Continuing the discussion from PTR Spoiler/Discussion Thread (Part 2) - #9782 by Shogganosh-argent-dawn.
Previous discussions:
My theory (based on recently playing through Horde side of the scenario) is that the reason why this has never happened, and will never happen even in Midnight, is because in Blizzard´s eyes, they really did nothing wrong.
We players have the tendency to look at what we see and analyze it to death. Sunreaver NPCs have click-on option that mentions SC mugging them, capturing them even though they seem to have no idea some Sunreavers aided the Horde and betrayed Kirin Tor. Single SC NPC is keeping a Sunreaver Agent over water with shark in it and drops him when attacked. Alliance troops attacking Sunreaver NPCs in the streets. Jaina murdering people in the streets (although this is something I´ve not seen in current version, she attacked an NPC, fought it for a while, then TPed it away, which made me feel like this really is the result of some janky NPC behavior where Jaina and Sunreavers aggro each other and it takes some time for her scripted âTP them awayâ thing happens, resulting in some NPCs dying because she killed them too quickly). All these things, to someone who tries to only analyze what they see will paint an unpleasant picture of the Alliance.
The problem is, Blizzard doesn´t seem to work that way. Purge of Stratholme, probably the most discussed event in Warcraft´s history, where people to this day argue whether Arthas was right, is actually very simple from perspective of Blizzard dev who made the mission: Arthas is evil, Jaina and Uther are right, and by the way, Arthas doesn´t even finish the job, he leaves many people alive and doesn´t burn the corpses to prevent them from rising because he just doesn´t care (those people are then the ones you see burning the corpses). In fact, Arthas helped the Scourge because if you kill people, Scourge can raise them as ghouls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tigJUxQmJs
(for those who don´t believe me, yes, it´s an insane take, but I´m not making it up)
The point is, where we see moral complexity, Blizzard often doesn´t (and where we see dumb storytelling, they often see stroke of genius). Given how Aethas behaves in his Trading Post bit, how Hathorel is on the âbadâ side in BfA, and how Sunreavers have to work to be let back in during Legion even though Kirin Tor lets Horde in earlier, makes me think that to Blizzard, the story has clear villains and they definitely don´t wear blue.
Now, why this might be, my (game) theory is that this might have always been the intention. Sunreavers helping with Divine Bell extraction in Darnassus is one whole part of 5.1 Horde questline. However, SC actions in Purge tend to be shown through click-on text or behavior of NPCs (some of which was even said to be a bug). We look at these things and paint the picture of the events without attributing greater importance to one or the other. But to Blizzard, Sunreavers using Dalaran to attack the Alliance might have been huge plot point that they crafted as part of the story they wanted to tell, while click-on text in Purge was left to some intern who just made up 5 sentences that NPCs say when you free them.
The problem of Blizzard is that they tend to look at their intent and base their lore on that rather than what made it to the game. The most stable dev mentions that originally, Stratholme humans didn´t turn into zombies if Arthas found them, but players didn´t like killing innocents, so it was changed that they always turn into zombies automatically. He doesn´t realize that this paints the picture of everyone in Stratholme being infected and doesn´t understand why people think that´s what was going on.
Just like, IMO, Blizzard devs in past few years don´t understand that to many players, Purge of Dalaran is one of those rare situations in lore where Alliance was portrayed as doing bad things and that, while Sunreavers aren´t innocent, they aren´t the villains of this story.
Also, first comment, yay!
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I think that at the end of the day, what did the most damage to the audienceâs POV of the Culling of Stratholme was the Caverns of Time dungeon that oversimplified it. The few personal accounts we see of what actually happened in-universe, thereâs mentions of how the civilians didnât even look plagued, and it couldâve just mostly been in Arthasâ head, with dreadlord trickery to boot.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/A_Careworn_Note
Meanwhile, in the Caverns of Time dungeon, the most easily available to a World of Warcraft playerâs version of the recounting of events, and one thatâs supposedly to be objective at that, the entirety of Stratholme bursts into undeath in its entirety the moment Arthas kills the first civilian; which, I get the logic behind, in the sense that itâd be messed up if we had an entire dungeon that would just be killing civilians through and through until the last third of the dungeon or so - but I just wouldnât have made it into a dungeon, rather than warp the events to such a degree.
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I think this is quite pertinent; what Blizzard chooses to make a big deal of in terms of morality and making it stick as a long-term plotpoint has no balance across the factions. And isnât it incredibly arbitrary? If, for example, it was Sunreavers killing the Silver Covenent in the sewers via shark, do you think it would it would have been dropped completely as a narrative point? But itâs okay because in that one book, Jaina said, âi girlbossed too hard uwuâ.
