Did wrathgate

The stark contrast between wrath Bolvar and Shadowlands Bolvar is just I don’t even know Bolvar is so awesome in wrath and he had no helm of domination nor any special abilities apart of being a paladin. How could they mess this up. I’m also inclined to believe wrath Bolvar would of messed up slyvanas in shadowlands cinematic or their rematch in sanctum of domination. Edit: sorry for grammatical errors

2 Likes

Bolvar was really cool as the Lich King. I’m pretty sure Shadowlands was just a hitjob to ruin Lich King lore and embarrass/reduce/make pathetic all members of the Lich King trinity.

8 Likes

Watching Sylvanas snatch off Bolvar’s weave was one of the more satisfying parts of Shadowlands.

In BfA, he tells Horde Players:

“Go now or stay forever.”

Sylvanas showed he was nothing but bluster. He could not back it up. So I have little regard for him.

9 Likes

Probably because he was written that way due to bad writing this same guy stared down a lich who brought naxxramas in dragonblight. Pretty sure that’s why people were mad at how he was treated in shadowlands cinematic. He flat out saves the alliance champions also from being killed by this very same lich by the way all on his own,

Was a villain sue.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainSue

6 Likes

Big plothole but why is malganis trying to destroy lich king in wrath but then we see the world forge or whatever it’s called being built in wrath that was being used by jailer in shadowlands. Doesn’t that mean malganis was perhaps an idiot GG Steve dansuer

2 Likes

Depends on whether or not the Val’kyr were ever loyal to Arthas. Considering how quickly they swooped on the opportunity to bring Sylvanas to the Jailer, I’m guessing they never were. This might explain why the Soul Forges were constructed, at the suggestion of the Val’kyr, perhaps even the supervision.

As for why Mal’ganis would want to kill the Lich King, Arthas was defying the will of the Jailer and mucking up his plans. It would have been in the Jailer’s interests to get a new, more tractable Lich King, but for that to happen the current one had to be removed.

2 Likes

Makes no sense then why the lich king constructed the very thing the jailer needed lmao

/10 characters.

1 Like

I know you alliance people jiz.z over the idea any time a lore character treats the Horde badly. You fanboys are all the same. It was satisfying to watch how that former alliance hero got humiliated by Sylvanas. We need such things to happen more often. Its balm to my soul.

2 Likes

Same here, but with Saurfang. Saurfang SOLOED an entire undead army in Borean Tundra and saved the player character from certain death! How awesome! Not the sad old man he is in BfA.

Arthas utterly broke him in the Frozen Throne. He’s no longer a Paladin or much of anything by the time T irion places the Helm on his head.

Even before the Helm’s baggage was added to his own he was already a I can’t say walking… PTSD candidate.

Sylvanas was also heavily empowered by the Jailer. Bolvar did not stand a chance against the Jailer.

Bolvar also never gave into the helms power until the very last moment. If he had let the helm power him from Wrath on, he would have been quite formidable

1 Like

That’s true and I think then the Jailer would not have needed to bring Sylvanas into his plans. Bolvar would have been in Sylvanas’s place in Shadowlands. So in the end, it was better for him the ways things did turn out, getting his butt kicked and all.

1 Like

I’ve assumed for a while now that Bolvar was originally meant to have a much larger role in Shadowlands, in whatever original plot they had going before they upended it for the sake of trying to clean up messes. My thoughts on how the story has been progressing and the reactions to it, and why it contrasts so heavily with how the writers seem to view it, is that they see the big picture of what they were going to do, while we see only what we got.

I think since WoD development things have been in a state of controlled chaos and uncertainty there, which in turn caused them to need to scrap a lot of ideas last minute and change things around. They’ve been writing a lot of stuff on the fly but I don’t think they started out doing so. Around Legion, you start to see this, where there aren’t just dropped plotlines, which have existed in every expansion, but rather the story itself acts as if some plots have happened, when they clearly didn’t.

Bolvar is a victim of this, I think, but he’s not the only one. Mueh’zala is another character I think was meant to have a much larger part of the plot up until the last minute, same as Helya. But the slow buildup with the Sylvanas arc that was meant to happen over the course of several expansions instead happened in one and a half, and thus Shadowlands became a frantic attempt to stitch everything together and ‘fix’ that.

Which left Bolvar with… not as much to do.

10 Likes

I strongly believe Ardenweald could have been it’s own expansion, and I think it’s based on recycled concepts from the scrapped Emerald Dream expansion that they were working on pre-WoD.

I think you are right, Poised.

5 Likes

Actually that isn’t true.

Which is why Arthas couldn’t turn him into a Death knight unlike Saurfang jr. Even Arthas says that he hasn’t broken Bolvar yet but he is “close”.

The Lich King yells: The breaking of this one has been taxing. The atrocities I have committed upon his soul. He has resisted for so long, but he will bow down before his king soon.
Highlord Bolvar Fordragon yells: NEVER! I… I will never… serve… you…

I would say that the idea of 1 year expansions probably played a role in this. It is clear that Legion probably was going to end with ToS. Something that Ion even commented on somewhat before announcing Argus as patch 7.3 in a blizzcon. Which is probably why ToS and TEP had these “cliffhanger” cinematics. Where the antagonist ultimately won during that patch. Sargeras now has a portal large enough to fit through to get to Azeroth directly and N’zoth was freed thanks to Azshara. Even Argus and Ny’alotha felt that they should’ve been expansion level stories instead of 3 small zones and 3 buildings, Il’gynoths butt and N’zoth respectively.

It is possible to have an expansion story end where the heroes lose in an MMO setting. Bungie did that with Forsaken. Sure we killed Uldren, avenging Cayde-6. But killing Riven sprung trap no.1, creating the taken curse on the dreaming city and killing Dul Incaru sprung trap no.2. Turning the curse into a timeloop. And the city remains cursed to this day. Despite killing the creator of the curse, Quiria in Season of the Splicer.

I would even go so far as to say the players lose in Witch Queen. Sure we stopped Savathun from sealing away the traveler in her throne world. But the only person who could claim total victory is The Witness. A dangerous enemy to it has been defeated for now (Savathuns ghost is still out there, hiding from the vanguard and Xivu Arath, Savathuns sister. Whom was tasked with killing Savathun following the events of Season of Arrivals) and the Traveler is now open to attack. The only loss the Witness suffered was the death of one of its disciples. That being Rhulk.

iirc it was rumored that Mueh’zala was going to play the role of main antagonist in the third Traveler novel. As he acted as a major antagonist in the second book. However possible last minute changes to Bwonsamdi caused Mueh’zala to be wasted in Shadowlands as the final boss of the De Other Side dungeon instead.

1 Like

Bolvar was thrown under the bus by the writers to prop up Sylvanas. Simple as that. Lore and consistency be damned, Blizzard had to shill their waifu/flavor of the month.

2 Likes

WoW lore.jpg

4 Likes