Mark's expo Blog

In the video game the World of Warcraft, there exists a character by the name of Slyvannas Windrunner: the Banshee queen. This was a character once beloved my the likes of former players like my mother, but her story took a turn for the worst in what I can only best describe as awful story-telling. Let’s dive in,

Let’s start at the beginning of Sylvanas’s story, She was once the Ranger-General of the kingdom of Silvermoon, a kingdom inhabited by Elfs. Then a bunch of things happened that I don’t need to explain for this blog post but basically a big bad dude named the lich king needs to use the sunwell (the source of the kingdom’s magic) to revive one of his top generals. He and his undead army (the scourge) invade the kingdom and Slyvannas and her rangers are forced to defend an ultimately losing battle. you can see how this unfolded in the game Warcraft III and also in the cinematic ‘Warbringers: Sylvanas‘. She then serves under the lich king before breaking free with a group of undead now called the forsaken, to which she is the leader. Her sole mission is to make the Lich King pay for what he did to her, but ultimately she was too late. During the events of World of Warcraft:Wrath of the Lich King, The Player-Characters along with Tirion Fordragon (He really didn’t help) would defeat the lich king atop the frozen throne in Icecrown Citadel. It is important to mention now that there must always be a lich king, and that a new one by the name of Bolvar Fordragon, a former paladin, would take on the burden. Sylvanas was too late, and in a fit of rage realizing she failed, she tossed herself off the top of Icecrown to her death. She then would enter the shadowlands and bear witnesses to horrors. She ultimately is saved by a Val’kyr. Which are a species of Angel-like beings that are able to revive her at the cost of their lives. She makes a Deal with the master of death, The Jailer and it sent back to the realm of the living with 6 Val’kyr.

This is the last time we will mention Sylvanas until the expansion World of Warcraft:Legion. Before we get to that, let’s introduce her arch nemesis, Genn Greymane. Genn will also (probably) be getting his own Blog post for his stupidity and general incompetence. Basically Genn is the king of the Kingdom Gilneas, which was locked away after the fall of Lordaeron, which is the Kingdom that is responsible for the Lich king. In an abundance of safety, they built a giant wall to safeguard their kingdom, which worked until the events of World of Warcraft:Cataclysm. In which the Dragon Deathwing would cause the world to undergo mass change, which included the breaking of the great Gilnean wall. To summarize what happens in the worgen starting area, basically there’s a curse that if you get bitten by a wolf-like human being, you become one and that’s what happens to Genn and co (including the player-character). Then for some reason the forsaken invade the town for reasons I forget/were not important. Then the battle for Gilneas happens and Sylvanas (the leader of the forsaken) Kills Genn’s son. If you ask me, his son did it to himself, and Glenn really shouldn’t be that mad at Sylvanas.

Now let’s return to legion. In the opening for legion, the battle for the broken shore, the horde and alliance team up to both collectively get their ass kicked by the legion. In the climax of this battle both the Leader of the Horde, the Warchief Vol’jin and the Leader of the alliance, King Varian, are killed. Well, technically Vol’jin would live for a little while longer but we will get to that. In the Climax of this Battle, the Warchief would fall in battle and Sylvanas would make the tough decision to withdraw the horde from the battle, leaving the alliance to be overrun. Genn immediately assumes Sylvanas betrayed them, which is yet another example of his stupidity. The Alliance is then forced to retreat when the warlock Gul’dan summons a giant Fel reaver and seemingly has the alliance on the ropes when King Varian decides to sacrifice himself for the Alliance, ultimately literally getting disenchanted by Gul’dan. Back on the horde side, Vol’jin is slowly dying and in his final act as warchief, he claims the troll spirits of death, the loa, told him that Sylvanas must be warchief. You can watch all this unfold ‘here‘.

The only Key point from Legion comes in the Finale to the Zone Stormheim, in which we Find Sylvanas and Genn once more, this time Sylvanas has made a deal with the Demigod Helya, who oversees the warrior version of hell, Helheim. She obtains a lantern and uses it to trap the Queen of the Val’kyr, likely in an attempt to obtain more for herself to prolong her life, as she has used a few over the years. Once again though, here comes Genn. I would explain what happens but honestly just watch it ‘here‘.

