huh strange.I don’t have the book, only saw the excerpts and I seem to recall Shaw said they renamed themselves Sin’dorei in their anger about Garithos’ bigotry or something.
edit, found it: “His bigotry cost the alliance the elves who, in their anger, eventually renamed themselves Sin’dorei which means children of the blood, and cast their lot in with the horde.”
I feel like Shaw can definitely give valuable input on both Alliance and Horde-related matters. Like I already said, in the first book he had little trouble with Horde territories so I have no reason to believe it would be any different with Kalimdor zones. And I don’t know why you so easily dismiss what you call “the spy card,” really–the guy is the leader of SI:7, it is literally his job to know things. Honestly, personally I would find his input about Kalimdor incomparably more valuable than that given by, say, Rexxar.
Long story short, I don’t subscribe to the “Only Horde can talk about Horde lands!” idea at all and I find the new premise + characters way too bland for me to buy the Kalimdor book.
Meanwhile in the book it says: “His bigotry cost the Alliance the sin’dorei who would ultimately cast their lot in with the Horde.” 
I think the person writing the “lore excerpts” might’ve wanted to save time and/or space and sort of mashed two sentences together. I guess that might’ve caused some misunderstandings!
Id personally prefer Rexxar to be paired up with Rokhan instead, considering they used to work together in The Frozen Throne campaign.
Or someone pointed out the mistake and they changed it before the book came out. Either way, thanks for clearing that up!
I disagree. Apart from the Night Elves, Kalimdor is mainly horde- dominated and a book about it should absolutely be narrated by horde characters. That you are personally not a fan of them is hardly justified criticism.
It’s immersion breaking to assume that any person would instantly know about any subject simply because he works as a spy (specially considering how he has repeatedly failed to gather correctly even the most recent bits of relevant information).
Him suddenly knowing stuff from a time when Stormwind wasn’t even remotely involved, is the equivalent of metagaming in role playing.
Specially in regards to information that would never concern Stormwinds interests whatsoever.
And both great disasters in recent alliance history were based on him failing.
The broken shore happened because he got himself captured and replaced by a dreadlord who fed fake intel to lure the allied forces into a trap, and BfA happened because his spies were fed fake intel ,after flooding Orgrimmar without a hint of subtlety, and believed it to lure the Nightelf troops away from their core terretories.
If he was a good spy Varian would still be alive and Teldrassil might still be standing.
Thinking about it, you’re right about Shaw being a crap wizard crap spy. Given this fact, I have no choice but fall back to my old reliable:
Shaw’s done a decent job with the Horde lands in the first book, so I have no reason to assume that he would turn into a bumbling idiot the second he set foot on Kalimdor. “Exploring Eastern Kingdoms” was a relaxing and easy read featuring notes from characters I like, so naturally I would rather have a continuation of that rather than listen to the Horde guys I sadly don’t care about. 
Over all, i guess it’s about 50/50 with people who like the “Alliance”-PoV and ones who like the “Horde”-PoV. Also there is one Alliance dominated Continent with a few Horde-Bases and one Horde dominated Continent with a few Alliance bases.
So from Blizzards standpoint it makes absolute sense to give the Alliance-Continent an Alliance-PoV and the Horde continent the Horde-PoV to not annoy a good bunch of their playerbase.
Yeah, I think you are spot on with this. Personally I am strongly in the first camp and would like a full series of books “narrated” by Shaw, Horde lands and Pandaria and Northrend and all. I absolutely understand why people would want Horde characters to narrate a Kalimdor-centric book, but for me personally it’s more of a “which characters do I like more?” thing and in this contest… well, there are clear winners.
That said, if Blizzard is going with different characters narrating different continent-centric books, my personal wishlist is to have the one about Pandaria be Wrathion’s journal. 
While I understand your apprehension for Shaw and Flynn to do this, I don’t think this argument holds up because the same is true for both Rexxar and Zekhan.
That said, the “Exploring Azeroth” series should always have been from a Pandaren explorer’s perspective. Lorewalker Cho, or maybe Chen and Lili Stormstout would have been perfect. Or even Aysa and Ji.
