The War Within SPOILERS and the discussion around [redacted]'s death
This will be spoiler heavy and below the cut I will not be censoring [redacted]'s name so proceed with caution. I am mostly going to discuss theories, reactions, wishful thinking and the such. Feel free to add or discuss!
As a lot of us who saw the leaks know, it is implied that Khadgar dies in the opening of The War Within, in the pre-patch story. The implication comes from the fact that we see Dalaran destroyed and the placeholder for the cutscene says that the rest of the cast takes a moment for Khadgar.
Now I expected Khadgar to die in the World Soul Saga. They kept hinting how they will make us sad, Chris Metzen has been taking classes from the Game of Thrones writing school in the late years and the community was out for blood because Dragonflight was Oh So Disney!!! To add to that, Khadgar kept acting like he is on death's door in both Shadowlands and Dragonflight, which is the weakest form of foreshadowing a character death possible. Also he is 54, he isn't even old.
However what I didn't expect is to be right at the opening quest of The World Within. I expected either here or maybe in the following expacs, maybe at the last fight, but not at the opening. And the death being here is actually my problem with it.
Theory on how it might go down ->
If you watch PlatinumWoW's video on the alpha, it seems that Magni Bronzebeard goes into another coma and we bring him to Dalaran to nurse him back to health. There are some other characters present.
Afterwards we end up on the shore with The Chamber of the Guardian (where we nursed Magni back to health) in pieces. And we fight Xal'atath's nerubians. Afterwards comes the screenshot from above where the main cast seems to mourn Khadgar.
The most obvious and cliche way this will go down is that:
We tend to Magni
We learn something about Xal'atath from Alleria and/or Khadgar
She suddenly attacks
We defend the city and fail
Khadgar does a heroic sacrifice, ensuring our escape and losing his life in the process. This plays in a pre-rendered cutscene much like Varian's on Broken Shore.
Once we arrive at the beach there is a Animated Real-Time Cutscene as described above where everyone mourns him.
Alleria makes it her mission to hunt down Xal'atath because Khadgar is one of her closest friends. Their beef is personal (and I get it, I am with Alleria).
Theories and wishful thinking
-> Now for the theories, please do know that Khadgar is my favourite WoW character and there is a lot of bias in what I hope might happen, so I will list them just in case.
The death might be a fake-out. We might not see him die on screen (though this depends on the pre-rendered cinematic I believe is missing) and we assume he has died in the explosion or whatever broke The Chamber of the Guardian. We mourn him and near the end of the Expansion he will appear just in the nick of time. Here he might actually die, but that is another discussion.
Khadgar openly decides to port Dalaran elsewhere or we see him be swallowed by the void and ported elsewhere himself. He is not dead, but we do not know of his fate and neither do the main characters, so they take a moment to mourn. This also adds to Alleria's personal beef with Xal'atath even if Khadgar doesn't die. Saving him from whatever fate befell him can also add to this.
They actually take a moment for him because he is somewhere and not dead (not likely, but I have to throw it in here).
Discussion
I won't lie, I think if it goes down how I suspect it will, it will be horrible. I don't know if Chris Metzen and the writers are under the impression that Tirion's and Vol'jin's deaths were good because they weren't. They were pointless Game of Thrones-esque shock value so people will not whine that this game doesn't kill enough characters.
This game has had it's fair share of good character deaths and it's fair share of horrible character deaths. Varian, for example, had a good death. His death was given the weight it deserved, he went out as a badass and he got a whole rendered cutscene. Not to mention he had narrative build up, he learned the lesson his son was trying to teach him right at the end and he knew that his time as leader is over and this world needs a king like Anduin now. Tirion was disrespected. Metzen and the writers must be out of their mind if they think the community found Tirion's death as anything other than stupid and funny, because that's all it was.
So if Khadgar earns this death, it will truly be stupid. I have no problem with characters dying, I have a problem with pointless deaths just so annoying youtubers will think that we are finally having AN EPIC STORY because you know, the years are 2011-2019 and we still think Game of Thrones is peak writing.
Khadgar's death here will not have any narrative build up - let's be real, Khadgar wasn't a character in the previous 3 expansions so killing a character that is narratively "cold" is not going to have an emotional impact on people. Varian was very present in the story when he died.
