jarod
ever being relevant.
That said, the book is good. It still suffers from a similar flaw that live WoW does (the Alliance exists only to push the horde story or to tag along with it) but I hope the author sticks around.
I’ve said before I think Golden is talented. Just, seems to be here because she was an established author who played WoW but I don’t think got it.
I hope the Roux is loose for awhile now. So many little touches that made me believe she gets the material. Fan service maybe but I laughed when Bwomsamdi called Zenkan zappy boy, and I liked how murky waters are this huge challenge but there’s a bunch of Shamans. And yeah Shamans have water walking don’t worry about it.
I really hope she gets to work with the Forsaken and Worgen. Horror author. She gets the idea.
That’s what Baine did with regard to Taurajo. Except it was Anduin’s feet he was kissing.
I’m still confused as to why she’s in the Stockades, and not locked away in the Barrow Dens on Hyjal. Both from a thematic point, as the Night Elves are the main people she betrayed and killed, and a practical one. We know from Illidan’s imprisonment that the Barrow Dens are properly sufficient at both punishment and containment. The only guy the Stockades successfully held was the guy who didn’t even want to leave.
They are now.
I enjoyed the book more than any of the other more recent books. Nothing too big happened in the book so people who didn’t read it before Shadowlands won’t miss any important information. I enjoyed the Dark Ranger parts in the book because they’re my favorite kind of elf.
Why spare Sira though? Also, give us those rose tattoos on Nelves and Belves.
For the most part I enjoy this book. For starters, there aren’t any villains within the Horde on it. A few angry people, yes but even they sort of chill out by the end.
The Alliance though… Turalyon and Alleria, just WTF? Torturing a mom? I get it you’re all desperate to find Sylvanas and your methods got the intel about Nathanos infiltrating Zandalar but still, that’s pretty dark for your guys.
I still have a gripe that the authors are writing about characters that they don’t really know that well. Let’s start with Telanji. I understand her anger about Rastakhan, but for her to threaten to leave the Horde because they agreed to an armistice, and then treat Zekhan as an untrusted outsider… After the Horde saved Zandalar from Zul and G’Huun? That seems pretty extreme.
Kiro: Here was a dude who was smart enough and suave enough at diplomacy to stop a peon uprising with almost no bloodshed at all. Yet in the book they portray him as a goofy newb.
/shrug
I do not believe the authors of these books really spent any time playing the game at all. 
Thrall gives Sira to Shaw when he’s released from Zandalar prison, who brings her to Stormwind with his message to Tyrande. I’m sure after the book’s events she was hauled off to nelf custody.
I kinda like that the Alliance are going there, though.
And only Jania complains. And I’ve seen many people say “Well Jania did X” and yeah, well, nobody’s more critical of binge drinking than a recovering alcoholic.
And I kinda liked that part as I did really enjoy a Forsaken Apothecary being a legitimately concerned doctor. Sheltering the toddler Orc and volunteering himself for imprisonment to stop the torture.
The Alliance were the bad guys in that scene, and a Forsaken Apothecary was the selfless hero willing to take the hit to save an innocent.
I dug that. My bois have been villain batted enough about time they got a moment of quiet, civilain heroism.
Actually, Aggra also water walked in The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm in her debut. So, it’s been in the novels before.
Very likely they could have been damaged in the WoT, or that they were still unusable from Cata.
Pretty sure Sira pops up in Shadowlands, so it makes sense to keep her alive. Hope we get to get rid of Delaryn in the prepatch before she becomes Sylvanas 2.0 fully. (Honestly, she should have died in the Warfront)
Oh, yeah. Official confirmation that the Horde canonically did Uldir. Forgot that was in there. More proof that the Alliance had no god**** reason to be there, Blizz. FIX. YOUR. CRAP.
Sadly, Blizz will throw him under the bus the next time they want to roll out a “RAAARGH, FORSAKEN BAD!” plot. Which is getting about as overdone as the whole “Nelves are victims” cliche at this point.
To be honest, the Horde kind of needed this bit of heroism. After being dragged through the villainy junk of War of Thorns it was nice to have questlines saving Zandalar and quite likely Azeroth from Zul and a gross disease god.
It’s what the Horde ideally should be doing more of instead of burning down the Alliance’s stuff every few expacs.
::He would look at Legion.::
::He would look at BFA.::
Maybe. But I want to believe a horror author gets why the Forsaken are fascinating. As an aspiring one myself, you don’t get into that genre unless you kinda sympathized with the monsters. Particularly with the old Universal flicks, most of the creatures featured were either confused or driven feral.
So I hope she gets the Forsaken if she writes them.
Insert the “Thank you!” gif from The Office here
Still, I think it’s often better when both factions have a damn good reason to be in said raid. I mean, the previous OG raid (Ulduar), had both factions basically joining forces (despite tensions from the Wrathgate) to keep Yoggy from busting free and making the Lich King look like a minor problem in comparison.
