Why Theramore's Destruction is THE. BEST. Thing That Could Happen to the Alliance (and Other Rants)
Also a slight intro, I guess. \o/ Hi, I am Wyrdfayth, and I'm new not only to WoW Ladies but LiveJournal in general more or less. I've had this account for quite a while but I think I posted literally once before tonight, so I apologize in advance for anything n00bish I may end up saying or doing. It's also worth noting that I haven't been able to actually play other than a bit on the FreePlay since shortly before Cata dropped (though I plan to try to get back into it soon), but that's okay because my primary love has always been not the gameplay but the lore.
Moving into my primary point, here, I should point out that I am a rabid Alliance fan. Somehow, as a lifelong fantasy geek in Warcraft's vivid world of elves and magic, my favorite race is Human. (You heard me.) I in no way dislike Horde, mind you; I've even recently grown to have a certain love-hate for Garrosh Hellscream, if only because he makes me laugh so hard at times and because his letter to Magatha (who I hate far more) in Shattering was priceless. I love Thrall and Kael'thas and Cairne and I adore Baine so very much. But when you boil it down, my most impressive Horde character is Lv17 and I'm in no rush to work more on him, where my main and dozens of alts are Alliance. So just to be absolutely clear, this rant is coming from someone who flies gold and blue almost exclusively and loves every minute of it.
Yes, Theramore being destroyed is the most marvelous gift Blizzard could give us.
I did notice the other thread on this, but wanted to go into pretty extensive detail so I hope this post is okay? But yeah. Fortunately, it seems the community here has had more positive or at least accepting reactions than the flamefest that is the Blizz Forums, but for those still at all skeptic or who still feel themselves compelled to cry out of Horde favoritism, I want you to stop and consider two words.
Yup, some of you guessed it.
Jaina Proudmoore.
Other leaders too, for that matter, but especially Jaina.
(Warning: some fairly minor spoilers may apply for those who haven't read various novels yet, if they cared to.)
"Even if she IS getting a novel, Blizzard never gives women strong roles!" cry some.
I must disagree. While not as prominent as some would like, Jaina is already a fabulous female protagonist. She's more than the emotional pacifist and constantly failing attempt at diplomacy. This is the woman who froze an entire Alliance assault- including its king, her king!- in their tracks, then teleported the entire group at once halfway across a continent almost effortlessly. This is the woman who held her own one-on-one against the Lich King, and did considerable damage to him besides, even if exhausting herself physically and emotionally in the process. (Ever consider what she may have been able to do if the man she was fighting hadn't been the ex-lover she'd been waiting on for the past eight years- most of her adult life?) This is the woman who fought back a raging storm and rising flood, keeping up a constant Dragon's Breath all the while, for two solid days with no breaks notable enough to mention. What, didn't catch that part? It was given next to no attention- I reread the line probably ten times to make sure it literally just said two days had passed, just like that- but it happened. Jaina is beyond just 'strong'; she borders on inhuman. I'd also like to remind everyone her novel is being written by Christie Golden, who handled her beautifully in Arthas and Shattering.
"Okay, so she's powerful. Not that it does much good! She'll probably cry about it the whole expansion!" come the protests of doubters.
No, Jaina is not a crybaby. She is human (in more terms than race, hehe). Fellow fan, if I may ask: what have we really seen Jaina crying about? The weight of the reality that the only man- person, it doesn't matter the gender- she'd ever loved, whom she'd loved all her life, with whom she'd once been planning to get married and start a family, no longer seemed to place any significance on her existence, freely swung his soul-stealing blade at her, and nearly killed her? The impending battle with that person, in whom she had spent the past eight years believing, praying constantly that there could be another way? His death, and finding out after it was too late that she had been the only person who knew the truth after all and almost certainly the weight of the guilt that must have come with knowing that after all that time she let everyone else convince her against that truth so close to the end? It doesn't matter that the person in question is male or the nature of the relationship she shared with him, and to claim otherwise would be just as sexist as many claim Blizzard is. (I'm not saying they aren't, just not as often as some say.) Had this been a sister, cousin, mentor, student, friend, or anything, it should have been no different. Don't lie. Even if you're one of the relatively few exempt, you should still recognize that most of us would cry in similar situations at the least; plenty wouldn't have even handled things as well as Jaina. This includes the guys, too.
