On Dead, Traumatized, Purple, Villainous Women

Nick and Katie were bothered by a recent article from Vice critical of Blizzard’s narrative and are here to talk about it. But first, they talk briefly about how things have been going in game. Katie has had no luck getting the Love Rocket this Love is in the Air, but she has been enjoying her Horrific Visions. Nick has been steadily working his way through the Mechagon achievements. They briefly get derailed and talk about how Shadow Priests and Void Elves should have special ways of dealing with the corruption in Horrific Visions.

Finally, they get into the main event. Vice recently had an article that complained that Kerrigan from Starcraft, Sylvanas from Warcraft, and Widowmaker from Overwatch were all conceptually similar, and evaluated what that means about Blizzard’s storytelling. The article complained that these characters were mistreatments of women, and therefore, that Blizzard is incapable of writing women well. It also asserted this was due to Blizzard’s young male foundations back in the 90’s. Nick and Katie cite several examples of women written well and women that violate the article’s thesis, including characters like Garona and Azshara who are mentioned in the article, to establish that Blizzard can write women other ways and to prove that Blizzard can write women. They also talk about how the creative team has changed, so to say that the game is stuck in this narrative is just outright wrong, and look at how Sylvanas is stil evolving since her arc will continue into Shadowlands. Overall, the author felt like she had an axe to grind against Blizzard that hurt whatever thesis she was trying to make, as the column overreaches in the last few paragraphs.

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