GW2 Story Rant - regarding WoodenPotatoes' review

[cashew]

So, I was listening to WoodenPotatoes' HoT story review and...wow, I'm kind of pissed off.

Here's the thing, I agree with him on two accounts, but over all, for someone who claims to be "so into the lore", he seems to not know shit when it comes to storytelling. He's also such a typical gamer in every way that annoys me about gamers, which really shouldn't come as surprise, but nonetheless it just offends my sensibilities so fucking much that I want to be able to reach into the screen and punch him in the face. Yes, I'm so fucking angry at him that I wish him actual bodily harm.

Points that I agree with him on: Pacing in Heart of Thorns was shit. Faolain was a complete waste.

So, now let's talk about everything I disagreed with him on about the Heart of Thorns story.

He claims that story was told better, mechanically, because there's more open world interaction that contributed to the storytelling. I heartily disagree. On the one hand, yes, it's nice to see that the world is reacting to you, but if you actually sat down and thought about it, you'll realize how little that actually means. Regardless of whether you decide to side with the Sylvari or not during your reign as Pact Commander, you are still treated the same. You are not suddenly suspected by Pact Members for siding with the Sylvari. People still listen to you, despite some will abandon you in instances for making that decision. So how much fucking sense does it really make for the story to sort of take place in the open world but not reflect the decisions you made in the instances? None at all. I would have rather that the developers mechanically divided story into an instance and keep all their branching options tracked in the instance, while in the open world, you're just another cog in the wheel that is the Pact. Because otherwise, with all the player characters running around, that's a shit ton of "commanders" running around, when there's only supposed to be the one, you.

The next big thing that I really disagreed on was how he said the Sylvari handling was done well. I say bullshit. Being able to hear Mordremoth, getting occasionally dazed, etc., adds nothing to the "unique" Sylvari experience. It's not like as a Sylvari you actually can, at any point, get turned around. It's not like you had to get your head screwed on back straight or told that you can't lead the Pact anymore if you're Sylvari and now have to find a different way to stop Mordremoth. That would have been a mechanical difference. But you literally experience the same story, regardless of your race, so it's hardly like your race matters at all. To say that this mechanic is better than core Tyria story, where you experienced a unique story depending on your racial choice is bullshit. Where the story takes place and why you get involved in the dragon hunting process is different depending on your racial background when in core Tyria, as it ought to be. Yet, here, when a Sylvari should have been distrusted, ostracized, at the very least had a much harder time rallying up companions and earning trust (if not straight up not be able to gain trust), is all irrelevant. How does that make the Sylvari experience actually different? It is pure dressing, not a fundamental story difference, and that is just plain lazy writing.

The other big disagreement that I have is how well Rata Novus was handled. WP enjoyed the Rata Novus side story more or less, because it was founded by Zinn and that was a nice callback into the original GW. But here's my problem: WHY IS IT A LEGENDARY CITY if Zinn was EXILED? Why do the Rata Sum denizens give a shit about the actions of an exiled Asura? Why do they even care? Why would his city be legendary? None of this makes any story sense! How is this well handled when the very premise of the city's origins doesn't make any sense in the context of the story that we've already been given? Like...I can't even focus on the details of what Rata Novus is because the very premise that all the Asura know about a city built by an exiled Asura makes no sense whatsoever.

Another thing is that WP felt Trahearn's death was good, from a story perspective, because it happened to someone so important, and also people who didn't like Trahearn could get some catharsis out of killing him. Here's the problem. I hated Trahearn because he was a poorly written and poorly voice acted character. I did not resent him from leading the Pact, I actually think that was a brilliant way to explain why there's so many "saviors" running around in an MMO. Rather than being the singular hero, you instead play as a foot soldier who contributes but does not single-handedly slay a dragon. Trahearn is who everyone actually rallies behind. But the problem is that the story never really built Trahearn up as a confident leader. It doesn't help that his voice acting was so bland that what little character he had was squashed under the terrible delivery. But that doesn't mean I want him dead. It means I want him fixed. Write him better. Give him the kind of leadership qualities that one expects from a fucking leader. But no, instead, not knowing what to do with such a widely hated character, they decide, fuck it, let's just kill him. That's bullshit.

