When I saw the design for Faerin Lothar’s arm, this got a few questions going. First were about the practicality of the arm. How is she able to parry with it? It’s attacked at the shoulder, so it doesn’t have the range of motion you’d get with an elbow. Second, will the game address how she eats? Cutting food with be a huge chore, and then there’s what happens if she has to hold a plate or bowl as well. Third relates to the next paragraph; if this has to be social commentary about disabilities, will it show the process of her adapting instead of skipping over that to the aftermath?
Second, there’s the debate about Faerin Lothar getting an artificial arm - which also doubles as social commentary about disabilities in real-life. Side note - there’s too much social commentary on real-life issues, more than there’s ever been before in the past 70 years; it’s self-righteous, painfully cliche and needs to be rolled back. Back on topic; she has a short argument with the blacksmith who wants to make her a prosthetic arm, and the blacksmith concedes the point.
But what about healing her arm with the Light? This isn’t a question of “should she or shouldn’t she?”, my question is "will this come up in the story? In canon the Light can restore a severed limb (Arthas does this for a peasant woman who lost her leg to a wolf in Rise of the Lich King iirc). Faerin lives in a place surrounded by Light wielders and worshippers, so did any of them offer to restore her arm for her? Will any of them offer to restore her arm? Did she ever consider doing so herself if she’s a Light-weilder?
Depends, she might see it as the Lights will, perhaps akin to the notion of suffering giving one divine Grace. We do not really know the tenets of the Holy Flame, they might of diverged a great deal from those of the Church of the Holy Light after so long in isolation.
I won’t comment on the social commentary bit other than it is the point of art to comment on reality. WoW is art, at the end of the day.
It looks very silly, imo. When I first saw her model leaked I assumed that she was going to have an prosthetic made out of Light holding the shield. The model viewer sometimes fails to capture spell effects like that, so it was possible.
Learning that there’s no arm and the shield is just attached to the shoulder plate by a miniscule connection is a disappointment, it just doesn’t look plausible. It looks like it’d snap off if you sneezed on it. It definitely deserves another design pass.
I was curious but… you can eat or use the bathroom with one hand. She could have a designated helper for all we know as well.
You’re saying this just because Faerin exists. Blizzard can’t make a Black woman with a disability without people saying this. It’s disgusting. There’s a saying: There’s only two races, white and political, two genders, male and political, etc.
Edit: The dialogue, which was known when this thread was made, confirms there was no caretaker. My bad. She learned to do everything herself.
Can I ask you something? What about a Black woman owning her disability and wanting people to see her as an equal do you find threatening?
(It just comes off that way, it’s only why I’m asking)
And it’s not cliche at all. From what’s been datamined about her so far, I love her for it. That’s she’s a sucessful woman in spite of her disability is something we actually need to see more of, not less.
The shield is really unnecessary. It’s just hanging off her shoulder pad, it’d be really hard to control and would flop around a lot. And shields really are not necessary when you have plate armor.
IMO just ditch the shield and let her be a 1 armed fighter.
Scars and missing limbs and such are always a hard topic to do in settings with magical healing. You kind of just have to ignore healing exists for it.
I mean, I bet Blizz’s only real thought about this was to make a cool design, that was it.
Any kind of realism people expect out of it just doesn’t exist when Blizzard makes these designs, and its far from the most egregious example.
What?
We’ve never seen the Light really heal scars specifically, might be possible might not be.
Same with limbs, we’ve never seen limbs fully regenerated with magic, at least in the same form that it was previously.
Shields largely fell out of use among knights in the 14th century when better quality armor was available. It was redundant to have both a shield and heavy armor.
It’s not a prosthetic though, it’s just dangling off of her shoulder pad, it’s not connected where her arm was.
The shield is likely to act as more protection then to function as a fully funtional prosthesis, Secondly the light has never been shown as able to restore permanent injuries as it didn’t heal anduins broken bones, thirdly whether she gets a more functional prosthetic is her choice and it is a realistic one as irl not everyone jumps to the newest prosthesis that they’d have to relearn to use, And finally last but not least if you’re upset that there is some form of social commentary in your media, grow up. Theres been social commentary in our media for decades if not centuries
I quoted an example of the Light healing a serious injury from one of the novels. It was also a missing limb;
I don’t know if this ability has been retconned, I cited it because as far as I remember it’s still canon.
You brought her race and gender into this, not me. Funny how certain ideologues are more obsessed with race and gender than actual racist or sexist people…
No threat. And that comes off as virtue signalling. You brought her race and gender into this, not me. Funny how certain ideologues are more obsessed with race and gender than actual racist or sexist people…
You brought her up, and her race and gender are a part of her, especially in this space of “social commentary” that you brought up.
It does seem like people are questioning a black woman existing.
If it was an Orc or even a white Human male, it would probably be seen as a light hearted example of the goofy extremes in WoW. But because it is a black woman, certain people like the OP can’t wrap their heads around the notion.
Somethings are social commentary by their nature. Somethings spark social commentary.
The Bible is a work of fiction and filled with real life social commentary, and it is older than 70 years old.
Man writing social commentary fiction isn’t recent.
I don’t see why? Maybe as a passing comment. How often is eating even addressed in the first place?
I think if it was some Orc dude with a shield strapped to his missing arm, people would say it was “metal” or an “empowering take on disabilities.” Kargath Bladefist has been around, and not many people were concerned about which hand he wipes with, like you are so focused on with Faerin.
If i remember correctly, she tried older models of an arm prosthetic and didn’t like them. She lost her arm and her left eyesight when she was very little and probably relearned to do everything with one arm, and recently tried arm prosthetics (and rejected them). She does not wish to relearn everything AGAIN, so she sticks with what is comfortable for her.
This makes sense, both good representation and a form of fleshing out her character.
As for the shield, I don’t think its meant to move a lot. Its a giant shield mounted on her shoulder to work as extra armor and cover her blind spot since she lost the eyesight of her left eye. Makes sense to have some form of protection there.
about disabilities in real-life. Side note - there’s too much social commentary on real-life issues, more than there’s ever been before in the past 70 years; it’s self-righteous, painfully cliche and needs to be rolled back. Back on topic; she has a short argument with the blacksmith who wants to make her a prosthetic arm, and the blacksmith concedes the point.