Illidan was a tyrant who tortured and mutiliated people, enslaved the Broken, allied with demons, expressed the intent to commit genocide. He also betrayed and killed his own allies on multiple occasions and was just an all around bad person, like an edgier version of the punisher, but worse because he’s a night elf. HIs hamfisted redemption story in Legion doesn’t excuse his actions. He’s a real bad hombre.
Maiev is driven by justice and vengeance and is the best chance the night elves have. Can you imagine if it was her in the war of thorns instead of Malphurion and Tyrafail? She should have slaughtered the entire Horde and one-shot Saurfang and Sylvanas by herself before morning. Maiev is the leader the night elves deserve. She’s a ruthless pragmatist who hates male human paladins. She was right about humans weakening their people.
I agree about Jaina though, she’s a deranged war criminal who needs to be in prison, like now.
Edit: I’m just regarding it as a friendly lore discussion as well.
Whatchu talking about? It IS expanding territory. We own Ashenvale and Darkshore now, you do not. Thus, we expanded territory. NE’s can’t cry. They’re nothing but colonizers who then claim land is “sacred” and get all huffy when someone takes it away from them even though they took it from someone else in the first place.
Yeah, I remembered that “heroic throw” from behind while Sylvanas was at 15% hp or w/e and Malfurion was at full. Was really heroic and brave of him, so heroic in fact that he felt bad about beating Malfurion in combat and killing him like his Warchief demanded.
Still contested territory. No one owns it. And again, wisps fought back. Did you expect them not to?
I don’t remember crying about anything. I remember saying wisps fought back because they’re tied to the forest, one with it, and someone came to burn it. So they burnt them.
Your argument is about who gets dibs on land, which isnt anything what I was arguing. Let’s not get into what happened hundreds of thousands of years before and make this into a Native American debate.
It’s more complex than that. And while I don’t agree with how he got to where he wanted to go, he still had one singular purpose: save the world from Sargeras by any means necessary. Because he was the larger issue.
Ironic, considering he was such a parallel to Sargeras himself… which is why I think I like Illidan’s story.
To be fair, it wasn’t a retcon. The eyes were. The addition of the chosen one bs was dumb. But it was never a retcon. Right from the start, he wanted to take down Sargeras in any way he could and prove to Tyrande he was worthy. He wasn’t letting anything or anyone get in the way. He used and manipulated who he had to, killed who he needed to. But he was going to get to his goal of Sargeras regardless. That never changed.
Y’know, it’s weird that Saurfang felt bad about killing Malfurion considering over the course of the war of thorns Malfurion not only:
-killed dozens, perhaps hundreds of Horde soldiers
-attempted to kill Sylvanas, Saurfang’s Warchief, multiple times
-Almost killed Saurfang by collapsing a building on him and burying him under tons of rubble
Sure, Malfurion is justified because he’s defending his homeland, I’m not disputing that, I’m just examining this from the perspective of the Horde. Yet Saurfang feels bad about trying to kill a guy who hired an assassin to lure him out into the open so he could sneak attack him from above. That’s my problem with Saurfang’s characterization, his behavior is odd, it’s like he has dementia or something.
I actually really like Illidan as a character as well, I just think Maiev is better. What really sours me on Illidan is how the writers justify everything he does because it’s to fight the burning legion. Sometimes he’s just a dick for literally no reason, like when he says “I should have slaughtered you and your malformed brethren long go” to Akama, even after torturing him.
This brings up memories of when WoTLK was very new and I had just rolled a DK…and using Death Grip in certain places would send you flying through multiple zones. Good times.
