World of Warcraft

[Oddjob OTP]

The point isn't "what would make sense for Dadgar, the character" the point is "we the writers are Good People™" and that's been the major thing driving the plot since Shadowlands. Events happen primarily to make sure that Reddit/Twitter knows they (the writing team) hold the Right Opinions™ and any internal consistency or storytelling basically doesn't matter outside of that.

 

[The Mighty Banth]

I have an excellent solution to the wheelchair problem that also is diverse and inclusive.

 

[Tanner Glass]

I often think about how it used to be. Forever ago - there was a write in contest or somesuch about "Why is Everquest important to you?" and someone disabled wrote "Because in Everquest I can run" and I was like "oh yeah, that must be cool if you're crippled to just be a normal dude a few hours a night".

Now if you're crippled or a minority playing video games as escapism must be a fucking nightmare. "LOOK ITS A RACISM ALLEGORY DO YOU GET IT. WE GET IT, WE'RE COOL, RIGHT?"

 

[Retink Retunk]

Maybe they come back to get assfucked? I heard Midnight had some demons coming back, why not the Hunters too?

Demons were misunderstood the whole time as they were just coming into the world as refugees from the Void Lords and now demon hunters have gay weddings with them to show unity.

 

[Breadbassket]

Sticking Khadgar on a cool floating disk, in a suit, or even just having him be forcibly sidelined in some fashion would work just fine. Dude is not only supernaturally aged but now ACTUALLY pushing into the part of life where he isn't going to bounce back from injuries instantly. That lame-ass wheelchair is pathetic though considering Khadgar established himself upon his reintroduction as being an incredibly powerful mage and highly resourceful. Kael'thas could float his fey ass around just off the ground and change gravity, you mean to tell me Khadgar can't hover? Fuck off.

Khadgar constantly levitating would be a nicer visual then whatever he is doing right now and also showcase a creative application of magic in a world with tons of it.

 

[Spoonge]

Demon Hunters are back next patch, they’re learning void powers from the velves. No idea what that quest will be like though.

Fingers crossed they dont ruin the edgy blind boys then. At least it doesnt sound out of character so far.

 

[Retink Retunk]

It's funny seeing how Blizzard initially wanted to give deep back stories to the player but realized it was a bad idea as it would give every player the same story, and now every expansion is "Champion bringer of Maw Walking and Hero please kill some boars."

It's like they forgot people join the game at different points and some people will be veterans while others will be newbies. They have these weird things called achievements that they could tie story into on a purely superficial level, but decide not to.

 

[Disc]

I have an excellent solution to the wheelchair problem that also is diverse and inclusive.

View attachment 7604871

Literally make that with two water elementals and it'd be peak.

 

[Well Intentioned]

It's retarded in general to insert real world representation in a fantasy world that can't support it to begin with. There's a reason why wheelchairs don't largely exist in fantasy media. It's because it has no place for it to exist in a universe of magic and or hyper technology. As if actual people in wheelchairs want to see more wheelchairs when they play a game to ESCAPE FROM REALITY. No one in a wheelchair is thinking to themselves "Hmmm in this fantasy world where I can be anything I want, I want to be some cuckold stuck in a wheelchair in this world too!"

I kinda disagree -- I think having disabled characters in speculative fiction is fine. I also think that some of the complaints about how those characters are depicted (either focusing entirely on their disability as their only character trait or infantilizing them like they were helpless babies) are valid complaints.

There's an old X-Men comic that features Professor Xavier having to leave that yellow floaty-chair of his to try and reach someone and it just explores his struggle getting to him because technology and his mutant powers are both functionally useless in that scenario. It's a very low stakes story but the drama is solid and it's always stuck with me, even if it was a throwaway story.

Same shit with Barbara Gordon when she was Oracle and in the wheelchair. There was a solid character there and the general concept was also a solid one.

But the problem with shit like Khadgar's wheelchair is that it instead infantalizes the player and basically reduces the character to being all about their disability. Because if a wheelchair doesn't define a character, why then are they so adamant on shoehorning it in? Why not the many different alternatives laid out by folks in this thread?

