I'm glad Wrathion didn't change

Lore Story Forum
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He’s been one of my favorite characters since the old Fangs of the Father questline, and so given how many other characters are wildly OOC and doing complete 180s in BfA, I was terrified of him appearing in 8.3.

But after buying a month sub to check out the patch, I was pleasantly surprised to see him being just the same as he always was, not some compeltely different person wearing Wrathion’s skin like for example Lilian Voss. His new models look cool too, human and both dragon forms (in fact his boss model is basically what I had hoped Deathwing would look like before Cata came out).

Now hopefully he won’t disappear for eight years again.
Also Blizz should never have removed his MoP legendary quest the permanently neutral Black Prince rep on this toon is bothering me so bad.

Anyway tl;dr, Wrathion was a very welcome positive in the crap of BfA.

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I don’t think anyone did a 180 in BFA. Literally every character is the same character they were before.

Except for maybe the cinematics where Blizz likes to cause their characters to get so mad so fast, lol. Like when Jaina starts prepping a spell against Baine just cause she saw Derek as Undead, lol. Or when Anduin just sucker punched Wrathion, lol.

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While I get what you’re saying, I don’t think either of those are good examples.

Baine literally brought Jaina’s dead brother to (I think, memory fuzzy) the ruins of Theramore, and surprised her with him. There was no “hey, he’s okay”, it was “surprise zombie”. I’d be a little jumpy, too.

And if memory serves, the entire point of that was to show that it was already starting. Wrathion mentioned it would make people act contrary to their nature. What’s more contrary than Anduin throwing the first punch without getting background information? Recall how he was looking at his fist, afterwards?

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Is that so unrealistic? Some people can be triggered. Especially if you happen to be near the site of a tragedy.

Well he was being influenced by N’zoth. But honestly, I expect it was something Anduin has wanted to do for a long time to a guy who betrayed him and ultimately was a cause of his father’s death.

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I’m also satisfied with his characterization in BFA.

Still haughty. Still think he knows what’s best for everyone. Still willing to put in the work to make it happen.

I’m still hoping that someday he’ll bring the Black Dragonflight to the Horde and playable Black Drakonids with it.

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…How?

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Wrathion was behind Garrosh kickstarting WoD -> the events of WoD caused Legion -> Wrathion inadvertently caused Legion

Anduin points it out in the cinematic himself.

Though granted the demons would have come sooner or later anyway.

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Source?

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Wrathion was apart of the Rescue Garrosh from his trial in Pandaria crew. He helped with imprisoning Chromie when she got suspicious of Kairoz and he personally knocked Anduin out before he could warn everyone. Thus in helping Kairoz get Garrosh to Alt Draenor Wrathion was apart of the sequence of events that led to AU Gul’dan coming to Azeroth and the Battle for Broken Shore that ended with Varian’s death.

I know alot of people were wondering where Wrathion was in Legion since he spent time in Mists warning that the Legion would be returning and then when they did he was just nowhere to be seen, except for a brief moment in the Chromie thing.

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War Crimes. Garrosh’s time traveling was masterminded by Wrathion and Kairoz, who planned on using the Iron Horde to defend Azeroth against the Legion (keyword planned). When Garrosh killed Kairoz it went off the rails.

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I understand the chain of logic Anduin uses here, but… I mean, it’s exactly one step removed from blaming Varian for his own death, for WoD, for the Legion invasion, for Vol’jin’s death and for Sylvanas’s rule over the Horde and all the deaths it caused.

Because before Wrathion could free Garrosh and all the unintended consequences that followed, Varian had to stop Thrall from killing him. Sure, Varian had no way of knowing sparing Garrosh on the spot would lead to all the rest, but… Neither could Wrathion. Andy should be blaming Taran Zu as well, and of course blaming himself (which, ok, we’ll probably see him doing in a book anyway). Both of them also stopped Garrosh from dying pre-WoD.

For that matter, the players are the one to free Gul’Dan in WoD and have a closer connection to the events that led to Varian dying. While Garrosh somehow finding a Tardis and going back to the future to save his pops isn’t something Wrathion or anyone could reasonably expect, letting Gul’Dan live when he’s powerless to stop you from killing him reasonably will lead to something terrible later on down the road, likely involving demons.

I’d hoped there was something I missed tying Wrathion closer to Varian’s death, because this logic hole just goes deeper the more you look at it.

If Thrall hadn’t made Garryorc warchief, Varian would have lived!
If Jaine hadn’t stopped her pops from killing Thrall, Varian would have lived!
If Kael’thas didn’t set things up to get us to Outland where Thrall found Garry, Varian would have lived!
If Azshara hadn’t first summoned demons to Azeroth, Varian would have lived!
If Velen had killed his friends in their sleep as soon as Sargy started coming around, Varian would have lived!!!

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Oh c’mon now…

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Truth.

