Originally Posted by
Kangodo
Why did we kill Illidan? What were the reasons?
- Maiev
- Akama
- He was at war with Shattrath City
Maiev
Maiev had and always will have her own agenda, not to mention she's a little off the deep end in terms of sanity. She wanted to kill Illidan for the pain of guarding his prison (i.e. doing her job) for 10,000 years, and to get revenge for Naisha, who was indirectly killed by Illidan because of Maiev's own recklessness. What's more, she's a villain now according to the latest book.
Akama
Akama had more nobler reasons than Maiev, but in the grand scheme of things it was not the primary reason why we attacked Illidan. Akama was even worse off beforehand with Magtheridon ruling his stuff, when Illidan came and saved him, his situation was a vast improvement over the way things were before. That isn't to justify it by any means, but there are a ton of instances like this where the weak are oppressed, even in our own factions (Stormwind Masons anyone?), but rarely does it mean that we'll go raid that dude's place to kill the bad guy. If Akama was the only reason we wouldn't have gone after Illidan.
Shattrath City
Illidan had one goal on his mind: To build up an army and fight off the Burning Legion who was gunning for his !@#. He didn't give a damn about the Horde/Alliance, and quite frankly we all shared a common goal. The only quarrels that might have come up were due to the fact that we wanted to get to Outland for the strategic importance, and we were coming through portals to get there - portals that Illidan wanted sealed. So basically guerrilla warfare and the like.
However the real explanation for why we suit up and go after Illidan is because he waged war on Shattrath City instead of doing the sensible thing and joining forces. Kael'thas personally led the first assault with Illidan no where to be found, and they ended up losing (then the Blood Elves join the Horde/Scryers are formed). Shattrath City then launched a counter assault - which naturally makes sense - against Illidan's forces and they battled back and forth, but since Shattrath City was the main unifying "good guy" force in TBC, eventually the players raided his $%^- and killed him.
Here's the kicker, though.
In all likelihood, Illidan never ordered the initial assault at all and was just returning fire when Shattrath counter-attacked. It was Kael'thas, which unbeknownst to us at the time of 2.0/2.1, was working for the Burning Legion all along. The Burning Legion wanted Illidan dead before he could pose a threat, so what better way to do this than to sabotage him by launching a suicidal assault at Shattrath/Horde/Alliance, knowing that they would lose, and knowing that now the Scryers/Aldor/Horde/Alliance would go after Illidan. Kael'thas was acting in the best interests of what the Burning Legion wanted throughout the entire expansion, inevitably forcing Illidan into a war that he never wanted to begin with.