I for one don’t think the plot of Dragonflight is “disneyfied” at all.
There is some uplifting messages in the story, and the theme about sticking to family, the power of “friendship”, and so on, but this is one side of the story, on another we had Razageth being completely unhinged during the 10.0 storyline, then there is Fyrakk, just casually killing everyone in his path (even the event in the crucible where he just appears cleaning up the map).
There is also a lot of setup with Iridikron and Xal’atath.
And last but not least, let’s talk how about our new playable race is a product of very messed up experiments made by Neltharion?
You telling me the story is soft because the heroes of the story have an uplifting and positive message to tell at the end? Does this simply erase the darker tones the story took left and right?
I love the whole “Dragonflight is Disneyfied WoW” stuff.
Did I miss the Disney movie where the antagonist’s initial motivation was wanting the gods to not force a transformation upon them against their will, so their brethren fought them until one made a deal with the Lords of Darkness so they could imprison the rebels for 20k years? And the main sympathetic star (Alexstraza in this case) realizes that yeah, actually what they did was kinda freaking messed up and not at all right?
It’s like when things aren’t grimdark, suddenly it must be Disney?
What I find funny is, to me, this tells me the people making the argument are apparently not aware, or just too young to know, of just how dark Disney used to get in their older movies. Go back to any of their classic movies from before the 2000s and they can get pretty dark.
People who think Dragonflight and Dracthyr are “disneyfied” clearly didn’t do anything in Aberrus or read lore. Even Forbidden Reach. The dracthyr were put through so many trials and tribulations that there’s even a cape in Aberrus that has flavor text that drops from Zskarn: “Many of you will perish. And yet, the master demands perfection.” like yes ha ha it’s like the Shrek meme but the implications of that.
That’s my main gripe with Dragonflight lore - it sets up so many fascinating themes and questions… and doesn’t discuss them. Not just not answering them, which is fine, but not having the characters go through them in any detail other than “vaguely reference and then shut up”.
It frustrates me because it feels like the story has a good setup, and a fun ending scene… but no middle, with only a few lines and teasers to extrapolate for how the beginning reached that ending. It ends up feeling like the writers either didn’t have a middle planned out and so just skipped right to dessert (figuring the book would retroactively fill in the blanks), or they don’t believe the players will notice or care or understand the journey and so just served up a pretty ending cinematic instead.
Who were the Primalists? How did the Incarnates persuade current Azerothians (and with members like the relatively recent nightborne and vulpera, it suggests the Primalists have new motivations for new times, and aren’t just old Twilight’s Hammer or other evil repurposed minions) to turn against their factions and try to overthrow(?) the dragons? So many Primalist NPCs have lines like “don’t you know what they have done?” and say nothing more. Can I please hear even the cliff’s notes of that persuasive argument? Something? One line, at least? Mystery boxes aren’t fun when there’s no reason it should be a mystery.
If it was a plot point that the dragons would swoop in and interrupt these NPCs before they can explain anything to the player, fine, that’d be an interesting twist, but there is none. I can think of several potential arguments by myself, sure, but I want the fun of exploring that in the story with multiple characters discussing the pros and cons of it. Why not let one of these Primalist NPCs have a dialogue option where they try to persuade the PC - it can still end in combat like the current version quests do.
Vyranoth’s choice to side with the Incarnates and then defect when they get too evil, the story of what the Titans did to the dragons and how the dragons learn about it and respond to that new knowledge, and the Drac’thyr experience in Aberrus are other stories which I was so eagerly waiting to see unfold… and the game tosses out a few hints and scraps of dialogue, then jumps to the conclusion. I don’t just want a conclusion, I want to experience the journey to that conclusion.
Sylvanas should’ve stayed dead after Wrath of the Lich King, Raszageth deserved more screen time, vulpera need a more interesting ‘leader’ than Kiro (maybe a few) and some more serious characters, and Garrosh disenchanting himself in Shadowlands was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life
I do think this is a vastly different argument tbh. One actually was just about superficial “they’re just from Kung Fu Panda” when it’s evidently not true to anyone versed in the setting. But MoP was not written like DF. DF is much more sanitized of a narrative and very shallow. Pandaria wouldn’t just tell us “renewal” 50 times over while celebrating an event thats actually just cultural erasure.
DF is shallow and dishonest. Even in core concept it wants to be about dragons reasserting their place in the world but it does so by shifting all their lore to be about this island that was never even part of the global supercontinent. Lei Shen was a logical addition into the story and the Mogu had this awesome idea of taking the titanforged spawned-race concept and running with it to a dark extreme where they did demented versions of what the titans did. DF can’t even properly reconcile how major portions of it’s landmass, like Centaur, even existed.
Which iirc from the official MoP art book, the Mogu were a last minute addition because they needed another enemy type. It is why MoP is one of my favourite expansions.
I’ve got another lore hot take. Some people dwell too much on the bad lore that’s prevalent. Like, this games never been blown your mind amazing at lore (I.E. TBC being dog for WoW’s lore ) but it’s been mostly overall enjoyable. And sometimes, I feel like you just gotta ignore the abject failures or stupidity in it. Same way Comic fans just ignore the PIS that happens in them.
