Am I wrong?
Not really, just that Druids have always been a heavily themed class around Night Elven culture. Could we have had Tauren Druids in Val’sharrah? Sure, I suppose, but I guess we had plenty of Tauren up in Highmountain anyways.
What about it? There’s one on the Broken Shore, too. I suppose that’s also all about Night Elves now?
His personal life has been a fixture of the in game narrative for decades. Not only did we attend his wedding and reunite him with his mommy in the Afterlife, but he has been a figure in the raids of at least 3 Expansions - Dragon Soul in Cata, SoO in MoP, and Sepulcher in Shadowlands.
And? You seem to think the whole universe thinks as you do, in such a petty tit for tat way.
I can agree that Sylvanas and Jaina are narrative Black Holes - but so is Thrall. Is your point that people who were tired of Sylvanas had to suffer through her, so people who are tired of Thrall have their turn to suffer now?
Perhaps it is because I do not consider myself a hardcore fan of Sylvanas or Thrall or Jaina. But I am glad to see them all set aside. They hog the narrative. Sylvanas being put aside is leaving room for the Forsaken to move past her. The Horde needs to move past Thrall.
What people have a tendency not to bring up is that if you played Cata we spent as much time with Malfurion as we did with Thrall. It’s just that Malfurion was prevalent in the Firelands storyline which occurred before Thrall’s storyline in the last patch and people always forget those middle patches. (Malfurion was a lot more prevalent in base Cata questing as well)
Ok… Fortunately for those who have Malfurion Fatigue… we didnt see him much, if at all, in Shadowlands. What little we saw of him in BfA amounted to getting an axe in the back, and claiming victory in Darkshore after Maiev did all the actual work in the War Front.
Meanwhile Thrall continues to be in Raids and in the Story.
No, but he’s been present to a greater or lesser extent in every xpac since Cata. Thrall had a big role in Cata, two Horde storylines in WoD and then he appeared in the last 6 months of BFA.
Meanwhile Jaina has been important in every xpac since like Wrath. Jaina was introduced in the same game as Thrall in a less important role and is much less important than Thrall is to the Horde.
What major feat has Thrall done this xpac? All I remember of Thrall (and trust me, I love Thrall so I should remember) is the stupid axe quest. Thrall is a very popular character who is both criminally underused and foundational to the setting. The Horde literally exists because Thrall made it exist.
Malfurion certainly did not have a greater presence in the game than Thrall did in MoP or in WoD. Thrall was featured in those, Malfurion is not.
Again… I don’t see this reflexive urge to go to some petty tit for tit.
You say other Characters have hogged the narrative alot more? I can agree. The answer to that is not to up Thrall’s screen time - as far as I am concerned, the answer is to spread the story around to more characters. Develop the minor characters that have been languishing, instead of passing the spotlight between 3 characters.
That is the unfortunate thing - it doesn’t have to be a major feat. His mother is one of the people keeping Maldraxxus in order. And we have a reunion with them. That is a part of his personal story that is foisted on the greater narrative, without being some great feat. His wedding is similar - not some great feat, but still more Thrall story on top of more Thrall story.
That’s not what I said means.
My point is that Thrall is like… far from the most common recurring character. Jaina, Khadgar Tyrande, Anduin and Sylvanas off the top of my head have all had more appearances. Singling him out really suggests your issue is with Thrall, not with recurring characters.
He appeared for like 10 seconds this xpac, you’re acting like we’ve had nothing but nonstop Thrall.
It would just be weird if Thrall didn’t show up in this expansion. Even if it’s only in the background. He doesn’t have to be a central figure, but he should be there, and not just standing around doing nothing or moping around.
And at least 50 minutes of that ten seconds were spent shopping around in the Maw for a weapon after he hurled his axe at Helya. Might as well have screamed, ‘For the Lulz,’ while he was yeeting his only weapon at her.
Um, this thread is about Thrall and Jaina. That is why I mentioned them. The thread singled them out.
And furthermore, I didn’t single Thrall out at all. I said I hope he and Jaina join Sylvanas and Anduin on the shelf for a while. Since all 4 of them are narrative black holes, and bend everything in the story to them.
Thrall I can definitely see in Dragonflight, especially with his involvement in Cataclysm with the aspects like others have mentioned. Jaina, not so much unless they want to tie her in with the whole Kalec thing again, which I don’t really think is interesting or relevant enough to be included.
