Many think that Pandaria in World of Warcraft is cute and cuddly. However, this is not true – the quests can be truly brutal.
In Pandaria, I leveled up many dozens of times. The first time I was attentive, but with later twinks, I switched to mental autopilot, skimmed through quests, and skipped cutscenes. I just wanted to level up quickly.
But now, with WoW Remix: Mists of Pandaria, I took the time to enjoy all the quests again with full attention and replayed the story completely after almost 12 years.
During that, I noticed: Mists of Pandaria had some of the darkest and most evil stories that ever existed in World of Warcraft.
I still remembered that things in Pandaria are not as gentle and cute as some like to claim. Many think that Pandaria was the “Kung Fu Panda” expansion, featuring the inappropriately cute Pandaren who do not fit into Warcraft at all – even though they appeared in Warcraft 3.
The Massacre of Drowning Orcs
One of the worst scenes of the expansion takes place relatively early. The Alliance launches an air strike on a Horde outpost. That’s not too wild so far. Later, they sink enemy ships and then also clear the ground troops out of the way.
But in a small sequence, a pretty cruel act comes to light – which would be quite a serious war crime in the real world.
Drowning orcs try to save themselves from the sunken ships and swim to shore. They are on the verge of drowning and have obviously surrendered.
However, for Alliance Admiral Rogers, that is no reason to show the orcs any mercy. The orcs are shot in the fire of rifles even while swimming, and the sea turns red with their blood.
I had to take a deep breath – that was unexpectedly brutal, and I had somehow blocked out that the campaign in Pandaria begins with such a horrific act in recent years.
Sure, one has to give the leaders of the Alliance some credit that their decisions were probably not made in complete clarity. Because in the next moment, we are confronted with the real enemy in Pandaria, the Sha. They infest the inhabitants and amplify their emotions – such as fear or hate. This quickly turns empathetic, compassionate beings into anger-filled killers.
Nevertheless, the mowing down of surrendering enemies who are struggling to swim for their lives is a profoundly dark act that gives a good taste of how grim the quests in Pandaria are.
Locals Are Manipulated and Turned into Weapons
But the Jade Forest remains quite dark. Because when you look at what the Horde and Alliance are doing, it is actually extremely reprehensible. While the Horde consumes the monkey-like Hozen, the Alliance helps the Jinyu. In both cases, the locals are subsequently used as “cannon fodder” to be pitted against each other in a large battle.
Breaking it down to “We come into a foreign land, force the locals into our conflict, and immediately use them on the front for our war” suddenly gives it a very dark touch.
So if you don’t have a particularly urgent schedule, take the time for the quests. Both the texts and the dialogues of the NPCs, which they often conduct while speedy players have already sprinted off, are interesting. Especially the missions surrounding the Klaxxi are intriguing and could also play a bigger role in The War Within. I had blocked out the revelation at the very end of the campaign. Also, the cleansing
that Jaina conducts in Dalaran has a very sinister undertone and was one of our 5 most brutal WoW quests of all time.
How do you experience the story of Pandaria? Are you there for the first time?