It's because they think that the readers are retards who can't make the connection.

It's part of why sci-fi in general and cyberpunk in particular is so popular -- you're looking at people getting that escapist shit and becoming something more than just a regular person. A cripple or an amputee (or whatever) in the real world could become some badass. It's why Canadians love Wolverine so much.

Your point about 'I want to be some cuck in a wheelchair" is bang on. Even if folks want to see themselves in escapist entertainment, they don't want a 1:1 carbon copy. They want the rocket powered hover chair that shoots lasers (or whatever.)

 

[Son of Big Boss]

The world sucks. If it were up to me, everyone would be healthy and disabilities would not exist.
The last thing i want when playing a game is to be reminded how much the world is shit.

 

[Susanna]

But the problem with shit like Khadgar's wheelchair is that it instead infantalizes the player and basically reduces the character to being all about their disability. Because if a wheelchair doesn't define a character, why then are they so adamant on shoehorning it in? Why not the many different alternatives laid out by folks in this thread?

To be fair the wheelchair is a lot less retarded than many of the alternatives suggested in this thread. It just needed to not have the cheapass purple effect applied.

Khadgar just spent half an expansion living as energy inside a thingie full of void energy (which has this thing established about choking out anything else it comes into contact with). Khadgar is not feeling well enough to walk, so he’ll be in a wheelchair for a while which is fine because he’s not the main character this expansion. He doesn’t need to ride in a litter carried by water elementals to show “this guy is a mage!!”, because we already know that and it would make it less obvious that “this character is sidelined for a while”. What a wheelchair implies is obvious, what sitting on a hovering disk suspended from illusory arcane chains tied around the neck of an arcane elemental does not.

My only issue with the wheelchair is that it looks like arse, because they reused a low quality asset and tried to cover it up by applying an even lower quality shader effect to it.

 

[Dopey Cunt]

I kinda disagree -- I think having disabled characters in speculative fiction is fine.

I agree. So long as it's handled in a world that can support it. I don't have a problem with it being there, only about how it's done.

I'll be that person and mention FFXIV in here. Y'shtola is a powerful mage. But through some shenanigans, she becomes blind. She works around this by using her own aether to grant herself "aethersight" letting her see the flow of aether directly. There's a line of dialogue implying that by doing this, she is slowly cutting her lifespan shorter, but she doesn't care.

Throughout the story her blindness is never really an issue and in fact, treated as a benefit. Because she is able to see things normal people can't, she's able to immediately notice when something is off about a person or an object. The story doesn't just ignore her blindness either. There are some points where she will ask someone what something looks like, like the sky, because she is still blind when it comes to things without aether, like the sky.

That feels like a much better way to represent a diabled person. Give the disability if you really want, but make it creative. Turn it into a strength, a benefit.

 

[ShapelyMutton]

I really, really hate being a lorefag. It's the worst.

There's a whole lot there about Med'an but what about Faerin?

 

[StacticShock]

Throughout the story her blindness is never really an issue and in fact, treated as a benefit. Because she is able to see things normal people can't, she's able to immediately notice when something is off about a person or an object. The story doesn't just ignore her blindness either. There are some points where she will ask someone what something looks like, like the sky, because she is still blind when it comes to things without aether, like the sky.

i hate youtube's gayness.

 

[Dopey Cunt]

View attachment 7609805
i hate youtube's gayness.

Yes, this works as well.
The disability is applied properly and worked around in a universe that can actually do something about it.
Technology is used as a workaround for his blindness, the caveat being that he feels pain from using the visor to "see".
He's given options to negate the pain, but he chooses not to explore those options because he views them as just more negatives. Basically, why fix something that isn't broken? As long as he can see using the visor, the pain he feels is a necessary trade off he's willing to make. That speaks a lot about his character, much more than it does his disability.

Goofy wheelchair aside, if Kadghar was forced to be without working legs or something in order to recover from whatever it is he went through, give him some fucking character! Let him have a moment where he believes this is just a small setback and it won't impede his skill as a wizard. Let him have fun with it where he's zipping around and flinging spells because technically, he doesn't need working legs to cast magic. Make it fun!

