The key that was supposed to get Sargeras to Azeroth but turns out it can’t… But Illidan using it suddenly makes it possible? Yeah, this didn’t even get sorted out really, however I do get what you mean, the move was within the spirit of Illidan “Screw the consequences and anyone who’d complain, you either fight the Legion with me or perish under their blades.”
I could go on but Zaphius here got all the points I could have gone through, so yeah. I don’t dislike Legion Illidan so to speak, I just wished he was more faithful to his original self, heck when even a book from a total newbie at the Wow setting author does an amazing job in the novel, it’s just a tad dissapointing, but it is what it is.
Personally, I’d say there’s a big difference between the two.
They were just of the belief however that it was him the prophecy spoke of.
The fact that it was Illidan per-se wasn’t really relevant, as far as I’m concerned. I’d say this is greatly supported by Xe’ra wanting to remake him in the Light. What or who he was didn’t matter, as Xe’ra herself even suggested he had never accomplished anything despite all of his alleged sacrifices. It only mattered what he could become.
And what he they thought he was destined to be.
As for them being fine with him killing Xe’ra, I seem to remember a very angry Turalyon swinging his blade at Illidan with every intention of executing him on the spot on the floor of the Vindicaar. The dialogue afterwards, if memory serves, was that they’d deal with Illidan once the conflict was over.
That he, despite everything, was useful.
They recognized him as a necessary evil, still, which I’d agree he was.
However, as we know, they never got a chance to deal with him.
All of that aside, I’m in total agreement there’s an absolute lack of consequences.
And stakes.
Additionally, I’m pretty much in full agreement with all of your points. Both of you, in-fact. I’m low-key playing something of a devil’s advocate here, and mostly by nitpicking.
I wouldn’t know. I think your point may have a promising direction perhaps, but I don’t see it fully. Illidan -is- the child.
More importantly however, I don’t think it matters if there’s a difference. The prophecy/him being the child of the light and shadow is just a narrative device used to make Illidan relevant again. To make him the hero of the story again and have every character be okay with that. The prophecy is there so that it can justify Illidan’s presence.
My critique focuses on the narrative from an outside perspective - that is, how it’s delivered to the players; the awareness and depth that Blizzard can convey, and the capacity to maintain coherent the characters while between the previous setting and the new expansion. The players aren’t concerned with the prophecy, they’re going to be concerned with the hero (or anti-hero) of the story. And in this case, the anti-hero isn’t delivered in a meaningful way; Illidan psychology changed a lot and we should almost believe that all what he does was necessary, (he was right all along!) kinda, because everyone else needs/believe that they need him.
True, but it was a burst of anger whose consequences were wrapped up in that very moment. I was personally satisfied with that ending, it was a good cinematic and everyone wanted to be done with Xe’ra’s shenanigans. It was the best moment in Illidan’s storyline in Legion and was satisfying, it was an attempt to write him back in a faithful way after several complaints: who he should have been from the beginning, and I liked that.
But still, everyone is on board with that immediately. Turalyon or the Army of the Light could have gone to greater lengths (perhaps what Malfurion has done with Illidan in WC3; exile him despite the desperate situation. He’d leave with his Illidari to fight alone in Argus - alongside the player who’d occasionally join them for a quest or two, and have him make a substantial comeback at a certain point in Antorus, maybe saving everyone else and proving that, for Antorus, he was needed). But this is behavioral speculation that serves no substantial purpose for my point. Let’s analyze things from an outside perspective: what are the drawbacks for Xe’ra’s death?
We weren’t emotionally invested in her (quite the opposite). Did we suffer anything for the death of X’era? Did we ever witness what she could have done against the Legion? Did the demons even fear her? - besides, her whole plan was to let Illidan be in charge anyway. If anything, Illidan was absolutely right in killing her, because indeed we’re told in the same patch that the Light has a flawed vision for mortal beings and doesn’t understand us and yet they want to force their vision upon us regardless of our consent.
Two things to point out here.
First, while I’m repeating myself, I need to stress that he hasn’t done anything which is evil in a meaningful way during all of the expansion. And all the questionable things he does have very few drawbacks.
Second - if he is necessary, then we have no choice when it comes to accepting him or not. He has to be the hero, he has to lead. We’re told from everybody - Turalyon, Khadgar, Maiev, Xe’ra… you name it, they believe he is needed - that we must get along with him because he’s necessary. It’s not even a moral dilemma.
Indeed, because most of the time we’re told that he is necessary, the injustice he does is simplified and rationalized from above, everyone kinda telling you that there’s no other way and that we must focus on more important matters.
There’s no struggle there; no real conflict. This is relevant because it de facto absolves him from any crime he commits - because if these crimes are necessary, they’re the lesser evil in a situation where you have to pick A or B, where A is “a few moonguards die” and B is “all of the rebellion collapses!”. Because any crimes he could commit pales before the fact that we need him more.
