Sanitization

Lore Story Forum
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As much as I feared it, it seems to be coming true. Blizzard has begun to “sanitize” it’s characters, and story. Greatly controversial characters, and elements, appear to be the focus of such an agenda.
It would seem that the Horde is being slowly vilified, overthrown, and most likely going to be absorbed into the Alliance. Even outside factions like Illidan and the Illidari, are subject to this too. It seems to have begun TBC, and has been slowly but surely proceeding ever since.
I have considered it carefully, and come across 3 points that serve as the basis for this action to be taken, if these are not followed, could negatively impact the player, and fan bases.

  1. Controversy, any character whose history and actions, generate massive controversy in the fan base, and discussions, (like right here for example). Illidan, Sylvanas, and Anduin.
  2. Potential replacements; who can replace said target for sanitization, both in characterization, and in place in the story’s general cast. The best example being Sylvanas, character-wise she has been replaced by both of her sisters, so the Windrunner name remains “noble”, and they both cover the “dark, edgy, outcast, progressive thinking, and damaged mental health” factors that Sylvanas single-handedly represented herself back then. As a leader she has been replaced by both Lilian Voss, Calia Menithil, and possibly Bolvar Fordragon, so the undead keep their unique, and respective, representatives.
  3. Redemption or adherence to the “pure” fantasy standard; the new replacement needs to be able to integrate with the Alliance, and it’s traditional fantasy standard of being the beautiful, heroic faction. While the previous target, must either find a form of redemption, and be retired from the story, or outright eliminated should they prove to be too controversial (Garrosh).

With those 3 factors taken into account, lets look at the obvious examples.
Illidan: massive controversy over his actions, and history, as well as his ties to the demonic aspects, and a fan bas so huge, it was able to force Blizzard to bring him back and give him a “redemption” story. Only to be removed, and retired, at the end of only one expansion, and replaced by a more acceptable light-themed version in the next.
Sylvanas: Somewhat the same as above, but replaced with possibly 5 different characters to accommodate for the possible loss of representation, on all of her related subjects. The majority of which are Alliance oriented.
Anduin: Like the previous two, has always been a source of controversy, with a very divided fanbase, and has been replaced by an older, even more light-themed, Alliance-centric, version.

Others include Saurfang, Vol’jin, Garrosh, Nathanos.

On a more biased note however, I will point out a 4th factor that marks those first 3 characters as well, all 3 of them have also been on Tyrande’s bad side as well.

Taking these 3 points into account, I believe the next target for Sanitization, will be Thalryssa of the Nightborne. She even qualifies on the 4th point too, now that I think about it.

Do you agree? Disagree.
Who do you think is next for Sanitization?

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what does that mean? Alliance oriented.

Tell me you don’t read fantasy without telling me you don’t read fantasy.
What you describe is called a fairy tale my friend. Disney wholesome fairy tale.

You seem to equate humanity and morality with Alliance, then say Alliance is too perfect because Blizzard can’t write Alliance races with any complexity deeper than a puddle and call it sanitization. Though to be fair Horde was not that deeper, they just had more edge.

Blizzard went full edge in BFA and a lot of Horde players complained and now we are circling back to the nice Horde again.

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Do you really have to wonder? Look at the 5 who replace Sylvanas, how many have history, and links to the original, and current Alliance?

Are you finally beginning to see the pattern? But rather than Disney, I’m seeing more Tolkien at the moment.

Have you looked at the majority of the Alliance? Look at your own avatar for that matter.

Swing, and a miss.

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Alliance has dwarves that wipe out a tauren clan that was in their way.
Alliance has gnomes that will unleash a toxic gas to wipe out an enemy without regard to combatants or civilians
Alliance has Draenei… ok they are pretty nice folk but hey they can quickly join the legion and get some sweet red and green coloring.
Alliance has Night Elves who kill intruders and feed them to their cats.
Alliance has worgen who are basically werewolves immune to undeath and perfect weapons against the scourge. They went full doomguy in Silverpine.
Alliance has void elves who are staunch communists and are not afraid to corrupt wild gods to the void or send goblins into the void of space.
Alliance has humans who throw and entire race into internment camps for generations, make the good working man rebuild a city only to betray the agreement and label them outlaws and they are very fond of killing trolls.
Need I even mention the Dark Irons?

Alliance can be mean if they want to be. If the writers allow them to be. And they have before but when it comes to the Horde they get extra moral as the horde gets extra immoral.

Forsaken characters will always be Alliance leaning. They used to be Alliance.
Same with any of the blood elves.

