That sounds better than what we got tbh, and never too late, tbh if say…Calia does take the Forsaken, say she decides to stay alliance and somehow forsaken get taken in by alliance (f knows how itd even be done/justified ect, her being a non lunatic Menthil could be good enough) Tyrande loses her cool about it due to the abuse of her people by forsaken ect, she flips to the Horde, could happen, if they was ever interested in making a faction swap for races it’d be either forsaken-nelves or belves-nelves imo, nelves could switch given the right motivation especially if Forsaken arent staying with the Horde.
Edit: just to clarify I feel both belves n forsaken could likely rejoin the Alliance with imo maybe only Nelves being a suitable trade, cant think of another Alliance race that would flip just yet
Early Durotar quests in vanilla indicated that there is a Kul Tiran fleet charting Kalimdor and they will descend on the orcish territories around Tiragarde Keep when they are done. Very much had the vibe of impending doom, but just kind of quietly forgotten about after Cataclysm. A lot of what made early WoW’s conflicts somewhat unique was that the Horde was mainly made up of people who just wanted to be left alone while the Alliance were not quite so ready to forget old quarrels.
Even in Wotlk, Varian felt like an aggressor at times, with Garrosh being the perfect provocation/exscuse for his aggression, it was like Thrall was the good guy who wanted to avoid drama and you had Garrosh and Varian just two savages dying for an exscuse for war.
Edit: then ofc Horde gets big bad Garrosh, semi cool Voljin n then big bad Sylv, all the while Alliance gets white knight Anduin, upsetting the balance of Varian and Garrosh both being bloodthirsty warlords ruled by ego most the time and arguably as bad as eachother at times, that being said now they are doing away with the warchief mantle, as apparently having two bad warchiefs means that tradition has to go, Horde are getting that neutral/good guy vybe back, with the council of peacemongers like Baine n co, when they could have just built up another great Orc leader in that time or even had Thrall resume the mantle under the “knowledge” that it is his duty/destiny and others have failed in his absence, who knows, everyone has a different preference for the direction anyhow
Night elves and Wildhammer certainly suit the Horde’s culture way better yes. Alas historically speaking the Horde has commited too many crimes against them for them to ever shift.
Same with the Alliance and the Forsaken (even under Calia) or the blood elves. Too much bad blood, animosity over the years.
“And then the orcs and blood elves were best of friends, funniest thing I ever saw.”
To be fair, if we’re going to go at it logically.
The Forsaken would be hostile to both factions.
The Bilgewater, the pandaren, the night elves, the nightborne, the tauren and the blood elves would’ve all been neutral.
The factions would be pretty bare bones at that point!
yeah would be difficult, I think if the Alliance “forgave” the forsaken and taken them in that could be enough to make the Nelves switch, especially knowing if they switched the forsaken wouldnt be their ally, doubt anything like this would ever occur anyhow
Why do you think the night elves (who tried to recruit the newly risen night elves back into their own ranks) would leave the Alliance over the Forsaken joining the Alliance?
Sure Forsaken troops were present during the Battle of Darkshore, but orcs, trolls and goblin grunts and shaman commited the genocide on Teldrassil, put it to the torch, murdered groups of civilians and also fought during the Battle of Darkshore.
But the Forsaken joining the Alliance would make the night elves ally with the genocidal and murderous orcs, trolls and goblins???
The night elves would never switch and join the Horde, not after Classic, not after Cata, not after BfA. If they were to leave the Alliance, it would be to go do their own thing. And probably in one way or another be hostile to both Alliance and Horde. The only time they would have joined the Horde would be if Thrall had 100% kept the orcs out of Ashenvale, he didn’t. Them advancing into Ashenvale to cut down trees was what drove the night elves into the Alliance to begin with, and guess what? Even after BfA, the orcs are still there, cutting down trees.
It’s fair differentiating between the night elf Forsaken and regular Forsaken, tbf. There’s a stark difference between the two, no doubt, from the Forsaken’s perspective. One is the victim of the other’s crime.
The Forsaken carried out the brunt of the fighting in Darkshore after Teldrassil burnt, leaving the entire zone little more than a lifeless, blighted ruin.
Yes, but it is also fair to differentiate between the military Forsaken (those in Darkshore) and the innocent civilians. Even Genn admits he might’ve misjudged the Forsaken and they have proof that without Sylvanas’ influence the Forsaken actually acted more and more human and tried to go on with their daily lives as they did when they were alive.
The military Forsaken however are part of a cult that worships Sylvanas and they would gleefully blight, murder and desecrate anything they can.
And that is unforgivable too, make no mistake, but there’s a difference between blighting a area (Darkshore, Gilneas) and genociding the vast majority of one’s people and the Forsaken did not do the second.
Hence why I think the Forsaken (theoretically) ever joining the Alliance would not make the night elves leave per se, but orcs, trolls and goblins? They would never join those three above having to be forced to work with Forsaken.
Besides, who knows what the Forsaken will turn into now that they have night elven wardens and sentinels and Alonsus Faol, Calia Menethil and Derek Proudmoore amongst their ranks.
