The "Knaak Rant" Post
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 5:00AM | Richard 'Greyseer' Powell | in Seeing Grey | 12 Comments | Share Article Before I finish and post my review of Stormrage, by Richard Knaak, I figured I should clarify my feelings on the author himself. There are a lot of people who believe that I hate the man and his writing, that I'll avoid anything he writes or scoff at anything he says, and that I wish he'd never had any involvement with Warcraft lore.
All of this, quite simply, is untrue. Granted, while I'm not a fan of his, I far from hate him and wish to set the record straight about my feelings. Be warned, though, I don't enjoy what he's done to Warcraft lore, so there will be a healthy dose of ranting and bias in this post. Regardless, I feel this needs to be clarified for my readers.
Firstly, I'll say that I've never met Richard Knaak. I know little to nothing about him as a person outside of what can be gleaned from various interviews across the internet. Indeed, while I knew of his writing when I was heavily in the Dragonlance setting, I had never read one of his books until the Warcraft: War of the Ancients trilogy. My opinions are based solely on his Warcraft works, of which I believe I've read all (Day of the Dragon, the War of the Ancients Trilogy, the Sunwell Trilogy, Night of the Dragon, the Legends anthologies, and Stormrage).
Finally, the man has sold more novels that I could even hope to write at this point. He's also reached a level of status among his fans that many people only dream of achieving. He has his supporters, and I respect that there are those out there who enjoy his work despite the fact that I'm not generally one of them.
Release Your Hate
As I said, I do not hate Richard Knaak. But, as mentioned above, I dislike what he does to Warcraft lore.
"But, Thar! What does he do to Warcraft lore?"
He weakens it, plain and simple. Almost every story that Knaak's told in this setting has taken the focus away from the traditional heroes and has instead given it to one of his own creations. He has lessened the importance of characters created by the Creative Development staff at Blizzard and instead shifted the importance to his own custom characters. Indeed, he has often artificially increased his own characters' importance by tying them to pre-established people in lore, thus giving his people notoriety without them actually "earning it." This weakens the overall setting by creating a confusion among those who read his works.
The best example, and most offending story, is the War of the Ancients Trilogy. This tale, originally told in the Warcraft III manual, was the signature tale of the night elven race. It was their signature story. There were already heroes and villains, a conflict, an overbearing danger, and an epic resolution. And while the first version of the tale was merely told over a handful of paragraphs, it was still a complete story. Anyone who chose to play a night elf wanted to know more. Anyone who enjoyed the night elf campaign in Warcraft III became intrigued at the savage history of these beings who "looked like elves, but taller. And far more savage." (-Grom Hellscream). The War of the Ancients trilogy should have been a landmark tale that defined who the night elves were, for better or for worse, and further defined the heroes we got to know in Warcraft III.
But instead of a tale about Malfurion and Illidan Stormrage, Tyrande Whisperwind, Azshara, and the Burning Legion, we got a tale about ... a human mage, a shapeshifting dragon, and an aging orc going back in time? Indeed, this human mage—whom we already knew as Rhonin—was even said to go as far as become a mentor to Illidan Stormrage. Illidan Stormrage, one of the most pivotal characters in night elven history, was made second fiddle to a human mage who didn't even belong in that era of the timeline.
And what about Broxigar? Oh, Broxigar is definitely a cool character, but did he really need to be made the singular most important orc in all of history?
"But, Thar! He's not! He just saved the world once!"
Well, let's see exactly what deeds are placed upon Broxigar's broad shoulders, shall we? Not only was he given an axe crafted by the demigod Cenarius, but he also used this axe to actually injure Sargeras. Certainly, it was a papercut of an injury, but that does not lessen the fact that this was the most important "papercut" in the history of the world. For you see, this injury forced Sargeras to pause and look down before stepping through the Well of Eternity portal into Azeroth. And, indeed, it was this extra bit of time that allowed Malfurion and Illidan to collapse the portal. Understand what this means: Broxigar is the reason why Sargeras never stepped through. Thus, it was Broxigar who saved Azeroth from Sargeras and the Burning Legion.
But that's not all, folks, no. Not only did Broxigar injure the Lord of the Burning Legion. Not only was he responsible for stopping the great fallen titan from entering the world, but it was also strongly suggested that Broxigar's battle prowess was noticed by the demons. Could he have been remembered by none other than Kil'jaeden? Could the demon lord have chosen to corrupt the orcs because of Brox's demonstration of strength thousands of years ago?
Yes, guys and gals, Broxigar may also be the reason why the orcs were corrupted on Draenor in the first place...
It's important to note at this time that Broxigar was never mentioned anywhere in lore prior to the War of the Ancients trilogy. He is distinctly a child of that series, a character given so much importance that he overshadows the deeds performed by the heroes who already existed in lore.
