Post by Rankkor
While yes it happens, remember, it's extremely rare, and if Ner'zhul could do it at a whim, the results would be catastrophic.
extremely rare? I thought that was a part of their life cycle. It happened TWICE in TBC.
It was part of their life cycle, but I'm pretty sure one of the CDev chats explicitly said it was an uncommon occurrance, and moreso to come back, meaning Muruu was extremely important, and lucky.
I must have missed that CDev Chat, because the Hero of the Mag'har questchain in TBC specifically said that all naaru go through a light/dark period during their life cycles, and it keeps repeating itself over and over. And Mu'ru was not the only naaru to undergo this in TBC. K'ure did it too.
Also, sorry for the offtopic, but
this has to be THE most badass fanart of Wrathion of all times.
OF ALL TIMES I SAY!!!!!!!
Post by Rankkor
*sighs*
Well, its that time again.
A long time ago, I saw a spoiler thread regarding Tides of War on MMOC, and pretty much everything on it turned out to be true. There is such a thread regarding War Crimes, and I read the summary of it (Since I have no hopes of ever having the actual book. No english books are ever published in my country, and I suck at finding copies of it online)
I'm sincerely hoping that the thread is false, but the guy had a lot of credibility. For now, treat all of this as Tinfoil Hat Edition, and apply as many doses of salt as needed.
Ohh boy, what a clusterfrick, I don't even know where to begin.
Ok first off, the entire trial is a waste of time. ALL OF IT. I dunno how so many people could claim that was golden's best book, frankly its making Tides of War look like Hamlet by comparison.
Tyrande is the accusation, Baine is the defense, this much we knew from the teaser, and they keep using the Visions of Time on the many witnesses to avoid people lying on the trial. I imagined this would mean using the visions of time in RECENT events related to the war, and garrosh's actions on it. Stuff like the purge of dalaran, admiral rogers killing unarmed orcs, horde troops using children as hostages, alliance troops using children and adults alike as slaves, etc.
Instead what do they do? a bunch of visions that have NOTHING to do with the trial at hand, stuff like Durotan attacking the city of Telmor, alextrazsa being forced to birth dragons for the Old Horde, Grom killing mannoroth. In other words, a bunch of crap that has absolutely nothing to do with the pandaria war at all. Both the alliance and the horde seem more focused on making the other side look bad, than in.... you know.... ACTUALLY FOCUSING ON GARROSH.
It all turns out for nothing because the 4 celestials (who are acting as jury) decided to acquit garrosh anyways........ except it wouldn't had mattered anyways because he had already escaped by the time they rendered their verdict. Get this "lovely" and "insightful" speech by the celestials:
"We knew from the very beginning" - Niuzao "Garrosh Hellscream would live, so that he would continue to learn. Dear ones, wisdom, fortitude, strength, and hope cannot be learned in death." - Yu'lon. "Life is not about reward and punishment. It is about understanding, accepting who oneself is right now in order to know what to change, and how" - Xuen "We feel that justice has been done - Niuzao."
*sighs* What an absolute waste of time.
Well, that was the trial, what about the rest of the book? equally hideous.
Jaina Subplot: romance teen drama. Kalec is sad cuz Jaina is all mean and stuff. He basically tells her "chill out or I'm leaving" Jaina spends most of the book raging, but then after a letter from Vol'jin (where he more or less tells her she has every right to be upset...... WTF....) she has "an epiphany" runs out to kalec, tears in her eyes, embraces him, and the 2 passionately kiss, and all is well. (gimme a second while I puke a bit)
Sylvanas Subplot: this one is the one that pissed me off the most, because it started off so well, I wanted it to be real, I wished it to be real. And then it went to the WTF corner, and like the rest of the book, completely pointless.
Basically, Sylvanas is fuming that Baine was appointed as Garrosh's defender, because he's doing such a good job he's actually gonna avoid the death sentence, she wanted to be the one defending garrosh because then she would had made sure he got the death penalty. Since she can't kill him off that way, she's angry as usual, until she received a letter, paraphrased, the letter said "we used to be friends one, we could be allies again" and attached to the letter was a ruby necklace that said "To Vereesa, love always, Alleria". Sylvanas sends back a reply "Meet me back home".
And so the two sisters meet in ghostlands, at windrunner spire, there, Sylvanas coaxes vereesa to tell her why is she so adamant on getting garrosh killed and after some pressuring, vereesa yells out that he "took her rhonin away" and starts crying. And in a scene that, in the way that was described (I'm doing a rather sloppy job at properly describing everything) genuinely touched me, Sylvanas hugs her sister, and consoles her over the death of her husband. The two concoct a plot to have garrosh assassinated regardless of the verdict, which involves poisoning his food. However, the two spend a few days talking, hunting, and bonding together, and again, in a weirdly moving scene, Sylvanas confesses to vereesa that her main regret is how lonely she feels, and how empty her existence has become.
