I am mostly joking really some people really play it up
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Why would Jaina’s peace hold when Garrosh broke the peace first by attacking the Night Elves?
I don’t understand that.
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Let me start off by saying from a character perspective, I like Jaina. Her “flip-flopping”, before her ultimate redemption in BFA, was actually reasonable. Doubly so if you include the books. The purge of Dalaran was, in my opinion, a good move by the writers.
But what I really want to say is a character doesn’t have to, nor should be, loved by all players in an MMO. Especially when there are two factions. It’s not about them winning the heart and soul of everyone. It’s about if they resonate with someone. And she does with the Alliance like Etheldald. She doesn’t resonate with me. Up until the personally distasteful “rescue Baine” she was my antagonist. Still is actually.
Worst part to me is that her character is losing it’s bite. She is becoming Redundant to Anduin. Or is Anduin a redundant Jaina? I’d wager the latter since it seems as though her arch was turning vengeful. Now that she’s seemingly pulling a 180 I think her character is suffering from the dreaded “Move yo feet, lose yo seat”
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The premise and evolution of her character is interesting to me. Initially a naive princess who has to abandon the man she loves to his madness in order to save as many people as she can, discovers that the monstrous race had been manipulated by demonic forces and she sided with them to save the world and held a tenacious peace with the Horde for four years, at the cost of her own father’s life. Her efforts are undermined by some of her own people, who desert or try to instigate war during the peace time, but she manages.
By the Cataclysm, she was still peace-driven at the core and believed in peace with the Horde, but nor was she as naive as she used to be, and she opposed Garrosh’s increasing warmongering on pretty much everyone who wasn’t Horde. A situation where diplomacy was outright impossible due to a mix of Garrosh’s volatile temperament and his personal daddy issues that made him obsessed with being the orciest orc that ever orced, amongst other things. But it was nothing personal.
Then Garrosh bombed her city, killed almost everyone there and destroyed the monument to her life’s work, her life’s work being peace with the Horde. And no Horde member seemed all that affected by it, they didn’t seem to care too much about it because they continued to stand by Garrosh’s side even after the fact. This temporarily drove her over the edge, she thought her father had been right all along, and she was determined to get revenge by destroying Orgrimmar. She got calmed down a bit by Thrall and Kalecgos. Decided to take a backseat, went back to Dalaran, joined the Council of Six. Leading a neutral city rekindled her hope for peace as she says when you talk to her during the MoP war campaign, she seems to be recovering from the fall of Theramore.
Then Garrosh uses the Sunreavers to breach the neutral sanctity of Dalaran, and she snaps once more at seeing her goals for peace being attacked by Garrosh’s Horde again. She overreacted by placing all of the Sunreavers under arrest and authorizing lethal force against those who either resisted arrest or attempted to evade arrest, but at this point she’s still a shattered, shell-shocked trauma victim who is having a volatile reaction to an event that reminds her eerily of the one that traumatized her. Psychologically, not a good thing. That being said, I’m feeling a bit generous today so I’ll toss some blame all around. I also argue that Aethas himself definitely holds at least a measure of responsibility for the breach due to it happening completely under his nose in the midst of his own organization that is named after him that he leads. The captain of the ship is responsible for the conduct of the people under his command. I also blame the rest of the Council of Six and the rest of Dalaran for their inaction and not overruling Jaina when she was clearly in no psychological state to make important decisions like this. But more than anything, I blame the Silver Covenant for this debacle, because they don’t have the excuse of trauma sending them into such a state nor the excuses of ignorance or inaction, and blatantly took advantage of the Purge to vent their hatred of their Blood Elven counterparts and remove political and mercantile rivals, essentially taking advantage of Jaina’s psyche at the time.
Beginning of Legion she is vehemently against letting the Horde back in Dalaran. Continued irrational mistrust, avoiding trauma caused their presence in the city being a reminder of the betrayals she suffered in the past, a mix of both? Could be either, but ultimately she doesn’t want anything to do with it and goes off to fight the Legion on her own when she’s overruled.
