wow Warbringers: Jaina Animated Short

[Starym 3,800]

 

One of, if not THE central character of Battle for Azeroth, Jaina Proudmoore, is the focus of the first of three Warbringers animated shorts Blizzard will be putting out before the expansion release, similar to the Lords of War and Harbingers series we've seen for WoD and Legion before. Jaina's history and ties to Kul Tiras will prove particularly pivotal and a big focus of the Alliance campaign, so let's see what exactly Blizzard has in mind for her:

 

Quote

Jaina Proudmoore is no stranger to making difficult decisions. In this animated short, the choices of her past continue to influence her future.

Credits:
Directed by Doug Gregory
Art and Illustration by Laurel Austin, Vasili Zorin, Jonathan Fletcher, and Yewon Park
Written by Robert Brooks

You can also check out the trailer for the full series, also featuring Sylvanas and Queen Azshara here.

[Myke 42]

I don't think it was a difficult decision for her to turn into a blind racist.

[blackstar128 30]

26 minutes ago, Myke said:

I don't think it was a difficult decision for her to turn into a blind racist.

thats not fair. she was THE person to trust the horde when everyone else wanted to kill the alliens ! she betrayed her family and let her father and her people be slaughtered by horde. kept the alliance off kalimdor so horde can grow ! and what horde did ? they nuked her city ! if u want to say it was garrosh, actually it wasnt just garrosh. blood elves made the mana bomb and even thrall didnt do anything after that. he just came to stop her and did nothing what so ever to condemn garrosh nuking her city. she was the bigger person there and didnt do the same to orgimmar (even tho she could)

[Myke 42]

7 minutes ago, blackstar128 said:

what horde did ? they nuked her city !

What did one of Garrosh' captains do, is actually the correct way to say it. It was not the ENTIRETY OF THE HORDE that nuked her city. This is why she is a blind racist. She blames the entire Horde for the actions of one stupid Orc. I could understand Varian's desire to see the Horde taken down, but not Jaina. She has no right to blame the entire Horde for the actions of one. Hell, even Garrosh was disgusted with his captain's actions. So don't sit there and try to justify Jaina's blind racism.

 

7 minutes ago, blackstar128 said:

even thrall didnt do anything after that

 

Yeah, Thrall totally didn't take Garrosh out of the equation or anything like that...OH WAIT.

 

7 minutes ago, blackstar128 said:

he just came to stop her and did nothing what so ever to condemn garrosh nuking her city.

 

Because it wasn't Garrosh that bombed the city. But go on, keep justifying Jaina's racism. It totally speaks volumes about yourself.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Myke

[Allseye 96]

12 minutes ago, Myke said:

What did one of Garrosh' captains do, is actually the correct way to say it. It was not the ENTIRETY OF THE HORDE that nuked her city. This is why she is a blind racist. She blames the entire Horde for the actions of one stupid Orc. I could understand Varian's desire to see the Horde taken down, but not Jaina. She has no right to blame the entire Horde for the actions of one. Hell, even Garrosh was disgusted with his captain's actions. So don't sit there and try to justify Jaina's blind racism.

 

 

Yeah, Thrall totally didn't take Garrosh out of the equation or anything like that...OH WAIT.

 

 

Because it wasn't Garrosh that bombed the city. But go on, keep justifying Jaina's racism. It totally speaks volumes about yourself.

Uh, someone seems to be in a relationship with "Horde" ;-). Calm down my friend, it's just a fictitious character. She has reasons to act like that as other horde characters has reasons to hate the alliance. Lean back and enjoy the Story. But please, do not make any conclusions about real people you dont know at all.

[Lampanelli 75]

It was a fine video, though a few things stuck out to me.

1. It was hard to hear what was said sometimes. It made it a little annoying at times, but nothing major, as the story came through regardless.

2. I was somewhat... Underwhelmed by this. It shows some of Jaina's past, which is good, but only around the time where her father died. Not too much on how she were in the homeland, unless it were among the parts that were hard to hear clearly.

