
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Completely missing the point
Also the Jaina thing? The writers already do that but mostly to elven women lmao
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Posting in an interesting change of pace thread.
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Just to add something here.
What I have to say irked me the most about Anduin was this scene, and for it, we need some background.
The War of the Thorns came about because Tyrande was convinced to empty her territories to address a threat that Anduin was concerned about in Silithus. There was an army in Kalimdor, it was the Night Elven one. This was the Night Elves doing their part to assist the Alliance. The Alliance did nothing to ensure that their lands would be protected, and barely even tried to defend them. Then it spent months checking off items on Stormwind’s geopolitical wishlist whilst ignoring its obligations to protect or reclaim territories belonging to core Alliance nations. Tyrande ultimately had to take back Darkshore herself, and we still don’t know the status of Ashenvale.
More than any other nation within the Alliance, the Night Elves are the most exposed to the Horde’s aggression. Many of the members of the council were complicit in that aggression, and the Horde has on multiple occasions demonstrated itself to be an existential threat to the Night Elves. If therefore, Stormwind is to rule the relationship here, then they need to take these facts into account, and consider that the Night Elves are bordering, and have uniquely suffered at the hands of a people whose ideology consistently leads them to this.
Anduin evidently chooses, instead, to unilaterally draft a peace treaty that leaves many of these matters unresolved, leading to this:
Tyrande lays out exactly what her concerns are, and is framed as evil for it while Anduin engages in an episode of textbook mansplaining about how the Horde has changed. This coming from the “brilliant” judge of character that Anduin has of course been. The guy who thought Garrosh could be redeemed; the guy who figured that he could reach out to Sylvanas and that a reunion would go well; the guy who didn’t think that the Horde would swing north and burn Teldrassil rather than hauling an army down to Silithus; the guy who thought Sylvanas would surrender, etc.
And the narrative of course frames Anduin as correct. I think this one scene more than anything else demonstrates the hollowness and performativity of Anduin as an exemplar of a good kind of masculinity. He is at best naive and at worst willing to throw an entire race of people under the bus so that Stormwind could secure land of interest to it.
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Considering how toxic men have a tendency to treat women horrible, yeah there is a pretty damn good reason.
More like if men wrote that women who are vapid, cared too much about outward beauty/acted selfishly or generally treated other disparaging because of a difference of background. Oh wait men(and women) continue to do so. Look at half a dozen sitcoms.
Similarly alot of men have written about how toxic maculinity is a problem. There is a reason the jerk jock is a near universal villain in most teen shows.
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I remember when you said you sympathise with “scorned” Illidan despite him being a stalker and harasser.
Not trying to say Ikaar is right, but I’m not sure you know what non-toxic is either.
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I thought you quit? Anywho, it was a thread EVERYONE feared. Anduin didnt need to convince Tyrande, she along with the rest of the Alliance was concerned already.
That is not true. The Alliance was sending covert operatives to try and weaken the Horde. I would also point trying to dominate the seas(hence the reason for going to Kul Tiras) was ultimately needed to actually successfully beat the Horde.
And in all that time the Alliance has sent resources and turned Theramore into a target so that it could try and help defend the night elves. Lets not forget, Theramore was destroyed precisely because as long as it stood the night elves had an easier time getting help from the Alliance.
Just because I sympathise with a character doesnt mean I think that character is good/what he did was right(and I stand by the term scorned because I think that is what Illidan would have felt) And if you must know I have my own complicated unrequited love and I understand why he felt that way/did some of the things he did and I regret certain things I did because of said complicated love(luckly my story ended better on that front and I am friends with that person now).
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They feared the threat, but failed to protect core Alliance territories, and paid the price for it. We can talk about the operational failures involved with falling for a Mexican standoff pin when the enemy would have had to endure a logistical nightmare to bring an army overland to Silithus, but the more important issue is that the Alliance failed to reinforce its pieces.
As for operatives and Kul’tiras, none of that had anything to do with trying to take Lordaeron, or Arathi, those were side goals and human wish-list items that didn’t pose an immediate threat to core Alliance territories. Tyrande further puts the idea of naval logistics to lie when she just brings an army to Darkshore anyway. True, they’re much more adept at living off of the land, but the Gilneans joined them too. Stormwind was, meanwhile, besieging a troll city for no other reason than to make a point. These all take away from the notion that Stormwind was ever serious about supporting its Kalimdorian ally.
Finally, no, Theramore was not offered as some sacrificial lamb to protect the Night Elves. It was a convenient target for the Horde, one that the Night Elves helped to successfully defend until Garrosh pulled a superweapon that no one knew he had from his back pocket.
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It’s always Sundays on the forums.
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