Kael’thas may have chosen to keep the title of prince as respect for his father, but for all intents and purposes, he was king of the blood elves, their leader and ruler. Since at the time, Quel’Thalas had briefly rejoined the Alliance, wouldn’t Kael outrank Garithos, a minor nobleman and self proclaimed “grand marshal”.
Even if his title of prince was being taken at face value, earlier in WC3 we were shown a prince still pretty much outranks anyone else except the king, as evidenced when Arthas basically fired Uther and disbanded the Silver Hand at Stratholme, despite the fact that Uther outranked him as a Paladin.
Kael’thas, as leader of an entire alliance race, as far as we know, was the highest ranking Alliance official in Lordaeron, until he left the Alliance.
Because he was human, and it was the Alliance of Lordaeron, which the elves seceeded from after the 2nd war.
Kael had a different relationship with humanity than the rest of his people (Windrunner sisters excluded), because he was part of the Kirin’tor, and so felt guilty for his people not aiding the Alliance earlier.
Because of that guilt, he deferred to the Alliance commander, who happened to be a racist ars3hole. There was no doubt some resentment amongst the troops aswell, so even if Kael had tried to assert command over Garithos, it’s doubtful the army would have followed.
Kael was a prince, but he was from Qul’thalas. Garithos was the High Marshal of Lordaeron. They’re two different nations. Garithos doesn’t bow to Kael because Kael isn’t his prince. This is different to Arthas and Uther because the two paladins were from the same kingdom.
Garithos also had the larger army in a land without government. Something something monopoly of violence.
Because back in TFT, the story they wanted to tell was of the dashing, misunderstood edge lord who is also exiled royalty suffering under the boot heel of a blustering incompetent bigot.
I mean, mission accomplished? Yay, you did it!
I like Kael well enough on the whole, but cripes, if I were at a table top group with his player, well, lets be real. I’d politely hold my tongue and still have a good time- but part of my brain would be cringing hard.
This is true. There’s a layer of irony to Kael and Garithos’ relationship, as Garithos despised the elves for their selfish conduct after the Second War, yet Kael was one of the few who felt genuine loyalty towards the Alliance and even spurned his duty to his own kingdom and father to continue in Dalaran alongside the humans.
It really was a case of creating your own antagonist.
Bigger army diplomacy. Plus Chronicle Volume 3 revealed that both Ironforge and Quel’thalas recognized Garithos as the Lordaeron commander by the time of the events of Frozen Throne. Thus even if Kael’thas didn’t recognize Garithos’s authority the fact that Ironforge did give Garithos more support in clashes of leadership because Garithos wouldn’t submit to Kael’s authority since he hates elves.
In the end Kael’thas was pragmatic enough to kneel to Garithos to help beat the Scourge in the Eastern Kingdoms, while Garithos let his pragmatism kick in when it came to working with the Forsaken…who were led by an undead elf.
Brennadam still just feels so random to me. It’s like here are evil tide-sages, quilboar, and then suddenly boom the Horde is doing everything in their power to destroy this little town as if the town itself had done some grave offense to the Horde.
IT’s a combination of the shade of green and that I rather like Stormspeaker Qian.
It feels random because it was originally designed with the Quilboar doing the attack, which made sense as he culmination of that story arc. But then Blizzard decided the Horde weren’t clear enough antagonists (!!!) and redesigned it to be a Horde raid.
Clearly his rejoining was under the acceptance he’d be subordinate to the commander he sought out to help before he rejoined. As evidence by doing just that, acknowledging that Garithos was in charge.
A nobleman, who self proclaimed him self a grand marshal with no ones approval, should have been overthrown by his troops and had an actual Alliance leader, a King in everything but name, in charge. Especially since his troops, mostly the non humans, would have found Garithos unbearable.
The dwarves, gnomes and elves would have likely preferred Kael as leader.