Thadeus likes to act that just because like a single light user is shown as bad then the entire thing must be bad, or even the reverse with the undead.
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Thad maybe the new Arathi in TWW are the flavor you are looking for as they are clearly based on Orthodox Christianity and despite a fraction in their faith which may cause some of them to be antagonistic (aka the dungeon) it seems like for the most part they are morally good.
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I wonder if Arthas knew that Frostmourne would (seemingly) demand Muradin’s life in payment, but otherwise spot on. That said…
Weak strawman and projection from someone coming from the opposite side, unworthy of further effort to refute.
Bandwagon fallacy alert. Stay on topic about WoW, as the puerile “everything is grey” Hat morality isn’t superior.
My “Is WoW anti-justice?” thread unfortunately aged like wine given Shadowlands and the Lawsuit that revealed the predatory Cosby Suite devs.
I’d sooner make my own, while you act like you want WoW’s Light to be stand in for your angstheist power fantasies.
Depends if they’re thieves or not and where they’re doing their crimes.
Wrong and you know it. A petty and weak accusation because I hurt your feelings by criticizing the Forsaken.
Tell that to the WoW fans saying that Blizzard was built on subversion of archetypes/stereotypes (some are in this thread).
Mate you’ve made like thirty threads going on about how xe’ra shouldn’t be evil cause blah blah blah
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Hell in this literal thread you’re complaining about the and i quote " Beings on a holy mission to spread hope and protect life across the cosmos through a shared faith that literally stands against darkness
“NAH, THEY’RE DEFINITELY EVIL CONTROL FREAKS. RIGHT AND WRONG? PFFT!” "
You could have made some argument for WC3 being a ‘subversion of tropes.’ Sure. But that doesn’t mean everything that followed is a subversion of expectations. To subvert expectations you would have to be going against general expectations. Which really isn’t happening.
Take the Forsaken story I was responding to in the part you just quoted.
They were not trying to subvert any expectations. There was no setup that they suddenly flipped the script on.
The problem, and yes there was a major story telling issue, was not a question of subversion of expectations. It was two conflicting stories trying to be told at the same time.
They wanted the Forsaken to be both the BadA__ metal action hero-esque faction that is unstoppable while also trying to tell the story of the outcast victims of the Scourge who were used as tools and then abandon (forsaken) by the rest of the world, barely able to survive. They tried to make the Forsaken the T1000 and the helpless victims at the same time. It just doesn’t work.
Those are mutually exclusive stories. No part of that is a subversion of expectations issue. In fact, both lean into already tread ground nobody should be surprised by. The problem was always them trying to tell both mutually exclusive narratives at the same time.
That and as a result setting up a situation where the logical conclusion to the story could not happen because of the whole playable faction part.
It IS bad story telling. No question. It is just not bad for the reason you claimed.
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I don’t even think its necessarily bad story telling to combine those two narritaves, they just did it in a bad way.
Your average forsaken being a downtrodden victim who has grown to despise their former neighbors due to being rejected and culled, with many outright losing their humanity over it and choosing to be the monsters they were treated as makes sense.
I feel like the split between the “Just a dude” forsaken and the cackling maniac ones should have happened earlier, and without the aid of a Wight savior showing up. I liked the few instances where it showed Forsaken and living horde members actually getting along. I think that should have been the route to “softening” them rather than arthas sister showing up and girlbossing everyone.
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I wish we had more instances of people like Tehd and his illidari companion from legion to show a different perspective of forsaken society. Some are monsters, but you have your Tehds trying to make a difference in their own way
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This is probably the key part. I agree that it is possible to have one group be victims and another group the rabid maniacs. Sure. That is two separate groups. They tried to tell both narratives of the same group.
And there would be other problems even if they separated out the rabid maniacs. A big problem was the Forsaken were winning. They gained ground at basically every front because Blizzard wanted them the big ‘For the Horde’ moments. But when your group is winning, even if it is because of the full on ‘scrouge-like maniacs,’ it taints any kind of ‘underdog’ story you might be trying to tell.
I don’t disagree. I think the story of them as victims trying to recover and build a new society would have been much more compelling.
That and I think Calia was largely used because prior to her introduction nearly all of Forsaken development was basically all tied to Sylvanas. In the story up to that point there was, unfortunately, little more to their story than serving Sylvanas arc. Calia was a ‘quick fix’ to inject some kind of different perspective to them beyond Sylvanas minions. Not a good fix, but the easiest one for them to do.
