On the Council of Tirisfal
Nick and Katie get a little silly going over the early history of the Council of Tirisfal, from the poor decisions around their creation, up until Aegwynn went rogue and birthed Medivh....
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.
Thank you for listening to The Tauren & the Goblin! Please send any comments or questions to taurengoblin@mashthosebuttons.com or @taurengoblin on twitter. Our next live show is scheduled for 3/4 at 10:30 pm E at twitch.tv/mashthosebuttons. Come join us!
Host of WoW! Talk! and The Tauren & The Goblin. Sometimes known as the Video Games Public Defender. Wants to play more Destiny and Marvel Heroes but WoW is all-consuming. Decent F2P Hearthstone player. Sad that he lost the Wii that had Wrecking Crew on it. Would be happy if the only game ever made was M.U.L.E. Gragtharr on Skywall-US. Garresque on Ravencrest-US.
Katie is a long time gamer who has fallen in love with multiple genres. She started young by playing Nintendo 64, Spyro, and Blizzard games such as Warcraft II with family, then eventually moved into playing games in both my leisure time and as a occupation. She loves being immersed in different universes and exploring the characters that live in them, as well as just playing games for a good time.
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