No, he didn’t. This is a huge misconception that people have with the story, one which I’m amazed has become so deeply rooted despite multiple Horde quests, in their own starting zones, stating Theramore broke the peace and attacked first while there is practically no equivalent Alliance-side.
Also, Theramore was not and has never been a neutral city. That’s another major misconception that has never had any lore basis.
Can you back this up with quotes and citations?
She attacks the Horde when they attacked her allies. She is an Alliance character first.
She did that AFTER THE HORDE DESTROYED THERAMORE. If anything the Horde got off lightly for that.
It was not a mirror to arthas, especially her response. For one thing she only imprisoned the blood elves who didnt resist. For another, the Sunreaver were guilt of the crime. Warcrimes even mentions a Sunreaver did help the Horde. Hell, the moment the Sunreaver got out in Legion one of them betray Dalaran, AGAIN, to the Legion.
Reluctantly helped and only because Khadgar insisted. Personally I wish she didnt help the Horde PC and only showed up to help the Alliance one.
Dont you know the purge of dalaran killed 99.999% of all blood elves at peast with how people act it seems it did
Blizzard seemingly have changed their mind over who they want Jaina to be. Which partly makes sense given it seems like their narrative path over the past decades doesn’t seem always consistent. And is something that happened to a fair handful of characters. Not to mention, the questionable quality of the writing in the first place.
Arguably her current progression can either be characterized as a regression. That or a combination of her different progressions (very peace seeking, to very retributive, to peace seeking again with some tempering). All that said, I am glad they brought her ‘back’ to where she is now. She’s ok.
I wouldn’t be surprised that the Cinematic team also simply forgot or wasn’t told she was there. Or they couldn’t get Laura Bailey in to record lines so left her out.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Invaders_in_Our_Home
Try not to let the word out, since I don’t want to cause a panic… but there have been reports of more humans nearby. This is an egregious betrayal of the peace that we negotiated with that miserable Jaina Proudmoore! We can’t allow humans here in Durotar, and especially not here in the Valley.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Breaking_the_Chain
https://wow.gamepedia.com/The_War_of_Northwatch_Aggression
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Purge_the_Valley
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Kilrok_Gorehammer#Quotes
Kilrok, how did we lose Honor’s Stand?
It was a clever ruse, . Alliance forces streamed out of Northwatch and marched up the gold road, besieging Crossroads as dusk fell. Then, in the heart of the night, they force-marched southward, leaving their campfires burning behind.
Our meager forces at Honor’s Stand were caught unawares as the Alliance poured through the pass at dawn’s first light. Many of our bravest warriors fell before their blades.
Gossip This was before the Cataclysm?Yes. We regrouped east of the pass and prepared a counter-attack, but the next day, the skies reddened and the land was cleaved in two, as easily as a child might split open a cactus apple. See how the devastation stretches from horizon to horizon?
During the Shattering Varian threatens war on the basis of the belief that the Horde was behind a Twilight’s Hammer attack in Ashenvale, and was only convinced not to do so on the condition that Thrall take responsibility for it and apologize. Not only did Thrall not do that, he made Garrosh, who Varian believed orchestrated the attack, the Warchief, at which point the Twilight’s Hammer slaughtered a gathering of Druids trying to establish peace, which Garrosh effectively took the fall for.
At the end of the book, Thrall boards a ship set to bring him to the Maelstrom to work with the Earthen Ring, and that same ship is the one which a Theramore fleet ambushes during the Goblin intro experience, seeking to capture Thrall.
The Horde didn’t attack her allies first. To be fair, she and the Alliance mistakenly believed they did.
My stating what happened there wasn’t meant as an attack on her actions in trying to drown Orgrimmar, it was to establish the way in which her character suddenly flipped from nonsensical peacenik to vengeance and back to nonsensical peacenik practically on a dime.
It was. Both of them purged a city on bare suspicions.
