r/warcraftlore • u/MrBradders21 • 3d ago
The absolute madmen, they actually did it! Spoiler
They gave us a character death WORSE than Vol'jin's.
Bravo blizzard entertainment
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u/Proudnoob4393 3d ago
Imagine being propped up to be a big character in an xpac, only to be killed in a .5 patch. Couldn’t even be given the decency to die in a major patch.
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u/RerollWarlock 3d ago
Imagine being propped up to be the PoV character then get sidelined for Arathor, urgh. I fucking bet he'll take the lead of Blood Elf paladins in the long run.
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u/RosbergThe8th 3d ago
There comes a point where calling them blood eld paladins is unimportant, human paladins with pointy ears.
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u/GuitarZer0_ 3d ago
Isnt Cairnes universally the worst for being handled off screen in a book between expansions?
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u/Buca-Metal 3d ago
After Cairne and Vol'Jin I genuinely think Blizzard just hates the Horde.
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u/Lunarwhitefox 3d ago
Voljin dies at the hands of an NPC, Garrosh is treated like a tyrant by the character who put him there in the first place (EVEN THOUGH GARROSH SAID HE DIDN'T WANT TO BE WARCHIEF), Baine does nothing in Shadowlands, Thrall has short quests in TWW and then disappears, Eitrigg is converted off-screen to the Sons of Lothar (an intrinsically Alliance organization, instead of creating his own Horde version). In Midnight (the Blood Elf and consequently Horde expansion), the protagonists are: a Half-High Elf Paladin, a High Elf, the Human High Commander Exarch, Halduron is completely ignored (even though he has the same rank Sylvanas once had), they give extra importance to Vereesa, ANOTHER High Elf, and the leader of the Void Elves (who are Alliance), and they kill the only truly important Blood Elf female who is completely Horde. Yes, Blizzard HATES the Horde, anyone who wants to ignore this is simply blind.
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u/AgainstThatGrain Gilneas Liberation Front 3d ago
Horde characters die.
Alliance characters go neutral or have all traces of personality and motivation violently sucked out of them.
It's debatable which is worse.
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u/Kyhron 3d ago
Alliance characters get featured as raid bosses and dont die. Alliance characters get to make gigantic world changes mistakes and it gets shrugged off. The Alliance characters get off so much lighter than Horde ones do.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 3d ago
Crazy how we used to say that about the alliance when they blew up theramore.
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u/Ruuubs 3d ago
Blizzard really did hate the Alliance back then. You don’t play a censored video of a guy calling Alliance players 🚬s during a stream of insults (before the guy’s concert) at Blizzcon without hating them, nor do you get the blatantly disingenuous comments of Dave Kosak, the repeated “Alliance is bad for wanting to defend itself” writing, or “The only Alliance leader allowed to do anything right is Varian”.
Then it seems a lot of the Anti-Alliance crowd left/were fired, around the time of Legion to Shadowlands, with Kosak and Afrasiabi being the big name scalps, and probably because a lot of them were massive chuds… Which manifested in game terms as wanting the big strong Horde to punish those puny Alliance (especially Jaina and the night elves)
So now Blizzard has a completely different team in charge of the narrative, one that barely thinks more than a few minutes about Horde related themes… Though in truth they also think just as much about most Alliance races (Their explanation for Amirdrassil was incredible), it’s really just the Windrunner family and humans (especially light users) these days. Which honestly tracks with the above explanation, given that they were the main exceptions to the Alliance(ish) hate, and you had folks like Christie Golden championing them
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 3d ago
You don’t play a censored video of a guy calling Alliance players 🚬s during a stream of insults (before the guy’s concert) at Blizzcon without hating them
he got banned from blizzcon for saying that and was not a blizzard member
the repeated “Alliance is bad for wanting to defend itself” writing
"we had to kill those tauren villagers/troll children/etc, we were DEFENDING OURSELVES"
yeah buddy, okay
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u/Buca-Metal 3d ago
I never saw people saying that. They blew up Theramore but Jaina was alive and well and became even cooler.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 3d ago
Jaina had become so damn inconsistent, we were all claiming she was a dreadlord https://youtu.be/kBRa-9o16o8?is=XrXFYKRE69xSrmHQ
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u/Ranwulf 3d ago
Hell no, during MOP that were so much backlash for her turn into war that people actually started a meme about her being a dreadlord.
People hated her for Purge of Dalaran, for "Dismantling the Horde", and she got a lot of flack and very poor treatment in the fanside of the game.
Hell, there was a edit war on Jaina page in TVtropes that lasted till the end of Battle for Azeroth, thats the level of controversial and dislike she was causing.
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u/AgainstThatGrain Gilneas Liberation Front 3d ago edited 3d ago
It was bad enough they had Kosak come out and make a statement pinky promising they weren't Horde bias just because nearly all of the faction war writing in Cataclysm had the Alliance getting it's shit kicked in, and later at Blizzcon Metzen had to promise the Alliance would get their 'fist pump moment' in MoP.
Then shortly after they announced Theramore was blowing up.
People were absolutely saying that.
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u/eCanario Naga Enjoyer 3d ago
Their fist pump moment iirc was the Purge of Dalaran.
Then, years later the Horde was allowed back into Dalaran.
LMAO.
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u/Correct_Call3521 3d ago
No because the book was good. I'd rather it be off screen in a good book than on screen and be dookie.
