Where are all the male characters in Warcraft ?

[Saubon]

To OP: male characters are there, they are just invisible to plot. Not sure if it is supposed to be woke or if is it just poor writing

[sam86]

literally entire current writing team is far leftists, i posted it her but got banned so google it urself, the last book "azeroth stories' has almost all of writers pure anti-white males feminazis
surprising, Christie isn't one of them, which is good because I still consider Rise of the Horde the BEST book written in warcraft universe, and it is her book

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To OP: male characters are there, they are just invisible to plot. Not sure if it is supposed to be woke or if is it just poor writing

it is on purpose sadly, as i said, google entire warcraft writing team

[Valette]

To OP: male characters are there, they are just invisible to plot. Not sure if it is supposed to be woke or if is it just poor writing

Bolvar. Anduin. Zovaal. The primus. Uther. Denathrius All these are invisible to the plot? Either you havent been paying attention, or I've had different story campaigns. I would've liked to see Thrall taking a bigger role though, instead of just moping around Oribos until his mum needed him.

[Beloren]

While there are male 'main characters' in the current story, they tend to take a backseat in what gets promoted. The current trend is that the male characters get the backseat while the female characters are usually the center of the story. This is not just the case in Shadowlands, but also in BfA.

Regardless, it's still fairly obvious that Blizz has been making a huge push for female-centric characters and storytelling as of late based upon in-game content as well as out-of-game media and content. That in itself isn't an issue on its own. What tends to be an issue if gender/identity politics is your main motivator instead of making a good, compelling story (and with how Blizz employees advertise the narration in media/Twitter/etc., it's leans heavily towards gender/identity politics), as you tend to sacrifice logic and reasoning in the narratives. Basically, if your main goal isn't to make a cohesive and entertaining story, don't be surprised when the result is a jumbled mess that is anything but entertaining. Now this certainly isn't the main reason why the writing and story in WoW has been declining, but it is still a factor in many direct and indirect ways.

If I had to estimate how much fault lies directly with identity/gender politics alone when it comes to the bad writing, I'd say 15% at most... it's not large, but it can have larger consequences that ripple throughout a story that cascade into and exacerbate other problems. It's like skunk spray: it only takes a little to severely offend the senses and ruin your day, and it tends to stick around for a long time and may permanently/irreversably ruin whatever it touches.

The ugly truth is that the vast majority of people do not care about gender/identity politics; I'd even go so far to say that the vast majority of people think it's incredibly dumb and a product of people who have too much free time on their hands (aka, people that typically live on Twitter or forums who tend to be the extreme minority). If you start integrating such things into your story, you are probably going to please a few niche vocal people while alienating or boring/pissing off the majority of people. Most people just want to live their lives without all the nonsense, and the second you start to use games (or movies, etc.) as a platform to push political agendas is the second you start losing your general audience, regardless of where they may stand on such issues. Games are generally meant to be an escape, and the trend of the story and the self-insertion of the social/political views of the writers and staff at Blizz do everything but provide an escape for players.

It seems this is pretty much the case, and doesn't bode well for entertainment, that is now a platform rather than a medium for you know "entertainment", but the signs are there, we are noticing it, and we wonder why is it okay for men to be abused and cast down, but not women. Why must women dominate everything instead of having balance and equality.

Because the current agenda is not about being fair, or even or just, no it's about one group of salty crazies screaming so they are pandered to, regardless of whether it's fair or just or right. the excuse now being, "well it's our turn now, so we are totally justified in rubbing your face in the mud so that we are put up in the pedestal." This is what it seems like.

And yes, I fear the current situation in blizzard is going to make this even worse as they try to "please" the feminist intersectional woke crowd, and it would just further alienate the majority of their players.. i mean how long do you thing a guy like me is going to enjoy only seeing cool female characters at the forefront while nothing but irrelevance, mistreatment or villainization of male characters.. I'm male afterall.

I may like the female characters a lot, but I am male at some point, this is just not going to feel like it's for me, after which point guess what, I'll go elsewhere and they can enjoy all the activists that no doubt will subscribe to world of Warcraft because they've got the right quota and the right (or rather the left) people in charge.

I'm sure those activists care about video games and spend their money on them... but maybe that's who they want.. afterall, if you are male or you don't 100% agree with the current narrative, you're toxic, far right, Trump etc (even when you are not from anywhere close to America).