Now, I could go on about how Krasus has appeared in almost every Knaak story, making him one of the singular most important dragons in history. I could tell you about how Krasus is not only intimately tied to Alexstrazsa, Aspect of the Red Dragonflight, but is nearly on a first name basis with all the Aspects. But, you know, Knaak's specialty is dragons, and it is known that he had a hand in the development of that lore in this setting. So I'll leave that one be, for now. Dragons are what gave Knaak his start. Those are his stories to tell.
Still doesn't mean that I like seeing Krasus in every story with Knaak's name on it, though.
Let it Flow Through You
Aside from my issue with the rather Mary Sue-ish characters Knaak tends to create, I also take issue with the distinct feeling that he really doesn't know this setting as well as many fans I know. Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I believe that, if you're going to work in a shared universe, you need to know that universe inside and out. Read the interview that WoW.com did back around BlizzCon 2009. I'm not just referring to his awkward claim that he invented tauren death knights, I'm referring to the simple fact that Blizzard had to inform him that death knights existed in the first place.
To quote from that interview:
"I honestly believe I'm the one who gave them the idea for Tauren Death Knights. As I recall, I told them I wanted to bring Trag back as an undead warrior type, and they said, "The only real undead warrior types we have are Death Knights," and I said that a Death Knight would be cool! And they started sending me illustrations and sketches of Tauren Death Knights, and I'm like, oh wow! And well, I can't say for sure, but I was definitely thinking this up pretty early on, and now they (Tauren Deathknights) are in game. If somebody else came up with the concept before me, I hadn't heard about it, so I certainly feel I was in there very close to the beginning, and now he's in there telling people he's going to join them in the final assault on Icecrown."
Really? They had to tell him about an aspect of this setting that has existed for about eight years? An aspect that was one of the central focuses of Warcraft III and its expansion? Had death knights been obscure, then I could understand it. But the death knight version of Arthas is on the cover to The Frozen Throne expansion. Even Level 60-era World of Warcraft has a plethora of references to death knights. Twice have we ventured into Naxxramas, where there's an entire wing of the undead buggers!
Strike Him Down...
As a fan of Warcraft long before World of Warcraft's release, I want to know more about the characters I came to know and love. I can stand learning about Rhonin and Krasus in their own stories, but to see these people invade and take over in stories where they just don't belong is why I roll my eyes at most of what Knaak writes. I cannot shake the feeling that he's better suited to writing good roleplay arcs moreso than official lore (although he tends to break a few of the best practices found in roleplay as well).
Knaak just doesn't bother to use what's there. He transformed Malfurion, Illidan, and Tyrande into shallow versions of their former selves for War of the Ancients. He gives importance to entirely new characters without helping to define characters that already exist. He changes events to favor his own creations while leaving pre-existing lore on the vine to wither and fade. Don't get me started on the whole demon hunter conundrum...
As someone with permission to write official lore, he needs to become intimately familiar with the pre-existing characters. He needs to stop creating new people and handing them the reigns to everyone's salvation and instead re-focus on characters that could actually use further definition. This is why I don't mind reading Knaak's characterizations of the dragon Aspects. They're his characters to write. He is the definitive author when it comes to the dragonflights as far as I'm concerned.
But he needs to stop getting his dragons and humans in my night elf stories. Tell a night elf story with night elves, not with Krasus and Rhonin.
Conclusion
I will say this much, however. Stormrage is a much better book than many of his previous. Most of my primary complaints, so far, have been addressed. There are still examples, however, but it feels like he's done a lot more homework this go-around. No longer do I feel as if I'm reading a generic fantasy tale with Warcraft-like elements. Now I actually feel like I'm reading a story set on Azeroth. And, for this, I have to pay my respects for Knaak's work on Stormrage.
He needs to keep it up and refine his understanding of the world. If he can continue to do this for future works, he may gain back a few more fans and actually help strengthen this game's lore. Honestly? I want what's best for the setting, and when people develop a negative attitude towards lore because of something Knaak writes, it just makes me appreciate his work less.
krasus, rhonin, richard knaak, stormrage, warcraft 3 
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Reader Comments (12)
This is something I've always been curious about when it comes to Knaak's work, and it comes from the fact that I don't know much about what rules are set in place when an author writes an official story for a universe they did not themselves create. Just how much say does Knaak actually have in Warcraft lore? Surely Blizzard must have at least some guidelines set in place that says what he can and can't do with their fiction. Are Rhonin and Krasus characters he came up with that Blizzard allows him to do whatever he'd like with in their world? Or are they characters that Blizzard originally came up with the idea for, tasked Knaak with fleshing out, and then he simply did such a poor job with that people just naturally assume they're his Mary Sues? How do you tell what characters/events that occur in his novels might fall into the former category, and what falls into the latter?
