World of Warcraft: Current Year

Garrosh wanted to be his father ever since Thrall made Grom out to be a complete hero, neglecting to tell Garrosh that Grom also had a whole lot of bad to him with his bloodthirsty warmongering ways. Sylvanas has nothing to do with that, I assure you.

Mana Bomb: Garrosh ordered Thalen, one Blood Elf Sunreaver, who was secretly loyal to him, not Dalaran, to make a bomb with the Focusing Iris that Garrosh's troops captured from some dragons that were transporting it. Thalen was the only one involved in repurposing it into a weapon, and knew exactly what he was doing, and was doing it because he thought Garrosh was the winning side and wanted to be rewarded, so he betrayed the Kirin Tor and Sunreavers for Garrosh.

Theramore's Neutrality: Theramore has never been neutral in the Horde/Alliance conflict in WoW. At the end of the Cycle of Hatred novel that takes place between WC3 and Classic, Theramore signed a peace treaty with the Horde.

1. Then at some point after that, but before Vanilla starts, the orcs are dying because they have no resources. They are in sore need of lumber, which the Night Elves have a lot of, as they're sitting on all the healthy land rich in trees in Kalimdor, the whole northern half of the continent.

2. They can grow trees in an instant with their druids, but refuse to trade with the Horde, condemning them to death after they helped the Night Elves protect their sacred World Tree Nordrassil from the Legion, mixing their blood on the battlefield as they died together to protect Azeroth.

3. The Warsong Clan see their people dying, and see Thrall refusing to take what the orcs need by force, citing the Orcish race's crimes on Draenor and during WC1 and 2, and that they deserve this.

4. The Warsong Clan are outraged that Thrall is condemning them all to death, including their innocent children who did nothing to deserve death, growing up in the humans' internment camps for their parents' crimes, and those born on Kalimdor, now deemed guilty and sentenced to death by their Warchief.

5. The Warsong Clan starts harvesting lumber in Ashenvale, prompting the Night Elves' anger. The Night Elves attack, and the Warsong don't back down, fighting back to keep their lumber-harvesting operation going.

6. They send the lumber they get back to Orgrimmar as a gift, and Thrall grimly accepts it, as refusing it would dishonor the sacrifices of the Warsong, and the orcs are all about honor whenever possible. In the case of the lumber from Ashenvale, they had no choice, as the Night Elves wouldn't budge, not allowing the Orcs even a single tree in their entire half a continent that's covered in them, while the orcs live in a cracked boiling desert.

7. Tyrande brashly declares war on the entire Horde, including the Darkspear and Tauren, for the Warsong's actions, despite them not being sanctioned or supported by Thrall.

8. The Warsong suffer losses, and the Horde see their heroes dying, and many are stirred to help them, keeping the lumber operations going with fresh troops to defend the goblin shredders and orc peons working in Ashenvale.

9. The Night Elves lost a lot of their former power during WC3 against the Legion when the demons' presence drove many of their allies either mad, or dead. Few of the furbolgs were sane anymore, and most of the owlbeasts (or moonkin, whatever is the correct name) were also driven crazy. So, the Night Elves had fewer allies, and thus needed help to kill the whole Horde, rather than just the Warsong, the real problem (from the Night Elves' perspective).

10. Tyrande asks Jaina for help, but Jaina, having signed a non-aggression treaty with the Horde, has to refuse. She and Theramore get all the lumber and other resources they need from Stormwind and Ironforge in the Eastern Kingdoms, so they're suffering none of the hardships that the Horde are, where they're dying from lack of resources.

11. What Jaina does offer, however are...supplies. Resources. To the Night Elves. Not the orcs. Resources to help the prettier race have an easier time of fighting the uglier race who are fighting specifically because they need resources. Here is Jaina's first instance of making Theramore a legitimate military target, by making it a supplier to the Horde's enemies.

12. The Night Elves accept these unneeded supplies, though, and Jaina feels like a good person working toward peace for some reason.

13. Jaina also tells Tyrande about two large, powerful groups of people across the sea who would be very interested in killing the Horde. Stormwind and Ironforge (and we'll throw in Gnomeregan under Ironforge too, as they're really nothing more than the Dwarves' sidekicks). She arranges the Night Elves' admittance into the Alliance, thus giving Stormwind and Ironforge a pawn to throw at the Horde that hadn't done anything to them in over 10 years since the Second War ended.

