That’s a bit unfaIr. Kael’thas makes a cameo appearance of course (chained and half-naked for some reason), but that’s hardly the only narrative going on in Revendreth.
If you want to give Blizz the benefit of the doubt, though, you could say the Revendreth story is so much more fleshed out because it got way more dev time as the lore leading up to the first raid. Whereas Bastion is just an intro zone and not meant to be all that exciting.
Tbf they rarely ever bring out that fact, if only once, but sadly this is true for MANY character in current entertainment…
Hes like that cause Denathrius wanted to use him has a weapon so he forced others people’s sins on him and tremendously increased his anima, making him self destructive and dangerous.
Thats why he has all those chains and sinstones
Honestly, I’ve noticed a trend - Blizzard writers absolutely suck at writing good-aligned characters while they’re able to decently write villains or characters that deal in lots of grey.
We basically have Kyrians portrayed as these plucky, do-gooders… when it would have been far more interesting to have them be the heavenly, holy faction, yet be rife with corruption/hypocrisy/Law over Good… etc.
Take Necrolords for example: The most interesting thing that happened was MOGRAINE was a Necrolord. And they make it a plot point in the Necrolord story. “Why was I not sent to the boring, generic do-good faction?”
Of course Uther is a Kyrian. Shocker. Boring.
Why not make KEL’THUZAD a Kyrian? Wouldn’t that have been far more interesting? I’m sure you can write some odd plot thread about it. Hell, maybe he cheated his way in. Maybe they wanted to claim his soul from Necrolords/Revendreth as a weapon to stop the Foresworn.
JUST DO SOMETHING INTERESTING and we’ll love it!
But Blizzard seems to be content to just have them be “the good faction”… which they have no idea how to write well.
Funny thing is we had told them about the issue during the leveling and they still kept going. Additional there were already kyrian that knew because they were in oribos that could have told them before we even arrived.
They’re writing good-aligned characters like good-aligned characters are: Boring and bland.
Moral purity only gets interesting when it crosses into zealotry (and even then they managed to mess up, look at what they did with the LF draenei/Mag’har).
That’s where they seemed to be headed with Devos… and it seems they cowered half way through though.
Excuse me, what? Morgraine, yet another human, showing up was the thing that was unnecesary. The whole plot of scheeming among the houses and the conspiracy behind the murder of Krexus was possibly one of the few good things to come from Blizzard’s writing department, save for Draka, she was the weak point, but still… and then, the human potential had to happened.
If you think Kel’thuzad of all people would allow the delivery boys of the afterlife to use him, then you don’t know Kel’thuzad.
If their record writing “the good faction” is to say anything… I’m expecting Kiryans to save the entirety of the Shadowlands singlehandely… cough cough.
They don’t have to be. You can still be “good-aligned” and not be a boring dweeb no one cares about. Blizzard just sucks at writing good-aligned characters.
Everyone has a master. Kel’thuzad quickly became the flunky of the one who made him. Maybe he thought he was just using Arthas as a means to an end, but he became his loyal servant and died as nothing more.
No reason he wouldn’t do the same thing if the Kyrians offered him a better deal.
Why would they be like a religion on a world they don’t even live on?
He may have been a goon for Arthas but he didn’t do things to actually be like a servant.
They are doing interesting things with shadowlands and yet here some of ya’ll are
Not with Kyrians they aren’t. They’re as boring as dishsoap.
And it’s because they wanted a good faction, and haven’t learned based on the reception of Baine, Anduin… now even Thrall… the fastest way to get people to hate characters is if Blizzard writes them as D&D Lawful Good alignments. Because they suck at it.
Likewise, Jaina became an actual interesting character when they abandoned her previous pacifist stupidity and she began to do things that actually weren’t things she’d probably proudly tweet about on Twitter. lol
It’s like how in DnD chances are your party is going to be a bunch of Chaotic Dumb Dumbs held together by the one boring goodie goodie. You need both for proper dnd lol
The idea of their purpose and methods being actually morally grey. I think it’s interesting. Buuuuut my favorite manga is Devilman so I’m already used to Angels being a bunch of jerks despite looking pretty.
You can write characters that are good and virtuous in an interesting way.
That’s why morality tales, the hero’s journey and fables/comic book stories are so enduringly popular.
But no one would want to write a screen adaptation about life in Bastion without almost a total retcon.
Then that idea is getting way lost in the narrative… because all the soulbinds just seem like fluffy, carefree, do-gooders, the entire campaign story is about being boring, vanilla good guys… like OP said. 
Let’s be honest, this IS a plot hole regardless of what covenant our character ends up joining, especially once the ‘jig’ is up and she asks us why we’re really there in Bastion. So our character is such a jerk he/she never bothered to say (especially at the most obvious time when she figures out we’re a living person and not a normal soul) “Hey, about the no more souls coming here…the Arbiter is broken and every soul is going directly, un-judged, straight into the Maw. We’re trying to figure out why and fix it. Want to help?” >_>
X to doubt on that one. The idea of a soul coming to terms with its own obliteration in order to become a higher, more powerful being is pretty engaging on its own.
You can look at every purely good aligned character in media, and you’ll see their more interesting histores involve them being tossed into a situation where they have to act in a morally grey (please ignore the meme) way.
“Good” characters are boring on their own, are more often than not, boring.
And that would be awful writing. Even by Blizz’s standards.
Exactly, purely good characters on their own, are bland. Things only work when a “fish out of water” situation happens.
I even came to like Kleia and Pelagos a little more when I just did the Revendreth section of their campaign. I thought it was a nice touch to have Kleia showing some care for Alwin.
Popular doesn’t always equates good, engaging stories.
For example, I always thought Captain America was a major bore of a character, then the Marvel movies happened and it was alright, then Winter Soldier happened and I was like “Ok, this is how you write an interesting nuanced good character without him being purely a goody-two shoes”.
Have you tried using him in the arena thing?
He hangs from Bron’s the robot back, first time I see it giggled so hard. Love that owl
That’s literally Kel’thuzad’s character arc. lol
The kyrian believe you have to be basically a blank slate. Of course this leaves some of them being boring.
Mikanikos may be “nice” but he has ridiculously high standards for his work. So he can be cranky
I just think it’s cute and interesting to see how does life go on when your past life is removed from you. The whole “What happens next?” part is why I do enjoy Blizz’s idea for Kyrian. They do raise a pretty interesting moral dilemma.
I quoted the wrong part. I meant to quote the line that followed.
Arthas was the ruler of the undead, he had something Kel’thuzad was interested in. The Kiryans are delivery boys.
I don’t know, to me Kiryans are basically the dorks of the Shadowlands highschool. I’ll admit I have a better opinion on them than I did after having only watched the Devos short, but they’re still kind of meh.
Still better than the magical fairies though…