The lack of Alliance and Horde. One of the biggest plot holes that needed to exist so the story could happen. There’s no logical conclusion as to why the most powerful factions are missing in the entire invasion. Not one, save for the writers needing them out of the way for an ‘Elf centric’ disaster we have now.
Xal’atath attacking the Amani. Another really big question mark that makes no sense when you think about it. If she would’ve left the Amani alone, they would’ve naturally attacked Silvermoon at its weakest, meaning the Blood Elves would’ve been forced to annihilate the Amani again. But for some reason, Xal’atath attacked them.
Light Blindness. Trash masquerading as writing. Throwing out all matter of character agency and treated like madness akin from the Void. Why suddenly turn the Light into a brighter version of the Void? Why didn’t all of the paladins go ‘Light Blind’ (stupid name btw) since they’re saturating themselves in the big bad?
They might as well put “Elves Only” on the expansion cover, and let the rest of us non-elves figure out our own expansion that doesn’t center around Windrunners and the Sunwell since we weren’t invited.
The elves can figure this one out- it’s made for them, after all.
And as for Light Blindness, Scarlet Crusade existed in Vanilla.
We just never had a term for it, until now.
But there’s always been morally questionable characters using the Light, like when Arthas purged Stratholme.
regarding the 3, it was a makeshift story to introduce harandar, which was intended to be released at TWW and they forced into midnight story, that’s why everything involving harandar seems off putting
Even though Liadrin renamed the Sunwell the Dawnwell, nobody else in game calls it that, including the NPCs. It’s even still called the Sunwell on the map. It bothers me so much when there’s a lack of continuity with these things.
Also, in Harandar, I find it interesting that there isn’t a mention of Nordrassil’s roots in Harandar being damaged when it was sacrificed to destroy Archimonde.
I think it could have been an interesting way to actually show the impact of the Haranir tending to the roots in the first place. We see Nordrassil has largely recovered by the time of the Cataclysm, which I believe is about 10 years after it was damaged.
Are we supposed to assume the roots weren’t damaged during the Third War? That seems to be the case, but seems unlikely given that Teldrassil was similarly burned, and the roots are still smoldering in Harandar.
the “elf power” thing is kinda annoying. belves know they have allies and that those allies are quite a bit fan of fighting (orcs), for them to choose to unite all the elves instead of asking their literal friends is rather insulting. even the forsaken should be a little miffed about it. there was zero reason to need all elves and only elves (unless i missed something in the storyline) to fight footlady.
the only thing i can think of is that blizz is planning a huge final moment where both red and blue come together at the last moment to save the day…
Clearly Xalattath dislike light and elves, from the dragons era.
Plot twist, she might be fine with other power, and settle her faction here. Wasn’t she a human before? She would love to have mortal worship her and have her faction.
This comes down to the difference between story telling and “Trekkie” level nit picking. Midnight is an elf story. If all of the various faction were there it would weaken the whole idea of elves putting past differences aside to unite for a common cause.
This is not bad story telling. Adding the clutter of all the other factions would make the story less clear which would be bad story telling.
They never threw out anything about Light Blindness. They never established the Light and Void as being good versus evil. An example would be the Naaru trying to deny Illidan his free will to force him to be their chosen one. The Light Blindness all along has been the Paladin’s believing Light was something other than what it really was.
The story line with Sylvanas adds to the idea that they are showing the six cosmic forces as something other than what the people on Azeroth thought they were.
Hey it wasn’t just elves. They needed a bunch of notable Light aligned characters to march around and thump their chests for a while before dying comically so the elves could unite and save the day.
The Lightforged draenei lost their whole command structure. Real dedication to being a buch of frauds.
It is bad story telling. Two of the most powerful factions on the planet are no-show to a planet-ending threat. That makes no sense. I don’t care if it’s a trash elf story, you can’t just omit the two largest armies not showing up to a world-ending threat.
Because Light Blindness is a joke that deserves to be mocked and ridiculed. Like Paladins are only affected by ‘Light Blindness’ when the plot demands.
How hilarious is it that the expansion cinematic makes a big deal about the Vanguard only for them to stand around Quel’thalas and get insta-gibbed by Dues Ex L’ura.
This is a “Trekkie” level detail argument, not a literary argument.
It is like saying:
The Odyssey is a bad story because when Odysseus gets home his servant recognizes him but his wife doesn’t.
In Virgil’s Aeneid, Virgil uses a Trojan myth to give Rome a divine origin which never happened.
In Shakespeare’s Henry V, King Henry romantically courted Princess Catherine of France. In reality their marriage was the result of a treaty negotiation.
Richard III of England is shown as an evil villain compared to Henry Tudor (later Henry VII) when in fact most of British kings of the time were less than pious in the way they went about things.
So are these all examples of “bad writing” because they played loose with the facts to create a better story?
They keep filling in the pot holes on my road with tar pebbles, only for them to be destroyed in the winter by snowplows, leaving gaping holes in the aftermath.
Oh, plot holes. Are they gaping or can they still be filled in?
None of them are relevant. I don’t know why you brought any of that up. None of that has any relevance.
You have two of the largest factions on Azeroth, spanning the entire planet, and yet none of them are there at the invasion. That does not make logical sense.
Lor’themar doesn’t even consider the Horde at all in any scene as if the Horde itself does not exist. He even tells Arator that there aren’t any armies left to stop the Darkwell after the Light’s Vanguard is instantly defeated.
Are these plot holes, or simply aspects of the story you don’t like?
The Horde and Alliance aren’t absent though?
Several prominent Horde and Alliance leaders are actively present throughout the storyline. The argument can pretty easily be made that having a smaller group of specialists to defend the Sunwell is the better choice. An Orc grunt or Human footsoldier is going to be more of a liability than anything against the Void.
Plus, this is more a meta aspect, but WoW story is HEAVILY focused on individuals in a conflict, rather than armies. We beat Arthas because of Tirion, we beat Deathwing because of Thrall, we beat the Legion for good because of Illidan, Magni and Velen, and so on. WoW has never been a franchise where one side wins due to logistics.