I don't like any of the iconic Warcraft characters anymore

Lore Story Forum
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Thrall: went from someone absolutely dedicated to redeeming his people, the Orcs, and having the Horde become a positive force in the world it once sought to conquer. His shamanism was emblematic of his dedication to his people, their nation, and the honor and spiritualism of the Horde. He was born a slave but was taught strategy, diplomacy, and politics first by his master and then by his Orc mentors.

Then he was transformed into “Green Jesus.” He made the colossally stupid, idiotic, and asinine decision to make Garrosh Warchief despite all the obvious signs that he was a warmongering psychopath obsessed with carnage and conquest. Not satisfied with turning him into an idiot, Blizzard then forced him to abandon his faction and his people entirely in order to become the Elemental Savior of all Azeroth. Now he is a depressed, sad, tired, hypocritical loser who has to be FORCED to come aid his people by an Old Man, when originally the well-being of his people was CORE to everything Thrall was as a character. He literally crossed oceans to give the Horde a better chance at an honest life.

Jaina: The inquisitive young mage who once defied the hatreds of the past to not only unite with hated enemies to save the world, but also to recognize that a change was happening to said peoples and that persecuting them was wrong. Now her racist father has been vindicated by the convoluted plot, showing that no, the green men will never change, and yes Jaina was an idiot to trust them. She was forced to undergo a complete character 180 becoming an edgy, emotional wreck that rightfully hates the Horde. To compound this trainwreck, recently Blizzard has done another turnabout with the character, so even they can’t make up their bloody minds. Jaina, much like the lore, is now a complete mess.

I could go on, but the faults with others such as Sylvanas, Tyrande, etc have been well documented many times over. It is actually impressive that Blizzard has made me utterly despise characters I once cherished.

And it’s not just the classics. Everyone else they touch turns to garbage. Saurfang went from wishing to uphold honor at any cost, ready to strike down any threat to the Horde from within and without, to dragging his heels and having to be convinced by Manduin that he should grow a pair and face the Cartoon Villain Warchief of the expansion. Even someone like Magni, who forged the Ashbringer using the rage and grief of his brother’s apparent death, who was once the most senior member of the Alliance in the Eastern Kingdoms and ordered the Stormpike into AV under his Imperial Imperative has been reduced to fantasy Captain Planet, with no other personality outside of bemoaning how mother Azeroth is hurt.

I liken this to a really bad run of a iconic comic book. You want to love the characters that are dear to you, but you grow to hate them as bad writers make them increasingly more garbage.

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I agree, OP. Warcraft was a better game when it wasn’t dumbed down to shallow capecrap “main characters” faction leaders.

The sloppy storytelling is why i never cared for comics.

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This is why the main characters should be less involved in the future. Make side characters who can drive the story better, such as Eitrigg, Liadrin and Shandris. Characters who can still be down in the mud, but also calling the shots because of their rank and status.

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years and years pass. all of your loved ones will die as well. change is inevitable. you seem to be stuck in the past.

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The death of loved ones is not comparable at all to seeing fictional characters you once liked be written terribly. This should be self-evident to people with functional brain cells.

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i was referring to the characters you hold so near and dear you unbelievable cretin.

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Based on the datamined broadcast text in 8.3 we are ending BfA in the extremely bizarre circumstance of all of the surviving leaders all being very streamlined in their thoughts and opinions. It’s a continuation of Anduinification of all of the main characters.

Right now Thrall, Rokhan, and Baine may as well all be the same character for how much disagreement or conflict exists in their thoughts and opinions. Rather than concern themselves with Talanji who might break the hive-mind she just doesn’t make an appearance.

Anduin is Anduin, Thrall is Anduin, Alleria is Anduin (all of Alleria’s character development takes place in the dream world so it’s not even real).

I prefer my characters to have variation in their motivations and opinions, and with Gallywix, Tyrande, Sylvanas and Nathanos all gone or leaving it makes the rest of the cast seem vanilla and dull by comparison.

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Part of the problem, IMO, is that the faction conflict is too lacking in nuance to get a nice plethora of opinions. There isn’t really a good reason for the faction conflict, leaving those who may think differently than Anduin, or at least in a practical “this is the situation, can’t afford to do it” sense, the parts of the Alliance want to grind themselves against the Horde to death to try to punish them and some moronically bellicose, bloodthirsty Horde.