She killed multiple Blood Elves, herself, who weren’t resisting. No, I’m not referring to when she’s touring the city, which people like to claim was merely a bug. And the Sunreavers, as an organization, weren’t guilty. Arguably one Sunreaver helped, and Aethas stood aside and didn’t actively stop it because he was threatened. Which, in fact, is another parallel to Stratholme, because in insisting Aethas was complicit in a crime he didn’t stop, she’s also effectively admitting her own complicity in Arthas’ crimes, which she literally turned a blind eye to.
Regardless, the vast majority of the Sunreavers persecuted in the purge had absolutely nothing to do with the theft of the Divine Bell.
The point is that in WoD she helped, while in Legion, under much worse circumstances, she abandoned Dalaran.
Edit: I forgot, she also let go of her anger again at the end of War Crimes. So her still hating the Horde PC and ordering the Kirin Tor not to help them in WoD is another flip-flop.
There is no proof that was happening on the Broken Shore though.
Speculation.
Blatantly ignoring the reality of the situation.
Nobody ever blames Jaina for anything, that’s exactly my point. This is because she’s a terrible writer’s pet.
Well thank you for the sources
maybe there were rogue elements, I THINK one of the novels said something like not everyone were so happy at Jaina loving the orcs or something. Or maybe it was one of the enemy sects trying to stir things up between the factions, it totally worked when Varian came to Theramore so…
See above. Again, their attacks were reasonable based on what they knew at the time. My issue is less that they attacked, and more that nobody has ever acknowledged Jaina’s responsibility in starting the war, she’s always been portrayed as, and thought of herself as, a complete victim.
It would be pretty impressive for multiple fleets and armies to be controlled by some disgruntled traitors.
Blizzard storytelling right there the enemy no matter how rag tag or under supplied will akwats have infinate people and supplies.
hum, pretty sure that those humans who wanted to attack the horde were in fact desertors what wanted nothing but the extermination of the horde, they even wanted to take out jaina from power.
Wait… wasn’t the iv7 trying to capture thrall? and by that i mean, stomrwindiang fleet?
hum, last time i checked in chronicles was stated that garrosh started the cata agressions. the horde attacked night elves so theramore attacked in the barrens to create and road and help their allies.
The entire book explains her actions.
comment from dave cosak
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/14ofsk/the_purge_of_dalaran_genocide_on_sunreavers/
“To be fair Jaina was teleporting Sunreavers into the Violet Hold. She (and Alliance players) only fight the ones who are fighting back”.
pretty sure that the expansion started with she being captured for treason, she then again was blamed by a sunreaver for killing some of them. “nobody blames jaina for anything” that’s just wrong.
because in her eyes the horde betrayed the alliance and caused the death of varian. it was logical that she would not want to work with the horde, (it is, illogical that she would want to forgive the horde now in bfa though)
Nothing has ever suggested this.
It was a Theramore fleet with mixed Alliance assets, including SI:7.
Chronicles does not state this. At most, it says he worsened tensions by moving troops around, but not once does it say he ever attacked first.
The explanations the book offers are bad and almost immediately overturned anyway in MoP.
See my literal next sentence where I point out that I wasn’t saying that in reference to Jaina going on a murder-spree in the streets. Though I will say they never actually said that was non-canon, I was referring to the fact that she outright kills three of Aethas’ guards, who were doing nothing, before he even has a chance to respond to her claims of his guilt.
Katherine went “Oh no I was wrong and Jaina did nothing wrong” before the first patch, and that Sunreaver is presented as a villain, you can’t say these are valid examples when the story undermines them both so much.
This was an absurd perspective though. It’s never made any sense that the Horde was blamed for that, not when the Alliance literally had an airship overlooking the battlefield and multiple Horde characters she personally knows could easily vouch for them being overrun and forced to retreat. Hell, Vol’jin died there.
There has, over the years, seem to have been some effort to divorce “Things Jaina did or is responsible for” from “Alliance shenanigans.”
For better or worse, the start of the cata war was partly or wholly retconned. In the book Tides of War, objections to the Theramore offensive from the Horde were made on grounds that Jaina had done nothing to them. And as I recall (though do not own) the relevant Chronicles installment dumped it at Garrosh’s feet. As these both were published after the Cata quest content, it is arguably a retcon.
