The master of SI7’s combat ability is not in question hes certainly a skilled fighter and a competant rogue, no what we ask today is can Mathias Shaw be considered a good leader of SI7.
Pros:
-trained Edwin Van’cleef a master assassin and political figure who capably led the masons guild to completly rebuild Stormwind.
-world famous
-unique facial hair!
Cons
-world famous
-trained Edwin Van’cleef to be a master assassin
-didnt realise the nobles of stormwind didnt intend to pay Edwin Vancleef
-didnt relise his former student had built a battle ship the size of a city block.
-didnt know said student had a daughter
-Left said battleship intact and ungaurded for nearly a decade for his former students now adult daughter to use.
-let a bishop aquire enough explosives to destroy the cathedral quarter.
-tricked by several dragons.
-was kidnapped by a dreadlord discovered by sudden increase in competance.
-unwittingly aided in the resurrection of an old god.
-unique facial hair not present on ingame model
Matthias Shaw has a failure history that would’ve translated into instant destitution by most IRL standards.
He usually gets a pass in game, because he is sheltered by the same narrative that has pretty much everyone else portrayed as blundering idiots when it comes to strategy and military.
Halford Wyrmbane is ten times the commander he is.
The Broken Shore alone should’ve been a turning point for Shaw, when he got the King he was supposed to protect, killed, and his organisation turned into a puppet task force for an enemy Dreadlord.
But as I said, he gets a pass because everyone else is written to be about as stupid (unless the narrative dictates they get out of the situation by giving them some Plot Device, divine intervention or McGuffin to pass by).
Stuff like that ill devised Dazar’alor plan randomly working.
Edit: Jarod Shadowsong, Varok Saurfang, Anduin Lothar, or Orgrim Doomhammer are historical and famed generals way better than him.
To lead the top military intelligence of his faction, Shaw comes down rather lacking.
If the intelligence apperatus is competent, you would actually need to write competent foes, if you regularly want to have big story surprises. And writing competent foes is so haaaaard. Just remember when Orgrimmar was full of spies, Blizzard’s clever attempt at misdirecting the enemy was… making them think they were going for Silithus and then changing course while still in the barrens. Yeah. So… incompetent intelligence it is.
Yeah because he fell to said Dreadlord the Horde and Alliance marched into a trap from which the Horde had to retreat and they were branded traitors yay!!
It boils down to this. If the SI:7 was actually competent they could win the current war alone simply because everybody else is simply incompetent. (Sylvanas after all is considered to be a military genius even though the only reason she can be considered a genius is because she has a Plan B. ‘B’ stands for blight.)
I mean let’s look at this from this perspective: Their agents are capable of flooding Orgrimmar. They’re also capable of planting high-explosives, underwater, close to the harbor, which houses one of the largest navies in the world.
If either side was competent, it would obviously translate into an automatic win.
But thing is, neither side is competent. And this counters each other.
Asking one side to stop being stupid is the equivalent of removing the ballast that affects both sides equally.
But doing so with only one of the factions.
You might have moments about a specific guy being portrayed in a positive or smart way. But the vast majority of the situations rely on both sides assuming the other ones are going to react stupidly.
And it usually works because of the script.