Whether it is an active decision or, quite simply, just wilful ignorance. There is a double standard in morality and narrative focus between the factions. I suppose weâre lucky that the Purge hasnât been forgotten about even if Blizzard attempted to paint Hathorel as a villain while Jaina freely admits âyeah it was my mess up, you should go after me.â
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Iâm going to put on a tinfoil hat and say that Purge was never meant to be a big deal in the way people see it and rather, Blizzard screwed up with the presentation.
First reason is what we see during the Purge itself. Having played through the Horde half recently, I noticed something uncanny. It felt like the behavior of NPCs wasnât scripted in the same way you get during quests where their actions are deliberate. Upon entering area A, NPC1 runs to X and does Y, which prompts NPC2 to say Z. However, the Purge felt more random, where specific NPCs arenât reacting to specific situations but rather doing random stuff. You donât see Jaina attackimg specific group of Sunreavers as a way to show the player what is happening, she randomly patrols the area and aggroes Horde NPCs. Basically, Purge of Dalaran isnât a scenario, itâs a zone.
Now, Iâll use Culling as an argument for why this is important. In the video I linked, the dev says how players didnât like killing innocents, so they changed the citizens of Stratholme to always turn into undead. To him, this doesnât matter, people of Stratholme werenât all infected even though in the mission they are. What matters is that they created a story of evil prince and as such, the prince is evil and he killed innocent, uninfected civilians, regardless of what the game actually shows us.
I believe the similar thing happened in the Purge. The story we get from the scenario is not the story Blizzard was telling. The Covenant NPCs are meaningless goons without motivations (I mean, the named guys donât even say anything when you fight them, unless something has bugged for me), they donât matter. Rommath even seems much more critical of Kirin Tor and outright says that he isnât a fan of killing his fellow elves (somewhat odd comment given how those elves are supposedly warcriming with glee while besides Jaina and Lanâdalock, Kirin Tor isnât present). Coupled with Vereesa saying she isnât fan of Jainaâs methods during the Purge, I feel like the story Blizzard intented to create was angry, brutal, but justified Jaina, with Kirin Tor and Silver Covenant doing her bidding.
Now, to be clear, the fault here lies with Blizzard. If their goal was to tell the story of betrayal of Sunreavers, with just but harsh retaliation by the Alliance and Kirin Tor, they shouldnât have filled the Underbelly with confused and scared Sunreavers captured and mugged by Silver Covenant, while Alliance and Jaina attack panicking Sunreavers in the city above.
Second reason why I think the Purge wasnât meant to be some big brutal thing is the subsequent story. When Jaina and Lorâthemar meet on Isle of Thunder, Lorâthemar brings up imprisoned Sunreavers, but doesnât mention the ones that were killed even when Vereesa points our Horde killed Rhonin. After that, Purge is mentioned in War Crimes when Lorâthemar talks about his intention to arrange release of Sunreavers. Even during the expansion when it happened, it barely gets any mention outside of its own patch.
Even Hathorel bringing it up while flanked by two Dark Rangers before they try to stop us from saving Baine to me feels like Blizzard wants us to see Sunreaver side as the bad one. A Sunreaver who wants to avenge his fallen friends isnât the hero, heâs the villain that wants to stop us from doing what is right. Aethas being the one who wants to repair his friendship with Jaina is just an icing on the cake.
I think Blizzard is never going to properly adress the Purge because, to them, there is nothing to adress. Once Midnight comes, Silver Covenant will enter QuelâThalas and work alongside the blood elves without an issue because in the mind of Blizzard writers, the story of the Purge has never involved Alliance being a villain.
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A cutting indictment of their ability to read and write.
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Frankly, after what Shogganosh pointed out in last comment of previous thread about Blizzard approaching these stories in a way where the harmed party first has to let go and focus on renewal rather than offending party first putting in the work to fix what they have done before the offended party gives up their yearning for revenge, ignoring Purge might be for the best.
Just think of how it would look:
Version A: Covenant are the villains. In this story, Sunreavers such as Hathorel will have to accept Covenant presence and forgive them. Covenant will help in QT and Sunreavers will embrace them as long lost brothers.
Version B: Sunreavers are the villains. Covenant coming to aid QT will be a sign of them letting go of their hatred. Vereesa will accept that blood elves can indeed be saved and Covenant will embrace them as brothers.
Either way, we lose.
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I donât know how this can really be possible seeing as youâre sent to kill shop keepers who simply vocally disagree with whatâs going on.
If you remove the Sunreavers being mugged and murdered and isolate this. Even this is, in itself, objectively something western principles would label as âbadâ.
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Headshot my interest for Midnight why dontcha
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Doesnât the quest specifically say theyâve taken arms? Itâs been a while since Iâve plyed the Alliance version but I recall reading about it.
