http://www.badgods.com/images/orc.png

Just a fitting topic.

This deserves to be emphasized, despite the threat of "Godwin-ing" this thread.

Kel'thuzad joined with the Scourge because he wanted more power. If you read the lore (yes, I know, lollore and all that), KT started out as a humble mage, got caught doing undead-style magic, kicked out of the Kirin Tor (memory may be fuzzy here) and joined the Scourge because they promised him more magical power.

I consider KT to be the typical "bad guy". He doesn't care which side he's on, he just wants more power. If the Alliance promised him a Kingship, I guarantee you that KT would leave the Scourge and join the "good" side (whether he could or not is another discussion).


While Illidan is a whole other kettle of fish. I really don't consider him to be a bad guy. Sure, he's done some terrible stuff. But he's also done a lot of good/great stuff. He almost managed to destroy Icecrown, if Malfurion and Tyrande hadn't stopped him. And guess what? Now we have to go deal with Icecrown and the Lich King ourselves.

To be honest, the justification of killing Illidan has always seemed weak to me. He's hiding in Black Temple, let him stay there. Horde and Alliance forces can liberate the Ashtongue, Shadowmoon Valley, and just bar the gates of BT. Leave him in there to sulk. It's not like he's being dangerous to us anyways. Heck, he once almost destroyed Icecrown, didn't anyone think, "hey, maybe we should send Tyrande in there to negotiate, maybe Illidan would destroy Icecrown in exchange for kisses from Tyrande"? It's been 10,000 years, and Illidan still carries [Memento of Tyrande]. There has to be even the tiniest sliver of love still stuck in that demon body.

Besides, we still have the threat of the Burning Legion, whose stated purpose is to slaughter and/or enslave all living creatures, the Scourge (same), the Naga, whatever the hell is in Gilneas, etc. Why waste manpower on Illidan?



WotLK is probably not going to be considered a preemptive strike. More than likely, the Lich King will decide it's time to attack us while we're still weakened by the Sunwell, and raze Orgrimmar, maybe do something to the Alliance, and then the Kings/Warchiefs of the Alliance and Horde decide, "Well, we have to regain our honor after such a loss, let's go kill this bastard."

So no line was crossed when she abandoned Tyrande to certain death at the hands of the scourge in order to draw out Illidan?

Next build should be interesting lorewise.

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - The wrath gate, and follow ups

Oh god, can't wait. My DK will be just the right level to see the event.

Furthermore, am I the only one who thinks that Ner'zhul may be the one who still has a hint of good left in him? I mean, the primary reason the Lich King doesn't sound like Arthas is apparently because Blizzard didn't want to pay Justin Gross an amount he considered fair for the work to be done in Wrath. And the Rise of the Horde novel painted Ner'zhul in a very, very sympathetic light - in the end, he was a man who attempted to do what he thought was right for his people, and he thought he was listening to the will of the ancestors. Only later did he realized just how bad he had fucked up and by that time Gul'dan has usurped his position and sold himself willingly to the Legion. Even despite his tortures I would be very surprised if Ner'zhul has no "humanity" ("orcanity"?) left in him. If anything, all of the lore evidence points to Arthas always having been a massive dick, even when people didn't want to see it.

She didn't leave Tyrande to die because she wanted to draw out Illidan, she left Tyrande to die because she wanted to capture him and thought chasing after Tyrande when Illidan was the bigger threat would waste time. There was logic behind the decision, even if she was at that point becoming consumed by vengeance.

From a neutral position, stopping Illidan from casting his spell was more important then going after Tyrande, Malfurion might have come to the same conclusion on his own, so in that sense she was wrong in not telling him. However love is an pretty irrational emotion, and she figured that he would have made the wrong choice(She even said as much), and to be honest perhaps she wasn't wrong, we may never know what would have happened.

Let's not make Illidan out into some type of wayward hero guys, ALL of Illidan's actions were self-serving. That his actions may have sometimes just happened to do some good doesn't change the fact that he was a self-centered sociopath that never stopped to think about those actions outside of his own little world.

During the War of the Ancients his jealousy of Tyrande and Malfurion led him to joining the Legion, during the War he planned to steal the Demon Soul for his own selfish purposes.

After the War of Ancients he made a new Well of Eternity, again, self-serving because he couldn't live his life without the wonder that is magic.

He was imprisoned, and then freed, and of course the first thing he does is seek out the power of a demonic artifact after listening to the Death Knight Arthas. While it made no sense to the player in WC3 why Illidan was banished on the spot in WC3 for his actions, after learning the full extent of his actions in the War of the Ancients later explained through novels and lore it made sense. That's who Illidan was, one leap for power after the other.