What else.. Tears of joy (combined with the impending sorrow mentioned above) at witnessing such an act of compassion as Varian showed Varok Saurfang, being such a pacifist herself and knowing he'd as soon rip out an orc's tusks and use them to gouge out its eyes in normal situations? Yes, that seems justified. Crying at a very close friend's wedding? And really, there were likely tons of reasons for that: being happy for him, remembering her own dashed wedding plans, the fact that Jaina has been shown to be increasingly aware of her age (she's roughly 33 now, btw) and as such is likely enough at least slightly concerned she'll never find anyone, and possibly even some regret and wondering what might have been. (For the record, I loathe serious Jaina/Thrall shipping and it's absolutely anti-canon, but I do love the idea of a bittersweet thing with mutual feelings they just never pursued, for which canon offers enough debatable support. x3) Really. She can be a bit emotional (and her voice actress overacts TERRIBLY in some places, I'll give you that), but is it really that bad? Would you prefer every female character be either Shandris Feathermoon or Maiev Shadowsong? Jaina is an excellent character, in my opinion. She is strong, confident, capable, and independent-without-being-isolatory, but at the same time gentle and tenderhearted. And what's really so wrong with that? She portrays wonderfully that strength and emotion are not opposite ends of a spectrum and absolutely can coexist effectively. She's both a mother (figure to Anduin, especially) and a warrior, and I say that's awesome.
"That would all be well and good.. if she ever DID anything!" come the jeers.
Ah. Yes, 'tis true. Jaina is a glorious character and has always been pretty prominent, if mostly in backseat roles. Her biggest 'problem', then, is really just that she's a pacifist. Of course, on it's own, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's one of the things that's also great about her, at least to enough fans. But this is World of Warcraft after all, and constant peace-seeking just doesn't make for much excitement. In order for Jaina to be a truly effective force, she'd have to be more willing to get her hands dirty. After all, she may have grown up a lot from the days of "I'm sorry, Arthas. I can't watch you do this." (For those of you who haven't read the novel, this was meant very literally. She absolutely knew the path he was taking was the least of all evils, and was the right thing in their extreme situation. She just literally wasn't strong enough back then to stomach being involved herself.) But that doesn't mean she's anywhere near jumping onto the battlefield banner blazing.
And that, my friends, is where Theramore comes in.
"Jaina's sat idly by through so much already. Why should this be any different?"
Stop for a moment. Think about this carefully. What is Jaina? Yes, yes, a human, a mage, more immature than she'd like to admit most of the time. We know all she ever wanted was to study, but really, what has since defined her? Ruling Theramore. Jaina has been stated to have been in love twice: with Arthas, and with her job. That town, those people- many of them the people she brought across the sea when no one else would heed Medivh- are her life. It's been some 11 years at this point, for those interested, at least 12 and possibly more by the time MoP gets here, depending on how much time elapses in Cata and how much passes between. She has a lot of time and effort invested in this. In fact, much of her pacifism has been to protect Theramore. She did not inherit this role nor step up to claim it. She created it, from the ground up. And it hasn't been all sunflowers and bunnies. Her pacifism also extended to allowing the Horde to kill her own father if the end result meant peace for Theramore as a whole. More than perhaps any other faction leader, Jaina is deeply emotionally invested in her role.
This fresh in mind, do you really think she's going to take the destruction of everything she's spent nearly half her life building and protecting lying down? That loss, that betrayal?
No. No she is not.
Aside from this, her novel is said to change her "in earth-shattering ways", which Metzen calls "badass". Just in case you needed some extra support. (Inb4 this actually means she turns evil and becomes one of the major raids or MoP. x'3;; Hurr.) Though speaking of raid bosses... that actually supports this too. Because what's coming in 4.3?
Jaina as a raid boss. That's what. More specifically, a future, broken Jaina. Though what we see and fight (hopefully) won't be exactly what Jaina becomes, it does prove that she can break. She is in no way immune, and her optimism cannot and will not hold up forever.
"Okay, so she'll probably get involved. So what?"
So have-you-SEEN-Jaina? Please refer back to the 'Jaina is strong' paragraph. Two. Solid. Days. Transporting literally dozens of people that far. Doing as much damage as she did single-handedly to the fricking Lich King, as well as freezing solid the being that felt no cold. Jaina Proudmoore is very likely the most powerful mortal mage in known existence. If Malfurion is the greatest Druid, Thrall is the greatest Shaman, and Varian is the greatest Warrior (don't you dare argue; he's literally infused with a god), Jaina is the greatest Mage. Her greatest trouble in her early years wasn't tapping her power, but controlling it! I think everyone here knows that despite nerfs now and then, as a general rule mages are OP, and if anything this is even worse in lore. Spellcasters in general are treated with extreme caution and known to cause massive destruction, and that's with totally insignificant characters. Jaina... Given enough power and ambition, it's honestly terrifying to think of what Jaina might be capable of.