Also, while I wholeheartedly agree that it is weird that “Thrall got kidnapped by the Alliance, yo.” is just never brought up again, they are described as Alliance ships, and Thrall believes he was going to Stormwind. Can’t really call that a Theramore fleet.
If we take the most recently published materials as our working canon, Jaina really didn’t do anything aggressive pre-Theramore. The Alliance did, hooboy, did they ever (though Chronicles, evidently, changed the ultimately irrelevant “who started it” in that conflict to be Garrosh, I’d argue this is unimportant as powerful elements in both factions were determined to start a war. I’d further argue that Garrosh has a better casus belli from a neutral stance, as gone over in Heart of War, but I digress.)
Still, I like Jaina. Every character that gets continual attention in Warcraft over the many years of the franchise is going to get a mixed bag of writing and sometimes directional changes, and Jaina’s had a lot of attention. I don’t see the current arc as Jaina coming full circle, more that she started as naive, was brutally disabused of that notion and faced with the reality that the father she let die in the name of peace had a point other than bloodlust, and then moving past that to a idealism tempered by the pain of her past.
As for the dues ex machina aspect, well geez, that’s nothing new. That’s what the Blight often is, after all- wipe out an Alliance army with your green, smokey win button! Then countered by Jaina, so a bit of a dues ex wash.
tell me how then a character that literally was all about sacrificing everything for peace would randomly start sending her troops to attack the horde when she even had desertors that had enough of her pro peace agenda?
i think that i am going to need a source on that, SI:7 is a stormwindian organization.
didn’t chronicles mentioned how garrosh was blamed for the twillight hammer attack but he was planning to attack anyway? maybe i forgot about this part.
okay, why it is bad that it explained that she wanted revenge for her city and people getting destroyed ?
it also explained how she regretted for almost going that far.
she even comments on that in the start of the 5.1 questline.
but if anything it just tells me that she just let emotions cloud her. a valid character flaw.
fair enough then i will not claim that she is entirely innocent, she isn’t.
that was because was convinced by the words of genn, who did lost a son and the champion who saved kultiras and uncovered ashvane, their words had weight to make her change her mind to forgive her, it was then when she saw with her own eyes from her perspective, she wasn’t the monster who she though she was by betraying daelin.
hum, i don’t agree with this one, i think that this one falls in a gray area, does everything have to be 100 % right or 100 % wrong?
was the sunreaver justified in trying to kill everyone in the name of his revenge? it is understandable?
but meh, personal opinion.
Oh absolutely, i am not going to defend blizzard here for the broken shore, i think that is a gigantic mess just to force the faction conflict.
the death of varian and voljin was forced or not done properly.
the attack itseelf had a lot of plot holes.
like, why isn’t the entire alliance and horde leadership?
they didn’t hearn’t the horn? it was so hard for sylvanas to say “we are overrun! get your forces out of there” ect.
Why alliance characters think that it was a betrayal?.
meh, as an alliance player never once think that the horde betrayed the alliance in broken shore, if anything was extremely frustrated with their writting and how they handled alliance characters in there.
it was so easy for both horde and alliance send a diplomat or something like that to solve the tensions but no, blizzard wanted garbage faction conflict that is now destroying the story, but i guess that’s for another thread.
I don’t think these sources assert what you claim. All four quests are after the Cataclysm. Seemingly fighting was already happening before then based on Kilrok’s comments. But that per translated developer comments on Scrolls of Lore, Chronicle 3, and Tides of War (supposedly), Theramore’s actions were in response to already occurring intrusions into Ashenvale by the Horde.
I mean, the technical details are a little besides the point. If you acknowledge the attacks were reasonable then it seems odd to accuse her of hypocrisy based on that.
The thread and video Kosak is responding to include that part.
You should never fight a blood elf on the purge we can forgive arthas but what jaina did is far worse than anything arthas ever did.
Oh, I think the Purge was very bad. Just making a technical comment. Kosak’s comment could easily be read to include Aethas’ guards as resisting.
Yep it is the single most devistating event to happen to any wow ever.
Well, that’s a bit silly. Obviously there’s a lot of middle ground between ‘justified and legitimate action’ and ‘worst event ever’.