More Sylvanas BS [8.1.5 spoilers]

[Broken Fox]

Azeroth is free

[Jastall]

Talanji was still most loyal to her father and her main personal aim is to get justice which is death to genn and jaina while sylvanas gives that as possibility while baine doesn't as Baine says seeking justice is bad in burials of Rastakhan and after that help Proudmoore family gain one of their family members back after they took her father which would make Talajis personal reason side whom Zandalari best and who gives them justice for the murder of their king which certainly isn't Baine nor saurfang.

Which Talanji immediately tempers during the funeral itself after Derek is raised, saying that while the Alliance must pay, such a thing must be fought with -magic word- honor. And the gang she hangs around with afterwards isn't Nathanos and Sylvanas, but Vol'jin and Baine.

You do you if you think she's set up to die on the Sylvanas hill. But I daresay you'll get an unpleasant surprise one day.

[Terongor]

Which Talanji immediately tempers during the funeral itself after Derek is raised, saying that while the Alliance must pay, such a thing must be fought with -magic word- honor. And the gang she hangs around with afterwards isn't Nathanos and Sylvanas, but Vol'jin and Baine.

You do you if you think she's set up to die on the Sylvanas hill. But I daresay you'll get an unpleasant surprise one day.

Do you really think Sylvanas is going to die? very unlikely because of her fanbase as its the only reason Jaina is still alive, but that besides the point.

Looking for answers is a different than going side with them. Also Derek is already ressurected while Rastakhan is still alive so giving up honor and choosing to side with sylvanas as she was resbonsbile for her safe return to zuldazar and she ordered horde forces to support zandalari its still more honorable to side with sylvanas than betray the debt you owe as how dishonorable your master is it doesn't release you from your debts and oaths just as nazgrim showed.

[Super Dickmann]

I don't think it's pedantic at all, actually. The Forsaken are a specific group who define themselves with a specific ethos, explicitly and pointedly contrasting themselves against the Scourge (the undead who are fundamentally in the yoke of the Lich King). Necromancy is seldom if ever "good," but we're not talking about overall morality in the context of the Warcraft universe - I am referring explicitly to the ethos of the Forsaken, of whom Sylvanas is the self-styled Queen and leader, who value their free will as one of their defining qualities. Raising someone as Forsaken and then immediately enslaving them against their own will runs contrary to the group's ethical compass. Necromancy is bad on the face of it, but raised skeletons, Death Knight minions, and general undead are *not* the Forsaken. Bwonsamdi is also not Forsaken, and he's been long established as a greedy git - serving him isn't good, either, but it's not of consequence as concerns what we're discussing.

The reason I call it pedantic is because the issue taken with Derek is that he's been deprived of his free will to die. This is identical to what is done with the skeletons at Lordaeron, Valentine, the Dark Rangers, every soul we snag for Bwonsamdi and so on. Yet no one says anything about any of these things until Derek, even though they're identical or much worse. If they only take issue with will-depriving necromancy if a certain political group does it and even then only if the victim is a named Alliance character, then they're self-flagellating hypocrites that value the enemy's lives over their own people.

I think of it more as the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back - just that one specific thing that starts the avalanche. This has been building up for quite awhile, with atrocity mounting on atrocity, and sometimes all it takes to start an inferno is just that one careless spark.

Except it visibly hasn't. In the very same patch that they rend their clothes off about how horrible it is we raised Derek we raise the Dark Rangers for the same person and Bwonsamdi raises that gorilla as a mind slave "perverting his noble spirit". The message is clear - we can't very well be hurting Jaina's family, even though we're not privy to her apparent redemption, and the apex of honor is to help your enemy defeat your own faction.

[Eats Compost]

He literally said he would side with her no matter what, in the Blood Elf Heritage quest that was recently released.

What? He didn't "literally" say that at all. He said he'd never forget the sacrifice she made. Respecting her legacy is an entirely different issue to whether or not he'll just go along with whatever she does in the moment, or if he even likes her at the moment.

[Syegfryed]

He literally said he would side with her no matter what, in the Blood Elf Heritage quest that was recently released.

He said that he feels that way still in belf herritage armor scenario during current day.

Also alliance and horde would demand gallywix to compensate for them when alliances supports baine.

you guys need to be rly naive to believe they would side with her no mater what, if she is going to fuck up the elves

we are talking about ELVES, they will do anything to save their skin

[Eats Compost]

The reason I call it pedantic is because the issue taken with Derek is that he's been deprived of his free will to die. This is identical to what is done with the skeletons at Lordaeron, Valentine, the Dark Rangers, every soul we snag for Bwonsamdi and so on. Yet no one says anything about any of these things until Derek, even though they're identical or much worse. If they only take issue with will-depriving necromancy if a certain political group does it and even then only if the victim is a named Alliance character, then they're self-flagellating hypocrites that value the enemy's lives over their own people.

