I actually find this thread extremely useful, because all the transphobic bigots are doing me the great favor of letting me know who they are, so I can just disregard their posts from now on. Somehow, I’m not surprised by which posters have turned out this way.
As noted above, funny how the most anti-Horde, holier-than-thou, spiteful Alliance players are shockingly the most awful.
The thing I find weird about it isn’t the trans thing actually.
It’s how important they make the shapeshifted form. Up till now it was treated as something kinda chosen based on whim or necessity (aka, Black Dragons are mostly human because it’s really easy to manipulate them and that lets them infiltrate) and it was never described as difficult to change as needed.
It really shouldn’t be that difficult at all. There are all kinds of transformation magics and illusions and curses and everything else under the sun. I guess you need to know about magic, but Dragons are inherently magical and the ability to transform is an innate part of what they can do.
I just take it as the aging spell Sargeras put on him (posing as Medivh) was wearing off until it matched his actual age. Or Khadgar found a way to reverse the spell with the knowledge he gained from A’dal and co.
The Book says he walked like his actual age.
All Sargeras did was drain his Magic which turned his hair White and gave him a few stress lines! He wasn’t truly aged by the procedure and without the beard he looks as young as he acts!
When Antonidas talked to him in a vision he made Khadgar’s beard brown and got rid of stress lines which was enough to make him look young in the vision.
First of all: do people not know their fantasy cliches? Flynn 100% comes off as the rakish debonair bisexual adventurer who’s down to f@#$ anyone
Second though, why does it matter if it’s “low effort check listing”? Why is that a bad thing?
Like, when people complain “they just gave the main character a girlfriend”, it’s usually in the context that gf character is superfluous to the plot and useless to the narrative, and could be cut with no trouble. That’s not the sense I get from criticizing LGBT representation though.
Because apperently only “perfectly done representation” is the only thing allowed.
The gay character now actually is central to the plot? You’re shoving it down our throats!
The lesbian trolls having a wedding is just a side plot/side characters? You are just pandering.
You are changing a character we had for decade that was fairly ill defined? Another pandering!
Make your own new character? What? This new character is actually getting an interesting plot/will be relevant? Another shoving down our throats!
Yeah Flynn was aggressively bisexual, as a bisexual. My friends pointed out that me drunk is Flynn.
The real pandering is all the White Boy lore figures being central to the plot, both as protagonists and villains 
Side note: The fairy tale book made Uther a ginger, when in all previous iterations he was a brunette.
Clearly Blizzard is encouraging Irish bias, they even give Bellular interviews regularly! It’s an Irish Conspiracy! Won’t someone think of the Traditional Fantasy (England) and The English!!! /s
This is actually confirmed by Blizzard directly in a quote from Lead Quest Designer Don Adams:
It is low effort because the narrative established a “love” story between Flynn and Taelia and then suddenly he is with Shaw. There was no resolution to the Taelia story. It doesn’t mean they had to be together.
The game just forgets that this plot happened entirely. And considering that this is shown in the introduction to Boralus where players get a glimpse of Flynn, the switch is very jarring.
They dropped a plot point and stitched on another. If Flynn was with another woman, the argument still stands. Sexuality is irrelevant. How is the audience supposed to know what is going on in Flynn’s mind without being shown?
We go from A to B without anything in between.
Plus, I always saw Flynn as being goofy, but having roguish charm. He didn’t strike me as much of a loving free spirit. If the latter was always meant, Flynn would have been more flirtatious with others. Him and Shaw had a buddy-comedy vibe going in the War Campaign.
Overall, if you remove the whole sexuality angle, it becomes clear it is just another example of inconsistent writing. That is why it is poor. It has always been about inconsistent writing.
Lastly, one of the largest complaints to “check listing” is that the characters are created as tokens. And inconsistencies tend to be a byproduct.
No, that was a woman and her token gay best friend having witty banter
On a related note, have you noticed that the number of named redheaded paladins is unusually high? Pandering indeed! 
There was no established love story between Flynn and Taelia. What was established was that at some point he’d had feelings for her, but in the same conversation in which we learn about those feelings we also see Flynn shut down further talk about the subject, and the person who brings it up to Flynn in the first place is someone who hadn’t seen or talked to him since he quit piracy. We never see any indication that Taelia had or has any romantic feelings for him, and for all we know his crush on her is something that he’s given up on by the time we meet him in BfA. There’s no need for a resolution if there’s nothing to resolve in the first place.
*slams fists on table * I will not stand for this Fenian propaganda! /s
Unified Ireland when
Anyways: man the GD thread is now just straight up transphobia, since people can’t hide behind “ACK SHOE A LEE, THE BOOK ISN’T CANON” anymore
I think it’s supposed to be assumed that she is. This was her model back in Wrath before the dragons got some updates:
That is why I put it in quotations. It was a story of unrequited love. The setup seemed to be a love triangle of sorts where Flynn gets spurned. At this point, it would make sense to then introduce someone like Shaw.
