Over the years I’ve rarely even seen this character brought up - much less criticized, most likely because she’s been pretty irrelevant for a while up until TWW, but she has been my least favorite character in WoW for a LONG time, and I am not happy to see her take a prominent role, because blizzard seemingly refuses to acknowledge that she has or even CAN do anything wrong. Other characters and even the world itself changes around her to ensure that she is always in the right - a textbook example of mary sue writing. (Is everyone okay? I said the word…)
What do I mean by this? Back in classic, we are introduced to her when she abandons her people and sides with the Dark Iron clan, marrying Dagran Thaurissan and becoming pregnant with his child. She did so after a kidnapping in which the innocent men escorting her were all murdered - save one, who was imprisoned in Blackrock Depths. So yeah, great start. At this point in time, Thaurissan is a servant of Ragnaros, a minion of the old gods whose goal is to destroy the world and burn everything and everyone in it. In addition, Thaurissan and the Dark Irons are infamous for taking part in slavery. Enslaved miners are a common sight in the Searing Gorge and Blackrock depths. And speaking of BrD, within the dungeon you can find slaves crying in cages, NPCs called things like “tortured slave” and “twilight hammer torturer”, and even in the ambience you can clearly hear the screams of what is presumably slaves being tortured.
Moira was complicit in all of this. Not only does she weep over the body of her slave-owning husband when you kill him, she describes him as “an honorable dwarf” and vows revenge. She didn’t seem to care in the slightest for those her husband tortured, enslaved, or killed - only that her poor baby would grow up without his psychopath father. Then, in chronicle it is retconned that Thaurissan was actually planning on freeing the Dark Irons from Ragnaros, and that’s why she joined him. See what I mean when I said the world itself changes to ensure that Moira is always in the right? (I guess they decided they just weren’t gonna mention the slave-owning.)
In the Shattering, she takes over Ironforge with the Dark Irons and rules as a tyrant. We’re basically told that everyone just accepted her claim to the throne, which… huh? Yeah, she’s Magni’s only surviving child. She also betrayed her kingdom and joined their greatest enemy, and is now trying to claim Ironforge in their name. It could be argued that she renounced her “citizenship” and claim to the throne when she joined the Dark Irons. Regardless of whether her claim was rightful or not, you’d think that there would have been at least a LITTLE bit more opposition? Like, she didn’t even have to deal with Muradin or somebody else “usurping” her throne, or hell, just any old angry dwarves deciding to kill her and her entourage the moment she pulled up with the Dark Irons?
Either way, she locks down the whole city, taking both its citizens and ANDUIN WRYNN as hostages. During all of this, she confides in Anduin that she married Thaurissan because Magni was a BIG STINKY SEXIST! Yep, that’s the justification for everything she’s done. And because Christie Golden is writing, it works on Anduin and he somehow convinces his father not only to spare her, but to acknowledge her as a rightful co-leader of Ironforge alongside the other clans. If ANY other (male?) character had done even half these things, this story would have ended with their blood covering Shalamayne. But because it’s special little Moria, the strong, iron-willed VARIAN WRYNN folds like a chair and makes the woman who just threatened to murder his son the new co-leader of Ironforge.
So, how does she do in her new role as the great unifier of the dwarves? In Fire and Iron, we are told that she attempted to paint the Wildhammers as the new “others” rather than the Dark Irons. So once again, great start. Then in MoP, during the Blood in the Snow scenario, Muradin and Falstad won’t go out and fight the Trolls, because they think if one of them leaves, the other will be defeated by the Dark Irons and Moira will take over Ironforge… again. Despite Moira having attempted to do this in just the last expansion, this is portrayed as some irrational fear that Muradin and Falstad deserve to be shamed for, and special little Moira gets to seize the moral high ground by being the one to go out and fight the trolls. Muradin and Falstad prostrate themselves before her and apologize for DARING not to trust the woman who literally just attempted to take over Ironforge. Like I said, the world bends around Moira.
Everything since has pretty much been more of the same, and now in TWW we get to watch her tell Magni how bad of a father he was - even though going by her own actions, he was right about her the whole time. Now the poor geezer will most likely have to watch as his greatest enemy’s son - born from screwing his daughter - rules his city. If I were him I’d just be begging Azeroth to take me already. But, that’s just one part of a larger problem with modern WoW - being that no male characters are allowed to have backbones anymore.
Moira is the ONLY character that seems to get this treatment from Blizzard, and I have no idea why. People called Sylvanas a mary sue, but at least blizzard was willing to admit she did SOMETHING wrong, and punish her for it. But with Moira, everything is the fault of the DUMB STINKY MALES around her. If Muradin had been given her spot in the story from cata onwards, it would only be an improvement.
Kind of makes things boring.