The writers control how powerful characters are, so “character has this magical artifact” is not an excuse when a character is so powerful that the plot can’t handle it. It comes off as pure gameplay why she does not instant kill the raid team when she can casually have long stretches of areas constantly bombarded with magic and create entire glaciers in the ocean. Naturally, they can’t have her show up when she could, otherwise the Horde would never stand a chance. Same way the whole Tyrande Night Warrior thing was awkward, as it was either frustrate the Alliance with their ultimate decision or frustrate the Horde with another “run from demigod, feel powerless” situation. The Horde is not asking for the “best of everything”, it is asking to not feel like we are at the mercy of demigods if Blizzard refuse to give us or let us keep any of our own.
I think “writer’s pet” is more fitting term for her.
This I have no problem with - by which I mean I agree with you.
- Jaina
- Malfurion
- Tyrande
- Anduin
- Velen (?)
- Khadgar - Neutral, Alliance Origin
In the Battle for Azeroth cinematic, Sylvanas has her banshee moment where she decimates a siege tower killing the accompanying Alliance soldiers. Anduin erects what looks like a barrier that gives the Horde army pause and heals/resurrects a good portion of Alliance forces.
It looks like the Alliance is stronger in magic than the Horde. But slaying dragons has always been about the warrior with a sword killing the more powerful creature. Most of our entertainment is about our dude(s) beating stronger opponent.
Sylvanas, Saurfang, Vol’jin, Grom, etc. aren’t strong because they’re filled with power, they’re strong because of their physical and martial skill.
However, as you’ve correctly pointed out, this means that the world has to warp around the story otherwise there would be no story (they’d want to tell).
If you go purely by the cinematic, it looks like the Horde has next to no magic at all. There’s one shaman, and Sylvanas doing her banshee thing, and that’s it. But the cinematic completely ignores the fact that the Horde has two elf races that should be magical powerhouses, and undead are not slouches in the magic department either. It shouldn’t look that imbalanced toward the Alliance.
“TITAN CONSTRUCTS!”
I am amazed by the excuses given for the lack of magical prowess the Horde exhibits. I doubt Blizzard is being held back by “lore” when it comes to not making our named Nightborne mages more powerful, as much as lack of interest. We see plenty of human mages and there is a bunch of Night Elf mages as well. The supposed “exceptional few” of the humans seem to be more the rule. Blizzard could bring in a powerful named Blood Elf mage if they wanted to.
Or they could use the Nightborne mages for something other than (1) fleeing in terror from Jaina and (2) getting corrupted during a raid.
I was talking about characters, not overall.
Talanji seems like she should be magically powerful; Thalyssra definitely.
Thrall (also neutral now, but more Horde leaning than Khadgar is Alliance leaning) might get his mojo back this expansion.
We have a lot of Horde characters who are theoretically powerful in magic but in practice are never actually seen doing anything magical. Especially in the arcane department. Thalyssra comes under this heading.
We don’t know what Talanji’s capabilities are now that she doesn’t have the bond with Rezan. To what degree can she bring Bwonsamdi to her aid under the new contract?
Thrall … hard to say. He once was a Horde character who could maybe stand with the Alliance demigods, but now they seem to be pushing him as a warrior, rather than a shaman.
They could also actually develop some magic-using characters in the Horde.
Which is all well and good. That is the origin of the term, and that is how it SHOULD be used, but that is NOT how the internet uses it these days.
The etymology of a phrase does not dictate it’s modern usage.
Let’s hope so.
Numerically the Horde is awash with magic folk thanks to the Sin’dorei and Shal’dorei. Odd that none of them really take center stage. But that may have more to do with the desired perception of the Horde as more crude and fierce. Which I’d argue magic is largely viewed - especially with regard to the Horde Elves - as a sophisticated and learned endeavor.
Jaina Tryanda and Malfurion are the only OP characters in wow. It is started that Tryanda + Malfurion could beat the entire horde army. This was before night warrior.
This is a major issue, anytime horde see them in faction war we run or when we fight they toy with us.
Jaina survived a raid of heroes who have already killed deities. I think it’s a bit much.
She is one of a lot of really powerful characters. And she is not even the top. If you have an issue with that writing choice for the world, that is fair. But it hardly has anything to do with her. She has had in game development establishing her power level, so it is not out of the blue. And it is not all that over the top when you compare other characters in the narrative. So, if you don’t like the world design choice, make that complaint. Don’t try to shoe horn it all onto a single character you happen to not like for other reasons.
That was less awkward because of gameplay considerations and rather that their choice to have her held and bay by NPC characters that should be far lower on power level than her before her power up, which ran counter to the idea of her being powered up. Kind of like if Thrall was getting clobbered by a kobold will having the power of the earth warder.
