The Purge of Dalaran was bad writing (and BfA)

Lore Story Forum
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Please read all the way to the end before commenting why Jaina is X.

The Purge of Dalaran was, in a way, a proto-BfA in terms of how it was written.
There was potential for it, and some interesting parts, but ultimately it’s a self-contradictory narrative.
In dev tweets I’ve long lost track of, you can find out just how much was cut from the Purge’s story.

Aethas’ actions were wrong, but it’s understandable that he was essentially forced into a bad situation against his will and tried to make the best of it on short notice.
Jaina’s reaction was too strong, but not because “she went crazy”: She was reacting to something that was cut.
In game (for Horde), the taking of the bell is a stealth operation where you are forced/encouraged not to engage with/kill any guards/civilians. The bell is successfully taken without anyone being hurt.
In cut content, the taking of the bell sets off a catastrophe in Darnassus, harming and possibly killing civilians.

Jaina’s reaction to the latter is, frankly, more than understandable. But that isn’t what happened in game for some reason.

Back to Aethas. In case you were wondering, he had no idea about the operation until right after it had happened, and then he was told to keep his silence or Hellscream would bring ruin to Silvermoon. So he told Jaina nothing when confronted less than a day later.

The weird part is, none of these things happened in-game, but the story would make way more sense if they did.

Also, in-game, Jaina illegally keeps a garrison of Stormwind soldiers in Dalaran, but only in the Horde version of events.

I call this proto-BfA because while stories like the Southern Barrens, Dustwallow Marsh, or Broken Shore tell us two halves of the same story, the Purge of Dalaran and many events in BfA don’t tell the same story at all. And I think they were designed this way on purpose. Information is contradictory or omitted in order to incite arguments to which there is no correct answer because people are arguing over different events, not the same event from a different point of view. And I think the writers genuinely view/viewed this as a good thing.

Anyway. That’s a lot of why I don’t find WoW storytelling as rewarding as I once did. I want to play both sides to see two halves, not two completely different stories. I stopped playing Alliance in BfA not because of faction pride (ha), but because I didn’t want to keep two different narratives straight.

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The purge also happened after Theramore and maybe Blizzard took mercy on Alliance players because they didn’t want the Horde to blow up another city so soon after the first one and double down on the Horde Villainbat even further.

All this does is make Jaina even more vindicated in her actions of kicking out all the blood elves out of Dalaran which some Horde players have labelled as ethnic cleansing.

Of course these players never refer to Horde actions in Lordaeron as an ethnic cleansing but never mind that for now. All this cut content would have done is make the Horde look worse and Alliance look better.

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I liked the purge of Dalaran right up until they removed all consequences for it by making Dalaran neutral again in Legion.

After all the horrible stuff that went down, we’re now just meant to believe that we’re all cool, Dalaran’s a hip neutral place again.

Don’t like it. I’d rather it stayed Alliance.

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Should have stayed Alliance so that the Horde could have raised their own floating base of operations.

That way, we could have giant magical sky fights.

I don’t know what it looks like when a city does a barrel roll. But I desperately want to find out.

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Dude imagine if the goblins were like “You know what? Stuff Azshara, we’re gonna fly baby” and made a rocket city? I’d be so down.

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The purge has its issues, some of which you’ve laid out already, but this wasn’t one of them. The bell going off and massacring Darnassus would have been a real proto-BfA - yet another Horde atrocity for the ever-righteous Alliance to react to. Jaina conducting her purge under specious circumstances made the whole thing more interesting for both sides.

One of BfA’s biggest crimes was its failure to hit that sweet spot. The moral debates of old shifting to this naked contempt for the writers who bungled it is the result left behind.

Indeed. Dalaran vs Silvermoon was one of my favorite rivalries in MoP, despite them not exploring it half as much as I’d have liked. The big tease just ended up being Sunreavers vs Silver Covenant 2.

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I dunno, I actually liked the Purge of Dalaran story because it raised the ethical question on if Dalaran should be a true neutral faction.

Is neutrality just turning a blind eye? or being the middle man or referee in every faction conflict?

I don’t think Aethas did anything wrong, in fact he was showing neutrality by turning a blind eye.

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Except the Horde abused Dalaran’s neutrality by using their portals to get to Darnassus in a way that would have been impossible otherwise. Then, Aethas, a member of the Kiron Tor had the choice to choose between Silvermoon and Dalaran and chose Silvermoon. That’s the opposite of neutrality.

Not saying that he didn’t have a right to choose, but he had to pay for the consequences and the Blood Elves could no longer be trusted.

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Hoping this eventually happens in the future to an extent. Dalaran rejoins the Alliance and maybe the new Undead city could be a giant Necropolis.

