bwonsamdi and king rastakhan - a rant
SPOILERS FOR THE END OF BATTLE FOR AZEROTH XPAC. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
(tl;dr at the bottom)
so i HAVE to get this off my chest. i saw some people saying bwonsamdi abandoning king rastakhan during battle of dazar'alor was out of character, made bwonsamdi a coward, made him a villain, evil, buh buh ETC ETC
im here to say that NONE of these things are true. and here's why.
to understand what happened in this raid requires you to firstly realize bwonsamdi and king rastakhan's motivations. king rastakhan wanted to, at its basest essentials, protect his kingdom and his family. protecting himself came second to both of these things.
bwonsamdi, as the loa of death, wanted to amass more souls, ultimately increasing his power. not only this, he wanted to ALSO deal with the blood trolls and the other threats that were ultimately going to be against him. which is where bwonsamdi and king rastakhan had mutual goals.
by helping king rastakhan, bwonsamdi would not only be sworn the king's lineage, but would also remove the threats against himself (like, yknow, the blood trolls that had been literally KILLING LOA.) bwonsamdi wanted to help himself by making this bargain.
secondly, bwonsamdi and king rastakhan were not on the best of terms to begin with. bwonsamdi had been wanting king rastakhan's soul for evading death for CENTURIES, at this point. we've known this due to rezan confronting bwonsamdi, and the dialogue that takes place there. not only that, but even during the raid, they were obviously not "getting along":
we can also infer that bwonsamdi valued princess talanji over her father from this.
now some people were claiming bwonsamdi was cowardly for abandoning king rastakhan. it's important to note that bwonsamdi FULFILLED his end of the bargain.
"If Bwonsamdi gave him the power to take back his empire, then Rastakhan would elevate Bwonsamdi above all other loa in the Zandalari pantheon."
bwonsamdi gave king rastakhan his power. he aided him during the attack on dazar'alor. all of this came before bwonsamdi left king rastakhan on his own. after all, bwonsamdi had gotten what he wanted from the bargain, and he DID help king rastakhan. it's not his fault that it was not enough.
i understand if people went into this expecting them to have a similar bond like king rastakhan had with rezan, his former patron loa. but that just wasn't going to happen. rezan would've been willing to help king rastakhan more, because there was familiarity, fondness, and loyalty there. such was not present with king rastakhan and bwonsamdi, and it would be unrealistic to expect the same outcome.
they're both amazing characters, and it sucks to see people criticize king rastakhan and bwonsamdi or act like any of this was out of character.
tl;dr: bwonsamdi abandoning king rastakhan was completely in character, and doesn't make bwonsamdi "evil" because he still fulfilled his end of the bargain and helped king rastakhan, like was agreed to.
