Jaina's Arc in BFA. Full circle or Properly Developed?

Lore Story Forum
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At the start of the Expansion, Jaina was the “Raging Ice Queen bent on making the Horde Pay” that she became in MoP and why she was mostly absent from Legion (when we were trying to act civilly with one another for the greater good of Azeroth.)

She certainly came to a realization of how petty and futile that was, being shunned and abandoned by her own people and slowly tortured into madness in a waking nightmare.

Personally, I loved her development.

I don’t actually think she’s “Forgiven” the Horde at all. I think she Let Go of her anger and resentment but that’s a far cry from “forgiving” them, and I think this was what her entire Development was all about. I think the “struggle” you mentioned is exactly what she’s been going through for 3 expansions, ending in her basically hitting rockbottom in Thros.

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Tyrande and Genn could work, but Moira got lobotomized and is echoing Anduin’s ideals now. She’s a full-fledged Wrynn puppet.

Me too. But that means Blizzard actually spending time and effort on an Alliance story that isn’t about scolding the one or two that aren’t toeing the party line like good shills.

So much this.

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Just a continuation of her Bipolar personality plotline. Nothing to see here. People who say it was good clearly haven’t been following the character outside of BfA.

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If we are going to be fighting the Alliance they should make members of the Alliance which are antagonists for us to see as our enemies. Horde players don’t pay their subs to be the villain of a Alliance NPC’s story. If they are the protagonist of the story, we are the antagonist and that isn’t acceptable. Either the Alliance needs some Antagonists for the Horde when we have a faction conflict or the Horde should never be forced into doing things like the Mana bombing or the Burning of Teldressil.

Horde player’s antagonist for this expansion was their own Warchief. Again.

Why do some Alliance players find this concept so hard to understand? You don’t want to be victims for our character’s story and we don’t want to be villains for your character’s ones.

Blizzard keeps talking about morally grey but honestly I don’t think they even understand the concept.

As for Jaina, this was probably the most balanced outcome for her story so far. She has succeeded in letting go of her guilt, pain and regret and it no longer controls her. She isn’t naive as she used to be but at the same time she understands that in the end if they can never find peace with the Horde the Alliance will never find it. Even if the Alliance could win in the end, the cost for that victory could easily cripple the Alliance permanently or leave it too weak to protect itself from future threats.

Or at least that is what Blizzard tells us.

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I understand humans tend to only remember the bad things that happened to them, its an evolved instinct and that maybe why they dont remember the good things Jaina tried to do with the horde, i do not think this is fair and if this is how several horde players see her it says much about your faction.

I do not pay my sub to be a beaten wife to a drunk husband, this is not productive for a discussion because we both are paying customers and i aint some blizzard employee that you can complain to so leave the subs out of this.

Also this is not necesarly true, this premise is flawled, as an example some of your horde think that on legion the alliance were the protagonists and that didnt made the horde antagonists.

If YOU mean that this particular expansion was an alliance story that had the horde as villains, ill say, what are you talking about? i get that you didnt like the story but this was a horde story, we werent protagonists, didnt you see all those cinematics about saurfang after a buttload of night elves died? why was that used as character development for several horde characters if it was an alliance story?

Again i get you didnt like being villain batted, i get an unknow percentage of the horde didnt like it but its not fair for you to frame as if it was an alliance story then posture as a victim of it.

I agree the horde shouldn’t do something like that only because i dont think blizzard can handle the NUANCE those stories require.

I somewhat agree it may be the most balanced development but doesnt mean WE have to like it, personally i hate it but i can live with it.

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I believe Syriyna’s point was that Blizzard should be able to create a faction war that doesn’t hit EITHER of those buttons. It’s not like the only options are either one or the other. In fact, it could be argued that they go together–the “drunk husband” behavior is exactly what makes the Horde players feel like they are being forced to be your villains.

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thats not what i got from that post but i agree they should be able to create a faction war that feels meaningful for both factions.

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https :wow.gamepedia.com/Old_Soldier_(quest)

The faction will always lead to losses on both sides. What those loses have been have taken different forms for the two factions(normally the Alliance loses lands and population, the Horde loses characters). That will always be part and parcel of the faction wars.