Now, let's take away her idealism, grind her sanity to dust, and fill her with a raging vengeance.
Are you starting to fear for the Horde yet?
"As long as they don't use this to hook her up with King Chin."
..And why would that be so bad? Everyone who believes the prevalent interpretation of Varian with an Idiot Ball in one hand and a bloody Shalamayne in the other (when he's not sitting on his throne planning where to build the next statue of himself), stop reading, step away from the computer, and go read volumes 1 and 2 of The Comic, The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm, Wolfheart, and Blood of Our Fathers right. now, preferably in that order. The fandom for whatever reason seems to see him as a fuzzy pink-skinned Garrosh, but in fact he's made countless attempts at diplomacy and is constantly at war with himself (literally) on most issues related to the Horde and conflict in general.
It should never be forgotten that Varian is a wolf. Literally, his soul is infused with a wolf god. (xD I pretty much DIED when it hit me: VARIAN IS A THERIAN. Not only is that amazing in any work that doesn't focus on therianthropy at all otherwise; IT RHYMES!) Actually, the realization recently hit me that nearly every single aspect of his personality is based on this. The feral rage, the fierce loyalty, the love of hunting both for actual prey and in the figurative sense, the overprotective nature, the tendency to count anyone who earns his respect as family or close to it, the combative instinct... As Genn Greymane once notes, Varian may be even more a wolf than the Worgen. Just like wolves, then, he is often mislabeled, but is pretty awesome if you bother looking hard enough to actually see it. He's an excellent father even with his constant mistakes as of late, was apparently a wonderful husband before Tiffin died (and still kind of is one, considering other than that highly-implied and mind-controlled thing with Katrana/Onyxia, he's been totally loyal to his dead wife for some 15 years now and still consults her on everything), and- despite some protests now and then- is really an excellent king. He's not in every battle, but when he joins, he's on the front lines leading his soldiers himself; he despises Horde and especially orcs, but has made more attempts at diplomacy than most Horde leaders combined, excluding Thrall's policies with Theramore; he is by nature a blood knight who would personally just as soon go back to fighting for his life everyday as a gladiator over dealing with politics, yet deal with all the politics he does, and he readily admits on many different occasions that non-violent approaches serve best. Not bad considering he's pretty much a walking Doom Magnet with so little self-esteem most of the time that losing his son's approval makes him lose all will to live and all interest in the fate of the world as a whole. (Yes, that happened. And somehow many fans think he's arrogant.)
... Don't get me wrong. He's definitely a jerkass. So very much. The fact that he intentionally hides behind stoic walls half the time as a way to keep everyone at a distance does nothing to help this. But there's a big difference between being highly prone to snarking and near-lacking a sense of tact, and... yeah.
So now that we've established that Varian is not the pompous moron the fandom loves to portray him as, what of a potential relationship with Jaina? Never mind if you personally care for the idea or not. (Though honestly, I've been gunning for it since just after Arthas died.) Would it work? And what would it mean?
Well, since we just mentioned the fact that Anduin is Varian's entire world, the fact that Jaina kind of acts as the mother of his child certainly helps. Jaina seems remarkably similar to Tiffin, as well, as far as we can tell. She has much the same calming effect on Varian that his wife had, a similar gentleness and quick wit. And appearance? .. Haaa. Go compare them in The Comic. Jaina has a slightly different hair type, a bit fuller/rounder face, fuller lips/a thinner mouth.. and bigger boobs. And.. that's about it. Possibly height; that's harder to compare. And in a different comic, she actually even has the exact hairstyle we see Tiffin with the The Comic's flashbacks.
But what about him for her? Keep in mind, folks, Arthas and Varian sort of grew up like brothers, and even after Varian moved back home to take over his rebuilt city, they were best friends for years. To put it in context, what initially got me shipping was actually a comment against the idea I once saw on deviantART. Paraphrased a bit, it was more or less, "Varian vs Thrall in a battle of romance? No contest! One is a violent, extremist human brute of the Stormwind royal line (which is probably inbred; look how smart Arthas was!), and the other is an exotic, refined gentleman. Green or not, who would YOU choose?" ... xD; And it hit me. JAINA ALREADY MADE THAT CHOICE. The member had inadvertantly described Arthas vs Kael'thas. And it all came crashing down then that Varian was exactly her taste in men. He's less mischievous than Arthas, but also more responsible and capable of owning up to his failures, if reluctantly. Also, while not to the frightening degree of Jaina and Tiffin, he and Arthas are pretty physically similar: the height, the build, the long hair (if different colors and types), the perma-stubble, the light eyes. Little-known fact: Arthas actually had a scar on the bridge of his nose, too. It's not as large or prominent, but it's pointed out in his novel, and if you look closely you can see it in his official artwork and even the Culling model. It just always seemed to me a rather odd little thing to be so meticulous about if it didn't have some significance. ;3
Please don't take any of that as 'replacement goldfish' value, though. More "each happens to fit what the other has been canonically shown to find physically attractive, greatly upping the odds that they find each other attractive, which tends to help in initial relationship-building". He likes calm, intelligent, strong women, and she likes stubborn well-intentioned extremist jerkasses. (Jaina's awesome, but no one said she had great taste in men. xP) That checks out too.
