Characters and their writing

Lore Story Forum
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I’m in the middle of writing my latest book, the fourth in a series. Last night, while lying in bed, a realization came to me. I had created a character specifically for this book, one I really didn’t plan on doing too much with. But I made a decision that would affect the main character of the series.

I’m killing him off. It’s going to hurt a bit as I really like this guy, but sometimes the death of a character can help your main character’s growth. It’s going to affect her in a way I hadn’t planned, but that’s the life of a writer for you. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned when you start writing a story.

So, where am I going with this? With my new plan in mind, my mind turned to WoW and its characters, one in particular - Delaryn Summermoon. Her death has been talked about extensively here. The Night Elf who famously said you couldn’t kill hope.

Yet, I felt nothing when she died when playing through the WoT on my Alliance character. Well, except for being majorly ticked off because they had villain-batted the Horde and burned Teldrassil (my Alliance main is a Night Elf and has been around since just after launch).

I know there are some limitations when it comes to writing in an MMO, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create a memorable character, even a minor one. One that makes you care whether they live or die.

There are two groups of characters, however, that I did feel a sort of connection - the Forsaken in Nazmir and the Gob Squad. Even though they are minor characters only and you only do a few quests with them, they are memorable. The writers made you want to see them again sometime in the future.

On Alliance side, I remember the old hunt for the Scythe of Elune and following in the footsteps of a Night Elf priestess. In the end, you discover she’s dead in Duskwood. But even though I never actually met her, I felt something when I learned her fate. Not to mention the original Pamela/Joseph Redpath quest series. IMO, the best quest series ever in WoW.

Yet, Delaryn Summermoon didn’t do that to me. Her death meant nothing to me. At no point during the War of Thorns did I ever feel any sort of connection with Delaryn which is disappointing. I can’t recall any point where I should even care about her. Her death should have meant more than someone spouting ‘You can’t kill hope’. When she was raised, I just shrugged, rolled my eyes, and sighed at the storytelling.

That is why I’m going back and rewriting certain areas to make my soon-to-be dead character a memorable one, one that you wish had lived. In other words, the anti-Delaryn Summermoon.

It makes me wonder just how much passion the Blizzard writers have when creating and writing characters. They may love their Jainas, Anduins, and Thralls, but minor characters are important, too, when creating a story. Even if you plan on killing them.

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Passion alone doesn’t create memorable characters, minor or otherwise. If there is no skill backing it up than the passion, likely, won’t come through in media.

Given the quality of writing, I don’t doubt that there is passion within the ranks of the Blizzard writers. However, I believe it is being hamstrung by 1 of 2 things:

  1. Lack of skill
  2. Overhead (the people above the writers are calling shots that stymied the writers)

:pancakes:

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Also likely not helped in that The War of Thorns Event kind of showcases the difference between how the writers and quest designers see things.

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Blizzard has what I like to call “Wolverine Syndrome”

Basically, it’s when fans take over the writing, but these fans aren’t interested in telling an a new take on the story or a continuation of the old, as much as shilling for their favorite characters, like what happened to Wolverine in the comics were the writers were so obsessed with making him right that he became an unlikable jerk for a long while. The story isn’t as important as them being able to write their favorites and make their favorites “right”.

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Honestly if it had been someone more memorable like Shandris it would have been far more memorable. Especially would have tied in well with Tyrandes need for vengeance.

However they need to eventually cool all the Night elves down enough for there to be peace for the two factions. Its already essentially impossible due to everything the Horde has done both in the past and present. If they had killed a favorite character that then the fan base likely would have rioted(moreso).

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And this also makes the story stale. Said character is in absolutely no danger physically or spiritually. If you know how a character reacts to a given problem, you can predict the entire storyline at the start with a extremely high chance of being correct.

Let’s be honest, does anyone think Anduin, Jaina, Thrall, and Baine are in any REAL danger, much less have any actual character development this expansion?

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A while back you could have asked the same questions about Varian and Vol-jinn.

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Only if you were new. Everyone knew Vol’jin was gonna bite it in a game of Musical Warchief, and Varian’s story was over, Metzen was gone, and was obviously the Alliance equivalent. Neither had the level of plot armor the characters I listed above have.

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Well its simple. My Friend told me the Writing in WoW has fallen so low that Blizzard can’t even write a good story without making Characters into Race Hating or Race Murdering Maniacs just to ether do shock value for angered the fans who support them when they were introduce. Meanwhile the other characters who fans really wanted like Alleria, Vereesa, Muradin, and etc gets put in the backseat while there’s nothing but Humans, Night Elves, and Worgen who are main focus on the Alliance.

When there is some Characters who were introduce they just get killed off for no reasons because dungeon boss like Devos or Raid Boss like Kael’thas. It’s kind of sad mess really.

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There is alot of issues with the fact that the old guard were very much about story direction first everything else comes second.

Where a lot of these new writers are focused on meeting their diversity quotas, removing negative stereotypes and promoting positive characters and messages. This has lead to the story being all over the place and less coherent than what came before.

Alot of the previous writing had positive messages in it but it was woven into the story. Where as alot of the current writing literally has to have characters like Anduin, Jaina, Baine or Thrall literally spell it out to the audience. This makes it come across as forced and ultimately makes us come to resent those characters.

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What are you talking about lol

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Those are examples. I could also add in Maiev in terms of not having alot of screentime for her and others I can think top of my head.

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Delaryn was created to be like Maiev, but not Maive cause they don’t want to kill Maiev (yet) (even though they probably could, Illidan is no more and she’s a psychopath that killed many of her own kin and wasn’t even punished, even after trying to kill Malfurion and Tyrande)

Oh, wait, it was Sira Moonwarden

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Maiev had more screentime than Tyrande, and nobody wanted Vereesa. Alleria probably has a small fanbase, but she gets a lot of attention anyway.

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I’m not sure how you could even type this seriously with the lore travesty that was The Burning Crusade.

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Well it was mostly consistent to an extent with what happen in Warcraft 3. Except for the inclusion of the Draenei, which I still reckon was the biggest mistake they made with the story.

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This is ignoring the fact several important characters were sacrificed on the loot alter for next to no reason, such as Vashj, Kael’thas, and Zul’jin.

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zuljin will return
or another will take his place
the amani never gonna give up

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She was created to be the Night Elf version of Sylvannas. She’s what Sylvannas would have been if Reign of Chaos were a faction based MMORG. Then again Sylvannas herself was a repetition of a Starcraft theme. Or the other way around. Blizzard has a history of this kind of treatment of female characters.

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The draenei thing is so small and insignificant, I don’t get why the fanbase gives it so much weight. It changed a line in the manual and the entire warcraft universe effectively stayed the way it was before.

Illidan might have been an anti-hero, but Kael’Thas wasn’t even necessarily evil in WC3, and Lady Vasj also wasn’t particularly bad either.