Except the entire point is that her jump in “power levels” is perfectly reasonable, because the exact same thing happens literally all the time in WoW. The writing is just lazy all around, so hanging your hat on how chuffed you are that Sylvanas defeated the Lich King by sneak-attacking him with a power that comes from some new Shadowlands villain who is presumably more powerful than N’zoth feels like a weird thing to focus on.
and I’ll be blunt, trying to paint it in the light of some broader trend of female characters in fiction makes me feel like we’re really not arguing about the principles of retconning here
That’s the nature of the thread though? Unless I’m not posting in the Cranky Quarantine thread discussing our negative thoughts on the new expansion?
And I absolutely disagree with you that it’s perfectly reasonable. It isn’t. Power levels do change, but they should always have proper exposition. Always. How was Arthas so powerful? He had a cursed Runeblade and the Lich King on his side, but he had his limits. Even when he merged with Ner’zhul. Why did the new Blight hurt him? We don’t know how it worked specifically, but it was made clear that they were developing it for some time, and it was designed as a countermeasure against the undead in addition to the living.
Do you see the difference between that and Sylvanas suddenly becoming an anime character?
and I’ll be blunt, trying to paint it in the light of some broader trend of female characters in fiction
I’m not. I made that comment as an observation, and concluded it was irrelevant to the real issue at hand.
we’re really not arguing about the principles of retconning here
When did Bolvar gain the ability to throw rocks with his mind?
How does Blizzard justify a beginning level dungeon boss one-shotting Sylvanas in Silverpine?
Getting pedantic about how Sylvanas can’t possibly have beaten the Lich King when she was basically just the shiny object keeping him distracted until her scary new boss punked him out of the fight with some super special unbreakable death chains feels like you’re narrowing in on the wrong piece of the larger whole.
How does Blizzard justify a beginning level dungeon boss one-shotting Sylvanas in Silverpine?
He shot her in the back, point-blank, with a blunderbuss.
Getting pedantic about how Sylvanas can’t possibly have beaten the Lich King when she was basically just the shiny object keeping him distracted until her scary new boss punked him out of the fight with some super special unbreakable death chains
Not only am I confident that my complaints were very well thought-out, I’m also pretty confident that there is no evidence suggesting that it was anyone but Sylvanas doing the heavy lifting in that fight. Do you know what would help clarify that?
Proper. Exposition.
feels like you’re narrowing in on the wrong piece of the larger whole.
Can’t say that I would care enough about Bolvar to waste time hearing how he learned telekinesis off-screen, but why aren’t you as upset about that as you are with Sylvanas learning to use spooky death chains from Death Sargeras? Aren’t they retconning the Lich King to be more powerful by giving him the ability to throw glaciers with his mind?
Yeah, the whole story is bad. But focusing your ire on how Sylvanas isn’t arbitrarily strong enough to beat the Lich King while going out of your way to include that ~completely unrelated to your stated argument~ barb about the trend of “untouchable female characters” makes me narrow my eyes. Especially after we’re just coming off of a patch where Sylvanas threw a temper tantrum and shot herself directly in the foot because the big manly orc scratched her face.
Because I’m biased towards Bolvar in terms of relative strength. And because maybe I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt because he was wearing the Helm of Damnation, which was clearly granting him powers beyond what he had previously. How long did Sylvanas have her anime superpowers for? When did she acquire them? And why didn’t she use them before? These are simple questions that arise naturally from taking a second to think about it.
So because it’s all arbitrary, because the writing is all sorts of incoherent, it follows that it’s okay for it to continue? And again, no, that isn’t the main problem, but a symptom. The writing is simply not doing a good enough job.
barb about the trend of “untouchable female characters” makes me narrow my eyes.
It’s a trend that’s been growing in popularity in media recently, whether you’re conscious of it or not, whether you approve of it or not. My correlating it with the situation at hand may have been inaccurate, of course, but that’s okay. If only because the alternative as stated by others in the thread is “the writer really likes Sylvanas and writes her as being impossibly strong.”
