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  1. #1

    Kael'thas returns in Revendreth and was always flawed [SPOILERS]

    Dialogue

    In his current state, Kael'thas Sunstrider is a danger to everyone.
    Impudent child! You do not give orders here.
    The very arrogance that doomed you in life helped me identify the true sins of Kael'thas Sunstrider.
    What character flaw most hindered Kael'thas? Jealousy, arrogance, or greed?
    Your arrogance swells within you like so many other tyrants.
    When the Sunwell was destroyed and Kael'thas was desperate to regain a magical connection for his people, who did he surrender his will too? The Lich King? The Old Gods? Or the Burning Legion? Kil'Jaeden exploited your arrogance, paranoia, and obsession to bend you to his will.
    How did Kael'thas fail his people? Did he abandon his people? Betray his people? Or corrupt his people?
    Kael'thas Sunstrider committed all of these sins against his own people!
    You did what you wanted, and everyone else bore the consequences. Kael'thas Sunstrider, you failed your people.
    You will continue to unravel if we do not extract the excess anima from your soul, Kael'thas. I will take you to a place where we can expunge that anima in a productive manner.
    You must humble yourself to avoid extinction Kael'thas. I will prepare the ritual while you prepare yourself.

    No! You will show her mercy. Your enemy will live.
    You are weakness! Your obsessive arrogance blinds you. In time, I will free you of it.
    This ritual will help you expel the excess anima trapped inside of you Kael'thas. It will hurt, but no more than you deserve.
    No! Kael'thas, expel the anima! Impudent fool. That anima binds your sinstone! Stand down, I will deal with this manifestation.
    Hardly, that sunstone still belongs to you Kael'thas Sunstrider. Tend to it.
    We will be watching,
    Tend to your own sunstone. The Maw is closer than you think.
    Serve your purpose. Every choice matters.
    Aid yourself, or I will.
    I see.. Have you come to confess?
    Every soul can be redeemed if it desires to be. Confront our past, or be condemned by it.
    No forgiveness with atonement. No atonement without sacrifice. No sacrifice without suffering.
    Speak! I will listen and remember. Are you trying to grow your sinstone?
    You are fortunate that I do not judge the living. I will not forget this.
    So basically he was not "ruined" in TBC, he was flawed and this is why he went all bad, he would have gone bad anyway.

    I don't really like this, I wanted Kael'thas redeemed, I thought like Illidan, ruining him for a raid boss was a terrible thing to do.

    - - - Updated - - -

    I heard we try to redeem his soul in the raid encounter, and obviously succeed, but what does this mean for him, will we get him back.?

  2. #2
    Well, we knew he was arrogant ever since he was part of the Kirin Tor and not accepting that Jaina refused him over Arthas.

  3. #3
    I am Murloc! Maljinwo's Avatar
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    Kael'thas was never in Silvermoon anyway
    This world don't give us nothing. It be our lot to suffer... and our duty to fight back.

  4. #4
    Old God Soon-TM's Avatar
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    Glad to see that writers' lust for redemption stories is giving them pause. Kael in WC3 was a rather sympathetic guy, who later, given the exceptional circumstances of the fall of Silvermoon and the ensuing defiling of the Sunwell, started to resort to very strong !@#$ such as fel - and naturally, he went off the deep end because of it.

    Don't ruin him further by making him a discount Kerrigan, pretty please?
    Quote Originally Posted by trimble View Post
    WoD was the expansion that was targeted at non raiders.

  5. #5
    Moderator Aucald's Avatar
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    I'm not so sure I would take the words of the Accuser, the Venthyr NPC castigating Kael, as completely objective statements of fact. The Venthyr are noted as corrupt and with a very obvious agenda, torturing the anima out of their charges for their own purposes. While Kael may well be a flawed person (a statement that is probably objectively the case), this may or may not be the reason for his ultimate fall from a narrative standpoint.