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Everything I’ve seen convinces me that Blizzard will keep the faction war going, no matter what. At the same time, they seem to have no vision at all for a story for the Horde. Unless recent shake-ups change things (I’m not holding my breath) , I don’t see anything but the mostly ignoring the Horde unless the Alliance needs an enemy.

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To quote Illidan himself

“The hunter is nothing without the hunt”

What would Illidan do after his quest was finally done and the Legion was finally defeated for good? While it could be seen as cheap to bring back Illidan in legion and then write him out at the end but it isn’t. It is closing his story. After all, Sargeras was his prey. And he can finally 1v1 his prey forever.

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Tbh Blizzard treats the Horde like RPers in most MMOs treat eachother: Sources for drama, but at the expense of the other.

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wow…I can even agree with that.

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I mean, Sylvanas herself was part of the original Alliance so…?

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I don’t think Blizzard will sanitize all their characters. And what made you think this begun in Burning Crusade? If anything, it seemed as if Blizzard has been swinging the villain bat around quite a bit (Kael’thas, Malygos, Taran Zhu and Yrel to name a few).

Illidan’s “redemption arc” made him quite the edgelord - not as much as Sylvanas or Deathwing, but still - and he never fought for the Alliance or the Horde exclusively. Plus “replaced by a more acceptable light-themed version”? At the end of Legion, Illidan was essentially put in a box until the writers think he’ll help the story again, and did you miss the part where the writers threw away the idea of “Illidan, Champion of the Light” so aggressively, they literally sacrificed a naaru to try and give him “cool points” :roll_eyes: Plus, there’s Horde and Alliance supporters among the Illidari.

Sylvanas’ character arc can, and has, filled entire threads, so all I’ll say is she was a character caught in a writer tug-of-war between villain and victim… where the writers play fast and loose with lore and consistency seems to be their archenemy.

There’s plenty of aggression in the Alliance as Smallioz said. To add to that, we have;

  • The Dwarves who wiped out a Tauren clan and who don’t seem to mind collateral damage.
  • The Draenei who have members that joined groups like the Burning Legion, Cult of the Damned and the Cult of Twilight’s Hammer… and we’re about to get a lot of villain-batted Draenei Light worshippers if that asinine “Lightbound” story element plays out.
  • The Night Elves who are ruthlessness with intruders and protecting nature (plus Tyrande still has some ruthlessness) plus their beef with the Forsaken as of BfA.
  • The Worgen who have a beef with the Forsaken and Horde like the Night Elves, and the aggressiveness that the Worgen curse confers.
  • The Void Elves whose study of the Void is playing with fire.
  • The humans with more crime syndicates than any other race and willingness to engage in generational punishments.
  • The gnomes who are willing to experiment with dangerous technology as much as Goblins (they just have better OHS), with the most extreme being the mechagnomes who initially tried to go full Cybermen on Azeroth.

I don’t mind the Alliance being the bad guys, I just don’t want to see it done in a lazy way, an inconsistent way or one that puts an author’s agenda before story.

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Illidan wasn’t redeemed, he was vindicated. He never apologized for anything he did, everyone else just realized that his contributions were more valuable than his crimes were detestable. It’s arguably the exact opposite of a redemption arc.

And honestly, I wish Blizzard would gracefully retire characters more often. Tirion should have quit after WotLK.

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I think this is what is wrong with modern writing. The conflict many modern characters face is that nobody else realizes how awesome they are. This is why NuIllidan is such a poorly written character.

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Yes, notice how all of that always gets handwaved away, and they are still the heroes despite all of that? Also notice how except for the Draenei, and Pandaren, the majority of the Alliance is human-looking? Only the Elves walk that line, but still, even they are pretty human looking.

Are you arguing against my point, or supporting it, I can’t tell at this point?

Look at the 5 who replace Sylvanas, how many have history, and links to the original, AND current Alliance. Not just the old, but both the old, AND the new.
Lilian Voss
Alleria Windrunner
Varessa Windrunner
Calia Menithil
Bolvar Fordragon
Lillian is the only one who doesn’t seem to be linked to the new Alliance, and she is an actual Forsaken unlike Calia, or Bolvar.

Pretty sure when Sargeras escapes, Illidan will be brought back into the game again. I mean Sargeras is one of the core villains of the whole saga right?

Did I say all of their characters? Pretty sure I didn’t, I mentioned the greatly controversial characters, and elements. Velen, Mechtorque, and Genn just to point out a few, are not really controversial are they?

