Trust, and Reunions in WoW

As you can probably tell by how many D&D and Dark Souls posts I've been making lately, I haven't been super into WoW lately - though I did unlock Kul Tirans and Zandalari the other day.

But I'm happy to read spoilers, and there's a big development in the war campaign story that needs addressing, even though technically I haven't gotten to those parts of the quests.

But spoilers ahoy here. Spoilers ahoy.


In the 8.0 Horde war campaign, you take the Abyssal Scepter in an attempt to get a leg up on Kul Tiras - though this turns out to be a shaggy dog story as the Alliance steals it back later on. However, in the process, you find the corpse of Derek Proudmoore - Jaina and Tandred's older brother, who died at sea during the Second War.

Sylvanas, naturally, sees a massive opportunity here - to raise Derek and use him as a sleeper agent against Jaina and the Alliance.

In Horde quests, Derek is held captive and tortured, presumably to break him to the point where he can be turned against his family. But Baine, being the good guy he is (and as usual, making us all wonder why the Tauren remain in the Horde) breaks Derek out and takes him to the ruins of Theramore to reunite him with Jaina.

We get a cinematic here in which Baine brings the siblings back together. Jaina warns Baine that Sylvanas will kill him for this betrayal, but Baine believes in honor before even his own life, and is willing to face the consequences if it means doing the right thing.

That's a big plot thread that is left open. Meanwhile, Derek, who is definitely undead but seems to still have his own mind (he's also not full-on Forsaken, still using a human model but one with a lot of decay. New Death Knight skin option?) meekly returns to his sister and it looks like the Proudmoores are going to be all right.

But here's the thing:

Did Baine get to Derek before he was conditioned to be a sleeper agent?

Sylvanas is crafty, and getting Baine to unwittingly bring that very sleeper agent to his target is exactly the kind of messed up shit she would pull. Derek very well might not even know that he is a sleeper agent. This is necromancy, which can really mess with free will.

So while this seems to be an act of betrayal against Sylvanas (and will probably be punished as such,) Baine might have actually done exactly what he was supposed to do.

Let's also not forget that in the pendulum swing of this war, the Alliance is riding high - they just sacked Dazar'alor and killed Rastakhan, and officially they're winning elsewhere. It's the exact time (narratively) that you'd expect the rug to be pulled from under them.

Or maybe Derek is going to get lightforged like Calia Menethil and become one of the leaders of an Alliance undead faction.

Or both!