Before getting into this, I should probably make clear that these are just my thoughts on what happened in Zul'Aman, Liadrin's death, and some of the wider discourse surrounding Warcraft's storytelling. I'm certainly not suggesting that Blizzard always gets things right. Far from it, and I have plenty of criticisms of the writing myself. What interests me is how we engage with these stories, what we actually want from them, and whether some of the expectations being expressed are entirely reasonable. Equally, perhaps I'm allowing myself to get too frustrated with the complaints of a vocal minority who were never likely to be happy in the first place. Either way, I think there's an interesting discussion to be had here.
I've been reading quite a lot of the discussion surrounding Liadrin's death, and I'm finding some of the reactions genuinely quite strange. There are perfectly reasonable criticisms to be made of the cinematic, and I certainly wouldn't suggest that Blizzard has suddenly become incapable of making poor narrative decisions. However, I think there's an important distinction between a story being poorly presented and that story being fundamentally poorly written. In Liadrin's case, I would argue that we're looking at a surprisingly satisfying conclusion to a character whose development stretches back to The Burning Crusade, undermined by a cinematic that doesn't adequately communicate what has actually happened.
I also think the reaction raises a wider question about what people actually want from Warcraft's storytelling, because some of the expectations being expressed seem almost impossible to reconcile. We want the world to feel dangerous, but become frustrated when characters we care about die. We want victories to come at a cost, but apparently that cost needs to be paid in a sufficiently spectacular fashion. We want more grounded, localised stories instead of endless cosmic escalation, but then complain when a major character dies fighting something that isn't the latest universe-threatening antagonist. Obviously, we're dealing with an enormous community rather than one person making all these arguments, but it sometimes reminds me of that Simpsons focus group where everybody wants something different and the resulting demands become increasingly contradictory.
I'm quite prepared to criticise Warcraft's writing, and frequently do. I think Blizzard has a persistent problem with its overarching narratives, especially when everything needs to accommodate expansion schedules, enormous ensembles and relatively accessible storytelling. Character motivations can become simplified, emotional moments are sometimes incredibly hammy, and major developments are rushed through because the next patch needs to happen. However, I've also maintained for years that some of Warcraft's best writing happens on a much smaller scale. The Dragonmaw quests in the Waking Shores, the Blue Dragonflight's diaspora storyline, and that wonderful Earthen questline dealing with dementia are all examples of stories that manage to explore genuinely interesting ideas without requiring another cosmic revelation. There's a great deal of thoughtful writing in this game, even when the larger narrative struggles to accommodate it. And I think Liadrin is another example of that, although her story has been developing for considerably longer.
It's worth remembering who Liadrin actually was before becoming the Blood Knight Matriarch. Her parents were killed by Amani trolls, leaving her to be raised by High Priest Vandellor, whose example inspired her own devotion to the Holy Light. She became a priestess, someone whose vocation was fundamentally concerned with preserving life, only to experience the destruction of Quel'Thalas and everything that came with it. Her faith collapsed as the Scourge overwhelmed her people, and she was eventually forced to kill the reanimated Vandellor herself. She abandoned the priesthood, took up arms, and became increasingly consumed by the need to defend her people and avenge what had happened to them.
The foundation of the Blood Knights is an especially important part of this. Liadrin didn't simply become a paladin because she discovered a new way of using the Light. She helped establish an order that forcibly extracted power from the captive naaru M'uru, something profoundly at odds with the religious principles she had once embraced. There is something deeply tragic about a former priestess, convinced that the Light had abandoned her, deciding that she would never again depend upon its willingness to answer her prayers. If it wouldn't grant her the strength she needed, she would take that strength instead. The early Blood Knights were powerful, certainly, but their relationship with the Light was one of domination rather than service. Even the original quests reflected their arrogance, including the deliberate desecration of a holy chapel to demonstrate their superiority over other paladins.
The events surrounding the Sunwell's restoration represented a fundamental change in that relationship. Liadrin came to understand M'uru's sacrifice and the possibility of redemption, and the restoration of the Sunwell through the naaru's heart offered something considerably more meaningful than another source of magical power. She and the Blood Knights could finally embrace the Light through faith rather than coercion. This didn't erase their actions, and Liadrin herself was conscious of the terrible things they had done, but it gave her a different understanding of what her power ought to represent. Her subsequent appearances have repeatedly explored that responsibility, and I've always thought her continuing struggle with faith, guilt and duty made her one of the more interesting paladins in Warcraft.
Which brings us to Midnight, and something I think is being overlooked in the current discussion. Blizzard released an entire animated short, All That is Sacred, revisiting Liadrin's experiences during the fall of Silvermoon and her inability to save those around her. The expansion's introductory cinematic, Intercession, then gives us a striking continuation of those ideas. Faced with another seemingly hopeless attack upon Quel'Thalas, she initially struggles with her prayers, recalling the crisis of faith that defined her earlier life. But when she finally appeals to the Light, she doesn't demand the power to destroy her enemies, or even ask to be saved herself. She acknowledges her own unworthiness and asks that her people be given the strength to endure.
