The Cycle of Hatred

The Cycle of Hatred is a novel by Keith R.A. DeCandido taking place in Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft universe, one year before the beginning of World of Warcraft. It deals with the relationship between the humans of Theramore and the Orcs of Durotar. It stars Jaina Proudmoore and Aegwynn. The book is part of the Warcraft Expanded Universe.


 * Badass Bookworm: Jaina Proudmoore in a nutshell.
 * Cool Old Lady: Aegwynn.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Burning Blade's rather anvilicious resemblance to the KKK.
 * Evil Chancellor:
 * Fantastic Racism: Pretty much the whole point.
 * Deader Than Dead: Zmodlor won't be revived by Kil'jaden.
 * The Devil: Zmodlor. Subverted in he's a fairly minor demon.
 * Black and Grey Morality: Azeroth vs. the Burning Blade at least.
 * Grey and Grey Morality: Humans vs. Orcs.
 * Humans Are the Real Monsters: So, thankfully, are Orcs.
 * I Was Quite a Looker: Aegwynn drops this statement a few times.
 * License To Whine: Aegwynn spends much of the book exerting this.
 * The Man Behind the Man: Zmodlor is ultimately behind the Burning Blade. The Shadow Council of Felwood is ultimately behind Zmoldor. The Burning Legion is ultimately behind the Shadow Council. Sargeras is ultimately behind the Burning Legion.
 * The Messiah: Jaina Proudmoore.
 * Thrall as well, though it is scaled back a bit in this one.
 * More Than Mind Control:
 * Never Mess with Granny
 * Only Sane Man: Averted. For once, the people of Theramore and Durotar are largely opposed to warfare and it takes a great deal of effort to get it started.
 * In Theramore's case, it's not so much that they're averse to war (for the common footsoldier, anyway) as it is they trust Jaina's judgement to the point that a couple off-duty town guards threaten to beat the snot out of a visiting merchant who badmouths her in a tavern, even if they might share his sentiment that the Horde is dangerous.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Aegwynn.
 * Snark Bait: According to at least a good percentage of Warcraft fans.
 * Sophisticated As Hell: When not Wangsting about her life, Aegwynn can come of as this: She treats her powers and things like demons incredibly casually and can not stand the formalities of her position. The latter was part of the reason why she had a falling out with the Council of Tirisfal. She is also quite foul-mouthed.
 * Straw Feminist: The leader of Jaina's military is a butch female. And the author makes a point to accentuate the fact that she's butch. And Does Not Like Men.
 * Straw Misogynist: Archmage Antonidas is set up as one—claiming that "it is no more women’s nature to become wizards than it is a dog’s nature to compose an aria"—in order to make Jaina look good. Orcish culture in general gets the same treatment.
 * The Untwist: It's pretty obvious who the traitors are in each faction the moment you meet them.