Jaina’s story in BfA

So I went and did a lot of BfA content now that it’s easy, and I know lore pretty well, but it’s kinda jumbled. So what’s the story of Jaina in order?

Also need a refresher on how she “betrayed” her father. But was that in like…Warcraft 3 or like recent with the attack on Teldrasill?

We do the intro BfA quest and throw us in jail.

Then we’re going to Zandalar because…of…things. And she’s just trying to get away from the Horde is the premise of the boss fight, right?

Then Eternal Palace we’re just doing the typical good v evil thing.

The Invasion of Durotar, in War3: The Frozen Throne, where she refused to help Daelin in his attack on the Horde.

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Jaina allowed the Horde to attack Theramore, which was recently taken over by her father. She did this to maintain the fragile peace Theramore had with the Horde post Battle for Mount Hyjal. The only condition though was that the Horde did not actively go out of their way to kill any civilians or anyone wearing Theramores banner (which is a gold and white version of the Kul Tiras flag). And this was in WC3: TFT, mainly the Founding of Durator bonus campaign.

As for Jainas story in BFA the order goes like this.

  1. Jaina arrives in Boralus with the PC where she is confronted by her Mother and Lady Ashvane.
  2. We are handed over to the mercy of Ashvane. While the PC ends up in Tol Dagor, Jaina is nowhere to be seen in the prison.
  3. After Ashvane is exposed as being a traitor, Katharine, at Genns advice seeks to learn where her daughter is.
  4. We go to Freehold (the uninstanced version) where we find a chest belonging to Harlan Sweete. However none of the keys we have open the chest.
  5. Flynn notices the lock is the same one the Ashvane company uses. So we go to Tol Dagor to get the Ashvane Skeleton key from the Warden.
  6. We learn that Jaina has been banished to ‘Fate’s End’. We go seek the aid of the tidesages to reach it.
  7. With the aid of Brother Pike (after doing some tasks), we go to the Island that Ashvane banished Jaina to and learn that Jaina is now trapped inside Thros. A realm connected to the Drust. Ashvane has been using this Island as a way to deal with… important threats…
  8. We go to Drustvar and talk to Ulfur, the last remaining living Drust and one of the ones that fought against Gorak Tul all those years ago. Ulfur provides us with the means of entering Thros after doing some tasks for him.
  9. We end up finding Jaina and Katharine learns the truth about what happened in Theramore. How Jaina tried to save Daelin from the very war he started but failed.
  10. After forgiving Jaina, Gorak Tul attacks but is defeated once and for all.
  11. Unfortunately Ashvane is back with a pirate armada along with some… fishy allies and attacks Boralus (Siege of Boralus dungeon).
  12. We push back Ashvanes forces, including killing her pet Kraken (this Kraken also attacks Anglepoint Wharf in a side quest set before the dungeon). Katharine gives Daelins pendent back to Jaina, who frees the Kul Tiran fleet from Stormsongs spell.
  13. With Ashvanes surrender, Katharine abdicates the position of Lord Admiral and gives it to Jaina.
  14. We fast forward to Battle for Dazar’alor
  15. Then we have the Nazjatar stuff

In terms of the questlines. Events 1 and 2 are part of the intro experience to Boralus. Events 3 up to and including step 10 are part of the Pride of Kul Tiras questline. Which iirc requires you to complete the main storylines of the 3 Kul Tiras zones (Tiragarde Sound, Drustvar and Stormsong Valley) along with the first 3 chapters of the War Campaign. Events 11 to 13 are in the Siege of Boralus dungeon, with events 12 and 13 in the cutscene that plays after. Event 14 is the BoD raid and event 15 is the Najzatar storyline and the Eternal Palace raid.

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Warcraft 3.
Daelin and his troops took over Theramore, intending to wage war against the Horde. Jaina was opposed to this and assisted Thrall and Rexxar in taking control of the city in order to overthrow Daelin by making plans with them and providing them with goblin ships to do so. However, she does not participate in the fight.

It’s also said that she directed her own troops to be passive, though I’m not sure if there is an actual source for that.

She basically betrayed her own father, causing the Horde to destroy the majority of the Kul’Tiras navy. Warbringer: Jaina refers to that event.

  1. BFA-Intro
  2. Zones: Tiragarde, Drustvar, Stormsong
    [Perhaps you still need Loremaster to start:]
  3. Jainas Questline
    (see Denonas post for content)
  4. Jaina originally wanted Kul’Tiras to join the Alliance to counter the Horde’s naval superiority if they allied with the Zandalari. With her being named Lord Admiral after that questline (lol), she was successful with this.

This is part of the war campaign, a separate questline that runs parallel to Jaina’s story before overlapping with it. The Alliance wants to pillage Zuldazar so that they do not side with the Horde. (lol)

And yes, the Alliance retreats in the end and the Horde wants revenge.

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This is the single most backwards logic possible lmao

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Really, the Alliance has just gotten twitchy due to not razing a Troll city in so long.

It’d been like what, 20 years? Since Llane and Medivh nuked the Gurubashi for the lols?

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To be fair, from what I recall, it was more, “We have intelligence that the Horde is courting the Zandalari for an alliance. We need to pre-emptively deal with this, and prevent it if at all possible.”

And then no attempts are made to actually PREVENT it from happen, and all the focus is on crippling the Zandalari so that they don’t give the Horde an edge in the war once they do join forces.

