Shadows Rising Interview with Author

Crowngarde-wyrmrest-accord · July 16, 2020, 8:47pm

https://shadowlands.wowhead.com/news=316937/nobbel87-lore-interview-with-shadows-rising-author-madeleine-roux

Process of Writing the Novel

The author’s first book for Blizzard was Traveler: The Shining Blade and to get the job, she completed an audition by writing an sample chapter.

Writing a book for Blizzard has many constraints. She was given an outline with specifics, including details for specific character beats that will have payoffs later in-game.

Some characters in Shadows Rising have long arcs–the author doesn’t know how they’ll end, but her job was to set early steps up.

When writing for a major franchise like Warcraft , you need to be willing to set ego aside and deliver the company’s vision. However, she was able to push for some additions, like the chapter where Anduin disguises himself as Jerek, a commoner, and relaxes in Goldshire one evening. This chapter was meant to show that Anduin is a young ruler who needs time to himself, and it’s also sad that he doesn’t have any friends his age.

It’s tricky to find a balance, when writing a tie-in novel, between people that want to experience all the story in-game and people that enjoy reading all the supplementary books. For Shadows Rising , they wanted the book to foreshadow future events, but not drop any massive events in the actual book. They don’t want people to feel like they can’t understand the expansion if they haven’t read the book.

Roux made an effort to spotlight smaller characters like Ji Firepaw and Katherine Proudmoore in the novel–their cameos add some spice to their scenes.

The Alliance - Anduin and Tyrande

Anduin is a mirror for Talanji in some ways; they are both young leaders dealing with similar traumas from losing fathers in horrible public ways.

Anduin’s actions over the course of the novel also draw parallels to Arthas–this is strongest in the scene where Anduin argues with Jaina in the map room about the best way to track down Sylvanas, putting aside moral concerns. Roux imagines Jaina is worried that she’s seen similar behavior before from Arthas.

At the end of the novel, Anduin loses his temper and a tendril of dark energy escapes from his hand, leading everyone around him to be shocked. We learned that the author was explicitly told by Blizzard that he should reach for dark energy during this scene. Although she has limited information and isn’t sure what type of magic Anduin exactly wields, it was definitely deliberate on Blizzard’s part, and could be a setup for more things to come.

Roux was also very concerned about getting Tyrande’s character right–conveying all the rage, frustration, and sadness. Roux is also a huge Night Elf fan, with a tattoo of Cenarius, Brightwing, and the Scythe of Elune.

Bwonsamdi

Bwonsamdi in Battle for Azeroth came across as selfish and callous at points. In the novel, we learn more that his actions are in service of a larger plan.

When explaining how Bwonsamdi used Zekhan for his larger plan, by pushing him into the role of a Horde diplomat to aid Talanji, we learned that the idyllic vision of Saurfang in the afterlife was a trick. Many players have wondered if we’ll find Saurfang in the Maw in Shadowlands , and at first it looked like Bwonsamdi’s vision meant someone intervened and saved Saurfang. But this interview confirms the vision was an illusion to motivate Zekhan.

Bwonsamdi is an interesting character–usually when he’s nice, it’s actually backhanded, and when he’s mean, it’s part of a larger goal. He’s not just a funny trickster god, he knows what’s going on in the Shadowlands and that we’re close to annihilation.

Nathanos and the Forsaken

Nathanos’ relationship with Sylvanas is strained. The dynamic is clearly unhealthy where she gives him orders and he obeys. Nathanos may not even know about Sylvanas’ larger goal.

It’s sad how while Nathanos is loyal to her, she’s clearly loyal to something else. They’re not devoted to each other to the same degree.

Even if you’re not a fan of Nathanos, his complete rejection by Sylvanas at the end of the novel should have an emotional impact–we’ve just spent the whole book following him around, showing how loyal he is.

Nathanos failing at killing Bwonsamdi may remind Sylvanas of her past failures–Saurfang’s line about failure got under her skin. While Nathanos may be one more failure in her past, Sylvanas may also feel that she succeeded at destroying the Helm of Domination without his help, and her destiny is somewhere else now, away from her past and people that fail her.

She doesn’t know what Blizzard has planned for the future of the relationship.