Furthermore, they've already been shown to be very close on numerous occasions. It isn't as though this would come out of nowhere at all. In Wrath, Thrall alternated between having Sylvanas or Garrosh as his second. Everything Alliance was Jaina and Varian. There's of course the infamous 'proud of my king' bit in ICC (and the lesser-considered fact that in the immediately-previous instance Arthas was referred to as 'my prince', making that quite a fun parallel). In Shattering, they're shown to apparently have magic mirrors through which to communicate; no indication is given she might have this with anyone else or that the mirror might be able to connect to anyone else. Also in Shattering, Varian is fairly quick to very sincerely apologize for lashing at Jaina fairly early on; this becomes particularly notable when in Wolfheart it is mentioned that "it was no small feat for Varian Wrynn to apologize for anything." And in Wolfheart, he's shown to regard Theramore very highly as Stormwind's primary ally in the fight for humanity. Terrible as parts of the book were, Stormrage has a pretty nice bit, too. When the nightmare figures begin appearing in the mist, once Varian comes to terms with the hundreds of shambing Tiffins and Anduins he's seeing, the face he suddenly singles out of the croud of thousands is Jaina Proudmoore's. In Blood of Our Fathers, Jaina is particularly frustrated with Varian and concerned about keeping him at bay, noting how hard he makes it at times to be his ally, let alone his friend. "But she also knew the king well enough to know his true heart."
So yes. They're already very close, whether you've noticed it or not, and care for each other deeply. Whether or not this is romantic at all is sheerly a matter of interpretation at this point, but either way it would not at all be some terrible stretch for it to veer that way.
Now.... What about when Theramore falls?
Romance or no- Varian is going to be pissed. Remember, his sense of comradery in Wolfheart extended not just to Jaina, but Theramore as a whole. Those soldiers are his brothers in arms.
Do you happen to recall just how harshly the Wrathgate affected him?
That. Except now instead of an attack on the undead betrayed by other undead, it will be over a decade of peace betrayed by 'I TOLD YOU ORCS COULDN'T BE TRUSTED'. (Yes, I know Theramore has had its own transgressions, but 'peace' as far as the king has seen.) Also, even more deaths. Also the loss of such an important strategic position. Also seeing the woman who is at very least like a sister and at most possibly his future wife broken oh so very hard. Also reflecting all of the insanity she's going to be exuding. And personally, I can only see them continuously amplifying each other's vengeance-driven strength.
So yes.
The Horde gets to destroy our most major non-capital city and greatly shifts the balance of power in Kalimdor.
And in return, we get a raging, vengeful, JAINA PROUDMOORE finally going against her pacifistic nature and kicking some ass, right alongside an even more crusading than usual Varian Wrynn. You know. Just in case someone tried to Silence. x3 One can move armies across continents with her mind and the other can crush bones with his bare hands. It may be worth remembering that as of Wolfheart, Tyrande and Malfurion, the second-greatest Priest and greatest Druid, also follow Varian avidly, and fought alongside Jaina against the Legion. It helps that Tyrande is said to be getting some more development soon, too. So I don't think they'll be sitting idly by either. Velen- the very greatest preist- is now pretty invested in Anduin, who is himself becoming much bolder and more active, which gives us that much more leverage (and tons of healing). :'3
So yeah. Hordies? You can take Theramore for that. Please, hurry and do so.
Meanwhile, what of the Horde? Well.. While we're becoming that much stronger, I can't imagine Baine (who is quite fond of both Jaina and Anduin) is going to take this well at all, and we know Thrall is returning at some point in MoP, which is certain to stir dissent between those orcs praying for his return and those who have become fully loyal to Garrosh, and Sylvanas has never been on great terms with anyone. Which means as the Alliance becomes a unified force of unstoppable vengeance, the Horde becomes a chaotic mess warring within itself.
Please, Blizzard. Please take Theramore as quickly as possible! The Alliance will praise you for it. \o/
(8'3;; *holds breath and prays posting this is okay* Heh...)