14. Keep in mind that Thrall still has not declared war on the Night Elves, or Alliance, nor has he committed Horde troops to the Warsong. They are being supported solely by individual orcs, tauren, and trolls who think their cause is a noble one and wish to help.

15. Stormwind and Ironforge send their boats of troops and supplies to Theramore, which, while it's supposed to be "neutral" in the conflict, is making itself a target for the second time by making Theramore a fortified position for the Alliance's armies to enter the continent.

16. The Alliance troops have to get to Ashenvale somehow, but Theramore is in a mucky swamp. Definitely not a good place for horses, wagons, combat vehicles like tanks, etc. So, Jaina decides to build a sophisticated highway all the way from Theramore through the Dustwallow Marsh, through the Barrens, up to Ashenvale. This is her third instance of making Theramore a military target, by serving as the Alliance military's means of entering the continent, and traveling closer to where they can kill the Horde.

17. Now, the Night Elves have a lot more support against the relatively small Warsong Clan that they apparently couldn't handle on their own. Thrall still doesn't commit the Horde to war, and he also looks the other way, pretending not to see Jaina's blatant efforts to skate around the treaty and do everything she could to kill the Horde without explicitly attacking them herself. Basically, Jaina was exploiting every possible loophole in their treaty to kill the Horde, and Thrall looks the other way, because he thinks she's his friend.

18. At this point, Vanilla WoW begins.

19. Theramore's troops at Northwatch Hold in the Barrens are very trigger happy and paranoid, and fire upon any and all ships entering or leaving the actually neutral goblin port town of Ratchet. A High Elf privateer captain (not a member of the Alliance or Horde) is angry because Northwatch is sinking all his ships they see, killing all his crew, except for one blood elf crew member that I think players rescue, but I don't remember. This captain sends Horde players to kill Northwatch troops, and the person in charge, as justice for his murdered crew and destroyed ships.

20. Theramore continues accepting Alliance troops into its harbors and helping them get up to Ashenvale to fight in Warsong Gulch for three years, until the end of the war against the Lich King when the Horde and Alliance both sign a nonaggression treaty, which lorewise, ceased all conflicts in places like Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin temporarily while the Horde and Alliance got their affairs in order and recovered from the war in Northrend. The Night Elves still refused to trade with the Orcs, this time citing the Wrathgate incident, which killed both Horde and Alliance heroes when Putress and his lackeys betrayed the Horde for the Burning Legion.


To be continued...

21. Garrosh is grumpy at this.

22. Then the elements start getting upset when Deathwing is preparing to break from Deepholm. Thrall temporarily gives the mantle of Warchief to Garrosh, thinking that Cairne, Vol'jin, Eitrigg, and Saurfang would guide him to be a good leader in Thrall's absence.

23. Thrall travels to Nagrand in Outland to speak with the Furies at the Throne of Elements, basically the closest thing Outland has to Ragnaros, Al'akir, Theradras, and Neptulon, except the Furies aren't mean.

24. He has to learn from his grandmother how to be a "real" shaman, basically. And she tells him that he can't be a shaman and Warchief at the same time, and Blizzard sets Thrall down the path that turns him from fan favorite into Metzen favorite that nobody else likes anymore.

25. Thrall stays in Nagrand and trains to be a real shaman, because Greatmother Geyah claimed Drek'thar didn't teach him the right way, and Thrall started calling himself Go'el, another thing that Metzen seems to think is awesome, while everyone else hates it.

26. Thrall gets with Aggra, and they basically become boyfriend and girlfriend, which is also lame.

27. Now Deathwing is ready to come out, and he rips from the Maelstrom out of Deepholm, rupturing the World Pillar or whatever, making the elements super upset, causing lots of bad weather and earthquakes and tsunamis and all that bad stuff.

28. At this point, Cataclysm begins.

29. Garrosh wants the Orcs (and Horde by association) to be prosperous, and finally, after 4 years, war is officially declared on the Night Elves by the Horde.

30. Garrosh devotes official Horde military support to the Warsong's campaign, and they make significant progress, not only getting enough lumber, but claiming much of the territory for the Horde.

31. Then Theramore, supposedly neutral, abandons all pretense and sends its own troops into Durotar. There are two base camps of Theramore troops stationed in Durotar, and the Horde player is tasked with finding out what they're doing. This is Jaina's fourth strike by sending Theramore's troops into Horde territory.

32. They discover that Theramore is spying on the Horde, scouting out their defenses, and they find invasion plans for Orgrimmar, the Valley of Trials, Razor Hill, and the Echo Isles. That's strike five. Jaina the greasy lawyer might pretend spying isn't aggression, but it is an act of war, especially when they're there with intent to invade key Horde positions.