@Gizen, Most of that type of information is gleaned from various interviews and other writings. In particular, the Introduction to the Warcraft Archive gives a pretty good account of how Knaak got involved from the man himself, Chris Metzen. Knaak has also done a few interviews where he gives us some details about the character creation and development process for his works. It's from these little snippets that we glean how certain characters came to be, and how certain tales were crafted.
And as a general rule, unless there's mention elsewhere (interview, fiction, artwork, etc) of a character prior to an appearance in a work, it's generally accepted that this character was the creation of the specific author. This isn't a flawless rule by any stretch, but it works for the most part. It gives you an idea of which characters Blizzard wanted to see created and fleshed out, and which ones never existed until the specific author got his / her hands on the story.
I want to start off and say I love this blog. I ran across it not to long ago, but have been reading it ever sense. While always enjoying it, I never felt the need to respond and leave comments. Well, today I have comments :)
I couldn't agree with you more about Knaak. I typically like the stories ok, more because I'm obsessed with reading anything Warcraft though. That being said, after reading the Ancients Trilogy, I felt like all the main characters were helpless without the trio sent back to help them. They fumbled around and were pretty much useless without guidance from Krasus, Brox or Rhonin. All three characters I love, but what I love more were the original characters. Going into the trilogy, I didn't know much about Malfurion or Illidans past. I'm somewhat ADD and was never able to fully play through any of the RTS games. That and I suck at RTS games :) I was reading the Knaaks book to learn some of the history, but instead, I learned nothing of the characters, but only somewhat of the general story (though not really because it was all different due to their involvement?). It confused me on what the current lore is based off of. Is it the original story or the new one?
With Warcraft books, I expect them to be setup more like the recent Arthas book. The character never changes, you only learn more about them. I didn't know squat about Arthas going into that book, but I felt like I came out of it ready to play WOTLK. Whereas, after reading the Ancients book, I felt like I had read a Warcraft book that had been tampered with and wasn't sure how to feel about it.
I'll stop my rambling now. Overall, he's a decent storyteller, but his ego is apparently clouding his memory of lore and he keeps jacking things up in one of my favorite stories. I still can't get over his claim to death knights.....my jaw literally dropped after reading that interview a few months back. I had no beef with the guy until he started laying claim to ideas that he apparently created.....
Great article! Keep up the good work, I love reading this blog!!
Please ignore my poor grammar! I read the first paragraph just now and just shook my head at my lack of attention to detail.....haha....
As a contemporary of Knaak and someone that's met him in person, I can agree completely with your analysis on his WRITING but also, hopefully, give a bit of information into why I feel he continues to write for Warcraft.
For one, the guy's enthusiastic about fantasy. He really, really loves what he does, and it shows. He's like an overeager kid... but that's not necessarily a good thing, especially when he lacks the talent to really back things up. He displays all of the characteristics of a 12 year old "munchkin" RPer, and I wouldn't be surprised if he really didn't outgrow that stage.
Two, from what I gather, his personal view of the Warcraft world is a lot like the Dragonlance setting, which I'd imagine he knows a lot more about. I'd actually, perhaps, wager that his dragonlance books may just be BETTER than his Warcraft books because the things he pulls with us fly in that universe. And I know that Metzen was a fan of his Dragonlance books- that's why, when the first Warcraft book came to be written, he contacted Knaak. Metzen and Knaak get along really well.
Three, and most importantly, I have the feeling that Knaak's enthusiasm means he gets work DONE, and FAST. I think that's the key thing here, many video-game tie ins already have a built-in fanbase of people who are familiar with the game who will buy them. As such, the publishers aren't worried about the quality of the book influencing how much it sells, rather, the books are put out to increase brand awareness and also serve as a "mea culpa" to storyline fans.
I'm coming at this from a hit different point of view. My first Knaak book was Stromrage followed but Day of the Dragon. But books I felt were good reads, keep you interested while at the same having at least some characters you can relate too. Reading Day of the Dragon almost 10 years after it was first published my issues with the characters like Rhonin, Krasus, and Vereesa Windrunner are much less since they have been in my game(world of warcraft) longer than my knowledge of the books. That said if everything you say about Night of the Dragon and WotA books are true I can understand why you are tired of them. I'm content to take your world that I have better things to do with my time.
