Wolf Among Us Fangasm

Wolf Among Us Fangasm

My beloved gave me The Wolf Among Us as a Christmas present, and I adore it! Having read the comics to vol. 6 and knowing some of the events of 8 related to Bigby, a few twists of the first episode don't have as big an impact on me for shock value, but it's still SO SATISFYING.

I'm playing Bigby as a guy who is trying (emphasis on trying) to be a little more sympathetic to others, and who is rather sensitive about women, especially Snow. Call a woman a 'bitch' in front of him and he'll knock you out; badmouth Snow and he'll want to tear you to pieces. 

He's not under the idea that he must protect "the fragile creatures" (far from it, he told Holly she's her own woman); more that he hates seeing good women disrespected or hurt. It works well for his character, given what happen to his mother.

Snow gets special treatment from Bigby because he has feelings for her, something that's hardly a secret to her or others. I never missed a chance to back her up or encourage her, and seeing Bigby light up anytime she smiles at him made me squee in delight. ALL OF THE SHIPPING!!

I might try playing him as an unfeeling asshole, but it almost feels wrong to. That's a little more up Jack's alley, anyway.

I showed this to my beloved, who was a hardcore Warcraft player (not just WoW) until right before Pandaria's launch. (He still ponders whether to return to his dear Azeroth...) Granted, he's of the Alliance, so he didn't know either of these characters. But after reading the whole thing, I asked for his thoughts on this since he's more familiar with WoW culture and lore than I, an outsider, am.

He admitted that this is indeed an overall longstanding problem of Blizz, elevating the most random NPCs to epic levels with little explanation. He also remarked that he thought the problem might occur less with Alliance, but wasn't entirely sure.

See, he never really noticed anything like this while playing the game. And that in turn made me think of something: this is indeed sexism, but it's a more subtle form of it. It's not the more obvious kind that gaming is often shown portraying; instead, it's a more real-life version of sexism. One male orc gets all the honors, while a just-as-capable (or moreso) female is quietly passed over. It's almost fascinating to me, in a weird sense, because we're so used to the many "T&A" battles over females in video games that this kind of sexism almost slips under the radar.

I had actually asked him several questions about this comparing Horde & Alliance, wondering if maybe there was an IN-GAME cultural explanation for this. Was this more common with Horde because of those races possibly being more patriarchal, and the Alliance being more equality-leaning? It'd still be sexism, yes, but then at least there might be some cultural tones influencing this, and the developers keeping to the societies they'd created.

His answers were inconclusive, and so I was left pondering... Before deciding to type up this post.

Take a good look at this screenshot right here, folks. Shed a tear for a younger, more naive, more alive Nazgrim. Soak in the nostalgia of meeting him for the first time in Northrend as the tenacious sergeant in Conquest Hold, helping you overthrow the tyrannical leader of the Horde outpost and…

Wait, sorry, wrong orc. Nostalgia done? Cause we’re gonna talk about sexism in WoW, orc style. Or, in other worlds, how Blizzard likes to forget that they occasionally make really good female leaders.

Nazgrim will go into the annals of WoW history as a beloved character with a story line spanning three expansions, the players working with him through entire zones, battling enemies, surviving in vicious wilderness and charting unknown lands until they face him across the battlefield as a boss in Siege of Orgrimmar.

But he got his start as a non-descript, do-nothing special quest giver. 

Gorgonna, standing beside him, was the predecessor for Nazgrim. The heroic NPC of the Conquest Hold story line that the players aid in unseating her sister, Krenna, from leadership of the base. Before he was even a Legionnaire, Gorgonna was busting ass and taking names in the interest of the Horde, right along with the player.

For those who have never played the quest chain out, or just have forgotten, you are sent to Conquest Hold via breadcrumb quest from Venomspite in Dragonblight with the quest To Conquest Hold, But Be Careful! where you are warned that Conqueror Krenna, the leader of the Horde fortress in the zone, is “aggressive, even for an orc”. 