Oh well, all in all, still a good video, and it does portray Jaina as less of a simple, psychotic racist, as the game suddenly turned her into. You can see here that she's broken. Feeling betrayed by those she stood by, without a home, her friends throughout the years dying or worse (Arthas and then later on, her teacher) and now with the thoughts of all of this being what she betrayed her homeland for. An empty life, and a Horde that took the last things she had left.

I think that perhaps, she can be brought back to her senses after all, if she gets some help, but I find her more sympathetic through this video. The facial expressions, and the memories haunting her helps give some more insight into how broken and desperate she actually is, if not scared.

[Ogerscherge 43]

Man, song and art are amazing

Blizzard did a great job with this one. Now I am excited for the other two as well. ?

 

As for Jaina... Azeroth is a dark and merciless place and many of its denizens lost a lot, without turning into warmongering monsters, so I don't have any sympathy for her, or understanding for her decisions, if she continues walking down this dark path.

Her city got destroyed? That's war. It's terrible. Always was, always will be. If she in her blind rage wishes this fate onto others, just to satisfy her lust for revenge, she is truly lost and has no place amongst the just anymore.

In her defense though, it is not so as if peace was a viable option either, as long as this zombie leads the horde...

So blaming her for the horrors of the upcoming war is a bit cynical.

[Arcling 898]

1 hour ago, Myke said:

I don't think it was a difficult decision for her to turn into a blind racist.

Her hatred is faction-based, rather than one related to race.

I guess Kul Tirans were busy composing shanties, instead of aiding us against Legion. That is rather funny to me, as Alliance and Horde have first to "prove themselves" to isolationist Kul Tirans and Zandalari respectively. They have done nothing to stop the Legion, and if it weren't for us, they wouldn't even exist anymore.

[blackstar128 30]

Garrosh continued to rant, almost screaming to be heard. “We waited. On my orders, we waited. We waited until the 7th Legion’s fleet, almost in its entirety, came to Theramore Harbor. We waited until the greatest generals of the Alliance—Marcus Jonathan and Shandris Feathermoon among them—came to the aid of poor Lady Jaina to offer their best soldiers and their brilliant strategies. We waited until Kalecgos of the blue dragonflight came, until five members of the Kirin Tor, including their leader, Rhonin, came. Ships and soldiers, magi and generals, all at Theramore. We threw ourselves at the gates, which our friend Thalen Songweaver weakened for us—and his loyalty was rewarded. While the Alliance focused on us, a small team infiltrated Theramore. Their accomplishments were twofold—they rescued Thalen and were able to cripple the Alliance
aerial defenses. And now—we shall wait no longer!”

from jaina proudmoore tides of war. just before they droped the mana bomb. in the presence and with help of ALL the horde leaders :)

 

Edited July 23, 2018 by blackstar128

[Vorguz 33]

Here I am hearing it for the ~20th time. It is so damn beautiful.
What I am surprised at is that the german version was by far the best. It was the only one that gave me goose bumps.

[Badadada 184]

It felt like they were a bit lazy with animations, but music is certainly on the spot.
However coming to the conclusion that Jaina is a horde-hater now is a bit of missing the point. For expansion long journeys she played the young and brave mage, but didn't care much about the past. Now she feels remorse over her father's death. OK, sure - actually the Horde killed Admiral Proudmoore, but you could replace Horde with anything from Defias Brotherhood to the Scourge, that's not the most important part. It will be important in the Battle for Azeroth, so we can go quest and kill each other, but it's not the key element in Jaina's story.

[ValkyrieFreya 30]

What strikes me is that most people talking about Jaina and her actions only mention the bombing of Theramore. Of course this is the obvious turning point, but she has faced many hardships (deciding to not aid her father, losing Arthas, losing Varian).

It doesn't justify her hatred for all members of the Horde, but i don't believe she is just a blind racist.

[Drachar 45]

1 hour ago, Arcling said:

That is rather funny to me, as Alliance and Horde have first to "prove themselves" to isolationist Kul Tirans and Zandalari respectively. They have done nothing to stop the Legion, and if it weren't for us, they wouldn't even exist anymore.