The blood elves bear the humiliation of working with their would-be conquerors with cold, calculating pragma…
To touch on that topic, in the Sylvanas novel they point out that Sylvanas had first reached out to Thrall to bring the blood elves into the fold during Vanilla and Thrall was successfully convinced of it:
“Everyone needs someone who believes in them. I believe that once their pride is restored to them, they will repay the Horde’s investment a thousandfold. They will rise to the level you think them capable of. And so, Warchief, I believe it is best for all involved, including the Horde, to think them capable of the greatest feats you can imagine. They will not disappoint.”
She thought of Rommath’s skills, of Lor’themar and Halduron and the Farstriders; of the craftsmanship of the quel’dorei artisans, and their passion in whatever they turned their hand to, and allowed herself a smile. When she spoke again, it was with the complete truth.
“They will not disappoint you at all.”
But Lor’themar rejected them due to bad blood with the Horde. It wasn’t until the desperation caused by time started to catch up that Lor’themar finally agreed to hear them out ca. TBC.
Vol’jin, Cairne and Thrall went to the Ghostlands to meet with Lor’themar and Halduron with Sylvanas as the middle man. Vol’jin and Halduron have a neat exchange about trolls and elves trusting each other and how both are uncomfortable with the idea – Halduron was the one who captured Zul’jin and took his eye after all. But they’re willing to give it an honest try out of a sense of duty to their respective people if Thrall and Lor’themar can find mutual ground. Times change.
Later in Cata Vol’jin and Halduron lead the expedition into Zul’Aman, so that’s a nice little touch.
As mentioned previously, there were some specific terms that Thrall imposed on the blood elves and Lor’themar imposed on the Horde in turn that both leaders agreed to, but Sylvanas tuned out and wasn’t paying attention. What we do know is that once they actually got Thrall and Lor’themar in the same room, they found mutual ground very quickly with Thrall sympathising with their plight and seeing the lethargy of the orcs in them. The biggest obstacle was getting Lor’themar to meet with Thrall in the first place.
Also Lor’themar was the right hand man of Lireesa because Alleria was unreliable and Sylvanas wasn’t even an afterthought for the Ranger-General yet at the time. If there wasn’t an imminent threat that required the Ranger-General’s attention, Lireesa was fine with delegating certain duties for Lor’themar to deal with. He was just friends with everyone.
Less edge, less experimenting on POW’s, less cultish reverence of the currently fashionable god-queen.
So completely soulless, but with potential to be more actualised, diverse people I guess. Unless they fall down the pit of becoming human, but grey skinned.
Aren’t they already? I mean the Forsaken haven’t done anything humanity hasn’t done before them!
The Dalarani magi attempted to cure the orcs of their fel lethargy (experimenting), they keep hanging on to their worship of Light (yes even human magi revere/worship the Light), they’d willingly fight and die for their royalty and if Gilneas and Alterac weren’t edgy I don’t know if the Forsaken are!
It did take Genn meeting with Alonsus Faol before he was willing to admit he misjudged them, but it’s not just the military of the Forsaken that worships Sylvanas. Large swathes of their population did as well - Dark Lady watch over you is amongst the Forsaken a saying as common as King’s honour is in Stormwind.
The Forsaken were as responsible for the burning of Teldrassil as the orcs, trolls, goblins and even tauren were. It was a joint effort by the Entire Horde.
Definitely this, though. That’s why I think they’d be independent of either side if they ever left the Alliance.
Does the book go into any detail whatsoever as to why the forest trolls were not consulted/approached until after the Blood Elves had already joined the Horde as a potential member?
Also why would Vol’jin have issues with trusting high/blood elves? At the time it must have been rare for a Darkspear member to have even seen a high elf.
The anomisity between elf and troll is very ancient and runs veru deep.
You can even see the blood elven guide to the Horde ambassadors talk down to the troll ambassador.
Or the troll ambassador notes how the elves distrust him iirc.
The Revantusk didn’t join the Horde until Cata, before then they were merely distant allies of the Horde. Also.
https://i.imgur.com/IOYUXz0.png
He’s surprisingly apologetic, all things considered, telling the troll ambassador to keep his chin up in the hopes that one day in the future the blood elves will look at the Darkspears as allies without thinking of the Amani.
Tatai, the troll ambassador, is pretty stand-offish in the face of it all. He’s insulted Lor’themar doesn’t have the time to meet with them, he finds the widespread blood elven usage of arcane magic to be something that ought to be shut down immediately.
Part of the dialogue these ambassadors can have is them talking about how something feels off about Silvermoon: the trolls calls the city huge, and wants to know they need so much empty space. Kelemar responds it is empty because of the horrendous loses the elves suffered during the Third War - Tatai responds by calling it a big waste of space.
His fellow ambassadors tell him off more than their elven counterpart.
Possibly Tyrandes thing with Sylv may just trigger her that much.
I was thinking specifically about Zul’aman, since the patch trailer makes it seem as if the Horde is offering the tribe a place within it but Zul’jin is (understandably) outraged that the elves are already members. Twice as odd because some members of the Revantusk tribe seemed to hold Zul’jin in very high regard but there was no development on how they felt about the whole situation.