After reading Exploring Azeroth Eastern Kingdoms it hit me that the spy that gives Shaw all the intel he needs on Silvermoon politics is Valeera Sanguinar. I am surprised that Bob hasn’t put out an order to deny her entry to Quel’thalas considering in another faction war it is gonna bite him in the back when she knows about the defenses of the city, the size of the army and which nobles they need to bribe for more alliance support. For me she is on par with Vereesa of being a traitor who puts friendship over homeland. Exile Valeera now before her two faced scheming can bear fruit.
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You can’t exile her. It’s cold out there and she hasn’t got any pants
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Valeera isn’t the only Blood Elf partisan. There are so many connections within the echelons of Silvermoon society that Shaw felt comfortable more or less in Silvermoon. That should imply that of all the Horde races the Blood Elves are the most Alliance friendly and the only race who I would bet would be even more accommodating are Goblins only because gold is a motivator the Gobs need to do the Alliance’s dirty work. Thirdly would probably be Baine and his Tauren.
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Valeera has been an extremely weird character for a long time. She’s unambiguously an Alliance character - red armor aside - but Blizzard has this fetish for treating her like a Horde character.
She’s not a “traitor” because her loyalties have always been clearly and explicitly to Stormwind’s ruling family. The only mystery is why she was ever allowed in Silvermoon at all.
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I think there’s some comic about Varian saving Valeera or vice versa so I think she just feels indebted to the Alliance somehow. I don’t know anything for sure.
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Not really. She made it clear in both Wrath and the comic that she operates outside of the Alliance, has never acted on its behalf against the Horde, and only really came into her own as a WoW character after Legion’s big neutral content push. In BfA, she spent more time as the Horde’s agent than Anduin’s and nearly took a fireball from Jaina for it.
This is fairly generous impartiality on her part, considering some idiot writer introduced her as an enslaved gladiator in Thrall’s Horde.
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She is loyal to the royal family of Stormwind. That makes her alliance aligned. That is reason enough to deny her entry to Silvermoon.
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I don’t think she’s been to Silvermoon in WoW’s lifetime, or even interacted with a fellow blood elf outside the comic. For all her fence-sitting, her total lack of interaction with this race she takes such pride in is a big missed opportunity. I’d be interested to know what Silvermoon’s leaders make of this patriotic blood elf who holds House Wrynn’s confidences.
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What Silvermoon leaders? Blizzard killed them all. That was literally half of the TBC plot. The last remaining elves are either neutral(Sylvanas) or joined the Alliance (Vereesa and Alleria).
Edith: I don’t consider Bob, Halduron, Rommath or Liadrin as leaders. Their characters didn’t exist prior to Wow. Unlike Kale’thas and all his lieutenants who were well established since Warcraft 3.
Does Valeera even hang out in Silvermoon these days? I’ve never seen her there (granted, Silvermoon is stuck in BC times). How would she even know the latest gossip to pass on to Shaw?
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No but all the hints show us she is spying on her people for the sake of the ruling house of Stormwind.
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AFAIK Valeera has never fit in with other Blood elves at all. She’s always considered herself an outcast from Blood elf society.
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Hypothetically, do you think she’d refuse if Anduin asked her to do something against the Horde?
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Of course she would. Blizzard literally retconed the Horde to invent slavery again. So she has no loyalty to Quel’thalas.
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Most likely, she would refuse. She fits in well as a Faction-Free agent. She also is featured more in Horde aligned quests than Alliance, but is undoubtedly friendly to House Wrynn.
OP think of her as akin to Calia Menethil. They were introduced via the books/comics and thus are not really centered around the Faction conflict. She likes both Alliance and Horde, her friends were Rehgar Earthfury, Broll Bearmantle, and Varian Wrynn. She offers her assets to both Alliance and Horde. In regards to her identity she is actually a part of the New Council of Tirisfal according to the comics (AKA Med’an and his group of friends).
Basically asking her to choose between Alliance and Horde is asking to choose between mom and dad.
Sure. I mean, she claims she’d never fight the Horde on the Alliance’s behalf, anyway. Even if she doesn’t give a damn about it as an institution - it’s certainly never given her a reason to - she’d lose her vaunted independence if she were caught assassin-ing for the Alliance.
I think it’s interesting that since Anduin’s vacation they’ve had her build a rapport with the Horde’s friendlier characters instead. Baine, Calia, even Lor’themar to a degree (I guess she has met another blood elf in WoW). Maybe we’ll see her engage in more red-relevant affairs now the Alliance is headed up by two characters who probably wouldn’t be sympathetic to her boundaries.
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The time has passed and then some, but missed opportunity for Thrall to… like… care about Earthfury’s side hustle.
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Seriously. Thrall permitting a gladitorial slave ring to operate in his Horde was only borderline character assassination because the writers forgot to give him an opinion on this heinous practice he, personally, has every reason to object to. Sylvanas only got as far as she did as warchief thanks to that same masterful technique.
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Personally, I would rather she just end being turned into a void elf. I don’t particularly like neutral groups to be honest.
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I can’t help noticing a degree of copium in this thread. Blizzard fails miserably at so called neutral characters or organizations.
You can’t have a character swear fealty or loyalty to the ruling house that leads the opposing faction and claim neutrality and expected to be taken seriously. The character needs to be locked away in a cupboard and never used again.
Likewise Calia in the Forsaken just turns them into a bunch of witless clowns, which funnily enough is how they are presented to push the lordaeron scenario.
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