Why the hate for Nathanos?

[Niwes]

i ofc realize that many ppl at blizz hq create story and lore of wow. but hell, i ha... eeehrm dont like that guy. i dont like his acting, his statements, his influence. and i hate his work. imo this guy is a overpaid stupid jerk. but thats maybe just me.

[Kehego]

I don't think he's gay for you. That would be like saying Taelia actually just wants to fuck you. I don't believe that either. Shaw's a professional. He doesn't tell you how bad he wishes you would have died doing the work of his good for jack shit Banshee Queen. That's the real difference.

Okay, and not everyone is courteous/has to be courteous to you.
I fail to see the point you're trying to make.

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This thread is hilarious because it's basically people complaining to HR about Nathanos' *perceived* attitude.

[Daedius]

Really? Literally every interaction with him he's an obnoxious bell end.

[Niroshi]

He's irritating primarily because Blizzard has given him nothing of note to have accomplished beyond banging Sylvanas and being the first human Ranger in Quel'thalas. Impressive for the time, mind you, but not so much these days. The player has done more and accomplished more than Nathanos, so him trying to snark the player nonstop is just kind of eye rolly. Same energy as a punching bag joke character, like those 3 bandits from the FF7 remake.

It would work for someone like Sylvanas but not Nathanos.

[Thage]

While all of this is true. He was established as the "Champion of the Banshee Queen" way back in vanilla. That title at the very least was before all of this stuff.

Not that it makes it any less cringey, but...well yeah

Sure, but he didn't really have a character to him prior to Danuser hollowing him out, giving him a new Danuser-like coat of paint, and using him as an apparent author avatar. Nathanos existed largely as a quest target for an Alliance raid quest, and after Cataclysm, he was one of many NPCs in the martial class trainer hub complaining about being stuck as a class trainer. His lore was a weird mix of 'important backstory' and 'does precisely fuck-all.'

The big problem is that he went too far in the other direction once they gave him plot relevance in Legion. They made him a thoroughly-unlikable jackass, beyond even just, "This NPC doesn't kiss our asses" like some of his defenders claim. This guy has no rational reason to be confused, repeatedly as to why Sylvanas wants us to meet with her to discuss operations given we have about a literal dozen demigod kills under our belt by the time we come back from the Broken Shore. Simpy-boy is just throwing temper tantrums that we get face time with his favorite girl when she won't even read out his name when he donates.

@OP That's why he's a bad character. He still doesn't have a character. He's a skinsuit the lead writer wears to talk about his favorite character and act like the snide, edgy PC every D&D group dreads having to put up with, the one who constantly writes new abilities onto his character sheet when the DM isn't looking so he can teleport behind you and say, "Nothing personnel, kid."

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The only difference between shaw and nathanos is that shaw wants to suck your dick and nathanos doesn't.
not everyone has to be nice to you, roflmao

It's not that he isn't nice to you. It's that he expresses genuine confusion as to why Sylvanas would want to enlist the aid of someone who regularly kills demigods and cosmic figures, who has been the lynchpin for multiple major Horde operations in the past and carried the role with flying colors. That's not good writing unless you want to display the character as being a needlessly-antagonistic mongoloid with zero situational awareness, something that would not befit the first human Ranger nor someone Sylvanas trusts with matters of national security and her own personal, highly-classified-at-the-time agenda.

edit: Here's a counter example. Taran Zhu is not nice to us. He rightfully lays the blame for many problems in Pandaria at our feet, because we caused those problems. He doesn't trust us until we begin rep-grinding with the Shado-Pan because we're proven risks. Even as far as 5.4, Taran Zhu is repeatedly proven right about the outlanders being as big a problem as the problems they solve, and it's not until we fix the mess we made in the first place that he warms up to us. That is how you write a character who isn't impressed by the player character.

Nathanos is a prime example of how not to do this, because everything we've done has made his life significantly easier; even the double-agents working for the rebellion largely made his job much easier than it would've been if we sat the war out. Not only that, again, the player character canonically has multiple demigod-tier and cosmic-tier kills to their name, which is the entire reason they keep being called to action in the first place. Unless he's so ignorant of basic global politics--as in, "What is Ironforge?" levels of ignorant--there's no reason behind his antagonism beyond being written as the writer's edgy OC.

[Jastall]

rofl so many people butthurt about an npc that doesn't fellate you instantly.

Game needs more nathanos characters, tbh.
Like I said, Nathanos is Shaw; loyal to the hand that feeds him and nothing else.

Yeah, people don't hate Shaw precisely because he's neither a dickhead not does he worships the ground our PC walks on. He does what he has to do without bothering with having a shit attitude for its own sake.

As for players hating NPCs that smack talk them, Bwonsamdi does it all the time, and players generally love him, yours truly included. Because 1) he earns it, 2) he's his own character, and 3) he's actually funny about it.

[Gref]

I think it is about how he is represented in the game. It is just ridiculous he just stands there, without even moving and 1vs1 with night warrior tyrande. It could have been better with real fighting animations, or maybe a cgi movie like saurfang's.

