Pulsecheck: Talanji

[Sarethion]

Also, damn I can't believe Vol'jin said that. It's defiantly clear that they were trying to hype her up to be the next Zandalari leader, but that's just not good sounding, especially coming from Vol'jin

Well, to be fair - Rastakhan was portayed as an abyssmal leader. Just think about it, during his reign the Zandalari Empire has fallen to ruin so much that it only controlled one third of their island and had no substantial holdings elsewhere. To make things worse, Rastakhan seemed completely oblivious to the threats to his people - he didn't know or care that the Blood Trolls were on the move or that the Sethrak rose up in Vol'dun or even that his own advisors (Jakra'zet, Zul, Yazma) were plotting against him.

[Reinhart11]

In regards to Talanji herself as a character one word in particular comes to my mind. "Yaaaaaaaaawn".

[Sarethion]

She defied the horde council and calls them out on failing to offer the zandalari anything useful.

The Horde has already offered the Zandalari more than enough by ensuring that their "empire" didn't fall. If anything, it's time for Talanji and the Zandalari to start showing what they have to offer to the Horde.

[Super Dickmann]

Well, to be fair - Rastakhan was portayed as an abyssmal leader. Just think about it, during his reign the Zandalari Empire has fallen to ruin so much that it only controlled one third of their island and had no substantial holdings elsewhere. To make things worse, Rastakhan seemed completely oblivious to the threats to his people - he didn't know or care that the Blood Trolls were on the move or that the Sethrak rose up in Vol'dun or even that his own advisors (Jakra'zet, Zul, Yazma) were plotting against him.

That's true, but that's also what made his arc more interesting - him growing decadent and letting Zul do his thing was called out and he slowly got back in touch with doing things, like when Rezan calls him out, making him act to take his kingship seriously again. It also lead him into some pretty natural mistakes, like the deal with Bwon. He wasn't a great ruler, but he was a solid character.

[Sarethion]

He wasn't a great ruler, but he was a solid character.

Agreed - which is why it sucks he was killed off to put Talanji on the throne. I feel the Zandalari would have been a lot more interesting if Rastakhan remained in power, trying to right his wrongs, and Talanji simply served as a link with the Horde.

But... now that BfA is over, I highly doubt the Zandalari will even get any meaningful lore developments in the forseable future.

[Grazrug]

The Horde has already offered the Zandalari more than enough by ensuring that their "empire" didn't fall. If anything, it's time for Talanji and the Zandalari to start showing what they have to offer to the Horde.

Due to the horde failing the zandalari lost their King and their fleet. They owe the horde nothing that wasn't already taken away.

[thesmall001]

I like Talanji. It's nice to get a new character who's neither some ancient sanctimonious know-it-all, nor a naive budding optimist with hopes for the future. She's a fully formed character with motivations and views from the moment we meet her and she's pragmatic about it with no real higher-level goals. I think that's what some people find boring but I prefer a character being introduced just as a person before they come to represent something greater.

I actually think the Horde have gotten the bulk of good new characters lately. Alleria and Turalyon have potential to be interesting soon but they fell flat after the Argus introduction. Thalyssra and Talanji are both really great examples of the Horde's identity: They're completely different aesthetics and backgrounds but with a strong conviction to their people and their right to be free to be who they are based on that background. They're front-line defenders rather than delegates.

[Spiral Mage]

She's fine as far as WoW characters go. No problems with her. And it makes sense for her to be firm about the fact she is a Queen, she is not going to bow to anyone. WoW really has very few good characters and she's pretty much on par for the average.

[Shaetha]

That's quite hard to do when they don't even respect their own work, as evidenced by the countless retcons, some of which are literal 180 degrees turns, e.g. BtS.

More on topic, it's a shame that one of the most anticipated characters in the entire franchise, i.e. Rastakhan, was portrayed as an idiot - and then killed, in order to give Alliance their "fist pump" moment, and to prop up her boring, safe, bland daughter. She's a lot like Anduin, minus the pally/priest part.

The story is too old to not have retcon. I guarantee very few players had even heard of Rastakhan before BFA. He's not anticipated a single bit by the vast majority of the players. Why should he be anything special? No one ever answers that. You say, "most anticipated" when most of the people playing the game are like "who?" Maybe you should consider what he was to the game before BFA. He does nothing but exist before BFA. He does nothing but exist in BFA. He's barely in the story beyond being a faction leader, and when he is, he's a macguffin most of the time. Put simply: The story isn't about him. The story isn't about the trolls. They've never been anything but a diversion.

