A lot of people think Jaina has this terrible reputation regarding the men in her life, that she has “terrible taste in men”, or that she breaks guys’ hearts and/or makes them go crazy. This is utter nonsense. The problem isn’t with Jaina, the problem is that the men in her life are just plain jerks.
Have you actually LISTENED to the crap these guys say? It’s pretty sad when Garrosh of all people has treated her with more dignity and respect than her so-called close friends.
(Granted, this respect comes in the form of a targeted full-scale assault on her city, but hey, it at least shows that Garrosh acknowledges her as a legitimate threat, a worthy adversary, and – gasp – an actual PERSON!)
Anyway, it’s a definite step up from Varian and Thrall talking down to her like she’s a child, “Nice Guy” Kael throwing a tantrum over a romance that existed only in his own mind, or the (sadly) many WoW players who blame her for the poor decisions Arthas and Kael made. Like she somehow owed Arthas to stick by him while he commited horrendous atrocities. And being blamed for Kael’s decisions? She and Kael WERE NEVER EVEN A COUPLE!!
And cripes, then there’s the whole “omg she SLEPT WITH ARTHAS, the man SHE LOVED and probably would have married?? THAT HUSSY!” ridiculousness.
It’s all so incredibly stupid.
^ THIS. A THOUSAND TIMES THIS.
Bless this post.
Also Jaina’s expression is amazing.
I had Voss model it for me! “No, she should look really frustrated! LIKE THIS!” /grimace
“That’s perfect! Can you hold that for me!”
“…ngh”
“Does that hurt?”
“YES”
I swear, if Blizzard fridges her &/or turns her incompetently evil &/or has her be rescued by King Chin…
Aren’t the latter two from books? Well, I’m not sure about the Kael one; it might be from one of the books too.
Actually the Kael thing was from WC3. I forget if it was the original campaign or the frozen throne expansion.
Kael’s feelings for Jaina are hinted at by a single line from Arthas in WC3: Frozen Throne: “Are you mad I stole Jaina from you, Kael?” (to which Kael’thas does not actually respond).
His feelings for her are more fleshed-out in the Arthas book, and it makes it very, very clear that Jaina always respected him, even liked him as a person, but was never attracted to him in any way. Kael is basically the textbook of “Nice Guy (TM)” WRT Jaina. It’s pretty pathetic on his behalf.
Also, when Kael shows up unexpectedly in Icecrown and confronts Arthas in WC3, he says “This is for Quel’Thalas…and other insults.” Which is a pretty great line for the twisted parallel relationship the two princes have and what they’ve gone through, but still shows how Kael regards his relationship with Jaina. Not even that he feels jilted or heartbroken, but that his ego was bruised. And that’s pretty telling.
Yup, exactly – perfect illustration of how, to Kael (and probably to Arthas, but to a lesser extent) what Jaina really was was a possession; a status symbol. There’s a reason the expression is “winning [person’s] affection”. Because it’s a game where the prize is a woman.
And “losing” to Arthas is unacceptable in Kael’s eyes. It’s not that he actually cared whether or not Jaina was ever truly happy.
Hmm, i dunno about that. That smacks to me of retconning, and I really take issue with Golden’s portrayal of Kael (it is homophobic as hell–he acts like a stereotypical jilted woman, ugh, misogyny for the loss). I always parsed the ‘insult’ as Arthas being a little goober about the fact that Jaina liked him more. But I suppose you’re free to act as if the novels’ retroactive continuity was ~always~ a part of canon even though it absolutely wasn’t. 😉
So what I’m hearing is that at the end of MoP Garrosh and Jaina are going to fall in love.
I’m sure I’ve seen this fanart already on Tumblr.
As a long-time Jaina fan who twitches at some of the off-the-wall hate she gets, I love you forever for this.
Time to hook her up with a nice pandaren. They’re bears. They’re not jackasses like those hairless freaks she had to deal with so far.
Her history with relationships could totally be made into a sitcom.
“How I Met Your Father.”
That’s a bit of an over simplistic judgement. It’s really easy to say that her problems are the result of external factors, but did we never think that it was her lack of tact that caused problems for those men?
She sleeps with Arthas then won’t stop following him around long enough for him to breathe. She tells everyone that they’re getting married. Is it any surprise that he runs off to Northrend?
Thrall tries being nice to her, and her drama queen relationship with her dad ends up with him trying to Kill Thrall over it.
She has such daddy issues that she literally hires a guy to kill him. Daddy issues, much?