My biggest complaint about the Stormrage book is it really could have used a hard edit of at least 100 pages. Where Day of the Dragon has a very good pace Stormrage is slowly, and much of the action is unfocused. I know modern fantasy authors don't seem happy if they don't break 1000 pages but for me I would rather have a short book that tells a good story rather than a longer one that loses focus all the time. Toward the end when all your really want to do if follow "Mal" you have all the b-plots, draging things down. Some are better than others but still left me wanting more. I guess you could say the same thing thing about the Human kingdom storyline in Day of the Dragon. It feels like there should be more of ending to that story rather than. "Yep Daval Prestor, just didn't come back guess he doesn't want to be king after all. Oh well lets just says bad stuff about him and move on." But that story was fun vs a bunch of alliance and horde character fighting some kinda nightmare army thing in the Emerald Dream left me kinda meh. If you care about those characters i sure you very much liked it. When you have to keep saying to yourself there are only some many types of stories they can't all be different. it leaves you wanting.
The action also felt like its could be pulled right from Dragonball Z.fight. Oh unstoppable evil, now they fight a few times each time, you both get stronger until the final show down for the very World! Granted I might have seen to much amine in college. I also feel that the very world being at risk is a over used devise and writers in all areas should learn that scale matters and sometimes its ok if its not the whole world at risk. Some times good and evil can fight and it going to bad if evil wins but its not end of everything as we know it. That might be part of the reason I think Day of the Dragon works much more than Stormrage. if deathwings wins its bad. But its far from the end of all things.
Sorry for spelling and grammar I know i have issues but I try and like to do what I can. be good
I am liking the story Stormrage book so far. I guess if you are a writer and lore buff, I can see your point. However, there are many people who never played the prior WoW games, or read the novels that far back, and/or aren't writers (so style isn't an issue). For me, Stormrage and the like help to add another dimension to the Warcraft universe and help "flavor" things as I see them in the MMO.
@Omacron, I can believe your description, to be honest. He just strikes me as that type of person. And while, as I mentioned in the article, he's a much more prolific author than I could hope to be at this point, it's just unfortunate that he doesn't treat the setting with a little more respect for other people's work. It's not his personal playground. It's a shared universe.
@Stardancer, The issue to me is this: any well-written novel is going to add another dimension to the universe and enrich the background, whether it honors what came before it or not. Why should we, as fans of this setting, settle for the works that specifically don't honor what came before? A book that respects pre-existing lore isn't going to suddenly be uninteresting. A good story that honors previous works AND tells a compelling current story is easily possible.
I'm sick of disrespect to established lore. And it's not just Knaak with Furion and Tyrande, Golden did a poor job with Arthas' and Jaina's characterization. I don't know if they were told by Blizzard to do so, but it's just horrible. W3 is the "bible" of Warcraft lore, and thy just spit on it.
Knaak's problem, imo, is that he gives focus to new characters too much, and that he doesn't get older character's personality. I like his work, and although sometimes it's a bit hard to read it properly (NotD has a good pack of horrible-reading pages that m you want to stop reading) I like it.
Which doesn't mean I like what he does with already established lore. WotA was an utter fail, imo. I don't know who's the main responsible for it, but the time-travel was handed poorly. There was no need to destroy the already established lines, when they could just have it be built over a parallel universe or something, so the real history wasn't modified.
Finally, Knaak fails at describing too much, too. Sometimes he just describes thing too much, and it becomes redundant and repetitive.
Aside from that, I don't think he's a bad writer; but I definitely think Blizzard should look for more authors than just him and Golden. They have the money to get new authors in, and with more writers they could make more and better works. Knaak and Golden do a good job, but they don't need to do all the job.
How about find a new author, maybe think outside the box? Certainly they can afford to hire another author who can really make the novels into works of art, a novelist that is (or can be) highly respected among the warcraft fans, no?
I think your comments were spot on about Knaak, Greyseer. I'm glad to see someone harbors similar sentiments about Knaak and his writing.
@Suzanna (aka Stardancer) Blizzard has more authors writing works for WarCraft aside from Golden and Knaak. Metzen himself has written a novel: Of Blood and Honor. While some of it seems retconned, overall, his writing was pretty solid in that book and I wish Metzen would get back into writing gig. Jeff Gruub also did The Last Guardian, but that seems to be his only work in the WarCraft universe. I believe he did a StarCraft novel a while back, but that's about it. The Last Guardian is my personal favorite of all the WarCraft books; Gruub's style is absolutely riveting and I think he succeeded quite well in bringing greater depth to Khadgar's and Medivh's personalities - he literally brought them alive for me in a way that no other WarCraft author has managed to do (and to do exactly what Tharion wants Knaak to do). I'd love to see more of Gruub's work and I wish that Blizzard hired him to do more novels for them. I know there's quite a few more authors here and there that Blizzard has had do novels in the WarCraft universe, but they're far and few compared to Golden and Knaak.
Ive been mulling over the complaints. I'm coming into this having never played WC3. You sum up my feelings about the book - It isn't so much about the war of the Ancients as it was about the new characters. Now I always thought the characters were meant to be introduced by Blizz, if not that puts it in a new light. More like Fanfic you might find on the net.
I just started the Sunwell Manga and it seems...well awful.