Porter’s doing the next chapter of The Elf Quest and I’d have posted in one of the other threads, but those are either about a specific topic or got derailed so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://bsky.app/profile/portergauge.bsky.social/post/3mienlp5zqc2m
https://x.com/Portergauge/status/2039024645941363162
So far, the highlight for me continues to be the Amani.
You know, I thought it couldn’t get worse after last week…
And for once I was right! It isn’t worse. It’s not all that much better, but it isn’t worse.
The Amani showing up was the only highlight for me. Arator is still cringe. Him leading the attack is completely unearned. It should’ve been Lor’themar.
you can pretty much sum up all the problems with midnight’s writing with the single phrase ‘arator is cringe’ and cover basically all of it.
with the exception of the haranir’s whole existence which is a separate problem
It’s so funny to me how badly Blizzard wants to make Arator happen, having him showcased in all this media from short stories, novels, animated shorts, to an entire CG scene dedicated him showcasing his power, and yet there really isn’t any pay off because everyone hates him.
Even in the world of make believe fantasy we cannot escape nepobaby industry plants.
The thing for me is that I could like him… if he was anyone else.
If they hadn’t played whack a mole with his lore to shoehorn him into the story they planned on telling and he had instead been some rando elf that was actually young and beginning his journey while dealing with his family being spread between the Alliance and Horde it could have been a cool story! He could have actually been torn between staying a blood elf or joining his family member that became a void elf in the Alliance and whether he wanted to be a Paladin or dabble in darker magics.
But because he’s a Windrunner with all the baggage and “Prestige” that comes with it, having been an Alliance character for decades, and a Paladin on top of that the entire time it’s just so… fake. It doesn’t feel good.
Should have been Salandria! If you needed a hip young elf nepobaby paladin, it should have been Salandria. She was right there.
The whole situation just feels so emblematic of modern blizz’s approach to its universe, where they’ll basically look you dead in the eyes and tell you they’re ignoring details that are inconvenient to their story.
”We want Arator to be the protagonist of our Blood Elf expansion, a young paladin who has to deal with his complex heritage and relationship to the light and his people!”
”Arator is an established alliance character with zero connection to the Horde who was an adult in The Burning Crusade, he’s like, 40-”
”LALALALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING”
So wowhead posted the raid finale cinematic and… does it go here? It’s part of the storyline but it’s also a raid cinematic?
Either way, here’s the wowhead post. I’ll add it to the main post if yall think I should.
not a terrible story beat (I like the continued decanonization of the shadowlands) but loses points for me personally by the once again unexamined and unasked for presence of Vereesa ‘Purge ‘Em All’ Windrunner and the return of wow cutscene voice direction where everyone… talks… like this… for some… reason…
If had been salandareia getitgn allf cosu, as HOULD been…
I shot for apathy towards Arator, and it mostly held even through his character shilling and insufferable finger-wagging in the campaign, but I’m well and truly over this guy now. He had his fun, he got to main character his way through what should have been a redder expansion after TWW, now please just let him waddle back to the Alliance to do Silver Hand things.
I wonder, with some dread, at the consequences of his tenure as Quel’Thalas’s protagonist. It’s fair to say now that it’s come at the expense of no few characters far more deserving.
But lo, the Windrunner who torched the franchise is back to provide a reprieve from the rest of her family…
It’s so strange to have Arator leading the assembled elves instead of Lor’themar.
It’s his city, let him be the face of the expansion taking place in a Blood Elf City.
I don’t want to be mean to Arator but his just a child here. Lor’themar deserves the spotlight right now.
Also, at least in my opinion, Lor’themar is one of the leaders both Horde and Alliance players care about so I can’t see a good reason for him not to be the one uniting us all.
How many times has Xal’atath laughed ominously and disappeared while saying “next time”? I lost track at the fifth.
As for Sylvanas I definitely groaned and rolled my eyes at her appearance but I had to laugh that she literally did the “my job here is done” “but you didn’t do anything” meme.
Hey! She “tuxedo masked” us to victory! We should be praising this peak writing!
He’s 39
Also it’s just really distracting the Helves are the critical air support here. And they’re all flying Sylverian Dreamers.
The lore of the $25 store mount is, and I quote,
“An artist in the magical city of Dalaran fell asleep on her brush, and dreamed of painting a beautiful feathered dragon. Her artwork leapt from the page, and when she awoke, she found it sleeping gently beside her”
So. The implications here are wild. You’re telling me they weaponized that sleepy artist to essentially 3D print an airforce?
How about instead of shooting something she’s holding, or shooting a decorative shoulder-orb these Windrunner girls try actually shooting Xal’atath herself.
If you could hit that orb, you could hit her head.
There’s an NPC at their town who says the artist painted a bunch of them, the paintings never sold, and then they came to life when Xal destroyed Dalaran and they saved some civilians. The helves started taking care of them after.
Which is weird and I wish they had tied the model into the world better, maybe make them not-dragons that live in the area, but it’s a cool model (I use it as my mount myself) so I’m just kind of whatever about it tbh
The money paw curls, they will now take Med’an out of storage.