When she gets Pear Harbor’ed at Theramore, Rhonin dies to save her life. Is she grateful? Does she spend the next month or so caring for the family he left behind? No. She doesn’t even mention him as a reason she wants revenge. Because it’s all about her.
No wonder she didn’t like Kael’thas, he wasn’t in danger at the time, and Jaina’s obviously only attracted to danger and controversy. Kael knew it too. That’s probably why he decided to Join the Horde and start stealing beings of light.
NOTE: this was written to be humorous, or ironic, not to justify/place blame. I’m merely pointing out that motivations can sometimes be… wishy washy.
What’s wishy-washy about her? It seems like every time she stands up for herself and what she believes someone wants to smack her down for it (whether it’s actual other characters or dudebros reading about her). Then when she shows emotion/caring she gets mocked for it.
I realize you’re trying to be ‘humorous’ or ‘ironic’ but sometimes the line seems to blur between that and things said in seriousness. (And I’ve seen all of the above said in complete seriousness.) So I’m having a hard time figuring out what you’re saying in jest and what you aren’t, to support that ‘wishy-washy’ bit. :-/
I’ve just noticed over the years of playing that I can learn a *lot* about another WoW player by how they view Jaina (and why), sadly.
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7415246848/h5BFF5813/
@Redbeard: They all are. Heck, the Kael’thas “relationship” (airquotes because it’s basically entirely in Kael’s head) shows up in the Arthas novel.
Hey, at least she wasn’t involved with Illidan too. Not even in Illidan’s fevered imagination.
Well, that explains a lot. Note to self, avoid the books to preserve the in-game strong Jaina version.
Jaina’s not “weak” in the books, if anything she’s a bit “WTF” at Kael, and a bit Obi Wan at Arthas. “I loved you, but I can not stand beside you while you commit these evils!”
She’s kick ass. But she suffers from Janeway syndrome — too many writers interpreting things in different ways.
Wait, what’s the context on that Varian quote?
Early on in the Shattering novel, Varian & Jaina are having an argument about (I believe) Horde attacks or raids. I think Jaina’s stance is that they need to trust Thrall, and Varian lashes back with the quote in the comic. It might be paraphrased but that’s essentially what he said to her, tossing Arthas in her face and dismissing her opinions because of prior “poor judgement.”
Oh! That exchange, when the Sentinels come to them about the Night Elves being skinned, and hung with the Horde symbol, yes?
I believe at some point in there it explicitly says that Varian switches personalities from charming king to brutal gladiator and then says that, yes?
(As well as the fact that Thrall had done plenty to earn Varian’s ire, but that’s only tangentially related)
Yeah, there’s some mention of how Varian handles the argument like he would an arena fight, aggressive, playing dirty, being cold and ruthless.
And it’s sad too because at the beginning of the silly blasted comics he’s not at all such a goon. :I it’s only in novels, near the very end of the comic run, and in-game that he starts to act erratic. Indeed, in Wrath it’s clear they had no idea what they were doing with him!
His comic character up until he ‘fused’ with his other self was really cool! Badass without that annoying uncontrollable rage every other page. Lo’gosh was a great, interesting (albeit a tad one-dimensional, I suppose) character.
You know, you could look at that as a critique over her relationship with Arthas, or you could look at it as her judgement of Orcs in general. In the WC3 TFT bonus campaign she vouched for the New Horde under Thrall’s rule, and Orgrimmar exists because of her intervention. She judged them to be good enough to exist and be given a chance. In turn they brutally attacked and murdered their neighbors. Not everything about Jaina’s past is about Arthas.
But yeah, the entire Horde/Alliance conflict currently exists because Jaina thought she could trust all Orcs because of Thrall. Her disobedience and the subsequent murder of her father in an attempt to do what she thought was right only led to her city (which was composed largely of survivors from Lorderon when the Scourge plague first swept the land) being nuked. The city wasn’t razed and pillaged like in previous wars, it was just turned to dust and nearly everyone inside was killed.
None the less, the joke was cute, although you left out Kalecgos, and there was one other dude that she had been involved with, or at least it was implied, but I forget who. I thought Kalecgos treated her fairly well. Arthas technically treated her well too (thinking back to her introduction to her introduction in WC3 as well as the Arthas book), he never blamed her for leaving him at Stratholme. She on the other hand was quite clingy to him, even after he turned and became a death knight and then Lich King.
Kalecgos DOES treat her well! Which is great. And it unfortunately shines a really bright spotlight on how badly these other men have treated her, because Kalecgos is an immortal dragon, a former Aspect and one of the most powerful creatures on Azeroth, and he treats her like an intelligent person capable of making her own choices; i.e., as an equal.
