Cranky Quarantine Thread

Wyrmrest Accord
786

I’m going to preface this very briefly by admitting that while I’ve played WoW on-and-off, I’ve been a massive fan of Warcraft since 3. I only really became invested in WoW proper when Legion came out. The premise was intriguing, it hearkened back to The Burning Crusade, and Demon Hunters were (and still are, I think) a very compelling class to play. However, I quit shortly after being burned out by rep grinding in Legion followed by a rather underwhelming opening hours of Battle for Azeroth.

That all being said.

Putting aside the gameplay features touched upon, seeing how this is a roleplaying server first and foremost, allow me to express my utmost disappointment with the cinematic trailer for Shadowlands.

Death has always been an interesting topic that Warcraft has tackled in varied, but arguably compelling ways- mostly in how death has been ‘cheated’ by undeath in its myriad forms. This is all for naught, however, because it’s clear that the writers have no idea what they’re doing anymore.

Sylvanas is a terrible character. Beyond terrible. As has been touched on numerous times, her characterization has been wildly inconsistent, her power level is ridiculously high, and this Jailer business seems like a desperate attempt to retcon and handwave all of their writing foibles at once. It isn’t working, or it shouldn’t be, if the people watching the cinematic were thinking critically.

But fine. YAS SLAY QUEEN is following the recent trend of untouchable female characters in fiction. It’s garbage, we’re all praying she gets some kind of comeuppance, whatever.

My big issue is this: what in the Seven Hells is going on with the afterlife? Why are we going there? How is the Helm of Damnation tied to maintaining the boundary between life and death!?!?! “There must always be a Lich King” was referring to the Scourge, not maintaining the balance like the Worldstone from Diablo. How is Sylvanas able to tear it in half as if it were nothing? Isn’t it made out of Sargerite? Why doesn’t ripping it apart suddenly lead to the destruction of the Scourge and all of the Undead?

And we can even take a step back to the start of the cinematic. Why did the Scourge simply stare dumbfounded at Sylvanas as she made her approach? Why didn’t they attack her? If Sylvanas was able to ghost the entire Scourge army and YAS QUEEN Bolvar, why didn’t she attempt this with Arthas? Who the hell is WRITING this?

This whole plot is not only beyond nonsensical, but full of holes and inconsistencies.

I am beyond irate, and beyond disappointed.

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787

I am torn between morbid curiosity for where this line of thought will go and knowing horror at the dark place it will take the thread.

As it stands…

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788

I am torn between morbid curiosity for where this line of thought will go and knowing horror at the dark place it will take the thread.

But you see, that’s just it. That whole element is definitely following this trend, but even that aspect is irrelevant when compared to just how much of a travesty the rest of the cutscene is.

I’ve even seen people defend Bolvar’s crushing defeat by saying, “well he isn’t Arthas,” but again, it cannot simply be overstated just how poorly the cinematic treads all over what Wrath, and even Legion had setup previously.

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789

Yeah, but that’s just WoW. People can do things until they can’t, people have specifically the powers they need to solve whatever problem they have and then they don’t.

Hence why Sylvanas brought boulder-flinging arrows to a fight against a foe who was specifically vulnerable to boulders flung by arrows.

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790

Who knew the lich king operated under 1970 wonder woman rules

Where if you tie them up they lose all their powers

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791

Part of me is honestly a bit weirded out by how so many people zero in on how Sylvanas could defeat Bolvar when the entire fight boiled down to her successfully not dying for like two minutes and using her ~MYSTERIOUS SHADOWLANDS POWERS~ to catch him off-guard.

The whole cinematic is still dumb and bad anime garbage of them throwing glaciers, but it feels a little disingenuous to portray it as some big “GIRL POWER” moment for Sylvanas when she’s clearly being given the new special power from Super Deathworld Sargeras purely so that it can be stripped away from her at some point

She’s literally just Siege of Orgrimmar Garrosh huffing buckets of Old God juice, and I didn’t see anyone calling it ridiculous for him to become so powerful. The only difference is that Blizzard is trying to gaslight us all into believing that this has been properly foreshadowed

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792

I don’t know about you guys, but I sure as hell am up for making a deal with some spooky jailer if it meant I gained flying plot armor.

