There may be spoilers... so quit now if you don't like 'em
Serious, spoilers ahead. IF you read, your own fault
Spoilers.
Alright then.
So, for those who haven't read my blog much, or haven't heard me rant, Illidan to me is one of my favorite villains in Wow. however, I have never seen him as a villain. To me, with the lore I've read and playing World of Warcraft III I've always felt he got forced into the position he inhabits by his own people continually turning their back on him. Yes, he make questionable decisions, but he also made some pretty big personal sacrifices as well.
He infiltrated the burning legion for his people, loses eyes, gains power, but is punished by his people for taking the wrong side. I can't defend his choice to make another Well of Eternity in Hyjal, that was a complete power play. I also don't think his being locked up for 10,000 years by his own people was a good decision either. I think in that case the Betrayer was betrayed.
Then in Warcraft three he is freed and fights the burning Legion for his people despite their incarceration of him. Of course he is a bitter character at this point. When he takes the power and transformation for the skull of Guldan to fight the burning legion more effectively he is again punished by his own people. Once again you can argue whether this was a "good" decision. Whether it was or not he continues to fight against the Legion and in the end is rewarded with exile.
After that his decisions are not very good, but I feel everything after that point would have been different if his people had treated him as a hero who had helped them defeat the Legion rather than acting as if he had betrayed them again. Which, I would argue he didn't.
This book takes place after this, right after he has first arrived in Outland after he was rescued from Maev. It details what happens between that point and when we killed him in black temple. It gives some insight into his motivations, why he made some of the choices he did and what Illidan's goals were. It also somewhat explains why he wasn't very present as we moved through that expansion unlike Arthas who popped up every other moment in Lich King. Simply put, he was focused elsewhere.
His motivation in this book is simple. He wants to find a way to take the fight to the burning legion rather than waiting for them to come for him. While he makes several decisions in this book that would be defined as evil (creating fel Orcs, sacrificing souls for power) over all his interests align with ours. Making me think, once again if he hadn't been exiled, things would have been different. Then again he is so obsessed with his goal he might have done similar things on Azeroth.
You basically get four point of view characters in this book. Vandal, a demon hunter that allows you to see the Demon Hunter process, Maev who is, well Maev, and Akama. Out of the four unfortunately for me I felt Vandal had the most interesting story arc. In a book named Illidan it should have been Illidan but instead If felt the "sidekick" was a little more interesting.
That brings me to my first complaint. This books is really serious to the point of making it dry. You have Illidan who is very serious, Maev who is essentially a female version of Illidan in seriousness and obsessiveness, Vandal whose also driven by revenge and seriousness, and then Akama, once again very serious. We needed someone or something to put some bright points in the book or some levity. Instead it is all a dark crawl to the end page.
My second complaint is there is underutilized side characters in here. Prince Kael'thas and Lady Vashj are in there on the side, but have no real interesting dialog or even part in the book. They kind of show up in the beginning, then are mentioned a few times on the side. Maev has her small contingent of night elves, but even the two main ones (I forget their names, they were that important) never get a moment to shine. Those two should have been built up so when they are killed later you actually care rather then going, um... ok, I'm over it.
My third complaint is this book should have been longer. Instead of digging into details it feels it gives you a quick path of what happened with Illidan in outland. They could have dug in and gone into greater detail in several places. They could have build more character into several folks but instead we get just enough to tell the story. I feel there is a lost opportunity here.
That aside I did enjoy this book. I found seeing Illidan's point of view on things interesting as he amassed power in Outland. He does have several choices that do put him in the villain box including betraying Akama and planning on torturing Maev when she's captured at the end. He had a definite "the means justify the ends" problem. At the same time you see his motivation is that he has seen the Legion for what it is. He has seen the fate of the worlds they have destroyed and he is driven in a desire to stop them before they lay waste to Azeroth. His belief of course is that the only way to do that is to go defeat them on their home turf, rather than waiting for them to show up and invade.
I enjoyed that right before the end there is a promise of redemption shown to him, not that he believed it was possible. We of course know he's coming back (if you've played the Alpha you know a little more about why) I for one, want to replay the Demon hunter campaign and look for a couple of names now. I am pretty sure after reading this book he will be on our side completely, if not trusted by the rest of our leaders.
My rating on this book is 3 of 5 stars. It's good and worth reading, just don't get your expectations up for something new or a thrill ride. If you don't play World of Warcraft, I would look up know your lore articles from Matt Rossi or Anne Stickney on Illidan before reading so you know the background that will help this book make sense.
Please note, this is the first World of Warcraft novel I have read. I have a couple in may stack but I moved this one to the front because of Legion's approach.
Lag
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