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u/Kujira-san 3d ago
Cairne’s death was ok, it was low fantasy and the book was good.
But Liadrin… wow40
u/BuckingWilde 3d ago
I did the raid 3 times and I still dont understand how she died. What she had so much faith in the light that she just rolled over and died?
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u/RadishLegitimate9488 3d ago
Seems the Light did to her what it did to Garek Bandarion in WC3's new The Forsaken Kingdom Campaign albeit with far less warning.
Undead know not to overdose on Light because they feel the pain from having their senses restored by the Light strengthening their Soul's connection to their Body. Liadrin did not have such warning and died from the overdose.
The Light is now one of the most insidious Cosmic Forces. It fuels certainty and if too much is drawn upon it kills the host.
Fel will also kill the host as seen in the Demon Hunter leveling experience albeit the death was a lot more explosive.
Arcane by contrast revitalizes the body while making it more dependent on Arcane the more of it enters the body at once.
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u/ChillGuyPokemonWhtvr 3d ago
Exhausted for saving the players 500 times during the raid plus being taking a lot of damage, isn't the last phase just a dps race with a bunch of void orbs shooting a beam into her until there are 8 orbs doing it and the raid wipes?
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u/zani1903 3d ago
She spams Light abilities in the fight and then just collapses and dies from exhaustion.
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u/GoatOfTheBlackForres Lorewalker 3d ago
Gallywix too.
He and Cairne represented the ideals of their races as leaders.
At least we the players weren't forced to be the ones to kill Cairne
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u/Spideraxe30 3d ago
Gallywix was a heel though and he died hoisted with his own petard.
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u/GoatOfTheBlackForres Lorewalker 3d ago
Gallywix was killed by Blizzard just the same.
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u/Spideraxe30 3d ago
You are probably the only person who thinks Gallywix didn't have it coming to him.
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u/GoatOfTheBlackForres Lorewalker 3d ago
There are quite a lot goblin players.
And see how popular Forever is: People still care about the lore. It's just retail is slowly killing their enthusiasm.
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u/Spideraxe30 3d ago
What. Gallywix quite literally enslaves all goblin players in the starting zone.
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u/Ranwulf 3d ago
Gallywix death being pathetic is on point for a character that has been a conniving bastard that took the Kezan Goblins money to escape unto a boat, AND THEN ENSLAVE them.
If it wasn't for Alliance and Horde maritime battle, Gallywix would get away with it, and Goblin characters would be slaves.
He deserves a slimy, pathetic death.
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u/SorrenXiri 3d ago
Gallywix is by far one of the worst characters in all of WoW, if any character ever deserved to die it had to be the greedy evil complete waste of time and space Gallywix
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u/GoatOfTheBlackForres Lorewalker 3d ago
I mean he was no Genn, Jaina or Tyrande. Not a warmongerer.
But the ideal Goblin, greedy intelligent and jealous.
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u/SorrenXiri 3d ago
He basically enslaved the goblins that escaped with him as a requirement to allow them to come with him, he was evil
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u/Familiar_Face_5375 3d ago
My 8 year old niece writes better fanfiction than this.
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u/Gold-Cry-7520 3d ago
I actually couldn't believe this when it happened. I was like "Nah this is gonna be another empty death that immediately gets reversed, like Khadgar"
but holy shit no they went for it. Idk whether to be baffled and upset or genuinely impressed.
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u/Hallc 3d ago
My favourite part is Zul'jarra getting down and going "Nah, she sounds dead". Then not one person trying to aid her.
It just makes everyone, in the story and out of it seem utterly fucking inept.
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u/Gold-Cry-7520 3d ago
Listening/feeling for breath, I assume, but, idk, some CPR or healing spells wouldn't have gone amiss...??
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u/Reasonable-Nature-77 3d ago
no one there can heal.
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u/IrisofNight 3d ago
Good thing there isn’t a group of Champions nearby that can heal, that’d really ruin this scene.
Even Bolvar acknowledged the raid group when justifying why he has to become Lich King.
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u/Gold-Cry-7520 3d ago
To be fair, they do explicitly say that they're only bringing nine people (including the player) to fight Kith'ix. So before the raid even starts they make it clear that this is not really a big group effort.
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u/Th3_Huf0n 3d ago
It's 2026 and World of Warcraft players still can't separate resurrection as a gameplay mechanic AND resurrection in lore which is incredibly rare and pretty much a miracle.
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u/Silegna 3d ago
Anduin is the only character to have any lore rezzes under his belt in recency. Varian when he was assassinated, and Khadgar. The BFA Cinematic was more of a mass cleanse of the Blight.
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u/IrisofNight 3d ago
This makes me wonder if Whitemane can still resurrect as a Death Knight(despite the pain it’d bring to use The Light), I’m guessing no, since she’s not as Zealous as she used to be.
Is she one of the only other characters to be shown and mentioned reviving en masse, supposedly she was so skilled at it that she kept reviving herself after all.
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u/MrTastix 1d ago
Well they are fucking inept. The entire story would go nowhere without the players, but the PC's are also as equally fucking stupid because they just kind of do whatever the first person they see tells them to.
Everyone in the Warcraft universe has been made some of the stupidest motherfuckers in fiction. The whole story is predicated on people being actually brain dead. Like they have enough brain cells to breath and that's about it, and I'm pretty sure those are trying to escape the fucking body as we speak.