After his banishment, he allies himself with the Legion, with Kil'Jaeden. He slaughters Maiev's watchers and uses the Eye of Sargeras to try and destroy the Lich King. AGAIN, this was not a good thing. Illidan's actions MAY have killed the Lich King, but they would have sundered the entire world, Azeroth was crying out in pain. Malfurion even mentioned that Illidan hadn't considered the cost of his actions, and he hadn't, that's who Illidan is, he doesn't consider these types of things.

Do I need to go on about Illidan? He was an interesting and complex character, but he was definitely no hero. Was he a purely evil character? No, but his actions throughout his life led to the ending he got. It got to the point where he had enslaved an entire world under his reign just to hide from Kil'Jaeden's wrath. He had to die.

The one good act I can think of that Illidan did during his live was rescuing Tyrande from the Scourge, other then that he lived his entire life for himself and no other.

I guess that's one of the most painful parts of killing off these villains. When I went to MC and BWL back in the early days of WoW, there was no story-driven momentum. It was like, "Oh, he's a bad guy?? We should kill him right? That's what we do? Kill the bad guys?"

And then all of a sudden, Blizzard throws Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad in front of us, and I'm like, "Wow... they're actually (finally) letting us kill a villain with some background."

By the time I reached Karazhan, I was confused. There was all these bosses in there with no relevance to anything; except for Medivh's dad. I honestly expected to (somehow) fight some corpereal re-incarnation of Medivh atop the tower. Especially after all the speculation Atiesh (and it's associated teleport) had provided. But nope... nothing. None of the bosses even had any relationship. There was a Stablemaster, some Steward who entertained the guests, a giant female statue, a stage performance (which is still one of the coolest things they ever did), a robot who took care of a small gallery of bird statues, Medivh's dad, some demon hidden behind a bookcase, an arcane dragon, a blue dragon who was pissed off at Medivh's magic use, and an Eredar Prince who claimed he was a commander of the legion but really just had a few pet fleshbeasts and had the ability to summon immobile infernals into Azeroth. None of them had any relationships; but co-existed happily. And what's up with the ethereals? Who do they answer to in Karazhan? There's like 11 of them guarding Netherspite & the Chess room, followed by a guy who is happy to repair your gear and sell you stuff? That place, unfortunately, made no sense from any angle.

Then there was Magtheridon. I didn't quite understand *why* we were killing him. As far as I could see it, the Fel-Orcs had him under control and he was a threat to no-one. So why are we going in there and freeing him; only to kill him? I later learned that we were supposed to do this in order to cut off Illidan's supply of Fel Orcs... but Illidan wasn't "around" back then, so there wasn't much of an explanation.

Then TK & SSC with Vashj and Kael. This made more sense. They were Illidan's Lieutenants, and we needed to retrieve their vials. I'm happy to settle for that.

And then again when we reached Black Temple. Illidan and Gorefiend - two huge icons. But who the hell are the rest of them? Why are they working for Illidan? More nonsense. And as an above poster said, it just felt wrong killing Illidan. Some form of negotiation would have been acceptable. I'm sure he would have loved to come along to Sunwell and lay into Kil'jaeden with us.

It seems that the three most memorable fights of this expansion (for me, at least. I haven't fought Kil'Jaeden), were the three who actually meant something to the story. So on one-hand, it's reasonable to complain about "Oh, another hero-become villain we have to deal with", but on the other hand, it really is so much more exciting to become involved with one of Azeroths' biggest names; instead of just another no-name, "Oh we have to kill him because he's bad." boss. It's very difficult to develop sentimental attachment to a villain we haven't witnessed/participated in the development of.

In my mind, killing (or at least, acknowledging the death of) Arthas, Kael'Thas and Illidan is so much more difficult than Kil'Jaeden because these are characters that we have played. We've watched them struggle to try and do good things, we've watched them get kicked around and taken advantage of, we've watched them become cornered into committing horrible atrocities because they were left with no other options. We've learned to love and hate them, and it's like watching the finale of your favourite television show or book - once you get to the end, that particular story is finished forever, and along with it, anticipation becomes memory.

As for Ner'Zhul, I don't think there has been any good in him for a long, long, time. He said that the Orcs had served their purpose and abandoned them. Whatever good was in him was lost long before he became The Lich King.

Coincidentally this is one of the things I'm most happy with about the expansion. Allowing 10 man runs of every instance lets far more people appreciate endgame content where there seems to be significantly more lore and thought placed into the storyline.

In Sunwell you free a blue dragon who proceeds to help you, destroy a blue dragon who becomes corrupted and get told by Kalecgos that it had to be done and that is just in the first 3 fights in the zone. With M'uru and Kil'jaeden the designers really excelled themselves in creating challenging content with excellent backstory. to endgame raiders who appreciate the storyline I think it's a real challenge not to become slightly emotional thinking about Kalec calling out and expressing his love for Anveena, have her sacrifice herself to distract Kil'Jaeden and then for Kalec to implore us to "strike at the deceiver". Sunwell has been regarded by many to be a massive achievement by Blizzard from a gaming point of view but it really is a huge accomplishment for the storyline too. I feel priveleged that I got to experience and as I sad I'm very glad that in WOTLK more people will get to experience comparable dungeons.