For Pandaria i personally would prefer Chen (as a “newcomer” to Pandaria) and Lorewalker Cho(as a native knowing nearly everything ther is to know). One to ask the Questions and one to answer them.
That seems to be the “pattern” established by the first 2 books if i’m correct.
Flynn is mostly a newcomer to the eastern kingdoms, while shaw knows their histories.
Zekan is young and inexperienced, barely an adult. Rexxar is in Kalimdor as long as the Horde is there and is someone who is mostly wandering the wilderness alone with his Animals.
In a way that is true, but it’s about modern Kalimdor, and not the Ruins from 10 Millenia ago.
And as sad as it is, most of modern Kalimdor’s history has been written by the Horde and after the Hordes arrival.
Nobody in their right mind would want to read about 10000 years of watching trees grow.
(ps. i know this is hyperbole, but not by much.)
I agree, but it’s the argument he made!
Well, I may have gone overboard there. What I meant is that these humans belong to a collective that didn’t even acknowledge Kalimdor existence until after the Third War and the formation of the two major MMO factions.
Rexxar, and to some extent Zekhan, where agents that participated or lived through most of Kalimdors notable recent history. Dominantly through their interactions in the Wc3 events.
Plus, they would also have certain degree of knowledge regarding the significance of the story that came prior, if only through their ties with other longstanding settlers such as the Tauren of Mulgore, Desolace, and Thousand Needles.
Stormwind didn’t involve themselves with Kalimdor affairs until after NE joined the Alliance, and the Forsaken did likewise with the Horde.
Any amount of knowledge they would’ve had about the continent would’ve come from that point onward. And through the biased lense of enmity.
Should’ve explained myself better, but I wasn’t referring to a lacking regarding ancient Kalimdor history. I also tried to point at the severe ignorance regarding the “newer” one.
Edit: If Blizzard wanted to focus on ancient Kalimdor history, they should’ve given the role to a NE character. And the sweet spot would’ve been achieved through a pairing with a Tauren (Hamuul and Naralex for example). But if they want to tackle a more recent approach regarding the zones history, the co-founder of Orgrimmar, who is also known as a notable wanderer, seems like an obvious pick.
And well…guess we can tolerate Zekhan.
I think the combination of a newcomer with an old established character is a good choice. We have one “reader insert” to ask “stupid” questions without seeming out of Character (Flynn because he’s Kul’tiran, Zekhan because he’s very young) and one to answer them and tell the tales.
That’s why i’d like a combination of Chen or Li Li (or even both, because they kind of belong together for full impact) with Lorewalker Cho for Pandaria.
Arguably, he sucks at his job so much, that even Anduin was captured.
© https://wow.gamepedia.com/Death_Rising#Alliance
ngl, I would not mind reading a book from a perspective of less conventional characters. Naaru of some kind. Or Azshara 
Maybe someday.
gl hf
And got both factions lured into a trap that killed the king he vowed to protect.
And spread intel about an upcoming attack that ended up not being such, and left the entirety of the NE faction defenceless.
And ordered a kidnapping attempt against the World Shaman on his way to save the planet from splintering in half.
Yeah, I think that the leader of Stormwinds intelligence comes out rather lacking in his supposed field of expertise…
His king as well as the Leader of an at this point allied faction. So yeah. Without him Legion would have been easier and Sylvanas as Warchief would never have happened.
Just imagine a world without BfA. the possiblitity!
Blizzard simply made the mistake of writing the Exploring Azeroth series from a faction bound character point of view.
I maintain that Pandaren would have been the most fitting for such a role (and if you do want some faction bias, Aysa and Ji could work perfectly). Alas, they missed the mark (again). Not that Exploring the Eastern Kingdoms had any real updates or revelations.
I would be interested in “exploring” books written by Xal’atath. Or a broker (just like the upcoming “Grimoir of the Shadowlands and Beyond”). That could be even more “unbiased” apporoach.
Also, I am not quite sure I would call EK book “pro-alliance”. It felt more like “pro validating Anduin’s ideas” book.
gl hf