For example, Baine’s weird thing about sending a shard of his horn to Anduin in return for the friendship/fearbreaker. It’s a weird thing done by Golden that people very clearly get annoyed or frustrated by, but it’s honestly super easy to just ignore such a small thing, especially something so far back in the past. Sometimes it feels people wanna just lock in on the bad lore so bad so they can justify their anger at certain things or characters when it seems like to me, they’d be better served just moving on from the stupid stuff and trying to enjoy the rest outside of it.
My hot take is absolutely wild and almost unfounded speculation:
Azeroth is the daughter of the creation-force of the cosmos, waiting to be born after the creation force was dispersed by the negation force. The negation force was also seriously weakened in the battle, and has had to act with a bit more subtlety, using manipulation and domination magic to achieve its ends. Currently the negation force resides in the Primus. The Primus used the “Jailer” as a marionette to achieve his ends, sacrificing him at the end. All to be able to install a new Arbiter that he controls, via the Crown of Wills, which he created. The goals of the Primus/negation force have been effectively covered up by the squabbling forces (the Titans, Old Gods and Shadow Lords, and all the other potentiates of the six powers) but are to control Azeroth. As several have speculated, blue is the color of domination magic. This suggests the Primus has already dominated Nozdormu (his eyes should be gold, but are Domination Magic blue), forcing a singular desired timeline to come to be, using the Titans as pawns. In this sense Murozond and the Infinite Dragonflight are kinda the good guys, as they have tried to thwart every pivotal event that would lead to this singular timeline, preferring to have multiple chaotic but free timelines. Through the dominated Titans and their Titan Facilities, the Primus has also been trying to directly dominate Azeroth herself. This is why Azerite is gold and blue instead of the pure gold normally associated with primal positive entities such as the new Arbiter. In the coming expansions we’ll have to free Azeroth from the control of the Primus.
Arthas should have been rescued early SL
Sylvanas should have stuck with zovaal through Sanctum
Arthas should have fought and killed Sylvanas to end the monster he created in Sepulchar.
Then her soul can find peace and stay dead in the afterlife.
It’s just odd that so many conflate Dragonflight’s relatively weak main plot with the entire narrative quality of the expansion. WoW’s strongest stories have almost always been the subthreads, except the storylines that directly followed the RTS because people were inherently more invested in them (so it’s straight up bias).
I’d argue that Dragonflight’s relatively lowkey main story quest was necessary as a break/soft reset after multiple apocalyptic world-ending storylines of massive scope. Fyrakk was welcome as a comically maniacal villain for once (rather than some shades of grey serious villain with a tragic backstory or whatever).
This argument kind of cuts against any defense that the plot hasn’t been disneyfied, actually…
I don’t think there’s much denying that there’s a tone shift in Dragonflight more dramatic than prior expansions. I think this is largely positive, but with the most beautifully animated cutscene in the expansion being Kinook serving soup, my first thought every time I see it is how much it reminds me of a Disney picture, in a good way.
They lean harder into a beautiful cartoony style with each expansion, they have some sense of morality that’s not completely half-baked, and they’re really not trying all that hard to sell you on anything ‘cool’.
As for Kung-Fu Panda – the idea that Pandaria had a lot of depth is painful to me – the familiarity of the writers is overwhelmingly through pop media rather than anything else. There are attempts to do more with it, but whether or not it’s better than the shallowness of Launch Kalimdor culturally is a toss-up – there is more depth than that afforded to the centaurs or quilboar sure, but those were a much smaller fraction of launch content than the Pandaren are of their related expansions, and the style of story being told is vastly different in both. The fact that Pandaren date back to WC3 doesn’t change the fact that they went from being mostly ignored by WoW to being a starring feature overnight, or the oddities of the expansion’s tone.
Overall, the reason I like Dragonflight is because it’s inoffensive, easy to look at, and I don’t expect much from the writing.
The simple fact is that if you’re doing any sort of animated thing with good art, emotional depth, and an overall positive tone and you aren’t relying heavily on gross-out humor, zany Looney Toons-esque stuff, stylized violence, or sex appeal, you are likely going to be compared to Disney; they are the primary touchstone for that combination of traits and lack thereof, over a great many genres and several decades. Turn a few knobs, you’d get Don Bluth (but no one except animators think about him anymore), a few different knobs you’d get anime, etc. I don’t think Dragonflight is up to the usual standards associated with the Disney name – I’m literally singing along to Let It Go right now – but I think the charge that there’s a move in that direction is hardly unfair. To the extent I get annoyed at “Disneyfication” charges, it’s everything else usually associated with the attack and the speaker making it.
I guess that’s one way to look at it. Personally, I’ve never once watched these cutscenes and thought to myself - “This is Disney”. Just like I never once thought - “This is Kungfu Panda” when playing through Pandaria. Maybe, at least in regards to MOP vs Kungfu Panda, it’s because I’ve read a lot of Chinese literature and could tell when they were making those references.
People forget that they were originally a Joke and the reason they beacme more than a joke is that people loved the idea so much they were mad they were just a joke.
Glancing at the period of time where Forced Return to Office was a thing and many employees were forced to quit and Blizzard Managers on Twitter were saying they had to completely reshuffle Launch dates due to how many resignations they were getting
