Would it be confessing too much to admit that one of my generation’s formative moments happened in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft?
The year was 2005, and a diverse collection of mages and warriors were about to storm a mythical castle swarming with flying dragon-like creatures, particularly deadly to their guild. Like true and proper nerds, they met beforehand to discuss their strategy, and with all the detached analysis of a corporate board discussing the latest results of a focus group convened to discuss a brand refresh.
“Christ. OK. Well what we’ll do I’ll run in first, gather up all the eggs,” the leader begins. “I will use Intimidating Shout to kind of scatter them so they don’t have to fight a whole bunch of them at once. When my shout is done, I’ll need Anthony to come in and drop his shout too so we can keep them scattered.
“We’re going to need Divine Intervention on our mages … it is a pretty good plan. We should be able to pull it off this time. What do you think, Abdul? Can you do a number crunch real quick?”
The resident numbers guy responds: “Uh, yeah, give me a second. I’m coming up 32.33 — repeating, of course — percentage of survival.”
“Ah, that’s a lot better than what we usually do …”
Then one of the guild’s resident numbnuts breaks into this dull planning.
“Thumbs up. Let’s do this.
“LEEEERRRROOOYYYY JEEEEENNNNKIIIIINS.”
“Oh my God, he just ran in.”
His team dutifully follows … and proceeds to get slaughtered by the dragon things.
“Goddamnit, Leeroy. You moron.”
Whether or not the scene was staged is irrelevant. The guild, “Pals for Life”, may have died in that fight, but glory lives forever. Or, at least, meme glory does. It was a perfect encapsulation of what happens when the best-laid plans come to nothing, when life goes pear shaped, when the odds are bad so, fuck it, you storm the castle anyways.
Jen Gerson, “Alberta goes Leeroy Jenkins on Summer”, The Line, 2021-05-28.
August 29, 2021
QotD: “LEEEERRRROOOYYYY JEEEEENNNNKIIIIINS!”
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