She still wants revenge, but I think she wants something more than that. An actual future for the night elves.

Presumably that because the Horde has always given full authority to their warchief. With a council it should happen again. I wish they would abolish the Horde and just rename it altogether consider it a fail organization. Hell, minus its name it already totally different from what it was pre-RTS and even its vanilla composition.

We literally already know Anduin does not trust them(see Shadows Rising except) but like Shandis many people actually are more interest in repair their homes/dealing with other more pressing problems.

  1. I assume the sort of gas masks used by the Horde have their own special(if not mystical properties 2) He didn’t abandon it, he gave them a SMALL REPRIVE but continued the war elsewhere to the point it was nearly victorious until Sylvanas made a deal with Ashara. 3) we dont know what the peace deal is and considering sans Tyrande everyone signed it, I assume most of them are ok with the peace. Hell, Tyrande just wanted Sylvanas blood.
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Why are you fine with the status quo? There’s no reason it has to be this way besides Blizzard enforcing it.

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I’m not “fine” with it but consider it a part of Warcraft’s story and inevitable part of what will always happen to a faction war story, both sides will lose something. Losses, like it or not, are what make the faction stories compelling.

Hell, even though I always wanted the Alliance to retake Lordearon, I had always expect it would always come at a price, the price being most likely Teldrassil considering the two are the parallel of each other.

“Suffering is the gasoline that drives our story engine.”

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Losing something is one thing, but it’s what each faction loses, every time that players are protesting against. Losing these things to other villain factions would make the story compelling. Why does it happen the most in faction wars?

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Because it makes the most emotional impact and unlike most third party bosses is used by Blizzard to setup expansion spanning stories that have a wide ranging effect on a good chunk of characters. Warcraft at its core was always humans vs orcs, and even in Warcraft 3 it was still a strong thematic moment(maybe with an added sprinkle of we need to stop fighting to deal with bigger bad guys first).

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In BFA we got Human vs Trolls and Undead Elves.
We had to sympathize with the Orcs.

Thanks for stating a fact everyone knew. No one likes it thats why people are mad.
What grand revelation will you present us with next?

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If they applied this to the other villains we’d be invested in defeating them too. We were hyped to fight Arthas, and he did no lasting damage in the mmo.

Gul’Dan and Sargeras set up the next expansions just fine. It’s not exclusive to the Horde.

Blizzard and their defenders keep saying this, but most of these expansions have pushed the faction war to the side in favor of working together. At best, we get moments like the gunship battle but those seem to be rare.

Even the faction wars themselves end with us working together.

What joy is there for Horde players when they’re forced to work with villains, are scolded for doing so, and have to fight their faction to stop said villains?

What joy is there for Alliance players when they’re forced to watch people and lands be destroyed, are told to not hate the faction responsible, and have to spare or work with them on the empty promises of redemption?

This isn’t Super Mario. I don’t enjoy fighting the same villains for similar reasons every few years.

The faction war doesn’t work in a mmo. Not with the way Blizzard does it at least. It’s even worse if their intent is to promote pvp. The alliance overall has little interest in it.

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Jaina suffered from being at the mercy of a push and pull between Golden and the other writers, in addition to being the target of some frankly extremely misplaced dislike and hate by a lot of Horde players, and Alliance players as well.

For years, the character literally could not win. When she was a peacenik, people disliked her for being a wet blanket because they wanted their big faction war, hence her sitting out for a lot of Cataclysm. Then she became ‘warmonger’ Jaina and… people disliked her then, too. It probably didn’t help that in Tides of War she goes somewhat more peaceful again, because Golden prefers that, only to be back to war mode in the game after.

For years there were people wanting her to be a raid boss, so they could kill her. One of the last WC3 heroes, whose worst action was a single act that’s the only actually morally grey event in all of WoW, coupled with a few expansions of saying mean things about the Horde, and people wanted her to be a raid boss.

I personally see her arc as ended with the ‘Daughter of the Sea’ chain, because after that the expansion swerves and she does a total about face in order to avoid being on the wrong side of the meta narrative. And I’m ok with that, because honestly the character just seems to be a magnet for dislike in a way that boggles my mind.