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u/Nick-uhh-Wha 3d ago
Eh don't forget how long they let us stew thinking he was dead before the big reveal
Then remember we're dealing with the light and resurrections as the one thing the light is good for
And if that's not enough, remember this is the wow universe where death isn't dead. Bet your ass liadrin is becoming 'one with the light' and we're doomed to find out why that isn't always a good thing along with an Arathi emperor misusing his power, and by proxy misusing liadrin's soul/anima
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u/MonaSavesTheDayAgain 3d ago
I’ve excused a lot of the writing in the past few years but this one just gave me the ick. There was no need to do it and the way they did it was just plain disrespectful to her. Dying all alone? Nobody noticed her until after she died? Her cause of death was also so DUMB. She just died of exhausting? Are you kidding me? Whoever came up with this absolute garbage is just bad at their job.
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u/torcero 3d ago
You've never heard of dying if exhaustion? You must be gen z or maybe alpha, cause otherwise you'd have learned from Oregon trail 😆
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u/CommercialImpact6299 3d ago
Honestly I would’ve preferred if Liadrin died of dysentery after some bad food.
At least that would’ve been funny compared to what we got
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u/KurtEisner187 3d ago edited 3d ago
I started playing WoW in BC with a BE pally that is still my main to this day, I don't do mythic+, I don't do mythic raids, I play the game on and off casually and the one thing that has always brought me back is the world. I was so hyped for Midnight, resubbed in late TWW, preordered Midnight, I really wanted to love this, and how could I not, this is literally made for me, I play a Blood Elf paladin, we get to go back to a remade Quel'Thalas and defend it against the void, there was literally no way for them to fuck the lore up badly enough for me not to enjoy this. Or so I thought.
For the longest time I did have an emotional connection to WoW's lore and characters, it was a big part of my teenage years, but over the years that kinda faded more and more, but one character that I remained emotionally attached to was Lady Liadrin, she was one of the first NPCs my character met that actually felt important, she was a big part of the very cool original Blood Knight storyline, she was the one that witnessed M'uru cleansing the Sunwell and she then continued to be there along the way, appearing in WotLK, MoP, WoD, being a follower in Legion, as a BE Paladin Lady Liadrin was the closest thing WoW has to actual NPC group members, she felt personally connected to my character.
And I actually liked what they did with her in Midnight. Until they unceremoniously kill her off, against a nothing "Boss", because they needed new content for their seasonal game, fucking fantastic. Lor'Themar's speech is nice, but that doesn't change the fact that it feels downright disrespectful, this is a filler patch, a filler boss, if you wanna do this, at least let her do it saving the Sunwell, but we really needed Vereesa and Arator for that fight (who's M'uru anyway, they completely ignored that character as well) I guess...
You'd think if they knew they were gonna kill her they'd do something with her adoptive daughter Salandria, but no, they didn't even bother to explain how she survived the Darkwellification, we didn't save her, nobody mentioned her, she was just there at the Battle of the Bridge with no dialogue all of a sudden to witness Arator, who is genuinely the single most irritating character I have ever encountered in fictuon, take point. The main campaign of Midnight has been one huge slap in the face after the next and I don't fucking get why, why did they not bother to write for the players of the race that live in the fucking expansion's hub? Who wanted Arator, Umbric and Vereesa in the spotlight of the Quel'Thalas expansion? Why was the Horde not present, why was even Thalyssra, another character we spent time with, barely a background character?
Instead of enjoying the campaign, I repeat as a fucking Blood Elf Paladin main player since Burning Crusade, in the expansion where Quel'Thalas gets attacked by the void, I dread playing it, and after I force myself to do it, I end up fucking venting on reddit!
I apologise for the essay, but I needed some place to let all that out, fuck the writing team and whoever signed off on the story of this expansion, I hope none of them are in any way involved in Forever by the time Liadrin appears there and I hope she gets a better fate in that game. Maybe I'll resub at that point.
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u/LordAsheye 3d ago
Honestly, I'm with you. I'm a latecomer who started with BFA and main a Blood Elf Paladin. Blood Elves were 90% of my love for WoW. I was so hyped for Midnight but its just been one disappointment after another. This feels like another nail in the coffin.
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u/eCanario Naga Enjoyer 3d ago
Arator, Umbric and Vereesa in the spotlight of the Quel'Thalas expansion
The only one in the spotlight is Arator lmao. Umbric appears from time to time and they sometimes remember Vereesa exists.
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u/KurtEisner187 3d ago
Umbric appears a lot with Arator, and every second with Arator on screen feels like an hour, so it definitely feels like he's in the spotlight a lot .. you're right though, my gripe with Vereesa and Umbric is not the amount of spotlight they get, but rather where they get it, Vereesa and Arator are in the Sunwell end cinematic instead of anyone with a really personal connection to the Sunnwell like Liadrin or even Velen. We spend a lot of time with Umbric and Arator in Eversong instead of with actual Blood Elves, if more of Umbric's and Vereesa's screentime happened in Voidstorm and the Voidspire raid, I probably wouldn't have minded them as much. And if they weren't so closely linked to Arator content.
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u/aldrinsmith90 3d ago
There isn't a single person in the writing room who goes like: "hey don't you guys think we are going overboard by constantly killing Horde characters?" Nobody thinks this is too much? Or is it intentional? Cause at this point how else would you explain it? It's ridiculous
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u/Ygg999 3d ago
The current writing team fundamentally doesn’t understand the motivations of the Horde that was set up in the RTS games and early WoW expansions, which means they don’t understand why the Horde appeals to people from a story perspective.
