It was probably worse for his character, but I think this bug was better for the overall story and what the writers hoped to achieve in its telling. When the goal is explicitly to rile up nerds into defending the primary color they clicked during character creation, less is more.
There’s certainly valid discourse to be had concerning the crime (a WMD filched with Kirin Tor resources) vs the punishment (a bloody purge of a population largely innocent and ignorant of said crime), but the layer of ambiguity created by this omission of Aethas’s personal guilt encouraged a higher quality of discussion than confirmation of it going in would have done. Kosak offhandedly revealing it on Twitter was an embarrassing cop out, celebrated as a “win” by the exact kind of troglodyte Ben has given good commentary on in the past.
And if that’s the apex of faction conflict – arguing in the dark as we wait on bated breath for some hack to fill in the blanks in a tweet – this game is better served moving far away from it. Faction conflict works best when its dirty details are left in the dark.
I enjoyed PVP from both sides, even though I’m not that good at it. My favorite battle ground was Alterac Valley, back in the days you had to play it strategically rather than just a rush to the opposite boss. I actually participated several times in one battle that went on for three days straight.
BFA to me was like Star Trek: Voyager, Voyager was sold that it’d be a survival series when it wound up being TNG Lite. That and of course as we’ve found out there were personal shenanigans going on in the Creative Division severe enough to poison the work flow. BFA has been dissected to death, but that’s two expansions past now, it’s time to just let it go. As well as letting go of the zealots who refuse to let it die.
This whole thread can be summed up to the failures of what’s happened and what should have happened.
Failures that continue to happen into the new expansion. Nothing is changed, its just BFA and SL trends continuing.
What discussion? That Aethas was in the wrong, in the Faction conflict expansion where the Horde was in the wrong? While Blizz spends years to follow slowly walking back and whitewashing the grey out of the Alliance side of that affair; as much as possible. Like nobody gave a crap about what Aethas did or did not know. That ambiguity was used exclusively in favor of the Alliance side of that discussion, resulting in what we see in Legion. The man who should be the leader of the victims bowing down and apologizing for his people getting purged. Great outcome that ambiguity resulted in.
I don’t know if you played back then, but I assure you they most certainly did. Most pro-Horde arguments hinged on it. We knew Garrosh had an agent or two in the Kirin Tor, we knew its supposedly neutral resources were used to the Horde’s benefit, but we didn’t know whether Aethas himself was in on the job.
Not at all. The presumption of his innocence was the entire reason the Horde backed the Sunreavers against the Alliance in 5.2 (“The Sunreavers knew nothing of Garrosh’s raid on Darnassus!”). The possibility that Murdermode Jaina might have been wrong in her wild accusations against Aethas was a massive point in the Horde’s favor. His embarrassing contrition arc in Legion was a direct result a dev tweet doing away with that ambiguity, much to the character’s detriment.
This bugged cutscene with Aethas would not have strengthened the Horde’s position. The exact opposite is true. Going into the purge with foreknowledge that Jaina’s baseless accusations were (inexplicably) 100% correct would’ve reflected much, much worse on Team Red.
When has ambiguity ever worked in the favor of the Horde Faction in this game? Least of all during the Villain Bat expacs? Let alone with Blizz’s obsessive need to whitewash and dilute any grey they actually allow the Blues to commit; which they have done regularly with the Purge of Dalaran. Most people don’t even remember Vareesa’s nightmare nonsense during that event, that’s how successful they were at cleaning that mess. The “presumption of innocence” hasn’t been a thing automatically presented to a member of a Horde race in over 13 years. And rather the “Presumption of Guilt” is the by-default, until such a time as they were proven innocent. Which Aethas wasn’t.
And btw, Aethas WASN’T guilty of her accusations. He wasn’t behind the theft of the bell. He only found out about it moments after it was too late to prevent the theft, and its perpetrators placed upon him a horrific choice. Betray Garrosh, subjecting his people to Orc Hitler’s wrath. Or betray Jaina, and hope her wrath was lesser than his. Given his was the deciding vote in Dalaran supporting Theramore, he chose what he believed to be the lesser of two evils. But his complacency and guilt in that event extended no further than that. That’s the part of the Purge of Dalaran scenario that was bugged, and never fixed. His innocence.
If I remember right, it was given away anyway in the Isle of Thunder patch with Aethas’s “shifts nervously” emote when Lor’themar insisted that the Sunreavers knew nothing about the Divine Bell incident.
“You looked the other way,” Jaina tells Aethas, and through sheer dumb luck this baseless accusation is a perfect summary of the missing cutscene you outlined.
That’s my problem with the purge. The Horde came out of it with a much better showing when the circumstances behind its instigation were specious. When the possibility still existed that Golden’s golden girl might have been wrong. The more we learned of it, this rare event in which the Horde was the wronged party, the more inevitable the Alliance’s acquittal and the Horde’s demonization became.
The Horde was never the “wronged” party in the Purge. The fact remains the Horde betrayed Dalaran TWICE at that point, and Legion only proved Jaina right that it would betray it again. Aethas has the responsibility to try and reign in his people and weed out those who were loyal to Garrosh to the detriment of Dalaran, he did nothing.
Dalaran is neutral, letting the Horde go about it’s buisness and not get involved was his perogative. It was actually Jaina and Veressa that were breaking Dalaran’s neutrality by claiming the Bell belonged to the Alliance, and wanting to take it back for them with force.
Who the Bell belonged to was not the business of Dalaran. Jaina over stepped her position. Jaina also stole aftifacts from the blue dragons, she stole texts from Dalaran itself, she was the one in the wrong.
There’s no way that Aethas could have know what Garrosh’s intentions were. Nor did he have any power to stop the Horde Warchief.
That would have started a war with the Alliance. It can’t be “neutral” if it was going to start a war with a faction. Not to mention Aethas was also helping the blood elves in the study of the sha.
Side note, the Alliance had also banned the use of sha based weapons. Jaina herself was present and knew the bell would not be used as a weapon.
No neutrality is not taking a stand, even if it would lead a faction war. Dalaran remains impartial in the Horde vs Alliance conflict. Jaina commiting the Purge was in direct violation of that, she made it the blood elves fault. She was angry and needed someone to blame, she lashed out on an innocent group, one that were already opressed in Dalaran as it was.
One of them, he didn’t know the entire operation he just wanted to make a profit and enjoy luxury, he was ignorant to Garrosh’s greater schemes. That didn’t mean they all had to die. He should have faced the council’s justice and been exiled. instead Jaina decided to purge all Blood Elves from the city.
No matter which way you slice this cake, Jaina was the one in the wrong.
Now you are making up lore. The book was silent as to who said Sunreaver was or his/her motives. Also, the Alliance didnt want to kill them. Jaina explicitly only wanted to arrest them but would imprison anyone who resisted.
I’m not making up lore, his name is Fanlyr Silverthorn. He was an agent of Lorthemar. All he did was set up portals so that the Horde forces could infiltrate Darnassus. Don’t be an jerk, I get enough of that from other people. You don’t even know his name.
Fanlyr is responsible for his own actions sure, but it was not Aethas it was Lorethemar who bares all the responsibility for his involvement. That’s exactly why Jaina confronts Lorethemar on the Isle of Thunder.
it was this action that cemented the Blood Elves in the Horde