If Nathanos were someone we saw once per expansion, in some sidequest chain like Nessingwary, I’d probably think he was kind of funny. Bonus points if the narrative would poke a little fun at him now and then.
Being constantly exposed to him makes him grating. And, when he’s someone I’m supposed to take seriously, I find myself deeply irritated by his backstory, which seems specially designed to overhype him into oblivion.
I think he’s funny in the way the local edgelord roleplayers are funny. It’s only humorous if you don’t take him seriously. Unfortunately the narrative insists that Nathanos is very serious, and very important.
There are some people who like Nathanos because he goes against the game’s recent tendency of treating the player as a golden god who’s just the best whatever on the planet, but honestly, not even that explanation has ever done it for me, since Nathanos in and of himself is kind of lame and is quite clearly supported by plot armor. He comes off less like a powerful fighter who’s unimpressed and more like an annoying heckler who we could squash like a cockroach whenever we wanted to, if only the game designers allowed us to do that.
But I don’t actually know anyone who is head-over-heels in love with Nathanos like people are for almost every other character. It’s not even a “love to hate” situation; his “Tyrion Lannister with none of the wit and even less of the morality” personality combined with the fact that he may or may not be a self-insert makes it so that most people don’t want to kill him or fight him; they just never want to hear from him again.
Which is the worst thing a character can be, I think.
He’s also wildly heterosexual, if everyone knows what I mean by that.
Simps for Sylvanas untie!
I don’t understand what you mean by that.
I’ve said it many times before, I honestly think the biggest issue with Nathanos isn’t his personality, but just that the entirety of this expansion has deeply conditioned Horde players to know that when his face appears on screen, it might as well just be a glowing neon sign that reads “YOU AREN’T COOL ENOUGH TO SEE THE REAL STORY”- because they didn’t bother to actually write one and Nathanos being rude to the player is supposed to mask that as some intriguing mystery that will eventually be revealed.
But whether you like him or hate him, he just isn’t compelling enough as a character to pull that off and the story around him has been so unfocused that it’s impossible to give his foreshadowing any benefit of doubt. It’s not interesting when he refuses to tell you what is going on with Sylvanas during the war campaign; it is just annoying, because every single time he does it, you know deep down that there is no secret story going on. Blizzard is bluffing, and Nathanos is just there as a placeholder to keep us busy.
I never thought I’d warm to the Scarlet Crusade Super Weapon turned Against Them, and I’m not keen on how cool she got with Undeath in BfA (But in fairness, Sylvanas had the same realization in Cata going from “What are we if not slaves to this torment?” to “Simple Warchief, I serve the Horde. :3”), but Voss is 100 times better than Sylvanas and especially better then Sylvanas and Nathanos 2.0 that are Calia and Derek.
Real talk, this might just be a me problem as a former Magic: the Gathering player but I can’t take Lillian Voss seriously knowing that she’s just a HAW HAW name reference to Liliana Vess.
And that, Blizzard, is why you don’t give your characters stupid !@#$ing reference names if you plan to keep using them. It isn’t even an homage, or a parody, you’re pointing at something else and going “EH? EHHHHH?”
I genuinely like Nathanos. I think he’s a good example of deligated power, and he doesn’t treat the player special. I don’t feel like he treats us super poorly, because the way he treats the alliance is far worse.
He’s not the nicest, but he’s good at what he does for the most part.
I liked Nathanos until the exact moment he went from being a “Forsaken” to being a “human with a skin condition.”
Much like Saurfang, the second they decided to take him from being an interesting background character to a main character, he lost anything particularly interesting or unique about him. Instead, he needed to become a Flanderized, slightly “off” version of that original character because he was now a plot device to push some absolutely tepid, lackluster storyline forward.
What’s sad about the whole Saurfang ordeal is that they frankly should’ve kept him as that interesting background character and committed to just having Baine be the lead in the anti-Sylvanas ordeal.
Sure, changes some things, but it’s less jumbled and probably more palpable in the end.
If Baine died, who would even step up to be the focus of the Tauren? Mayla? It’d feel so weird to suddenly have her be the focus of both.
Is there even a prominent Tauren character that isn’t straight up evil like Magatha?
BfA Cinematics: Orc being sad. Orc being sad in a prison cell. Orc running into other Orc to save them, and talk about how he is sad about current Horde affairs. Fighting Sylvanas, and dying.
230f9889jhu548uh7gt98 219089083h598i4h9012 j09gj 50 oipjwe201ioj fjnf 109j12 909j0 f309jf2 09j2190j90j more orcs being sad pls.
I wouldn’t have killed Baine. You can oust someone in more ways than martyring.
Personally, I’d do something ‘shocking’ and have Lor’themar make the comment about “She has the faith of the people” or whatever it was, then just have him and Thalyssra burst out laughing and go “Who we kidding. Everyone not Forsaken hates her.” and just solve that problem in a few lines.
I think the “prominent” part is one of the chief issues with their writing at the moment. I don’t want them to try to make 20,000 different characters “work” every expansion pack but I think they lean a little too heavily on basically melting down every race, or even either faction, and all of their hopes, aspirations, and traditions into 1-2 characters.
That was less “kill off Baine for terrible BfA plot” and more “who WOULD even step up if he died?”
WoW is best when it’s a world, not a novel imho.
BfA and semi-Legion shown that they want to write stories that are on par with FFXIV’s. But FFXIV is built around the story. That and, well… Blizzard doesn’t have enough competence in writing captivating arcing stories.
Personally. I think views of Sylvanas and Nathanos can be best summarized like this.
There was always that sort of ‘2 weeks until cinematic is canon’ thing for the RP community.
Everyone celebrated the poster children of the forsaken yeeting themselves out of the Horde the day the cinematic dropped. Not only that, the Horde RP scene literally saw most it’s players who had been annoyed and not playing return as well.
There is the answers: Sylvanas and Nathanos Stans are stinky.
Come now. Westfall and it’s CSI: Miami references are just so…FRESH…now that we’re 8 years after the show wrapped.
There’s the other Grimtotem guy who is against Magatha. Also the Tauren Sunwalker dude. (I’m not a Horde main, sorry I forget their names)
Honestly, BfA did Baine dirty. He’s just proven himself the most ineffective leader in the entire Horde. Yes, the leader of that branch of Hozen that joined up with the Horde for like five minutes was a more competent leader then Baine Bloodhoof.