Yeah he’s in Ashran.
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Wasn’t that the same series that had Kalecgos dating the Sunwell who was now a hot human farmhand for reasons I refuse to dig into?
Because yeah there’s a lot of WoW lore and a lot of it’s… that.
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Sounds like we agree on a lot. I was defending Xe’ra’s condemnation of Alleria’s Void use, on that matter I mostly side with said Naaru. I headcanon that her zero-tolerance policy on all things Void was partly based on not wanting to risk becoming a Dark/Void Naaru herself.
Besides, the Void is no stranger to forced conversions, and theirs come with tentacles and eyes in places people don’t want them.
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Xe’ra’s biggest crime was having the perfect setup to slam Illidan with his “hand of fate” line but opting for the less inspired “the prophecy must be fulfilled.” One job.
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In general the recontextualizing of Illidan is weird to me. Because I’d stopped playing WoW during Wrath until Legion. And Burning Crusade was and still pretty much is my favorite expansion.
Seriously I still love how drastically different Outland was. Hellfire was a blasted demonic wasteland not too different from the Blasted Lands you came in from. Which made Zangarmarsh utterly jaw dropping. To say nothing of Nagrand or Netherstorm.
So my memory of that storyline was still pretty solid and a lot of face-value acceptance of the Illidari really wants you to not remember it too well.
Like okay gotcha greater good but uh. So how’d enslaving the broken and destroying Zangarmarsh’s ecology factor in there again big dawg? To say nothing of uh the pleasure wing in the Black Temple.
Seriously was that vital there Illidaniel or? And whatever happened to Teron Gorefiend and the metric ton of Fel Orcs?
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Gotta agree with you there. I might’ve been able to tolerate that cinematic if she did (imo even Illidan fans and Xe’ra haters would’ve liked that line given how the cinematic played out).
Seems like the writers’ agenda. I always disliked the sudden 180 from “Naaru and army of the light” to “undermine their reputation because of ‘mOrAlLy GrEy’”.
Illidan was whitewashed by certain writers similar to how Sylvanas was, albeit on a smaller scale. Plus, there wasn’t the tug-of-war between fans and haters like there was for Sylvanas.
iirc a lot of the Fel Orcs were killed during the attack on the Black Temple where we killed off Illidan. Plus, Illidan is hit-and-miss at strategy and a really bad communicator.
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He summons phoenixes.
Not disagreeing. Blood Mage really walks the line between Fire Mage and Destruction Warlock. That said, I think Blizzard see’s Blood Mages more as Mages than Warlocks these days. The trading post mage set kind of cements it. The most iconic look for Blood Mages, is Mage-Only. Admittedly we haven’t received the red version with the verdant spheres yet, but that was datamined, alongside a purple version with purple spheres, likely meant for Void Elves.
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I hope we get the red version soon, still surprised we got a high elven version before we got the classic red one. As blood mages and verdant spheres only became a thing after the split.
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The old theory was he wanted to gather the water and turn it into a new well of eternity. Based on the dungeon guide his reason was retcon/change to control the water of Outland thus forcing everyone to capitulate or die of thirst.
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Retcon? I think the old WoW site always said it was for control over Outland via water control.
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As I recall there wasnt really any hard lore to it until they added the dungeon guide in I would like to say MoP? For the older dungeons.
hence why people were saying Illidan was planning on using the water to create a new well. Whether Blizzard had said anything or it was just speculation I dont remember anymore.
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That’s a surprisingly rye if cruel strategy. Albeit a bit questionable in this setting as far as I can tell several Mages could keep a population stocked with food and water indefinitely.
In general I’d love to revisit Outland. It’s in need of an update and I’d love to see Shattrath expanded on. The Lower City in particular has always struck me as underutilized. Because it’s the seedy underbelly of a metropolis. But one on a shattered world run by essentially an angel with beggars, brigands and benefactors from multiple worlds and even planes of reality running around.
Idk that just sounds really interesting to me. Could be basically the Cantina scene from A New Hope - the zone.
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Well apparently in the raid Vashj says,
Water… is life. It has become a rare commodity here in Outland; a commodity that we alone shall control. We are the Highborne, and the time has come at last for us to retake our rightful place in the world!
I can’t find the old source but I believe the old Warcraft site mentions this explicitly as well. Only because I recall someone arguing the Illidan book changed something about the water aspect and citing that.
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I miss my glyph of verdant spheres. Verdant spheres are the closest lore analogue to our soul shard mechanic.
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Blood Elves initially fit on the Horde for sure, without a doubt. The problem was the unique problem that made them so was solved in the same expansion, and since then they’ve sort of done this slow trimming away of their unique traits to make them easier to write. The same can be said for a lot of races, honestly.
Void Elves are weird because there’s MORE High Elves than them, they’re essentially a goth book club. All the allied races (and Iron Horde) are very odd as picks for allied races and it likely stems from my (tinfoil hat) theory that they were all made by cobbling together customizations for the overhaul that the art team had already made.
I.E they’re made from new options made for EXISTING races that were cannibalized.
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AFAIK there wouldn’t be enough mages for everyone. Most of them would be at Honor Hold and they’d have to make the trek there.
I was hoping we’d get Exploring Outland before Exploring Northrend. It’s been awhile since we’ve gotten much info from that place. Now we’re getting another Exploring Azeroth book on places we’ve recently been to and going by the precedent of the previous two books we’re probably not going to get much new or useful info.
Also if you played Warcraft 3 there’s no indication that Illidan was a hero…like at all. He was an anti-villain. For real, just listen to him talk during the Blood Elf campaign.
“MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I have come to replace you! You’re a relic, Magtheridon. The future…is mine!”
“HEAR ME YOU TREMBLING WORMS. I am your lord and master! Illidan reigns supreme!” (paraphrasing, it’s something over the top and delightfully cheesy like that)
This is the guy Legion decided to make a good guy XD
TBC went WAY TOO FAR in the villain direction, and Legion went WAY TOO FAR to make him an edgy anti-hero Jesus figure. Cringe.
I swear, nuance can’t be this hard to write.
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Did they? I didn’t get that impression… but by time we were all “Praise the Light and Charge!” I was kind of checked out of the story.
My memory impressions were that he was still a POS, but he was the POS we needed at the moment, kind of like how Lex Luther frequently is vital to helping Superman (somehow…). It basically ended with us just priming a weapon and throwing it/him at the big bad so he’d get his “ultimate fight/battle” and we could leave him behind and lock the door from the outside.
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Nope, you got the quotes right.
Legion shilled Illidan like Cata shilled Thrall. I actually made a thread listing the parallels;
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He still was unironically heroic. Seriously I’m very neutral toward both of these characters and I still gotta say this is the hardest any character’s looked.
The wings popped out and then his Burning Crusade theme kicked in? I’m still mad he didn’t say “Now mortals - you are prepared”.
PoS maybe but you’re clearly supposed to think that dude is badass.
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