The current group wishes the story had been focused on humans and elves in the Alliance from the start, and they’re the ones with the reins, so that’s what we get.
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u/BxDoom 3d ago
Disagree. No death was worse, more wasteful, more poorly conceived then of Almighty N'Zoth.
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u/flaks117 3d ago
That’s another major horde character down…
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u/HunterNika 3d ago
Bro... I am alliance 4 life and such insane shit writing makes me angry. This ain't about factions anymore. They simply CANNOT write good any longer and every character they touch is in massive danger of beeing s crewed over...
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u/Stormfly 3d ago
The funny thing is that they do the same to both, they just don't kill the Alliance ones.
Like they just send them off to a farm to retire and maybe come back but they've already kind of made the character boring and we don't like them anymore.
Jaina, Magni, Genn, Tyrande, etc.
They could die and I don't think many people would care (except for the Horde players that really want Genn and Jaina dead).
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u/AgainstThatGrain Gilneas Liberation Front 3d ago
Horde characters suffer heart attacks.
Alliance characters suffer lobotomies.
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u/Ranwulf 3d ago
Magni and Muradin should have died, Mekkatorque should have died, and the other problem is that a lot of Alliance heroes just to Neutral. Khadgar(who FOUGHT agains the Horde through W1 and W2 story), pretty much the whole Dalaran Council of Six, Tyrion (which at least his story set up well enough for him being neutral), even Velen who is technically an Alliance leader helped both forces with no problem (setting up the Sunwell, bringing everyone on the Vindicaar).
Hell, Malfurion is saved by Tyrande and the heroes, and even worse, during Hyjal and fighting Ragnaros he is neutral to Horde heroes.
All in all, the Horde either loses one of their important characters, or is bizarelly forgiven by the ex-alliance heroes that work as neutral.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 3d ago
Feels like horde characters just exist to be sidekicks or fuckin die these days.
or whatever the fuck you wanna call the "Baine is racist" arc from DF.
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u/eldrevo 3d ago
I like the plot armor diff they showed.
Young brash paladin Arator overextended? Slight burns and cool new high contrast tatoos.
Literally matriarch of blood knights overextended? Instantly dies from cringe.
But hey, at least she didn't get stabbed by Xalatath or fall into a planet-cracking beam of pure Void. That'd be a fate worth than death, right? Riiiiiiiiight?
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u/Aelexe 3d ago
I don't get how she died from using the light that she's always used. Before the fight even starts she's making a big deal about it.
I can't believe they thought it was a good idea to release this content following Forsaken Kingdoms which did it so much better.
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u/NoConnection7489 N‘Zoth is still alive and I wil die on that hill. 3d ago
I think what makes it especially strange is how the Vanguard has been powering the Sunwell for days (weeks?) by infusing it with Light. The worst thing that happened to them was becoming blinded by the Light and becoming violent. None of them just died from exhaustion.
I don’t think we’ve ever seen priests or paladins die from exhaustion. Her death would have been better if we had been aware of the danger. It would have been more meaningful to see her ignore that established danger in favor of saving us. Like this, it just makes her look weak.
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u/JudithWidmore 3d ago
I don't have a problem with her dying here in general, but that's a fair point. They could have made the stakes more apparent. Oh well.
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u/TheMagicDrPancakez 3d ago
Watched the cutscene and it's so bad. The idea of her dying isn't even what makes me mad; it's how it was handled. WoW used to be really fun schlock to me. But for years now, it has felt like a weird imitation of YA trash and Whedonesque cringe dialogue. It's just unbearable; this being a prime example.
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u/OceussRuler 3d ago
At this point I can only clap at Blizzard. Every expansion they find a way to make the lore worse and outdo themselves at the contest of the most stupid idea possible. Game of Throne seasons 7-8 dream of being that bad.
Even the form isn't here anymore. All of those cinematics just look cheap. The guys really used the actual goofy ingame cheers emotes, making everything feel so weird and janky lol.
I cannot wait for the Last Titan. I'm just really curious to see what gigaton of a mammoth poop they will be able to do this time.
Also they ruined the orcs, the forsakens, the trolls, and now the blood elves. Taurens, get ready for the next expansion! Blizzard is looking at you!
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u/KingAnumaril For the Alliance 3d ago
Speaking of characters using emotes, it used to be so that if you ever came acrosss that happening in something like the well of eternity instance for example, it would still look janky, but your mind would at least imagine what the scene is telling you and interpret it in a cool way. It's kinda like playing a ttrpg and imagining the things that your characters do. And what are graphics but a visual aid?
They've kinda moved away from that and are trying to make it more... certain and cinematic, and it doesn't feel like it's landing.
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u/CrazyCoKids 3d ago
That would require they be acknowledged.
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u/OceussRuler 3d ago
I'm sure they can do it, ruin a race and its characters without even using it.
Such is the power of Blizzard
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u/Patastrophe91 2d ago
Gnomes over here being like
> you know, on second thought maybe it’s better we never took Gnomer back so they never focused on us
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u/Anacreon5 3d ago
Legit feels like the wow devs are only alliance fans that vowed to ruin the horde after that canibal corpse interview back in the day at blizzard.
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u/OrneryRun5677 3d ago
She will return as an undead paladin to introduce the new class/race combination!
