LOPAS: lightandwinged: cyborgpaladin: Oh look, it’s a rant about Koltira…
Oh look, it’s a rant about Koltira Deathweaver! And Thassarian. And death knights in general. And the whole Horde/Alliance war. And the greater WoW metagame.
Let’s just say I got a bit sidetracked.
I love this so very hard. Far more eloquent than I’ve ever been on the subject, so many kudos to you.
Gonna toss something in on this myself: that I agree with the sentiment that the Ebon Blade is supposed to be “above” the bickering of Horde vs. Alliance. What you were and those loyalties remain mostly in life, and so you should question what reason a member of the Blade would have to kill their own brothers and sisters for the sake of the counter-productive war-games of the living. It wasn’t as if after the Lich King was defeated, the Highlord said “OK guys we won we’re closing down Acherus, go back to your previous lives”. They’re all still death knights and there still are greater threats out there in many kinds; including Sylvanas, one near and dear to the Ebon Blade’s black heart.
Even for a Forsaken death knight, seeing your queen raising fresh undead, others to suffer like you, must be repugnant. This being above and beyond the fact your Queen has taken one of your siblings by force for reconditioning, as an affront to your identity as a member of the Ebon Blade, what it stands for, and the bonds you formed there. By brainwashing Koltira, she is essentially saying all of that is worthless; your personality and heart are worthless — just like the Lich King.
As a DK you were sent as an ambassador to the Horde or Alliance.
As Darion says in his letter, you are a “former hero of”, and makes sure you are linked to the Ebon Blade throughout the letter — that by accepting you, Garrosh/Varian accepts the Ebon Blade. That by denying you, they deny both. A death knight can try to assimilate back into the Alliance or Horde in some ways, but the fact remains that should the Highlord ever call, most will remember their true loyalties.
This. So hard this. I remember a while back seeing a post where some group of people had decided to hash out “The definitive deathknight lore” and it had a lot of things I don’t necessarily agree with, one of which was “You are sworn to either the alliance or the horde. You are not neutral.” Ignoring that *anyone* can refuse to take sides in the conflict, a death knight’s primary membership, for the reasons stated above, is to a neutral organization.
Like Thassarian himself says, “In death we are brothers.”