Welcome to the third and final instalment in this series, where I look at the jerks of Warcraft who go around masquerading as ‘really nice guys’. My apologies for getting this post out a little later than planned. You see I could have just gone after my nemesis and been done with it, but instead I decided to hold a massive tournament, for no real tactical benefit, and basically just to waste people’s lives in a crude effort to show how great I am. Oh wait, that wasn’t me, that’s this week’s target of my unbridled scorn and derision: Tirion ‘I’ve got a shiny sword’ Fordring.
Despite my hatred for Med’an and A’dal, of all the characters in Warcraft it’s Fordring who gets on my nerves the most. The reasons for this are long and convoluted. The principal and most obvious one is that, like A’dal, he makes such a big song and dance about what a virtuous awesome guy he is. Pretty much every time Tirion turns up he starts going on about the Light and how wonderful it is. What he’s really saying there is “I’m awesome, because I worship the Light, which is awesome.” It’s a classic case of deep insecurity; Tirion knows he’s worthless so he latches onto something big and impressive like the Light, and takes all the credit for it. Because let’s face it, Tirion is pretty rubbish. I mean what does he actually do, beside make big speeches? I mean he’s got the most powerful sword ever made, but he never actually does anything with it. He just waves it around making big monologues about his enemies and their inevitable defeat (by the way, serious monologuing is a classic sign of being a villain, not a hero). In all probability, he doesn’t even know how to fight. Have you ever actually seen him take anyone on with that sword?
Tirion knows he’s a failure and has gone to great showy lengths to hide it. In a way, we can’t blame totally blame him for his feelings of inadequacy. I mean, this is what he looked like back in vanilla:
Yikes! I mean essentially Tirion used to be a hobo. He tries to explain this away with some half-baked quest-giver backstory, but we know the truth. Unfortunately, over the years Tirion managed to concoct a plan to improve his image, and sadly its worked, to the detriment of the hundreds if not thousands of people who have died in his service. The first part of this plan was to get some phat loot, something to really impress people with. Of course with no fighting skills, he had no idea how to get such an item. So he rallied a bunch of dejected paladins together, and hung around with them hoping something would turn up. Luckily for him, the place he chose to bum around at was Light’s Hope Chapel and when the Lich King struck, Tirion got the biggest break of his life. For whatever misguided reason (probably desperation), Darion Morgraine throws the corrupted sword Ashbringer to Tirion. Using the Light Tirion purifies the sword and gets his big break.
Ok, a quick interlude here whilst I mention something. Purifying Ashbringer is the ONLY impressive thing Tirion has ever done. It’s also a completely awful piece of storytelling in an otherwise awesome gaming experience, because it simply makes no sense. Ashbringer is powered by a crystal which magnifies powers both dark and light energies, and originally became imbued with holy power from multiple paladins and priests spamming it with a ton of Light-based spells. So how the hell does Tirion do the same thing simply by grabbing the hilt of the sword? Is he really that incredibly in touch with the Light? It’s complete Mary Sue bollocks that is best left to Med’an.
So back to the story. Having lucked out in the extreme, Tirion goes nuts on the advertising and decides to portray himself as the biggest hero ever. Sadly, everyone is really desperate to kill the Lich King so they go with it. I say sadly because Tirion really sucks at any kind of leadership. His strategy effectively boils down to one simple principle: trust in the Light. Now that may sound good but as a military stratagem it’s a little wanting, and that’s when Argent Crusders started dying. Essentially it’s the players who carry Tirion’s forces through Icecrown, constantly making up for his mistakes. Darion Morgraine tries to advise him, but Tirion rejects the advice of the guy who knows exactly how the Lich King thinks and instead mumbles something about honour and hopes for the best.
Once forces start moving up into Icecrown, Tirion’s next brilliant idea is to have a great big slaughter tournament to weed out anyone who is not up to the task of taking on the Lich King. As mentioned above, the whole point of this exercise seems mostly to be about making himself looks good. It certainly served no military purpose, in fact it was moronic. I was certain during Patch 3.2 that it was going to be revealed that Tirion was working for the Lich King, because he was essentially buggering up the whole war effort. This guy invested huge amounts of military resources into making a contest where his soldiers killed each other in order to prove their worth to him. The Light works in mysterious ways.