However maybe I'm missing something but I feel a little let down by what I see as a lack of storyline involving Naxxramas. Perhaps I haven't searched hard enough and while the instance itself is awesome they really can make the encounters feel more "epic" by having involving backstories to accompany them.

Well, there's somethings you missed.

But I am not going to point them all out, but I will comment on the biggest one. The Fel Orcs are using Magtheridon's blood to make more Fel Orcs. Thusly, we dont want Magtheridon under control of the Fel Orcs. Further, he's a Pit Lord of the Legion, our greatest foes.

And to be honest, the first thing you do when you zone in to Outlands is notice that Alliance and Horde forces are fighting Legion forces. Further, we're told Lord Kazzak, the former leader of the Legion in Azeroth is the one who opened it.

Legion forces are -everywhere- except for Zangarmarsh.

As Emeraude pointed out, Burning Crusade is a reference to Burning Legion.

The more I think about it, the more I am inclined to say its almost as if the marketing department either fucked up or purposely decided to pump Illidan up because the they thought the fan-boys would like the game more or something. TBC is NOT about Illidan. Illidan is a side-story. The grand majority of TBC is about the Legion.

But my point stands on corruption: it parallels the real world.

[e] Apparently this took me 1 hour to write, since I am still raiding right now too -_-, just posted and saw new comments.

It would have been a lot cooler if like... Illidan had come back to Azeroth with us and helped us finish off Kael'thas in the five man. And then maybe, his vengeance might have been a bit too forward, or something that reminded us of the danger he posed. Maybe he made off with an artifact or something that Kael'Thas had. And then he could have disappeared until we found him again in the Sunwell, as we fought Kil'Jaeden. And maybe instead of just Anveena providing the trivial 25% holy damage buff, Illidan could have helped literally push Kil'Jaeden back in through the Sunwell.

Just something... a little bit more epic. More... engaging. But Blizzard acknowledges that they didn't do this part any justice, so I suppose it remains as is. I think there's chances that we'll see Illidan again in some way, shape or form. Just how and when, remains to be seen. But maybe I'm a hopeful.

I hope we also get to access the reverse version of Karazhan some day. It might hold a bit more significance for what we look for in our raid dungeons.

The Night Elves caused irreparable damage to the world during the Great Sundering. Why aren't we butchering every single night elf in retaliation? Chop down the World Tree and turn it into kindling?

For that matter, in WotLK, we'll be killing a dragon aspect. We don't know what will happen. Even the dragonflights themselves are hesitant about killing Deathwing because, as he is a dragon aspect of Azeroth, it might cause major issues with the world. And yet we're expected to kill Malygos, and basically pray that nothing bad happens? Sounds like wishful thinking to me.

Not to mention that we'll be invading a Titan vault, Ulduar, in the xpac. And given what we know about the Titans, that they consider flesh and blood to be a perversion and a disease to be eradicated, perhaps we really shouldn't be messing around with anything that might call the Titans back and cause them to rethink this world.

I'm not saying that Illidan is a hero. But I also refuse to recognize Illidan as an evil creature. I find it hard to condemn a man who went far out of his way to save the love of his life from certain death (not to mention that his love isn't even returned), especially in light of the fact that Tyrande's own ally, Maiev, decided to abandon her.

In a world filled with real enemies that truly want us dead (see: Burning Legion, Scourge, Naga, Gilneas), is it too much to ask, "Stop. Wait. We have better things to do than to kill some crazed night elf hiding out in a temple in the corner of some blasted, remote world. How about we just let him chill for a bit, and send in some negotiators later? Perhaps Illidan could help us, and in return, we could protect him from KJ's wrath."?

Now, we have to go to Northrend, and deal with the Lich King. In the Warcraft world, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, Horde and Alliance lives will be lost fighting the Lich King. Orgrimmar, a major city of the Horde, will be razed. How many valiant warriors of the Horde will perish desperately defending their homes? How many desperate last stands and losing battles will the Alliance and Horde endure until we can stop the attack of the Lich King, repel him, and finally take the fight to him? How many lives will be lost? How much gold, sweat and tears will be drained from us?

And all those lives are on Maiev's/Tyrande's/the leaders of the Horde and Alliances' hands. We decided to storm BT and kill Illidan. Screw the fact that he could have aided us. Screw the fact that this one elf almost destroyed the Lich King by himself. Screw the fact that his aid could save lives. Screw the fact that it was an entirely pointless battle.

We wanted revenge for what was essentially a 10,000 year old grudge, steal some of Illidan's personal stuff (see: [Memento of Tyrande] ), and some Broken draenei that we really don't give a damn about. We're not morally or ethically better than Illidan is.