If you can point out such a thing in the original World of Warcraft, please be my guest.

:man_facepalming: Really?
They did not throw it away, they just gave it to someone else. Has it really slipped past your notice?
“She” has spent the last two expansions, howling about, and demanding vengeance, being a total edgelord, carries around two shiny and white warglaives, is apparently one of if not the most powerful of the characters, is over 10,000 years old, and is light-themed.
Seriously? This goes above your head?

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Worgen are not exactly human looking… and what’s wrong with human looking? Its the behavior that is the issue here not how they look.
And I need your definition of “hand wave away” because to me there is PLENTY that Horde does that gets to hand wave away too in comparison.

I am arguing against the idea that sanitization as you refer to it is inherent in Alliance when it isn’t. Certain characters like Andiun or Baine? Yeah they are the very definition of sanitization but just because Alliance. Based on their aesthetic are sanitized is a fallacy.

Inherently, anyone from Blood Elf or Forsaken background WILL have links to the Alliance because they used to be Alliance. Thats just the history of that particular race. There is no avoiding it.
It is not possible to have a forsaken or a blood elf/high elf that is not somehow related to the Alliance because at one point or another they were related in some way.

Sylvanas included.

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THIS! On so many levels! Blizzard definitely needs to hear this. As do many many other game developers and story writers. It’s okay for a character’s story to be over and done, they don’t have to show up in every major thing or be shoehorned into every major event in the world.

A great example I have seen of this recently(in the past few years) was a character named Zafira in GW2. She was built up and had a important role in the arc of the story they were currently telling, and people really seemed to like the character. They liked her story and how it was told and she gained some fans. But once that arc was over they didn’t feel the need to shoehorn her into the next one, and bring her into new stories that she had no connection to. They let her story end there, where it should have, and in the end it’s better for it.

Sometimes a story is done and it’s okay for a character to no longer be a main or side character. Learn to let characters go and build up new ones.

Thorin was an amazing character in The Hobbit, who had an amazing story arc. He was still alive during the events of the War of the Ring, but as his story was told he did not need to be shoehorned in and appear again.

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I feel like this is why everytime I suggest Horde content some people assume I mean destroying the Alliance stuff nearby.

Like I got really into the Revantusk after revisiting their stuff in Classic and then doing their Cata storyline. It’s pretty interesting and canonically they’ve seized Jintha’Alor by the end of it.

I think it’d be cool to turn that into an open air city with some hostile areas and maybe a dungeon similar to Dazar’Alor. And turn Revantusk Village into a proper port with connections to Zuldazar and the Echo Isles.

The Forest Trolls have been pretty hard done by in the story despite largely not doing much but be disagreeable about having their lands conquered by colonists. So maybe they take it too far but they’re pretty decidedly down bad and have a sympathetic motivation. Having some amicable end to that storyline would be nice.

Plus the Revantusk don’t mind the Forsaken and are at least open to talking with the Sin’Dorei though as a Dark Ranger points out between them its about as begrudging a not so much respect but tolerance can be. But that’s just more interesting really.

Notice nowhere did I mention the Wildhammer Dwarves. Because I don’t really know much about them. But it seems like there’s enough space on their end of the Hinterlands to do stuff. There’s that Helf Lodge maybe the Velves could do something with.

None of these ideas involve attacking the Alliance but people interpreted this suggestion as me saying the Wildhammer should be wiped off the world map.

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I think with Blizzard’s dire direction to appease the woke, the story and its characters will be ever more detached from the lore that made them interesting and heroic to the OG fans.

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Well to be honest the game has a lot history of doing just that. Or making Alliance stuff Neutral so the Horde can have it as well.

The Cata revamp destroyed a lot of Alliance stuff for the Horde as opposed to designing new stuff for the Horde to balance things out.

Major City imbalance? Have the Horde manabomb Theramore as opposed to building the Horde another city somewhere.

Need a major Mage group. Instead of building up Rommath and the Magisters just have Dalaran go Neutral.

Need a Paladin Order Hall? Have the Silver Hand (and the Hand of Argus) go neutral and instead of making the Blood Knights & Sunwalkers equal in standing? Before this just absorb them in the Argent Dawn/Argent Crusade so they can be neutral.

This pattern of behavior has done neither the Alliance nor the Horde nor even the game itself a great amount of favors.

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They did that with the entire Forsaken’s storyline in Wrath. And SL too though woo, dodged a bullet there.

Not a Blue exclusive issue.

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All the subhumans will soon rejoice upon learning their place at the feet of Human Potential™

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