Jaina Proudmore in BfA - Was it good?

[Witchblade77]

I am a die hard horde player (well ok, I never shied away from alliance, but prefer horde strongly) and I wanted to love Talanji so much.... but... if there is one story that genuinely got to me in this expansion, it was Jaina's and her mother's. so essentially to agree with consensus - it was the lore highlight and genuinely well executed narrative/character development.

[Super Dickmann]

I find using Farondis as an example of Suramar's capabilities a bit misleading since the two cultures had 10,000 years with no correspondence, nor did Farondis have access to the Nightwell while he and his fellow ghosts continued their work in the academy. We do not have any evidence that he corresponded with the magic cultures of the eastern kingdoms, so I would assume that we have three divergent cultures of magical development during this time: that of the Eastern Kingdoms, that of of
Nar'thalas Academy, and that of Suramar (in addition to all the other groups out there, obviously).

Farondis is also immortal and has even less reason to develop anything since he spent that time as a manic depressive. All the disciplines at Nar'thalas were from the old Empire and the center of magic in that empire was Suramar. We see fire, frost and arcane all used in Suramar. Ditto, the Kaldorei Empire used all of these. There's no reaosn to assume Suramar went backwards when it had all this and considering that some of those there were the best mages out there even before they had 10k years next to one of the most powerful fonts of magic out there.

I'm not entirely sure what you're attempting to say regarding martial challenge. If you're saying that having the Farstriders was detrimental to Silvermoon's pursuit of magical knowledge, I would have to disagree, particularly given that magic was the reason that the Quel'dorei were able to ultimately drive back the Amani. Both Silvermoon and Dalaran participated in multiple conflicts, with the necessity of warfare evolution helping to drive the inspiration of new applications of magic. Suramar, meanwhile, sat safe under a dome and did not have the same pressures to find military uses for the development that they did. I am certain they had some developments, but I hypothesize that their focus would be more on artistic pursuits, more akin to refining their skill at poetry. This is, of course, head canon, as there's no concrete evidence that I've seen to determine where Suramar's development in magical arts was focused, but I can draw support from other culturual aspects to lean some credence to the theory.

What I mean by martial challenge is that the 'Jaina had more combat experience' thing is weak and that ritual combat being accepted shows that the Nightborne had no reason not to also focus on combat. Jaina did not fight in any context that'd be more serious than the prospect of Tal'ashar in Suramar and she had not 10k years but a decade at most therein. The idea that Thalyssra is an academic without combat experience given Tal'ashar exists is also off. But again, even disregarding that and assuming they did nothing but practice the same thing over and over, the combination of the accumulated experience of doing so plus the pool of raw mana they were rigged to should make them very, very good at these basic aspects. The cultural pursuit and the combat one aren't exclusive for immortals. Even if a hundredth of that time - 100 years were spent on combat magic, it's still an immense amount of time.

I myself am hesitant to say that Thalyssra asked Jaina because Jaina is more powerful than her, but then I've already shared my interpretation of the reasons for that exchange. Jaina is certainly a powerful mage as acknowledged by the events she participates in, but I'm not convinced she's miles beyond Thalyssra, Khadgar, or Azshara. I'm sure some Alliance fans would certainly perpetuate that narrative, but Jaina has repeatedly shown periods were her powers were not capable of handling actions that she other times performs with ease (for instance, Khadgar managed to freeze an arena full of orcs and then a few minutes later mass teleport an army of frostwolf and draenei refugees out of a cave and then smash a dam by bending three different aspects of magic together and perform yet another teleport, while Jaina appears unable to form an ice bridge at the Broken Shore and then mass teleport Alliance forces up to a ship. Likewise, after teleporting part of an army from Nazmir to the fleet, she was then unable to generate a shield strong enough to protect herself and the device that their entire battle plan hinged upon, even though earlier in that expansion she was shown to generate such a shield protecting multiple individuals from a collapsing throne room and blight after levitating a ship and firing arcane cannons). The capabilities of a character are dictated first by story and only later by any lore consistency.

That Jaina is more powerful than Thalyssra and any other mage short of maybe Azshara is inarguable - the entire Horde rescue squad flee from Jaina at Stormwind, thinking they don't have a chance. Tyrande being stronger is surprising and I don't think I need to list you the feats she easily does over and over again, from the floating ship to the battlefield wide plague-clearing ice wave, to being the only raid boss to take on the player characters and both achieve her goal and suffer no meaningful harm etc. Even in Hell the closest the Jailor can do to stop her is to put her in a Sisyphus trap where she has to fight the same guys endlessly since god knows she faces no threat from them. My point is more that it doesn't make sense and that there's no viable Watsonian explanation for it that is consistent - you've brought up a number of examples.

I will admit that, compared to what we've seen of Khadgar, Jaina, and even Azshara, Thalyssra is underrepresented in terms of arcane feats, with her own capabilities undermined by drawing Occuleth to the forefront to handle almost all teleportation/travel needs, whereas Jaina generally serves both purposes for the Alliance.