I don't mind him talking shit about almost everything but sometimes I feel it is forced. He could have showed some restraint or respect from time to time.

Apart from that I really respect the man for his loyalty to Sylvannas. Couldn't give a shit about danuser or whoever he is but he did a bad job with representation of nathanos character in game.

[Thage]

My dislike for Nathanos stems from his utter contempt at everything paired with his incompetence. Why he's the champion of the Banshee Queen is beyond me when we've seen Sylvanas gleefully pit her best agents against each other; one would think he'd be replaced by someone who is capable of actually accomplishing something. He was handed a conquered Darkshore and promptly lost it and one of his queen's val'kyr in the process. On the few quests he actually joins us on, Voss is generally the one that carries the day, with Nathanos there to simply give orders. He could've been replaced with pretty much any other Horde leader throughout the war campaign, and the expansion would have been less grating. I'd even take Liadrin's screaming about the light over Nathanos' annoyance.

Imagine, in another universe, we'd have gotten someone with actual military experience, a crisp professional who gets shit done without needing to get in their own way, and who's smart enough to understand why the Warchief is employing one of the Horde's most valuable assets on covert ops and high-risk missions. We could have had Deathstalker Belmont as our main contact. Instead, we had El Simpo Maximo.

[Saltysquidoon]

The shit about the self insert, I'm just not seeing it. It's quite a stretch. Like I've never met the dude, but I get 0% Nathanos out of Danuser. I just think it's a WoW employee having fun on twitter.

I'm loving the mental gymnastics here.

First, it doesn't matter her's a self-insert because thrall was. Now its been pointed out that thrall got a shit tonne of pushback and memed to death because he was a self insert causing blizzard to rest the character as a result. Betauser is actually nothing like Nathanos and he was never a self-insert, to begin with.

Let's just ignore the twitter stuff and his sudden rise the relevance (after being a literally class trainer for a decade) during the exact dev cycle Betauser got hired in, those are just two weirdly time-sensitive coincidences.

[Krewshi]

He's a self insert and a simp
A deadly combo indeed

[ashblond]

Nathanos is the most annoying dickhead garbage in wow history, the biggest cuckhold eunuch in Azeroth.

He shall be gangbanged to death by ogre brutes. His body will be hung upside down on every dungeon portal. And his corps will be whipped permanently 24/7 by orc peons.

[Delano]

Nathanos is a literal Marty Stu that's dating the character his creator happens to be obsessed with. What else needs to be said?

[Lord Pebbleton]

I don't really hate him, I just don't get his relevance.

He's just an archer with no special powers associated to him but he still gets to stand against Tyrande after the ritual. I get that power level can vary on demand but if they are not going to make an effort to explain this massive disparity, I won't make an effort to care. Him being an asshole to everyone never really bothered me, at least he has some personality in that regard.

The problem with Blizzard is that they usually put characters in the spotlight with no previous build up, or omit justifying an increase in power level. Sylvanas could also be used as an example for this, since she goes from racial leader to Lich King spanker in a 3 minute trailer because she got help from a guy that was never mentioned before.

[Aurrora]

Because he's the ultimate wow simp

This forum needs a like button.

[Soon-TM]

Likely because no other character killed his own father to maintain peace only to invade later anyway.

Well, at least she had been consistently written as an inconsistent, almost schizophrenic gal. That is, until Golden had her way into the writing team, and turned her into an overdrive of a Mary Sue.

[Raisei]

Nathanos is just insufferable. The typical lackey that licks the boots of his superiors (Sylvanas) and kicks everyone that he imagines below him, even people that have achievments he could only dream of.
How the Horde PC can ever stand his condecending tone is beyond me (and I only had to suffer it during Dazar'alors Horde section). I would have twisted his head off years ago.

[vipers]

Stupid puppet who got no own opinions is really good reason to hate him

[matrix123mko]

Well, at least she had been consistently written as an inconsistent, almost schizophrenic gal. That is, until Golden had her way into the writing team, and turned her into an overdrive of a Mary Sue.

I think the problem is that they wanted her to go Alliance as she is human. In my opinion, after killing her own father for wellbeing of orcs, she should have gone Horde and be written as a Horde human. That would make more sense than her joining Alliance without any reason and becoming a diplomat that Varian always ignores.

[Zephire]

Didn't know. I do like what Steve does though. Great fun

I hate Nathanos simply because how he behaves and belittle my character all the time while also being arrogant and full of himself. It's a simple reason, I don't like that personality and since I can't really say that to him, it's very onesided and he win everything by default for being an NPC with whom I can't argue :P

[Kayb]

Hm, I dunno, he was just kinda there for awhile. Aside from being her puppy dog there wasn't really much to him really. But then right at the start of BFA / Burning of Teldrassil I thought that maybe they were sowing seeds of potential dissent within him. He kinda looked like he was questioning her actions, or even sad about Teldrassil. That would have been a great story to pursue over the course of the expansion/s, and would have made him a lot more interesting. When it gets to the point in SL where she throws him under the bus, and it will, I hope he's gonna be cool with it. If he gets all 'How could you!' he'd be even more eye rolling than he is now.