Jaina Proudmore in BfA - Was it good?

[Darknessvamp]

Jaina became Lord Admiral because Kul Tiras is not a democracy. Katherine was never fit to rule and was incompetent, so she gave the title to Jaina after she forgave her. The main nobles of Kul Tiras supported Jaina because they owed their lives to the Alliance (which Jaina and the player represented). The people doesn't matter, because Kul Tiras is not a democracy. If they have problems with Jaina as Lord Admiral, they are free to rise up in revolution, but something tells me it wouldn't end well for them.

It'd be more accurate that she became Lord Admiral because of Nepotism rather than because Kul Tiras isn't a democracy, although there does seem to be more precedent for inheritance or predecessor passing on of the title rather than explicit need for voting to decide officially who the next one is. In fact it's ruling structure is closer to a Aristocracy considering the leveling Questline has you attempting to gain support for the player from the Stormsong House and Waycrest House and degrading/disgracing the Ashvane house so that you have enough power to confront the Lord Admiral and House of Proudmoore and the Houses are treated as having their own significant share of power in the Admiralty. Additionally what's this about Katherine being unfit to rule and incompetent? She has literally been ruling without issue since Daelin died 11 years prior and she had been truly incompetent Jaina wouldn't have been returned from Thros. Probably cause she would've sent Taelia instead of the player to investigate. I also have to query why you wouldn't think a Kul'tiran rebellion would end well for them. The docks and shipyards are treated as a separate entity from the House of Proudmoore and there are two other Houses, one of which is the benefactor for the Tidesages, who would have the power and rights to oppose the decisions of the Lord Admiral if they so choose.

[Varodoc]

It'd be more accurate that she became Lord Admiral because of Nepotism rather than because Kul Tiras isn't a democracy, although there does seem to be more precedent for inheritance or predecessor passing on of the title rather than explicit need for voting to decide officially who the next one is. In fact it's ruling structure is closer to a Aristocracy considering the leveling Questline has you attempting to gain support for the player from the Stormsong House and Waycrest House and degrading/disgracing the Ashvane house so that you have enough power to confront the Lord Admiral and House of Proudmoore and the Houses are treated as having their own significant share of power in the Admiralty. Additionally what's this about Katherine being unfit to rule and incompetent? She has literally been ruling without issue since Daelin died 11 years prior and she had been truly incompetent Jaina wouldn't have been returned from Thros. Probably cause she would've sent Taelia instead of the player to investigate. I also have to query why you wouldn't think a Kul'tiran rebellion would end well for them. The docks and shipyards are treated as a separate entity from the House of Proudmoore and there are two other Houses, one of which is the benefactor for the Tidesages, who would have the power and rights to oppose the decisions of the Lord Admiral if they so choose.

All noble houses support Jaina. The army and fleet support her (as they are led by her brother). The only ones who could have issues with her are the common folk, so meaningless fodder.

Katherine was a terrible ruler, she was weak and incompetent and pretty much a puppet for Ashvane. Hell if the Alliance never landed on Kul Tiras then the kingdom would've been destroyed either by Gorak Tul or Ashvane. It is therefore not a surprise that Katherine abdicated in Jaina's favour, who has experience leading nations (Theramore, Dalaran).

[Darknessvamp]

All noble houses support Jaina. The army and fleet support her (as they are led by her brother). The only ones who could have issues with her are the common folk, so meaningless fodder.

Katherine was a terrible ruler, she was weak and incompetent and pretty much a puppet for Ashvane. Hell if the Alliance never landed on Kul Tiras then the kingdom would've been destroyed either by Gorak Tul or Ashvane. It is therefore not a surprise that Katherine abdicated in Jaina's favour, who has experience leading nations (Theramore, Dalaran).

Yes the Noble Houses support Jaina because they pledged their support to the Player who actually helped with their troubles and the player is forced to support Jaina since the game says so. Whilst unsure about the army, the fleet certainly does support her considering she's been appointed Lord Admiral and that is what the role entails. The common folk are meaningless fodder? You mean the people who make up the Navy, Army, Guards, Dockworkers, Tidesages and Civilians of Boralus? Yeah completely meaningless. /s

She literally ruled with no issues for 11 years and it's only as of recent with the Waycrest House summoning Gorak Tul to their benefit/detriment and Azerite bursting forth from Azeroth and Azshara resurfacing and taking the opportunity to tempt both Ashvane and the Elder Tidesages with promises of power that Kul' Tiras was in trouble. You don't lead a Noble House and act as Lord Admiral for 11 years if you're "weak and incompetent". Also you mean if the player never arrived, the Alliance does f all in helping Kul' Tiras solve it's problems.