33. Jaina sends her troops into the ruined Tiragarde Keep, which was wiped out by a tsunami caused by the Cataclysm. If you don't know, Tiragarde Keep was built and manned by Kul Tiran troops from a second fleet following Daelin Proudmoore to Kalimdor to kill the orcs. Now Theramore has come in to see if it can be salvaged as a defensible stronghold from which to strike at the Horde. That's the sixth.

34. Jaina sends her own Theramore troops (not just Stormwind or Ironforge) into the Barrens to attack the Horde, destroying Camp Taurajo. The commander carpet bombed the camp in such a way as to allow the Horde living there an escape route if they could find it, but they still attacked a Horde settlement. She also sends Theramore troops to invade Mulgore, which is only prevented by the Tauren's timely building of their Great Gate, which Theramore continued laying siege to until Tides of War.

35. Throughout all of this, Jaina has always been pretending Theramore is neutral. A beacon of peace and neutrality. An advocate for the Horde, and the end of the war between the Horde and Alliance.

36. Now, Tides of War begins.

37. A group of powerful blue dragons are killed while transporting the Focusing Iris, but nobody knows who's behind it. It was Garrosh's troops, and Thalen is now working to change it into a mana bomb on Garrosh's orders.

38. Garrosh knows that Theramore has been a thorn in the Horde's side for a long time. 5 years now, and he is not going to look the other way and pretend not to notice like Thrall did. Garrosh decides that it's time to wipe Theramore off the map.

39. Kalec goes to Theramore and becomes Jaina's boy toy, hanging out with her and completely abandoning the Blue Dragonflight's vault of powerful dangerous artifacts and leaving them completely unprotected.

40. Jaina gets an apprentice. A gnome named Kinndy.

41. They all hang out a lot in Theramore, never once mentioning Jaina and Theramore's deception and two-faced smiles. All they talk about is how peaceful Theramore is while Kalec halfheartedly pretends he's making an effort to find the immensely powerful magical artifact capable of basically sucking all mana in Azeroth away from people. But really, he's just sitting around on Jaina's couch, participating in a rather forced love story with Jaina.

42. Kalec senses the Focusing Iris and flies off in search of it. Garrosh has it on a zeppelin, and has the zeppelin fly around all over the place, leading Kalec on a wild goose chase to tire him out.

43. The Horde's armies gather and attack Northwatch, destroying it completely. Garrosh uses dark shaman to force the elements to serve them, creating lava elementals that make short work of Northwatch, and are then destroyed afterward with a lot of difficulty. Vol'jin, Baine, and the Forsaken and Blood Elf commanders leading their forces in Lor'themar and Sylvanas' stead are all like "that's bad."

44. Garrosh ignores them, then tells them his whole entire plan to go attack Theramore, knowing that Baine (who'd feel indebted to Jaina who gave him some money to hire mercenaries when Magatha Grimtotem orchestrated Cairne's death and took over Thunder Bluff) would betray him and go warn Jaina because apparently valuing your enemies' lives more than your own people's is a good thing.

45. Baine tells Jaina, who tells the Alliance leaders, who all send a ton of troops to Theramore. The Horde force moves south from Northwatch, and a smaller force led by Vol'jin comes over the Great Gate from Mulgore and kills Theramore's troops laying siege to it while they're sleeping.

46. They join up and wait right outside Dustwallow Marsh. Garrosh is waiting so that the Alliance has all the time in the world to gather all their best troops and military commanders in one place. The rest of the Horde leaders are mad at him, saying that if they're going to destroy Theramore (which they don't want to do), they'd prefer to do it when there are less Alliance there, so the Horde suffers less casualties.

47. Garrosh says to chill out and trust their Warchief, because he has a plan and is well-aware of the situation. Meanwhile, the other Horde leaders continue to murmur and have secret meetings talking about how Garrosh is being bad.

48. Jaina seems to think Theramore needs more help than they already have, and petitions Dalaran to break their neutrality and help against the Horde too. Rhonin refuses, saying they're neutral, and thus, they can't get involved in any way, shape, or form. Evidently, a concept lost on Jaina, who doesn't know the definition of neutrality.

49. The Horde sends in some troops so the Alliance doesn't get suspicious, suffering some losses. The other Horde leaders are mad that Garrosh is seemingly wasting their troops' lives.

To be continued again...