Before we continue we must acknowledge the first instance of bad writing, coming off the back of the Legion expansion, the two factions united to defeat the legion and are arguably closer than ever, so why is it that the next expansion is based on yet another faction war? This makes no sense as even if the Alliance is somehow bitter about the broken shore, Genn himself in the moment admitted without the Horde, They’d have been overrun and the reality of the situation doesn’t change, both the warchief and the King died that day, and if the horde had stood its ground, even more would’ve died for what?

This is the last we would see of her until the opening of World of Warcraft:battle for Azeroth. In the opening for this expansion, Sylvanas would Storm the Night Elf capital of Teldrassil, ultimately climaxing in her first act of pure evil. The capital of Teldrassil is where the majority of the Night Elf faction lived. Sylvanas would demand her 2nd in command, Nathanos, to burn the tree.

This act would Kill millions of harmless civilians. if you haven’t yet, now i would recommend watching the Warbringers:Sylvanas video. This act was met by horror both canonically among the Horde and Alliance and also among the playerbase. I failed to mention earlier but the forsaken would make the fallen kingdom of Lordaeron their home, and this is where the Alliance would strike back in retaliation, this is where the Teaser trailer for BFA would take place, as for the Finale of this battle, watch it ‘here‘. In this battle, she would abandon a longtime member of the Horde, Varok Saurfang to stand his ground outside the throne room. I won’t cover the full story of BFA, but I will say the horde is built on the idea of Honor and this would ultimately Divide the Horde into two factions for the 2nd time in it’s history, I might cover the first one in a different blog post. This would Culminate in The Mak’gora between Sylvanas and Saurfang. In orcish culture a Mak’gora is a duel to the death, and considered an honorable way to settle disputes. This duel would take place on the very gates of Orgrimmar, the capital of the horde, watch this duel take place ‘here‘. This duel would mark the end of the 3rd war, afterward, Sylvanas would flee into hiding for a while, and would miss the reawakening of the Old God N’zoth.

Here is where I want to stop and explain my frustrations with the Slyvannas character before we go off the deep end, In her duel with Saurfang, she would blast him with a instant kill dark magic, that we the players had never seen before, and wouldn’t be explained until later, and even still, was not a good enough response. We would learn later that Sylvanas started the 3rd war because of her deal with death, and that the more souls that end up in the Shadowlands, she would gain more power accordingly. This wasn’t explained to us and still doesn’t excuse her war crimes nor the bad writing. In hindsight we had no idea how good we had it because now it’s time to jump off the deep end.

I mentioned the Shadowlands, this is the expansion that would come out during and was affected in development by the Pandemic. Watch the Teaser Trailer here, now we have arrived into the peak of the Mary Sue argument and where my rage begins. The Lich King is a character beloved my many WoW enthusiasts and a character whose return was foreshadowed all the way back at the end of Wrath of the lich king, which at this point, was 12 years ago. We were told there must always be a lich king, and Sylvanas just shows up and beats his ass using powers we had never seen before, breaks the helmet which keeps the scourge in check, then fucks off to the shadowlands.

my main issue with this is the poor job of storytelling they did, many people have said that the story could still work if Bolvar won the fight, I personally wish they had done more foreshadowing, perhaps instead of 8.3 being about N’zoth, maybe we should have chased after Sylvanas and defeated her in combat and in that we would see her new abilities and be able to relate to them and understand when she pulled the chains out of her Arrows, but instead we were left shocked and disappointed.

The story of the Shadowlands is messy, incomplete to this day and ultimately not what I’m here to yell about. I want to finish out Sylvanas’s story, I want to point out the key points in her story, the next time we would see her would he in the maw with Anduin, as the jailer broke the new king of the alliance into his tool. We aren’t here to cover that however, so we will move on to Tyrande for now.

