So, spoilers for the new arathi questline. I don’t know how to tag spoilers so this is your warning.
So, I did the new questline. And, I kind of agree with sentiment that it’s not very well done, but not necessarily for the same reasons.
I’m fine with Faerin, she’s not my favourite character in the world but she’s not the worst either. Danath being tired of war is fine. He’s old. I even think banishing the red dawn leader and stripping her of her name and title were fine. No problems with any of that.
What I think is doing it, and what I think is doing it with most recent stories that have been less then well received, is that everything we do is done through the lens of teaching the character, and us by extension, some sort of lesson. Not only that, but it’s always the same lesson. And it’s done with all the subtly of a jackhammer.
This quest could have been something cool. It had all the building blocks. Stopping a coup, dealing with interfactional conflicts, the rise of a new baddie faction, seeing that there’s still tension between the citizens of the horde and alliance. All that’s good. That could have made for a fun questline. But it all gets lessened by the fact that we have to be beaten over the head with the “war is bad mmkay” moral the whole time. It just wasn’t needed here.
Ultimately I don’t think every story needs a moral. Some heartfelt, or “lesson” type stories are fine here and there, but sometimes we just need to go be the hero and go fight bad guys. And I think this was probably one of those times.