I have a few basic problems with Vereesa. We’ll leave aside the blatant Alleria/Turalyon rip off, which is a rip off of Aragorn and Arwen from LoTR and a tired fantasy trope.
She is very young. As in -very- young, We know that Elves are adult by the very latest at 20 years old (Source: Edge of Night). We also know that Vereesa was -too young- to fight in the army of Quel’thalas at the time of the Second war when she is sent off with Rhonin.
(I mean I would seriously question her mother’s parenting skills, sending her off with an older human man to Khaz Modan at the time when she was a minor, but there you go)
This makes the whole Rhonin/Vereesa thing -really- questionable, but lets be charitable, and assume the best case scenario. Rhonin is essentially a 30 year old dude hitting on a 16 year old.
Thats a bit… Ehhhhh. And thats the -charitable- view of it, it could be worse than that, but we don’t know the exact ages, just that Vereesa was too young for military service.
So I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with the whole Rhonin and Vereesa thing, because its a bit like an older rock star hanging around in nightclubs looking for chicks who are -just- legal…
So Theramore happened, and she is justifiably angry about it. But she’s weirdly angry about it.
Her calling herself Ranger-General is a joke. She was too young to have even finished her Farstrider training. She wasn’t even a ‘Ranger’ in rank, so she basically just steals a title.
She seems to believe in the sanctity of life, but -not- when it comes to her own species (and potentially past comrades), and not only that, but is happy to order the murder of people of her own species without any proof they were guilty or involved in what happened.
Thats not normal.
That is sociopathic behaviour. I mean that literally is one of the traits of a sociopath. What kind of person goes “that random shopkeeper was clearly in on a plot?” without any actual reason to think so? Who goes “This person is terrified and is taking their own money out of the bank so they can escape my reign of terror, they must be murdered immediately!”
Thats not a normal person…
So then Isle of Thunder.
“They killed muh husband!”
No Vereesa, they didn’t. You’re shouting at a bunch of people who had no direct involvement in the death of your husband at all. There -were- Blood Elves at Theramore, there was one group of soldiery (Because Lor’themar, like Sylvanas, was growing pretty tired of Garrosh’s shiz and sent a token force).
Garrosh used them as Bait. They also died in the Arcane blue haze of the Mana Bomb.
The Blood Elves she is shouting at had no hand in the death of Rhonin. And sure, grieving people are irrational at times, thats a thing, thats totally a thing, but she is escalating the situation, which is only going to end in the deaths of more of her -own- people, on both sides.
Nobody there was involved in Theramore. No, especially not Aethas, Nobody there was even involved in the Divine Bell theft. I mean Aethas found out about it -afterwards, but he never signed off on it.
So she’s doing the rubbish writing for female characters thing. And it annoys me. It annoys me, because you can make a good, solid female character without having to make them fly off the handle and go irrational in order to express their anger.
Its a pretty sexist take. When Garrosh got angry, he got angry. When Lor’themar got angry and flipped furniture bigger than he was into a fountain, he got angry, When they write female characters who get angry, they also always add an element of crazy to it.
Why? Why can’t a female character get angry like a male character? Why do they have to make them seem -crazy- as opposed to just -angry-?
Actually, no, they can. Admiral Rogers. She is implacable in her hatred of the Horde, and she never flies off the handle, but she is an exception.
Now sure, Vereesa is -young- for an Elf, but she’s not -that- young anymore, she must be what, 40 or 50 or so? She’s not a stroppy teenager, So why reduce her to that?
I really can when she forgets she has two teenage sons for a few days and has no consideration for how ghastly it would be for them to grow up in Undercity!
Again, She’s a victim of bad writing… I mean anyone sensible would have straight away went “I Love you Sis, but seriously, I’ve got two young boys, I’m not going to take them to live in a chemical factory that used to be a sewer, full of the walking dead, I don’t see that as a healthy move”
That would be a -Good- persons response…