Tyrande was the leader of the Night Elves when Sylvanas Burned their home, and has been plotting her vengeance on her for a long time. She would undergo a ritual transforming her into the Night-Warrior, the chosen of her Goddess Elune, who is worshipped by the Night Elves and the Druids alike. She gains immense power in the name of vengeance and one of the first acts she would do as Night-Warrior is Kill the man who ultimately ordered the Burning of Teldrassil, Nathanos. She would then cross the Veil of the Shadowlands and try to find Sylvanas in the Shadowlands. This interaction would finally Happen during the Battle of Ardenweld, which is the Zone Tyrande would find herself in and is closely related to Elune, thought how is still unclear (Thanks unfinished story). Watch the Cinematic ‘here‘, In this battle, Tyrande would finally get the chance to execute her Vengeance, She taunts that the Jailer didn’t tell Sylvanas that Nathanos had died. The battle Climaxes when the Forces of the Jailer break through the defenses of Ardenweald, and Sylvanas uses it to Get away, Tyrande then offers in her native tongue “My life for hers” and blasts off after her, which is a deal that Elune would reject for reasons unclear to this day. In the Lore, the power of the Night-warrior was enough to Kill an Old God, which is something that took The Player characters and The literal world soul being channeled through them to do. So how is it possible for Sylvanas to escape unscathed at all? This is bad writing, It is never explained why Elune rejected Tyrande’s offer. All this cinematic boils down to is Sylvanas Taunting Tyrande and then fucking off, once again. What makes even less sense is the Cinematic explanation Behind Elune. The Winter Queen is the Eternal One who watches over the Realm of Ardenweald and apparently her sister is Elune, who in another plot twist, allowed the burning of teldrassil to aid her Sister’s call for more Spirits in her realm, as all spirits had been condemned to the Maw since the events of Legion (the maw is hell). This again makes no sense, what kind of sadistic god would sacrifice her own people in the name of the afterlife, then deny their leader vengeance, this feels like having your cake and eating it too. But fine, Sylvanas runs off and we wouldn’t really see her again until the raid The Sanctum of Domination, in which she is the final Boss. The plot of patch 9.1 follows the Jailer collecting all the Sigils of the Eternal ones to restore his power, and in the climax of the Sanctum of domination, the Jailer and co invade the Eternal City, where the final sigil, the sigil of the arbiter resides, Sylvanas holds off the Player characters long enough for the Jailer to arrive and claim the final sigil, then in what I can only describe as some of the worst writing, i don’t even want to say it, just watch it ‘here‘.

To quote one of the top comments on the video “The Jailer (Who we don’t really know anything about, but don’t worry) got all the Sigils (What we don’t really know nothing about, but don’t worry) to open (We don’t really understand how, but don’t worry) the way to the Sepulcher of the First Ones (Which we don’t really know anything about, but don’t worry) to utilize some First Ones technology (Who we don’t know anything about, but don’t worry) to unmake reality (Which doesn’t really mean anything, but don’t worry).” This highlights how poorly shadowlands as a whole was written, but let’s return to Sylvanas. This redemption arc makes no sense, “I will never serve?” Hello, what? She has been serving the Jailer indirectly for almost a decade now, at least since the events following the death of the Lich king, if that is not serving, what is? This makes no sense, why turn now if she is feeling bad about anduin, who’s story arc i did not cover but it really shouldn’t matter, Anduin is literally the person she waged war with last expansion. If she had seconds doubts about serving, she could’ve found another way. This is not a tragic villain, this is a character who could’ve been so much more but was ruined by bad writing.

But fine, Let’s wrap this up with the end of her story (For now), She is Met in her soul by Uther and asked to make a decision, accept the legacy of the Banshee queen and refuse to help or Accept the consequences and Face the Jailer, she chooses to help the fight against the jailer.

After the Jailer’s defeat and the return of order to the shadowlands, she must face her punishment, she surrenders herself to the mercy of Tyrande, who says she must return every soul she damned to the Maw to the arbiter for proper assortment into the shadowlands. This may be the reason Elune didn’t grant her wish earlier but still doesn’t really make sense to me, surely someone else would have been assigned to do that if Sylvanas had been slain in Ardenweald.

