The questline was kinda underwhelming for a patch feature. Maybe I set my expectations to high, but I was looking for something more akin to the Blue Dragonflight questline, in which we revisit the past and meet several characters, both major and minor.
I don’t mind Dalaran being destroyed and the Kirin Tor needing to rebuild itself. Upheaval and change are good things in any fictional universe. What bothers me about the questline is that it focus mostly on the “past mistakes” of the Kirin Tor, and even in that proposal it falls flat because it didn’t cover the real big mistakes.
How come there’s no mention of:
Garithos imprisoning Kael’thas and the blood elves under Dalaran, and the Kirin Tor complicity in it (we know Ansirem and Modera were part of the council back then).
The Purge of Dalaran. Really, we get a storyline with both Jaina and Aethas, and we skip their shared past and their mistakes in it? (And no, the blame doesn’t fall only on Jaina’s shoulders. Aethas was the one who appointed the guy who would lead Theramore to destruction, and he also covered for the Sunreavers stealing the Divine Bell in hopes they wouldn’t be found out). This was a perfect way for both to atone for that mess.
The Kirin Tor’s tendency of teleporting Dalaran to warzones. Really, you have a city full of civilians and you teleport it entirely to fight Malygos, the Lich King, the Legion, and Xal’atath? No wonder it eventually fell into a trap and blew up.
Instead, the story focus on fabricated problems:
Blaming Kel’thuzad’s experiments on the Kirin Tor is foolish because the Kirin Tor eventually found his experiments and banned him. Maybe the story should have covered instead why he wasn’t imprisoned? Maybe he had political connections with the Six that made them just expel him out, so there could be real criticism on the Kirin Tor mixing their authority with politics.
Keeping documents on the mana bomb? If the Kirin Tor invented the things and had the sole access to them, that criticism could be fair. But since it’s the Blood Elves that created and dominated that tech, not having documents on it is a sure way to not be able to deal with it when the need comes.
Besides that, the questline is flawed in ignoring most of the Kirin Tor characters.
While it’s understandable and even desirable for Jaina and Kalekgos to appear, I wish the questline was driven by Kirin Tor characters that aren’t heavily tied to other factions, like Aethas, Meryl, and Modera. Having these minor characters in the forefront is always nice to enhance the public’s perception on them. That’s how minor characters have a chance to level up in importance.
Speaking of Modera, who’s confirmed to be alive since she made Khadgar’s wheelchair, how come we didn’t learn the fates of the other members of the Six? I know Karlain, Ansirem and Vargoth aren’t exactly popular characters, but they should appear or at least be mentioned, and their status should be cleared, even if it’s just that they are MIA.
Where’s Vereesa? She’s not technically Kirin Tor but she leads the Silver Covenant, was married to a former Council member and had Dalaran as her home for decades. Blizzard is likely waiting Midnight to give us updates on her new home (are the high elves settling somewhere?), but having her here wouldn’t hurt.
I’d love to see Rommath’s opinion on all this. He’s our favorite Kirin Tor hater, and I bet he could add some much needed commentary on both Garithos’ actions and the Purge of Dalaran.
Anyway, I think the intention of the questline was nice but the execution wasn’t good, which also undermines both the characters’ resolution and the final send-off. However, it feels the storyline isn’t over and we may get more chapters later, so hopefully the story still has the chance to get better.
I agree with most of these criticisms, but it should be noted that Garithos and the Kirin Tor have very little to do with each other. By the time Dalaran’s resources are used to imprison Kael’thas’s forces, there are massive power vacuums in Lordaeron. Terenes is dead, Antonidas is dead, Quel’thalas and Lordaeron have been sacked by the Scourge, Dalaran was partially destroyed by Archimonde, etc. The Council of Six at this time is practically non-existent as well.
Garithos just happened to survive it all and be capable of seizing power. He acted like a dictator and his actions are not representative of Humans, the Kirin Tor or any other factions that could be considered ‘his’ during that time period.
I’d agree with you when basing it only on the Warcraft 3 version of the story. However, in the Lor’themar short story “In the shadow of the sun”, there’s this exchange between Rommath and Aethas:
“A monumental betrayal,” Rommath said, his voice nearly a whisper. His eyes glittered with seething anger that nearly a decade had failed to quell. “In Dalaran,” he continued, “beneath the ever-watchful eyes of the Kirin Tor.”
“They really had nothing to do with—”
“I assume you mean,” Rommath interrupted, “that the Kirin Tor did nothing. Did nothing to prevent it, did nothing to stop it. And instead”—his voice began to rise—“left us to rot in the prisons beneath a city many of us called home as much as ever we did Silvermoon. A city our own crown prince had served as faithfully as his own homeland for longer than a human lifetime. A city we fought and died for, and at the request of the Kirin Tor. A city within whose walls they would have watched, in silence, as we all swung from a hangman’s noose. Their city.”
“The Kirin Tor find themselves under new leadership,” Aethas replied, and Lor’themar felt that his controlled tone spoke well of the young archmage.
“That is a lie, and you know it,” Rommath said. “Rhonin may be their figurehead, but Modera and Ansirem remain on the council. These are the same people who happily turned their eyes away when Garithos sentenced us to death. They can all rot in hell, or better yet, in Arthas’s army as Scourge,” he scoffed.
If paints the Kirin Tor of complicity by inaction, and even that the Six knew what was happened back then. This was never elaborated on, so I think the new questline could be the perfect way to provide more clarity on it, as well as give the Kirin Tor a defense, if any.