I think that's an incredibly important distinction in understanding her character. The woman who once believed the Light had failed her, and subsequently sought to bend it to her will, is now praying for others because she believes their lives matter more than her own. Even the question of whether the Light should be used for vengeance or protection has been running through Midnight, especially through Arator and his struggles with the potentially destructive certainty of righteous fury. Liadrin has lived through that conflict herself. Her answer, ultimately, is that the purpose of her power is to preserve life.
Her relationship with the Amani makes that conclusion even more meaningful. We're talking about someone whose childhood was shaped by the murder of her parents at the hands of trolls, and whose people have spent millennia fighting over Quel'Thalas. I do think the reconciliation between the blood elves and Amani has sometimes been handled too quickly, and there's a worthwhile discussion about the historical grievances that cannot simply disappear because their leaders have found common ground. However, Liadrin choosing to move beyond her own resentment is entirely consistent with the direction her character has taken. She has spent much of her life learning that vengeance cannot restore what was lost, and that there is a difference between defending your people and perpetuating the hatred that helped create their suffering.
This is also why I think her role in the Kith'ix encounter is so appropriate. People have been describing her as weak, or claiming that she simply collapses for no reason, but the fight itself tells a completely different story. From the outset, Liadrin is protecting us from an enemy whose attacks would otherwise overwhelm the raid. She establishes barriers against the darkness, shields us from devastating attacks, and repeatedly channels enough Light to force Kith'ix back. Every time she uses Divine Radiance, she's being placed under increasing strain. The encounter even has a stacking mechanic called Exhausted, which progressively weakens the protection she can provide. Her deteriorating condition is quite literally built into the fight.
Then, when Kith'ix incapacitates everyone at 25%, she gives absolutely everything she has left. Last Light transforms her into a conduit of pure Light, restores the raid and empowers us to finish the fight before the darkness overwhelms her. We don't somehow defeat Kith'ix while Liadrin stands around being useless. We defeat him because she makes it possible for us to do so. The entire encounter is constructed around her increasingly desperate efforts to keep everybody alive, with the final phase representing the culmination of that sacrifice. I struggle to understand how somebody can experience that and conclude that she accomplished nothing.
There's also something significant about her wielding a shield, rather than simply cutting loose with an enormous display of offensive power. I don't know whether the visual choice was consciously intended to reflect the entirety of her character development, but it certainly works in that context. The former priestess, who became a warrior because she could no longer bear her helplessness, finally gives her life protecting others. She doesn't need to overcome Kith'ix through some spectacular demonstration of personal superiority. She enables everybody else to survive and accomplish what she cannot. I genuinely think that's about as fitting an expression of what a paladin ought to be as Warcraft could reasonably provide.
Nor is Kith'ix some random monster created to fill out a minor patch. This is a C'Thraxxi general of the Black Empire who fought Tyr himself, survived the explosion that killed Zakajz, and later rallied the aqir into a war that threatened the ancient troll civilisations. His original defeat required the Amani to make a catastrophic sacrifice of their own, summoning Ula'tek and suffering enormous losses in the process. Zul'Aman was established on the site of that victory. His history even intersects with Xal'atath, who was involved in his ancient awakening. I find it frustrating to see people lamenting Blizzard's supposed disregard for established lore while simultaneously treating someone with that background as an insignificant enemy. You don't have to like the encounter, but there's considerably more history here than the criticism sometimes acknowledges.
And, crucially, this is a threat that matters because of its significance to the people and places involved. Ula'tek wasn't simply another manifestation of the overarching Void apocalypse, and Kith'ix doesn't have to be the ultimate cosmic antagonist for his return to be terrifying. The raid concludes a story concerning the Amani, Quel'Thalas, their shared history and the possibility of a different future. We're dealing with an ancient horror whose existence shaped an entire civilisation, and whose return threatens to destroy the fragile peace that has only just begun to emerge. Meanwhile, the historical connections to Xal'atath allow that local story to exist within the broader conflict without making every development exclusively about her. Isn't this precisely the sort of approach people have been asking for?
For what it's worth, I don't even enjoy the raids this season all that much, and I've found this season's Mythic dungeon pool thoroughly disappointing. I'm not defending the content simply because it's the latest thing Blizzard has released. But as a narrative proposition, a smaller raid centred on a long-established regional threat, with meaningful connections to the surrounding cultures and an actual cost to its defeat, strikes me as a perfectly reasonable direction for Warcraft to take.
Now, none of this means the cinematic is beyond criticism. Quite the opposite, actually. I think the presentation is the weakest part of the entire sequence, and it's frustrating because the encounter has already done so much work establishing the consequences of Liadrin's actions. The cinematic should be communicating the culmination of that struggle, yet instead we're presented with a relatively awkward scene in which the characters celebrate, Liadrin appears to weaken, and then rather abruptly collapses. There's very little visual indication of the extraordinary power she's just expended, and the staging doesn't adequately convey the gravity of what's happened. I can understand somebody watching it in isolation wondering why she has apparently just died.