Funny how none of this b/s is in FFXIV, and guess what, both chicks and boys are loving it.. who'd have guessed you don't need to pander to the identity or intersectional religion of the socio political landscape of America to be popular and well loved by both genders?

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OP pretty much nailed it. It explains awful writing even more, because when creativity is being replaced with quotas, this shit happens. Forcing something is never a good thing.
And look how outrageous are our feminist defenders - all those insults, offenses and callling names - I wonder whether it is discrimination or not yet. If situation was reversed in 180 degrees, would they so ferociously defend all the male main characters in game or not.
And - oh wonder - no punishment for these 'defenders' is seen from moderators, meanwhile almost every such post from the other side is given warning right away.
And then they wonder why so many people don't like all this woke agenda. Double standarts are so double...

I know right, look at the first few responses, I'm like, you were saying the exact same thing, but for females, not too long ago, how can the exact reversal not strike you as wrong or not right?

So you didn't want equality and parity or a a good story, you just wanted men down, and women up? Sounds like crazy feminist, anti-male rhetoric. But we are not allowed to comment that males are treated unfairly and being shafted now are we.

I just wonder how long guys are going to put up with this. Or how long it will take Hollywood to realise that pandering to only one gender will lose you money. Or are they so far in their own bubble they just can't see clearly anymore?

[Raetary]

Progressive elements in a story are not and have never been the issue.

The story is absolute shit and would've been absolute shit, even if they write out or replace every female character and remove every, ever so mild, progressive stuff sprinkled throughout.

The problem is and has always been incompetent writers and their incompetent writing.
And always will be.


Stop complaining about "wokeness" in Entertainment and start demanding better written stories instead.

[Muxtar]

Stop complaining about "wokeness" in Entertainment and start demanding better written stories instead.

Thought that these two things may be connected (at least partially) with each other, have never crossed your mind, haven't it?

[Saubon]

Bolvar. Anduin. Zovaal. The primus. Uther. Denathrius All these are invisible to the plot? Either you havent been paying attention, or I've had different story campaigns. I would've liked to see Thrall taking a bigger role though, instead of just moping around Oribos until his mum needed him.

Y, I like that they added the primus, other guys are either villains or victims to me. Not exactly appealing characters in super-stylised game. I admit I worded previous post poorly

[Wilian]

I hope you don't seriously think that people who aren't "evil" consider murdering vast swathes of people because some among them committed atrocities.

Horde has time and time again rallied behind these actrocities until the last patch conventiently turned them into "Whoops we don't stand by this btw we just were there on every step of the way, many times over. Our bad, sorry. "

[Raetary]

Thought that these two things may be connected (at least partially) with each other, have never crossed your mind, haven't it?

They are not and have never been, this dumb notion was always people like you projecting their bigotry onto the story, blaming elements that have no bearing on the quality of it whatsoever.

Again, the story would've been absolute fucking shit even if you replace every progressive element with a reactionary one.

[LeeRoyMahBoy]

Noticed how very heavily female character orientated this has been since BFA?

Males are either puppets, secondary or slain (Anduin, Malfurion, Saurfang)

And everything centres around are female characters.

Sykvanas Ofc the first and foremost, then Tyrande now. While BFA the focus was Jaina, Azshara and Sylvanas. Almost very influential leader and character was female. Whether Talanji, Tessa, Ashvane, Lady Proudmore.

Ofc, the big villain of SL has to be male. But why is Ysera suddenly so close to Tyrande when it was Malfurion that was like her son and is the forest dude.

Now Tyrande is the one about the forest?

While I like to see female characters in play, isn’t this way over board now and distorting everything?

Everything revolves around Sylvie, who has been exonerated for her crimes because ‘she wasn’t herself” meanwhile Tyrande is literally replacing Malfurion as the forest person where initially she had nothing to do with that aspect or Ysera.

Anduin, Thrall, Blaine Ofc just all come across as pathetic.

And it’s ironically that such heavy female focus in Warcraft is off set by the accusations of female bullying in their 50% + female writing staff , which has notorious feminists of the intersectional variety.


Oh the irony.

You are such a curious case. You like elves but are also hyper male centered.
I myself am also male centered, to the point of never in my life having played a female character in video games if I can help it.

Though I prefer dwarves over elves, as elves are seen more feminine in the majority of media, I'm curious what is your personal stance on dwarves? Do you like 'em, dislike 'em? Also, you as an exclusively male elf player in games, do you prefer "light" elves or "dark" elves more?

