World of Warcraft: Chronicle - Volume III (4/5)
The third and currently final installment of the Chronicle trilogy, despite the fact that as it covers events from the aftermath of Beyond the Dark Portal to Cataclysm, there's clearly more stuff that can be covered. It even ends with "To Be Continued," FFS. Alas, despite there being clear demand for a Chronicle IV, it doesn't seem likely to happen. Still, evaluating the work as is, it's "good," if not "great," namely because the level of quality fluctuates based on what time period it's covering. So, on that note:
-Pre-Third War: It's fine, can't say much.
-Third War: This is solid stuff. I don't need a recap of WC3 for the sake of my own memory, but it does benefit from taking a birdseye view, showing tactics, the greater picture, etc.
-The Frozen Throne: This is...fine, but I'm actually going to hold off a bit here, you'll see why in The Burning Crusade section.
-World of Warcraft: Things slide a bit here. Thing is, I get why - Vanilla WOW, by its nature, lacks any single cohesive story, since it's divided into a number of smaller stories. So how do you present this as a work of historical fiction? The answer is "try your hardest, damn it." And while it okay, you can tell that everything that's occurring doesn't really fit as well as it might if it had been originally written as a single story. To be clear, this isn't a mark against this period of WOW itself, but the writing here isn't as engaging as a result, even if it does manage to apply the principle of "this happened, therefore,' rather than "this happened, and then." Also, I don't know if this is the case, but a lot of the raids that are summized seem to be the exclusive domain of one faction or the other. Regardless, this section does hold value for me, since my relationship with WOW (not Warcraft, WOW) is "love the universe, meh about the gameplay."
-The Burning Crusade: Alright, things are getting stretchy here. Remember what I said about The Frozen Throne? What I can say here is the same here, and that's the question of Illidan. Basically, Illidan in Legion isn't how Illidan was portrayed in Burning Crusade. It's not strictly a retcon, but it is retroactive, since in BC, players were operating under the premise of "Illidan is the bad guy, we have to defeat him," where here, it's a case of "nice job breaking it, hero." Chances are you know it by now (if you're familiar with Warcraft at least), but Illidan's overall plan was to take the fight to the Legion itself via his demon hunters, to strike at Argus itself. Too bad he never told anyone. This actually works well enough in BC (to a point), given his myopia on the task to the point where he no longer noticed or cared the flagging support among the Ilidari, but in The Frozen Throne, when he's in the presence of Malfurion and Tyrande multiple times? Not so much.
There's also questionable tactics on Kil'jaeden's end - get demons to Outland, have them invade Azeroth, but have no intention of them actually winning, but rather, use them as a feint to lure the forces of Azeroth to Outland, and in doing so, have them take out Illidan for him. In one sense, that's a plan that makes sense, in another, it's symbolic of just how convoluted things became to 'redeem' Illidan. I know that a lot of people were miffed about Illidan in BC, but I don't really see this as being a necessary improvement.
-Wrath of the Lich King: Things get much better here, in part because there's less convolution (is that a word?) concerning Arthas's motivations when compared to Illidan's (granted, this was pre-Shadowlands). It also helps that unlike The Burning Crusade, the Wrath of the Lich King section benefits more from the birdseye view of things, as it covers the Alliance and Horde campaigns against Northrend from the standpoint of overall military strategy. It actually helps reinforce my view that if Warcraft IV is ever made, it should just adapt TBC and Wrath, since at least with the latter, the overall backdrop is perfectly suited for an RTS game. Anyway, yeah. Solid all round.
-Cataclysm: Things get a bit weird here, but not necessarily in a bad way. My own personal thoughts on Cataclysm aside (basically, post-Wrath, WoW entered further and further unknown territory for me, making it increasingly hard to follow), I do appreciate this section. Like WOW, Cataclysm is largely a lot of disparate events happening all at once, as the Alliance and Horde struggle to survive the titular event, and in doing so, increasingly draw blood as they compete for resources. Unlike WOW, it actually works better here, since the chaos of Azeroth at this point in time is the point, whereas in WOW, it's more incidental. Gives good gravitas in regards to the events that finally culminate in Deathwing's final death...and a big "to be continued" that'll never be fulfilled (where's my Chronicle IV, damn it?!)
Anyway, yeah. Good overall.