    This is just to say that the Accuser has their own agenda, and they're not really the arbiter of objective truth as concerns their assigned charges. Kael'thas did terrible things in his life, and probably deserves to be in Revendreth because of them - but the reasons he's there may not be exactly what the Accuser says.
    Last edited by Aucald; 2020-06-26 at 02:54 PM.
    "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Soon-TM View Post
    Glad to see that writers' lust for redemption stories is giving them pause. Kael in WC3 was a rather sympathetic guy, who later, given the exceptional circumstances of the fall of Silvermoon and the ensuing defiling of the Sunwell, started to resort to very strong !@#$ such as fel - and naturally, he went off the deep end because of it.

    Don't ruin him further by making him a discount Kerrigan, pretty please?
    Sunwell platueu was merely a setback!

  7. #7
    The Lightbringer Minikin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soon-TM View Post
    Don't ruin him further by making him a discount Kerrigan, pretty please?
    We regret to inform you that this position has been filled. We have kept your resume on file and encourage you to apply to our other opportunities.
    Blood Elves were based on a STRONG request from a poll of Asian players where many remarked on the Horde side that they and their girlfriends wanted a non-creepy femme race to play (Source)

  8. #8
    Being flawed doesn't mean you are a lost cause. Also remember the Venthyr as just as corrupt as the system of the Arbiter is. I would not trust the judgement of the Accuser too much.

  9. #9
    What exactly were you expecting with him in Revendreth? People get put there because they did bad stuff, that's the whole shtick.

    He turned over his people to the Burning Legion. Gave them a naruu to siphon only to steal it right back to aid in the summoning of an eredar lord, leaving hundreds of them to go mad with hunger.

    Bad stuff.

    Even if we somehow help him find posthumous redemption I sincerely doubt, and really really hope, he's not coming with us. See my sig for the mad fanfiction that has me so adamant on that point.

    Quote Originally Posted by Powerogue View Post
    Exarch Larethor says: Well done, heroes! Let us all hope that this is the last the world will ever see of Kael'thas Sunstrider.
    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    Having the authority to do a thing doesn't make it just, moral, or even correct.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Timester View Post
    Well, we knew he was arrogant ever since he was part of the Kirin Tor and not accepting that Jaina refused him over Arthas.
    That came later as a sort of retcon of his character, in WC3 he was sympathetic.

  11. #11
    He actually wasn't that arrogant. He was described as being much more open to the other races than most High Elves. They only changed these things about him in order to retroactively try to justify their shit writing that destroyed him back in TBC.
    Quote Originally Posted by Arrashi View Post
    Baine is like the most unlikeable character you are supposed to like.

  12. #12
    I always thought Kael'thas' fall from grace made a lot of sense conceptually. He was a desperate young mana addict, so manipulating him would have been child's play for Kil'jaeden, and plus he was a capable minion and a trusted ally of Illidan, so all the more reasons for Kil'jaeden to get him on his side. Unfortunately the storytelling in TBC was absolute dogshit, they didn't even bother showing Kael'thas' slow descent into madness.

    Also, lol at people acting like Kerrigan invented the concept of villains redeeming themselves. If Kael'thas redeemed himself and left Revendreth, he wouldn't be Kerrigan 2.0. He wouldn't even be special. Literally every soul in Revendreth ends up redeeming themselves, it's the bloody purpose of that realm.
    Expansion Storylines ranking:

    Legion > Cataclysm > MoP > BfA up to 8.2.5 > Wrath > TBC > WoD > Dragonflight > BfA 8.3 > Shadowlands

  13. #13
    I was always open to Kael being willing to do shady shit to help the blood elves, in fact, to plays perfectly with his and the WCIII/TBC racial story.

    What never made any sense was Kael unironically working for the group whose actions created the blood elves, that's always been a nonsense.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by EnigmAddict View Post
    So basically he was not "ruined" in TBC, he was flawed and this is why he went all bad, he would have gone bad anyway.

    I don't really like this, I wanted Kael'thas redeemed, I thought like Illidan, ruining him for a raid boss was a terrible thing to do.
    Yeah, even if we consider this dialogue to be 100% factual this is still a pretty terrible post hoc rationalization for the bad character development he got in TBC.
    We didn't ruin the character. He was actually shit all along you just didn't notice.