Also, tentacle powers. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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793

drink god juice, kill god, kill plot

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794

The same person who wrote a short story for the sole purpose of upgrading his self inserts model and to make sure we all knew he was boning Sylvanas.

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795

Yeah this has nothing to do with some nonsense about too much girl power in fiction (that’s asinine). It has everything to do with Sylvanas being a pet character to key people in Blizzard and them bending over backwards to make sure she always has the tools to come out on top regardless of how stupid it is.

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796

That is absolutely what is happening, though. The reason why she’s getting these powers is completely besides the point as far as the writer(s) are concerned. Again, it’s following a growing trend in modern fiction, so the inclusion is understandable. This in-and-of-itself is infuriating because without proper exposition beforehand, it’s literally coming out of nowhere, and that’s what the real problem is. Remember, powerful characters aren’t that big of a deal, so long as they have some kind of explanation for how they became so powerful. Sylvanas isn’t a new character in Warcraft’s lore. She’s been around for ages, and it’s plainly obvious that her jump in power levels is beyond reasonable.

she’s clearly being given the new special power from Super Deathworld Sargeras purely so that it can be stripped away from her at some point

And hopefully the way we strip her of her powers is by killing her until she’s dead for good.

But that’s more of an aside. Anyway, the main problem is that there is no buildup, no exposition, no gradual incline in power, just suddenly she has superpowers. This would not be so damning if A. this entire arc wasn’t a complete rewrite of her character, and B. if there was adequate exposition. There’s a word used to describe plot elements that emerge out of nowhere to fill in a plot-hole- it’s called a “retcon,” and retcons are BAD. With big, bold, capital letters to add emphasis to the point.

The constant flux of retcon after retcon is what is driving me crazy. It is simply unacceptable.

797

Sylvanas’ nonsense power up has nothing to do with some imagined “GIRL POWER” uprising in fiction, and everything to do with Steven Danuser wanting to F*&^ her.

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798

I feel like I had this exact discussion with someone about her inexplicable god tier superpowers and getting a response of “Uh??? It was foreshadowed??? In??? The expac??? In??? quest??? test???” in that eye-rolling tone that makes you want to just slap the speaker directly up into space.

Like, what frigging foreshadowing? Where? A few sparsely peppered vague bits of something don’t constitute enough cues for the viewer to go on.

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799

Between Arthas and now, she made a deal with the Jailer. She even has magic chains :chains: and the Jailer has chains etc.

So the past is the past, and this has been done now for the same reason the lead narrative designer upgraded Nathanos as Taalva said.

I see her as the opposite of an empowered female character really, she’s just a plot device and, if you’re the guy who inserted himself as her boyfriend, a device for something else as well. :banana:

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800

Giving Sylvanas extra powers because of “girl power” would be pretty weird of them, considering how negatively being a powerful woman is portrayed by the writers.

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801

Who even said girl power

802

Between Arthas and now, she made a deal with the Jailer. She even has magic chains :chains: and the Jailer has chains etc.

But do you not see the conundrum here? Where was this shown? We were told she was somehow afraid of her own demise, and wanted to ensure a future for herself and her people. It wasn’t completely altruistic, but it wasn’t completely selfish either. And then she was apparently taking the Warchief thing really seriously when the Legion showed up.

I mean I can go on, but surely it’s evident why this is bad writing, right?

Giving Sylvanas extra powers because of “girl power” would be pretty weird of them, considering how negatively being a powerful woman is portrayed by the writers.

So assume I’m wrong about the motivation the writers had, then. I said it numerous times already- ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Retcons are bad.

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803

Yeah, but… The whole entire lore is built on them.

Everyone’s always so shocked when Blizzard casually retcons things and changes the lore on a whim and I don’t get it. That’s exactly what they’ve always done.

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804

This was what I was responding to.

805

Because I have a particular fascination for the Scourge and undeath in general. Bolvar was built up heavily during Legion, and I personally felt a sting of pure outrage to his humiliating defeat. Tearing the Helm of Damnation in half was pretty much the boiling point.

You’re of course welcome to pick apart my outrage in any way you like, but again, that was just an observation I made- an observation that I tried several times to make clear was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. To clarify, my point is this:

Retcons are bad. More retcons on top of them are even worse.