Never really read many of the novels, but in game after Jaina expels the Sunreavers from Dalaran, Varian makes a remark to the tune of ‘Well, it is good to see her actually doing something for a change.’ (I doubt I quoted him verbatim, but it’s along those lines. I was a little surprised at the audacity.)
Really? I remember him whining to her about acting “too rashly” after what happened in Dalaran because (WITHOUT TELLING HER) he claimed he was trying to get the Blood Elves to leave the Horde.
Ah, so, we’re running on the assumption that Golden’s homophobic, gross portrayal of Kael was ALWAYS CANON? Dude, get out, I thought better of you. People glom onto his other-insults line on WC3 and use that to justify what’s basically “oh, oh, let’s treat the man whose race is joked about as being gaaaay like he’s a nasty harpy, that’s not gross and gender essentialist and homophobic at all, tee hee!” Spare me, y’all 😉 When I was playing thru that campaign back long before that tripey novel was a twinkle in Golden’s eye, it read to me clearly like Arthas was a little twerp about having “won” Jaina, and while it’s obnoxious for Kael to hold a grudge, he IS very angry at Arthas for good reason. Basically, Golden vilified Kael to make Arthas look better, and she isn’t a good writer.
Retcons are retcons. Don’t pretend they were always a part of the plot proper, kay? 😉 Until Knaak got ahold of Illidan he wasn’t ~just always a crazy jerk lulz lulz~, either, and do not get me started on how he handles Maiev!
tl;dr yeah, retcons are retcons, but it irritates me to see otherwise-clever people jumping on the Kael-is-a-bitch-lol bandwagon. I see enough stupid EWW GAY bollocks in-game and I don’t need to be seeing it out of game! 😉
If there’s one thing that drives me up the wall more than anything else, it’s the terribly prejudiced and harmful opinion that certain behavior implies homosexuality (or vice versa) – that only gay people are “allowed” to exhibit certain personality traits such as an attention to looking good, being flamboyant and/or effeminate, or in this case, holding a petty grudge over a romantic relationship.
There is absolutely nothing in this entire conversation or Kael’s dialogue that is a thinly veiled gay insult. Kael is a nobleborn elven prince from a nation of decadence. He’s used to getting what he wants, and he expects this to happen all the time. Rejection or not getting his way is absolutely foreign to him, and his reacting like a spoiled brat is SUPPOSED to be distasteful and invoke negative reactions in us. It’s also absolutely in-character. It’s a royal brat throwing a tantrum, not some egregious insult about his sexuality.
If you want to say that Golden took liberties with Kael’s character to advance Arthas’ characterization, and you don’t like it, then sure, okay. Or if you want to talk about retcons, have at it. But quit seeing “EWW GAY” insults where there are none, in characters that are simply displaying a broad range of emotional behavior and attitudes that – gasp! – are actually normal personality traits of actual, real-life people, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.
You can’t “claim” certain behaviors and label them as gay-only any more than you can label things as hetero-only. All people can like sports. All people can like to shop. All people can have poor fashion sense. And all people can hold snarky, petty grudges and make snippy comments about a love interest they felt should have been “theirs.”
Pretty sure you’re the only person here labeling Kael’s behavior as a homosexual stereotype.
I’m labeling it the stereotypical behavior of an immature straight man who feels entitled to women’s attention by virtue of his existence and can’t handle the idea that women are people who are allowed to make their own choices – which include rejecting potential romantic partners for pretty much any reason they please. Which includes “I’m not attracted to you.” Which Jaina wasn’t, and the Arthas book makes it clear why: he was literally hundreds of years older than her, he was not her peer in terms of political power or influence, and she found him impossible to relax around. Jaina could not relate to Kael’thas. Kael’s poor handling of his rejection only really proves that she made the right choice in rejecting him.
It’s really interesting to me that you seem to read Kael’thas’ acting like a child about being rejected romantically as an undermining of his narrative positioning as a straight man. The only thing his behavior undermines is his maturity. Pretty sure immature behavior is not limited to any single sexuality, and the fact that you associate it with homosexuality says more about your perceptions than it does about Golden’s writing.
Here’s the thing: you’re right that the fan base behaves in really homophobic ways toward blood elves in general. That isn’t actually Golden or Blizzard’s fault. That’s the fault of individuals who have internalized the idea that straight men can’t be vain about their appearance, or wear their hair long, or be concerned with the decoration of their space, or whatever. That fan attitude says A LOT about how the rest of us apply labels to human behaviors. As Rades says, none of these behaviors are intrinsic to a sexuality. The only behaviors that indicate sexuality are sexual behaviors, and even then it’s muddled and fluid (know anyone who was, say, in a straight marriage for years only to realize they were gay? yeah, it happens.) For the record: Blizzard does fan the flames of this perception in a way I find extremely distasteful, unfortunately.