Edit: Found it, and youâre right, no mention of them taking arms. However, itâs also the quest where Vereesa says she doesnât like Jainaâs methods at completion, so (tinfoil hat on), this one is likely on Jaina, with Vereesa being the intermediary.
Riding into QuelâThalas atop a shining steed to offer salvation to our wayward brothers.
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It doesnât actually specify, it just says that they didnât side with thr Silver covenant.
Most shopkeepers in the Magus Commerce Exchange have sided with the Silver Covenant, but there remain a few holdouts that must be taken care of.
Vereesa shows you a list of names.
They will not go easily.
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Was just editing the comment when you posted:
Found it, and youâre right, no mention of them taking arms. However, itâs also the quest where Vereesa says she doesnât like Jainaâs methods at completion, so (tinfoil hat on), this one is likely on Jaina, with Vereesa being the intermediary.
To keep tinfoil hat on, this just makes me even more convinced that role of the Covenant in the Purge in Blizzardâs mind was just random fodder NPCs that followed what Jaina told them.
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Like Jaina, Blizzard didnât realise using a feuding paramilitary to suppress and disposess their foe would get really out of hand.
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Itâs disheartening when even the supposed brilliance of some of Blizzardâs writing turns out to be likely accidental, the brainchild of a bored developer writing NPC gossip, and something the lead writers probably donât care about.
I didnât know that, or Iâd have mentioned it in my review of the Culling mission!
Ah well. Iâll mention it at the next opportunity, which will probably be the Culling of Stratholme dungeon in Wrath.
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I believe the purge was an interesting story in the context of Mists, and it remains an overall nuanced one. And inside Mist, it is played as the major deal that it is.
The story itself had many ramifications and for example it was even used to prevent the blood elves from leaving the Horde, as they were indeed considering to leave it. This alone implies that it was intended to be a big deal.
And it made sense that the blood elves were considering such, because it establishes the races as independent thinkers with their own interests, interests they want to represent (imagine if the same happened in BFA huh? But I digress).
Still, the story then led to a major patch, 5.2, in which we see this conflict of high elves vs. blood elves in full. We also see, however, that the Horde and the Alliance are offered a chance to reflect upon the nature of their cycle of hatred and begin to break it. During the Fall of Shan Bu scenario, Taran Zhu says this:
I see now why your Alliance and Horde cannot stop fighting. Every reprisal is itself an act of aggression, and every act of aggression triggers immediate reprisal. ⌠YOU must break the cycle. It ends TODAY. Here. The cycle ends when you, Regent Lord, and you, Lady Proudmoore, turn from one another. And walk. Away.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/The_Fall_of_Shan_Bu#Notes
Note how the quote above isnât about healing, or forgiveness, as it would be in DF or SL, but about understanding that another retaliation would only lead to more suffering with little gain for their own people too. In Pandaria, we have seen the misery and devastation brought by the great conflict through the eyes of the pandaren, and it is here that for the first time the races are offered a chance to reflect upon the ways in which they can avoid further suffering. And in the above scenario, they are offered a choice - to cling on the injustice done, and add to the cycle of hatred, or to seek to avoid more suffering.
The choice isnât about doing the ârightâ thing, mind. It is about avoiding further suffering and misery.
This is how the âPurgeâ ended in the eyes of both groups: with characters deciding that there was value in Taran Zhuâs words, and walking away. Otherwise they would have fought until the bitter end in the Isle of Thunder. After that, the arc of the Purge was pretty much âdoneâ in the eyes of the writers, because going back there would have meant breaking this resolve.
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What resolve? Jaina didnât âwalk awayâ from it. She turned up two patches later talking about dismantling the Horde. It was kind of a pivotal moment.
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I am not going to pretend the writing was flawless, but that moment mostly served to show how much Varian had changed as a character.
In that moment, her role was that of being a foil to Varian.
Warcraft 3. Grom makes amends for getting gorged up on demon juice by killing Mannoroth and freeing the orcs from his blood pact forever.
But even then, note that:
- Itâs very debatable whether this one good deed at the end of Gromâs life makes up for all the evil he did as part of Gulâdan and Nerâzhulâs Hordes.
- Gromâs redemption happens after the Prophet tells Jaina to suck it up and help Thrall and his free orcs despite past grievances, because there are bigger things at stake.
- Grom never makes amends to the night elves, the most wronged party (not counting the draenei back on Draenor), and in fact while Tyrandeâs stated motive for fighting the joined orc-human expedition is Grom killing Cenarius, this is not mentioned at all when the three factions team up.
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Clearly Broxigar the Unmentioned cancelled out the Cenarius killing!
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