Old Horde & Forsaken. The state and future of races and factions

Lore Story
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Do people really dislike the Old/Honourable Horde? By Old Horde I mean characters like Thrall, Saurfang, Baine and Vol’jin, you know, leaders of the Horde who care about the wellbeing of their people. Or is it just Sylvanas fanboys/fangirls who hate them?

If you spend 5 minutes to think about it logically, what comes above the faction pride and war is the state and future of your family and friends. If you sometimes need to side with the opposite faction or rebel against a corrupted faction leader, you will do it every single time.

Thrall was a leader who had his own people in mind when taking decisions, even if the decisions weren’t always good, while Sylvanas is a leader who has only her own interests in mind, interests that make the people she leads suffer or die.

There are some things to be said and made clear to everyone. The Forsaken Undead didn’t belong in the Alliance, but they never really belonged in the Horde either.
Two events come in mind. First the Wrathgate incident where the Forsaken didn’t mind blight bombing everyone, Horde members included.
Second one is when Garrosh called Sylvanas a *****, basically calling her out for going against the law of nature by using the Val’kyr to raise the dead and there being no difference between her and the Lich King.

It’s less about Horde vs Alliance and it’s more about the Living vs the Dead. The existence of the Undead, be it in the form of the Scourge or in the form of the Forsaken, has always gone at the cost of the living races, Horde ones included.

I’m not saying the Forsaken must be removed from the Horde, but it is crystal clear in their current form and with their current bitter and resentful mentality they cannot co-exist with any other living faction.

There are two solutions to this problem. Either the Forsaken get a new leader who can also serve the living beings, not only the dead ones, or Sylvanas along with her Forsaken completely leave the Horde. There is no other way in my opinion.

There are more fundamental changes that need to happen in both Horde and Alliance. Like leaders who want to maintain or breed war for the sake of revenge or other reasons that are based on their own interest need to be removed.
First names who come in mind are Genn Greymane, Tyrande and Gallywix.

To be honest this faction conflict feels too forced and artificial because it goes at the cost of both factions especially when there are still plenty of worse threats.
We need to move on to the conflicts that are actually important and Horde vs Alliance is not one of them anymore.

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Doubt many dislike said Horde.

People will argue against or oppose the distorted parody of said values, that guys like Baine, Saurfang, etc., are currently sporting due to this awful narrative.

The “Old Horde” under Voljin, Cairne and Thrall wasn’t at all like the one Baine and Saurfangs character are currently arguing for.

Edit: And blaming the Forsaken for all that’s wrong in the faction is about as inaccurate as you can get.

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Actually it’s only Sylvanas.

Thrall and Carine support them :face_with_monocle:

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Nope.
She wasn’t needed last time the writers felt like throwing the faction under the bus and used both Garrosh and the orc faction for it.

Yeah. They are after all, following the same borked script.
The same one that will probably have Tyrande agreeing that Saurfang is to be forgiven for the planned extermination of her people because he is sad about how things turned out in the end.

That doesn’t mean that the old values can be applied anymore. The plot has forced and twisted them so much, that it’s short of going full retcon.
Arguing against the current depiction isn’t the same as going against the former.
The story has alienated it.

I support Cairne, Voljin and Thralls Old Horde. I don’t support Baines and Saurfang interpretation of it.
And not because I dislike their characters. But I do dislike the stuff the narrative forces them to do.

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But she’s responsible for the most thing which happened right now. Imagine that she’s even responsible that N’zoth will be freed…

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You said it. “Right now”.
Nothing stops writers from looking for another scapegoat next time they need the faction to fracture.
In fact, most of the factions problems started with Orcs.
Arguing that removing the Forsaken from the faction would magically fix it to the idealised version we had under Thrall is wrong.
Garrosh proved that writers can just as easily take those same Old values and twist them into something negative the second they feel like it.

The newest Horde additions aren’t the cause for the factions problems. The first bosses we fought in the MMO were part of that “Old Horde” too.

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Don`t twist my argument. They can surely find another scapegoat but right now we can blame Sylvanas for everything “she” have done. She is just shown as the second mad dictator of the Horde actually.

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Whats the point of removing the Forsaken, if the game has proven us that Blizzard is capable of making a villain out of anyone?