When the faction conflict is about the Horde misbehaving, then it will stop when they stop. It was also written in a way that the factions are too exhausted in resources and manpower, in combination with N’zoth and whatever Sylvanas is plotting past him, to make a less idealistic about peace viewpoint still lean towards not fighting, even if you hate the other faction.

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i don’t know, i feel like both thrall and jaina are extremely flawed characters, with doubts and guilt who had to carry over the years and the weight of leadership, they both had victories and defeats,usually their victories involve saving the world for the greater good and have “human” emotions. and i think they did a great job with jaina in particular.

So for that, i think that they are great because they feel real, they can fail, learn from their mistakes and try again to get redemption for their actions and in the end, they both simply want a better world. that is who they are.

i do understand if people are frustrated with the story to the point they just don’t care anymore due to the stupid plot that was forced upon us.
is safe to say that teldrassil ruined the story in many ways.

Personally? i blame the faction conflict, i never once feel that there was some sort of tensions because i knew from the start that we were going to go back to the status quo and fight the big bad.

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Kinda gotta agree. Pretty much everyone I liked in WC3 is either dead, or sucks now.

Except Rexxar. Rexxar is still rad, when Blizzard remembers he exists.

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In fairness, the stories Blizzard wanted to tell make sense.

Thrall was the paragon for his people, but in a time of crisis he turned to Garrosh to lead (who wasn’t actually a crazy warmongering psycho depending on the writing team, rather a stringent and militaristic orc who was maybe a bit too proud of his heritage). Of course, Garrosh goes off the deep end and Thrall is mortified that his actions had such dire consequences. Fair enough, that’s a cool idea to explore. Yeah the whole “green Jesus” thing is dull and stupid, and I would have rather passed on most of it, but it was also an opportunity to get him back to his roots (at least from what I recall from reading the Shattering)

Jaina’s story was also a good idea. Yes, she defied racial and political ties to stop a world ending threat, but at some point everyone’s optimism is put to the test, everyone’s values have to be checked. She nearly broke under the pressure, almost destroyed Orgrimmar, but was saved from falling into that abyss. And…then Blizzard went back to explore it a few more times. Questionable for sure, but I think the notion that not everyone can be trusted and peace is not always viable IS a worthy theme to explore, and Jaina was the best character for it at the time (nowadays it would probably be better for Anduin, put some hair on his chest and all that)

I guess to sum up, Blizzard didn’t take these characters into the shed and totally drain the essence of them, rather they were put against the grindstone and changed accordingly – as most good characters should. Those that didn’t need to change, like Khadgar, Tirion, etc, did not.

Now if you want to talk about ruined characters, Kael’Thas would like a word with you…

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I know how you feel man and the datamining from Reforged gives me the impression that Blizzard is about to retcon all our beloved characters and memories to be more consistent with the current style of Azeroth…

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There’s no room for individuality in a game that isn’t seeing any form of rapid growth. Hence why everyone gets blind sighted and dumbed down so its that much easier to fit everything in one big streamlined pipe.

Unless Blizz surprises us but I don’t see very many people excited about their going ons…especially now.

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I don’t think so. it’s a natural outgrowth from the arrogant youth who was a bitter rival with Arthas for Jaina’s affections.

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I’d have expected Kael’thas to end up more like Rommath than abandon everything he ever stood for because POWAH.

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That’s what happens when Blizzard doesn’t care about the characters themselves but rather only using them as plot devices.

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I’d argue they care a lot about certain characters…

but their idea of what those certain characters are may be very different from what any else thinks they are. Jaina, Anduin, Baine all are massive creators pets. So they’re trying to make them more like their idealized versions of those characters.

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In WoW: You either die a raid boss, or live long enough to see your characterization ruined.

…or in Illidan’s case both…

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Tyrande’s path is making me angry. It is almost like the Black Prince story line seriously? And What about Malfurion ? Is he just going to follow? The only reason they are doing this is to keep the fractions and Horde vs Alliance. They can’t combine the two ever, it’s the whole story. Someone has to be mad and want revenge. It is just stupid that the characters flip flop every expac. I guess the Gnomes are neutral and just follow and Dwarves do too. They need some more characters introduced and I am also tried of the “baby lion king” always getting a bad rep, no one respects him.

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I’m not crazy about any of these character … developments … either. This is why I personally think the “Characters Must Grow and Change” mantra is overstated.