Comments

Comment by Secundus

Kaelynara,

It is with some regret that I must inform you that I am relieving you of your duties as my apprentice. I blame myself for being mistaken of your potential: I hope you can understand that even the most talented of mages sometimes make mistakes. At least now you can put your ineptitude behind you and pursue a reasonable goal. Perhaps basket weaving may prove more suitable for your...talents.

Unfortunately I do not associate myself with any basket weavers specifically and am too busy to write you a recommendation. Please return to Azeroth at your soonest convenience.

- Astalor

Comment by LanceofAbel

Wow. I don't know what she did to screw up such that you annulled her apprenticeship, but this letter is just so... words fail me. I wondered what could drive someone to try draining magic from a big crystal mine with such little regard for the consequences and now I know.

Nice job, Astalor; this is all on you. If you had shown just a little more decency or tolerance, the events of Jorune Mine would never have happened. Instead, your former apprentice is dead, a bunch of draenei miners are out of job and an entire mine is now out of commission until further notice. Wherever you are, I hope you can live with that.

Comment by Phyrexias

This letter still doesn't excuse what Kaelynara did, but it does help give some perspective.

Astalor is a major D-bag

Comment by Kuipo

This doesn't seem to be part of any quest and can be safely deleted once you're done reading it's sad, sad contents.

Comment by Leronroll

This entire incident is 100% on Alastor - consider the wording of the letter and the context:

His statement, in paraphrase:

"I overestimated your aptitude, but even I can occasionally make the mistake of thinking someone like you has some spark of potential. Despite the fate of the world hanging in the balance, I feel you should do something useless with your life. Also, rather than direct you to alternate / remedial studies or a legitimate alternate career path or alternate tutor, I'm not going to write any recommendation for you - though I can still be bothered to talk about my awesomeness in this letter."

Now, while we don't have the details of the incident that resulted in her dismissal, we do have the context of the letter and the followup incident in the mines, and can make a reliable hypothesis based off of it:

Apprentice evidently made some screw-up, probably a magic experiment gone awry that resulted in the destruction of a laboratory or damaging of equipment. Presumably, the incident didn't involve deaths or severe injury as such an incident probably would not have resulted in dismissal specifically via written letter.

Evidently, however, the apprentice was able to obtain control of a crystal and cause a significant issue in the mine - and if that were possible, than either A) her dismissal was unwarranted and she simply needed better training and education, or B) her dismissal was warranted but was handled recklessly by Alastor, who saw fit to lace cruelty into his dismissal of someone who, based on the tear-stains, clearly took it very emotionally, and was quite capable of causing a major disturbance due to their own ensuing recklessness.

While my WoW lore knowledge is sketchy at best, I'd guess the student was in her late teens or was a young adult (or whatever the blood elf equivalent in terms of years and maturation is).

If we lived in a world where some teens or young adults (or those in an equivalent emotional or psychological state) have an inherent capability of large amounts of destruction, it would behoove us to culturally value educating them seriously and teaching them to manage their abilities with the utmost responsibility; an educator whom failed miserably in this goal and made a habit of cruelly dismissing emotionally-vulnerable young-adults that are still struggling (and still quite capable of vast amounts of property damage or worse) and provoking them into a state of recklessness resulting in major incident, would clearly indicate such a "teacher" was not fit to have any "apprentice" of any aptitude.

Unless I am misunderstanding Belf cultural definitions and an "apprentice" magister (or magistrix in this case) is a job one can be fired from easily and commonly, rather than a form of education / tutoring, this scenario rolls back to Alastor's ineptitude - either the dismissal was warranted and Alastor decided to do it cruelly and carelessly, provoking a vulnerable young-adult into an emotion-driven quest for power and control, or it wasn't warranted but Alastor simply lacked the capability to provide the needed guidance, and decided to get rid of the apprentice and deny any references (presumably damaging re-education options).

In either case, this scenario was caused directly by Alastor.

When dealing with wayward psychics that are young and vulnerable, capable of summoning demons (and being tempted by them), destroying entire buildings, or otherwise creating exorbitant amounts of destruction from even otherwise-mundane accidents, such persons would need to be educated with much greater care than was given in this case, and when removed from a path of study / career path, removed in a more gentle, responsible, and substantially less cruel manner.

Far as I'm concerned Alastor shouldn't be teaching anyone. Perhaps I'm lacking in Belf lore and making an error in correct cultural definitions, or it's simply considered "more normal and acceptable" for people to be that blatantly rude and unkind when screwing with someone's future, but if that were the case, that'd indicate a liability for incidents just like this to happen. If random internet commenters are better educators than you, you dun goof'd.

Comment by 473631

Poor kid, I feel bad for just rushing to kill her. If I had known she just lost everything, I probably could have convinced her to stop and join my garrison.She wouldn't have had to leave Draenor a failure. I'm short a few blood elves followers, anyway, and a way better boss than her last one.

Comment by Makhunty

Ouch!