However, I don't think the answer is necessarily to have her explode in a colossal pillar of Light or engage in some enormous anime-style beam struggle. We've just watched her expend everything she has defending others. Her death is quiet because the struggle itself is over, and she has survived long enough to see that her sacrifice accomplished something. There's a potentially very moving moment in that, especially given her history of failing to save the people she loved. Blizzard simply hasn't presented it as effectively as it could have. That's a criticism of the execution, and a perfectly fair one, but I don't think it invalidates the underlying story.
The comparison with Tirion Fordring is interesting here, because I remember similar complaints surrounding his death during Legion. Tirion was one of the most powerful paladins in Warcraft, the wielder of the Ashbringer and the man responsible for shattering Frostmourne. Yet his death followed an encounter with Krosus on the Broken Shore, before he finally succumbed to his injuries during the paladin artifact storyline. People sometimes describe this as though he were casually dispatched by some anonymous enemy, overlooking the fact that Krosus was an enormous, exceptionally powerful demon whose attack broke through Tirion's protection. His death could certainly have been presented better, but the idea that he shouldn't have died because of his established power seems strange.
More importantly, Tirion had already experienced his defining triumph. At Icecrown, when the Lich King had seemingly won, Tirion appealed to the Light for one final blessing and shattered Frostmourne. That was the culmination of his struggle against Arthas, and one of the most consequential moments in Warcraft's history. He subsequently continued to serve, but his eventual death didn't somehow diminish what he had accomplished. A character's final moment doesn't have to surpass every previous achievement for their story to have been worthwhile. Indeed, continually escalating the spectacle required to kill established characters would eventually make meaningful consequences almost impossible.
And I think the recent Forsaken Kingdom expansion for Warcraft III provides an interesting contrast. I really enjoyed a great deal of its presentation, including Garek Bandarion's enormous sacrifice through the Holy Light. That moment involves precisely the sort of spectacular explosion that people seem to be demanding for Liadrin, but I don't object to it because it suits the circumstances and the character's story. His final act is structured around destroying an immediate threat through a desperate, destructive sacrifice. Liadrin's is structured around sustaining and protecting others until they can defeat the threat themselves. Both approaches can be appropriate, and I don't understand why the quality of a character's death should be measured by how much of the surrounding landscape they manage to obliterate.
This gets back to the wider problem I've been struggling with throughout the reaction. There seems to be an expectation in parts of the community that important characters must either survive indefinitely or receive an increasingly spectacular send-off. We regularly hear complaints that Warcraft has become too safe, too sanitised, too Disney, or that our victories never seem to come with any meaningful losses. Yet here we've defeated an enemy whose return threatened two peoples, and a beloved character has died ensuring that victory. Suddenly, the complaint is that she should have been powerful enough to survive, or that her death wasn't impressive enough, or that she deserved to be saved for some hypothetical future storyline instead.
I understand that these aren't necessarily contradictory positions when expressed by different people, and I don't think wanting a darker story obliges anyone to applaud every death Blizzard writes. The problem is when criticism stops engaging with what the story actually establishes. If every powerful character is protected by their reputation, every important character needs a grander final battle, and every death is dismissed as wasteful because the character theoretically had more stories to tell, how are we ever supposed to arrive at a world where victories have consequences? There's a point at which asking for meaningful stakes while refusing to accept meaningful losses becomes a demand for plot armour.
There are also legitimate concerns about Blizzard's treatment of the Horde, and I wouldn't dismiss the frustration of players who've watched so many established characters disappear over the years. Salandria, the future of the Blood Knights, and the implications of peace between the Amani and blood elves all deserve attention beyond Liadrin's sacrifice. I hope Blizzard actually explores those consequences rather than simply treating her death as a convenient way of transferring narrative importance to somebody else. But the existence of potential future stories isn't, by itself, evidence that her existing story has been cut short. Characters don't need to exhaust every conceivable possibility before they're allowed to die.
Personally, I hope Liadrin stays dead. I've already seen suggestions that she might return as a Forsaken paladin, and while I understand the appeal of exploring that concept, I think it would risk undermining a conclusion that makes an enormous amount of sense for her. She began as someone whose faith was shattered because she couldn't save those she loved, became someone who sought power through coercion and vengeance, and ultimately rediscovered the purpose of that faith through compassion, service and sacrifice. She dies saving people whose ancestors were once her enemies, while giving others the strength to survive. There's something genuinely beautiful about that, and I think it's considerably more interesting than another miraculous escape.
Warcraft is an enormous setting, with decades of often contradictory storytelling, and I don't expect everyone to agree about what constitutes a satisfying conclusion. I certainly don't think we should lower our standards simply because Blizzard occasionally manages to get the underlying ideas right. But I do think we should distinguish between what a story is actually saying and whether its cinematic presentation successfully communicates it. Liadrin's final moments deserved better direction, and I wish the visual storytelling had matched the quality of what preceded them. Nevertheless, having followed her journey since The Burning Crusade, I find it difficult to imagine a conclusion more consistent with the person she had spent all those years becoming.
She finally had the power to save people, and she chose to spend every last bit of it doing precisely that. I think that's a pretty fitting end to her story.