Most of the playerbase never really interacted with Illidan in TBC as most never went thru the raid of that expansion.
All they ever saw was that cinematic trailer of him stating, you are not a prepper.
I donât like rts games! instead I try to research lore and history and then get confused by retcons.
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Because Blizzard thought it would be cool to go to Outland and see Illidan and friends, even though the way it was implemented you didnât really see them unless you were a dedicated raider.
Ill stand in solidarity with you.
Played TBC first, then went back for WC2/3. So many âOOOOOH okayâ moments playing the old RTS games.
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I definitely enjoyed wc3, but I was also a command and conquer fan.
Then of course, the lore of arthas and becoming the lk. Its what made me get into wow.
You can just play wow, but there is quite a bit of lore in wc3. Also the books. Tbh I just fall into the wiki rabbit hole since it pools all the lore sources together hah.
I picked up the game about midway thru tbc. I canât remember exactly why (I feel like probably I saw something about taming animals and was like WHOA! I want to do that!).
what I do remember is my brother showing my mom and I his toon during vanilla (I think tbc was about to be released). he talked about how he liked the succubus bc âitâs not just a sexy demon itâs kind of uglyâ or something in that vein (how anti-monster shagging do u have to be to be turned off by some hooves???) as well as saying how he liked that the âgood/evilâ elf dynamic was turned on its head. being entirely unware of DND drow/elves at the time I had NO clue wtf he was talking about, but it stuck with me. but having played mostly Horde, the elves on either side are mostly just people. (and he strictly played Alliance).
now that I have considerably more years of gaming under my belt, I could probably play thru the og rts games with just a bunch of mods and cheats so I can focus on the story, but itâs just a genre I donât enjoy.
(just looked up the release date of TBC to try and figure out when in my life this convo happened, too. I was only a year out of highschool when the xpac released, yeesh. heâs 8 years older than me, if that matters any.)
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I thought he was saying we werenât Boy Scouts since their motto is âBe Preparedâ
I think the easiest way to explain it also ironically happened in Legion. When playing the alliance you think the horde has completely abandoned you and left you to die at the hand of the Legion. itâs not until you play the horde side that you find out that their leader was injured and they had to make a tactful retreat.
itâs the same thing in this case. He was a night elf who drank some bad stuff so he could fight off some guys and it got the better of him psychologically. People assumed he was a threat. It wasnât until legion that we found out he was actually trying to fight against the Legion and not for them. The fel energy was more of a Red Bull than it was a Kool-Aid. until somebody shows you the other side of the story, you really only have one side to go on for information.
Because he was enslaving the denizens of Outland and basically causing misery for all those that stood in his way â or simply used them, by breaking them into darkness and repurposing them to his whims.
Such was seen with:
- The fel orcs (As it was shown they were even capturing unwilling orcs and forcing them to drink the demon blood)
- The Broken
- and the Netherwing Dragonflight
Xeâra had pleaded that Illidanâs actions were just & utmost necessary â however Aâdal vehemently disagreed, basically flipped her off & suggested to their champions to take him out for the greater good of the many.
Personally I rather enjoyed that prospect
That those within an order (Such as the light) can disagree with one another â It gives agency to the characters and makes the lore of them far more intriguing.
- Similar to how Sargeras was a being of order, yet betrayed the other titans - Disagreeing on how to proceed for what they believed was the greater good.
Honestly, Iâd love to see more of it.
Iâm Hoping that if we do get a âLightâ expansion in the future, that Aâdal & the other naaru we encountered in Outland are on OUR side, against their more ⌠Zealous, oppressive and tyrannical kin.
As for your question to why we wanted to kill Illidan?
We were basically soldiers of Aâdal and champions of Outlands denizens 
We fought for the Naaru, the Netherwing, the Broken and all those who sought freedom.
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Not to mention the countless souls sacrificed as portal fuel in the Illidan novel. And the fact he was yelling his case at the top of a desecrated draenei temple like a crazy person.
Heâs always been an âends justify the meansâ character, which Xeâra conveniently presented without the context of what exactly made Illidan a villain.
Not everything can be justified by the greater good, which is what makes demon hunters compelling in the first place. It could have been handled better in Legion, but there were plenty of valid reasons to not trust Illidanâs grand plan or sit idly by while he enslaved, tortured, and betrayed the various peoples of Outland.
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the orcs in mags lair had black, not red skin right? I know it went nowhere, but it couldâve been a cool spinoff if it had turned out the shadow council were acting on behalf of their and illidans mutual desires, or is that what was happening, were the black orcs in shadow labs doing their thing for illidan as well?
With the way demons strategically dropped into hfp to take the portal its almost like they were big braining a bait and switch for azeroth to think demons were being called by illidan, meanwhile he was feeding orcs magtheridon, sucking netherstorm to power spaceships, letting naga live their best life and whatever was happening in auchindoun with murmur.
Honestly they meshed quite a lot into the workings of the Illidari & his allies â They managed to pour quite a bit of lore & ties of how it all fit together in the book âIllidanâ - however yeah, thereâs still quite a few minor plots & stories here and there that were neglected.
I suppose itâs up to speculation or reasonable correlation â such as what you said, having a mutual desire but in the best self-serving sense, rather than a particular affiliation (whether to Illidan, the Legion or otherwise).
I remember when Burning Crusade came out, and I was thinking⌠why are we fighting Illidan? Shouldnât we be helping him, against the Lich King?
Then when Legion came out, people said the joke was:
BC Naaru: âYou must kill Illidan!â
Legion Naaru: âYou actually did that? LOLâ
TBC lore was kind of dumb in general. Showing how much of a WoW boomer I am, but remember the âLORE LOL!â meme from then?
Yeah I can vaglie remember wow lore only foucs on when there was âRole playingâ I was kid back then
Mostly I Jut view TBC bit of trip of the L and S of the D kind dream I loosely rememberâŚ
Illidan did plenty of terrible things. So did Vashj. It was pretty justified if you care about the well beings of other people on that world.
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Frankly, they kind of did KaelâThas dirty too. I didnât play WC3 but I have seen fragments of playthroughs. He honestly wasnât a bad guy.
i like how varian hasnt been seen at all, period. i guess guldan completely wrote him out of existance lol
i was kinda waiting on anduin to at least mention the dude but nope
oh yeah I not in forgiveing of two, Vashj drain water for who know what and why, while have the wild life are dying for control of water sorce
Illidan? Kidnap uncorrupted orc to make into fel horde
Yeah I sure Lot stuff got gloss over <why heck Gruul was working for guy?!>
book Illidan do clear something up but yeah Illidan was no hero more like Try to show them new class âDemon huntingâ while killing half his force by training or they go mad, and you know what happens.