Lorewise, our characters are Mary Sues

Community General Discussion
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One thing that’s made clear in the Warcraft universe is that many of the things our characters do are non-canon, but rather gameplay mechanics taking priority over lore.

Conjuring mage portals and casting battle rezzes are portrayed lorewise as things that are extremely difficult, if not impossible by some people, to perform.
And self-rezzes via “returning to your body” just outright don’t exist lorewise. They’re there for gameplay reasons because a game where death is permanent would be…well…nearly unplayable in an MMORPG.

So…what does this mean?

This means that with the exception of certain “scripted” deaths (ie; Lich King and Argus deaths), our characters have literally never died ONCE.

So consider all the tough bosses we faced, from C’Thun to Yogg-Saron to Arthas to Deathwing to N’Zoth in his unleashed form to literally every other boss we fought.
Some of these bosses took WEEKS to kill, if not outright MONTHS!
These are the hardest “lore” enemies in WoW, and many encounters were certainly structured to make it feel that way.

The only way these bosses were eventually killed was through trial-and-error. Guilds would go up against these bosses, wipe, learn from their wipe, try again, wipe again, learn from it, improve, do better, and with skill and practice, they would eventually kill them.

But if death and player resurrection in WoW is non-canon, then what this means is that our ragtag group of adventurers literally fought these bosses ONCE, and on their FIRST try against the most powerful enemies in Azeroth, they were able to destroy them.
Lorewise, there was no “trial and error” where the adventurers “learned” and “improved” until they were eventually able to win.

They just went in BLINDLY (accurate adventure journals and YouTube guides don’t exist in lore) and stomped on the bosses with relative ease on the same day they first even merely SAW many of the bosses (C’Thun, Yogg-Saron, etc).

Thus, our characters are Mary Sues.

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In the Demon hunter starting zone Illidan can explain to you why it is you come back to life, at least as a DH. He says something about an immortal demon soul and being reborn in the twisting nether I believe.

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I… Cannot contend this argument.

Carry on.

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I’m pretty sure the vast majority of player character actions aren’t Canon, so while Horde and alliance get to murder their way through onyxia’s lair and blackwing lair, they aren’t really apart of the story, it’s very particular NPCs doing the real work apparently, we are just back round fodder essentially.

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Your character is what you make of them.

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Well a Mary Sue isn’t just a character that is powerful, and the “player” in lore is designed to be a blank slate for us to project a character or ourselves onto.

Not to mention that, lore wise, we didn’t actually kill a number of raid bosses that we got to kill in-game.

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Just call me Rey Skywalker

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Wesley Crusher?

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No we’re not.

And DH is challenging to play.

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Lol.

Ten char.

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Yes, it’s a character that can do no wrong and everyone else in the story gushes over how awesome they are.

Mary Sue is what I think about everytime an npc said "champion, we need your help! Only you can do this great and amazing thing of {insert quest objective} "

It’s not just wow that does this. Nearly every single mmo does it. Not once do I ever hear from an NPC “holy f—! You Idiot! You totally screwed up!” There’s no repercussions for screwing up. In fact the system actually prevents it.

I would love to play a game where you could screw up and become a pariah

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You’ve obviously never seen me play. LOL.

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Our characters are not completely canon. We are the “Heroes” that help save the world, but we are not specifically named in anything.

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Our characters are confirmed to be Non-Canon.
Or resides in their own continuity; for those who are more open-minded.

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We die fighting Argus and Eonar breses us. That’s twice.

But even the number of deaths one has does not preclude one from being accused of being a Mary Sue. Sylvanas has died a bajillion times and is called a Mary Sue by some.

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It’s also worth noting that the OP is talking about lore wise.

Which “the player” in lore isn’t a cohesive character that actually did all of the things we did in-game.

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They refer to us player characters and our achievements as adventurers in the lore books. Or some term like that. I’m at work and I can’t check at this moment.

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Twenty heroes including the Ashbringer, Arch-Mage, Arch-Druid, The Slayer, and all sorts of other power-houses are going to steamroll most bosses. Your character is basically an Avenger at this point and raids are basically when you have an Avengers-level threat. Most raid bosses don’t have a chance in hell of beating the player raid. Only the final bosses canonically seem to ever be on that power level. Like, Elisande literally went to multiple timelines Dr. Strange style and saw she couldn’t beat us and gave up. It turns out twenty guys against one Sorceress is pretty lop-sided.

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While you may have a point with some examples, like Onyxia (comics showed Varian killing her), many bosses actually reference us being there, or make our presence a requirement.

Azshara, for instance, literally had us freeing N’Zoth with the Heart of Azeroth while we beat her.

Furthermore, the Heart of Azeroth was used as the anchor point for the Forge of Origination to destroy N’Zoth.

Unless we weren’t “Azeroth’s Champion,” this was us.

In Legion, there is lorewise only one Ashbringer, only one Silver Hand, only one of literally every legendary weapon that was shown in game. Each class hall was led by one person. So it makes sense that the bosses we fight would be fought by the people carrying the legendary weapons. (So the argument that “different” adventures fought each boss falls flat here, at least for Legion.)

And finally, with the Lich King, in his death cinematic, Bolvar says “you and these brave heroes have their own destinies to fulfill,” implying that yes, we were there, and yes, we survived.

Could you please elaborate?

If our characters were not canon, then are you saying the wielding of legends artifacts like the Ashbringer is also non-canon? If so, then what drew the corruption from the sword in Silithus? Who was Azeroth’s champion, and what freed N’Zoth?

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Its not consistent, it has never been. Its the entire issue.

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