if you can't fight, wear a big hat

Okay, I’m going to be cheap and reuse a rant I wrote like a year ago (BEFORE AGGRA) because I pretty much have one definitive statement on these two and it has not changed in all the craziness that is Cataclysm’s broken lore:

[[ I actually think a canonical Thrall/Jaina romance would be good for the lore. Even as platonic friends, Thrall and Jaina’s relationship often underlined what was so interesting about either character, especially the fact that they are both painfully idealistic people who are pretty much the only individuals on either side who are truly capable of dreaming of that better world.

And y’know, Jaina was a better character when she was the borderline traitor of the Alliance. This is the only powerful Alliance figurehead who heeded Medivh’s warning to leave the Eastern Kingdoms. This is a woman who condoned and implicitly participated in the murder of her own father because he was threatening the fragile peace she, Thrall, Cairne and Tyrande had etched out on Kalimdor. This is the woman who juggled for years her duty to the Alliance and her pact with the Horde. Now she’s been reduced to a doe-eyed, wilting, yes-man for Varian who sobs over her still powerful love for fallen Prince Arthas despite the fact that we all played WCIII guys and she was so over him. SO. Over. Him.

My point is that Jaina is a better character when she’s got one foot diplomatically outside of the Alliance and Metzen’s attempt to pull her back into the Alliance wholesale is just ruining the character because her thing upon introduction was that she was the Alliance leader who thought outside the box.

And Thrall is a more interesting character when he has one foot still in the human world despite the trauma he suffered because that is the paradoxical crux of his character as established in his backstory.

So thematically all things considered they make more sense with each other than with anyone else. It would also be good for the lore because as much as, YES, the game is called “World of Warcraft”, what makes the relationship between the Alliance and Horde compelling is not that they hate each other; it’s that they live in a world so fucked up that they honestly DO need to come together and make peace, but they just fucking can’t. Against such a backdrop, there is a poetry to an awkward and articulate orc gladiator and a peace-loving but pragmatic human mage falling in nerd love.  ]]

I guess I should talk a bit about Thrall/Aggra as well and why I think, that in comparison, it’s terrible for the lore! 

The biggest reason it’s terrible is because it could have been written well. Despite being a bonafide buttmad shipper over this (mostly thanks to Metzen’s goddamn attitude towards the fans), I don’t actually object the the idea of Aggra. Thrall being needled into taking an Orcish wife by his advisers? Totally believable. Thrall forming a comfortable partnership with an aggressive, traditional woman like Aggra who has strengths that he lacks? Yes, good. Thrall loving a woman like Aggra? I can wince my way out of the “THRALL/JAINA 5EVER” corner to accept it. That it could have been done well, esp. in light of Thrall’s new role in the lore, makes it all the more insulting that Aggra clearly exists as little more than a plot device. No, I don’t mean that she exists only to incubate orc babies or whatever. Her purpose is far more nefarious: she exists as a vessel to entirely destroy Thrall’s former characterization and reconstruct it as something really uneven and unnatural in order to suit the new lore status quo presented by Cataclysm. Aggra and Thrall are in theory meant to be a “oh wow are we ever from different worlds slap slap kiss kiss” kind of couple, but there is absolutely no equal exchange between them. Their entire relationship is about Aggra convincing him that every single value and belief that he built his life around is bad and wrong. Oh, you’re right Aggra - it was stupid to mourn Taretha, she was meant to die! Oh, you’re right Aggra - heading the Horde was terrible work and apparently I hated it. Oh, you’re right Aggra - peace is dumb and striving towards it was killing me slowly whatever was I thinking. Oh, you’re right Aggra - the choice I made to keep the name Blackmoore gave me as a symbol of everything I’d struggled through was also a dumbshit move please verbally berate me and call me Go’el until I like it. It’s really difficult for me to actually give the relationship a chance because it’s often written blatantly dripping contempt for basically everyone who ever liked Thrall as a character.

Actually, all it makes me want to do is write fic about Aggra in which she has an actual character. And even though I normally hate the kind of fic where the old “love interest” shows up and talks to the new one (especially when it’s two women about a man ugh), I really… want to write……. fic about Jaina and Aggra meeting and talking and maybe having to kick ass together.

Maybe I

still will.