  15. #15
    I am Murloc! Oneirophobia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soon-TM View Post
    Don't ruin him further by making him a discount Kerrigan, pretty please?
    Why is it that any character who is bad/does bad things and progresses towards being a better person will forever and always just get reduced to "lmao Kerrigan"?

    There are, what, 500+ bad guys in WoW who were bad, stayed bad, died bad, and will always be bad. Redemption stories aren't all that common comparatively, and frankly if they're gunna do an entire zone based on atoning for your sins, I'd rather it be Kael'thas or somebody else who suffered from BC's non-story than a random non-character created just for the zone.

  16. #16
    This.

    Thank you for pointing this out, I enjoy redemptions arcs and wow doesn't have much in that department.

  17. #17
    Old God Soon-TM's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Oneirophobia View Post
    Why is it that any character who is bad/does bad things and progresses towards being a better person will forever and always just get reduced to "lmao Kerrigan"?
    Because Blizzard is terrible when it comes to writing redemption stories. Kerrigan, Illidan, even Jaina (to a certain extent)... They are some of the most eye rolling stuff I have ever seen in a video game... Which is saying a lot.
    Quote Originally Posted by trimble View Post
    WoD was the expansion that was targeted at non raiders.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Sangris View Post
    He actually wasn't that arrogant. He was described as being much more open to the other races than most High Elves. They only changed these things about him in order to retroactively try to justify their shit writing that destroyed him back in TBC.
    Bingo, Blizzard realizes they did him dirty in BC for no other reason than to make him a raid boss back then, even if it didn't make sense from a narrative standpoint, and now their attempt to undo their shit writing is retconning him to say he was an arrogant bastard all along, even though we didn't really see that in Warcraft III. It's Illidan style retcon all over again, but in the other direction.

    Every soul can be redeemed if it desires to be.
    Now who says Arthas' soul can't be redeemed? If it can't, it's because Arthas doesn't want it, not because of the severity of his crimes and sins, apparently. I will say this, Arthas WAS arrogant and prideful from the beginning. In fact, how the Venthyr castigator describes Kael'thas would be a better way to describe Arthas in life.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    I'm not so sure I would take the words of the Accuser, the Venthyr NPC castigating Kael, as completely objective statements of fact. The Venthyr are noted as corrupt and with a very obvious agenda, torturing the anima out of their charges for their own purposes. While Kael may well be a flawed person (a statement that is probably objectively the case), this may or may not be the reason for his ultimate fall from a narrative standpoint.

    This is just to say that the Accuser has their own agenda, and they're not really the arbiter of objective truth as concerns their assigned charges. Kael'thas did terrible things in his life, and probably deserves to be in Revendreth because of them - but the reasons he's there may not be exactly what the Accuser says.
    Only a certain amount of Venthyr are doing what you say they're doing, such as Denathrius and his followers, etc. Most of them (Such as the Accuser) are just doing their respective Jobs.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Soon-TM View Post
    Because Blizzard is terrible when it comes to writing redemption stories. Kerrigan, Illidan, even Jaina (to a certain extent)... They are some of the most eye rolling stuff I have ever seen in a video game... Which is saying a lot.
    Illidan never had a "redemption". He was still a massive asshole in Legion.

  20. #20
    Moderator Aucald's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HighlordJohnstone View Post
    Only a certain amount of Venthyr are doing what you say they're doing, such as Denathrius and his followers, etc. Most of them (Such as the Accuser) are just doing their respective Jobs.
    Denathrius and his followers are the ones who may be in league with the Jailer, yes, but the general corruption of the Venthyr is a more pervasive thing (having nothing to do with the Jailer specifically). Basically put, the Venthyr over time shifted from rehabilitation of their charges to using their charges as a means to accrue anima, their priority now being on the extraction of anima as opposed to reforming their charges. We don't really know about the Accuser specifically, but regardless, best to treat their words with the requisite grain of salt.
    "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

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