I think few rulers would just hand over the fleets to another empire (and get dragged into the Horde/Alliance conflict as well) due to gratitude. You should also consider that the Alliance sends Jaina to try and convince Kul Tiras and the fact that Zanalari seams to live in the belief that they are a superior race to the "mongrels" of the Horde.

[Hariwald 14]

9 hours ago, Myke said:

I don't think it was a difficult decision for her to turn into a blind racist.

Very silly thing to say to be honest and it shows a clear lack of knowledge regarding her story. Jaina is probably one of the last good characters in this universe, because she's realistic. Her feelings regarding the horde are 110% justified. And another thing, i see a lot of people mention that you can't hold the entire horde responsible for Theramore for this and that, but you most definitely can. The Sunreavers made that mana bomb for Garrosh knowing it's purpose and there was only one voice on the horde side of things that actually tried to minimize the harm and that was Baine. And then let's not forget that the horde didn't condemn Garrosh or start to turn against him until his actions started harming the members of the horde.

Can we please stop trying to push this head-canon narrative that the alliance are the horrible racist oppressors trying to hold down the poor horde? It's embarrassing. I swear, you could literally have the horde sacking civilian towns and systematically genociding innocent people in the most horrendous and sadistic ways while laughing about it and people would find a way to twist it so that the horde appear as the victims.

[Plergoth 277]

We have to assume that Kul Tiras and the Zandalari (and Dark Iron) were fighting against the Legion on their homefronts this whole time, but obviously the Broken Isles was the main staging ground for the invading armies and indeed, the focus of many of their initial plans, so possibly the Legion focused most of their resources there while leaving just enough to go harass the other notable races, cultures and neutral factions around Azeroth to keep them busy, at least for a while. Even if they were eventually repelled or forced to retreat, particularly when the path to Argus opened, these people must have been kept busy rebuilding, recovering and looking to defend themselves, which leads us nicely into them seeking out new allies. 

I'm getting a real Game of Thrones vibe (especially if you watch the DVD extras from the series) from the Warbringer animation. I can dig it; not every character has to be black or white, and the internal struggle of Jaina reflecting upon her past and decisions she made as an idealistic young woman and the regrets that come with it along with a homecoming where she must have been icily received at best is very believable. We've seen Thrall recently go through similar epiphanies over the last few expansions before he passed off the Doomhammer and took a step back to reevaluate his path in life.  Characters we previously were supposed to revile, such as Illidan, have become anti-heroes to a large portion of the community, while others with a loyal following who adore the characters become lost or written out. 

[Razekiel 11]

Well, this was disappointing. I was expecting Lords of War quality but it is just a sequence of stills and melancholic music. Not many thoughts and effort was put in this one. Blizzard wanted to make it artistic but it is........ just boring.

[lChronosl 182]

Story wise was kinda disappointing, but the music and art were awesome.

Even if it was not really like I remembered from old W3.

[Demenzel 29]

9 hours ago, Hariwald said:

Very silly thing to say to be honest and it shows a clear lack of knowledge regarding her story. Jaina is probably one of the last good characters in this universe, because she's realistic. Her feelings regarding the horde are 110% justified. And another thing, i see a lot of people mention that you can't hold the entire horde responsible for Theramore for this and that, but you most definitely can. The Sunreavers made that mana bomb for Garrosh knowing it's purpose and there was only one voice on the horde side of things that actually tried to minimize the harm and that was Baine. And then let's not forget that the horde didn't condemn Garrosh or start to turn against him until his actions started harming the members of the horde.

Can we please stop trying to push this head-canon narrative that the alliance are the horrible racist oppressors trying to hold down the poor horde? It's embarrassing. I swear, you could literally have the horde sacking civilian towns and systematically genociding innocent people in the most horrendous and sadistic ways while laughing about it and people would find a way to twist it so that the horde appear as the victims.