Honestly, I hope so too. Been too long since the Forsaken had a proper writer. That said, I can’t help but think this will turn into another King situation where she writes the one book, then they hand the next one to Golden, who then proceeds to dump all over the lore because “muh issues”.
Glad to hear you liked OP, despite I’ve heard many good things which is good as helps to move Trolls in a more positive light and shows Blizzard that Horde align races can sell well and you don’t need to put then at secondary roles with a human protagonist or “side-kick”
However I still have some heavy dislikes at some stuff I heard about it:
-Nelves get a new city but the author forgot to expand the Zandalari influence in Nazmir(nothing against Nelves but this was really biased just like how the faction war was)
-Loa being absent aside of Bwonsamdi and a small mention of Krag’wa frogs being used as spies, like seriously why wouldn’t Gonk, Krag’wa appear to crush this little rebellion shortly?
-The small rebel faction having somehow enough influence to make most of the people fear then despite they’re like 20 or so people
Overall it feels like “Not bad” as Blizzard crew is doing more misses than hits
I think what most people complain about is not the scene or the way it’s portrayed as a stand-alone. It’s the lack of what I’d call “stickiness”. In a sense, the Alliance gets to cross the line and do “cool, edgy” stuff from time to time, but it gets justified or explained away or ignored by the narrative, and leaves us with just a string of isolated events that people on the forums like us try to weave together into some larger meaning.
Meanwhile, it feels like the Horde wears every transgression it ever made, and has new ones wound up out of past gray areas, and the narrative hammers these themes over and over again, ad nauseam. It’s why I think, despite it being short and a realistic reaction, many Horde fans (myself included) had no patience for the scene with Tyrande and Thrall. We get plenty of reinforcement from the narrative that the writers want us to feel guilty and want Thrall to be weak and powerless. We don’t need to see it even more in a book that’s supposed to be about building up the Horde.
To be fair, I think it goes a long way to show how Tyrande might never forgive the Horde for the WoT (Probably doesn’t help that she can also realistically lay the crap Garrosh did as Warchief (especially Ashenvale) at Thrall’s feet as well, since Thrall was the one who put him in charge), and if it leads to some proper internal conflict and good story for Alliance, I’m for it.
If anything, like you said, it’s a very realistic reaction, which is a breath of fresh air for this franchise. Tyrande has quite understandably had enough of the Horde and their willingness to go to war at the drop of a hat at this point. One more minor thing, and she might just go ELUNE VULT on any Horde she comes across.
Honestly, it’s nice to see just how badly Thrall (And can I say how nice it is that he went back to “Thrall” instead of wanting to go by “Go’el” now?) wants things to go back to how they were, but the damage done by Garrosh and Sylvanas may just be too much to overcome. Tyrande used to be someone he could talk with and make agreements on trade with, but now, she wants nothing more than Sylvanas’ head, and for all the Horde to kiss every Nelf *** for what they did.
Reread the scene. Thrall is biting his tongue. Acknowledges how this was an insult. And how a younger version of himself might’ve smacked someone by now. But he’s older, wiser, and wants peace. So he placates Tyrande. Successfully by the end.
Horde won in that story. Jania got to feel bad, Anduin is running away from the throne just basking in the brief feeling of being nobody, the Kaldorei’s anger is better appeased by the Horde, and Turalyon is gradually alienating the respect of his allies and worth of his legacy by being whipped by another Windrunner’s embrace of the dark side.
Meanwhile all the OG core Horde races got a moment of heroism. Win in my book.
I just don’t read it that way, but I do admire your powers of sheer optimism as usual, Benedikt.
Forsaken Apothecary steps in to stop inhuman torture of a mother while protecting a child. Zenkan dies (for a bit) saving children, Thrall dumps a glass of water on this geopolitical powder keg and Baine one shots the mini boss after saving the Zandalari queen.
*AND IF THAT WASN’T ENOUGH
The Goblins and Nightborne get huge supporting roles, the Vulpera are ceaselessly mentioned, Ji’s spin kicking fools and most of the story was about the Zandalari. Oh, and the MOST ENTERTAINING CHARACTER IN THE NARRATIVE is 200% tied to Talanji, who’s on the Horde council, and he can save souls from the Maw.
I came out of this book with this playing in my head.
This book felt very pointless overall, which was my only real issue with it. Maybe some fan service scenes, like the Mount Hyjal scene, really stood out as non impactful or kinda meaningless, if not a bit ignorant of the lore… using the Well of Eternity like a normal like and water walking over it as a shortcut lmao. Honestly shoulda got someone with a bit more understanding of NEs to make that scene… but then someone who understands what NEs wants would have understood we didn’t want a dialogue meeting scene, because most of what NEs do now is talk. Needed some pro-activity, taking initiative in the hunt ourselves. Even in the meeting, they just sat there staring at Thrall blankly for the entire start lmao. Passive in conversation and in actually getting justice for our fallen.