Khadgar is a very similar case, but Jaina is the main offender. She has the most feats and the most hype and the reason for all of it is very, very flimsy. Dalaran being the main city of magic compared to the much, much older cities tied to major batteries of magic doing the same thing or hell, the draenei who's whole civilization was based on arcane mastery is nonsensical from an in-story view. Better stories that do the 'humans are special ' thing usually portray humans as either unskilled but naturally gifted or clever and creative, but Warcraft has them as better in both regards with nothing supporting it.

[Arrashi]

I tend to think of Thalyssra less as a combat Mage in the manner of Jaina, but more a theoretical Mage who is more comfortable with the academia of Magecraft as opposed to the practical use of magic in warfare. I would wager that Thalyssra is probably more learned in the craft of magic than Jaina is (by dint of having 10,000+ years to study it) but has less practical experience than Jaina in using magic offensively, as her existence has been necessarily sheltered by the barrier that formerly surrounded Suramar City and the rather stagnant lifestyle of the Shal'dorei as a result of their self-exile. In an out-and-out fight Jaina would probably win the vast majority of times if she and Thalyssra were to duel - but in a theoretical discussion about magic and its subtleties I would bet that Thalyssra could run rings around Jaina, or even Khadgar.

That makes sense. She probably spent 9999 out of those 10000 years teleporting bread with occuleth.

Nah, lets be real, Jaina just outpotentialed her.

[Aucald]

That makes sense. She probably spent 9999 out of those 10000 years teleporting bread with occuleth.

Nah, lets be real, Jaina just outpotentialed her.

Jaina was born and raised in a time of successive wars, that her education would center largely on battle magic isn't surprising in the least. Thalyssra spent the majority of her life in self-exile without any real strife or conflict to speak of until very recently compared to her long lifespan. "Potentiality" aside, their specializations would understandably lie in different places.

[Shaetha]

Frankly no and I can't imagine what 'amazing' story people believed happened when they praise it. To quote myself from another thread on a summary of her BfA story:

You're funny because it's so obvious to me you were going to dislike anything. You can make anything seem bad by oversimplifying it. It's one of the most basic plays of someone that has no actual argument.

[Arrashi]

Jaina was born and raised in a time of successive wars, that her education would center largely on battle magic isn't surprising in the least. Thalyssra spent the majority of her life in self-exile without any real strife or conflict to speak of until very recently compared to her long lifespan. "Potentiality" aside, their specializations would understandably lie in different places.

Unless she took one of those courses that result with her working in McDonalds, the time diffrence should work in favor of thalyssra regardless.

[Aucald]

Unless she took one of those courses that result with her working in McDonalds, the time diffrence should work in favor of thalyssra regardless.

I don't think Azeroth has a McDonald's analogue, and if it did it would probably be a Goblin establishment and not allowed within a 50 mile radius of Suramar City.

[Mirishka]

Arguably, she was one of the few highlights of the expansion from a lore standpoint so absolutely yes, she was a good addition to BfA.

100% this. She had one of the best stories, and Laura Bailey's VO acting was arguably the best that she's ever done w/ the character.

[Soon-TM]

You're funny because it's so obvious to me you were going to dislike anything. You can make anything seem bad by oversimplifying it. It's one of the most basic plays of someone that has no actual argument.

You are funny because you obviously feel the need to carry water for Blizzard's terrible writing, but can't even bother to provide arguments of your own, other than "oversimplification lol". Which ironically enough, is an oversimplification as big as the Colorado canyon of both of @Darknessvamp 's posts.

Infracted.

[Florena]

It's also happened over 20 years. It's not like this is flip-flopping overnight. A lot of major events can happen to a character over 20 years. I'm barely over 20 years old. A lot happened in there.

This flip flopping was:

Tides of war between Cata and MOP she goes anti horde first time, but calms down at the end to an extent and is leading Dalaran.
Then going into MOP in 5.1 she goes back to anti horde.
Then in War Crimes, between MOP and WOD, she calms down and lets go of her anger.
Then in Legion after Varian dies runs off on her own when Anduin and Dalaran aren't being anti horde.
Then in BFA is calmed back down.

These are not over 20 years of a character's actual history this is over the span of like four expansions/about four years of in character time.

- - - Updated - - -

The stuff about her reconciling with her family in Kul'Tiras was great, as was the general shift away from crazy insane mage back to her earlier characterization.

Most of the stuff involving the Horde and the faction war was terrible, but that's hardly a Jaina-specific problem. Blizzard just can't write compelling Alliance vs. Horde conflict and need to stop trying.

Yeah. I liked a lot of the internal Kul'tiras and Zandalar stuff, but didn't care for the war story. Was the same thing with MOP really, and not that shocking with the BFA war sharing the same bones as the MOP one anyway.