On topic: Yes this has been the case since BfA, I even recall an interview where the developers suggested this expansion (BfA) will be a female-centric expansion. Though this is not the exact quote, I distinctly remember something along these lines being said back when it launched. It all went downhill from there. Traditionally women are not fighters, just as men are not housekeepers, and many games suffer from the trope of arbitrary and forced inclusion these days.

[Beloren]

Theres no prominent female character I wanna be, wanna look up to or feel inspired by in shadowlands. Sylvanas is a murderous psychopath. Tyrande has spent the entire expansion hell set on vengeance not caring about anything or anyone else. And has caused a lot of problems and destruction on her path. Drakka is maybe a little bit cool and inspiring, but shes far from a prominent character.
The character most worthy of admiration and to be looked up to in shadowlands has been Anduin, and you cant really argue against that. He was chosen by the jailer for that exact reason. Yes he lost and got captured, but he stayed true to his ideals the whole way. Anduin is the purest of "us all", and is the one anyone should look up to, male or female.

It's also ironical.. I was going to ask the question if any females really like these very "masculine" roled characters? There are some very nice touches to the characters though, Tyrande gets restored, Elune has a powerfully emotional characterisation which was beautiful to me and Sylvie is motivated in spite of only half oher soul, to correct what she feels is an injustice in existence, not realising that the way she views it this way is because she was warped by her undeath experience.

I did get a sense they were elements that felt a bit too masculine from time to time, and I wonder if that's because males are in control of the overall writing of some of those female characters. But Jaina had a nice touch to her, I found Talanji a bit annoying, but maybe because she felt solely created to replace Rastakhan and give "yet another female lead character to a race"

But then early blizz did not handle moment that well even though Jaina was likeable for most of warcraft, the night elves were led by Tyrande, yet for most of wow she did absolutely nothing, this was a female led race that had a very defined order and role for males and females which would have been perfect to bring out, yet they totally ignored her - but then they did the same to Moira - so one might think it was more a faction thing. Sylvanas though did have a lot of development and until Legion added Thalyssra, major female characters were very much on the thin side.

I welcomed the increased proportion of them, until I noticed males were been buried. And it felt very similar to what's been going on in California state and Hollywood with all this woke shit where common sense has gone out the window. They've literally swapped male dominance for female dominance, rather than balance. Where does that leave us guys? Or don't we matter?

[Noobslayer]

Noticed how very heavily female character orientated this has been since BFA?

Males are either puppets, secondary or slain (Anduin, Malfurion, Saurfang)

And everything centres around are female characters.

Sykvanas Ofc the first and foremost, then Tyrande now. While BFA the focus was Jaina, Azshara and Sylvanas. Almost very influential leader and character was female. Whether Talanji, Tessa, Ashvane, Lady Proudmore.

Ofc, the big villain of SL has to be male. But why is Ysera suddenly so close to Tyrande when it was Malfurion that was like her son and is the forest dude.

Now Tyrande is the one about the forest?

While I like to see female characters in play, isn’t this way over board now and distorting everything?

Everything revolves around Sylvie, who has been exonerated for her crimes because ‘she wasn’t herself” meanwhile Tyrande is literally replacing Malfurion as the forest person where initially she had nothing to do with that aspect or Ysera.

Anduin, Thrall, Blaine Ofc just all come across as pathetic.

And it’s ironically that such heavy female focus in Warcraft is off set by the accusations of female bullying in their 50% + female writing staff , which has notorious feminists of the intersectional variety.


Oh the irony.

Please stop being THAT person.

[LeeRoyMahBoy]

They are not and have never been, this dumb notion was always people like you projecting their bigotry onto the story, blaming elements that have no bearing on the quality of it whatsoever.

Again, the story would've been absolute fucking shit even if you replace every progressive element with a reactionary one.

Reactionary?? LOL you talk like a fucking communist. XD

[Beloren]

You are such a curious case. You like elves but are also hyper male centered..

hyper male centred? Because I observe correctly what is going on? Being male is not a crime and liking or desiring male role models is not a sign of "hyper male centred"

or did you forget all my posts in support of Sylvanas, Tyrande and many female characters... or did you fail to notice I'm not criticising the female characters, but the lack of relevant and interesting male characters that seemed to all be brushed aside for constant female characterisation.

It is not female hate, nor is it hyper male centred there is an imbalance, and I'm calling it out.

