Khadgar. Dear, sweet old Khadgar (who’s really not even that old, btw!). The man who has been at the helm of our operations for years now after randomly reappearing in Stormwind telling you to meet him in the Blasted Lands back at the start of WoD.
You were excited when you saw him, weren’t you? If you knew who he was in lore, previous games, events, etc., then you knew you were about to spend time chilling with one of Azeroth’s most iconic figures. You were even more excited to know that he was going to create for you a ring of immeasurable power that you could use to defend your world against the Time/Space Horde.
If you didn’t know who Khadgar was yet because you were still a MoP baby, like me, you wondered who dis old guy in the badass robes was. And, you wondered why everyone seemed to be so excited to see him. But, much like your in-the-know fellow players, his words moved you to action, and you were excited to get that ring.
You followed Khadgar blindly through the portal because he clearly had the means and ideas to save Azeroth. Khadgar was a genius. And you knew that whatever work he asked you to do would be important work. So you played on, and you’ve played on for many years, with perhaps a bit of growing consternation. Which brings us to the present. After so many years spent fighting the Iron Horde and now the return of the
Legion, you can assume that your character and Khadgar have become close. I mean, he’s nearly killed you at least three times now, and you’ve saved his life at least once (so like, that makes sense, right?). You’ve gone to numerous worlds together, and you’ve saved countless lives. But when was the turning point exactly that made it OK for Khadgar to be cracking puns at you while he pats you on the head and sends you back out onto the Broken Shore to face down a hurricane of demons on your own? Why… why does he gotta be like that?
Don’t get me wrong, I give a chuckle-groan each time I hear his Dad jokes for the first time. But then, as I’m out there at the same WQ point for the 700th time, and he’s still making the same stupid joke (of course this is obviously just a matter of game writing/mechanics), I sometimes wonder, as I think a lot of us do, just why the hell any of us are putting up with him anymore, and why we don’t suggest he just joins us on our next weekend fishing trip instead.
Titans love you, Khadgar, but you are a menace: an adorable, well-meaning, and seemingly accidentally genius menace. The fact he somehow manages to show up at every major plot point and give his two cents all the while demanding an increasing amount of resources for whatever miraculously viable new scheme he’s recently hatched is actually somewhat unnerving. It’s common enough now, since the first time that he nearly smote Den as he created her ring… that Dadgar treads a very fine line of genius/lucky goofball. If he had agreed to take up the role of Guardian, I believe we actually might have been able to free ourselves from the threat of the Legion a lot earlier. I can imagine Sargeras coming to Azeroth and and Khaddydaddy just punning him endlessy until the fallen Titan simply gives up and leaves, grumbling to himself about “what is this wicked sorcery” as he returns to the Twisthing Nether (What’s wrong, Sargeras? Something really seems to have you burning up…. If you want to destroy this world, you’ll have to have a much better demon-stration of power…).
But, isn’t this why we all love Khadgar so much? And presumably this is why our heroes keep him around. Surely everyone in our circle has headaches from the eye-rolling he initiates. But I guess there’s that one guy in every party that somehow makes gold from dirt, most of the time without even knowing it. And let’s be real folks, while Medivh was powerful and serious, even if he had not been possessed by Sargeras, I would still be glad to have lived in the age of Khadgar as Guardian rather than he. It’s probably safe to assume that a lovable nut like Bhadgar probably only wants half the baubles and shinies that Medivh would have asked for. I’m willing to trade puns for another 2,000 nethershards any day.
Denaise SunChaser 