I see that as a story pacing thing, rather than an accurate reflection of characters' feelings. If characters stopped to have a conversation about it every time a questionable raising happened in their vicinity (to exposit about it), it'd be a bit repetitive and may come off as disjointed. That's why that part of the story is confined to such a limited selection of characters, and why it revolves so heavily around Derek at the moment.

That's not to say there's not some overall sloppy storytelling going on. but I think it's a big jump to assume the events we see means that they only care about Derek and/or affiliates of a very specific group, as opposed to assuming that it's just a storytelling device.

[Super Dickmann]

I see that as a story pacing thing, rather than an accurate reflection of characters' feelings. If characters stopped to have a conversation about it every time a questionable raising happened in their vicinity (to exposit about it), it'd be a bit repetitive and may come off as disjointed. That's why that part of the story is confined to such a limited selection of characters, and why it revolves so heavily around Derek at the moment.

That's not to say there's not some overall sloppy storytelling going on. but I think it's a big jump to assume the events we see means that they only care about Derek and/or affiliates of a very specific group, as opposed to assuming that it's just a storytelling device.

The issue is that there's no reason to assume they have such a reaction to the prior events when no such reaction is ever brought up. If the story is reliant on me inventing actions and mindsets for the characters with zero hints to that being the case, then that story has already failed. Besides, there is a deliberate narrative choice being made. Sylvanas torching the tree was only reacted to by a Kratos reference and Saurfang. Derek is treated as the worst thing to ever happen by everyone in attendance, despite being laughably mundane in comparison to what we've been doing Cataclysm, let alone the start of this expansion.

[sillag]

if we cant trust the story to accurately portray the feelings of its characters then its basically completely meaningless and just characters moving around and saying things that dont matter while things explode in the background

i guess that is a pretty good description of wow now though

carry on

[Eats Compost]

The issue is that there's no reason to assume they have such a reaction to the prior events when no such reaction is ever brought up. If the story is reliant on me inventing actions and mindsets for the characters with zero hints to that being the case, then that story has already failed. Besides, there is a deliberate narrative choice being made. Sylvanas torching the tree was only reacted to by a Kratos reference and Saurfang. Derek is treated as the worst thing to ever happen by everyone in attendance, despite being laughably mundane in comparison to what we've been doing Cataclysm, let alone the start of this expansion.

That's the purpose of the Derek thing, though. From a narrative perspective, it's intended to be representative of that particular issue, and is the device used to explore the reactions of the characters involved. That's largely a consequence of WoW's format; it doesn't do a good job of detailing each character's reaction to events as they unfold, because the ingame story is rarely ever told from their perspective, and because the pacing of events and dialogue (with respect to how quests are designed in the first place) don't lend themselves well to more organic exposition.

I chalk it up to a crap format, and a crappy job of working within that crap format. But given how things tend to go down, I think it'd be a mistake to assume that something that goes unsaid must not be a thing at all. The story has to be observed with the assumption that they're working with a limited format where we're never going to see characters' reactions to everything in a complete fashion, which is why we get things like Derek that are intended to more densely summarize their attitude.

[Super Dickmann]

That's the purpose of the Derek thing, though. From a narrative perspective, it's intended to be representative of that particular issue, and is the device used to explore the reactions of the characters involved. That's largely a consequence of WoW's format; it doesn't do a good job of detailing each character's reaction to events as they unfold, because the ingame story is rarely ever told from their perspective, and because the pacing of events and dialogue (with respect to how quests are designed in the first place) don't lend themselves well to more organic exposition.

I chalk it up to a crap format, and a crappy job of working within that crap format. But given how things tend to go down, I think it'd be a mistake to assume that something that goes unsaid must not be a thing at all. Story has to be observed with the assumption that they're working with a limited format where we're never going to see characters' reactions to everything in a complete fashion, which is why we get things like Derek that are intended to more densely summarize their attitude.

If something goes unsaid and unimplied then by definition it hasn't happened. Sure, it'd be nice if Baine gave one fuck about genocide or his own people being subjected to necromancy, but A) It'd be out of character for him given his prior behaviour and B) At no point has there been any reason to believe that that is the case except wishful thinking. The one thing we do see out of Baine and the rest of the peanut gallery is them being appalled at Derek. That is what has happened. Reactions to the other things brought up hadn't happened.

It's not the format that has condemned to do this, it's their own deliberate writing choices. Even if we accept that characters can only react to one thing at a time then there's nothing stopping them from reacting to burning the tree earlier on, or the skellies at Lordaeron or so on. They deliberately chose to focus on us raising one Alliance enemy combatant as the breaking point for the Horde and have Baine's rebellion take the form of going behind his Warchief's back (again) to help Jaina (again) to the detriment of his faction and race (again).

[etheldald]

Okay baine, good job, i finally can respect you.
Problem is.. i am an alliance player...

i like that this is how derek is introduced into the alliance

it is possible that he gets a kill or two, if the reformed is complete. but at least this doesn't make jaina a complete idiot for trusting him.
and i like how she reacted to him, she is trying to help him and accept him.

