I would like to share the story of “Hush, Tyrande”.
It occurs in one of the Caverns of Time dungeons, Well of Eternity, where you go back to the first demon invasion and fight with Illidan and later Tyrande to right the past or whatever. Tyrande helps you on the final boss, then Malfurion, who’s done dick all, shows up at the end and replies to Tyrande saying “Malfurion-!” with “HUSH Tyrande. Where is Illidan?”
It’s a single line in the game at the end of a dungeon, why does it matter? Well, there were articles written about it, Blizzard had to change a boat name because of it, at least one guild is named after it. It’s solidly achieved meme status in the community. Collapsed-vacuum skulled dudebros HUEHUEHEU about it because a woman (and significant other) is getting told to shut up. Everyone else is like wow, I guess Malfurion is an asshole, or, he’s not supposed to be an asshole, and Blizz is just stupid or sexist and doesn’t realize how bad it sounds.
Welp, now that I am cursed with the knowledge of the awful but endearing WOTA books from which this scene is taken word for word from, I feel like I should shed some light on what must have actually occurred to make that dungeon performance the way it is. Especially because, in all my googling, I see people making jokes about the line, I see people complain about it and how horrible Malfurion is, there’s people complaining that people would complain about it….but I could not find anyone point out the fact that IT’S ACTUALLY COMPLETELY WRONG AND NOT WHAT HAPPENS IN THE BOOK.
I’m reminded of this old gem:
So, here’s the scene: The Sundering had just begun, the Well is starting to go apeshit. The following scene is Azshara making her deal with N’zoth, so yeah. Tyrande and Ilidan are trying to make their way out of the city, as they are very close to the well. Malfurion shows up on Ysera to get them out. Malfurion has not seen either of them in person since the previous book, when Tyrande was captured and he got all guilty and depressed. Anyway, here you go, slightly edited to remove exposition Knaak is inexplicably putting in at the end of the book. I have provided some visuals.
So. Just in case someone wants to argue that it’s still him telling her to shut up, let me also say that, this author uses “Hush” a lot. He never uses “Shh”, or you know.. describes what doesn’t need to be voiced (lol). I don’t want to subject yall to more Knaakwardness than I need too, but it’s clear this is meant to be comforting and kind based on the rest of his writing. In fact, an example is when the reverse situation occurs in the previous book, after Malf gets punched in the brain by Archimonde:
Like, she’s actually being sweet to him in this scene. She is not telling him to STFU.
But as you might imagine…… with no context, and if you’d never read any of the books and JUST read what was in quotation marks…. you could easily think uh I guess he’s telling her to be quiet. So, this was a case of whatever game “”“”writer”””” was directing the recording session definitely had not read the books, didn’t know or care what the context was, and must have just thought it was a given Malfurion would talk to Tyrande like that.
And you MIGHT also think that all the stuff Illidan is saying in this dungeon is just supposed to just be cool and edgy, and NOT being said by a lil whiny shit who’s been being a total tool to Tyrande throughout this escape and blaming all their problems on Malfurion. As a nice little bit of final irony, a lot of responses to Well of Eternity Malfurion is “See! Shoulda picked Illidan!”, while, at one point in the book, Illidan is LITERALLY silences Tyrande with magic because he gets annoyed with her.
What I’m trying to say is…. the Well of Eternity dungeon was ghost directed by Illidan.
But I am also saying the dungeon is one hilarious, blatant example of someone just writing down out of context lines and devs not knowing lore and characters or giving a shit.
THank you for coming to my tebtalk
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