Garrosh nuke an enemy city in times of war.... it wans't preatty, but it was just that. stop crying about it

[Kvtm 0]

20 hours ago, blackstar128 said:

thats not fair. she was THE person to trust the horde when everyone else wanted to kill the alliens ! she betrayed her family and let her father and her people be slaughtered by horde. kept the alliance off kalimdor so horde can grow ! and what horde did ? they nuked her city ! if u want to say it was garrosh, actually it wasnt just garrosh. blood elves made the mana bomb and even thrall didnt do anything after that. he just came to stop her and did nothing what so ever to condemn garrosh nuking her city. she was the bigger person there and didnt do the same to orgimmar (even tho she could)

i understand Jaina very well.  i will not say much but take irl some horrible thing a few did that made the world hate and fear an entire religion/race. she's feeling what im feeling towards some people. you can call me whatever you want i dont care.

[lChronosl 182]

It's almost like Blizzard has something against strong female leads. Sylvannas, Jaina and Yrel are all getting some of the "Garrosh treatment". It's a disappointing cheap way to advance the story.

21 hours ago, Vorguz said:

Here I am hearing it for the ~20th time. It is so damn beautiful.
What I am surprised at is that the german version was by far the best. It was the only one that gave me goose bumps.

Can you link it to me? I got curious but can't seem to find it.

[Ogerscherge 43]

1 hour ago, lChronosl said:

It's almost like Blizzard has something against strong female leads. Sylvannas, Jaina and Yrel are all getting some of the "Garrosh treatment". It's a disappointing cheap way to advance the story.

I think the problem is that they think that acting like this is what actually makes a strong female character.

Like a woman can only be strong if she is far more heartless, arrogant and aggressive than the men around her. ? 

 

Edit: Also, here is the german version: 

 

Edited July 24, 2018 by Ogerscherge

[Vorguz 33]

3 hours ago, lChronosl said:

Can you link it to me? I got curious but can't seem to find it.

2 hours ago, Ogerscherge said:

Edit: Also, here is the german version: 

Thank you. :)

What do you think? Better or worse?

[Vorguz 33]

12 hours ago, Razekiel said:

Well, this was disappointing. I was expecting Lords of War quality but it is just a sequence of stills and melancholic music. Not many thoughts and effort was put in this one. Blizzard wanted to make it artistic but it is........ just boring.

I respect your opinion, but this kind of style is pretty difficult to do and draw. You need alot more details and every scene needs to have an impact on the little story they are telling with each picture. Furthermore the video-story (in the absence of a better word) needs to be linked to the music which tells a different story. Just look at the stylistic devices. There is a shit ton more than in the Lords of War videos.

 

3 hours ago, Ogerscherge said:

I think the problem is that they think that acting like this is what actually makes a strong female character.

Like a woman can only be strong if she is far more heartless, arrogant and aggressive than the men around her. ?

I dont think Blizzard wants her to be that kind of person. As they wrote in the trailer, she didn't break but the war changed her. In my opnion blizz wants to show the black and white kind of view cant be used for the factions. And they need a new badass character (evil?).
But is she heartless, arrogant and aggressive? She changed after Garrosh nuked her city, which in my opnion shows that she cared and cares for her people. She also respected the decision to give the horde entry to Dalaran. She left because her grudge was too great and she couldn't stand for succh a decision during her rule. Aggressive i don't know. She could be, but greymane seems pretty aggressive to me.

Edit: Not to forget greymane has also the same kind of behavior. His city got destroyed too by the horde.

Edited July 24, 2018 by Vorguz

[lChronosl 182]

3 hours ago, Vorguz said:

What do you think? Better or worse?

Seeing as I don't understand German, it becomes even more eerie and enthralling. It looks like something straight out of a fairy tale. But from the original Grimm ones, with blood, violence and death.

And you know what, now I will be seriously disappointed if we don't get to see in game Jaina arriving on Kul Tiras in that fucking giant ghost ship, all by herself.

Edited July 24, 2018 by lChronosl

[Vorguz 33]

10 hours ago, lChronosl said:

Seeing as I don't understand German, it becomes even more eerie and enthralling. It looks like something straight out of a fairy tale. But from the original Grimm ones, with blood, violence and death.

10 hours ago, lChronosl said:

And you know what, now I will be seriously disappointed if we don't get to see in game Jaina arriving on Kul Tiras in that fucking giant ghost ship, all by herself.

Me too. It gave me some serious Alucard/Dracula (Hellsing) vibes.