But my question would be, why the horde side put so much focus on him?
i mean, sure, probably killing jaina would be worth all the effort considering that she is kinda a symbol in the alliance (and lets be honest we know that isn't going to happen,not until the end of the xpac, at least)
even if he does.. is not like kultirans don't have other leaders. they still have katherine, tandreed, or lucille waycrest.. or brother pike.. or.. ect.
killing jaina or the entire proudmoore family isn't going to be enough to win the war.

he better fucking not. he has a lot of potential as a character

Derek potential as a character? hum??

[sarahtasher]

Why people are so surprised ? Sylvanas was remarkably arrogant, unreliable and treacherous while alive. There was two lines of fluff text about Banshees in WC3 and it was that those were Elven women jealous of the living. To do cheap psycho-pop, Sylvanas issues were likely worsened by seeing her big sister still alive, still healthy, with a husband and kid and a large, firm yet supple and bouncy bosso...bow.

[Combatbutler]

Why people are so surprised ? Sylvanas was remarkably arrogant, unreliable and treacherous while alive.

She wasn't, she only got to the deep end once she died.

[Elestia]

I always wondered why the writing is so bad... Blizz taking too much inspiration from these forums.

[Combatbutler]

I always wondered why the writing is so bad... Blizz taking too much inspiration from these forums.

Who on these boards has spouted such a storyline? As far as I know no one here really likes this, no Alliance or Horde player and especially those who play both sides.

[sarahtasher]

Is this really hard to figure out that like WH40K, the story in WOW must allow for two factions ?

[Syegfryed]

Is this really hard to figure out that like WH40K, the story in WOW must allow for two factions ?

there is a elf undead leader there

[Eats Compost]

If something goes unsaid and unimplied then by definition it hasn't happened. Sure, it'd be nice if Baine gave one fuck about genocide or his own people being subjected to necromancy, but A) It'd be out of character for him given his prior behaviour and B) At no point has there been any reason to believe that that is the case except wishful thinking. The one thing we do see out of Baine and the rest of the peanut gallery is them being appalled at Derek. That is what has happened. Reactions to the other things brought up hadn't happened.

It's not the format that has condemned to do this, it's their own deliberate writing choices. Even if we accept that characters can only react to one thing at a time then there's nothing stopping them from reacting to burning the tree earlier on, or the skellies at Lordaeron or so on. They deliberately chose to focus on us raising one Alliance enemy combatant as the breaking point for the Horde and have Baine's rebellion take the form of going behind his Warchief's back (again) to help Jaina (again) to the detriment of his faction and race (again).

It doesn't always make sense for a character to speak out, despite their feelings. That's the part of the format that WoW struggles with most. In most mediums, there are a lot of subtle techniques that you can use to convey a character's feelings; gestures, expressions, camera tricks, internal monologues, etc. Many of these are either impossible or impractical in WoW - outside of the limited prerendered cutscenes and some very specific quests that change character perspective - which is why someone like Baine's stances are poorly represented. Using him as an example, the only times where they can really clearly convey his feelings with accuracy are when he's just straight-up explaining his feelings to the player character - a form of exposition that's widely derided as lazy, and rightfully so - or when he's at the point of acting on it, which can circumstantially be a point of no return.

Futurama summed it up a bit better than me; "you can't just have you characters announce how they feel". Blizzard sometimes seems to try to avoid that, but WoW has so few alternative outlets for exploring characters' feelings (outside of the novels), which is why characters like Baine (typically those with mixed feelings, or conflicting viewpoints) end up seeming like they have so many holes. The game just doesn't have a great way of exploring them. So, when we end up with Baine only reacting to some stuff, that's why I don't take it as a 1:1 representation of what he does/doesn't care about.

Of course, like I said, the other half of the issue is that Blizzard refuses to and/or is terrible at writing within these constraints. My view would be that they should write a story that they can actually tell effectively in WoW's format, which is something they consistently fail at for every story that involves intra-character or intra-faction conflict. I don't forgive them for any of it.

[Broken Fox]

Remember how they kept telling us Sylvanas wasn't going to be Garrosh 2.0 and that we should wait until we see more of the story?

So why does it seem she's more and more like Garrosh 2.0 with every story update we get? The story is shit and it's amazing that a team of writers sat down and thought this was going to be a good story. Everyone saw the upcoming lore issues when Sylvanas was made warchief but apparently people Blizzard pays are too stupid to see it themselves. At this point they can't even come up with an excuse for why people are still following Sylvanas. It's not believable that Sylvanas is able to act like this without the orcs starting a rebellion when orcs have never been shown to fear doing so beforehand. At this point I'm pretty sure she'd have been challenged at least 10 times to mak'gora.

Why? Shes winning the war and they never had a problem with necromancy in the past, so...

Also can't imagine anyone but Baine giving a shit about Derek Proudmoore being mind controlled. He's the enemy. The whole thing is an asspull to create strife cause their Saurfang plot was a flop with a lot of players.