I feel she remains probably the most fully developed character Blizzard’s managed to write, in spite of the constant whiplash and back and forth, and that most of her actions were logical at least until the mandated ‘OK TIME FOR PEACE!’ stuff came into play.

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The Horde will froth at the mouth and lash out in unbridled fury over any slight against them by Alliance members and simultaneously die on a hill to defend their nth genocidal rampage and wackjob-in-chief.

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That isnt totally true either. Hell, we had Etrigg vs Dannath as well. My point was the human vs orc(which ultimately morph into Alliance vs Horde) is still an important pillar of WoW. To the point they are still leaving the possibility open for new conflicts.

And yet people still do no understand that we will keep suffering. That things we like in WoW will keep being destroyed(and potentially rebuild/replace with new thing). Also, while that isnt some grand revelation it is something people will either have to learn to accept or will remain eternally unhappy with WoW.

To a certain extend I actually think it is alot harder to do something like this. I mean we have the void lord and obviously I doubt the Old Gods are totally gone. But with WoW needed an expansion boss it will probably be a while, if ever, we will get a boss to the same extent as Arthas.

But there setup lasted at best one expansion. This faction conflict is bound to affect everyone for a LONG TIME. As an example, even now Garrosh’s destruction of Theramore ultimately affected everyone until BfA. Not including Jaina, his actions ultimately paved the way for Sylvanas’ plan to actually work(if anything we followed his war plan to the letter).

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Well for one, who said we were suppose to be enjoy/be comfortable with the entire affair? If anything it suppose to make us uncomfortable.

For the Horde players, they have to accept the fact the moment they signed up for the “morally darker” faction that there deed would sooner or later catch up to them. Warcraft, if nothing else, has proven the bad guys will never win in the end but they will usually get the first punch each and every time.

For the Alliance, we are not suppose to hate the other faction. If the Alliance really is suppose to exhibit the moral high ground then that is part and parcel of trying to be good. That doesnt mean it shouldn’t defend itself or bring justice to those who most deserve it. But at the same time practicality is important. Will the Horde redeem themselves this time? Some will, some wont. Same with the real world. Regardless, simply trying to wipe them out will never be the “right” thing to do.

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Everyone moaned and whined that she was unhinged and now that she is at a medium place people are still unhappy.

Jaina is fine, she does not trust the Horde but it willing to put aside her mistrust in times of shared conflict. Is this not what you people wanted?

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Hmm lets see.
i would say 50/50
On one hand, i really enjoyed her arc in kultiras and i like how she payed consequences for her actions without involving her death.
Her thros quest were fantastic and how the character was dealing with her self guilt.
And at the same time it was kinda rushed the way how she went to hated to loved by her people,probably because of the faction war in the background.

But in the other there is this big problem of what teldrassil was for everyone.

We, alliance players after teldrassil wanted revenge.so seeing her warbringers and her apparent more “anti horde” route was a breath of fresh air.

So she being pro-peace with the horde because of baine came at a horrible timing.

One thing that i always detested about horde players is the irrational hate that they have for her, like literally someone who at some point seemed more horde than alliance in the name of peace gets her city destroyed by the same people and even hate her even more because she is simply angry about it.
or they start with their “dreadlord jaina” meme.

But i do understand what is the problem here, in this supposed faction war she really could have been a fantastic antagonist for them.
Someone who could make them feel a little more heroic.

But not only she is not really their enemy she also is more willing to help these poor misguided horde that literally just tried to kill her in a raid.

No, she is not their enemy, and neither the alliance… their enemy… is themselves.Again.
So i can understand if that is frustrating.

So in essence, i don’t think that she is a problem as a character.
i think is okay that she wants to stop the bloodsheed after what baine did for her he really saved her life twice, not even speaking derek’s.
that doesn’t mean that it was perfectly done, it could have been better, yes.
But then again,Who went out of BfA cleanly?

And plus, maybe she can still be a character that can bring conflict, not only with tyrande, but also talanji.

i think she is fine. i just hope that nobody kills mama proudmoore or she would go back to her mop era. just, enough. she can also stay in the background leading kultiras.

And i would like to mention that i am so glad that the horde didn’t killed in the raid, i don’t think that they deserve it after what they did in teldrassil. and neither she deserves to die simply because she dares to fight the horde.

Good day.