TBH I have a lot of fatigue for Jaina so I hope they forgo any more development with her for the time being and elevate other characters for the Alliance PoV. She was made Lord Admiral and promptly left Kul Tiras to stand around in Oribos so I hope they send her back to Kul Tiras and out of the way for a while.
Thrall has been kinda off and on throughout Shadowlands so I don’t think he’s overextended but I wouldn’t be sad to see some other Horde characters take center stage but not really sure who would fit better than Thrall for the theme of the expansion.
I’m always dismayed to see people begging for characters, new or old, to be central figures in the story. This team can’t do character driven stories like that, has never successfully pulled it off, and likely never will. All you’re going to get are wildly inconsistent portrayals that usually ruin fan favorites (which shouldn’t be a huge shock given that the people who created the cast aren’t even in the building at this point).
I’d rather see Thrall go back to being a competent Warchief rather than watching him be the hero in the story. He can make appearances when it makes sense, but leaders should be too bogged down by, y’know, leading to dominate the storylines in a game that is better served putting the setting and players first. I wouldn’t qualify Thrall as dominating the story in SL, mind you, but anyone who played Cataclysm should be painfully aware that the Green Jesus era was a low point for this game. Basically, give us more Khadgars. He was a supporting role character with prominence that didn’t feel intrusive to the player experience.
Players are supposed to be the protagonists of the game and it would be continued folly to keep setting up the game in such a way that we feel like we’re only getting 20% of someone else’s story (looking at you, Sylvanas). If they insist on letting their pet favorites dominate the narratives? I’ll be over here wondering why the hell people are begging for more of that.
Yes, a thousand times yes. I was talking about this to a friend of mine last night. Despite Khadgar being so prominent in WoD and Legion, I never felt FATIGUED by his presence. He was a narrator and a curious co-adventurer who was along for the ride while guiding us to the next parts of the story. I felt that way about Magni as well, despite everyone meme-ing the crap out of ‘THA WOONZ CHAMPYUN!’ But I’ve always had a soft spot for dwarves in general.
I don’t mind a bit of the prominent characters of Azeroth being interwoven into the story landscape, but making it the meat and potatoes of an expansion story gets so exhausting and really isolates a lot of the playerbase into feeling ignored and/or overexposed. This especially feels jarring with Shadowlands since they somehow managed to focus the majority of the expansion story on the Forsaken leader without EVER addressing the Forsaken as a whole, and most of the Night Elf development (if that’s what it can be called) has been met with some pretty sour reception from the majority of Night Elf fans as well.
Add to this that Shadowlands at first introduction felt like a huge opportunity to develop some really rich lore with characters and areas beyond the veil, but even our covenant campaign stories felt incomplete to make way for the main characters of the tale. Which arguably, was the WORST part of the story.
I think Jaina is the darling of the Devs and will be featured in all content. I think they will keep making Thrall her sidekick on the premise that is enough for it to be a story for both factions.
As long as Jaina touches Thrall’s arm every now and then, both of their fan bases will lap it up like mongrel curs.
Meanwhile, there is a whole World of Warcraft outside of Jaina and Thrall touching each other.
What the hell are you talking about? I don’t care about that crap. I want to see Thrall, breaker of chains and first Warchief of the Horde actually lead the orcs for once. When was the last time we saw that? Wrath? He hasn’t spoken to an orc he wasn’t related to other than Saurfang or Garrosh since Wrath, certainly.
Thrall was not the focus of BFA (and just to be clear, I hated his characterisation in BFA) so I don’t think it is fair to paint him as dominating the spotlight there. He basically just helps us free Baine and follows Saurfang around. Jaina got a lot of screen time, but it was an expansion about Kul Tiras.
I don’t think “stop using these characters” is the right call. Just … everything in its right place, you know? I’m not interested in playing Thrall or Jaina’s story, but I’m cool with them showing up in mine.
I disagree. He was in multiple BfA cinematics. Here is his mug, front and center :
That is just the one with his picture at the front. He is in other BfA cinematics. And even those cinematics aside, he was one of the Horrific Visions :
BFA was not a story about Thrall. He was a side character in the Saurfang vs. Sylvanas arc. Just like it wasn’t a story about Zekhan.
I think Jaina is going with Kalec during that Frost Zone since he and him have like a history together. As for Thrall. I’m not sure how he is going to get involved with the story.