I mean… He kinda was for the longest time… Cataclysm was peak Gary Stu for Thrall with him almost becoming a Dragon Aspect. I don’t care what Metzen says, I am 99% convinced the original plan was for Thrall to join the aspects and was only changed because of overwhelming negative feedback.
Dude literally, by himself, held an entire planet together while the Champion of Azeroth™ went and stabilized things. Guy literally stood at the Maelstrom holding the planet together. He was the focus on so many quests in the Cataclysm and was being turned more and more into the “Super Man” of WoW that could do nothing wrong.
I say all this as someone who LIKES Thrall. He is one of my favorite characters but Blizzard has no chill when it comes to their characters. They often do absurd things under the protection of “Rule of Cool” which is why Sylvanas, one of my other favorite characters, is now ruined for me.
I don’t get this one. I will agree, I don’t feel Yrel is a Mary Sue.
She is a bit absurd and has done a lot of wrong without seeing any real negative connotations. She has powers that no other mage seems to have and uses them in absurdly impractical ways just to look cool.
Like… She concentrates on levitating a boat not meant for flight while also casting zone wide frost novas and then to break down the city walls of Undercity she rotates the ship and creates arcane cannons to fire arcane missiles instead of just firing arcane missiles? Wat?
Her powers are absurd and she basically gets away being a brat and having been a very sour, horrible, person without any repercussions much like Grom from WoD (which I notice isn’t listed…) But at least Draenor is free, yeah?
I am not sure I even have to point out why this is true… I have made several posts in the past on this, but to summarize…
She is literally pulling powers out of her butt now. She can physically swing hundreds of tons of Saronite as if its nothing. She abruptly gained the ability to fly. She is entirely impervious to damage except for one scene where Saurfange gets a tiny scratch on her and all of these powers have come from nowhere with no legitimate explanation.
Yeah yeah, I get the whole “She had made a deal” bit but the timeframe for this absurd power boost, apparently narrowed down to after Ysera died, is silly.
Sylvanas was far better portrayed in Legion than BFA, far far FAR better. I made a post commenting on the absurd BFA opening cinematic and how it could have been done better instead of having her literally become a DBZ character.
I LIKED Sylvanas, she is a character that had been developed for such a long time with such an amazing story and character arc. I loved WotLK and beyond, how once her arc was finished Blizzard found a new arc for her that I actually really liked, “Staying Alive”. She has in the course of a single expansion done a full 180 for no good reason and gone from being a tactical genius who uses other’s for her benefit to being a full on Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain.
I get the word Mary Sue is used loosely, so I will stop using it and instead just say these are horribly written characters/character moments.
Sylvanas, post Legion, is horribly written.
Again, don’t get this one at all. I get people don’t like Anduin because he is excessively naive and optimistic but it usually ends with consequences. I wouldn’t say he is a Gary Stu but I get why people dislike him.
Also don’t quite get this one… She has not really done anything since becoming Queen…
I flat out disagree here. I think Tyrande is fine for the time being, as long as her actions have consequences and her power does not pull a Sylvanas spike of absurdity. We still don’t fully know all the details about the ritual she partook of.
In the books he absolutely is absurd but its because its Warriors and non-magic users constantly going up against him. He is also, for me, a very unlikable character with a “Better than everyone else” attitude about him.
I never liked the way he treated Illidan. Yeah, his tactics were always unsavory but he did what he needed to do to get things done. Malfurion does not want to compromise to the point of letting things get bad, Illidan makes quite a few compromises, er… “sacrifices” knowing full well that the methods are not perfect but get results.
I have seen quite a number of Naaru who have been cannon fodder for plot and who have been written in a darker light. Xe’ra was by far the best example of “Oh, wait a second, maybe the Light ISN’T as pure and perfect as we thought…” because, really, before Legion I would have argued that the Light was pure and perfect with no real negatives. Xe’ra proved that point very wrong and brought up a lot of questions, questions being good.
I disagree, he has gotten the short end of the stick time and time again and every time he does something he is in the wrong. Legion is the first time he has really had a “win” and that win was him spending the rest of his life as Sargeras’ Jailer… or until they need Sargeras to break free for plot.
I really do not think Illidan is a Gary Stu considering all the beat downs he has taken. Edgy? Sure. Gary Stu? Nah.
I think its a bit of both Column A and Column B but I would agree that the word is used far too loosely to describe what is just, in general, bad writing.
I disagree. A lot of them have bad writing but a lot of them have also had good writing.
Garrosh for instance, until his absurd turn in MoP was written quite well. The moment he was like “Im’ma willingly corrupt myself with this old god heart like my father did with Demon Blood” is when his character took a nose dive for me. For many of the same reasons I really dislike Sylvanas now, because the same exact thing has happened to her.
Ehhh… I mean, if we are being real, at the end of the day this is all subjective but for me I feel Khadgar has his moments…
That is not true at all though. Saurfang is a very good point on the matter, he was fodder to Sylvanas for example even though he was suppose to be the strongest living Warrior in WoW. In fact, Warrior’s in general have it rough and only even seem to manage and scratch their foes before dying (Broxigar). Heck, even Varian Wrynn got done dirty for being a Warrior. Yeah, he had his cool moment on the Broken Shore but man… Warriors seem to be WoW’s punching bag in the lore among literal gods.
Eh, but anyway, I personally feel Blizzard just struggles balancing characters and far too often allows themselves to be blinded by the idea of “Rule of Cool”
I do agree that Mary Sue is misused and overused but there certainly is a lot of bad writing.