Comment by cephadex

Astalor Bloodsworn was one of Kael'thas' most devoted followers prior to Kael's betrayal; this may just be random, or it may possibly be a nod to that part of the lore. There aren't many storylines in-game involving Liadrin and Astalor, whose lore is told almost exclusively through Blood of the Highborne; Astalor's role there was solely associated with Kael'thas (where he was referred to as "Kael's lapdog"). The intense bitterness in this letter and some of the things he says there make more sense if the letter is read as though Astalor had written it to Kael'thas, considering his betrayal. It's noteworthy also that Kaelynara and Astalor are the only mages in Liadrin's group and that it's unusual to have mages among the blood knight order (blood knights are basically paladins; Astalor is probably there as the group's co-founder). (Also, Kaelynara Sunchaser's name and appearance are reminiscent of Kael'thas Sunstrider's). Otherwise, it seems a bit random that Astalor, who'd never been noted to have a particularly cold demeanor and was only showcased briefly one other time in the game, would lash out with such a clear desire to hurt in a letter to his apprentice. I don't think this is a "Kael'thas came back" story, but possibly a non-random nod to that part of the lore.

Comment by Mormolyce

Oh yeah sure, set up a crazy power hungry NPC for us to kill as a quest objective, and then afterwards give us a little grey item that gives you a roundhouse kick right in the feelings.

Comment by Gamerstud

Kaelynara would have been a very interesting NPC to take in as a garrison follower. Instead now I must deal with the sad...

Comment by Prier

Man, I haven't felt this bad about completing a quest since Emmy Malin back in Dragonblight.

Thanks for making me feel like a *!@# again, Blizzard.

Comment by 340226

Oh come on! Am I the only person who finds this letter absolutely hilarious?

Basket weaving! LMFAOROFLOL

Comment by 945973

this is how you make a super villain

Comment by 88MPH

Harshbrowns have been SERVED!

Comment by Impulse725

I hope the eventual conclusion of this plot line results in Astalor having his magic stripped from him and forced to weave baskets in Silvermoon till his dying day.

Comment by 1398001

Astalor is probably this guy: http://www.wowhead.com/search?q=Astalor

Gonna pay a visit to him. Consider all of his spawns dead.

Comment by bonzybabee

"Go home, Buddy... I work alone."

Comment by madmurdock

Reminds me of the dragonblight alliance quest, where you had to kill a rogue mage, that wasnt that bad at all.

Comment by Tienlen

The reason he wrote this letter is thought to be because of the Frenzied Golem rare spawn in talador. Seeing how the mages of the sunsworn seem to be there to power the blood golems. Frenzied Golem uses arcane attacks so it is most likely that Kaelynara messed up with charging it.

Frenzied Golem#drops

Comment by Tribunal

Surprised there's not anything about this here already! A favorite joke of one of my more memorable high-school teachers c:

Basket Weaving (though usually of the underwater variety) is a common joke/fluff career or field of study.

Hence, her mentor's rather specific suggestion/put down.

Comment by 877751

This is the second time I could not hold back tears. The first was due to Keristrasza fate.

P.S. To everyone who wrote about her "guilt", or Astalor's "rightness", or whatever - it has nothing to do with that. It's about mercy - and it seems you do not have it. No matter that she did - he had time to calm down before write her the letter. He could write this letter if not in delicate, then at least in a respectful manner. But he chose to mock her, instead.

Comment by shadowknight0001

To me it seem as if Astalor only took her to draenor as an apprentice so that he could have a bedwarmer but never tought that she would be so incompetent so after some relief simply send her away.

The fact that her heart and her dream where now in piece shattered her mind and her addiction took over.

Comment by Fyana

"Oh no, she's ~SAD~ because she got fired, I can't possibly blame her for personally making the decision to blow up a bunch of innocent mine workers! Everyone does that when they get fired by a &*!@#$bag!"

Today I learned that people don't know what personal responsibility is. Who gives a butt how much of a jerk Astalor is? How is he directly responsible for the choices that she made? Did he physically move her to the mine, raise her hand, and force her to make the decision to do what she's doing? Nope. She did of her own volition, and as an adult, she's responsible for her choices.

It's tragic that it turned out that way, but once you look at what she did and take into consideration that she has agency, it no longer has anything to do with him no matter how many "It's Astalor's fault!" posts you up-vote. :)

Comment by Eillesthis

Source: Kaelynara Sunchaser
Her crappy former mentor: Magister Astalor Bloodsworn/Astalor Bloodsworn

Comment by ayeee

The Trump of Warcraft.

Comment by DEMONIK1883

all I can say is that REALLY had to hurt...

Comment by MRTF

Sometimes I wish you could just knock them out instead of killing the enemies without a care. Even Garrosh had a chance to stand trial at least.

Comment by Xlsfd

My personal theory: Kaelynara was even more skilled at magic than him, but Astalor's male ego could not accept the fact a female might surpass him and so he tried to get her into a traditionally "female" profession.

And even if blood elf society as a whole does not discriminate based on gender, that does not mean there can't be individual blood elves who have views like that.

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Tear-stained Letter

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Dropped by: Kaelynara Sunchaser

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Tear-stained Letter

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