So a lot of people were annoyed at Tyrande being a hothead in 5.1.

[Qprah]

Let's look a bit at her personality, from start.

Warcraft 3: a proud warrior-priestess, leader of her race, letting nothing push her aside, not even Malfurion. She was much a "the end justifies the means" kind of person, which is why she freed Illidan, as the end (defeating the Legion) justified that and her killing some wardens. Quite an experienced fighter and commander, leading guerilla parties easily through a terrain she knows best.

War of the Ancients book (Knaak): a novice priestess in love with both Malfurion and Illidan, mostly Malfurion though. Damsell in distress, she fails time and time again at doing much of anything. She discovers having some healing powers and is promoted to High Priestess. Modest in nature and caring. This one is a bit out of the picture, as it happened 10k years ago, so might fit with personality. But then, you need to take to mind something, Tyrande wasn't young even then. Elves now live aroung 900-1100 years after no more Well, and if I remember right, she was already about 3k years at the Well of Eternity thing... so suddenly the young and a kind of Bella of Twilight Saga doesn't really fit her anymore, does it? This is one of the reason her description was critiqued so much there, he treated Malfurion, Tyrande and Illidan like teenagers.

Stormrage (Knaak): a warrior priestess, leader of her race, sent on a quest to save her beloved. Once again a "the end justifies the means" kind of person. However, not really a very experienced fighter, as she's pushed back several times by random orc lady and some other random creeps. After at start of story we hear how she trained every day, now she's defeated by every mob she encounters? So here the major lines were put well... but then she was made to look weak to make Malfurion look like the saviour... which made her look dumb. Especially that she fights with a glaive instead of a bow, though we know she's better with a bow.

Wolfheart (Knaak): a warrior priestess, leader of her race, letting nothing push her aside since she fought a larger enemy corps. Once again, an "the end justifies the means" person", as she thinks about burning the forest of Ashenvale because at least she'd kill the orcs then. She's here mostly as commander, and she kind of gets hit with an arrow. To kind of let Varian take the reigns as she can't lead anymore. So this is all a plot to bring Varian into the picture.

Her story: A caring mother who'd go to any lenght to save her adopted daughter. Until now it seems to fit the idea of a priestess and a caring person which was put forward in WC3 with her saving Malfurion and in Stormrage with her planning to save Malfurion. But wait... She comes there and almost dies... hold on... to be the damsell in distress and be saved by Malfurion... yea, ok. I don't think I need to say anything anymore.

MoP: A warrior, leader of her race, arrogant and full of herself, wanting to attack something head-on, exactly like the Horde said night elves are! Wait... haven't we been talking about guerilla warfare all along the other stories and her leading small groups in harassing enemies or trying to get an advantage (Malfurion, horn of waking druids, getting to World Tree first and letting everyone know, getting past demons, getting to Malfurion, getting to Well of Eternity etc.) So... where's that guerilla leader? The one who layed some traps and attacked and ran or had a distinct advantage before attacking in first place? Well it's there, it's called Varian.


How do I see the "true" Tyrande after all this?
-a warrior-priestess, with decisive decisions and yet caring for those close to her
-a commander of her people, a guerilla fighter, someone who fights from shadow or tries to get an advantage over the enemy before taking them
-an end justifies the means person, for whom victory is worth more then what is done along the way (kind of like Illidan here in a way)
-a ok archer (in no books or game is her shooting praised, however she prefers it to melee combat, which means she's better at it), but not a very good melee fighter which is why she trains a lot(in most melee confrontations she got defeated), and a good healer thanks to Elune(here is where she excels, and is able to use these powers as magic against her foes too with starfall wiping a full army of undead and so on), a good commander in setting up ambushes and carring them on.
-a person who might seem brash, but that's just because she's sure of herself and knows the goal.

Overall her strenghts are these: she's a good guerilla commander, a caring person, she's determined and amazing with the magic of Elune.
Her weaknesses are these: she's bad in melee(though she trains), she's a "the end justifies the means" person which puts her in line with many villans, she is unmoving in her decisions.


