Desire: Stromgarde

this went on for awhile huh

I didn’t look after my last post lol, but uh

I have long thought about how Teldrassil could be resettled despite it having, yknow, been burnt into a blackened husk. Before I thought it could’ve been rather interesting (though very obviously ghoulishly evil) if the Forsaken turned the husk of the world tree into their new city. Living in the hollowed out carcass of a once caretaker of life, with construction heavily resembling nerubian temples and Scourge necropolises, with a more traditional form of Forsaken construction behind those defenses. An elaborate throne overlooking the sea, shrouded by smoke and blackened wood.

But then the Horde stopped being evil (again) and so that already impossible idea became even more impossible.

Instead, I find an odd beauty in the cycle of wildfires and forests, how nature often curtails itself via burning. Regrowth from the ashes.

Teldrassil itself will never be restored, maybe, but this does not mean the nature endemic to it cannot rebound. The Night Elves return, Wardens of the Ashes, and cut down the dead, return it to the ground - then cutting into the stump of the tree, freeing the once-suffocating nature from the stifling ashes of the old tree. Druids come along, not to speed it along, but to safeguard it.

New Darnassus is a humble thing. Of low buildings and barrow dens, all spread out surrounding the scorched ruin of the Temple of Elune. It, being stone, survived the fire, though far from intact as it fell quite far from atop the great tree. The denizens of this place are a quiet, somber, contemplative bunch, often reserving their words and letting their expressions do all their speaking.

A grim reminder of what was taken from them. A monument to nature’s refusal to die, and the refusal of the Kaldorei to do the same.

Their hope restored. Who knew it could be so… quiet?

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An interesting look at teldrassil is that, it was always a monument to the hubris and arrogance of the elves.

This sounds cruel, and definitely not trying to make light of the innocent people who died there but merely thinking about how the story played out.

It was a tragic and doomed home from its onset. Grown without blessing or boon. It was plagued by corruption and withering. And in the end the arrogance of Staghelm cost the lives of many who had nothing to do with it.

The tree really could not have had another end, something would have always called it to finally fall.

Where the new tree, borne of nature’s blessing is their fresh start. A blessing renewed and an all new beginning.

Perhaps, then it is not right to resettle the burned out ruins?

Teldrassil is hallowed ground, and darkshore is scarred maybe forever.

I think it is a graveyard, a tomb. And the remnants of the tree should be left to its rest alongside those who died within it. Set those woods to slumber, and do not allow even the most innocent of trespassing that could disturb it.

Honestly, the reason I don’t really jive with that is that the logic isn’t really there.

There’s a lot said about why Teldrassil is a monument of arrogance or anything, but it’s never really explained. Was it built atop an old god? Was it because the Night Elves wanted immortality back? Was it some Highborne magic nonsense?

Ultimately, it doesn’t even matter, because by the time Teldrassil was burned, there’s no headcanon to be had about it. The motivations were so clear they spent two expansions beating us over the head with it–Teldrassil burned so Sylvanas could send more souls to the Super Devil.

That’s it.

There’s nothing “cruel” about anything. It all happened for the same reason everything in WoW happens–the plot needed it to.

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There isn’t a lot of logic to Sylvanas heel face turning so hard. The writing of shadowlands was a mixture of Alan mysognyst who was on his way out and a new team trying to pull the story out of the dumpster he tossed it in, in his bid to character assassinate a beloved female character, whose sole crime on a meta story level was being a woman.

The best we can do is take the lore we are given as writers and RPers and make the connections work best we can without tossing all that lore and the world in the garbage.

I would have preferred Sylvanas not have been done as dirty as she was, but I appreciate the new team"s attempt to salvage the writing the best way they could.

This lends a nice connection between the leveling storylines of cleansing corruption with a bittersweet ending of a doomed home they tried so desperately to cling to only to lose it anyway along with countless who knows how many of their people.

And then gives the community a satisfying end and a new beginning in a home that is blessed by nature in a place connected with the flights that blessed the first world tree. An acceptable conclusion to what was a really crappy fire Afrasiabi threw the story into.

