I have some headcanon about the Jade Witch. That before her husband died, she used to run a monastery, inspired by the Stone Guard boss in Mogu’shan Vault. Along with her being Jade, there were cobalt, amethyst and jasper witches. The Jade Witch, though, was the worst, and they all condoned her actions when she started turning people into Jade. Their ways were to be good holy women, serving the Celestials, but this did not last. She would target young people, those she thought she could manipulate into doing what she wanted. Eventually, Nazgrim caught wind of this during the Pandaria Campaign because her attempts to manipulate one child failed. After this, many of her followers left, the sole remaining ones were statues with hearts of stone.
It makes the player coming to save the day that more important. It shows that we must stand up to tyrants, whoever they may be! Thank you Blizzard for this lesson!
Enjoying these lore contributions from everyone in the thread. I am learning a lot more about the quest chain than I previously knew & also loving the theorycrafting.
We have turned the Jade Witch into such a big character as a community. At sight, one may think she isn’t a big harm, but we have raised awareness and must teach all about her evils. Some may no longer consider her a risk after the questline, but how can we be sure? And how do we deter the next Jade Witch? Sun Shiao will certainly tell many stories about her!
Is the Witch actually slain? I kept trying to end her predation but the quest kept bugging out or the quest givers wouldn’t accept my reports of her death - felt like she’d been doing this for 10 years
Yeah, it’s a a bit weird that the Pandaren who are moving away from the Jade Witch. Supposedly condemning her, also believe that she has been turning children to jade with good intentions.
I can’t tell if this is typical Blizzard writing (ie not understanding the scale of crimes in their world) or just an oversight. Regardless, I hope Blizzard fixes this because it’s reading like a very forced lore development, just to try and show that “not all of the local pandaren support her” in a very half-hearted way.
Edit: Also, come to think of it, how can freezing a pandaren cub. And then releasing her, to then threaten her with being turned to jade again if they don’t become the witches toady possibly have any dreg of good intentions? Who can defend this writing?
What! This writing is not okay! Surely blizzard must understand that their characters should get consequences for their actions…
How can you even write characters that support the jade witch like that and think being turned into jade is a good thing.
There is an alternate way to defeat the witch.
Bring a fishing chair or cushion from winterveil.
Directly when you engage her offer a seat.
This will cause her to run off straight into a group of mogu spawned outside that will zap her with lightning and capture her.
The worst part about this ordeal is that the Jade Witch is so cunning, she has even coaxed other Pandaren into defending her crimes. In fact I’d say some Pandaren are so far gone that, even should the Jade Witch and all her statues be dealt with, a new Jade Witch will arise… perhaps even going as far as to build a new base in perhaps Kun-Lai Summit.
Hopefully the cubs manage to contact the Shado Pan to get this cleared up, in some distant lands - away from Pandaria - it’s a maximum of five years in a cell simply for having images of cubs turned to jade. Nevermind whatever other ill magics the Jade witch conducts.
It’s important that no matter where the Jade Witch appears now, players report her presence to the community (so they can kill this boss together in a raid)
The Jade Witch is rumoured to attempt rejoining the current cult she created under a new guise!
The cult of the Jade Witch should be kept an eye on as they, too, share the Jade Witches views and believe they are good.
The biggest shame is that the Jade Forest could be such a cool zone to quest in but questlines like the Jade witch’s just make it seem like every quest in that zone is low quality and straight up weird. As if a lot of bad quest designers decided to move there and ruin the cool setting that the Jade Forest provides.
It really is bad storytelling. I find it really implausible that the local pandaren would condone a predator who preys on children, and continue to let her chair the local home owners association.