This is the fate of Sylvanas though she and anduin would interact again . So why does this make me mad? There are genuine elements of a tragic story here, but they are conveyed so vaguely and ultimately culminate in a redemption arc that feels forced and hollow. Try telling someone who played WoW from wrath to the end of BFA that the Sylvanas they knew from OG WoW to now is a totally different character, to put it how my mom put it. “She used to be a cool badass and now they’ve made her into something she was never.” Do note that what she knows of The story of Sylvanas during BFA and Shadowlands came from me as she quit the game after legion. This story is a sad tale of yet another nice female character ruined by the agenda to make all women powerful, which is not to say they can’t or shouldn’t be, but when you have to use bad writing to make it happen (Rey in the New star wars trilogy) it leaves the audience shocked and angry, Blizzard had a strong character and a strong Antagonist they made her into, but her actions in the shadowlands made no sense, much like the rest of the Expansion, to the point where by the time of the release trailer for Shadowlands, after she defeated the Lich King, many players were checked out because she was too strong and it made no sense to them. This story is a reminder that you must show the audience not tell, and everything they did with Sylvanas post legion was tell and not show, so when she pulled out new death powers, it made no sense and they tried to explain afterward, but that’s not how stories work, you don’t get to tell a story and make it make sense after, that’s not writing, that’s bullshit.

It is no secret that for almost 8 years I have embarked on a journey to tell a story. As I referenced it in the 25 personalities, Where I referenced each character’s Archetype, I feel it may be beneficial both for myself and you the reader to understand how Act I of the story Unfolds. There is also an Act Zero, aka a prologue, but I will save that for a different time.

Let’s start with the world in which this takes place, for the Main character and where most meaningful events take place, Canonically, the earth became too polluted to sustain human life, so the Humans decided to jettison a space pod of only a few thousand people in the hopes they would land on a habitable planet. Luckily, they did, and they landed on the Planet Mistora, and rebuilt the same society they left on earth, which led to the pollution of Mistora and the cracking of their super Continent into 3 massive continents, so the remaining humans had a decision to make, they couldn’t just jettison another space pod and try again, so instead the world leaders came to an agreement called the Jonnes Doctrine. This treaty limited the technology to that of the late Medieval era for the sake of limiting pollution. All technological research was outlawed, and the most advanced of their technology was jettisoned into space. The story takes place several hundred years after this event. All of the technology had become nothing more than an legend passed down by the elders. We find ourselves in the Kingdom of Runtig, an Island nation which spans the entirety of one of the continents, and our story will follow its Prince, Noah Clavince (AKA Thunder). The Act I story of Thunder can be summarized as follows. The Prince is being pushed ruthlessly by the King to become a world class Bowman, which frustrates him. The Prince is getting increasingly more frustrated with how the regular citizens of the Nation are being treated at the hand of the King’s orders. He was also going increasingly upset with his duty as the Progenitor, which can be attributed to the modern role of US vice president, with one major difference. Everything passed in the senate must be signed by the Progenitor, the issue however, is that all senators are appointed by the king, and with each bill Noah vetoed, the tension in the castle and the senate chamber underneath it become untenable for him. So he decided to take a ship from the royal dock and run off, to where? he had no idea, and he was going to make it very far. Soon after he ran off he was sucked into a red whirlpool and his ship was destroyed and he was pulled under. He would then awake in a cave far under the sea, in which he would discover he had newfound power, given to him via the dark mark, which is what would ultimately lead to the crux of the entire story. The dark mark grants him immense power, but also clawed away at his empathy slowly. He would then use his newfound power to Slowly and Methodically undermine the kingdom and ultimately would end up with, well, let me just show you the excerpt as Jackson, the Champion of the blade saw it unfold.