Also, WP doesn't seem to understand what Deus ex Machina is. Like, seriously, do you even understand that phrase? Having Trahearn tell us that Mordremoth has a weakness in his mind is not a Deus ex Machina. Nothing drops in to save the day. We still had to do the fighting ourselves. There is no godly MacGuffin for us to wield. Should the weakness have been "in the mind"? No. Should we have needed to go on a much longer search for a solution? Yes. Should that solution maybe have shown up in Rata Novus, since they were researching Elder Dragons? Doubly yes. I agree with all of that. But just because these were bad story decisions doesn't make it a Deus ex Machina! A Deus ex Machina is if suddenly Trahearn said, "Hey, by the way, Calabog totally can kill Mordremoth, like how it could cleanse Orr." That would be a Deus ex Machina, where literally the solution comes in and saves the day because the writing has put you into a fucking corner where there is no obvious solution. Or you know, when we're off to kill Zhaitan and suddenly the Pact shows up with a Giant Fucking Laser that killed Zhatain. That's a Deus ex Machina. The problem that HoT suffers is that they offered "a solution is possible, think harder" at the Rata Novus chapter and then introduced "by the way, go fight in his mind" as the solution they alluded to. It was shoddily paced, but nonetheless the build up was still there, just executed very, very badly. It is an ass pull for sure, but it was not a Deus ex Machina.

Previously, these are all just things that makes me doubt WP's ability to understand how a good story is put together. But this next one makes me seriously angry at him, because it's such misogynistic bullshit.

First, he (WP) claims that Eir's death has been a long time coming and that it was done well. What? Where has Eir's death been a long time coming? The whole fucking point of Honor Among the Waves dungeon was to show that Eir's finally made peace with her role in Snaff's death and that she's going to live with that guilt without it eating her from the inside. After that, there's been no real story set up for Eir's death. Furthermore, the only hint the community had on the possibility of Eir dying was that Brahm was probably going to be inheriting her bow, which suggests she passed away somehow. Yet, when you look at the story, Eir's death was solely so that Brahm could grow as a character. Her death was not in the service of her story, but was in the service of Brahm's story. That is classic Fridging. That is one of the most misogynistic writing tropes ever and yet here WP is praising it for "emotional impact". Fuck your emotional impact! Give me back my female characters!

Next, he (WP) claims that making the player choose between Logan and Zojja is a good split down the playerbase, and that only those who are careful about reading the lore would like Logan more than Zojja, because Logan contributed to Destiny's Edge while Zojja didn't do anything and was always bitchy. Fuck you, WP. Logan might have contributed more to the formation of Destiny's Edge (as Snaff was the real member and Zojja was merely his apprentice), but that also meant he had more responsibilities towards DE than Zojja does. Yet he decided to rush back to his queen, who, by the way, DIDN'T NEED HIS FUCKING HELP. She sent him to go work with DE. She was holding off the attack just fucking fine. She didn't need him to make her a victim when she is an insanely powerful Mesmer. Fuck your damseling narrative and fuck you WP for defending it. Also, calling Zojja "bitchy"? She's fucking angry that your dragon slaying band got her krewe leader killed. Eir made the wrong call and even Eir knew that. And you have to remember, that for Asura, the krewe is their basic social unit, it is their version of family. So you've essentially killed off Zojja's equivalent of a human's parent and you expect Zojja to not be angry and betrayed about it? Fuck you. And you had to do it using a gendered insult? Fuck you, double time. I mean, look how fucking angry Brahm got over Eir's death and Norn's aren't even that close to their parents on top of Brahm's already enstranged relationship with Eir. Yet do you give him flak for being whiny about how our dallying in Verdant Brink ultimately resulted in Eir's death? No. God forbid when a male character gets angry he gets called out for his anger. So leave Zojja the fuck alone.