It’s definitely not a perfect story, but a better writing team either could salvage that, of throw it all in the trash and retcon. I think they succeeded in fixing it with Belameth and the finale storyline, and would like them to take teldrassil that one small step further and turn it into a sacred, somber resting place. A tomb and a shrine out of reverence to those they lost, they have reclaimed what was lost, and Teldrassil has earned its final rest, cursed as it was from Staghelm"s machinations.

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Hot take : Sylvanas was never that interesting a character, and a lot of her interest and popularity was just from she was hot.

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I will happily and freely admit that my perception of a character’s relevance is shaped by hotness. But in this case, Sylvanas did actually standout by having a personality that wasn’t about shouting “HONOR” and swinging a sword (or staff in Jaina’s case. Or nothing in Baine’s case).

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If you told me Baine died during Shadowlands or Dragonflight, I’d be prone to believe you because I have no idea.

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Baine’s defining moment as a character should be the Jailer forgetting who he is and tossing him away.

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They keep trying to make Baine a thing. Baine hasn’t been a thing since WarCraft 3.

Baine’s greatest contribution to the WoW story has been to be kidnapped, captured, abducted or otherwise made helpless about sixty times.

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And sitting AFK for the majority of Shadowlands in Oribos.

No, literally Baine is the only character in WarCraft to remain true to his original self. As we are first introduced to him in Rexxar’s adventure in The Frozen Throne having been captured by Centaurs.

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So he’s Daphne from Scooby Doo

I feel bad for Daphne…er…Baine. They don’t know what else to do with him. They hand all the interesting Tauren things to other Tauren and he just gets to sit in a hallway and look pretty.

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I did that, too.

I feel bad. I really like Baine and would love to see him shine and have a defining plot and moment.

Now you’ve done it. He’ll be killed in the next expac.

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I mean, it’s obligatory one Horde leader gets killed or Alliance capital gets destroyed in every expansion.

I mean, we kinda saw Baine finally rip the albatrosses off in Dragonflight with the questline involving him finally dealing with his trauma and bias, and given that his tendency to sit back and try to be The Pacifist got one of his oldest and dearest friends, one of the people responsible for saving Baine when he was a child from the Kalimdor Centaur, slain by the Nokhud Centaur of the Dragon Isles, I can’t see him easily backsliding into being the Horde bench-warmer anytime soon.

If we really are seeing a return to the old days of Blizzard Story-Telling, ie the Vanilla/BC/Wrath era, and the Legion expansion, of questlines being interconnected and tied into the overall world rather than self-contained set-pieces like much of Warlords of Draenor, Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands, Baine could very well be stepping up and being far more useful to the story, which is going to be necessary with Thrall being on the front-lines with us in the War Within. Moreover, a more assertive Baine would be very useful to the Horde diplomatically, given that we don’t have a Peace Treaty between the Alliance and Horde, we only have a cease-fire.

Baine’s more agreeable nature was always seen as a weakness by the War-Hawks within the Horde’s leadership, and we still don’t know what torments he truly experienced in the Shadowlands, but Mayla mentions it still haunts him, years after the fact, and he’s loathe to talk about exactly what the Jailer and the Maw did to him. But if Baine’s now willing to be more assertive and throw his weight around, both politically and physically, to get the other members of the Horde Council to play nice and not Lok’tar their Ogar at the first sighting of the Alliance, that’s going to be a very potent boost for the Tauren in every regard. Given what we’ve seen in the beta for the War Within, Geya’rah is going to need several percussive vibe checks on a regular basis to not pick a fight with certain members of the Alliance leadership on sight, and given how little respect Geya’rah has for Thrall and Aggra, having Baine step up and give us Cairne vs Garrosh : Not A Novel Boogaloo, his new self-confidence and his very potent skills as a Totem Warrior could easily knock the revenge-seeking Geya’rah off her game and keep her from derailing the combined effort to tackle Xal’atath because “Muh Horn’haaar!” and other intrusive thoughts the Mag’har Leader may be dealing with.

If Baine actually did anything, he would lose his function as the guy they beat up to show how powerful they are.