But ultimately, here’s the thing: by deciding that Kael’s emotional behaviors clearly code him as gay, you’re the one being gender essentialist by denying that men of all sexualities are capable of displaying the full range of [human] behaviors. Think about it.
I feel like there may have been a misunderstanding here.
(Er, Hali, if you’re still around, please correct me if I’m wrong. And I’m sorry if I end up making things worse by jumping into the middle of this. My need to Share All the Info with people can make me a real busybody sometimes.)
Some Kael fans view him as bisexual rather than straight (or gay), and have been doing so since long before RotLK came out. Rather than interpreting his “immature behavior�? as a sign of queerness, I think it was a matter of seeing the character as queer (based on certain aspects of his relationship with Illidan) in WC3, and then reading his subsequent descent into villainy as homophobia-based derailment. They also choose not to count the Arthas novel as canon because they see it as retroactive vilification to justify Kael becoming a raid boss.
To be clear, I’m not saying that I agree with this. If you remember my old blog comments, Lani, I’ve made it pretty clear that my views are much closer to yours. I’m more of a Silvermoon trio fan than a Kael fan, and I generally like Christie Golden’s work, though I could have done without the Nice Guy Kael portrayal. But I do think you guys were off base in assuming Halimede was straight and implying they were homophobic, though I can why you interpreted the comment that way. I just have the extra context of…well, stalking everyone in the fandom until their views are familiar to me. 😉
So, where did the Thrall quote come from? I must be missing something.
It’s from Tides of War. He doesn’t phrase it quite that bluntly, but his message is essentially “I’m really happy ever since I hooked up with Aggra, so you should settle down with a guy too!”
I’d need to actually read the conversation… but what you just said (Rades) is a hell of a lot less sexist than how it comes off in the comic just now (the comic that i love <3). Put the most recent way, it comes off as "Love is awesome! Try it!" … which is tacky but not as bad as "women need men (but not vice versa)." … but it could also imply that she isn't complete without love… but that would imply *he* wasn't complete without love… point is, being told to make babies and do nothing else is insulting (which is what is implied with the "you need a husband" remark), especially to a MAGE and a LEADER. "Find Somebody To Love" is less so. However… other people who voraciously defend their single-hood might view that comment in the same light as I view "you need a husband"! I'm a believer in love, and that everyone needs love and people to love– romantically, not-romantically… at all…
— Note Bene: I love your comics and art style 😀 I've been reading since the lost ring comic(s).
–Male Vanity is so a thing, it's awesome… I'm a student of history and it is… really cool to see how men express themselves through fashion. BEs being all vain just makes me think of places like 18th century France, or metrosexuals. After all, every girl's crazy about a sharp-dressed man!
His comment in the book can definitely be interpreted many ways. I’ve heard people react with anger because Thrall’s supposed “solution” was A MAN, but I’ve also heard people say that no, it’s fine, because it wasn’t specifically a man so much as it was a spouse. Either way, there is of course the other idea that some people don’t necessarily WANT a spouse as a way to make themselves happy, or that marriage is a magical solution, but that’s getting into a completely different issue!
Personally? I feel that people are certainly justified in feeling a little annoyed at Thrall’s comments, but at the same time, I think this is a good thing. Even if his advice isn’t perfect or isn’t necessarily the most PR, that’s okay – because it’s Thrall speaking, not Blizzard. THRALL is not perfect, and at his core, he’s a pretty simple person. If his good friend is feeling down, he probably would just tell her – with nothing but good intentions – that what has made him truly happy is marriage. Now Jaina (and us) might roll her eyes, might give him a “seriously, that’s your big ‘advice’ for me?” etc, but hey, that’s earnest, honest Thrall for you.
Anyway, it’s a very mixed message, but you’re absolutely right, it’s been exaggerated a tad in the strip. 😉 By itself, it wouldn’t have been strong enough to carry the joke, but it fit nicely when added to the other guys’ comments.
Also, Garrosh going after Theramore was a dumb tactical decision… he should have kicked all the little stuff out first… but maybe that’s just the game’s weird way of moving through time… after all, we go thru over and over defeating the same bosses in instances, quest areas reset, and stuff that happened years ago and is over is still happening ‘today(?)’… i feel like everything is in its’ own time bubble…
He did. He took out Northwatch and Fort Triumph first in the book. The Alliance recaptured them.