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Gilneas and Zandalar

Well, turns out I haven't posted long thoughts about WoW here so I should start. And how can I do it without thinking of two questlines that have been very important to me these last months?

Note: this will, of course, have Cata and BFA spoilers. I just made a worgen character for the story of Gilneas, but being a main Horde player has let me play Zandalar with my Illidari.

So I'll put a lot of coincidences here. I'll try to avoid talking about Sylvanas, because to me, she had been an interesting character, but the Forsaken deserve Lilian Voss as their leader. These, will be mostly based on my point of view:

The main point is: both stories start from the toxic concept of patriotism. The "oh, my country will never fall because it has no flaws". But they evolve into their leaders caring for their citizens.

So we begin with a "fool" king that doesn't listen to their son/daughter, he fails to notice the danger. Does he care about his family? About his people? Of course. But they don't really know what to decide.

These nations are neutral (interesting concept!) until both factions help them, the Horde before, and the Alliance does the final rescue.

Both Liam and Talanji are awesome. They have been risking their lives since the beginning, in order to fight what means a threat to their people.

Our protagonist arrives when Genn and Rastakhan are starting to realize they've been foolish, and they get as involved as their families.

Both have very different atmospheres and a long time has passed between them, so it's logical that Zuldazar is longer, but there's still more in common.

Death is always present: undead and our lovely Bwonsamdi. And betrayal: Godfrey (twice), Jakra'zet and Zul.

There's a main curse: the worgen condition, and the bloodline pact. And we see how both kings learn to accept it. Genn finally sees Darius Crowley as an equal, while Rastakhan does the pact for his people (even if he loves Talanji).

You save two secondary characters that I personally got attached to: Krennan, who trusts you and starts your healing process, and Rakera, who you heal by freeing Akunda.

And there's the main battle for each place, with huge losses. Both battles are won, but the losses are really big. Gilneas is lost but the citizens are safe, and some loa die because of old gods.

And we also lose two important characters that we've been fighting with, side by side. And the other two are heartbroken, like you (even if the deaths were expected).

At least, we get some cool revenge cinematics, from Legion and from this battle.

Afterwards, it goes all again to Horde vs Alliance, but we got heartwarming content. Why was it so satisfactory to do these questlines? Because it didn't feel like we were just obeying a King or a Warchief (we deserved Vol'jin, really). We were helping the citizens, while seeing the evolution of characters that we didn't expect to love.

I know other expansions are better, of course. But just enjoying this content is perfect for me.

#world of warcraft #wow #cataclysm #battle for azeroth #cata #bfa #gilneas #zandalar #genn greymane #rastakhan #liam greymane #talanji #krennan aranas #rakera #bwonsamdi #cataclysm spoilers #bfa spoilers