See, this is what I mean–a lot of these changes to the story happened after the fact, that scene wasn’t in WC3 (I don’t think, pretty sure, been a few years, or maybe I’m outing myself as a fraud).
In recent years, the Blizzard writing team has confused, in their villain writing, making a character that did the “actual right thing,” with a character that did the “mistaken but effective thing.”
Making Illidan interesting by having him try to reignite the Well of Eternity or consume the Skull of Gul’dan, or manipulate demonic power generally, doesn’t at all try to pitch to us that he was/is doing the actual right thing in order to engage the audience. He’s doing something we can understand, which in this case, is a bunch of things that, at best, are one of many solutions and, at worst, a really bad solution, but all ultimately serve Illidan’s interest. He wants to stop the really big bad guys, but he wants to stop them for his own interest, and he’s supposed to tempt us because, some of the time, it works.
Engaging with us in this way has nothing to do with trying to convince us that he did anything admirable. At best, he did something good in a good-for-the-good-guys-kinda way, sometimes. All of this is a far cry from, say, trying to convince us that he did the best and morally obligatory thing, given the circumstances.
And that’s the ludicrous pitch that they keep trying to give us, with later Illidan activities, or later-added Illidan activities, like sacrificing the Moon Guard for mana. I think closing the Azeroth-Argus gap was a cool, classic Illidan move, but trying to convince everyone it was the best idea is still not the way to do things.
Good stories pitch these kinds of villains/anti-heroes by carefully crafting their decisions. Bad ones arbitrarily rig the story so kicking puppies is somehow the only way forward.
And also, I think a lot of what made Illidan obnoxious in Legion was, on a micro level, it being incredibly obvious that no one on the writing staff knows/knew how to write dialogue, or even choreograph scenes. The Nighthold line, “Have a care!” is not a line anyone can, has, or will ever deliver in a way that doesn’t make anyone’s ears bleed. Almost all of Velen’s dialogue in Legion makes me want to crack my skull against the wall.
EDIT: This is me repeating myself and what everyone already knows in long form again. But it’s cathartic for me. Thank you, in advance, for indulging me.