50. Jaina goes and asks Dalaran again, and Rhonin says that he, Modera (or some other mage, I don't remember), and a Sunreaver will go, saying that maybe the Horde wouldn't attack if Kirin Tor were there. Aethas personally vouches for Thalen Songweaver, a Sunreaver loyal to Garrosh, who at this point has already finished making the mana bomb and is now back in Dalaran like normal.

51. Thalen goes to Theramore with Rhonin and the other mage, and helps with the magical shielding placed on the gates, helping to prevent the Horde from getting in.

52. Now there are a ton of Alliance in Theramore, and Garrosh doesn't care that Dalaran is there, finding it funny that they thought he wouldn't attack his legitimate enemies if Kirin Tor were standing in his way. He sends more troops, who hammer on Theramore's gates.

53. Thalen then stops casting his shield spell stuff, so the gates open up and Horde pour in. Jaina is furious with rage that he'd betrayed...the Kirin Tor, I guess? He certainly wasn't her guy. She tries casting some fast spell to kill him, like shooting icicles at him or something, but he smirks and teleports away before she can get him. I think that's what happened in the book, but I'm not sure. My memory's foggy on that, since he's held imprisoned in Theramore in a dungeon for players to find, so I dunno. Maybe Jaina successfully got him into a prison cell.

54. Now the Horde kills the Flight Master, portal guy, and anyone else who can provide a means of escape from Theramore. They also bust out Thalen from jail, who casts a portal to Orgrimmar or Silvermoon for them, I don't remember which. They escape, anyway.

55. Then Garrosh pulls back all Horde troops, making the Alliance think they'd given up. They hadn't. Vereesa and Shandris get ambitious and lead two separate teams of Sentinels into the Marsh after them, looking for Thalen, thinking he'd escaped there, rather than porting out, like he'd obviously do, since he was a mage and all.

56. While they're gone, Garrosh drops the bomb, and Jaina is ported away by Rhonin just in time so she's not killed by the bomb, but she is affected by some of the mana stuff.

57. Then she's all pissed that Garrosh wouldn't put up with her crap and let her harass the Horde while pretending she wasn't, and she goes crying to her father's grave, saying "You were right, dad, the Horde are monsters, and I should have listened to you." And her dad, if you didn't know this, was killed by the Horde because he attacked them without provocation and wouldn't stop. So, she should have learned something from that. But she didn't, and attacked the Horde without provocation, claiming ignorance and pretending she was basically Ghandi and Theramore was picking daisies when the evil Horde came stomping up to ruin their fun.

58. Then she tries to drown Orgrimmar, Thrall talks her down, then the Council of Six read a piece of paper that Krasus wrote before he died. It was a bullshit prophecy that Jaina should be the leader of the Kirin Tor, so the level-headed Council of Six hand off the reins of the second most powerful magical organization on Azeroth (behind Silvermoon, which lorewise should be much more powerful than Blizzard shows it in-game, which is to say that they don't show its power at all) to an emotionally unstable woman, who's suffered unknown side effects from exposure to the mana bomb, who's just lost her entire city (which was her own fault), and certainly not in any mood to see reason or her own hypocrisy.

59. Then comes MoP, and once again, Jaina uses the resources of her (supposed to be) neutral city to blatantly favor one faction in the war, and of course it's the Alliance. She uses Dalaran's resources to protect the Divine Bell from Horde hands in Darnassus, blocking Horde off from porting in.

60. Then Fanlyr Silverthorn, another Blood Elf loyal to Garrosh like Thalen, uses Dalaran's portal network to sneak a Horde agent into Darnassus to steal the Divine Bell. Lorewise, Aethas walks in on the player and Ishi (an orc blademaster loyal to Garrosh) as they're using Dalaran's portal network, but Ishi basically tells Aethas to keep his mouth shut, or the Blood Elves will pay the price. This scene was bugged and didn't show up in-game, but Blizzard says that it's still canon.

61. So, Jaina used neutral Dalaran's resources to help the Alliance in the war. Then Fanlyr used neutral Dalaran's resources to help the Horde in the war. Jaina reacted with maturity, and sincerity. Not an ounce of hypocrisy as far as the eye can see. Except she didn't. She said "WHAT?!?! THEY USED -MY- CITY TO GET SOMETHING IN THE WAR?!?!?!"

62. Then Jaina ports into the Violet Citadel, immediately slaughtering three of Aethas' Sunreaver magi without a word. She accuses Aethas of treachery, to which he claims he did not. She then says he looked the other way, which he did. "But Jaina, Theramore was only around for 4 years more than it should have been, specifically because Thrall looked the other way when you helped the Alliance try to kill him!" But of course, nobody in-game or otherwise acknowledges that bit.