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u/HunterNika 3d ago
But thats soo pointless when you got Calia there as the glowy undead and you already did her story to have the other Forsaken accept her...
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u/Specific_Frame8537 3d ago
I'm about to play Forever acting as if nothing past Cataclysm ever happened.
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u/Gooneybirdable 3d ago
It kinda feels like they decided that they should kill some characters in the saga, and then went looking for characters to kill rather than organically building up to a meaningful sacrifice.
I don't hate it tbh, and they did as good a send off as any character gets and she got to die knowing Kithix was defeated. I just didn't buy that it was necessary to heal the conflict between the elves and trolls.
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u/Vanpet1993 3d ago
Almost as bad as Tirion's.
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u/Sunshado 3d ago
Tirion was less a problem, because it was shit as fuck but we got Ashbringer and a cool as lore tidbit to own his corpse
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u/Professional-Tank848 3d ago
To this day, I'll never understand anyone's issue with his death.
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u/Vanpet1993 3d ago
Strongest paladin to ever walk Azeroth killed by a random demon toxic spit...
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u/Professional-Tank848 3d ago
That's a super disingenuous way of looking at it, to be honest.
Tirion literally asked for "one final blessing", and he received it, against Arthas. There was no clutch miracle on the horizon.
While we didn't know Krosus at the time, the dude was the size of a building, and "toxic spit" was a massive rain of fire.
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u/DoctorThrac 3d ago
Wasn’t GulDaniel also juicing krosus ? Or he just summoned him
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u/Professional-Tank848 3d ago edited 3d ago
Isn't Gul'Dan just some "random" Orc?
Also, I know it's a typo, but I enjoyed "Gul'Daniel"
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u/Hallc 3d ago
Daniel/Gul'Daniel has been a meme name for the Gul'dan for years. Similar to Xallytoes and DimmyD.
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u/Professional-Tank848 3d ago
Don't know how I've missed Gul'Daniel, but it's really got me, lmao
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u/Exurota Kil'jaeden has never lied in game. 3d ago
He tried to solo it at level 80 with ICC gear I mean goddamn
For real though, you had to be there for the broken shore. His death was used well, he didn't just get killed by a random felguard, he held a bubble for what was probably many, many minutes before we arrived against two raid bosses and still our greatest champion died in front of us (technically he died shortly after but only paladins saw that).
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u/SuperSaiga 3d ago edited 3d ago
Tirion literally asked for "one final blessing", and he received it, against Arthas. There was no clutch miracle on the horizon.
I think this explanation is actually worse. The Light doesn't work on a "everyone gets one" basis, and Tirion asking for a miracle at a desperate time shouldn't have any impact on whether the Light can help him again in the future. Was The Light just like "heeeeeey you said 'final' last time! No more for you!" ?
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u/Hallc 3d ago
The light works on belief though which means if Tirion doesn't think he's worthy of another powerful blessing on that vein he can't get one.
To him, he's had a powerful final blessing. The Light could give him a thousand of them but only if his belief is strong enough to give him one.
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u/SuperSaiga 3d ago
In that moment, though, he's declaring his faith that the light would protect him. I don't think this interpretation really matches how he acts in that scene.
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u/Professional-Tank848 3d ago
Narratively, that's exactly what's at play. It would diminish the significance of Tirion being granted all that power in that moment. It was one of the few times that what (arguably) felt like a deus ex machina really worked.
I'm not actually suggesting that the Light has a finite amount of goodies it gives each individual.
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u/Clockwork-Too 3d ago
If you ignore the context, all deaths are bad.
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u/Professional-Tank848 3d ago
If my favourite character doesn't get an anime beam struggle death, it is bad.
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u/Th3_Huf0n 3d ago
You just pinpointed the exact problem people have with character deaths.
They want characters to die. But they don't want the characters they like to die.
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u/Professional-Tank848 3d ago
Exactly.
Same with people saying the game is too 'Disney' (vague and stupid term, by the way, because Disney can get pretty dark).
A hero isn't protected by plot armour, is unceremoniously killed in a brutal and narratively valuable way, and apparently it's bad.
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u/Stormfly 3d ago
He wasn't even killed by him.
He was hurt, dropped into lava, and then captured by Jailer Zerus and rescued by the Silver Hand then he dies.
"Dies" to a new random raid boss with no personality.
...in a pretty lacklustre way for a character or such importance. (It looks like bad breath)
Didn't really die and we find him again...
Dies of injuries while surrounded by Paladins of the Silver Hand.
Death knights try to steal his corpse.
I know they needed him dead for the Ashbringer but I'd prefer if they hadn't done the silly death, the fakeout, the failed rescue, and then the Death Knights being jerks.
Given that Liadrin stopped the Death Knights, my guess is that whoever wrote this Raid encounter was a bitter DK main from Legion.
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u/NormanLetterman 3d ago
It's crazy how midnight started promising and it's been Ls on top of Ls. The aura moments don't work, the deaths feel unearned and frustrating. Toss this thing in the bin man it's a writeoff.
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u/eldrevo 3d ago
Genuinely, what seemed promising about it?