Beginning of BfA she’s found something of a balance. She doesn’t like the Horde as a whole much, but nor does she want to become like her father (“I understand more than you suspect, my dear. Perhaps in time, you will too.”), and she’s aware that some of the steps she took were remarkably similar to those of her father.
The problem is that Blizzard flip-flopped a bit too much and too hard one way or the other in sudden ways. If they developed the moments that shattered the core of her beliefs more and showed how deep the trauma went behind the mask she puts up and if they showed how she mellowed out during Legion to get to the balanced place she is at the start of BfA, it would seem more plausible. Right now I have to think about “thinking logically, how could did this happen” and fill in the blanks myself rather than having an explanation, because there has to be a reasoning and feelings that leads someone to such thoughts, even if warped and irrational, and it’s enough of a driving force behind a facet of the story that we should know about this. It feels like they’re going one direction or another for shock value or warping her character to whatever is convenient for the story they want to tell at the moment.
Another problem is that they’re trying to push her story on the Horde after labelling her an enemy to them. They’re no longer the target audience for Jaina’s story. You can’t say “this person is your enemy, you need to kill them, but feel sorry for them and eventually help them out and you should feel like crap if you still want to be against them”. That undermines the whole point of labelling someone an enemy in the first place.
Being a raid boss that smack talks you, makes a bit of a mockery of you and then successfully escapes while leaving a sour taste in your mouth, and then being forced to work with her might be a bit off-putting to the Horde. That’s kinda really bad timing. Plus some people aren’t happy at essentially being forced to free Baine in the first place, so those people are doubling down on the “I hate this” train.
Plus, a lot of people are tired of the whole “woe is me” theme kinda absorbing character themes lately. Saurfang is sad, Anduin is sad, Jaina is sad, Thrall is sad, the Zandalari are sad. Who isn’t sad at this point? The expansion was sold as a “faction war” expansion, but anyone participating in the war effort is told by main characters “this is bad, why are we doing this”, and none are told this more than the Horde.
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Tides of War retcons nothing. It never says events actually played out differently from what we see in-game, it just arbitrarily ignores things and doesn’t have characters bring up pertinent information. In fact, at a number of points Theramore’s many gains from their offensives into the Barrens are referenced as being undone by Garrosh’s army, even things like the siege on the Great Gate, it just happens that nobody actively points this out and Jaina herself ignores most of it directly.
She simply acts as if there was never any conflict between the factions, even though it was a major part of Cata and multiple books had that as a focus. This is one of the reasons why she’s such a nonsensical character, because when the story concerns Jaina, it contorts itself impossibly to act as though she’s an angel.
As I said before, it doesn’t.
https://www.wowhead.com/npc=36153/alliance-captain
https://www.wowhead.com/npc=36149/alliance-sailor
What tabard are those guys wearing? Theramore was part of the Alliance.
In the Shattering she barely managed to talk Varian down into a compromise after the first attack in Ashenvale. When Thrall rejects the terms she tells him that they’re looking at war, and then says that she’s disappointed in his decision. He then later makes Garrosh Warchief and there’s a second attack.
At that point, she had every reason to support war with the Horde. Later, in Wolfheart, she even neglects to attend the Alliance summit with the Worgen because she’s busy dealing with things down South.
However, despite there being good reasons for her actions and a great deal of support for her having been involved in these attacks, your contention that it doesn’t make sense for her character, and thus couldn’t have happened, is irrelevant. One of my main points is that she’s a terrible character, so when you say, “It doesn’t make sense for her character to do this”, you’re merely agreeing with me by proxy.
They’re literally both there in the Goblin quests.
Not that I recall, though that wouldn’t matter anyway.
It isn’t. Her actions and motivations before and after that are what’s bad. She basically just lets go of her anger at the end of the book and moves into full neutrality.
That’s stupid though. Nothing anyone says actually changes what Jaina did. At most Katherine just saw Jaina was conflicted over it, but she basically just lets that completely excuse her. For some reason the fact that Jaina wasn’t a black and white monster scheming to malevolently stab her father in the back gets her off the lawful hook for still betraying him.