The fate of the Forsaken leadership is still unknown, with Calia and Lillian still sorting things out. When the Forsaken leader is chosen eventually, such a major decision should happen as an in-game event, not part of a supplemental book.

Queer Representation

We finally get some long-overdue queer representation in Shadows Rising , most notably with Flynn Fairwind and Mathias Shaw getting together. Roux confirmed that this narrative decision was one of the plot points that came from straight from the top at Blizzard. It’s not a “wink wink nudge nudge thing”–she was told to get them together. It’s official!

Her favorite character in the novel is Flynn and it was difficult for her to keep it a secret during pre-release interviews. It’s fun to write odd couples with opposite energy, and their bickering during the heist in Dazar’alor served as inspiration for their dynamic. Even though their personalities are very different, the novel explores how they have similar backgrounds and define themselves by their job.

Flynn and Shaw also appear together in the upcoming Christie Golden book Exploring Azeroth: The Eastern Kingdoms . When asked where that picks up, and if we’d see their actual reunion alluded to at the end of Shadows Rising , Roux said she didn’t know (a fair response considering how many other parts of the interview talk about Blizzard secrecy) but alluded to the fan community:

I feel like that last bit at the end of ‘meet me later’ is very much…here you go fanfiction community. Go wild! What more could you ask for? As a fanfiction writer myself, could you ask for more a more perfect prompt?

In Before the Storm , Greymane suggested Anduin and Tess marry, while Anduin is opposed to it for several reasons and notes that Tess has “taken a page or two” from Mathias Shaw. After seeing Flynn and Shaw get together, this has led some players to speculate that Tess was a lesbian and discreet about her personal life, similar to Shaw. However, Roux said that she wasn’t thinking about Tess while building the relationship in Shadows Rising . She reads the line from Before the Storm as more that they have similar temperaments and devotion to their jobs.

Ximothy-silvermoon · July 16, 2020, 8:55pm

Hm. Interesting. Well maybe, depends on how they’ll go with it.

Wait… is this epilogue post-helm breaking?

I won’t lie I’m not fond of bickering romance, they often come across as toxic, but Flynn and Shaw did seem more jovial about their jabs .

Crowngarde-wyrmrest-accord · July 16, 2020, 8:57pm

Yup.

Summary

Sylvanas is standing on top of Ice Crown, the helm broken, when Nathanos appears by her side. She gave him a vial that contained what seems to have been Shadowlands anima type magic and brought him to her. So, within minutes of breaking the helm, Nathanos tells her he failed at killing Bwonsamdi.

I think its interesting to note how Roux is a fan of Night Elves. Pity they couldn’t be included more in the story, but at least it explains why Tyrande’s scenes had teeth.

Ximothy-silvermoon · July 16, 2020, 9:00pm

Wow okay. Hm. Thanks for the quick clarification. I guess when Nathanos left Dragonblight, Sylvanas was getting ready to raid Icecrown.

Also, how does Bolvar survive this? Is he in that scene?

This also means the end of the novel is right before the beginning of the pre-event.

Crowngarde-wyrmrest-accord · July 16, 2020, 9:01pm

I don’t recall him being mentioned other than a brief recap of how she came to break the helm.

Maybe. Depends when the event starts.

Jellex-wyrmrest-accord · July 16, 2020, 9:11pm

Makes you wonder if the Horde has anyone in their corner anymore when it comes to the writing team. I know people love to scream horde bias, but they’ve been looking like losers for a while now.

Daiza-gilneas · July 16, 2020, 9:13pm

Not gonna lie, even I felt a bit bad for Nathanos after Sylvanas told him to get lost. Even when the epilogue was from her perspective you could tell that cut him deep.

I do like how Saurfang’s “You just keep failing” got to her. Because she basically failed her way through BfA and she was probably aware of it. So when Saurfang pointed it out to everyone else she took it hard.

Yvenathilm-fenris · July 16, 2020, 9:22pm

Anduin did have the Divine Bell break on top of him so it’s no surprise that the Sha are influencing him.

“The boy king serves at the master’s table. Three lies will he offer you.”

Sylvanas gloats about how the Boy King lies to himself and his people.

What was the first lie? Presumably his declaration that no one not even the King is more important than the Alliance since he blatantly claimed that if Saurfang killed him the Horde would have won which indicates that he thought that the King was infact more important than the Alliance despite his speech.