I think a far better way to handle this is if we have this scenario, have Khadgar's death be a fake out and then have him die in the 3rd act of the expansion. This way there will be narrative build up and it will lull us in the false sense of security that Khadgar cannot die, only to then shock us when he does. This will really break the feeling of "hope" we might build up and truly achieve a feeling of dread and defeat.
They already tried writing death at the beginning of a story and just rehashing Broken Shore won't make Tirion and Vol'jin's deaths any less stupid. Khadgar is a beloved character, he isn't someone you should kill at the start of a story. No matter how symbolic you think it is that he dies along with The Chamber of the Guardian, none of it ties back to any of his previous and good stories, from The Last Guardian and all the way to Legion.
So while as a writer I want to remain realistic and know that probably my favourite character will get bagged, a part of me hopes that the writers are a bit better than this and that they won't give us another Broken Shore, but give us a meaningful character death and a worthy farewell.
It's too early to speak, so this is all speculations and I am probably not right about many things.
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i know people are good because of this: the universe often assigns me side quests. in a circular strangeness; despite my inability to locate my-own-anything, i am almost-always finding someone else's lost things. dogs, coats, phones, cash, laptops. it happens so often it's almost tiring; suddenly being looped into a tiny amount of detective work.
but when i'm with other people who are not used to this: the response is almost invariably delight. yes, maybe they are simply thrilled by the mystery. it's just... they light up so much. i think maybe more... i think they like the opportunity to do something kind.
a few weeks ago, i was at a bar and i found a wallet as soon as we stepped outside. i felt nervous to ask for help, worried i would be holding up the night. i picked it up and said go on without me, i should help this get back to its home.
instead, three people pulled out their phones - to find him on facebook, to help cancel his credit cards. two people went back into the bar to tell the bartender, two others went calling down the street. group texts, facebook posts, instagram stories. people, without even seeing what happened, start offering help to me. fifteen minutes and: someone knows someone who knows the guy. the cheer that went up - just for finding him, just for this small thing. someone gets him on the phone. strangers dance around me, hopping on their feet - are you the girl that found that wallet? good for you, that's a good thing you're doing/same thing happened to me and somebody did what you're doing and i thank god everyday for people like you/i can't believe you found him so fast this is so exciting
i gave it back to him in a parking lot. i watched his shoulders sag with relief. there was cash in it still - he checked the pocket, and then sheepishly held the money out to me. i didn't take it. i held up my hands. "it's no problem, man. i know you'd do the same for me."
i don't know him, to be honest. i don't know if he is the same kind of person i am. but he nodded at me.
and i know people are good. i know people are good, because the way this story ends isn't surprising. we wave goodbye awkwardly. my friend loops their arm around me.
"i can't believe we got it back to him," they said. "i'm going to be riding that high for weeks."
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White French people hate it when they get a taste of their own medicine.
I was discussing with one of my colleagues and she told me how she was planning to go to Senegal for the holidays because she thought it was a good way for her kids to see more diversity and people who don’t look like them (ie Black People).
So I told her it was a good idea because I was 4 the 1st time I saw a White person (and I cried btw...) And she was so shocked, like she couldn’t understand that some Black kids have never seen White people in their lives but somehow doesn’t think twice about the fact that her kids are in a similar situation.
Another time, I was talking to someone else about how I arrived in France when I was young but had lived in many African countries growing up (RDC, Kenya , Gabon, Center African Republic...).
And then that person proceeded to go on a tirade about how I must have felt so lucky to arrive in France, and how I should have been relieved to arrive in a developed country like France, blablaba. I just told him “not really”, because growing up I was told that France was amazing and so wealthy, but the first time I saw homeless people was when I arrived in Europe, so I didn’t really understand why people always talked about Europe like that. And again, the guy was shocked, just because I didn’t say my life in Africa was miserable and sad, and because I said that Europe was from what I had heard as a child.
If you’re going to bring your assumptions without knowing, I’ll retort with mine ( the view of an 8-9 year old). I don’t understand how someone can feel so entitled and assume something about your situation without asking first. I’m sorry the only thing you know about Africa is that one documentary you watched in middle school but leave me alone.
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