“My lord, we must retreat! We still have time!” one soldier urged. “Hide? And go where? The Crimson Shadow has picked us apart piece by piece. This nation is on its last leg, and the last thing I will do as its ruler is run and hide. We will make our final stand here.” The king, with fierce determination in his eyes, rose from his throne and grabbed his mace. “If this is the end, I could not be prouder of the men in this room who choose to stand by their nation until its final breath,” he declared. “I, King Clavince, will run no longer.” The tension in the room was heavy, every soldier had their weapons drawn. There was pure silence for a few seconds, then the door swung open. A figure bearing two short swords walked through the door, dawning a bow and quiver on his back, dressed in black Armor with crimson accents, the two guards closest to the door tried to swing at him, but in a blur, they dropped dead. The Crimson shadow then stopped and glared at the king, only for a brief second. “You and your chaotic tirade end here.” The king boasted. The Crimson Shadow scoffed at the king, taking a quick second to contemplate what he was about to do. He replied, “Indeed it does…father.” The king’s face turned from a contemptuous gaze to a cold stare. The king threw his weapon aside and approached his son. The king lay his hand on his shoulder, “Noah, is that truly you? this isn’t how things have to be, I beg you to lay down your weapon and let us have peace, not as king and prince, but as father and son.” The King knelt before Noah. For a brief moment, Jackson saw the crimson shadow’s eyes turn blue, before turning back to the crimson color. “There can’t be peace, not while we both live.” The Crimson shadow started shaking uncontrollably. There was a prolonged moment of silence, and one of Jackson’s hands started to shake, in anxious anticipation. A single tear fell down the cheek of the crimson shadow, the king looked up at his son a final time, before the crimson shadow impaled him. The king let out a Grunt before collapsing on the ground. The Crimson shadow stood atop his father’s dead body for a moment, still shaking, before whispering one word, “Father….” He then Pulled out his bow and shot up at the ceiling chandelier. It came crashing down and set the whole room ablaze. He then sheathed his bow and pulled out the still bloody blade. He plunged the blade into his Father’s burning body with both hands and let out a shriek. The Flames around the room turned from an orange to crimson, the blade becoming infused with crimson energy, taking on a crimson appearance. He then freed his left hand and touched the crimson flames. He then let out another shriek, releasing the fire from his hands and as they engulfed the room, the Castle began to collapse. He then left the room, leaving the dagger plunged into his dead father, leaving a trail of crimson flames with each step.

Thunder would be Nicknamed the Crimson Shadow by King Clavince, a nickname that would stick, that is Thunder’s story in Act I, a tale of tragedy. Lets Pivot to the Story of the Celestial Protectors.

The Celestial Protectors are the 5 champions of the Celestial Plane, a plane of afterlife, where all mortals end up after they pass, unless they are deemed unworthy by the Will, we will get to what happens in that scenario in the story of Act II. The story of the Celestials starts with Jackson, the leader and Champion of the blade. He awakes in the Rift of Alago, A plane of existence outside of both Life and Death, one manifested by the Herald of the Will itself, Alago. Alago visits Jackson and warns him of the great danger the Mortal realm faces at the hand of the ‘Crimson’. Alago speaks on behalf of the Will of the Universe, which makes him the most powerful force in the story. It is important to understand that the Will is not loyal to anyone nor is it predictable, and it normally does not act and will only send it’s manifestation, Alago, when it’s an important matter. So at this injunction , the Will is warning it’s Ruby Champions to stop the ‘Crimson’. Jackson then embarks in the Rift to Unite the other Champions, Susan of the Frost, Justin of the Flame, and Urlim of the Stone. They are then all presented with their Divine weapons, With the exception of Jackson, who still dawns the Crimson dagger that he pulled from King Clavince’s Body. They are then Tested by Alago as a team to defeat David, the Demigod who oversees the Realm of Infineon, which is where souls deemed unworthy by the will are condemned to. They come out on top and Jackson is granted the sword of the 5 Elements. They are then granted a Diary from Alago that details why they were in the rift, and they are then granted the ability to ascend back to the Celestial Plane.

That leaves only two Characters left to cover (Technically 3), Puengi and Nagev, but I will save their story for another blog post.