He can’t be controversial - because we must get along with him. This is the point with a lot of implications I really, really dislike. So that’s why I got into a huge rant mode!
First off, I think your point about you looking at the story from an outside perspective is a fantastic thing to mention. Because it might just be where we diverge in this discussion and surrounding this topic in particular, but I’ll reply with my point nonetheless as well as doing so “in-story”, not outside of it!
Who knows—it might make sense after all!
As established, seeing it as a player, I’m in complete agreement.
My point was that Illidan specifically was never relevant to the equation.
The ‘Chosen One’ was who was important to Xe’ra, not Illidan per-se. He could just as well had been an empty vessel. It was not his person, abilities nor any special strengths that led him to be the ‘Chosen One’. As mentioned, Xe’ra even goes as far as to say that his destiny had always been the Light and that he had strayed from that path; that his entire life, all his deeds and sacrifices had amounted to nothing; that the path he had been on had been nothing, futile, worthless. But that the Light would forge him a new one.
His future, that she had supposedly seen, was what they wanted him for.
Not his past, as far as I understood it.
“I am my scars!”
Why is this such an important line?
Because they wanted him to be something else, someone else.
Illidan what we know him as was never important to Xe’ra, Turalyon or the Army of the Light. His past—that not only he identifies himself with but that we identify him with as well—didn’t matter.
That feeling of them acknowledging to us ‘needing’ -Illidan- as you described it, I’ve never felt that. If he had been chosen based on who he was, where he came from and everything he had done; I reckon I would’ve been in total agreement with you. Because then they would’ve wanted the Illidan we know.
However, as far as I see it they couldn’t care less about Illidan specifically, they were only interested in x-individual’s potential as the ‘Chosen One’ and champion under Xe’ra’s command against the Burning Legion.
It’s why, to me, the conclusion with his rejection is so satisfying.
Because it’s exactly what I wanted him to do in that moment.
Furthermore, with everything that happened, I’d argue it’s clear Xe’ra was wrong.
They claimed to have ‘seen’ through the Light that Illidan was going to be a champion of the Light and critical in the Legion’s defeat. Why would we take this as an absolute truth? Particularly when Illidan proved that his destiny wasn’t the Light as they foretold. All through Legion, we only saw the events of his life being posed in such a way as to fit the confines of the prophecy.
We read into things, trusting the preaches of the Light’s Heart (as the Adventurer).
I’d argue that simply because you have a someone making a prophecy and claiming something doesn’t make it true. Especially as far as the Warcraft-universe is concerned. How many times did Gul’dan threaten our annihilation? That he had seen us fail and Azeroth fall?
This would be further supported by what Illidan follows his rejection up with:
“Your faith has blinded you! There can be no ‘chosen one’—only we can save ourselves!”
Which to me suggests that it was all just based on a number of false beliefs and that we should’ve known, that we should’ve realized this long before.
As far as I’m concerned and the way I see it, the whole Illidan storyline throughout the expansion was to prop up our joined efforts as being instrumental in defeating the Burning Legion; not to rally around a ‘Chosen One’, a Guardian or anything of the sort.
Even Khadgar echoes this as early as his Harbinger-short; that no single person—not even a Guardian—can stand against the demons. After Argus is defeated, even Velen admits that fate had nothing to do with their victory or survival, outright suggesting—to me—that Xe’ra had it all wrong.
Destiny was never at work.
It was a recurring theme time and time again.
It’s why I found the conclusion to Illidan’s story so extremely satisfying.
He was the embodiment of what every character was learning in that war.
Because he took his destiny into his own hands. As we’d expect him to.
I never felt as though it was out of the blue nor that our anti-hero was missing. Illidan destroying Xe’ra might be my top single moment in World of Warcraft in the past ten years. Illidan rejecting the gift is not subverting expectations, in my opinion. It’s Illidan doing precisely what we should expect him to do.
Colour me cynical, but “Oh, we heard you -smiley face-” with a complete 180 reversal of what was said whiffs of “We’re bleeding players at a rate of knots, quick, unlock the visuals vault and throw a shiny at them!”
It only says ear options for void elves and nothing specifically for Lightforged/Nightborne.
Watch it be almost nothing - after all, the models themselves for Nightborne are lacking anyway when compared to the NPCs. No amount of customization will fix that.
btw technically that is 9.1.5 news not 9.1 so acckshually should we create a new thread heh heh. . .
To be fair, it’s very much in line with general mindset of your average internet user to either not care about any of the bigoted stuff (or support it), or forget about it roughly a month after.
tbh im not expecting my brain to read anything in a paragraph while there’s bullet points next to it making it seem more important, especially with my waning interest in the game
technically that is 9.1.5 news not 9.1 so acckshually should we create a new thread heh heh. . .