You can make that argument, sure, but it’s obvious which side the narrative falls on with how it presents everyone involved.
The first quest asserts that Theramore was breaking the treaty by sending forces to the Den. If there was conflict ongoing at that point, that statement makes no sense. As for Kilrok’s statement, while it doesn’t directly state that this initiated hostilities, it’s still the earliest known attack by either faction in the timeline, given that it happened before the Cataclysm. To reconcile the two, we might say it was the result of an information deficit. The Alliance attack in the Barrens happened only a day before the Cataclysm - If the quests in the Den happen immediately after the Cataclysm, word of the attack may not have even reached them yet.
None of those sources state the Horde actually attacked first.
The attacks were reasonable based on what they knew at the time. But they know now that the attacks in Ashenvale, the impetus for the Alliance attacks, were not done by the Horde. Despite this, nobody has ever acknowledged wrongdoing on behalf of the Alliance.
And more specifically, Jaina herself has never even acknowledged that she played any part in that conflict. As I said, she’s only ever thought of herself as a wronged victim, not someone whose own actions had terrible consequences.
It doesn’t respond to that at all, actually. That’s never brought up. You might say that Kosak actually considered that statement as saying that Jaina and the Alliance literally did not fight anybody who didn’t fight back, but that’s disingenuous and takes his offhand comment as an absurdly stringent interpretation of what happened.
In the same vein, I could simply respond by saying that those who “fought back” included anyone who didn’t comply with her orders automatically or fought in self-defense. Alternatively, I could also say that Jaina didn’t fight with those guards at all - She just executed them on the spot. So because there was no fighting, Kosak’s statement doesn’t apply.
Because he didn’t.
That said in terms of ToW, her actions were still stupid given that an entire war in Ashenvale had been fought by that point.
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I agree that his comments don’t fit, given he would wrong by evidence of Kilrok’s statement. Which could be due to many reasons.
To me, the intrusions were enough to constitute an attack. Whether or not it need state who drew first blood and regardless of who did in truth.
But the Horde was intruding improperly in Ashenvale already. That is the sourced impetus that was being conducted by the Horde.
I don’t find such an interpretation disingenuous or semantic games in that view. Personally, I’m not sure what he meant. But no, I do not agree that’s an unfair stance.
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so if you agree that she had every reason to attack the horde in the first place why would you think that her forces attacking the horde was breaking a pact? even though it was also garrosh the one who attacked the nelfs as welll.
maybe that has to do with the fact that it has been retconned over and over again. but this is something that affects blizzard writting wow in general, because if we go by that measure, then the entire story is just nonsencal.
why it doesn’t matter? garrosh started the war. not theramore.
well, the twillight hammer did.
i think that you missed the point, she tells herself that, she wants to believe that she didn’t become as bad as other people just as arthas,daelin or garrosh but then (like 5.1) she let her rage get the better of her and controls some of her actions, i think that is a solid character flaw.
This was in a moment of weakness of katherine feeling completely alone and betrayed by even her closest friend, she still had a family, so thanks to the words of genn (and the pc, i assume) she decided to give her another chance.
then saw how jaina actually tried to stop him in his attack, in the end was he was just blinded by revenge. and peace was possible,everyone must have hear in time about the battle at hyjal, jaina was also knew as a “hero of the world”. so that must have helped katherine to change her mind after seeing it from her perspective.
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Retconned by World of Warcraft Chronicle, Volume III, Page 196:
- After Thrall had departed, Garrosh turned his gaze northwest, to the lush forest of Ashenvale. It was a land of plenty, and it was well within the Horde's reach. Most of the region belonged to the night elves, but that did not stop Garrosh from sending troops into the woodlands. He was not interested in asking the Alliance for resources or trading for them. Why would he do that, when he could simply take what he wanted by force?
Garrosh started it first now by invading the Night Elf lands.