That’s not even the best part either. As the tournament goes on he acts increasingly like a complete idiot. Take for instance, giving permission for the Alliance and Horde champions to fight to the death, and then admonishing them afterwards because now their forces are weaker as a whole. Hypocritical much? You gave them the go-ahead Tirion, are you so dense that it only occurred to you afterwards that it was a bad idea to have your own people kill each other? Oh and then there’s my favourite bit, where the Lich King turns up. Tirion attempts to persuade Arthas to surrender using these amazing words:
Lay down Frostmourne and I will grant you a just death.
Can I just say now, in case I’m taken hostage or something, I specifically do NOT want Tirion negotiating my release. He says these words like he seriously expects the Lich King to go “OK then, as long as I get a just death, I’ll give up!” Again, it’s only due to the heroic actions of us, the players, who stopped Tirion making this whole thing into a complete disaster. Similarly, we did all the work in Icecrown, whilst he spent the whole time sitting around in the basement. Then he spent the whole of the final battle trapped in a block of ice, only to jump out at the last second and claim all the glory, little attention-whore that he is. Can I also just point out that by this point, Tirion had decided to further try and distract people from his many faults by taking some kind of magical growth hormone, so that he towered over everyone else. I wonder what he was compensating for there?
Thankfully we probably won’t see Tirion after this expansion, mostly because I’d be amazed if he could find his way back out of Northrend. Although if he does I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to make some kind of Cataclysm cameo. Maybe he’ll turn up to wave his sword around and make a speech before we fight Deathwing. Or maybe if we’re lucky he’ll trip over his own stupid ego and fall into a pit of lava, because I really cannot express how much I want him dead.
tbh I would have liked a post about rhonin, but after reading the post i gotta agree, the worst thing I hate about tirion is the fountain in dalaran with him standing on top as the hero, he was just in self centered bastard camping the plaguelands for arthas to arrive just so he could steal the spotlight
and about him being large… well you should probably just be making a post about the fact that every monster since vanilla has been multisized just to make em seem more powerfull (and i mean really every mob)
altogether good series of posts wulf 🙂
Whilst I agree this all is mostly true, the original (read: preWoW) lore describes him suprisingly in a different way. Lore shows Tirion as a just man, who always does what he feels is right no matter the consequences. Also, he is described as someone who never strived for glory.
Although I agree WotLK really failed at showing this, it can change your opinion if you look on Tirion as on someone who lost everything he ever had (even his family) and was outcast by the paladin Silver hand order because of doing the right thing to do (Helping a guiltless orc – The Silver Hand order, though led by Paladins, was a military organization – it wasn’t feasible sympatize with the Horde after the Second War). You may then realize that the story tells us that Tirion, after years of unsuccessful trying to do something against the Scourge finally gets the chance to do the thing that had to be done and doesn’t want to miss the chance, not that Tirion – some crazy unvalued former Paladin – grabs the chance to make himself a star.
I understand the article is ironical, yet it’s a good idea to read something about the background: http://www.wowwiki.com/Tirion_Fordring#Eitrigg_incident
I generally like Tirion – enough at least. But admittedly when it comes to the Lich King fight he feels completely useless. Like, really? You have the Lightbringer and you can’t even get out of a friggin’ ice block??
I hadn’t really formed an opinion of Tirion one way or the other, simply because I didn’t know his story. Now, surely your retelling of him is biased (clearly, haha) but I can’t really say that your reasons are baseless either. Puffed up cocky guys who are all talk and no action don’t deserve praise and slavish devotion!
I have to say I agree with you – I always thought Tirion was a bit of an idiot. Every time he starts blathering on with speeches, I get an attack of the yawns. Less talk more action, I say!
You forgot his lisp. I can’t take him seriously everytime I hear him talk about the “Beathsth Of Northrend”
Tirion is the guy who threw away his lordship, his position as a paladin of the silver hand (He was excommunicated, which is the worst punishment you can bestow on a paladin), banished from Alliance lands and lost his family simply for the sake of keeping a promise to an Orc that everyone wanted dead.
He’s also the guy who sends you on a quest to redeem his wayward son from the position as a Highlord in the Scarlet Crusade. And just after you convince his son and he reunites with Tirion, his son is killed by another leader of the Scarlet Crusade. Right in front of Tirion.