So yeah, taking things in context. Rastakhan was brought in to die. He does nothing in the story beyond that, and he had no involvement in the story beyond a name in a book or a name tag before that. We certainly had no idea of his personality, so I dunno where that's come from. The only clue we have about him is him being called the king of all trolls, but he can't be a very good king since the trolls spend so much time rebelling, serving other masters, and trying to kill each other.

Name one thing he actually does before BFA that we can prove he did. Keep in mind: Lore is not story.


Every single story beat is taken out of context, and it's often ignored that there are actually two stories running. (People saying the expansion wasn't about old gods comes to mind for that one)
Everyone thinks their favorite random lore character or place deserves its own expansion(it doesn't)
Everyone acts like there aren't allowed to be new characters(yeah, acting like a character that's new for the expansion should be as developed as a character that's actually existed as a character for 20 years)

So, the question is, do you want a new story, or do you want the same story? Because the incredible majority seem to act like they don't want the game to go anywhere.

All that stuff I just talked about is exactly disrespecting the writers. Although, given how much these forums seem to have no respect for artistic vision, it shouldn't surprise me that people don't even understand what it means to be disrespectful.

[Jiastanna]

Talanji is not the worst character in WoW. But they shifted the story away from Talanji to characters like N'Zoth, Wrathion and Azshara instead. They could have focused on the main theme of BfA being a faction war and kept the focus on that after 8.1. Instead, they made a big turn away from Kul'Tiras and Zandalar and focused on Naga and the Black Empire. I think, that they did the same mistake, they did in WoD with Yrels story. They wrote it up to the point of Talanji/Yrel rising to a position of power and responsibility, but then turned away from both charaters, as if they had said enough about them.

I would have liked Talanji better, if they focused on her future as queen, her thoughts and how she deals with the loss of her father and the fight against the alliance. But she is hardly present after the end of 8.1. Like Yrel is hardly present after the death of Maraad. Being temporarily main characters of the horde/alliance, both characters carry the story through one or two zones and a raid (with the exception of Yrels raid being cut due to the loss of one patch/Shattrath) and then they vanish into nothingess. Blizzard tells strong stories, when they focus on one thing/threat at a time, delivering great cutscenes and cinematics. But they failed in telling multiple stories of mutiple characters over a longer period of time, because WoW is a game and not a book. And it takes time to grow on characters, to develope them and get a feeling for them. An RTS like Warcraft 3 is better suited to tell such a story (obviously, it takes time to create a bigger game, and an expansion per se cannot be developed longer or be bigger in its content, because players want new content in time).

On a side note:
I still think, that Legion had a better storytelling, because they focused on the Legion throught the whole expansion. Almost everything connected to the Legion, from the start to the last patch. And so did Wrath of the Lichking and the scourge.

BfA on the other hand started out with a focus on the faction war and lost its focus after the first patch. Nazjatar is big enough to be whole expansion on itself. So is the Black Empire. Both aspects of lore have been speculated as future expansion themes in numerous threads before BfA. But there are probably different reasons for both ending up not as an expansion, e.g. people disliking Vash'ir or Cataclysm and MoP already being Old God-expansions.

[Aucald]

I do kinda hate how most NPCs are basically praising her all the time as if she's the second coming of Christ. Hell, Vol'jin calls her the true leader of Zandalar while Rastakhan is STILL ALIVE

Because Rastakhan, unfortunately, is being utterly useless and it's pretty evident all in all. You've got G'huun-worshipping Blood Trolls rising unchecked in Nazmir, his top advisor and his general both plotting behind his back (and not being at all subtle about it), Blood Magic infecting the senate in Zuldazar, etc. etc. Talanji at least sees that there are issues in Zandalar and seeks to address them while Rastakhan sits idle and does nothing until Zul nearly kills him in a coup any competent leader could see coming from a mile away.

[Sagenod]

She needs a personality. She doesn't have one besides "wants to do good things" but that's not a personality, that's a goal. She has basically no character.

Not all people wear their emotions on their sleeves. Like her father she is probably a stoic. Good leaders are able to separate their outer appearance and behavior from their inner thoughts and feelings for the sake of their people. She is a symbol of strength for the Zandalari, not emotional vulnerability. Character development is not in every single line they speak but in the actions they take.