63. Jaina tells Aethas to take the Sunreavers and leave Dalaran immediately. Aethas says "this is OUR city too, Proudmoore." Because most of the Sunreavers had called Dalaran their home and served it loyally for years. Some since before Jaina's grandparents were even born. Then after the Kirin Tor betrayed them while Garithos tried to kill them all, they forgave them and came back. A mistake, evidently.

64. Jaina then freezes Aethas in an ice block, turns around, murders two more Sunreaver archmagi who came to see what was going on, before they could even utter a word.

65. Jaina then orders the Silver Covenant, an organization founded solely to fight the Sunreavers if they ever turned bad, essentially the WoW equivalent to a racist hillbilly gun club militia in the woods, to arrest a group of people that knows the Silver Covenant hate them. That's like the president ordering the KKK to arrest all black people, and expecting the black people to trust the KKK when they say "The president told us to arrest you, so surrender and come with us."

66. The Sunreavers resist, understandably doubting that the group that hates them is telling the truth. Innocent unarmed Sunreaver civilians cower in the sewers and streets, beaten by angry High Elves venting their frustrations. A Sunreaver is being sadistically strangled in midair over a hungry shark by a high elf mage, then he's dropped into the water and eaten alive when the player attempts to intervene.

67. The player and Rommath rescue Aethas and as many Sunreavers as they can, and port them to Silvermoon.

68. Jaina is mad, and the Sunreavers still in Dalaran are then at the mercy of the Alliance players.

69. Vereesa orders Alliance to go incapacitate the Sunreavers' innocent Dragonhawks at Krasus Landing with some sleeping powder, "Or kill them. I don't care." She also says. She then orders Alliance to go to the bank because she saw a Sunreaver running in that direction to withdraw his own assets before fleeing. She says "He's probably going there to steal our stuff. That's bad. Kill him. His stuff is ours now." She then orders Alliance to murder every Blood Elf shopkeeper for not helping the Silver Covenant wrongfully round up all Sunreavers. Them not getting involved and just staying in their own homes and businesses = treachery. While Alliance do this, normal Dalaran citizens also cower in their homes and businesses, but doesn't have a problem with it when it's not Blood Elves. Alliance murder a few more Sunreavers, then Jaina talks to Varian who's mad that she purged the Sunreavers when he was trying to get the Blood Elves into the Alliance, saying they couldn't be trusted because "Once Horde, always Horde."

70. Then Isle of Thunder, when Jaina has devoted Dalaran solely to the Alliance, and follows the Sunreaver force to the Isle of Thunder to murder them out of spite. After some more of Jaina being an ass, and several other Kirin Tor NPCs either gleefully participating in the Blood Elf slaughter, or sadistically grinning after mentioning that Blood Elves were being killed, the Sunreavers and Kirin Tor have a confrontation.

71. Then we come to the grand finale. Jaina, the woman who stood aside and let Thrall kill her father who attacked the Horde unprovokedly, then helped the Alliance in every way possible to kill the Horde without personally wielding the sword or casting the spell that kills them, dodging around her treaty, all while claiming she and Theramore were a beacon of peace and neutrality, not getting involved in the war, then involving them in the war even more by sending her own troops to invade Durotar and the Barrens and Mulgore, then being swatted away by Garrosh who wouldn't tolerate her harassment like Thrall did, then went whining to the Kirin Tor to kill the Horde because they wouldn't tolerate her bs anymore, then went whining to her dad's grave because her people suffered the same fate after she did the same thing he did, then doesn't learn her lesson again, because she uses her neutral city's resources to help one side of the war again, says
"They have undermined EVERY attempt at peace!"

Jaina Proudmoore is, without a doubt, the biggest hypocrite in all of WoW's story.

I wouldn't mind any of it, if just one person in WoW would acknowledge that Jaina had it coming to her. Instead, everyone pretends she's a victim, and Theramore was innocent, and Garrosh only did it because he was a monster.

But nobody in WoW, or any novels, has ever noted that Theramore attacked the Horde unprovoked and skated around their treaty for years. Not even Garrosh mentions it. He just says "rawr for the horde loktar ogar."

Because Blizzard wanted Jaina to be the poor innocent whitewashed victim, they seemingly gave everyone amnesia.


Wow. That took a lot longer than I thought it would.