Believe it or not, all of this leads to Sylvanas convincing vereesa to do the unthinkable. TO LEAVE THE HIGH ELVES AND MOVE IN WITH HER SISTER IN THE UNDERCITY. Unknown to vereesa, sylvanas was also planning to kill vereesa, and then raise her as a fellow forsaken, so the two could rule together. Forever. All of this, because sylvannas knew the forsaken would never tolerate one of the living in their city (WTF? there are non-forsaken NPCs in the undercity). Vereesa says she's leaving her kids in Dalaran, since she barely even sees them lately, and in her own words "has been a terrible mother". And the two go quite far into their plot to assassinate garrosh and then have vereesa just join her sister. But at the last minute she has a pang of guilt, just as she had managed to successfully lace garrosh's food with the poison sylvannas had specially crafted.
When she saw Anduin going to visit garrosh in his cell (yes, throughout the book Anduin visits garrosh like five times, and this was to be his last visit before the verdict) she quickly confesses to anduin what she's done, tells anduin that he's free to do with that information whatever he wants, and before he can even speak, she leaves running back to her children, promising herself to never ever consider abandoning them again. When sylvannas later gets a letter from vereesa informing her of this, she.......... errr....... doesn't take it well. Lets just say that the scene of jaina killing those pirates on Fray Island is tame in comparison. She ends up swearing to herself that she'd never make the mistake of ever thinking she could love again. And so...... neither garrosh gets assassinated, nor does vereesa joins the forsaken. All that tender character development to Sylvanas gets tossed out the window, and this entire subplot got nowhere. So...... this entire subplot which covers over 25% of the book was completely pointless. Awesome.
Third: The entire dragonmaw clan is with garrosh, and they orchestrate his escape from his prison in the temple of the white tiger, along with Zaela and.......*sighs* Shokia. I swear to god blizzard, DO YOU HAVE IT AGAINST EVERY SINGLE ORC FEMALE IN THIS GAME?!?!?!?!!?! GHAAAAAAAAHHHH
I guess having one badass, unambiguously good female orc is too much to ask. Just one. Nope. Okay, moving on. Zaela uses Thalen Songweaver to do a covert op in the alliance fort on Howling Fjord, to exfiltrate a goblin named Harrowmeiser. In case you don't remember him, its
this guy. Basically, he's a goblin that the alliance kidnapped and are using as a slave to pilot a zeppeling to ferry troops. What? alliance are slavers too dammit >_>
Ejem, anyways, they exfiltrate him because the guy is apparently loaded, with money that is, and in gratitude he provides them with the funds and supplies to do their little attack on the temple of the white tiger.
Get this, Kairoz was working for someone else. That someone....... is Wrathion. He's the mastermind behind the whole thing, in fact his two bodyguards, Left and Right, were the ones who personally shot the two pandaren guarding Garrosh, and to make things even more WTF-ish you wouldn't believe what dragons are the ones being used by the Dragonmaw as mounts.
The infinite dragonflight.
Anduin twarts the assassination attempt against garrosh, garrosh almost kills him because he's a bloody idiot, he then basically gloats to the entire courtroom that he regrets nothing, that he'd do it all again if he could, and that his only lament was the many things he wasn't able to do. And then BANG, big time vortex created by Kairoz, bunch of alternate!timeline clones of Thrall, Jaina, Kalec, Anduin, Vol'jin, Baine, etc sprout out, and while everyone is busy, the dragonmaw attack the temple. during the confusion garrosh leaves, via a portal created by Kairoz with the help of Wrathion, and arrives on Draenor.
The final scene of the book has garrosh in a jungle, not recognizing where he is, he suddenly hears someone shout HELLSCREAM, he turns thinking they're talking to him, only to behold his father, standing on a hill, gorehowl in hand, uttering his legendary warcry.
The end.
I'm just posting here in the off-chance its all true, though obviously if anyone here has any intentions of reading the book, I'd advice against reading the spoilers first. A lot of the stuff is foregone conclusion (I mean we all know garrosh is not gonna die).
The entire plot felt pointless to me, completely unnecessary, and the things I wanted to be touched the most were completely ignored altogether (absolutely zero talks of the purge of dalaran and who was guilty of what in there, and obviously zero fallout about that to either jaina, vereesa, thalen, or anyone else for that matter). Absolutely zero talks of what sort of compromises the forsaken have to do with gilneas or the alliance. Zero talks of what sort of reparations either side has to do, to each other, and to pandaria.
Nothing important is addressed, and the only sub-plot that actually seemed to be going somewhere (Sylvanas') ended up going nowhere.
Frankly, I think I would had enjoyed far more a book detailing how garrosh escapes from pandaria, and how did he formed the iron horde. Instead we get this one......
*sighs*
IF it ends up being false, well, thank god. If not........
may god have mercy on us all.