When we think about it, having Rommath there in the questline acting as prosecutor on the Kirin Tor’s faults would have been awesome.
It’s time to kill off the kirin tor, they cause more problems than their help is worth. And for being the experts in all things magical they get blindsided by magic way too easy.
sits atop a pile of smoldering Night Elf corpses while eating a sandwich I killed a Brennadam resident for
Jaina is a murdering monster!!
Jokes aside I will never understand the hate Jaina gets. Frankly her just killing a few Blood Elves in Dalaran is pretty tame. Seeing how she championed for the Horde and how she was repaid by the Horde for that. Even now she is still better than me because my fight with Aethas would be on sight.
sings
Do you wanna fight meeee
do you wanna catch these haaands
It always gets blown out of proportion. While the Purge of Dalaran obviously went overboard, its purpose was to contain the Horde elements in the city. The orders were to imprison them and kill the ones who resisted, and they were in war time, and the Sunreavers, as a political entity, had commited treason. One can say the Silver Covenant was a bit too trigger-happy on exacting revenge, but the actions of its individual members should not fall on Jaina’s shoulders except as guilt for how her orders spiraled out of control.
Besides, Aethas was not blameless. He appointed the guy that betrayed Theramore, leading to its destruction and Jaina’s grief. He then voted for Jaina to join and lead the Council. And then he found out about the Divine Bell theft and kept quiet in hopes of the Sunreaver involvement not being found. While he didn’t actively work against the Kirin Tor and is not responsible on each Sunreaver’s actions, he was the caretaker of the Sunreavers as a group and let them act on Garrosh’s behalf.
My prevailing thought throughout this questline was “man, I sure hope people don’t focus so hard on my flaws and mistakes at my funeral like these people are at Dalaran’s!”
nothing she ever does is presented as objectively wrong in the narrative, and everything she ever does is always justified no matter what.
but this will inevitably, as with every single thread Jaina gets mentioned in, devolve into Yet Another Re-Litigation Of The Purge of Dalaran. Because that is the only thing that Jaina has ever been involved in where it can even be slightly insinuated that she maybe possibly did something slightly somewhat wrong…maybe.
Yes, Yes, I know, divine bell theramore teldrassil Horde are monsters Jaina was right. whatever, at this point.
The Silver Covenant as waiting for that day and Vereesa’s husband did die in that attack. It makes perfect sense that the Silver Covenant would go 100% overboard with their aggression. It is a shame that the Alliance is always expected to take the high road when things happen. Bomb a few cities, blight some people, ransack some homes and then just blame it on Anduin or Greymane. Then apologize, set up a few councils, maybe do a few Maw dailies and then talk about how we are better together. As an Undead Horde player this works.
Even in game, Jaina is teleporting targets to the Violet Hold. When the teleport is on CD, she will throw a fireball or blizzard, but more often than not the teleport gets available and she teleports the civilians away before they die. To make Jaina kill someone, she needs to aggro several of them into her blizzard spell, and some will slowly die by AoE before she can teleport them all away.
It’s very clear even in-game that she’s not killing them on purpose, though it can happen. War has this sort of consequences.
Not a mistake. Dalaran acted as a massive and critical base of operations in the wars that saved the world. What’s dumb is the questline presenting this as a mistake.
“No more floating cities and meddling with world affairs,” Khadgar says, or something very close to that line. The Kirin Tor meddling with world affairs and teleporting their city is why the world didn’t fall to Sargeras.
The reason the story falls flat more than anything is that for all the moral faults of the Kirin Tor in the past, none of them are why it got destroyed. Xal’atath is an outside entity at war with the entire world, and Dalaran is just a casualty of that.
It’d be different if they had built up some long story of civil strife and the Silver Covenant and Sunreavers went to war against each other in the city, and the civil war results in its destruction or something. But this was just, “Oh, Xal’atath has a super weapon and no one can stop it and it feeds on the city’s arcane energy to blow it up.”
Trying to create a tone of Dalaran’s destruction stemming from the Kirin Tor’s faults just isn’t earned. If anything, the tone should’ve been the opposite. One of giving credit, not blame, to the Kirin Tor of the past, who played a critical role in saving the world on multiple occasions.
All the main characters are badly written. Thrall is a good boy hero orc, but keeps his hands clean by ignoring stuff or conveniently forgetting things, like the Forsaken war crimes from vanilla on, or all the atrocities Doomhammer committed. He’s an incompetent leader who turns a blind eye or at most frowns discouragingly at these things, but “new horde good” etc.
Lying? I have two videos to prove, one as Horde, one as Alliance. Taken during MoP Remix so that level scaling does not affect the results. Unfortunately I can’t post links to Twitter here, but you can search “Jaina teleports civilian from:deicideop” and it will lead to the tweet. Its reply has the Alliance version.
And that’s actually realistic, lol. Not defending the writing, Blizzard really needs to fix a lot in that area, but I take the leaders being bad as not a real issue, since people aren’t perfect or even coherent. It’s the contrast between their portrayal and their actions that is bad.
If anything I want her to double down like Garrosh. I want to hear about how the good sometimes have to suffer with the bad. That how the world is not fair and just like she had to make peace with that unfairness others should do. How we should try to move past this to a brighter, better future. Maybe she could even do the non-apology apology “If you felt hurt by anything I did I am sorry”.
Let Jaina live like the Horde. We don’t apologize, we just say we are going to do better but then keep doing the same thing.