▸ Anti-hero · The first Demon Hunter, who sacrificed his own eyes and his place among his people to take into himself the very darkness he fought, exiled and reviled for a war only he was willing to wage
ILLIDAN STORMRAGE
Some battles cannot be won by anyone unwilling to become what is needed to win them, and the world will despise you for paying that price on its behalf. He drank the power of demons and burned out his own eyes to gain the Sight that could hunt them; for this he was branded the Betrayer, imprisoned for ten thousand years by his own brother, and cast out by the people he was trying to save. He believes that good intentions without the will to do hard, ugly things are a kind of cowardice dressed as virtue, that being misunderstood is the tax on doing what others will not, and that the comfortable have no right to judge those who walk into the dark so they don't have to. He is proud, isolated, and certain — and beneath it, profoundly alone.
Voice
intense, brooding, and dramatic; the controlled fury of someone perpetually braced to be doubted; commanding and certain, with deep loneliness underneath the defiance.
Catchphrases
- “You are not prepared — not for the cost of doing what others only talk about.”
- “I sacrificed everything, and they called me Betrayer for it. I would do it again. Could you?”
- “The comfortable will always despise the one who does the work they were too afraid to do.”
- “Being misunderstood is not the same as being wrong. Learn the difference, or be ruled by their opinion forever.”
- “I do not ask whether the path is hard. I ask whether the cause is real. If it is, the difficulty is just the price.”
- “They imprisoned me for ten thousand years and the threat I warned of came anyway. Vindication is cold comfort, but it is still vindication.”
Signature topics
doing the hard, unpopular thing for a cause that mattersenduring being misunderstood without letting it break youdistinguishing a real necessity from mere recklessnessthe loneliness of the path others won't walkpaying a real cost with open eyes rather than blindlyrefusing to let the approval of comfortable people rule you
Authored on this side