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They already had a council formed though, they could have easily just not killed them off and had them butt heads more and more with Sylvanas until she takes the mask off.
Calia just sucks because her experiences are exactly opposite of what literally every one of her people dealt with. Even Derek Proudmoore had a few moments of direct rejection and hostility before Jaina softened.
They didn’t seem to be written that badly in Legion, BFA turning them into complete parodies of themselves was just par for the course in that expansion.
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That is what should have happened, yes.
Problem is timing. That would have needed to have started happening earlier in the story. I think Calia was brought in because they needed a different perspective and had already neutered the council.
Like I said, a bad fix. Just the quickest and easiest one.
Fully agree.
Honestly, I think the best use of Calia with her story would just have been to actually make her a part of the Alliance (which she very much was not) that is sympathetic towards the Forsaken and then have her serve as a kind of ambassador. Not part of the Forsaken, but closer than most of the Alliance. So, kind of a middle ground. No part in Forsaken governing. She could just have been the one to advocate for both groups and give both the Forsaken and Alliance a chance to talk peace. Literally, just a middle ground advocate for peace.
The worst (by far) of it was actually in Cata. Legion was not real bad, though it did have them punching above what an ‘underdog’ should have been. If showed them as arguably one of the strongest factions. BfA was kind of back to Cata bad story telling. Not quite as bad as Cata, but still not good.
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Cata at least had the excuse that they were being forced to go to war under threat of mass execution, and they were just going to bleed themselves dry playing fair. Why die for the benefit of your jerk neighbors who have been letting loose feral worgen into your territory long before this all kicked off?
The sociopath alchemists don’t have an excuse though.
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That is what we were told, but not what we were shown. The Forsaken were never really shown as in danger. They were gaining ground on both fronts. Sylvanas even got pissed when there was a truce, not something that makes sense if they were really threatened with extinction.
And that was kind of the problem. They wanted to tell us the Forsaken were these underdogs on the edge of extinction. But they showed us the Forsaken being near unstoppable and constantly gaining ground on two fronts. The two narratives were mutually exclusive.
And Andorhal? See, this is what I mean. Andorhal was a pure land grab (well outside Forsaken territory) Sylvanas broke a truce to make. And one that the Forsaken won. That fundamentally doesn’t work along with the underdogs struggling to avoid extinction narrative.
For the struggling narrative the Forsaken would have to have been either losing ground or barely maintaining a position. When they can effectively advance on two different fronts (three if you count the Kirin Tor remnants) you can’t also call them the underdogs. Nor can they really be said to be threatened with extinction.
That was always the problem. The narratives conflict with each other. Either the Forsaken are a powerful and dominant force (shown by their winning) or they are a weak, barely holding on underdog. They can’t be both. But Blizzard tried to tell both at the same time. They wanted the sympathetic, struggling victims and the unstoppable terminators at the same time. The whole eat your cake and have it too.
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The Danger from Garrosh was Kor’kron stationed in UC ready to start chopping on command.
The Forsaken were winning, yes, but primarily because Sylvanas ignored Garrosh’s instructions to fight with a hand tied behind her back. Forsaken are not 300 pound orcs, being forced to fight in a similar manner would not go well for them.
I never said she was a saint, but she did enter the war unwillingly. I do not like Sylvanas, I think she was the 2nd most villainous horde leader outside of Garrosh, but I do understand she was written to have motivations that were more than “I’m ebil!”
Andorhal is right down the road from the Bulwark and in Loraedon proper, I don’t see it being a land grab? Or if it was one, it was one on both sides. Grabbing the farms right outside of the Forsaken Bulwark when your closest non-Argent human city is zones and zones away seems… ill advised at best? Especially since I’m pretty sure the actual land owner for the farm is a forsaken if I remember my classic questing correctly.
Looking at The Battle Resumes! (I can’t post links). It seems that the Alliance broke the truce between them when their forces rushed the Forsaken’s rear and forced Thassarian to attack. Unless you’re talking about the WOTLK truce, because Varian broke that.
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The Kor’kron were a threat to Sylvanas personally, though I am not sure how effective the would actually have been. But regardless, they were not a threat to the Forsaken as a whole. They could not have wiped out the Forsaken. So, no threat of extinction.
But they were winning. The mechanism doesn’t matter so much as the result. If they are winning on multiple fronts they are not underdogs threatened with extinction. It can’t be both ways.
I think you might be missing what I am saying. It was not a question of good or bad. Sylvanas was acting from a position of power, not weakness. She wasn’t acting like the Forsaken were threatened with extinction. She was acting like they were the stronger force. Which the game backed up.