Point is, yeah, you can NOW blame the Forsaken. Fine.
You remove them from the faction and next year you have a story about goblins going mad. Or elves. Or trolls.

The Forsaken aren’t the first Horde race that caused a splinter. Those were the orcs. Under a guy that declared to speak in the name of the “Old Horde” values.

Removing them from the faction doesn’t fix anything for it, if Blizzard is going to then switch to making a villain out of a different Horde race.

The Forsaken aren’t the problem. The story writers that decide to consistently turn Horde races into villains are.

There is no spinning any argument. People are hoping on the hate train regarding the Forsaken faction because as of now they are the trendy villains. Often forgetting that they are not the first to play that role.
Which already speaks loud and clear about how their presence or actions aren’t the ones that cause the Horde to fragment. They aren’t the systemic problem.

As of now, they are the current victims of the underlying problem.

Edit: in short, the solution isn’t about removing any faction, is about writing stories that aren’t detrimental for it.

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Mark my words. Goblins and Gallywix will be the next scapegoat after Baine slips on a banana peel.

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I can see where you’re coming from, but at least Baine and Saurfang now are closer to the Old Horde than Sylvanas and Nathanos who are miles away from it in comparison.

A healthy Horde cannot exist under the leadership of a mentally unstable individual, which both Garrosh and Sylvanas are. Leaders under both Alliance and Horde acknowledged that Vol’jin made a mistake maybe even bigger than Thrall’s regarding the leadership of the Horde.

You are pointing at how you don’t like how the story is being written. Well I’m even talking about this because the writters foreshadow actual changes through Jaina’s “We are.” in reponse to Thrall’s “What’s different this time?”.

So if Blizzard wants to do something about the faction war once and for all, I think we can all agree that at least some leaders need to be removed one way or another in order for true peace to be achieved, which is something that Anduin expressed, for example.

The story might be written through scapegoating, but it is what it is. The Horde have not been actually united once in this expansion, so it’s either the Rebels dethrone Sylvanas and we go back to normal or Sylvanas kills all the Rebels and turns the entire Horde into Scourge 2.0.

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sylvanas fanboys tend to be the outspoken minority in screaming how their " queen" is saving the horde.

id say the majority of horde players know that the horde has honor as a fundamental pillar of the faction. The whole reason for thralls horde was to show that they aren’t just monsters.

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Im actually glad blizzard tends to ignore goblins lore wise because atleast they cant butcher our race.

Wouldnt mind having gazlowe as our leader instead of gallywix tho.

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Baine, Thrall and Saurfang represent the Alliance far more than they do the Horde.

I don’t like Sylvanas, but I’d take her over any of the other Horde leaders at this stage.

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Or both collectives end up reconciling, and reach a balanced middle ground that allows both to coexist.
You know, like they had been doing up until now.
The Forsaken faction is as old as the MMO Horde itself.
Arguing they having nothing to contribute goes against the foundations of the Azeroth Horde.
Which, didn’t start with Thrall but with Orgrim Doomhammer.

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bro she was literally going to kill baine and already tried to have saurfang killed, theres 0% chance she returns to the horde after she is dethroned.

thing im curious about is who the new forsaken leader would be

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That’s what I always say! And then we got Mechagon… well, I guess gnomes literally butchering themselves to replace parts is preferable to other forms of lore butchery, but… erm, it’s enough for now, thanks Blizz, you can leave us alone again for 3-5 addons, we had our time to shine. Shoo.

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The forsaken are the outlier among outliers. The fact that they don’t fit in anywhere is a core part of their identity. They’re as unique as a playable race in wow can get.

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Jeremy feasel is pretty much the only dev at blizz who i think pushes for more gnome content and i dont think anyone asks for goblin lore )=

I still think its about time gnomeregan was made a proper alliance city though.

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Nah, we have enough empty cities lying around, though they did a good job at culling some this addon…

No really, I prefer going to Ironforge, where I can meet at least some other players. And I know I like Ironforge, I’m not sure if I would like the reality of Gnomeregan as much.

But an update to IF would be nice. Ever looked into the mystic’s hall? It’s just empty space. They can do better.

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Is there anything to support this? The only ‘evidence’ I remember being presented with (horde side) is some hokey mystic claiming he saw it in a ‘vision.’

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