The second lie(made not just to others but to himself) was mentioned by Sylvanas herself as him thinking the war as having been won.

Anduin fighting against N’Zoth of course makes sense since Y’Shaarj once fought with N’Zoth.

Y’Shaarj has his trump card in Anduin while N’Zoth has his trump card in the tampered with Forge of Origination(which can create his Black Empire for Void Alleria despite his demise).

Y’Shaarj gloats that every thread unraveled takes the Player one step closer to his realm. We saw N’Zoth’s realm Ny’alotha(which can be recreated by the Forge of Origination) and killed him there(theoretically killing him deader than dead) but the realms of the other 3 Old Gods were never visited truly.

Kyveli-aerie-peak · July 16, 2020, 9:25pm

Which raises questions about Nathanos as a world boss, since his last line before the placeholder cutscene is along the lines of “As you command, my lady.”

Dreadmoore-wyrmrest-accord · July 16, 2020, 9:44pm

Like father, like son.

Crowngarde:

Nathanos and the Forsaken

Nathanos’ relationship with Sylvanas is strained. The dynamic is clearly unhealthy where she gives him orders and he obeys. Nathanos may not even know about Sylvanas’ larger goal.

It’s sad how while Nathanos is loyal to her, she’s clearly loyal to something else. They’re not devoted to each other to the same degree.

Even if you’re not a fan of Nathanos, his complete rejection by Sylvanas at the end of the novel should have an emotional impact–we’ve just spent the whole book following him around, showing how loyal he is.

Nathanos failing at killing Bwonsamdi may remind Sylvanas of her past failures–Saurfang’s line about failure got under her skin. While Nathanos may be one more failure in her past, Sylvanas may also feel that she succeeded at destroying the Helm of Domination without his help, and her destiny is somewhere else now, away from her past and people that fail her.

She doesn’t know what Blizzard has planned for the future of the relationship.

The fate of the Forsaken leadership is still unknown, with Calia and Lillian still sorting things out. When the Forsaken leader is chosen eventually, such a major decision should happen as an in-game event, not part of a supplemental book.

Sweet. I knew they weren’t building up Nathanos’s questioning Sylvanas for nothing.

Valko-muradin · July 16, 2020, 9:53pm

The slow and steady march to retcon all aspects of Sylvanas’ character that aren’t generic ebil continues. Naturally I’m sure they’ll tell us that all the times Sylvanas clearly loved Nathanos and did things for him were actually 4d chessmaster lies.

Soon we’ll find out Sylvanas never existed at all.

Dreadmoore-wyrmrest-accord · July 16, 2020, 9:56pm

Look, I fully understand that you’re angry about losing Sylvanas – but are you not at least glad you might be keeping Nathanos? It seemed like we were flat losing the both of them.

Valko-muradin · July 16, 2020, 9:58pm

I’ve no interest in keeping Nathanos around if its part of some hamfisted plot that makes both characters lesser for it.

WoW has enough soulless husks walking around

Amadis-draka · July 16, 2020, 10:00pm

The novel showing how devoted Nathanos is to Sylvanas is not necessarily an indication that he’s going to stop being devoted to Sylvanas just because she doesn’t love him as much as he loves her. If anything, might just make him wander off and get himself killed if he doesn’t feel like he has any purpose any more.

Arlifrex-moon-guard · July 16, 2020, 10:03pm

I really hope this book sells well. Roux has an amazing mindset for this franchise.

Dreadmoore-wyrmrest-accord · July 16, 2020, 10:10pm

Well, she certainly has an Alliance mindset for this franchise.

Zuleika-hyjal · July 16, 2020, 10:22pm

Yeah, it’s pretty sad that the Horde finally gets another focus book and they get a self-proclaimed “massive Night Elf fan” to write it. Right after the burning of Teldrassil, too.

Amadis-draka · July 16, 2020, 10:27pm

Arlifrex-moon-guard · July 16, 2020, 10:29pm

You got a bunch of troll development. Talanji, Zekhan, Bwonsamdi. Development for Nathanos as well.

She’s able to check her bias and write for other races. She’s exactly what we need.

Jellex-wyrmrest-accord · July 16, 2020, 10:29pm

So… why is everyone talking about the parts of the book that have focused on the Alliance?