Over the years Blizz has built up a big cast of characters, but there’s a strong sense of dissatisfaction among many fans of the game regarding how they’ve been handled. Others are also showing their age or flaws from their original concepts.
Ex:
Malfurion is first druid but depicted as too soft and caring more about nature than his people (which would be a great flaw but the story doesn’t touch it)
Thrall was really powerful but carries the stigma from the Garrosh problems and seeming out of touch with his people, while at the same time being a bad friend to Jaina and the other Horde leaders. He wanted peace but seems to have failed at every turn to make it happen. (Plus… ‘Wife Aggra’ Seriously?)
Tyrande’s characterization shifts and is a mess, she’s the best priestess of Elune but being ‘chosen’ by her Goddess is a bit bland.
Sylvanas… we keep being told she wasn’t a villain early on, but Blizz had her torch Teldrassil in a way that’s utterly unpalatable to many players no matter how much they tell us it was ‘pragmatic’ or ‘necessary’ and to those who DO want her evil she’s doing so in a hamhanded and unnecessary way.
Jaina flip-flopped her character from peace to warmonger too many times in short succession and vanished in Legion making people feel she abandoned the Alliance over her hate, yet in the aftermath of the Zuldazar raid she doesn’t want to attack while the Zandalari mourn Rasta
Talanji feels bland, in the sense that she’s a strong queen who cares about her people… but she’s only ‘strong’ in the sense that she can beat people up, she has very little actual personality.
Etc…
What can be done to shore up the major cast of characters, not just in BFA, but in both factions overall? What needs to happen to get these characters back on track?
2 Likes
i literally don’t see the problems with those characters.
maybe tyrande who has been nerfed?
Sylvanas stays true to who she is, she is consistently evil.
Thrall is just finding himself but he will eventually come back.
malfurion keeps saving the world but now he is defending his people.
jaina in bfa has been great. i don’t really care about her abandon in legion. because i understand why she did it, even if it was stupid as hell blame the horde for broken shore, i don’t blame her for that, i blame the writers. and there is a reason why she don’t want to attack during the funeral. her anger was more directed towards herself and her guilt.
As for your question:
Now tyrande has to show her teeth and her being competent. malfurion don’t have to go back to being neutral, jaina just need to not lose her mind with the derek think, sylvanas can keep being evil for all what i care, and thrall can come back and redeem himself and probably the horde.
and talanji needs to start working to difference herself from the rest of the cast.
that is what has to happen to those characters, in my opinion.
but at the same time, i already enjoy them for what they are, characters with flaws and emotions.
Jaina’s arc is fully complete and realized through the 8.0 Alliance story. In short, the death of her father began a deep seated guilt and psychological pain that compounded itself with each crisis. From the battle to the ubdercity, through the bombing of theramore, the purge of Dalaran, her self-imposes exile from Dalaran in legion, and finally her sentencing from her mother. Her arc is one of a person who is in pain and feeling powerless.
The horde were merely a vehicle to channel her own self-loathing and hatred of herself. She never truly hated the Horde, deep in her heart. Her character growth through Her time in Tartarus and the love of her mother give her the chance to heal.
So as far as she goes she’s had her character development.
3 Likes
Her character arc did not come across that way to me at all, her dad was never brought up until theramoore blew, and then never popped up again in references until BFA