in TBC. A bad retcon. Nothing ever indicated he would switch sides. What happened was a clueless Blizzard team who had no idea that the MMO genre would continue to grow after 2007.
In Warcraft 3 he switched sides and joined Illidan because Illidan promised to sate his people’s addiction to magic. Illidan didn’t do that.
So he, already a turncoat, looked for another source of magic to sate his people’s addiction, and as fel is very addictive, he gave in to his own need for power. Especially after the Legion resurrected him. You can cope all you want, but the Kael’thas of TBC is the Kael’thas of Warcraft 3.
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Kael saved his people from certain death when a racist general ordered his and his followers executions. He is a hero. Not a turncoat. Otherwise he had sold his soul for pwoer from the beginning. This time he only looked for reliable allies.
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He replaced one master with another. A reliable ally doesn’t demand that you throw your people’s lives away, few as they are, and refer to him as master.
Illidan failed every promise he made to the blood elves and Kael’thas sought other means to save his people but gave in to his own temptations.
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Illidan got a soft redemption that was fuled by his paranoia which is why he kept all plans hidden except for the other demon hunters. And he did deliver some goodies. With his help the Magisters gained enough power to take back Quel’thalas from the scourge.
No they didn’t? They did that through the capture of M’uru.
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Nothing expect that he would do anything to save his people and Kil’jaedan clearly gave him a deal Illidan could not.
Illidan systematically alienated almost all his allies in his mad quest to destroy the Legion.
Kil’jaeden gave him power. He went braindead here. Nothing about the Sunwell becoming fel would make anything better.
I can cite all my sources.
You’d probably fail like you did in your Earthen thread.
From the story Blood of the Highborne.
It was not until Rommath returned with Illidan’s teachings - teachings smoothly attributed to Kael’thas - that the tides began to turn. Rommath taught his brethren the ability to siphon arcane magic from external sources, primarily mana-bearing creatures and objects. This proved invaluable to the beleaguered elves, most of whom were suffering from arcane withdrawal with the Sunwell’s constant flow of energy gone, and lacking the strength to restore their beloved homeland. Some elves opposed this technique, considering it immoral, and were exiled south to the Plaguelands to avoid civil unrest; the exiles took up residence at Quel’Lithien Lodge
Rommath and the magi used their powerful magics to reclaim and rebuild the eastern half of Silvermoon City almost overnight, and the blood elves struck out to reclaim Eversong and push into the scoured south. Most of Eversong was restored, but the elves were more divided on how to approach the Ghostlands. Some were content to remain north, in the safety of Silvermoon; others would not rest until the Scourge was driven from Quel’Thalas entirely.
I honestly think blizzard had a completely different plan for TBC than the one we got.
I have no idea what that plan was, but the story of tbc was so disjointed it’s hard to believe that was actually mapped out
Ok I am confused. I thought Kael went to Illidan for help with their addiction. Illidan was on the run from Kil’Jaeden? So technically Kael was a servant to Illidan?
Kael originally pledged loyalty to Illidan, but after Illidan failed to destroy the lich king he spiralled and basically ignored Kael’thas. Kiljaedan then contacted Kael and made a deal to provide him with mana to feed on
That’s as far as I can make out. Honestly I have no idea why they messed up his character so badly with that villain bat
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If I had to guess why they picked Illidan specifically, I’d say it’s because they thought he would be marketable: the franchise known for flipping the trope of evil orcs on its head could now have an evil elf as their main villain! Not only that, but he looked rad as heck, with those horns and stuff!
Regarding Kael and why he was a villain: Weren’t the Blood Elves already considered kinda villainous? In the non-canonical RPG books, they’re depicted as way more evil than they are in the game—if anything, the game retconned them into being better than expected. But they did that by saying it was just their leader who was evil and the playable BEs didn’t follow him. They later pulled a similar trick with the Zandalari and Zul.
I believe WoW was originally just going to have a series of patches and not full on expansions. There is evidence that Karazhan was going to be the raid after Naxxramas. The biggest one being that Ateish, the Legendary staff you got from Naxx + C’thun could portal to Karazhan. Then there is the unused vanilla WoW hellfire Peninsula zone.
But at some point Blizzard needed to do a lot of core system changes, too big for a ‘patch’ so they scrambled to form TBC. Which is kinda why TBC feels disjointed when compared to other expansions. And probably why ‘rule of cool’ dominated TBC’s development so much. Hell, the quest that reveals Kael’thas survived his encounter in TK:Eye came with patch 2.1. That being
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Kael%27thas_and_the_Verdant_Sphere
That quest also set up the Isle of Quel’danas story. With Kael’thas planning on bringing Kil’jaeden to Azeroth somehow.
Why are we asking questions that were answered over fifteen years ago?
WoW didn’t have a storyline back in 2004-2007. It was just things happening. Vashj was trying to make a new Well of Eternity, Blood Elves were mana bombing druids. Illidan was written off as “insane” after his defeat at Icecrown. “You are not prepared” was the drive for the expansion. WoW wasn’t quite ready to make up villains out of thin air like they do now. So they pulled from familiar characters.
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Because Vanilla and TBC literally didn’t have much of a story to begin with.
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Poor planning and writing just for the sake of making everyone a bad guy for sake of loot and raids.
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