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u/NormanLetterman 3d ago
When I say started, I mean literally just 12.0.0 - Arator has always been a slab of wood, and Harandar is goofy as hell. But Voidstorm was proper bleak every character is going some sort of insane and the Domanaar are good answer to what kind of society exists in this environment, the atmosphere in Silvermoon while the big beam is happening is actually interesting and tense with people being justifiably scared and not sure how long they can hold out with this and more to the point of the discussion here, the setup in Zul'Aman was good and interesting. Zul'Jan served as a counterweight narratively to Zul'Jarra and the devs had said he wouldn't immediately be killed (like he eventually was). She had a story about trusting the loa but on the other end you have someone who's the voice of "maybe we shouldn't cause that didn't help last time". And the initial raid tier was Voidspire, which was a good way to pay off the whole having an evil Naru inside Alleria this whole time.
But I wanna be clear, things veered off into a ditch immediately. Once MQD drops; once the Darkwell happens it becomes a shitshow. Arator for some reason takes leadership even though there are other senior non-manchildren there, it pushes this baffling elven unity plot that nobody asked for, the Horde is never brought in (you could maybe excuse it for a week but surely at this point someone should have done something). And the Dawnwell is legitimately the least interesting way you could resolve this situation. Essentially just undoes any kind of pathos that could have come out of the situation.
If you gave the initial release setup to anyone who cared they could have done something decent with it. Better than this.
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u/KurtEisner187 3d ago edited 3d ago
Midnight's story could have been great with just a few tweaks really, shuffle around the order of some events, involve some characters more, others less (Arator mostly), fix the pacing, clean up the dialogue and focus more on the actual war going on and you wouldn't actually have to change any of the big things that happen.
In my head I can see a Midnight story that hits pretty much the same story beats being awesome, maybe I'll make a post on it, we've had bad stories in WoW before, but Midnight is weird in that it has a pretty cool story on paper, but the execution is just so bad, it ends up being genuinely terrible. It seems like the writers are trying to rush trough the actual cool part of the expansion, the siege of Quel'Thalas, so we can help Arator work through his coming of age drama.
Genuinely, the Sunwell laser creates such a cool, tense atmosphere, but instead of builsing that atmosphere throughout the expansion, we rush thrugh first the Darkwell and then the Dawnwell (the stupidest thing about the expansion is those two names by the way), Silvermoon is "solved" at release, before we then return to various states of invasion through Void Strikes and the Aqir, it's all backwards.
And in the middle of all that we go on a family therapy session with Arator all over Azeroth, I mean what the fuck, it's so stupid, do they ever consider that this makes zero sense for a BE player character, my city is under siege, my friends are either batteries for the Sunwell or fighting somewhere if they're not dead, but yeah Faol, I'll go on a trip with Arator to cheer him up! That manchild was my bodyguard just a few years ago, he was just fine on his own doing missions on Argus, killing demon lords, but now he needs me to hold his hand while he has an identity crisis in the middle of a war?! Honestly, if you just remove Arator from the narrative, it instantly becomes at least serviceable, I'm not even joking.
That's the biggest thing really, all the cool stuff is happening off screen, while we're off helping Arator, Zul'Jarra and Orweyna with their personal drama. And the only character whose company I enjoyed during all that is now dead, yay!
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u/NormanLetterman 3d ago
it's all backwards
That's really it. Feels like they brainstormed a bunch of events and plot and haphazardly threw it together. Or more likely, they were super obsessed with the way this would affect like gearing progression instead of what would make for a satisfying sequence.
That manchild was my bodyguard just a few years ago
The way the narrative and characters treat him really is so frustrating. He's treated as so important and his abilities so special when we haven't seen anything remotely warranting it. There are so many other stories we could adress right now. We could have something about the actual rest of the Horde responding. We could have something about the plaguelands, that's a great terrain to explore that hasn't been touched on except for a generic soirée quest.
Honestly you'd just need to ask like 10 people who are actually invested in the world and lore, it's very easy to game out if you don't have myopia for your pet characters.
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u/KurtEisner187 2d ago edited 2d ago
That's the problem though innit, whoever wrote Midnight obviously wasn't invested in the world and the lore, at least not this part of it, they were invested in telling more stories about their favourite characters.
They write stories that, at least from an emotional point of view, kinda make sense if you assume that the player character is friends with and cares about Alleria, Arator, really the entire Windrunner family, Anduin, Orweyna, Dagran etc. It'd still be bad that they're trying to write mundane, personal character stories in the middle of an apocalyptic war, but at least it would make sense that Arator's state of mind is a priority for us.
They insist on writing small scale, emotional, personal stories, and I'm not categorically against that, but if you do that for an MMORPG, then you cannot expect the players to only care about the same characters you care about and only write that stuff for them, while everybody else gets ignored.
I don't mind us helping a young Paladin overcome trauma, but it's so jarring that I am forced to do this soul searching trip with Arator, because his dad accidentally hit him, while I have to completely ignore the orphan I took care of when she was a child, after the Sunwell she and her friends were right next to exploded into Void. I never even get to ask her how she got out of there. Velen, Anduin, Faerin, Taelia, Fareeya etc., they all get treated like afterthoughts after going through something much worse than Arator. But at least we do get to check up on some of them shortly, which is more than I can say of Salandria, and the thing is that now they want us to be sad for her! I bet they will use Liadrin's death as an excuse to push her down a darker path, here's an actually young, actually blood elven, Paladin who went through a shitload of trauma, who could really use emotional support right now, but she didn't focus group as well as the 40 year old manchild with mommy and daddy issues, so we won't take her on a feel good trip and she'll eventually do something horrible instead!