It’s typical Blizzard writing. Similar to the Tauren saying the Forsaken should join the Horde because the Tauren believe they could be healed, and then not once, ever, was any attempt by the Tauren to do that for the Forsaken ever made.

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On the subject of Jaina in BFA, I ran Battle for Dazar’alor for the first time to farm some transmog.

If you go in there as Horde, whole gauntlet wing of the raid is an army of ice elementals and tornadoes she conjours up. This is before she snap-freezes the sea, crushing the few remaining Zandalari ships in the ice.

Nothing really to add, she’s just stupidly powerful. Is there a friendly character in this setting that can top her gross displays of raw power? Maybe Malfurion doing …whatever it was he was supposed to be doing with that tornado in Darkshore in Cataclysm.

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If it wasn’t for Blizzard’s typical contrivances, the Horde and Alliance wouldn’t have any reason to be hostile to one another. Jaina Proudmoore’s attack on Zandalar isn’t even the most pointless and egregious source of fighting between the Horde and Alliance.

Take the Worgen and Forsaken rivalry for example.

Worgen:

From the Worgen perspective, the Forsaken Queen invaded them for no reason, and then killed their prince and blew a biological agent in their capital city when she realized she was about to lose. You fled to the far corners of the earth, taking shelter with other races who rented out their worst Airbnb options to your people.

A few years later, you’re sent with your king to spy on the Forsaken, and he decides to attack, which costs the Alliance its trump card. You fight and spar with the Forsaken all pumped for revenge, while your king fights their queen. Your king smashes their queen’s new toy, and considers it a major victory.

Later, the Forsaken queen tells the Horde that because you attacked her on the Broken Isles, she and the Horde should attack your Airbnb, which burns down because it’s apparently not up to proper fire codes. You are once again homeless—double homeless.

A decade later your king and princess finally decides to return to your country to find it’s full of racist squatters who you have to throw out with the help of the Forsaken who forced you to leave. The princess is crowned as the new queen, because the king is embarrassed that he’s old and still racist.

Forsaken:

From the Forsaken perspective, Garrosh was literally about to throw your poeple out of the Horde unless you invaded an entire country you had previously left alone, so that he could use it to build a single port. After failing to hold it, you are counter-invaded by the Wolf-people who lived there, and now half of your territory is full of them. You’re flown into Gilneas to check on the viability of holding the nation, and declare it a bust when the Alliance reinforces it via the 7th Legion. As far as you understand it, the Alliance owns Gilneas and the war is over.

Surprise, the Gilneans heard you’re headed to the Broken Isles and they’re mad about it. They ambush you and do their best to cause problems, while you’re just trying to collect the Maguffins for Dalaran. You’re not sure why this is going on in the middle of the largest Burning Legion invasion, but everyone just kind of shrugs afterwards.

Your queen orders you to invade the Night Elf lands to get back at the Gilneans, and you’re ordered to hold it. You start getting flashbacks of Garrosh’s stupid port idea. You lose and retreat again, just like last time.

Eventually you’re brought in by Lillian who wants to pay a favor to her fellow Uncrowned gal-pal, who happens to be the princess of Gilneas, and Calia wants to help the Gilneans get their country back. Again, you’re not even sure why they don’t have it because it was full of 7th Legion and Gilnean regiments when you last saw it.

You fight the Scarlets alongside the Gilneans and then leave while Calia names herself queen, thinking no one would notice, so you slap her and the Blizzard quest writer, and she drops the unearned title in embarrassment.

So what was the point of all that?

The Worgen are sold something of a cartoon rivalry where they are He-man and the Forsaken are Skeletor, and the prize was an empty city after a decade of waiting.

The Forsaken aren’t given a similar grievance or rivalry, instead they’re just wondering why the Worgen keep shouting “Gilneas will rise again!” even though from their perspective, the Gilneans never actually lost it.

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I mean they had they ever made a cure then the forsaken would have to be deleted from the game

Nah, then it would just be funny because the Horde would have humans too. Then the Horde playerbase could outnumber the Alliance 3 to 1 since anyone who wanted to play a human could still play Horde with their friends.

Blizzard saved the Alliance player count by not letting the Tauren discover Mass Resurrection.

This is what annoys me the most. Between the end of Silverpine Forest and the end of SoO, where it is revealed that Gilneas City is a blighted ruin, the only event in between is a black drakonid mind controlling civilians in the city. (Rogue legendary dagger questline).

So something happened between that event and Varian giving us an update on the Gilneas situation… and we see none of that. Not in game or in any external material. Blizzard just decided, “ah no-one has Gilneas because reasons”. With Loreology on twitter confirming that the Alliance and Horde withdrew from Gilneas because reasons.

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IIRC Theres a tauren that offers to be a test subject for the efforts (it does not go well for her)

Also I think the forsaken at the pools in TB are supposed to be part of the joint effort or whatever. Its definitely a dropped plot point, for sure.

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If its the same one I’m thinking of (was in the Undercity in Vanilla), she went to the Forsaken looking for a cure for a poison she’d been infected by while in… Azshara, I think. Anyways, the Forsaken didn’t bother trying to cure her. They were far more interested in the poison itself and how it could be used to enhance the Blight.

[Edit]: This is the NPC I was thinking of.

https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Thersa_Windsong

Well, to be dropped, it would have had to of started to begin with. There really are no quests at all about the Tauren attempting to cure or heal the Forsaken.

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