It was a massive surprise as it makes no sense, both examples of Jaina leading a nation are displays of her terrible experience as they both ended in genocide (one committed against her and one committed by her) as a result of her proclaiming a stance of neutrality and going completely against it (Theramore was meant to be a neutral settlement, it ferried Alliance soldiers, supplies and weaponry and acted as a base for the Alliance armies to attack Horde Outposts and settlements from and Dalaran was supposed to be neutral and removed from the war between the factions, Jaina uses Dalaran resources to transport, secure and trace an artifact that is being contested in the Faction War and she only goes after it after having learned the Horde has interest in said Artifact, additionally she incriminates someone unrelated to the breach in neutrality and uses that as a excuse to freely murder people in the streets of Dalaran). Jaina is a prime example of a horrible, incompetent leader.

[oblakoff]

It is therefore not a surprise that Katherine abdicated in Jaina's favour, who has experience leading nations (Theramore, Dalaran).

Both cities turned out quite good :>

[Varodoc]

Both cities turned out quite good :>

You can thank Thrall for that, since he gave all military power to a powerhungry psycopath. Thrall even lamented how the fall of Theramore was indirectly his fault.

As for Dalaran, it did end up quite good.

[oblakoff]

Yep, and Jaina did not even got revenge for that, because "muh Thrall, so good". As for Dalaran it was Jaina that murdered Sunreavers and right into the moment Varian negotiated their inclusion in the Alliance.

It goes beyond incompetence, this is treason plain and simple.

[Ezekyler]

For me Jaina was one of the few good things BfA got. The cinematic Daughter of the Sea was a good start and then the quests were good because showed what she suffered since W3. The quest about her depression and how her mother forgive her was one of the best moments in WoW, but if i can choose one it will be the meeting at Theramore, that moment when she sees his brother and yell at Baine "is he the bomb this time" it gives me chills.

[Varodoc]

Yep, and Jaina did not even got revenge for that, because "muh Thrall, so good". As for Dalaran it was Jaina that murdered Sunreavers and right into the moment Varian negotiated their inclusion in the Alliance.

It goes beyond incompetence, this is treason plain and simple.

It was treason indeed, hence why they were purged.

[Kathranis]

Wasted potential, I suppose, but I'm glad they've just picked a lane for her and hope they keep her in it. The constant back and forth between "Horde bad!" and "but peace is good!" wasn't very fulfilling, and when Jaina went super aggro she became a bit grating as a character. So even if things kind of fizzled out, I guess I'm fine with where she ended up.

[Powerogue]

As with all of her character shifts, I have no problem with it in isolation I just want blizzard to stop jerking her around back and forth betwene pro peace and pro war with horde like the writers are playing a game of tug of war. Just pick a direction and stick with it.

I get what you're saying but also no. Characters that don't change in response to major events in their lives are stale, predictable, one-note, and not interesting to experience in stories.

It would be like criticizing Tyrande for her extreme reaction to the Burning of Teldrassil, or Anduin's to the death of his father.

[Florena]

I get what you're saying but also no. Characters that don't change in response to major events in their lives are stale, predictable, one-note, and not interesting to experience in stories.

It would be like criticizing Tyrande for her extreme reaction to the Burning of Teldrassil, or Anduin's to the death of his father.

Again I don't have a problem with any of the shifts individually. It's the back and forth that annoyed me.

She gets mad at the Horde post theramore, makes sense. Then gets over it and tries to be neutral again leading Dalaran. Whoops MOP happens, okay she's back to alliance and anti horde. Then war crimes happens and she mellows out again. Oh no the Horde 'betrayed' Varian at the broken shore, back to aggressively hating the horde. Then her character arc in BFA has shifted her back again.

It's that tug of war, that back and forth, that annoys me, not any of the shifts in and of themselves. When all put together it feels less like a natural character arc and more like a tug of war between the game writers and the book writers until Golden was hired on so hopefully she won't be swinging back into 'kill the horde' anytime soon.

[Feanoro]

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:

Sincerely, bravo. Her arc was some of BfA's most absurd writing and that's saying something.

"Beware the Daughter of the Sea" as she does exactly nothing of consequence and turns loony peacenik again, remembering the old days when she had green fever for Thrall.

[Florena]

Sincerely, bravo. Her arc was some of BfA's most absurd writing and that's saying something.

