Illidan is in the spotlight this expansion. The "bridge" cinematic that links Warlords of Draenor to Legion shows Gul'dan entering the Vault of the Wardens and discovering the body of Illidan encased in an enormous Fel Crystal.
Illidan definitely died at the Black Temple, but Maiev, so obsessed with capturing him, bound his body and soul in that prison so that he would spend eternity trapped there - dead, but his soul unable to leave.
Gul'dan seems to awaken Illidan, but why he would do so is a big old question mark.
Gul'dan (and to be clear, in case it wasn't, this is the alternate Gul'dan we pursued in Draenor - ours died decades ago) is in service to the Burning Legion. Archimonde bound him to the Legion's service after the events of Hellfire Citadel, and it would seem that Gul'dan's actions are done at the behest of the Legion - it's Gul'dan who seems to kickstart the invasion through the Tomb of Sargeras.
Illidan has never really been a reliable tool of the Legion. He first approached Sargeras during the War of the Ancients in the guise of an ally, but he then took the demonic power the Dark Titan imbued him with and fought against the Legion. It actually seems like at no point Illidan really intended to help them destroy the world.
Illidan would spend ten thousand years after that imprisoned (probably about where his body is found by Gul'dan) until he was broken out during the Third War by Tyrande. And again, Illidan fought the Legion.
He was banished by Malfurion after he became a half-demon by consuming the energies within the Skull of Gul'dan (which kind of makes you wonder if Gul'dan wasn't a half-demon as well.)
In fact, that creates a cool kind of inversion of past history. Illidan took the mortal remains of Gul'dan in order to gain his power. Perhaps Gul'dan's doppelganger was sent to draw that very same power back from Illidan's corpse.
But Illidan will live again, so it seems more likely that Gul'dan is in fact reviving the Betrayer.
Yet this doesn't seem like a wise decision for the Legion. Yes, perhaps the Legion figures that it can play Illidan to their advantage (something they arguably did during the Frozen Throne) but Illidan has never been loyal to the Legion. Hell, his title as Betrayer applies more accurately to his service to the Legion than the way he dealt with his own people.
That said, if properly intimidated, he's been known to work for the Legion. That said, the biggest example of this work was his attempt to destroy the Lich King, which was actually a pretty noble goal considering where the orders were coming from. Obviously Kil'jaeden didn't want the Lich King destroyed to save the people of Azeroth - he wanted the Scourge dismantled because it had betrayed the Legion.
Illidan was never a full-fledged villain. Arthas was trying to end all life on Azeroth and bind everyone in service to him in death. Deathwing wanted to destroy the planet. Illidan, at his worst, wanted to rule Outland - and the main reason for that was to maintain it as a bulwark against the Legion so that he wouldn't have to pay the price for his failures.
Clearly the Illidari are going to come back into the fold of their respective factions (though actually, neither Night Elves nor Blood Elves who were members of the Illidari had actually been part of the Alliance or Horde, as the former left before the Night Elves joined the Alliance and the latter came only briefly after Kael'thas had had his differences with the Alliance - long before Sylvanas brought the Blood Elves into the Horde.) The question, then, is what role their leader and mentor will play.
It's actually kind of fascinating to see how playable Demon Hunters will fit in. Death Knights start the game having pretty much just been raised from the dead, and without an opportunity to have really fought against the player factions. Demon Hunters, in contrast, apparently start their experience just as a raid group from 2007 or 2008 is fighting their way up through the Black Temple, and you are sent by Illidan on a last-ditch effort to... we don't yet know what, but you're definitely leaving Illidan to die.
Illidan is clearly a central, if not the central figure of this entire expansion - his face is on the box art (which for a moment I thought was a case of the game repeating itself, until I remembered that the BC box art is just a Blood Elf and a Draenei.) But is he going to be our final boss? Or is he going to be fighting by our side as we struggle against the final boss (it might be too early to tell - after all, they initially intended Grommash to be the final boss of Warlords, but now he's one of the three NPCs fighting by your side.)
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