nagaina

http://toomanyannas.com/feature/rp-friday-five-leadership/

• Does your character approve of his/her racial leader?

Solivar's feelings on this matter are complicated and unlikely to get simple any time soon. For one thing, he missed most of the political developments in Quel'Thalas over the last decade by virtue of being the loyal undead mook of the despoiler of his homeland. As a consequence...he doesn't really consider himself a blood elf. Oh, he's down with the whole cultural reorientation for the purpose of pursuing justice against the slayer of 80% of Quel'Thalas' population -- himself included -- and understands the urge toward Retribution at a spiritual/religious level; after all, the inherent righteousness of that cause is built into the very concept of paladinhood, though he did not personally follow that path. The horking down demon hooch to assuage arcane addiction bit on the other hand? He's not so understanding of that, and particularly thinks that the whole "We were deceived by our treacherous prince, it wasn't our fault!" thing. Really, Quel'Thalas? REALLY? The culture that first thought up the idea of the Council of Tirisfal to protect the world from the Burning Legion, the culture that deliberately built magical defenses to conceal the existence of the Sunwell from the Burning Legion, the second-most inherently arcane society in the history of the world, didn't know what it was getting into when it started sucking down demon magic like water on a hot summer day? REALLY? He tends to believe that there was less 'deception' than 'willful blindness' at work there. He is consequently extremely disappointed in his people at multiple levels, though he believes that individual leaders within the whole tottering edifice of government may well be trying to do the right thing. He's not entirely convinced that Lor'themar Theron is one of them. On the other, high elven hand, he's also really not convinced that Vereesa Windrunner's method of dealing with the situation is that much better. When your race has been driven to the brink of extinction, preferring to perpetuate an internicine conflict for personal reasons over any possibility of reconciliation is, at best, short sighted. In effect, he feels that neither side in the Quel'dorei/Sin'dorei split is wholly right or wholly wrong given the horrible circumstances surrounding the origin of the situation and, given the stiff-necked self-righteousness inherent in the elven character, Vereesa and Lor'themar will admit that both halves of the elven nation have more in common with each other than they ever will with anyone else slightly after the world ends.

• Does he/she approve of the faction leader (for now, let’s say that’s Warchief Thrall and King Varian Wrynn)? If you’re a Human or an Orc, how does your character feel about other people in leadership of your faction (since you answered this question with the racial one). If they have a favorable impression, what does your character like about these leaders?  If not, who would he or she prefer to see in their place?

Now...here's where things start getting really quite hairy for him. Before he died, Solivar was a proud and committed son of the Alliance -- was actually on the side of the Quel'dorei faction that objected to Quel'Thalas' decision to withdraw from the Alliance, and agitated against it once he was able to do so. He prioritized his service to the Alliance through the Order of the Silver Hand above every other political allegiance and personal loyalty, excepting only his bond with his estranged brother and his relationship with Keldris, and when he swore his vows as a paladin, he absolutely meant every word. And when these things were all true, Thrall, son of Durotan, was not yet the visionary young Warchief of the reborn, redeemed Horde. He was a dangerous orc revolutionary, trained in his skills by a would-be traitor, who was leading a general uprising among the free orcish tribes of Alterac and among the pacified orcish tribes of the Lordaeran internment camps, essentially the target of every Alliance military objective in the days before the outbreak of the Plague of Undeath and the subsequent Third War. It is therefore a matter of not inconsiderable cognitive dissonance for him that he actually does find Thrall to be an intelligent, thoughtful, level-headed, and, yes, visionary leader. Not only that, but he finds Thrall to be a better, more honorable and compassionate person than the vast majority of the pre-War Quel'dorei nobility and an unfortunately large percentage of the pre-War Silver Hand. He wants to believe in Thrall's vision of a world in which the Horde and the Alliance have come to a just, honorable, and genuine peace -- he also wishes that desiring this didn't feel like yet another betrayal of everything he once swore to defend.

By way of contrast, he feels that he should be far, far more loyal to Varian Wrynn than he'll ever actually be allowed to be. His trip to Stormwind with Keldris taught him several very important things: the King of Stormwind is driven as much by the desire to protect his people as he is by his own personal demons; the Alliance and the Horde are, underneath it all, not that much different from one another in either strengths or faults; and he, personally, cannot invest his whole and entire loyalty with either side. Even if he wanted it, the Alliance wouldn't have him -- he is, from their perspective, at least three sorts of untrustworthy traitor already -- and embracing the freely offered brotherhood of the Horde would practically constitute a final betrayal of the last lingering remnants of his loyalty to the Alliance itself.

And then there's the matter of the Ebon Blade.

In way, Solivar's feelings about the Ebon Blade and how everything has been falling out thus far are even more chewed up than his feelings about the Alliance and the Horde -- because the what has happened with the Ebon Blade is so much more personal than any matter of simple political allegience could possibly be. The Brotherhood of the Ebon Blade was, before Light's Hope Chapel, just that: a brotherhood of sworn comrades-in-arms, as close as Arthas' malice and cruelty could come to precisely recreating the Order of the Silver Hand in undead form, loyal to their murderous tyrant king by irresistable compulsion, yes, but also loyal to death and beyond to ONE ANOTHER. Some elements of the Ebon Blade are trying to hold onto that bond as best they can...but some are more than willing to split apart along factional lines, along faults of race and identity that have nothing to do with what they became during their enslavement to the Scourge. Solivar doesn't blame the ones who want to go for going -- if he felt he had anywhere to turn beyond the Ebon Blade itself he might be one of them, after all -- but at the same time he misses fiercely that sense of brotherhood, of knowing that the comrade at your side would kill or die for you, and he wants that feeling back. At some points, he thinks that the Ebon Watcher misses that bond, too; at others, he thinks Darion Mograine wants to die for good and forever at least as much as he does and is simply looking for an honorable, self-sacrificial opportunity. He's...not entirely sure how he feels about that. On the one hand, Darion has more than earned a chance at redemption. On the other...he has known Darion since he was a child -- a child bereft of his mother, not so unlike himself, who wanted more than anything to be worthy of his father's love, a child he cared for very deeply and wanted very much to protect, a child who sacrificed his life in an act of pure devotion and had that sacrifice twisted into horrific slavery. Yes, he thinks Darion deserves all the peace the world can give him. He's just not sure he can bring himself to not act if it comes to that. He cannot stop seeing the child that Darion was in the man he has become, death knight or not.

• Who is the best leader that your character remembers?  Is that person actually a racial/faction leader, or were they a leader of a smaller group?

Alexandros Mograine, both living and undead. He would rather die horribly again than admit that last bit out loud to anyone, but it's true.

• What is your character’s leadership style?  Is he/she a good leader?  A bad one?

Solivar is a graduate of the Far More Dangerous Than He Looks School of Tactical and Strategic Brilliance, having been devoured by a first-rate library on military theory as a small child and further trained in the practical applications by his novitiate with the Silver Hand. He never really got to prove it while he was alive but, as a death knight? In an organization -- which is to say, the Scourge -- top-loaded with General Rippers and Axe Crazy Blood Knights, he was the The Chessmaster/Stretegist Magnificent Bastard small-unit commander with a side order of One Man Army, capable of keeping four of the Axe Craziest third generation death knights firmly at heel as his insanely loyal wingmen while dishing out schemes, plots, and military actions of perfectly breathtaking viciousness. Kalvarin Eventide regrets not killing him and leaving him dead with the painfully acute knowledge that he's probably made the instrument of his own demise in the form of a creature at least as cold, brilliant, and deadly as himself.