So Shandris Feathermoon is the Night Elf Representative for the Nazjatar story

Goodness if I know. But at least she’s more focused in arcane magic than ice.

And that’s coming from someone who’s Mage alt is a dedicated Frost Mage.

Why does everyone assume Jaina could have mass teleported everyone at that point in time? For all we know she used up most of her strength, you know, actually fighting the Legion?

I’d also point out she has her magic ship literally shotting arcane ball of death at you.

Because ridiculing Blizzard for writing Jaina out of the story at the Broken Shore is fun?

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Because she’s been shown to have this ability before, and we’ve been given no reason why she didn’t still have it at the BS. Maybe there was something preventing her. But we shouldn’t have to use head canon for the story to make sense. “For all we know” tells me that there is an obvious plot hole.

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We have to use headcanon for ALOT of things. Would it really have made the scene with Genn/Varian better had Jaina gone on a narrative as to why she couldn’t just teleport them all out?(not to mention the work of having to add her to actual cinematic and having her get voice lines)

I’d dont think it would, and probably would ruin the very emotionally scene Blizzard was trying to create.

This is not a good thing, as that’s lazy writing on Blizzard’s part. And headcanon is still not canon, which still leaves plot holes in the narrative.

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Would it have made that scene better? No. Would it have made the overall story better? Yes! Because I hold firmly to the proposition that good storytelling makes logical sense, and I can’t get very emotionally invested in a story when I know it is stupid.

And how hard would it have been to, for example, show Jaina collapsing from exhaustion, as you’ve suggested (good suggestion, BTW)? I mean, they literally do that with about 2 seconds of animation to show why Thrall isn’t taking charge.

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I agree. I was sad about Teldrassil burning, but I couldn’t come to hate the Horde for it, because the catapults were so damn stupid.

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You have plenty of Human mages, now with Tidesages in addition. Horde has no narratively relevant magic strength. Alliance also has Void Elves. Blood Elf and Nightborne fodder mages are no different than seventh legion mage fodder. Where are these impressive Blood Elf mages?

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Licking Jaina’s boots if Aethas is anything to go by.

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Because the writers won’t utilize anyone but Humans.

The Draenei built an Arcane society so advanced, Sargeras handpicked them to lead the Legion. Even if 99% of their Mages chose to either side with Sargeras or start wielding the Light, the remaining 1% should be able to run magical circles around any given Human mage. Much the same can be said for the Highborne. They were Azeroth’s version of the Eredar, and the Alliance has some of those Highborne that used the Arcane to forge a global Empire that hasn’t been matched since. I mean, a Blood Elf gets green eyes just from being around a fel crystal for a few months, but the Shen’dralar managed to siphon magic from a demon for ten thousand years, with no physiological changes, at all.

The Arcane is constantly compared to academic pursuits, like science or math, and your average Gnome is a literal genius. But, like anything else Gnome-related, Gnomish mages are treated like a joke (or as pseudo-children for their Human masters to teach). The only leg-up the Humans should have is their Titanic ancestry, which the Dwarves also share. So, Dwarven mages have no reason to not be on par with their Human counterparts. Even altered Humans get the shaft. I can’t think of a single notable Gilnean mage, after Arugal left and subsequently died.

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Human Magic Potential (favoritism) overshadows both factions. It is like they are deathly afraid of anyone but Khadgar being close to Jaina’s level.

Hmm. Maybe this deserves its own topic, but it’s a bit of an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. It also requires a bit of a meta-discussion.

As someone who plays both factions (but only NE on Alliance), I think a lot of the sting comes from how aesthetically beautiful, thematically perfect, and a jewel-in-the-crown Suramar is. As a NE player, experiencing Suramar in Legion felt like the much-needed return of a significant chunk of NE history and identity. Suramar, the zone, made me proud to play a NE.

Combining the above with the fact that we actively do things to liberate it, only to have that connection canonically severed is simply salt to the wound.

Perhaps this could have been avoided/lessened by giving the Val’Sharah and Azsuna kaldorei a pro Alliance/pro Darnassus bent after Legion. Along with a push on the aesthetics and themes from those two zones to Darnassus.

The higher classes have the stylings of Suramar and Silvermoon. Farondis and co. bring their pedigree to Darnassus. From Val’Sharah, there’s more development of the druidic theme, and the crowning glory - Black Rook Hold. The stylings of that zone should have been the grand heritage of the common people.

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This thread is fantastic!

It’s like I’m watching all this animated, motivated, heated discussion going on with a still-burning Teldrassil as the backdrop. Absolutely delightful!

But let’s not pretend that the decision to put Blood Elves and Nightborne on the Horde was anything other than a function of gameplay with the justification created after the fact. That’s how many of the decisions get made: game first, story later (maybe).

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Can you blame him?

This makes me wonder now. Now that the Horde has controlling interest in the political geography of the Isles and has gone on to genocide the ever living crap out of the Kaldorei in other territories, do they even let them operate there? If so, what’s the talk at the water cooler there like I wonder?

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well, tyrande and malfurion are busy retaking darkshore and killing forsaken, someone ele should go there, thank good is not more human potential

Shandris is there too but she can come to Nazjatar ? Same for Nathanos who should still be defending Darkshore.

Jaina is still one of the main character there so …

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she can leave while the others fight there, it would be bad if everyone leave, it would open opportunity to the forsakens retaken the land and all the effort is lost

at least is not just her, this is what i mean…

this is isle of thunder with lorthemar x jaina all over again.

Well it still doesn’t explain how Nathanos is here (and even everywhere). There is also plenty of night elf characters so if only Tyrande or Malfurion stayed the other could have also come.

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