Krenna isn’t aggressive, she’s a flat out thug. She’s Garrosh before Garrosh was Garrosh. She threatens to split the player in two ON SIGHT when turning in the breadcrumb quest, and she only gets more pleasant from there. She’s proud - overly so - of her task: secure resources for the magnificent Horde war machine. And you? You’re a cog. So get to cogging. 

Through the quest chain, Gorgonna is constantly keeping her sister’s thuggery in check. From pretending to break an npc’s leg to keep him safe to pardoning a to-be executed trapper to reveal the source of the worgen in the zone, the quest chain eventually culminates in the player and Gorgonna removing Krenna from power forcibly. Afterwards, Gorgonna replaces her sister as leader of Conquest Hold, sans the…questionably scantily dressed blood elf assistants. And then is promptly never ever heard from again.

She even reads human script as well. 

Gorgonna displays leadership, tactics, compassion, and stone-cold resolve; enough to raise her blade against her own sister to keep her from sending the whole operation in Grizzly Hills to ruin in her lust for conquest. She’s intelligent, proactive, and is a rare gem of magnificent and even tempered Orcish leadership. She’s Thrall’s epixy to her sister’s Garrosh epixy…except she actually does something to stop her sister before she can go too far. 

So here we have a character that the players interact with, who has a whole storyline displaying her leadership and command skills, her wit and intelligence. Then we have a non-descript quest giver that has no part in said story line. Yet Nazgrim is lifted out of npc obscurity, put at the forefront of two expansive zone quest lines, becomes a hero twice over, is promoted twice over; and even though we do eventually kill him, he is eulogized by none other than Varok Saurfang himself as a loyal soldier, honorable to a fault, and someone worthy of being remembered as a hero (despite the fact that Saurfang meets Nazgrim for all of two minutes). 

The random npc becomes one of the most recognizable names in WoW history with a tragic, but commanding storyline that culminates in an emotional boss fight and memorialization by another major npc. A npc with history, story, agency, and characterization falls into obscurity, barring a little cameo in Garrosh’s short story. 

Gorgonna represents a problem that Blizz has with its minor npcs, how they build them up with great storylines and player interactions, then subsequently leave them to rot, never trespassing the zones they were introduced in. Never breaking out into the overarching story. This problem weighs especially hard on the female npcs, who may be active and interact more with the players than most other npcs, but still vanish at the vital, important moments of lore. Gorgonna vanishes into nothingness. Both Sylvanas and Jaina - the two characters who have the deepest ties to Arthas - are never seen inside ICC. Garona, who has been abused and twisted and mind controlled by the Shadow Council and the Twilight’s Hammer, never appears to help take down Chogall, her mortal foe. Taoshi, right hand to Taran Zhu and the character who is always at the player’s side during dailies and the Isle of Thunder is completely absent in Siege of Orgrimmar. Nazgrim, Tirion, and Garrosh and other male characters are so often whisked away from obscurity and into the limelight as major characters over and over again. Often taking over the role of female npcs as the ultimate arbiters of the story line, while female characters are left as mere footnotes in the aftermath, not even worthy of having the players see them come in long after the battle and heroism is done. The conclusions to their stories are scraps to be picked apart in off-game short stories, if they’re even remembered at all.

If Blizz wants to address its sexism problem, it needs to stop shuttering out women characters from their own stories and plucking random male npcs to be elevated to hero status. It needs to stop being afraid of women in the final cinematics, standing as heroes at the forefront of the players. It needs to allow women characters to actually have conclusions to their plots, instead of dangling in obscurity. 

One of the biggest reasons why I love this movie so much, and her reason is one of the most heartfelt, anguished reasons a person can have.

"I just want to be good at something."

Farewell, JewWario

May the next level be even better for you.

Thanks for brightening so many lives.

Seeing my favorite Egyptian god getting pestered by his dad makes me giggle. ^^

Stick-gods ~ God of Embalming

This shows how he impacted so many, even those who only knew him from crossovers and anniversary videos. His warmth is infectious, and he has some of the best & funniest expressions there are.

Even when not saying anything, he could make you laugh.

A short but sweet little tidbit of JewWario. Already I like him.