"Girl Boss" characters in lore work best as villains

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Queen Azshara

Powerful. In charge. Intelligent. Cunning. True villain. Likeable by WoW fans.

Sylvanas (BFA / Shadowlands)

Powerful. In Charge. Intelligent. Cunning. Wishy washy villain. Became unlikable.

Xal’atath

Powerful. In charge. Intelligent. Cunning. True villain. Likeable by WoW fans.

Sylvanas “pre-BFA” falls more inline with Jaina’s character. They’re just “well-written characters”, regardless of what “Body Type” they are or identify as. While both are powerful, intelligent leaders, they have many weaknesses and flaws and struggles and trials. They have many shortcomings that allow them to go through “the hero’s journey”, an important aspect of every main protagonist in storytelling. Tyrande is in a similar boat, having suffered more than most.

If Sylvanas developed through a “villain arc” prior to seeking out a “redemption arc”, it wasn’t portrayed very well by the writing at Blizzard at the time. Just a mess.

And to be honest, “Body Type” has nothing to do with it. We just see more “strong female Body Type 2 characters” in entertainment now-a-days due to DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) efforts across the various entertainment industries. Garrosh is an excellent example of well-written “Body Type 1” villain. He was villainous, and he reveled in it. From a lore perspective, that works well. “Strong” characters don’t work if they’re wishy washy about what side they’re fighting for. It feels more satisfying when the protagonists, the heroes, the players, have a truly powerful and truly villainous character to overcome.

And even though Xal’atath is sharing Thanos’s color palette, I’m here for it. I look forward to seeing how she wipes the floor with us things play out.

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Queen Azshara is really the only good one there

Sylvanas was self serving since the game came out but everyone was like “haha no she totally loyal to horde and forsaken, please ignore the numerous quests where she kills any forsaken who even questions her”

Xal’arath is just the Jailer again, put into a bunch of important lore scenarios and has done nothing, but we’re supposed to think theyre clever and powerful

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To be fair, Xal’atath does have more buildup than the Jailor did. And at least she (seems) to have been just observing, not secretly manipulating every point of important lore that ever happened.

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I mean power sliding straight into Frostmourne shows some issues with tactics and good sense.

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At least they worked most of the stuff she did in the past in before she was ever a villain. When it was just the shadow priest dagger there was a bunch of lore about how the dagger had been whispering and influencing things. Most of it was written down in that book that tells you the lore of your weapon.

They showed her get a body in a brief quest in bfa

And now her being a villain feels more earned than the jailer did. So, I am hopeful, but they could trip at the finish line who knows.

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Intelligent isnt really how I would describe the first two… one of them wanted to couple with a titan because she wanted to marry up as queen of the world.

The second… I mean where to start with sylvanas? Walking plot armor and plot holes with a nonsensical redemption arc.

The third is a literal alien god… they just grow. All of them expand without a mate.

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Sounds like someone doesn’t actually know the extent of the lore surrounding Xal’atath.

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Azshara works for a lot of reasons.

For one thing, she is (or was) a renowned beauty. Easy on the eyes. That is always a plus with any fan base.

Her motives were unambiguous.

She had undertones to her character that were… sort of about wanting dudes. She wanted Sargeras as a husband, and she seemed really flirty with Illidan. Her whole reason for wanting to summon Sargeras was because she wanted to hook up with him. Makes her seem a bit… focused on courtship. That makes alot of fans line up.

Sylvanas has always been controversial. People on the Alliance hated her because she took Lordaeron and was a meanie face. People in the Horde hated her because she messed up the vibe.

You can’t get an honest discussion about her - her die hard fans like everything about her. Her haters have nothing but contempt for every aspect of her.

Xalatath hasn’t done much to say she is popular or successful. I haven’t found her that interesting yet. I am reserving judgement until we get more information, but it is too soon to say she is a villain done right, imo.

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Honestly if you don’t have a priest character that is how she comes off.

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I already deal with a “Girl Boss.”

Her name is Dreadmoon.

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A girlboss character is this type of character that comes out of nowhere and starts giving everyone orders, usually displaying no leadership abilities and more often just comes with a chip on her shoulder, attitude. Everyone is supposed to listen to them, it’s rarely established why they do that and the story is typically bent to make these characters look good. Typically by making everyone else around them really stupid. These characters have no negative traits or if they do, they are very “light” and meaningless.

That being said, Queen Azshara is not a girlboss. She had huge flaws. She was very shallow, very arrogant and eventually, very stupid. She made the same mistake twice which ended up costing her everything all over again. She was never a great villain, more like a sad story of a person’s greed and arrogance that eventually catches up with her.

The knife elf is also not what I would call a girlboss. She’s actually intelligent and manipulative and that is seen across the story. She does not require anyone to turn really stupid to make her intelligence shine. Too early to tell if she’s gonna be a good villain or not, but so far, I like her. We’ll see how it develops since this character has way more details about it that need to be revealed.

Sylvanas does not even come close to the girlboss notion. She’s a very flawed character who didn’t just show up and started ordering everyone around. She repeatedly shows her competence when she puts a hell of a fight against Arthas and his undead legions, then she proceeds to organize the awakened undead into an army and carves out a place for them in a world that wanted to kill them on sight. And let’s be honest, she was never a villain except to Alliance fanboys. She was an undead banshee who acted, well, like you’d expect an undead banshee to. Her story should have concluded after Arthas died, but they decided to keep her going having her focus on ensuring a future for her subjects. Then they pulled out the villain bat and well we got BFA and SL. They battered that character beyond recognition to fulfill a fanboy demand. What a waste.

Lucky for us, WoW does not have that many girl bosses. You want an example of a girlboss, try Jaina Proudmoore after Golden decided to appropriate the character. She becomes this super-powered mage, it’s never explained how she does that, only that actual super-powerful mages fear her. She can do no wrong and if it seems she does, everyone else just gives her a pass. Lucky for us Golden went bye-bye.

In the end, I think you are wrong. Girlboss characters don’t make good villains because they don’t make good characters in general.

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Likability aside, Sylvanas wasn’t a very good villain. She required the Jailer as justification, who was also a pretty lame villain. Queen turned lackey, for nothing.

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Yeah I always liked Xalatath especially being a talking weapon.

Gave off Lilarcor vibes (the very talkative, obnoxious, hilarious, socio-pathic talking 2H sword in Baldur’s Gate 2).

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I think the girl boss trope is dying and the androgynous boss is replacing it.

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What makes “girl boss” characters out stand more from “boy boss” characters in the first place?

… where the heck am I?

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Sir, this is a Wendy’s

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Did some say “Widow Greenpaw”?

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She’s got quite a bit of lore if you are interested in that. All stuff in the background though, so unless you are following things closely it does appear like she just came out of nowhere.

She got a ton of lore in legion when she was first introduced, and she has had quest/appearances in bfa and dragonflight and has even shown up in Season of Discovery.

But all her roles were basically as a background character. With only a book telling us how dangerous she really is.

For anyone interested in story I’d suggest just watching a youtube video at this point. because all her stuff is pretty short and completely spread out.

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I can fix her.

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Modern media is a Katamari Damacy boulder of politically correct tropes that will flatten us all.

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