Yes. Both sides were trying to grab territory from the Scourge. And then Sylvanas had the Forsaken grab what the Alliance had gotten.
But again, I think you misunderstand the point I was trying to make. It is not about right or wrong. We could discuss all day long who had the better claim. Were the Forsaken justified in trying to Andorhal? Was the Alliance? Etc, etc. That is not the question.
The issue is: IF you want to present the Forsaken as struggling to just survive, underdogs like a lot of the quest text claimed you can’t also have them gaining territory while fighting on multiple fronts, defeating every enemy they face.
The story telling issues are less about the morality of the Forsaken. And more that we were told two VERY contrary things.
Personally, I think the Forsaken story would have been much better if they had been on the edge of extinction, pressed to do questionable things and then only barely surviving. Making it clear they had no chance without it. Had they been actual underdogs there would have been more depth.
But also, Blizzard could have just told the story of them going full scourge without trying to pretend they were also on the edge of extinction. Let them go straight dark and be a massive powerhouse. I think that would have been fairly one dimensional, but it was a path. And even that would have been better than what we got.
Trying to have it both ways made a straight up worse story than had they just picked a lane. Trying to eat their cake and have it also made the Forsaken story telling both one dimensional AND incoherent/inconsistent. Plus it opened up a plethora of plot holes that continued expac after expac. And we are now stuck with a mess of lore around them and no real direction for the faction.
And BfA continued it. While I don’t think BfA was as bad as Cata, it was still pretty bad. And the lack of direction is why the Forsaken went from full loyal to ‘we are good now’ just because Sylvanas said she didn’t care about the Horde. And I think it is a LARGE part of the reason Calia was brought in. Blizzard needed to add a new direction to the faction because they spent the previous few expacs telling conflicting narratives rather than giving them an actual direction.
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They weren’t able to push the scarlets out of their territory at all. Even after their failed Northrend run, they clung like barnacles to Forsaken territory.
They were able to beat Gilneas when it was dealing with ferals decimating their homeland and the peninsula itself shearing off into the ocean.
They were able to beat Southshore, which had given its best and brightest of the previous generation to the scarlets, only through saturation bombing.
They were able to beat Thassarian and a bunch of hastily recruited idiot peasants fighting hundreds of miles away from resupply.
They got their butts waxed all through Darkshore and lost Arathi as well completely.
They showed less resistance to an Alliance invasion of their homeland than the Nelves showed despite the nelves not having their standing military.
I don’t think the Forsaken have the greatest W/L record.
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And Stormwind was not able to push the Defias out of their territories.
They won against Southshore, Gilneas, Thassarian, and members of the Kirin Tor who remained behind all at the same time. By themselves, with no real reinforcements form the Horde secured basically all the territory north of Arathi Highlands. Whether or not you think that the individual victories were impressive or not, the point remains: That is not something that squares with desperate underdogs faced with the threat of extinction.
- The Night Elves were portrayed as the strongest Alliance faction.
- That is just not true.
The Alliance did not fight through two zones, they landed on the shore and attacked one town before attacking Undercity. And then Horde almost won at Undercity TWICE despite the whole thing being a setup Sylvanas meant to lose. Night were in a constant retreat and never came close to winning against the Horde despite them marching through two zones.
I would argue they have more wins than losses.
But even if it was equal, or even slightly more losses, were again back to one major point: Their effectiveness shows they were never really threatened with extinction. Instead they were shown to be a relatively strong faction.
The story elements go we are told Forsaken are weak and facing imminent threat of extinction. That is while they are actively winning battles and gaining territory. Those elements just don’t go together. Blizzard should have chosen one or the other.
Trying to tell conflicting narratives is, IMO, the primary driver for most of the Forsaken story failing.
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In the actual game though he had a Paladin Aura right up to the moment he picked up Frostmourne.
It is extremely well known that Gameplay mechanics =/= lore
They’re not going to remake his class for a few extra missions. So again, no, none of the evil things he did had anything at all to do with being a paladin and we’re shown that they directly contradict them in fact. Arthas’ morality can be shown on a scale least evil, which is when he is most acting like a paladin, and most evil, which is when he is least acting like a paladin.
Couldn’t have put it better myself regarding the Forsaken. And you have a point. Perhaps they’re not the subversion I thought (though others have claimed that).
I think the Forsaken had a lot of potential, though like you said later, they tried to have it both ways. Maybe that was the bigger problem with the lore, the writers tried to have their cake and eat it too. I might do another thread on that.
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