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In the canceled content, Aethas genuinely didn’t know about the operation. It was a rogue member of either Silvermoon or the Sunreavers acting independently.
He showed up after the operation, catching them in the act.
But then he was confronted by Hellscream’s Orc operative and told that if he tried to stop them or expose them, Hellscream would attack/punish the other Blood Elves.
Shortly thereafter, Jaina confronts him.

At that point, he can either tell Jaina the truth and risk the lives of the Blood Elves, or he can lie to Jaina to protect his own people from Hellscream and hope Jaina won’t do anything to his people.

With hardly any time to prepare, he chooses to play dumb.

It’s honestly a good moral quandary that the story would have been better for having.

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Honestly, that part should never be up for debate. Actions taken against Aethas and the Sunreavers are a given. It sucks for Aethas, but something had to happen.

The crux of the argument often comes down to how the Purge happened. If Jaina exiled the Sunreavers and stopped at that, there likely wouldn’t be too much of an issue.

But she didn’t. And what she did do was kind of messed up. And the reason the Purge gets brought up so often (particularly by Horde players) is because they feel like they never got a proper resolution for it.

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Didn’t Garrosh also threaten to retaliate against Dalaran if Aethas interfered?

I think he was put with his back up against the wall and he did what was best for Dalaran as well.

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They also bring up Genn’s stormheim attack too even though his actions are a response to Horde’s previous actions. Particularly Sylvanas.

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Against silvermoon and his people.

Aethas situation sucked terrible back then.

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Horde players often bring up a lot of things because they’ve always done a poor job motivating players for the Faction Conflict. Particularly Taurajo, the Purge, and Stormheim, because they feel those instances could be used for said motivation.

In a perfect narrative, both sides would be incentivized to fight one another, with equal ground to stand on. They should feel that fighting the Horde/Alliance is the “right” thing to do.

But the Alliance is hardly allowed to be anything except retaliatory and to pull their punches.
While the Horde is hardly allowed to act on what scant motivation there is, instead doing things because Warchief MegaCrime wants to rule the world by weaponizing orphans.

Sure, there are Horde players you are fine with the stupid-evil “Lol Kill all Humans” thing.
Just as there are Alliance players who genuinely enjoy the lawful-stupid approach to the Alliance. But I’ve found most players just want a war they can enjoy participating in.

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I haven’t missed this.

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Part of it is lack of committal to Alliance aggression as ultimately everything gets focused on Evil Warchief. Outside of the “all forms of retaliation are acceptable in all contexts” forum zealot logic, in no sane setting is attempted political assassination by way of full on assault of a military fleet during a time of combined efforts against a much greater threat not a full war declaration. But because BFA was dead set on Villain Sylvanas and Horde aggression problems, it didn’t really count and the Alliance role in “the cycle” wasn’t meaningfully addressed.

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Jaina choosing to ward off and help keep the Divine Bell from the Horde to the point of outright capturing spies was also the opposite of neutrality.

Each side had two figures in the Purge to represent the idea of Dalaran’s neutrality and they both broke it. I’m not sure if it was a subtle message about how neutrality is a mask to help foreshadow the break or if it was unintentionally done.

And the more I think about it, the more I think it would have been better if the bell had been stolen from Dalaran. It would have prevented people from feeling their was a double standard in regards to Jaina, Aethas conflict of loyalty between Dalaran and Silvermoon would have had greater weight, Sunreavers agents placing their loyalty to Garrosh and uncaring of the consequences for their people would have helped further show how fanatical Hellscreams loyalists could be and help showcase the growing Horde civil war.

We could have also have had Sunreavers trying to keep other members from putting the Horde first, further making it an injustice for the Purge on the Horde-side. On the flipside we Silver Covenant agents vouching for the Sunreavers only to have that personal feeling of betrayal when the theft occurs and justifing that feeling of the Sunreavers being untrustworthy on the Alliance-side.

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Let’s not forget all the confusion about whether the Blood Elves of Dalaran were given a clear chance to leave and collectively refused, as some insist, or whether they were rounded up and/or attacked without warning after their means of escape was cut off.

It’s pretty clear to me that there were too many different visions at work in the writing of the various parts of the Purge, without a continuity person to stitch it all together into a coherent final version. This may have been caused by multiple writers working without communicating with each other, or quests from multiple reworkings of the scenario being implemented side by side, or both.

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Except the Divine Bell didn’t belong to the Horde and there’s nothing wrong with keeping apocalyptic causing superweapons out of the hands of genocidal maniacs.

Dalaran being neutral means it can’t choose to give one side in a war a tactical advantage, it doesn’t mean they just sit back and let one faction throw the world into chaos. It also means they don’t have to sit on the sidelines and let one side slaughter innocents especially if it serves no strategic purpose.

I’m pretty sure Jaina knew it couldn’t be trusted to be kept in Dalaran.

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