And, are you fucking kidding me about Logan? How the fuck is Logan better? He was effectively one half the leader of the Destiny's Edge, yet he left them when they needed him, because his Queen, who I have to point out again did not need his help, was being attacked. Yes, you do that and doom your guild to die. That's the heroic thing to do. I'm not even saying he was a coward. I'm saying he made the wrong fucking call and he should fucking own up to it. I'm also saying that particular story (and I played the human story, so I know his side of things and I'm not sympathetic to say the least) was shoddily written and the motivations badly justified. No wonder people found Logan despicable. He literally ditched his guild members, disobeyed his Queen, all because he thinks he knows better and caused so many problems. The story tries to make it sound like he had torn loyalties, but we know QUEEN JENNAH SENT HIM ON THAT FUCKING MISSION THAT HE ABANDONED. So how does that work into his loyalty to his Queen, hm? How does disobeying a direct order given to you by your leader make you loyal? Is it because she's a woman so clearly she didn't know what was best for herself? Fuck you.

Anyway. I'm very angry. I usually watch WP videos to relax, but good fucking god, he pissed me off so fucking much with that video. Fuck you WP. Stick to summarizing, do less actual analysis, you don't have the head for it.

Comments

[cashew]

Honestly, I personally would prefer if they didn't kill anyone off. Why does a character have to die? Character death should be used sparingly and rarely, that's what makes it impactful when it happens. If you dictate at least one character must die per expansion...well, that's just shitty writing.

Besides, we already had about four characters die on us prior to Heart of Thorns (2 female, 1 male, 1 depending on on order choice). Albeit most of them are side characters, but a lot of them were introduced pretty early in the personal story. Then two major female characters die within hours of each other in the expansion. I mean...really, Anet? The death count is already fairly skewed towards females in the story, we need to add another two more to the tally?

Although, I agree that killing off Braham to forward Eir's characterization is kinda interesting and rarely done. On the other hand, I don't see Anet being able to handle a mother's grief very well. How many women do they actually have on the writing staff? How many of them are really aware?

If they have voice casting issues, they could just hire a different voice actor. Hell, our PC character's voice changed from core to expansion, so what's the big deal about a re-cast? It happens all the time for animated shows, Muppets and any long series with voice work. So what's the big deal? I call lazy production.

[tanithryudo]

Re: voice actors. Well for other characters including the main character, no one cares who the VA is. For Zojja, they made something of a big deal about her VA during the initial release of GW2, and it's an actually well known name, so they might be concerned about getting a bigger backlash over it. The decision if it comes would be from production/marketing anyway, and would be something handed down to the writers rather than coming from the writers. So it's the cheap/lazy choice, if anything.

As for mandatory deaths... eh, in this era of "edgy" storytelling, one major death per expansion would be optimistic, in my view. That said, they managed not to kill anyone important in PoF (aside from the PC - but we got better! - and Vlast/Gleam - who was only introduced a mission earlier to any non-GW1 fans...) so maybe they're getting better?

I would've probably gone with Logan myself. If only to omg stop all the constant OOC bitching about him.

[cashew]

Well, Felicia Day (Zojja's VA) is a pretty big name in gaming specifically, since she's got similar gaming nerd cred as Wil Wheaton (aka Wesley from ST:TNG), and also dual hosts tons of Youtube shows with him. (They're like BFFS who troll each other constantly.) I honestly love Felicia Day's voice acting and she's pretty hilarious. Check her out in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog(Neil Patrick Harris' idea of how to deal with the Writer's Guild strike XD). Since she's pretty much the go to person for a lot of these male geek-nerd stars, it's probably the reason behind her being such a huge name. I know she really likes Zojja's character and actually plays GW2, so not sure what happened there to make her unavailable for future recordings. (She did a whole unboxing video of her GW2 collector's edition, because NERD.)

On the other hand, the video game industry treats their VAs like shit. So, I imagine they tried to stiff her on the recording royalties. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

As for killing...blah. Like I've said before, killing characters is a sign of either lazy and/or bad writing. Grimdark is hardly an excuse...but yeah, I get what you're saying.

Heh, I doubt Logan's gonna get offed any time soon. There's still too much tension between him and Rytlock and his really mindnumbing romance with Queen Jennah that they keep shoving down our throats. Plus, he's human. They are very reluctant when it comes to killing off their human characters.