Warcraft | Superior Realities

It has now been five years to the day since I launched Superior Realities. In that time, I’ve written hundreds of posts, deleted thousands of spam comments, and wasted the time of countless people with my horrible, awful, wrong opinions. And I guess I had some fun or something.

Last year, I celebrated by posting my top ten posts as determined by traffic. This year, I’ve decided to highlight my personal favourite posts. The scale of my narcissism is such that there’s too many to fit into a top ten list, but I tried to avoid going too overboard, and considering I’ve published just shy of six hundred and fifty posts at this point, I’d say I’ve narrowed things down pretty well.

If you started following this blog relatively recently, consider this a good highlight real and perhaps check out some of the earlier posts that you might have missed.

If you’ve followed me since the beginning, how have you put up with me this long?

And if you have any favourite posts that aren’t on the list, let me know what stood out for you.

Into the Mists: The Wandering Isle:

I liked the entire “Into the Mists” series, in which I reviewed each new zone in Mists of Pandaria as I played them, but linking every post seemed a bit much, so I figured I’d just start with the beginning.

I really enjoyed writing this series, and it’s interesting to come back now and again to revisit my first impressions of Pandaria.

I neglected to do a similar series for Warlords of Draenor because, well, Draenor blows, but I think I’ll get back to the idea for Legion. I’m thinking of “Under the Burning Skies” as a title.

My trinity of posts on the trinity:

Not that I’m not proud of this series, but if I’m going to be honest, I’m mostly linking it because I poured a lot of effort into it and am a little bitter it didn’t get more attention.

I’ve never pretended not to be an attention whore.

Off Topic: A Plea for Sanity:

Discussing such serious topics on the Internet may not be wise, and drawing further attention to it perhaps even less so, but there were things in that post that needed to be said, for my own peace of mind if nothing else, and sadly the message is not any less relevant now than it was a few months ago.

I doubt my little blog can make any significant positive impact, but I had to try.

Why the Abramsverse Is True Trek, and Why I’m no Longer a Trekkie:

Ah, the catharsis of the epic nerd rant. Frankly I’m almost a little disappointed I didn’t get more hate for this.

Raving About The Secret World, Part Two: The Thinking Man’s MMO:

I write so many posts lavishing praise on The Secret World that you’d think Funcom was paying me to do it. Alas, that would require them to actually spend some money on marketing.

Of them all, this post probably does the best job of encapsulating what makes TSW so special.

I apologize for the crumby screenshots. I was still using my old computer when I wrote this.

The Great Horde Bias Rant:

If there are two things you can always count on me to produce, they are giant Warcraft rants, and controversial opinions that very few people agree with. This post covers both nicely.

And I think I made my case very well.

TSW Anniversary: MegaJoel, Livestreaming, and SO MUCH XP:

Just for the memories, really. This was probably the single best day I’ve had as a gamer. To this day, I’m still friends with Moiren, and I still smile whenever I think back on Joelzilla.

It’s a day I will probably never equal, at least as far as gaming goes.

My Love/Hate Relationship with RPGs:

I think it was interesting to analyze the core traits, good and bad, of the RPG genre, and why it has at times been both my most and least favourite game genre.

As an aside, that post was written almost three years ago, and my main in TSW is still using the same sword. Now that’s gearing done right.

Wyrmrest Accord Shows Its Pride:

I have to say that participating in a gay pride march in World of Warcraft remains one of my all-time favourite gaming memories.

It’s not a party until the Goblin drag queen riding a woolly mammoth shows up.

My Favourite Word:

Verisimilitude!

In Her Sister’s Pose:

As a rule, I don’t think I’m particularly good at short fiction, but this story turned out very well, I think, and I’m very proud of it.

My pair of posts on female armour in fantasy:

Another controversial opinion. If I had to do it all over, I may have been slightly more tactful and less judgmental in my initial post, but on the whole I still stand by all points made, no matter how unpopular they may be.

When in Doubt, Elves:

Because Elves, that’s why.

Odin Is the Writer’s God:

There’s a reason there’s a statuette of Odin sitting above my bed (along with Skadi, Athena, Lakshmi, and Buddha — I’m covering all my bases).