"Beware the Daughter of the Sea" as she does exactly nothing of consequence and turns loony peacenik again, remembering the old days when she had green fever for Thrall.

The only individual moment that I hated was the post troll city raid moment where the Alliance is all 'oh it'd be mean to press our advantage now.' In general I'm just annoyed that it's another moment of back and forth when we've seen Jaina flipped back and forth several times already. That's not to say a character can never have a change that doesn't stick in the long term but they did it too much with her.

[Powerogue]

Again I don't have a problem with any of the shifts individually. It's the back and forth that annoyed me.

She gets mad at the Horde post theramore, makes sense. Then gets over it and tries to be neutral again leading Dalaran. Whoops MOP happens, okay she's back to alliance and anti horde. Then war crimes happens and she mellows out again. Oh no the Horde 'betrayed' Varian at the broken shore, back to aggressively hating the horde. Then her character arc in BFA has shifted her back again.

It's that tug of war, that back and forth, that annoys me, not any of the shifts in and of themselves. When all put together it feels less like a natural character arc and more like a tug of war between the game writers and the book writers until Golden was hired on so hopefully she won't be swinging back into 'kill the horde' anytime soon.

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.

[Tyrathius]

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.

[Dazmalak]

I thought it was boring and predictable. I guess if you like nice feelgood bullshit then great, but I mostly found it cringe (magic flying ship was so dumb) and just added to the lameness that is the Alliance and all their human potential.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

It was great, honestly in terms of character development it might be the best WoW has done in terms of recontextualizing a character -Illidan was too hamfisted even if the end in 7.3 was worth it-

My only problem is that Jaina's arc was almost divorced of the actual plot of BfA; whenever it came to the actual conflict against the Horde and Sylvanas, she was almost a background character. IDK it came across as if Jaina and Anduin's roles didn't have enough "meat" to be parallel stories, they stories should have merged by the end of the expansion. Cause Jaina's narrative importance kinda just fades after 8.2 and it just feels weirdly disconnected from the rest of the alliance plot.

It's like, the alliance didn't have a through-line that served as a expansion-long arc. The Horde had Saurfang's quest and its thematic echo in us, the players, as we realized the same. In contrast, Jaina's arc just feels too separate from the underlying story of Sylvanas machinations. The whole war was merely a distraction, and Jaina's arc existed within that distraction, like a plot cul de sac.

IDK, I think we needed more stitching together between Jaina's personal journey and Anduin's, with them serving as foils of each other until they reach an agreement. Indeed, a big issue of Anduin's arc is that his role serves more of a support of the Horde narrative rather than that of the alliance. He comes off as fully realized, but it's definitely framed within the context of Saurfang's quest.

So I do think more interactions and discussions between Jaina and Anduin were needed to connect the War itself with the cost/reason of it. As such, adding Tyrande would have been even better, but we have the whole thing about the Night Elves role filling like and afterthought on the first place.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Alliance lands on the island, immediately loses Jaina. She remains gone until the grand finale at the end of all BFA 8.0 content. That was a tragic under utilization of the most hyped character entering BFA. Yeah it worked out. Yeah she was a great raid boss. It just left me wanting more.

As I understood the story, we were out building our credibility in Boralus so we could do something about her situation. Given her history, having her immediately accepted back home would have been ridiculous. It would not have even been believable without some serious soul-searching by her people and her family. Us having any influence on the situation made no sense until we had done something to distinguish ourselves there. I thought both the build up and the resolution were well done.

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IDK, I think we needed more stitching together between Jaina's personal journey and Anduin's

Jaina and Anduin have been stitching together since he was knee-high to a gnome.

[KSM899]

I always liked Jaina, and her in BFA was one of the best things happened this xpac.

[Darknessvamp]

As I understood the story, we were out building our credibility in Boralus so we could do something about her situation. Given her history, having her immediately accepted back home would have been ridiculous. It would not have even been believable without some serious soul-searching by her people and her family. Us having any influence on the situation made no sense until we had done something to distinguish ourselves there. I thought both the build up and the resolution were well done.

How does building credibility help someone who has supposed to already have been executed? I mean that's why Katherine initially feels regret about Jaina, because she consented to her execution right at the start ("punishment for treason is death" after all). Not to mention Jaina can teleport whenever now (what with her being a master of it in lore), the fact she goes along with being imprisoned for execution then being handed over to pirates then handed over to Tidesages and then being dumped on an island and she doesn't just teleport back to Stormwind at any point before being trapped in a literal Shadow realm is ridiculous.