Because I have a habit I was trying to fix lore and stories, I would like to posit let me be the reason behind some of that anger was the whole n’zoth thing. Just because that would fit in with the idea that n’zoth have been working behind the scenes for a long period of time. Mind you, I don’t have any actual basis for that decision besides me wanting things to make sense.

As an interesting aside? I’m composing this on my phone. I am using talk-to-text. Talk to text for some baffling reason correctly guessed n’zoth. Except now that I’ve noticed that, it keeps guessing other things.

…

/eyebrow

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I don’t know… something about Wrathion is irritating me. And it is less about him and more about his place in the story.

We spent a while on Timeless Isle farming up stuff to give to Kairoz, and he ends up working with Wrathion to free Garrosh. (Who was appointed by Thrall as Warchief, and when Thrall sought to rectify that mistake, Garrosh was then spared by Varian… as others mentioned.)

We murder hobos of both Factions are letting that slide because the High King, his Elven Spymistress, and the Dwarven Mountain King tell us to. (Wait… wasn’t there a Horde in this expansion? Nevermind them.)

Then we spend another patch giving him stuff. He even gets Xalatath due to our actions. I am not sure what will happen canonically and who lorewise will be involved in the Raid clear other than Azshara and Wrathion, but I am sure “adventurers” would be named as being a part of it.

Of all the things that I have done in this game, being Wrathion’s lackey a second time makes me feel like I am just making the universe even worse for kicks, like a junkie.

At least working with Sylvanas got me something. I got to punish the Alliance and generally have some fun. There was some satisfaction. And a bit of a choice: I could be a Loyalist, a Traitor, or Alliance.

However, anyone with a cape is helping Wrathion, with no choice. Even if canonically only one adventurer got the cape, and it is canonically a different adventurer than the one who helped Wrathion in MoP, it is still really unsatisfying to be helping Wrathion.

Wrathion says “it seems our fates are intertwined” or some such. So he recognizes our adventurer. Maybe I am looking too deeply into it. But it is more a feeling of satisfaction vs not, I suppose.

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iirc, Wrathion did make a brief cameo in WoD after one of the quest turn-ins at the Kirin Tor base in Talador (but it was a blink-and-you-miss-it type of deal) and was later mentioned in Spires of Arak.

So he wasn’t totally gone for eight years.

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If you want something “logical” about it then consider the fact Anduin considered him a friend. That his shinanigans was a personal betrayal that ultimately did lead to his father’s death.

I’d also point out the blood elves are willing to blame all of humanity for what Garithos did. Or that Sylvanas used a series of events that may or may not cause the Alliance/Horde to forever be at war as justfication for starting the war of thorn.

Also, emotions are hardly logical at the best of times.

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You mean when Jaina saw her brother, who had been dead for years, resurrected as an undead in the middle of a complete war of annihilation, right after all of the extremely terse interactions she’d had with the Horde, the foremost of which took place in the ruins of the city they’d chosen to meet in?

You mean when Anduin sucker punched the guy who betrayed his trust and released an incredibly unstable war criminal into an alternate dimension that set off a chain of events that led to the death of his father, especially after he strode into the throne room as though he HADN’T done all of those things?

Yeah, both of those are bad examples.

… did you really just ask this?

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Yes. And? I asked for a source for proof. I wouldn’t think fact checking was wrong? I didn’t read War Crimes.

Lol. Yes, yes, prep a spell to kill a friend, with a vert shoot first, ask questions later mentality. Which, btw, is not at all Jaina’s style. Maybe MoP Jaina. But not any more.

So you mean to tell me the Priest, pacifist, never quick to anger, diplomat, would just sucker punch someone wanting to have a conversation. Anduin has never, ever, ever been shoot first, ask questions later.

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Baine is hardly Jaina’s friend. Baine has not been Jaina’s friend since the Bloodhoof tribe participated in the attack on Theramore. Go through all of that and then watch your sibling get raised as a zombie, and THEN presume that she was acting irrationally. Asking if Derek, who was dead for years and raised against his will, is “the bomb this time” after she got kicked in the head time after time for trusting the Horde is a perfectly valid question, and prepping a spell is a perfectly understandable response.

No, I’m saying that Anduin the individual who lost his father thanks to Wrathion’s actions is very rightfully entitled to be infuriated with him to the point of physical violence - in fact I’d say Wrathion got off easily. Past that, the point of that cutscene was to show that N’Zoth was making Anduin act uncharacteristically - which is silly, given that Wrathion absolutely deserves to get socked.

You’re expecting these characters to act like paragons of virtue rather than actual characters who have experienced real trauma. You want flat and soulless individuals with no nuance.

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First one is inaccurate. Not going to debate my facts vs your opinions.

Second one is still completely out of character. But if you wanna say it was N’Zoth corruption, alright, as you say. You do you.