The fact that we as the player see this in the intro to Boralus indicates Blizzard was gearing up for more. The first Boralus quests provide an overview of the alliance story and its characters. For it to be a throwaway moment is awkward. This wasn’t a side quest or random npc dialogue.
This point occurs when we are being given the threads of what lies ahead. Why bother having it at this moment, if there wasn’t going to be some exploration of it in the future?
I was expecting to see the actual rejection play out when Taelia meets Anduin. This arc looked like it was going to be a part of Anduin’s story.
Most players will see the intro and I’d bet only a handful have played through the War Campaign and less listened to Shaw ‘s and Valeera dialogue. So after Flynn’s most notable appearance, there is this major development that has little screen time. It is confusing.
What do you mean, the intro to Boralus? The biggest piece of evidence that Flynn had feelings for Taelia is after we reach Freehold, well after we’ve left Boralus behind, by which point we’ve already established Flynn having had some other ambiguous history with a completely different woman, and he’s also in the interim fallen prey to a siren and dealt with the magical hangover of that incident. Taelia’s hardly presented as the only person Flynn could ever be interested in. Also, why would there be a love triangle when Taelia hasn’t shown any interest in him? It’s more than enough that his feelings are unrequited, there doesn’t need to be a third party for Taelia to be interested in. There’s nothing incongruous here. At some point Flynn has feelings for Taelia, but she doesn’t return the favor and they obviously aren’t an item when we meet them. Flynn then meets Shaw in the next patch, and a few patches later Shaw mentions wanting to get to know him better. He then follows through on that intent in Shadows Rising and Terror by Torchlight. What happened to Flynn? What happened is that Shaw courted his affections and Taelia didn’t!
On this note, Illidan gets judged harshly for continuing to pine for Tyrande where as apparently in Flynn’s case you need a women to tell you in no absolute term no.(even though she has given absolutely no interest to any of your advances)
I don’t see the parallel. Illidan still has feelings for Tyrande, but he doesn’t actively pursue her or try to steal her away, or even do anything untoward to her.
He’s just a simp with a bad case of oneitus. That’s what he’s judged for.
And, especially in today’s climate, an uncertain ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is necessary because otherwise you cannot be sure that your advances were even recognized.
I thought of that too, after I finished my last post. I definitely got the impression that whatever Flynn’s feelings are toward Taelia by the time we meet him, he knows that she’s not interested, since he doesn’t make any serious effort to flirt with her or otherwise say anything about it to her, despite the fact that he nearly dies in Freehold and she saves him. He also doesn’t act particularly brokenhearted about it, and as I mentioned previously the character who brings it up in Freehold is someone who hasn’t seen him in a while, possibly a few years. This leaves me with the impression that by the time we meet him Flynn’s already dealt with his feelings towards Taelia, whether that involved telling her directly and getting rejected or just figuring out on his own that she wasn’t interested, and he’s moved on while continuing to be good friends with her. Illidan could learn a thing or two from him.
It is the intro scenario after our Freehold escape. This happens all before the player starts questing. It is the introduction. Flynn and Taelia are the windows into this new world. From a narrative standpoint, the player is being told about the adventure ahead.
If the story ended there, then the conversation with Taelia serves no purpose. Why would this narrative be shown to the player only to be shot down immediately? It would make more sense if Flynn laments about a past love and Taelia has some line about you will find someone new someday (foreshadowing Shaw or someone).
The fact that our two new companions are having this conversation at this specific point in time is the designer’s way of saying “pay attention”. It sets up a future story. It implicates Flynn is mustering up the courage to court her. And being a little dense could be the part of the story. Flynn’s arc would be to realize she isn’t in love with him and he is wasting his time. The two seem to have a shared history and the sense I got was Flynn was too shy to express how he really feels. It makes the most sense that this would play out a little longer when Flynn got the message.
Maybe love triangle wasn’t the right word. I just meant as a story of unrequited love a third person would enter the narrative and Flynn would be hit with the reality its not going to happen. Hence, this arc being a part of Anduin’s arrival to Boralus.
Overall, my point is the time in which we see this event implies it is more important.
And to the question about Illidan and Flynn. I think they are two separate scenarios. Illidan had thousands of years to deal with his love for Tyrande. Flynn hasn’t even begun to really process it. Again, the story shows that he is just mustering up the courage. Plus, Flynn and Taelia are good friends. Stuff like that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Isn’t “guy who wants to be more than friends doesn’t understand they are just friends” pretty common of a trope. Taelia isn’t a random girl, it’s a good friend of his. There is more to work through there. It’s been Thousands of years and Illidan is just starting to get it.