With all the talk about censorship, and “turning women into fruit,” I feel it is a good time to talk about something in the story that has bothered me for a while. I did not have the courage to post this on GD, due to fear of people not taking this seriously, but I have mustered it now. I hope anyone reading this keeps an open mind.
During Legion, in 7.2, they added quest chains for each Order Hall campaign, where each class recruits an extra follower. For Mages, it is Aethas Sunreaver. He was already an important lore character before, as I’m sure many know. There is dialogue from NPC’s during this chain that is very problematic.
In a quest, called “The Nightborne Apprentice,” near the beginning of the questline, Aethas sends you to speak to his apprentice, Arcanist Ryanna. You have a dialogue option labeled “Tell me more about Arcanist Ryanna.” His response is this:
"I discovered her quite by accident, really. Er, well, she discovered me.
I got myself into a bit of a… situation… with a harpy and a banshee, and… oh nevermind.
Anyway, Ryanna freed me with some very impressive spellwork. And then asked to join the Tirisgarde.
How could I turn her down?"
Now, the dialogue from Ryanna herself reveals the incident. He was naked, in a harpy’s bonds, where they were both arguing about who got to “play with him” first, until Ryanna saved him. Her dialogue, when you ask her how she met Aethas, doesn’t treat this attempted sexual assault seriously.
"Oh! I came upon him in Tel’anor caught in a harpy’s bonds without a stitch of clothing! Ha!
The harpy was so busy arguing with a banshee over who got to play with him first, that they did not notice me at all.
He looked terribly uncomfortable, so I intervened. And the rest is history!"
Her dialogue here is absolutely disgusting. “Ha” is not something you should ever say when you talk about the attempted rape of someone. It does not matter what their gender is, or how attractive you consider the perpetrators to be. “Terribly uncomfortable” is also an understatement. This is a rape we are talking about!
Blizzard, it is perfectly fine to have mature themes in your game, but things like this must be treated with tact and respect by the narrative. Malygos’ incident with Keristrasza was not laughed at by any character, and treated as very sad. The fact that you have a friendly NPC talking like this, in a game where we are “champions.” shows that you yourselves do not take this seriously. I believe this is a reflection of the “frat boy” culture at Blizzard.
To summarize, this dialogue needs to be changed. It treats the attempted rape of a major lore character as nothing more than a funny accident.
I was genuinely asking why you think people shouldn’t be allowed to make jokes like that. Even as somebody myself who dislikes them myself and finds them nasty, i’m not going to sit here and tell you what you can and cannot do.