This was likely a necessary clarification, since it never helped that they never updated Theramore for Cataclysm, as after the Alliance Southern Barrens Cataclysm revamp send you to Theramore you get the Classic questing storyline where Jaina is still at peace with the Horde and the player is clearing out deserters trying to start aggression with the Horde, as if Theramore was not already at war with the Horde.
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His contention seems to be that he doesn’t count that as an attack.
Invasion of land is still invasion. Isn’t that what Horde posters argue about for the Night Elves spying in the Blood Elves?
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At worse the Alliance attacked the Horde after it found it was planning to attack them(thus making this a true pre emptive war, unlike whatever Sylvanas wanted in BfA). As an added note, the wording in chronicles is Garrosh sent new “incursions” into Ashenvale. If anyone here has played Civilization, a simply build up of forces near a rival’s border is reason enough for war.
Anyone here would be traumatized if suddenly their city was bombed to oblivion. Given half a chance most people would probably wish to enact revenge. But I I’d like to think once the head of the moment is passed a good chunk of people would not pull the trigger, certain not when it would mean killing kids.
Except Jaina was right(and to be honest Arthas was also right), the blood elves did have something to do with the divine bell being stolen and this would be the second time a betrayal happened. Which, considering Jaina had already given them the benefit of the doubt is probably enough to break any trust she had.
In WoD, Varian was still alive and the whole Broken Shore had not happened yet.
Your probably the same person who said Jaina was not doing anything in Legion, when in fact the comics prove she was still out there killing demons. Suffice to say alot of lore is never mentioned. Hell, until A Good War we didnt even know that the Horde forces/Saurfang was fighting the Legion on the homefront and yet he never got any flack at the time. Heck, Sylvanas is credited with helping lead the Horde to victory, but she hardly did anything in WoW aside from making a deal with a devil.
And there is no proof Jaina did not do everything in her power to save Varian/did not have the power to save Varian and yet here we are!
No she is not. Aethas had every opportunity to actively do something, she could have at very lost told Jaina the trust when she was confronted instead of telling a bold face lie. Lastly, Arthas was still prince of the realm and for all intents and purposes was the law.
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she is clearly bipolar. I mean she was attacking the horde a second ago wanting to dismantle them and now she’s helping the horde with their personal problems with her super peace honour group, which btw consists of Orcs and a Tauren.
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There was a great post here a while ago that said Horde players hate her because she is a living representation of the story direction Blizzard took the Horde, or something to that effect. Trying to remember how it was phrased. Something along the lines of, Jaina was the one who believed in the Horde, even at it’s worst, and despite that the Horde destroyed Theramore and her faith in it. It’s not something the player-characters had a choice in. It was a product of bad writing. So, Horde players hate Jaina because her continued existence is a constant reminder of bad writing, and the writers want Horde players to feel guilty because of what they were forced to do to her.
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Jaina’s progression since MoP has been a bipolar walking Deus Ex Machina that acts as the enforcer of the new status quo. The game could do without characters like the current Jaina.
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I disagree. The Horde had territory in and around Ashenvale, Garrosh moving troops around those places doesn’t constitute an attack.
The factions were already at peace while the Horde held territory in Ashenvale, the Horde simply moving troops between their holdings doesn’t equal a valid reason for attack.
I think our standard of what constitutes a retcon should be a bit higher than an offhand comment on reddit that can be interpreted a million different ways.
She had reason as in her motivations could be considered sound from her own perspective, not that they were correct on a factual basis. And Garrosh didn’t attack the Night Elves first, that’s never stated.
But it wasn’t. Something not being brought up doesn’t constitute a retcon. And in fact, Theramore’s conquests in the Barrens are brought up in ToW.
Because someone planning something doesn’t mean that it’s valid to attack them. Most nations on Earth have a plan to attack most other nations, that consideration isn’t a valid casus belli to strike at them. Even provocative troop movements isn’t either, there are many borders which are armed to the teeth where neither side attacks because they know that would make them the aggressor.
You can’t have a resolution that gets immediately overturned the next time a character shows up, that’s just whiplash. And I get that she didn’t want to be as bad as Arthas or whatever, but it’s a far cry from thinking that, and going into straight up neutrality rather than help the Alliance against the Horde.