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

Throughout the story her blindness is never really an issue and in fact, treated as a benefit. Because she is able to see things normal people can't, she's able to immediately notice when something is off about a person or an object. The story doesn't just ignore her blindness either. There are some points where she will ask someone what something looks like, like the sky, because she is still blind when it comes to things without aether, like the sky.

Now you remind me of Toph from Avatar the last airbender. She is blind but uses the vibrations of the earth to "see" things and proven to be a viable strength plenty of times. But the fact that she is still blind and that plays a role in the show, showing her weakness as well (cant see attacks coming from the sky, afraid of high water beacuse she cant "see" using earth bending, self-conscious about her looks beacuse again, shes blind!).

Here is another thing these media dont do anymore. make fun of one disability or play it for jokes.

You wouldn't get away doing some of these scenes in current year.

 

[StacticShock]

Now you remind me of Toph from Avatar the last airbender. She is blind but uses the vibrations of the earth to "see" things and proven to be a viable strength plenty of times. But the fact that she is still blind and that plays a role in the show, showing her weakness as well (cant see attacks coming from the sky, afraid of high water beacuse she cant "see" using earth bending, self-conscious about her looks beacuse again, shes blind!).

shieet nigger you dun know about woozie?

 

[74164978231]

according to muh lore that is not actually canon.
kind of like the revivotron machine in borderlands.

Its not like he isnt friends and have connections with a being whose a paragon of life itself able to heal and cure any ailment.

 

[Well Intentioned]

To be fair the wheelchair is a lot less retarded than many of the alternatives suggested in this thread. It just needed to not have the cheapass purple effect applied.

I'm gonna need a bit of clarification because I'm not paying attention to WoW's story outside of shitting on it when funny moments crop up, but I'd argue the wheelchair is equally retarded because:

- It is not practical. If Khadgar is going out and being 'active' for lack of a better term, all it takes is one set of stairs to completely fuck him, make him expend more energy, etc.
- It is shoehorned in and focused on to the point where the wheelchair is made into a big issue. Someone mentioned that the reason he's using it is because there's a handwaved excuse about how it was a 'gift from a dear friend.' All it needed was the 2 Soyjacks excitedly pointing with agape mouths.

If he was convalescing at like Alliance_Veterans_Hospital or something, yeah, fine, sure, whatever. To shit up the Warcraft thread a bit more with Japanese Weeb game, there's a character in FFXIV who is able bodied and then confined to a wheelchair (Arenvald) and it's just treated as part of the story. This sort of shit is handled in numerous instances in that game with various characters. Dopey mentioned Y'shtola, but there's Rauhbahn, Thancred and I think a couple of others who suffer some kind of injury or maiming.

It's treated as part of the story and as something for the characters to work through and deal with. It's not sensationalised or done for asspats or shoehorned in a way that comes off as hamfisted and contrived.

What a wheelchair implies is obvious, what sitting on a hovering disk suspended from illusory arcane chains tied around the neck of an arcane elemental does not.

Another thought: conveying the details that he's fucked up should also be obvious and there shouldn't have to be a big purple sign going 'HE'S A CRIPPLE' any time he shows up. It's just introducing a wheelchair for the sake of having a wheelchair and getting progressive asspats while treating the audience like they're fucking mongoloids.

My only issue with the wheelchair is that it looks like arse, because they reused a low quality asset and tried to cover it up by applying an even lower quality shader effect to it.

I don't care about Khadgar being in a wheelchair, I care about how it was handled and implemented.

 

[Enward Cullen]

To be fair the wheelchair is a lot less retarded than many of the alternatives suggested in this thread. It just needed to not have the cheapass purple effect applied.

A mage stuck in a wheelchair is about as stupid as it gets when he could be ferried around by an Arcane Golem, a Water Elemental or even magically saddled to a horse as a nod to WC3’s Archmagi. Of those three the horse would obviously still be impractical in many cases, but still less absurd than a floating wheelchair. A wheelchair is beneath his abilities and status in every regard.