[Tarba]

She is just a female blue Anduin. Like Voljin the male blue Anduin, Thrall the green Anduin, the cow Anduin and his dead father cow Anduin, all the smalls Anduin, and the different colors of long ears Anduin.
Basically the only thing the retards in charge of the wow lore dare to write.

[Thage]

Talanji could use a little more introspective character development, but as is she's a decent enough character. She doesn't have Rastakhan's bombastic personality, which can be a point of contention with people, but she has a brash personality, and she presented a potential third option that never saw fruition (as she was visibly put off by Sylvanas's way of doing things, but didn't know Saurfang and Baine well enough to trust their judgment alone). Her distrust of the Horde after basically getting a bait-and-switch pulled on her (something she and Ji Firepaw could probably strike up a friendship over tea discussing, really) but willingness to make it better is a promising character arc, from what we've seen in the novel preview.

[Zuben]

I kind of like her character, but never felt the design. When I first saw her model it looked like a troll version of Elisande (probably because of the large hat). Talanji being Zandalarian royalty necessitates a pompous wardrobe, but since she's also a reformist maybe she should wear something more functional.

[Saltysquidoon]

One zone (she shared with Rokhan) was not enough story room to develop a major character, frankly, it hurt rokhan as well since they waited so long to use him.

[CalamityHeart]

I personally really enjoyed Talanji while I played Hordeside.

I haven't gotten much of the full scope of Zandalar's story just yet, as there's a pretty big hole in my understanding of the lore between the end of the BFA leveling experience and the start of 8.2, a period in which I wasn't playing the game.

I like Talanji's voice actress, and I think that she has an admirable attitude. She's headstrong, to the point of recklessness, she's young and open-minded, not stuck in old ways or stagnant beliefs on how things should be done, like some of those around her, and not afraid of voicing or acting upon what she believes is right, rather than what might be construed to be the best, or right in others' eyes. She's proud, and wears her pride well. Best of all, though she's been faced with a personally tragic situation, like Genn and Tyrande, it hasn't saturated her character and left her absolutely dripping with ugliness like it had before with Jaina, is doing now with Tyrande, and to a slightly lesser extent, Genn.

The only reason I'm disappointed that Talanji is the Zandalari Queen is because that probably means she's going to be on that throne more often than not, rather than out roaming or getting things done herself. Apparently, there's gonna be a book about her coming out soon? I don't know much about it, but if she's a central character and has an active role, I might give it a read.

[Tarba]

Due to the horde failing the zandalari lost their King and their fleet. They owe the horde nothing that wasn't already taken away.

Without the horde and particulary Sylvanas, Talanji would have died in a stormwind cell, and zandalar would have been left to the winner between blood trolls and snake people. Their greatest général and Zul went rogue while their king has become useless.
But yeah. The horde who just fought and destroyed the legion and saved them from two coups and total anihilation did not secure their shipyard. And they still accepted those failures with them while the reason they wanted them as ally was gone because of their own incompétence.

[Mardux]

How was the story not grey? Both sides did both noble and selfish things. Both committed things that would be war crimes in our world. Both sides showed they blame the other for things the other is not responsible for. Both sides showed they'll help allies in a common cause.

OT: The only thing that confuses me about Talanji is why she's the bobblehead for many of our quests in Kul Tiras when, tmk correct me if I've forgotten, she never went there at all during the war campaign. Would've made more sense to use Gallywix or even minor zone characters.

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She did nothing to stop Zul and the sand troll general when they were right in front of her even though she knew they were up to no good. She didn't do anything when her father struck his deal with Bwonsamdi, even though she felt a presence that was wrong. Just let her father go "Hey I got it all under control don't worry." There's more but her biggest flaw is inaction.

Depends who you ask. That is most definitely not the case if you ask most alliance players seeing as they (and blizzard) treat the alliance (and psuedo-alliance) as if they can do no wrong.

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Due to the horde failing the zandalari lost their King and their fleet. They owe the horde nothing that wasn't already taken away.

The ztrolls lost their king because the alliance went out of their way to start a war with a much smaller nation. Not that unsurprisingly, the ztrolls lost to the biggest mary sues in wow, jaina and anduin.

[Zergy]

I dislike the fact we still have no idea why she was locked up in the Stockades with Zul in the first place.

She just pops out of nowhere, locked up for no reason, just so the Horde have to break her out and even now that the expansion is over, still don't know what led to that.