Whose ready for another round of endless whiny b*&^%ing next month when Rey inevitably bests Palpatine?
I’m ready for the salt
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welcome to the franchise warcraft 1 had retcons for warcraft 2’s story which had retcons for warcraft 3’s story which had -
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That is a very astute observation. “Training” has become its own dogwhistle for people who believe it’s not appropriate for women characters to have the same strength, depth or range as male characters who receive it naturally.
Malfurion is the person least worthy to have the power he has, for example, but no one ever seems to mind that he just has it (miss me with whatever “BUT HE TRAINED OFF-SCREEN” garbage takes are out there). We followed Yrel around for an entire expansion and saw her whole growth and there was still savage anger toward her for being a Mary Sue.
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The entire Horde identity comes from a retcon.
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Personally I agree that its more satisfying to see characters succeed after we see them suffer hardship and training and all that. However, it is very clear that people are more critical of the lack of these things in female characters.
As if the protagonists of previous star wars trilogies weren’t prodigies with unearned skills, a farmer who never went to piloting school blew up the death star, and a literal 10 year old slave blew up the trade federation flagship!
Neither of them had piloted spacecraft before: thats very different from driving a land-based hovercraft!
Star wars characters were always badly written self-insert power fantasies. I guess they just find it harder to self-insert in a character with ovaries.
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I know it is absolutely not the place to say it but bow howdy does this read a way when you’ve got a brain full of bad humour.
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I’d argue that Rey is less of a Mary Sue than Luke was.
Luke went from Moisture Farmer to I killed the Death Star in one movie. Rey’s situation is clearly hostile and we see very early in the movie that she is very proficient with her staff.
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But I guess that doesn’t count.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
The only reason there’s a big hullabaloo about Sylvanas one-shotting the Lich King, Saurfang and the like is because we’re all so used to male characters doing it. Even I found myself going “… I call bull.” and then asking myself if I was calling bull because Sylvanas was pulling a Godzilla on us and having powers tailor made to auto-win a situation pop up outta nowhere.
But then, we can also point that specific finger at any Shonen character, most comic super-heroes (and villains) who need to turn the tables and probably any table-top character played by devious, evil geniuses who live to make their players cry tears of blood (holds up mirror, admires his standard issue Evil DM 'stache).
I think the large amount of people screaming about Sylvanas has less to do about the standard affair of bull from Blizzard’s writing crew and more to do with the fact we’ve been subconsciously trained by mass media to believe only male characters do this. That’s why it can be so jarring for us. And yet, story-wise, Sylvanas isn’t doing anything different than, say, Kael’thas, Garrosh or any other non-Filler Villain WoW has thrown at us over the past 25 years.
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I’m not going to quote everyone here.
Suffice it to say that much like a big company would say in the current day and age, “I hear you.” This conversation is going right off the rails, but if I could entertain your skepticism, it isn’t because she’s a female that it bothers me. Yes, there is a trend in cinema. Yes, Rey is one of them. No, this is not a thread discussing Star Wars, trends in fiction, and so on, but I considered the correlation which is why I mentioned it, and after being pressed repeatedly, I made it perfectly clear that yes, it is a thing, and yes, there is an obvious correlation to be made.
And even then, it’s completely besides the point. The cinematic was a massive slap in the face to me, and I feel anyone else who was hoping for Lich King 2: Electric Boogaloo, made worse by how Bolvar was taken out so quickly as if he was completely worthless.
There was someone mentioning why people didn’t complain about the previous cinematics, and I want to point out that there is an appreciable difference between trying to make an intro look “flashy and cool” and showing off a massive disparity in power levels. That’s what the purpose of the cinematic was. Sylvanas wiped the floor with Bolvar, completely subverting the buildup he’s gotten ever since Wrath.
All that build up, and poof, nothing.
So we have a character with horrible characterization that has been retconned several times in the past two years, completely subverting the expectations any Death Knight players may have had for an interestingly written character with some intrigue by wasting him in the span of a minute.
Yes, it bothers me. It bothers me a lot. It would bother me regardless of Sylvanas’ gender. It’s sloppy, incoherent writing. It is bad. Defending it by saying that retcons have been a series staple does not excuse it. It is BAD.
I don’t care that she took out an old Orc. I’m not outraged about that. There were a lot of hints throughout Legion especially that the Lich King has persisted, that Bolvar has merged with Ner’zhul much like Arthas did. Yes, he might not have a soul-stealing Runeblade, but that doesn’t matter. Remember when Sylvanas knew she couldn’t go toe-to-toe with her nemesis? When she had to use scheming in order to destroy him? The Forsaken’s new blight?
No?
But go on, tell me again that the reason I’m outraged is because of her chromosomes.
Your posts are right up there, man. We can all read them.
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Then show me exactly where I illustrate that my main point of contention is that she’s a woman.
The only trend in fiction is that more people are willing to make Woman the focus of a story, and its not a problem.
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Why’d you bring it up so many times?
I brought up the trend many times, because I had the same person focusing on that small portion of my original post to justify outrage of their own for some reason. And again, it isn’t a trend of female characters, or even of physically/martially/etc strong female characters. It’s a trend of inexplicably strong female characters. I made that part very clear, but apparently to some people it’s irrelevant, much like how I was saying the overall trend itself is of little consequence when regarding just how bad the entire cinematic is.
They kept insinuating that I’m mad because she’s a female or something, and I think defending myself was a little justified, even if it was, evidently, a wasted effort. Because here we are yet again, with my points being ignored in favor of YOU JUST HATE STRONG EMPOWERED WOMEN.
I mean, yes? Were you expecting that to go by unchallenged?
You’re right, I suppose I was being too hopeful that we’d be thinking critically here.
Please, enlighten us on all of these inexplicably powerful female characters popping up all over fiction.
I’ll give you a head start. Neither Rey or Captain Marvel qualify as inexplicably powerful
“Critical thinking” isn’t a synonym for “agreeing with me.” People are thinking critically by scrutinizing the fervor with which you routinely bring up FEMALES and studying how that bias informs your opinion and whether it undermines your argument (it does, in case you were wondering).
By insisting that we avoid that, you are in fact imploring us to think un critically and accept your argument without studying all impacts of it.
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Yrel once bashed an Orc over the head with a hammer.
But how did she know that hitting things with hammers would kill them?
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