I made this using the descriptions along the books and such, removing the parts that were inconsistent from one book to another. Now if you look at that and compare it to how she was in-game... she was nothing like that.
-she was a bad commander, so one of her strenghts was turned to weakness, furthermore she forgat everything guerilla tactics
-she doesn't give a shit about anyone inside or outside the temple, once again, her caring gone
-she doesn't fight at all, so no comment on magic
-you might say she's still a "the end justifies the means" type of person... but no. You forgat that Tyrande only acted like that when the stakes were really high and didn't when they were not. This is why she focused on getting to Mount Hyjal when the stakes were high but left Illidan to run when Maiev was chasing him because they were not anymore, as she thought of Illidan as a sort of vigilante, bad by law but ok in general. Or why for example she fought the orcs and humans before the Medivh made them meet yet she accepted the Highbourne back even if her race had a quarrel with them.
In this case, the orcs were already in the temple, so they were already caught. The stakes were not high, so the end did not justify the means. She could have taken her time and made a trap or something, yet she did not... because Varian did it, because he was made to look better then her to justify Blizzard's wish of putting him High King.
And here is the problem.

You've pretty much perfectly hit the nail on the head here. This is exactly the problem with her writing.

I really wish they'd retcon all her new shit to match how she is supposed to be.

[dokilar]

As far as I'm aware, Tyrande basically just wants to throw soldiers at the Horde for...no specified reason in the wilds. But Varian comes along and explains it's likely to be a trap blah blah.

Now loads of people, NElf fans especially, are annoyed because they think it was done to make Varian look better. (Even though he's still like a human/wolf god...-thing-)

I reckon, now hear me out, there was a mix-up in the script. -Varian- was supposed to be the hothead in this scene, being the anti-Horde he is. And Tyrande, being a several thousand year old being and a priest, was meant to be the reasonable one. Simple really, someone in the editing of the VA script must have gotten the names in the wrong places and presto, muddled up scene. They probably didn't go back and change it either due to time constraints, or the scene was already animated and implemented and released before it could be fixed. Changing it now way post-release would look...awkward, right?

This theory makes the most sense to me anyway, thoughts?

did you ever play warcraft 3? she was the definition of reckless and hot headed in that game. i actually disliked the night elf campaign because i was constantly thinking to myself "this woman is semi retarded"

elves, fuckin shit up since well, the beginning lol

[Primaliron]

My theory: Blizzard doesn't know what they're doing.

This was definitely done so Tyrande could act as a foil to Varian. Unfortunately, they forgot that Tyrande already has an established personality and went with it instead of changing it.

Since when have the Night Elves acted ancient and wise anyway? In defense of Blizz she was a hotheaded b*tch in WC3. But honestly there is no integrity to the writing of almost all the main characters in the game.

[Yig]

Tyrande was always brash and savage. She kills first and asks questions later, just ask the human paladins who first came to Ashenvale whose bones still lay in among the roots and moss.

After she agreed to be in the Alliance, she's mellowed, RELATIVELY. She is now incredibly angry at the Horde, and this idea that she's suddenly forgetting guerrilla tactics in favor of something else is painfully simplifying the scenario. Guerrilla tactics have a time and a place, they were in the middle of a small D Day invasion and she had a full army, not a guerilla band. People just love to criticize Blizzard, love to act like Varian is being forced on them, and love to complain about night elves.

And no OP, Varian has been quite intentionally mellowed and given more wisdom in his actions lately because the people who didn't read his debut in the comic book didn't like how he came out of nowhere in WOTLK and seemed a mindless warmonger (he wasn't).

And people need to stop it with the accent bitching. WC3 had a very subtle accent for Tyrande, but now we have language barriers in the canon, which weren't in WC3. Why would Tyrande speak perfect common after only learning it 10 years ago? This stuff isn't consistent anyways.

[Mengucekli]

And people need to stop it with the accent bitching. WC3 had a very subtle accent for Tyrande, but now we have language barriers in the canon, which weren't in WC3. Why would Tyrande speak perfect common after only learning it 10 years ago? This stuff isn't consistent anyways.

I'm not an expert but for me 10 years is a very long time to learn a language to the fullest. But it may not be about the time that passes, some people (like me) just would not care about a perfect accent while learning the new language: You just learn what is useful to you, and screw the rest. I still intentionally speak a very broken half-american Turkish accent, despite the fact that i was explicitly taught to talk in English accent, because i could not care less.

[venessaliu]

No history of recklessness at all!