Yes, I know she felt bad about it. That doesn’t change the fact that the actual reality of what Jaina did hadn’t changed, by all rights she still should have been executed. Katherine letting her feelings for her daughter get in the way of the laws of her nation is a huge failing as a leader.
Nothing in that statement says Garrosh attacked anybody.
Again, the Horde had territory in Ashenvale at that time. They made a treaty with the Night Elves while having those holdings. Sending forces there is not a valid reason to invade the Horde’s lands. It’s also not a retcon, because it doesn’t in any way contradict what I had just said.
It’s not an invasion because the Horde held territory in those lands which had been de-facto accepted by the Night Elves when they agreed to a peace with the Horde where they kept those holdings.
What territory did the Night Elves have in Quel’Thalas again? Oh, right, nothing. IE, their actions were an invasion, while Garrosh’s wasn’t.
It really isn’t. It’s provocative to be sure, but it’s not a valid reason to attack.
Yes, which is why I keep saying that her motives to attack the Horde at that point were totally reasonable. It’s her backtracking on that, and becoming a totally neutral party, that doesn’t make sense. Her letting go of Theramore’s destruction at the end of ToW and going to lead Dalaran in neutrality because there was a secret prophecy that said she’d head the Council is just terrible writing, which someone clearly understood because it was immediately undone in the first patch of MoP.
No, “the Blood Elves” or “the Sunreavers” didn’t have anything to do with the theft. A few individuals did. She punished the entire population for the actions of a few, just like how Arthas didn’t discriminate between the infected and the healthy at Stratholme.
But, as I note in my edit, her last development before WoD, in War Crimes, was her letting go of her anger again. And yet she’s back to it again in WoD. Jaina moving past her anger and going “not all Horde” is a storyline that’s repeated like four or five times, it’s all the writers seem to know what to do with her.
How is that even relevant to the idea that she was too tired to teleport anyone during the Broken Shore? The notion that she didn’t do anything in Legion was completely valid until we got a single panel of her killing some demons during her comic. If you want to claim she was too tired, you need evidence of some sort to back that up, of which there is none. Until then, criticizing her for not doing the thing she’s arguably most known for in that situation is completely valid.
Jaina was there. Jaina has displayed the ability to do things which could have saved Varian on many separate occasions. Varian did not get saved.
In lieu of an explanation for why she did not save him, criticizing her for not doing so is perfectly reasonable.
Yes, she is. Jaina had every opportunity to do something too, Aethas in fact didn’t even get the chance to lie to Jaina before she ice blocked him, and Jaina wasn’t even a citizen of the realm which Arthas was merely the prince to.
She could have done a million things to stop him in that moment, but she chose not to. She chose to look the other way. By her own logic, that makes her just as culpable as Aethas.
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The word intrusion is pretty synonymous with attack and typically is used in such a way. And they can’t really intrude on their own territory, the context is directly in regards to the Night Elf land. I do find this wordplay disingenuous.
It would not be a retcons, merely a clarification.
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Seems like we are splitting hairs here to excuse Garrosh and vilify Jaina.
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Firstly it isn’t, and secondly that’s not even how it’s described anyway.
Besides, at the time quite a lot of Ashenvale was disputed. Garrosh sending forces to territory the Horde had claimed to harvest resources might be perceived as an intrusion by the Night Elves even though they had already effectively agreed to the Horde holding that land, perhaps do to their naturalistic beliefs. Regardless, again, nothing says Garrosh launched an attack.
It would be a retcon if your interpretation is that it overrides things we directly see to be the case in the game.
As opposed to how badly the story bends over backwards to excuse Jaina and vilify anyone against her?
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That’s generally how this nonsense goes, yes.
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As far as I recall they gave them permission to cut wood there. They never gave over their land to the Horde.
You got to give me some references. I have no idea what you mean.
PS. why does every thread turn into this back and forth on why or why not the Horde is justified? Don’t we have enough of those?