Tirion was a man who lost everything a man could lose for the sake of honor and to do what was right. There’s no paladin on Azeroth I would be willing to follow more. 😦
“I need you to know that what, I did for honor’s sake. Honor is an important part of what makes us men, Taelan. Our words and deeds must count for something in this world.”
Sssh! Details like this ruin a good rant! 😉
I will concede that Tirion was a well-written interesting character back in vanilla WoW. Unfortunately since then he has been rewritten into a complete moron, hence the hate.
He never came off as a moron to me. Just frustrated. He wants everyone to work together against the Lich King, but all the Horde and Alliance want to do is bicker and fight. Seriously, 9/10ths of the faction quests in Icecrown is about getting back at the other faction. The Ebon Blade and the Argent Crusade are the only one’s making headway because the others are fighting.
So the Crusade throws a tournament, cause if they want to fight, let’s do it with jousts and competition that doesn’t end up with people dead. In the meantime, let’s gather every money grubbing fighter and faction loyalist and put them through the paces to figure out who is the strongest. In the meantime, we’ll assault the citadel, strike down the Cult of the Damned, and try to create enough of an opening to strike down.
Oddly enough, it works. They’re able to press through the lich king’s forces, with a group of heroes and break through the defenses of Icecrown Citadel. No thanks to Garrosh and Varian, who are still bickering about how they don’t need the other to get this done.
He’s a grizzled old teacher who is pulling his hair out at the annoying brats that are the horde and the alliance while he’s trying to pull off the big field trip. 😀
You’re free to think that Tirion is a moron. I’m free to think that Garrosh is exactly what the Horde needs in a Warchief to survive the Cataclysm. I just wanted to give the one character that can move me to tears a bit of a defense. 😛
The thing is Vrykerion, I can see your point of view, but in-game I haven’t really seen this wiser grizzled man. If he doesn’t want the Horde and Alliance killing each other, then he shouldn’t let them fight. Just tell Wrynn to shut up when he challenges the Horde, because that’s not what they’re there for.
Plus people do *die* at the Argent Tournament. Whilst “heroes” like Eadric are allowed to stop the fight when they want, all the lower ranking Argent Crusade fighters get minced. In the 5-man we actually have to *trample* the enemy champions with our horses to stop them getting up. This is no friendly joust!
Anyway, as you say, each to their own, I’m glad that you defend the characters you like. I’d do the same! 🙂
You can’t stop the Horde and Alliance from killing each other. Yogg-Saron couldn’t do it, the Lich King couldn’t do, I doubt very much either would care much for Tirion’s say or his rule in the matter at this point. Though I admit, I do wish he’d just plant the Ashbringer in the ground and yell “ENOUGH!” at some point. Discipline those brats.
As for the people “dying” at the Tournament. It’s important not to confuse game mechanics with lore. Or else you end up with things like “Well why doesn’t Tirion just rez his son?” or “Why didn’t Lo’Gosh just hearth back to Stormwind?”. We knock down the champions getting back up, we knock the fighters unconscious, but if they don’t die, how do we loot the trash?
I can see what you’re saying and why you would see it that way, but I think I’m just approaching the whole thing from an entirely different angle than you are. Oh well! Still, without different opinions how would we ever grow? Good talk Wulfy, as always! 😀
I loved Tiron in Vanilla. I loved doing the quests for him and cried when his son died. I loved reading his story about honoring a promise made to an old Orc.
What I didn’t like was seeing him in this expac. For all the reasons you’ve listed. It seemed like such a waste of resources and people to put on a Tourney. And then his attitude started to grate on me. The character I loved was gone and instead I found myself loathing this “giant”. Sad really.
As someone who usually plays Paladin-like characters in any rpg, I have to say that Tirion should go jump off of Icecrown Citadel. To further your point with the tournament, he let an under-geared Gnome summon a demon (which, to be fair, wasn’t supposed to be an Eredar lord). I thought that this was against the Argent Dawn/Crusade’s principles.
What’s worse is how he lets people die (as you’ve said so many times in your rant) in his tournament. Why would you let people that are working towards the same goal as you die in a tournament designed to bring people closer together?
I am grateful to tirion for one thing and one thing only, the fact that he can kill arthas when he gets down to 10% HP and i can go make a nice cup of tea and a sandwich while he does it, other than that he can shove his thousands suns up his ass where they won’t shine so brightly anymore.
Totally disagree on all levels.
Funny as to read though :).