Gaming: The Love/Hate Developers:

This post was just a lot of fun to write. Criticism is good, but often it’s easy to get bogged down in the inevitable gripes and bitterness that come with the passion of fandom. It was good to remind myself why I’m so passionate in the first place.

It’s been quite a while since the last Warcraft novel was released. They seemed to pretty much skip having any tie-ins for Warlords of Draenor and go straight to Legion stories. Given what a debacle WoD has been, that may have been the wisest choice.

But Warcraft literature has come roaring back with the simply titled Illidan, written by franchise newcomer William King.

Illidan, naturally enough, focuses on the story of Illidan, essentially serving to fill in the blanks of everything we didn’t see of his story in the games, especially during the Burning Crusade era.

It also does a lot to flesh out the story of the demon hunters, granting the reader a glimpse of how desperately driven one has to be to choose such a life, and the terrible price they pay for their power.

There is also much attention given to Maiev Shadowsong and her never-ending need to take vengeance upon Illidan.

What struck me most about this book is how incredibly dark it is. William King pulls no punches when it comes to either the brutality of combat or the tortured mental states of the characters.

Nobody in this book is sane. That much is clear early on. You can clearly see how ten thousand years of solitary confinement have warped Illidan’s mind. A nice touch is that Illidan will often pace for exactly nine paces — the length of his cell. Even after achieving his freedom, he can’t break the habit.

Yet despite all he’s suffered, all his narcissism and his ruthlessness, Illidan is ultimately the most sane character in the story.

The demon hunters amount to a sanitarium population given weapons and trained to kill without mercy. I’m sure you’re picturing a very bizarre, very frightening bunch, but trust me, they’re weirder and scarier than you’re imagining.

But no one’s madness can equal that of Maiev Shadowsong. King takes every possible opportunity to showcase how every waking moment of Maiev’s life is defined by naught by rampant paranoia and unquenchable hatred. How other people can never be anything but tools to her in her endless quest for vengeance.

Illidan’s imprisonment has warped him, yes, but Maiev also spent ten thousand years in darkness, and she did so willingly. She built a cage of her own hatred and locked the door behind herself.

I’ve never liked Maiev, but Illidan has really shown me what a monster she truly is.

The dark, twisted nature of Illidan is what makes it memorable, though. This was never going to be happy story, but King makes it not just dark but gloriously dark. It is a gripping, if sometimes horrifying, story, and much as I admire the previous Warcraft authors, King’s macabre style is a welcome change of pace from Christie’s Golden’s emotive stories or Knaak’s rollicking adventures.

Illidan is also the first time in quite a while that the Burning Legion has actually seemed scary, and that is long overdue. Seeing them through Illidan’s eyes — almost literally — illustrates just how horrific they are, how hopeless it is to oppose them.

And that shows you just how amazingly strong, how utterly determined and cunning, Illidan must be to oppose them even still.

All that said, the book does still have its rough edges.

By necessity given the amount of time it covers, the story jumps around a lot and is therefore somewhat disjointed. No one who hasn’t played the games would be able to make sense of it all.

Inevitably, the ending is quite a downer, and it paints players as villains almost as much as Mists of Pandaria did. That may not have been possible to avoid given the existing lore, but what could have been avoided was how incomplete the ending is. It amounts to a giant neon “BUY LEGION TO SEE HOW IT ENDS” sign.

It does increasingly feel as if the Warcraft novels are being used as advertisements for the game as much as tools to expand the lore. That’s a worrying trend, and Illidan is the most egregious example to date.

Finally, the story of the main demon hunter character, a Night Elf named Vandel, could have been handled better. It offers some good insights into the demon hunters themselves and how they become what they are, but once that’s done, his story doesn’t really go anywhere. It has no climax or satisfying conclusion.

Still, on the whole, Illidan was a pretty enjoyable read.

Overal rating: 8.3/10

Superior Realities

Tag Archives: Warcraft

Superior Realities Fifth Anniversary: My Favourite Posts

Review: Warcraft, Illidan

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