You aren’t mandated to agree with me, and it’s obvious that this notion I brought up is why you persist in trying to counter my complaints. Unfortunately, it doesn’t change anything. The writing is poor. It should be better. In fact, it was better. It isn’t anymore. That’s my issue with what we know about the new expansion.
Presumably we’ll find that out soon I’d say - that mystery seems to be a driving part of Shadowlands’ narrative. Personally I’m not fussed by it - she used this power on Saurfang and now Bolvar. Once she had to run from the Lich King, but now she can face him and defeat him. I’m eager to find out why, and not remove a key mystery that actually makes Shadowlands intriguing. Sometimes waiting for the big reveal is exciting imo.
I also think it’s made worse (the retconning) by them acting like it’s not a retcon.
If they put out a 12-page PDF comic with a note saying “here’s some new lore that overrides those novels and quests, this lets us do some cool stuff!” … at least they wouldn’t be so damn shifty.
Instead they say “she’s been in league with the Jailer for YEARS! – oh, those novels where she’s reflecting on things? She was lying to you, the reader. Bet you weren’t expecting that!”
You were supposed to infer it by her suddenly gaining the ability to fly, even though no one else ever mentioned how weird it was that she could that or even seemed to notice it.
Or that’s what I assume, anyway. The lack of character responses to her doing that made me figure that they had just retconned it so she could always do that and didn’t bother updating it in-game because why would they put effort into a game.
She’s a Banshee first and foremost. Blizzard has either retconned or forgotten that Sylvanas is actually occupying her old body in her Banshee form and it can’t actually turn Banshee, but that’s the nominal reason she can go all gassy and fly around.
Maybe it’s because I main a Hunter, but the chains she shackled Bolvar with in the cinematic I registered more as a cinematic representation of the Hunter ability “Binding Shot” (Whose tool tip is actually a purple rock with chains coming out of it). Now why a PVP-centric ability is suddenly able to work on a Raid Boss I couldn’t say…
My problem with the Shadowlands cinematic is it put all Bolvar’s power into the Helm itself. Once Sylvanas took that off him he suddenly became powerless which seems…daft. Still has a big ol’ warhammer as well as whatever abilities he gained from the dragon’s breath (Which appear to include sick tattoos on his skin he didn’t have before and it’s under the helm so it wasn’t an afterwards kind of thing). But no, obviously he falls down and just stares dumbly as Sylvanas breaks the Helm…which we established back in Wrath as being a Very Bad Thing™.
I agree with basically everything you’re saying her except for the implication that its due to a “girl power” movement.
Blizzard has lately been propping up their favorite characters in ridiculous, badly written ways like this with no buildup, yes. Not all of them are girls, however: has there been any leadup to explain why Anduin can anime-jump onto a three-story high azerite tank while wearing full plate armor, tap it with his shiny stick and cause it toexplode, while leaping off it to land perfectly on his horse and ride away not looking at the explosion, cause he’s such a cool guy?
We never saw any training montage with him learning how to swing his sword, or gradually increasing his mastery of the light, now suddenly he can heal an entire army from the brink of defeat, and lead them in a charge?
And I fully expect them to give unlikely power boosts to their other pet characters going forward. Has little to do with gender, everything to do with hack writers surrounded by yes-men.
Remember when Tyrande made a pact to embrace her hatred and become a vengeance driven killing machine so she could become strong enough to sort of stand up to a dead guy with a bow.
It seems not even girl power can defeat a self insert. Or maybe Bolvar should’ve just invested in a gun.
You know, come to think of it, most of the “mary sue” accusations we’ve heard over the past few years (Rey, Captain Marvel, Yrel for us, etc.) stem from this line of logic.
It’s pretty weird how the price women have to pay to be good at something is visibly sucking at it for two on-screen hours.