Myopia for pet characters is an excellent way to phrase it, it's always been a problem in WoW, but it's never been as egregious as it is now, because they're also almost exclusively writing character focused stories to the point where we solve the problems in the world as soon as the current flavour of the month NPC overcomes their mental struggles. What we really need to do to survive the cosmic horrors of the Void is go to therapy with that one special guy, who will be unstoppable as soon as he finally fixes his relationship with his parents! And the thing is that they actually did it alright with Anduin, or at least I actually somewhat care for Anduin, because he's been around for so long and he has so much history with my characters. But then he gets completely discarded as a character in Midnight, like why, I just started caring about him again! It's all sooo frustrating 😄
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u/MixAmbitious307 2d ago
To think that this franchise gave us things like the tragic death of King Terenas, or the heroic sacrifice of Grommash Hellscream.
And... here we go again with Horde chars dying like mayflies.
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u/Tamahagane_Steel 2d ago
It's not even just her death. It's that they apperently NEEDED this idiotic death to finally give Lor'themar some sense after he repeatedly ignored his Blood Knight Matriarch and everyone else by first not helping the Amani and then deciding to go full force. They did him dirty aswell. He who should be one of the main Characters of this Expansion, alsongside Liadrin.
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u/Carcharadroid 3d ago
Hard disagree, Vol'jin's is still the absolute worst
It's not great, mind you. But in no dimension is it worse than what they did to Vol'jin
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u/MrBradders21 3d ago
At least you see vol'jin get stabbed, liadrin just takes it off screen? Just falls over? Ridiculous
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u/Th3_Huf0n 3d ago
Have you actually played to see WHY she just falls over or did you just see the cutscene?
Because to me it just seems you haven't played OR seen the encounter.
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u/MrBradders21 3d ago edited 3d ago
The fight explains that she gets juiced up on light magic and it costs too much, then the cinematic plays and the characters all just FORGET about her so they can celebrate despite what JUST happened in the fight? Then they don't realise until like a minute later?
There is no cohesion between the events of the fight and the cinematic. Sorry, it's dogshit
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u/Silegna 3d ago
I swear, people just want to be angry. Liadrin did something Tyr struggled with, and it took everything.
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u/Ranwulf 3d ago
Liadrin just went like Garek, she overextended her Light powers and essentially burned herself out, but she was going all out throwing protections, and buffs and helping the heroes against the Boss. Garek was worse because he is a Forsaken, and he used himself as light bomb to stop Naxxramas.
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u/NameThatIsntTakenYe2 3d ago
I'm sorry but you're nuts if you think this was worse than Vol'jin. She went out fighting against a C'thraxxi that killed a Titan Keeper in his heyday as a culmination of a character arc about self-sacrifice and the cost of faith. Was it particularly well handled? I wouldn't say so. I think the problem is pacing and the cadence of narrative content release which has plagued most of Midnight.
Compare that to Vol'jin, who was made Warchief, did nothing for an entire expansion beyond have minor cameos and then got stabbed by a random demon and died, shuffled off purely to put Sylvanas into a position of power. Even without the dumpster fire that Shadowlands ended up being that is an utter waste of a character who had so much history and love from the community. There is no contest that Liadrin's death is leagues better, even if by itself its not great.
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u/Hallc 3d ago
You do realise that we, the players, have killed a Titan Keeper (Loken) and beaten the snot out of a bunch of others (Ulduar) right?
They aren't some massive, unstoppable force. Also it was two C'thraxxi that Tyr was fighting, not one. So two of them were equal to one Tyr.
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u/NameThatIsntTakenYe2 3d ago
Yeah and we've also killed a literal Titan in Argus. The powerscaling of the game versus the lore is, and has always been wonky. As someone else pointed out, we killed Archaedas at lvl 40. Erudax in Grim Batol is a 5 man dungeon boss, Mythrax and Vezax were penultimate raid bosses. It's all over the place.
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u/Cysia 3d ago
or archeadas in mid 40's back in classic
and like we kileld osirian or all the anubisaths in aq40
we fought a cthrax back in cata in a 5man (grim batol)
we kill a bunch as rare spawns or scenario/quest enemies
theyre not some uber giga big deal
and like keepers prolyl vary alot in power anyway
at best they were a second to last boss of a raid
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u/gaydorado31 3d ago
Considering this is supposed to be the empire strikes back of the saga, big oof.
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u/Marco_Polaris 3d ago
I don't know, I feel like Vol'jin's is still worse for how nonsensical it was to be stabbed with troll-killing poison by Felguard #169,734.
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u/dragonlayer42069 3d ago
a lot of what i'm seeing complaining about her death feels like making up excuses to dislike it, i mean sure it wasn't "the godfather" levels of writing but it didn't seem that bad.
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u/jimbalaya420 3d ago
The death was a bit underwhelming and rushed, but the follow-up was quite emotional. I liked Lor'themar's speech and if you talked to each of the npcs they often had very well-written and moving things to say about their relationship with Liadrin
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u/M1oumm1oum 3d ago
Who's dead? Sorry it's been years since I last played retail
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u/patsan23 3d ago
I mean if you don’t think she’s being resurrected as an undead paladin and serving as the new dark lady of the forsaken. I don’t think you’ve been paying attention.
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u/orionpax- 3d ago
what i miss
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u/RerollWarlock 3d ago
Liadrin pulled a Luke Skywalker and died
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u/zennim 3d ago
. . . why would they do that ?
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u/RerollWarlock 3d ago
Something, something, stakes, something something, Game of Thrones.
