Thing is, if it was -just- nelves being a punching bag, then sure. It might not be driven by sexism. But there is more context.
I mean, Richard Knaack in general. For starters. This is kind of how Nelf lore STARTED. With his earlier novels like War of the Ancients, which again, needed two masculine figures shoehorned into the story via a forces time travel mechanic.
Stormrage, Tyrande’s personality seemed to be defined by her husband with little personality of her own. Wolfheart, night elves were damseled for Varian to rescue and Maiev was added to Blizzards long string of villainized abuse victims.
The infamous “Hush Tyrande” from Malfurion. A Little Patience where Varian, a gladiator with next to no experience in war or statecraft, teaching the 10,000 year old priestess about the virtues of patience.
The Illidan Novel prefacing the abuse that Maiev sustained from illidan only for the following expantion to glorify him entirely. Following with, of course, War of Thorns.
Even into Shadowlands, the trend continues. With Elune’s ineptitude and a whole story arch that segregates renewal and healing from abuse from the pursuit of justice. It is a trend, there is no denying that point.
And Zerde is brilliantly outlining his male bias here. Trying to compare stand along tragedies of male characters, as if it is at all comparable. Thing is, Zerde doesn’t have a real reason to disagree. His entire point here is not in defense of the Alliance or any particular character he likes. The stance he is taking here is specifically to downplay or outright reject the very notion that the Night Elves have to deal with a disproportionate degree of bad story telling born of sexism. To the point where he is willing to exonerate Blizzard story writers who themselves contributed to said sexist storytelling.
I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that it’s not out of malice but out of how the story split the Alliance the same way the story split the Horde.
I can’t assume everyone who choose Saurfang over Sylvanas did so because they hate women, (but deep down I assume that for sure and it gives me a negative bias)
It’s not a hot take it’s a word for word presentation of in-game dialogue. Vol’jin said some really nasty stuff to the Alliance player character that was frankly far worse and less justified than anything Tyrande said to the Horde.
I should note that I don’t even necessarily consider it a black mark against Vol’jin because he has a radically different cultural background from most Alliance races and is probably not particularly aware of recent human history.
Especially since necromancy and similar arts seem to be more socially acceptable in Troll culture so a threat to use necromancy might seem benign to him because he isn’t aware that the bulk of the Alliance was recently subjected to a necromancy-fueled genocide that wiped out a continent.
But it is absolutely the kind of comment that would realistically receive pushback from your average Alliance player character especially considering the events of Cata and MoP.
Or he did that because he wanted it be more popular. He specifically pick a human and orc to appeal to a larger swath of Warcraft’s fan who may or may not be as invested in night elves.
Also, for all Knaak fault he has written some pretty awesome female character. You can thank for actually fleshing out Alexdraxza and Ysera and Vereesa. Iiridi was also also pretty nice.
Malfurion was angry his “hush Tyrande” is a silence/enough(and in WoW, we do that all the time to villains/people who don’t like) would probably have been applied to anyone, male or female.
And Illidan was locked up in a cage for 10,000 only for all that trauma to melt away because Tyrande stared at him with pretty eyes. Also, Maiev was not praising him so much not having a choice but to work with him. Sort of how the Alliance being force with the Horde.
This has been a thing since a long time now. Whether it be Genn being force to choose his people’s safety or killing Sylvanas or Varian being forced to choose to save Jaina or try and kill Xaela. Heck, Arthas got an earful from Uther about how Vengence cannot be a part of what we must do. Arthas always thought he was doing the right thing. Look where that lead him?
I don’t agree with this. Knaak has a long history of sexist writing and the fact that they choose this specific line to include as “history” in game is highly suspicious. It was deliberate.
This line is like the Garrosh “b” line. It was made to put a woman in her place and that’s how it was it was recieved by female players.
Well, we know zerde will defend just about anything the alliance does, unless of course it’s a woman or a matriarchal society involved. Than his attitude seems to change
“If you aren’t a Night Elf keyboard warrior you must be a sexist” is second only to “If you aren’t a Sylvanas stan you’re sexist” in terms of most tired and lame deflections that keep on consistently appearing on this forum
Weren’t you one those complaining about how Jaina abandoned us in Legion(It might not be you but there were plenty here, certainly quite a few night elf fans) while I kept telling everyone she is probably just decided to fight on her own outside the two factions who were current working together?(and I was proven right by the comic)
Couldn’t it be possible I dont care what you gender is and care more about the why and how people do thing?
Also if we had a way a to look back at post back in MoP you would find me being of the first to cheer her as she gave her “we are not fighting for you, troll” line.
Calling legitimate story criticisms, where long running trends and known tropes are being pointed out, “deflections” speaks volumes to how flippant people can be towards a woman’s word.
When a woman speaks, it is a “deflection”. A distraction from other conversation that is somehow seen as more important.
