A Scarlet Heart, Interview with Confessor Jandrissa

It’s a quiet evening beneath Stormwind’s Cathedral. I’m in a small, dim room lit only by torches. On one table in the corner are two skulls, and along the wall are a pair of Iron Maidens. Grim backdrop, but that’s all they are, backdrop, props of a sort. The air is dry and warm, and I’m comfortable. My host for the evening, Confessor Jandrissa of the Scarlet Crusade, agrees.

“A wonderful example of the power of the light, and of Humanity’s genius,” she calls the temple. I have to agree, it’s a beautiful building. It pulls you up, invites you to rise with the light each time you enter, pulling your heart and mind upward.

But this isn’t about my religious or personal thoughts, I remember. This interview is about Jandrissa. It’s appropriate then that we had the discussion in this side chamber, away from the main hall. It’s hard to focus on ourselves with our eyes pulled heavenward, after all.

“I was sworn into the clergy while travelling with the refugees from the Scourge attack on and Havenshire,” she says, in a voice heavy with memories.

Jandrissa was among the few survivors of the Scourge assaults into New Avalon. Before the attacks, she tells me she was studying to be a scribe. I have a hard time reconciling this tall, dignified woman’s appearance with the scribes I’ve seen, hunched with inkstained fingers.

“On the road, a traveler was injured, and when he fell my talent manifested. I called on the light, and healed him.” Her voice is different now. I can hear the joy, beneath the months of hard travelling, the long fight in a heavy cause. I ask her what it was like, because I already know the answer for me, but I can’t resist knowing what others think.

“It is a tremendous feeling, of knowing everything is right and meant to be. It makes me feel safe, and certain of the future.” She pauses a moment, as if thinking, and then continues, “I am chosen to be an agent of the will of humanity.”

The Light as the will of humanity, it’s an interesting thought. Humans were the first Paladins during the Second War, after all. So it’s troubling, she says, that people can’t understand the mission of the Crusade. “Se spend every waking moment fighting the scourge and protecting the innocent. What could be more noble?”

I ask her about the inquisitions, the rumors of torture and attacks with only the flimsiest evidence, and she dismisses these as ‘lies, disinformation spread by the scourge.’ As proof that the Crusade is going in the right direction, she reminds me that the Lich King attacked them, not the Kingdom of Stormwind. “This proves how noble we our, and that we’re the greatest threat in his eyes.”

I ask her about the other enemies arrayed against the Lich King, such as the Argent Dawn, and she dismisses them, albeit not as readily as she did the rumors of the Crusade’s misdeeds. She acknowledged that the Dawn had helped in the plaguelands in the past, but condemned them for ‘abandoning’ Lordaeron to host their tournament in Northrend. When I asked whether it might not be as useful to rally the hearts and minds of the people as to fight the scourge nonstop, she asked me how selling doublets, kissing frogs, and having a joust could do that any better than a great victory on the field.

She makes a compelling point. I’ll have to travel to the Northrend tourney sometime, and see if that’s indeed the case.

So, what about after the war, I ask her? Do you have plans after the scourge are gone?

“Well, the Horde need to be removed, and defeated as well. Especially with the Forsaken still in Lordaeron.”

I ask if that means there’s a difference between the Scourge and the Forsaken, but she shakes her head. “They’re the risen dead, one and the same.” She doesn’t seem to care that the Forsaken have fought the Scourge as often as anyone else, and I don’t see reason to mention it. The key point isn’t whether one threat is exactly allied with another, but that the Confessor wants both threats dealt with in equal measure, with the full resources of Lordaeron and Stormwind bent to the task, to reclaim the kingdom of the north.

I push again with the previous question, asking if she can ever see herself at peace, then what would her plans be? The answer surprised me.

“I could help begin rebuilding, and try to raise a family.”

She must have seen the surprise, because she smiled and continued. “Every Crusader has such dreams, Janarriel, though we know they are far off. But even if it doesn’t come in my lifetime, victory is assured. We trust in the Light.”

And clearly they do. They wield its power, in battle and in prayer, just as do the Silver Hand and Argent Dawn, and all the paladins who travel their own path.

We talked for a while after, about personal matters, before we parted ways. As we left the Cathedral, I couldn’t resist asking one more question. What would she have *me* learn of the Crusade, as a personal seeker of knowledge?

“Go to the plaguelands and see for yourself. Know our enemy, and you know us.”

It’s a hard thing to hear. A woman close to my own age, defined by her enemy. I don’t know if I can understand that concept, I’ve never been defined by anything except the Light. But I was only a child when Stormwind fell in the first war, and I can’t remember the devastation. My fight with the Horde is ideological, not personal in the very visceral way that Confessor Jandrissa’s fight with the scourge is.

Perhaps that’s why I can’t understand the Crusade. I don’t know that I ever will. But I understand Confessor Jandrissa a little more, and I hope the Light shines on her path in these dark days.

Janarriel of Stormwind
Paladin of the Silver Hand, Stormwind City