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u/OceussRuler 3d ago
Because Garek death in Forsaken Kingdom is very liked, so they did try to do the same with Liadrin, while completely failing to capture why it worked for Garek in the first place. And in the second place. And all of them tbh.
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u/IrisofNight 3d ago
I was gonna say she pulled a Sheeva in Mortal Kombat 11, but that probably wouldn’t have been understood as well. Plus at least Liadrin’s death was made clear and not revealed by twitter poll.
For reference Sheeva dies in the MK11 Aftermath DLC by Sindel, and it was so unobvious that it only was known because of a Twitter poll by the Devs about who was the best death in Aftermath.
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u/Helgrind444 3d ago edited 3d ago
I haven't played WoW in years, I honestly don't remember who Liadrin is tbh.
Was she an important character?
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u/SaintNakavi 3d ago
Been in the game since TBC. Leader of the Blood Elf Paladins. Was mostly a third tier character since the end of TBC and came back into the spotlight hard for Midnight.
Importance is subjective but to Blood Elf and Paladin players, yeah, decently important.
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u/Gold-Cry-7520 3d ago
She was pretty important for, particularly, BFA as one of the Horde commanders. She had a presence in most expansions and was a hero in Hearthstone. She didn't take center stage much, but she was there, and she was in the big three of blood elf leaders (Rommath is #4 tbh)
Her death feels... unearned. She was in every cinematic.
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u/Ranwulf 3d ago
She is second tier character. She is not a big leader like Lorthermar, but more than once she show up.
-She is the first Blood Elf Paladin and the one that introduces you to take the Naaru Light to learn your powers.
-She later realizes her mistake, go to A'dal, join the forces to fight in Quel'Danas, and turn the Blood Knights after the Sunwell with the help of Velen is turned into a Lightfount.
-Later she joins to fight alongside the Draenei in Warlord of Draenor. She feels a debt towards them.
-In Legion she is not only one of your champions, she brings the Blood Knights to the Silver Hand. She also holds the Chapel as the last boss to protect Tyrions body against the Death Knights trying to take him and make him one of the Horseman. Considering she was fighting the Death Lord she hold herself pretty well.
-She is the commander of the Blood Elf forces during the Suramar Rebellion, and its kinda the reason the Nightborne join them (that and Tyrande asking a fair question about Thalyssra motives).
-She is one of the commanders of the Arathi Warfronts.
-She is also part of the Blood Elf heritage questline. Bring the blood elf champion to fight in Deatholme.
-She is also the only character I recall that adopted one of the orphans of Childs Week, and same girl become a Blood Knight - Salandria.
-Obviously her importance in Midnight.
Ok, thinking about it, I actually might raise her to first tier considering how much she is the Blood Elf representative in many things and how much characterization she has.
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u/SiouxsieSioux615 3d ago
THEY KILLED LIADRIN??!!
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u/RerollWarlock 3d ago
She just fell over and died from exhaustion when everyone had their backs turned lmao
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u/BottleEquivalent4581 3d ago
Please don't hate me but I feel like her death is pretty cool?
She overdose'd on light because she needed to to beat Kith'ix, to save Blood Elves and Amanis?
The fight might not reflect that enough but I think that's what they were aiming for?
This adds something to the "The light is not entirely good or without risk" narrative, and her sacrifice is meaningful because it lay the first stones that will heal the relationship between BE & Amanis?
Sure looking at the cinematic only doesn't convey that, but that's not all there is ?
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u/eldrevo 3d ago
Let me be blunt here. A full squad of titan slayers doesn't need this level of sacrifice to beat one void crab in a side one-boss raid. And a literal founder of her people's paladin order should've known better than overdose to death.
This whole situation is hilarious.
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u/BottleEquivalent4581 3d ago
I mean we do need some suspension of disbelief at some point to continue to appreciate this game.
Weren't we high on titan given power when we beat Argus anyway?
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u/KingAnumaril For the Alliance 3d ago
To be fair she's a blood elf, being functional looking addicts was their thing
I don't disagree just poking fun
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u/GoatOfTheBlackForres Lorewalker 3d ago
Vol'jin was likable.
The fact that this Liadrin doesn't have infinite plot armor is actually refreshing
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u/Anacreon5 3d ago
Ofcourse,afterall only thre Alliance can have infinite plot armor.
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u/Omnimon 3d ago
Infinite plot armor and being boring as fuck. I rather some die instead. Nobody does shit besides alleria, at this point kill all main characters and give me something new
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 3d ago
literal plot armor in one case.
Mekkatorque could have easily died as a show of what the alliance was losing in their thirst for vengeance. Nah, he's iron gnome now, even stronger.
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u/OceussRuler 3d ago
Sorry they happened to be treated worse than the Horde during one expansion over the whole WoW lifespan and even there they were the moral compass, so we are now in an eternal debt. /s
Really between everyone in the Horde getting killed for no reason and the Alliance not being able to have the slightest shade of grey and never any interesting character development, those factions are as dead as you can ask without litteraly murdering them.
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u/GoatOfTheBlackForres Lorewalker 3d ago
I'd be happy if more alliance characters died too.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 3d ago
oh come on, they lost a glup shitto one whole expansion ago, you monster.
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u/Dhain1 3d ago
I just don’t get the why? I like that she was the sort of middle man between the new amani leadership and the blood elves and what? She had to die in order for the blood elves and Amani to finally be at peace? So stupid