I mean, the broad wasn’t even around for more than an Expac. She couldn’t really do stuff on the level of Jaina or Sylvanas, who have been doing stuff for years. Or Odyn - who has been recorded as involved in Azeroth’s history for thousands of years, and has been involved in multiple expacs.
Xera is a mystery. We don’t know her origin, or why she was locked away as a shard, or why Elune’s tear activated her. We only have guesses from Khadgar and Velen. As you say, we only have her brief appearance to judge her on.
We can invent all sorts of good philosophies because she is of the Light, or we can invent evil intentions. But we don’t even know her status among the Naaru - does she represent them at all? Adal had a few Naaru buddies with him, that could vouch for him, but Xera seems to either be an outcast or a lone wolf. We don’t see other Naaru vouching for her.
If we only judge her on what we know for sure- that she tried to remake Illidan against his will- then she got what was coming to her. A sort of “might makes right” situation. If she could have forced her will on Illidan, no one else was going to jump in and stop her. Our boy Illidaniel did what he had to do to remain who he wanted to be.
But more to the point as far as I am concerned:
Yeah I found her totally grating to deal with. Super obnoxious. I was so happy when Illidan blew her into smithereens.
I hated how she forced herself painfully into your mind at made you witness Illidan at random points in his life. Not to mention she also put us in a coma for a couple days when we initially interact with her
Id argue she was/is neither. She was very well intentioned but limited in perspective due to her nature. She acted with the best intentions, but couldnt see beyond the Light’s directive.
To a mortal perspective in game? Definitely could be perceived as evil. Even light users would see her actions as evil, as she tried to rob the will of a thinking creature.
However, its been shown and hinted that cosmic forces rarely cant find a perspective rather than their origin’s perspective. Krystia, Aman’thul, Zovaal, and X’era all seem to be incapable of empathizing with “mortal” perspectives, or breaking their own programmed thinking. Arguably Denathrius is the only one who was able to break this.
I won’t ask about similar characters who’ve done more because I know that you’re not a guy of double-standards where characters are concerned.
You’re grasping at straws. We don’t know why there was pain or a coma, neither benefitted her in any way, it could be a side-effect of the vast distance between us, so we can’t assume anything.
How many thousands did Illidan force into slavery as part of his Lord of Outland scheme? I’m sorry. His many, many…many slaves simply “Lacked the will to do what must be done!”
X’era wasn’t doing anything Illidan wouldn’t have done himself. Her only crime was not being Illidan. I wonder how Akama would feel about Illidan’s sudden pro-free will stance.
You mean the floaty crystal who tried to class change Illidan? She may be a bit of a stickler for the rules, but ultimately she wanted the destruction of Sargeras. Just after hoodoo hexing Illidan into a Fury Warrior/Retribution Paladin Mix.
Its not a double standard to say she is evil for a thing illidan is also evil for, like come on half the reason people hate xe’ra is cause she wouldn’t shut up how much of a poor widdle baby illidan was and how no one could understand how justified he is, they are two awful people.
That has more to do with presentation than anything else. The narrative, correctly or otherwise, frames Xera as antagonistic and manipulative.
It simultaneously frames Illidan’s actions as heroic, or at the very least pragmatic and ultimately necessary. All while leaving any hypocrisy in his actions up to the viewer to discover on their own (if at all).
I don’t blame people for walking down the path they were lead to.
She apparently had not been in contact with the other naaru, the ones who went on the Genedar and Tempest Keep, all of whom were very clearly not in the ‘Illidan is the chosen one camp’ and much more in the ‘we must kill the demonic edgelord to death’ camp. There is also a notable absence of naaru besides her (before she gets Illidan’d) with the Azerothian forces despite the naaru being our staunchest allies against the Legion before.
She created and enforced the specific ritual of Lightforging via the Forge of Aeons, made it a sacred trial undertaken willingly by Xenedar Draenei, where the goal is explicitly to acknowledge one’s inner darkness and overcome it rather than erasing it, and then… bastardizes that very concept, in front of all those same Lightforged, before dying.
For most of the expansion before 7.3 she spends a lot of time going on about how misjudged Illidan is and showing us scenarios where he ‘didn’t have a choice’ despite there very obviously being many other choices. She does this in service to a prophecy that she seemingly just decided applies to Illidan, when it could have applied to many other characters too.
She hid that naaru could fall to the Void, something only she does, as the rest of the naaru are… perfectly open about this and see it as an unfortunate part of their nature, something to be avoided if possible but not unnatural.
I don’t think this is any kind of justice - poetic or otherwise.
For one thing, Xera wasn’t taking from Illidan to give to his victims - she was actually all good with his actions. She wasn’t punishing him for his crimes, she was giving him what she saw as a reward.
It is more akin to a neighborhood bully fighting another neighborhood bully - both are amoral and down right wicked, and to the winner goes the lunch money. As I said earlier, it was a Might makes Right situation. No one around them got involved, everyone was standing around watching like a lunch room fight.
Xera didn’t want us to bring Illidan before her for justice. It was her goals, and justice was not among them.
Should murderers be put to death - I would say generally, sure. But should they by empowered by Aliens? I don’t think so.
She didn’t say anything about what he did to Akama (she’s a Light hardliner, he used dark magic for that…)