[LeeRoyMahBoy]

hyper male centred? Because I observe correctly what is going on? Being male is not a crime and liking or desiring male role models is not a sign of "hyper male centred"

or did you forget all my posts in support of Sylvanas, Tyrande and many female characters... or did you fail to notice I'm not criticising the female characters, but the lack of relevant and interesting male characters that seemed to all be brushed aside for constant female characterisation.

It is not female hate, nor is it hyper male centred there is an imbalance, and I'm calling it out.

Chill dude, read on instead XD

[Sting]

Good, I like my characters submissive and breedable

[LeeRoyMahBoy]

Good, I like my characters submissive and breedable

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[Syferite]

I disagree - there is nothing at all wrong with a well written character who happens to be female, involved in a well written story, but there is everything wrong with a "female narrative" - just look at Ghostbusters 2016, or that all female Oceans movie that everyone has entirely forgotten even happened.

OP might totally disagree, and I could be way off base, but i believe people have issues with the fake 'woke' bullshit happening in many forms of entertainment at the moment - the above two examples being shining examples of why it is a bad idea.

Tbh that's gender activism by people who are traumatized and instead of working through things, they surround themselves in echo-chambers and externalize all their life problems on another gender. I don't like to invalidate the experiences that people went through because there are many people who have been abused, mistreated or made to feel unsafe, but I also feel that it's not anyone's responsibility to give anyone a pass from the work they produce. To me, it's more insulting to say "wow you did good" if you're presenting bad work just because of what's in-between your legs.

So yeah. I don't see the issue of lead females. Even if it's going to be about a female-empowerment storyline, go ahead. There's a way to write those things in a way that's relatable to both genders instead of going down the "I h8 all men" route. Some recent books/shows with a main female lead I've enjoyed are the Handmaid's Tale and Shadow & Bone. I didn't get the impression that it was pushing an agenda, or that they were ridiculing men. I got to feel and relate to the main characters, and even in the case of the Handmaid's Tale, I felt that I could empathize with what women struggle with because it opened me up to perspectives I had never considered.

However there are some really bad examples like what you mentioned. I often notice that those shows drive an "anti-men" narrative and then [insert surprise pikachu face here] when people respond poorly to it.

For WoW's case, the main issues are 1). poor storytelling format, 2). disjointed sources, and 3). lack of character relatability due to the poor format.

I mean, I really loved Tyrande and Sylvanas back in WC3, but if you compare their characters in 2002 to modern-day WoW, it's... strange. I don't think their personality changed that drastically (other than SL Syl), but I think that based on the storytelling format, and how disjointed we are from their thought process and feelings, we lose all sense of relatability or depth. Even if you substitute them with Malfurion and Lor'themar as leads, you're going to get the same problem because the storytelling structure is the problem.

[BronzeCondor]

Tbh that's gender activism by people who are traumatized and instead of working through things, they surround themselves in echo-chambers and externalize all their life problems on another gender. I don't like to invalidate the experiences that people went through because there are many people who have been abused, mistreated or made to feel unsafe, but I also feel that it's not anyone's responsibility to give anyone a pass from the work they produce. To me, it's more insulting to say "wow you did good" if you're presenting bad work just because of what's in-between your legs.

So yeah. I don't see the issue of lead females. Even if it's going to be about a female-empowerment storyline, go ahead. There's a way to write those things in a way that's relatable to both genders instead of going down the "I h8 all men" route. Some recent books/shows with a main female lead I've enjoyed are the Handmaid's Tale and Shadow & Bone. I didn't get the impression that it was pushing an agenda, or that they were ridiculing men. I got to feel and relate to the main characters, and even in the case of the Handmaid's Tale, I felt that I could empathize with what women struggle with because it opened me up to perspectives I had never considered.

For WoW's case, the main issues are 1). poor storytelling format, 2). disjointed sources, and 3). lack of character relatability due to the poor format.

I mean, I really loved Tyrande and Sylvanas back in WC3, but if you compare their characters in 2002 to modern-day WoW, it's... strange. I don't think their personality changed that drastically (other than SL Syl), but I think that based on the storytelling format, and how disjointed we are from their thought process and feelings, we lose all sense of relatability or depth. Even if you substitute them with Malfurion and Lor'themar as leads, you're going to get the same problem because the storytelling structure is the problem.

This is a very great and insightful post. It's often these kind of hard truths that set people apart when it comes to understanding the human condition.

[McNeil]

Blizzard has no idea how to write female characters, most of them end up being borderline insane. Might be one of the reasons why the story has sucked so much.