This feels like your real complaint. You don’t feel like the Horde has characters on her level. It seems like the Alliance has a shiny and you feel like you should get one too. Well, that is not really how a story should go. Plus power level has nothing to do with quality of a story. You can have great stories with characters with no power just as easily. But that aside, you are wrong about the Horde not having them.
Lets look at what the Horde does have. Saurfang is arguable the best warrior on Azeroth, or at least he is presented that way. Sure, he is not burning armies himself, but in his category he is top tier. Then we have Sylvanas who literally stood toe to toe with arguably THE most powerful Alliance character. And of course we have Thrall who stood off against Jaina while she was using the focusing iris and held. Sure his power has gone down recently because of his issues, but his arc is not done. Then we have Vol’jin who is now on the loa level, in other words demigod level. Then there are the Valkyr who raise whole armies of undead. Those are just some examples. Look, the point is that the Horde does have some serious heavy hitters. And the Alliance having some should not be an issue.
No, that would fit Thrall much better. Even Nathanos has become more of a “writer’s pet” than Jaina. After all, look at how he is presented. Standing up to the strongest characters, always getting his shots in, never showing weakness, never called out for mistakes, ect.
And a Goddess empowered woman couldn’t kill a man who shoots arrows.
Get off this. Nathanos is shown as having no chance to win on either side of the encounter. He can’t land a hit and flees inflicting no damage.
One of the worst characters in the franchise, should have died in the raid and maybe I’d think otherwise.
Only certain corners of the internet. And Perfectia made a statement about the nature of the term, implying that discrediting female characters is the whole reason for its existence, which simply isn’t true.
She was fighting the hordes of undead then, not a trained army. Antonidas’ training does explain an increase in character capacity, but not enough to fight an entire army and win, or at least escape unharmed.
As for the staff, I’d believe it, if artifacts of similar power were the cause of some characters’ ascension in power. For example, Thrall wielded the Doomhammer, created by Gelnar, given the means to do so by the elements themselves. That did not ascend Thrall’s power as a shaman. He even lost a fight to Garrosh in the arena. He just suddenly, in Cataclysm, became all-powerful.
That’s not really her fault. If anything, it attributes to her ability to ‘always be right’, because she had the correct answer the whole time and they failed to heed her warning.
She didn’t lose her position in the Kirin Tor, she essentially rage quit.
Her emotions, while it does paint her as an actual character with some depth, aren’t the target of why she’s being accused of being a Mary Sue. Even Mary Sue characters can have emotional outbursts/setbacks while still interacting with the story without fear of failure, succeed even where they shouldn’t and come to the correct conclusion on every subject.
A Mary Sue, in many things, is free of meaningful consequence. She’s not suffered one setback. She’s not even ‘wounded’ at the end of the Battle of Drazal’alor. She’s standing, walking and talking. That’s a scratch.
Do not play with the accusation of misogyny.
Hordes of undead and Arthas tells his men to just hold because she has it. Just stop and think about the fact that she was powerful enough that Arthas was not even a little concerned. So, when we first meet her she is already significantly powerful.
It does explain her skill. But, more than that, the fact that Antonidas took her to train indicates she had notable capacity.
First, she didn’t fight the Horde army. She fought some Horde champions. And second, please stop repeating the “unharmed” idiocy. We are flat out told that she did not escape unharmed. She escaped alive, but hurt. And hurt bad enough that even with magical healing she was still recovering.
All artifacts are not the same. Her staff was quite powerful to start with and it was further empowered by Titan powers. It is not the same as Doomhammer and should not be compared to it.
(Side note: Thrall’s power boost in cata was him inheriting the earth warder powers. Nothing to do with artifacts of any kind.)
Not the point. To be a Mary Sue everyone would have to think she is great and always right. Even her allies and closest friends don’t believe she is always right. And there are a lot who don’t think she is great. So, it rules her out.
But that has not been the case. She has been wrong.
Jaina has had failures. Including losing her city, being removed as leader of Dalaran and being thrown in jail by her own mother. Heck, even in this expac she went to Kul’tiras to get them to join the Alliance. She straight up failed. Her own mother rejected her and refused to join the Alliance. The Allaince PC had to come in and clean up the mess.
If you really believe that, you are either refusing to look at the facts or have just not been paying attention. She lost her father, she lost friends, she lost her city, she has nearly died multiple times, the Alliance PC has to help pull her back together and save her. She has had a seriously rough time of it. The fact that she is still alive does not mean she has not suffered meaningful consequences.
Already address. She was hurt, and hurt badly. We are told that in game. I don’t get why you are repeating this claim. We have already established it as false. Repeating it wont change that.
People will never get off ‘this’ because the scenario is that poorly written and executed.
It must be brought up every time Blizzard mentions “faction pride” or “revenge.” No matter what some mouth-breather says at a dev interview or twitter post. Blizzard should be ashamed of how bad it is.
Sad thing is that was the best version Blizzard could come up with after backlash.