Not to be God’s strongest Pessimist or anything but this 11.1.7 advertising feels strongly false-adverty. The overview describes a branching narrative that differs for Horde and Alliance around halfway in - this just straight up doesn’t happen, you both get the exact same quests and dialogue minus a few npc edits depending on whether you’re Horde or Alliance. Having Faerin suddenly comment about really liking the Horde’s vibe and feeling a close kinship with the Orcs vs her own people is also very… odd. We really don’t need a “Human Light Empire joins the Horde” narrative to devalue the 1% of the Horde’s identity that’s actually left at this point.
It starts off with Danath, Gey’arah and Faerin receiving words about tensions reviving in Arathi, and naturally of course this is a good opportunity for Faerin to come tag along and see her ancient homeland - sure, fair enough, makes total sense I don’t have an issue with any of this introduction. Threats back home need to be dealt with so external threats can take precedent. The most dangerous enemies to a society always dwell within its borders.
But once we get to Arathi proper we get a neat little cinematic of Faerin taking in the awe of being there, the history of Thoradin’s Wall and Danath (who only a few years ago was yelling racial slurs from the walls of Stromgarde in BfA like the Light’s strongest racist) takes the entire cinematic to beat down on Faerin and demean her having any sort of awe or pride in the history. He mopes about the legacy of Strom, the warrior-kings and their ways and seems so utterly repulsed by his own people, heritage and culture that it just comes off as really stilted and weird. He’s the King of Stromgarde, there’s no reason not to have pride in Stromic culture overall.
We continue then into the Defias captivity of the farms external to Stromgarde, they’ve somehow managed to take all this territory and Ar’gorok uncontested despite the presence of not only Hammerfall and Strom’s soldiers, but the 7th Legion and Kor’Kron too. This makes all 4 seem incredibly incompetent to be unable to secure and hold their own capital territories in a time of peace. An unfathomable chain of blunders would logically have been required for this. We learn that these Defias are in league with the Syndicate and Scarlet Crusade (2 of these are not Human supremacist groups and one is even a multi-racial Legion cult, but we’ll get back to this issue later). This raises immediate questions:
- How did the Defias get up here and why?
- How did they manage to team up with Scarlets and Syndicalists?
- How did these 3 ideologically-opposed parties come to a consensual agreement?
- What caused the Defias and Syndicalists to suddenly take a radical, Human supremacist ideological stance where they previously had never expressed any such sentiments and, in fact, the total opposite for 20 years.
- How did the combined forces and strategical ability of the Horde and Alliance, the 7th Legion and Kor’Kron Elite of the Horde and Alliance no less, fail to handle this issue on such a severe level? Immediately, you conclude that it must be some form of high-level executional and administrative erring that’s allowed these 3 groups to gain a hold in a heartland Kingdom of the Alliance. We never receive an actual answer.
After dealing with the Defias at the farms we learn that they’re attacking trade and supply convoys to-and-through the territory. Excellent addition. This explains how this group is self-sustaining itself, and it explains the recent unrest within the City of Stromgarde. People are starving, they think there’s a famine because no food is getting into the City and all they’ve heard is that Orcish weapons and armour are always found at the scenes of the crime. Perfect. There’s minor quibblings you could have about the logistics of this, but it works in a self-contained bubble.
Now, big dilemma going into Stromgarde. Joseph the Insane, now Joseph the Redeemed, a Scarlet reformer, is sitting atop the Altar of Kings in full Elite Scarlet Regalia and Tabard and is loudly lambasting non-Humans for the woes that Stromgarde is facing. You, as the Horde or Alliance (this questline elaborates that either can be deputised, and that citizens can apparently be considered “officially sanctioned” to exist in either faction) must grant Joseph the Writ of Desist to silence him.
First Major Incident: Why are we handing a Scarlet Crusader, in full armour and tabard inside the city somehow, nothing more than a writ to “desist his hate speech”. I am sorry, but this is so deeply and profusely American that it sends my spinal chord into a shudder. Every other instance of a Scarlet Crusader is dealt with by immediate execution, why is this different? Why does the Alliance now let one just openly chill in their city spouting religious fervor? What caused this sudden change in Alliance policy? How did none of the Guards or 7th Legiond deal with this way before now? In fact, the Stromgarde Corporal even acts like he can’t deal with it, which is utterly absurd, a deputy is still far lower in the Chain-of-Command (yes, even during peace-time) than a Corporal would be. As far as we know the Alliance also doesn’t maintain any 21st century concept of differentiating Military and Police. They’re always depicted interchangeably.
To make matters worse, not only did the Red Dawn take the external farms of Stromgarde but they wiped clean Refuge Point in a complete massacre. It’s just baffling, I understand they try to explain this away with “oh well… people were in Khaz Algar, we didn’t have the manpower” but… there’s still clearly a lot of soldiers walking around lmfao, you’re telling me your professional armies, backed by the 7th Legion and Kor’Kron got… completely wiped by bandits using out-dated arms despite your Mages, Shamans and Siege Weapons all just chilling in this zone? Uh, sure, whatever.
Later on we’re moved over to Hammerfall to uncover what’s happened to Danath and bump into Eitrigg and Kargah who is Thrall’s AU Cousin. We learn that the Orcs have taken in Human refugees for the time being to help try and alleviate the crisis in the Highlands. This makes sense at a cursory glance as an allievment effort. I don’t have much to say about this part other than I would personally just prefer Alliance and Horde dealt with their issues separately. I’m not overly-interested in “officially-sanctioned” dissolution of the two biggest players in Azerothian politics and lore down to it just being which colour you prefer.
I can’t help but wonder where the Defilers and MU Orcs are though. Mag’har feel so utterly out of place for this entire problem. They have no heritage, culture or tradition on Azeroth like the MU Orcs do. They don’t understand the history and tension between Humanity and the Orcs, particularly in a place like Hammerfall. They’re just entirely unconnected and it makes their involvement feel heavily stilted.
Not only this but at the very end Danath just lets Marran go and lets her supporters stick around, as seen above. They’re a group with an extremely violent and intolerant ideology. No matter what you think it is the stupidest course of action possible to give what may as well be official state sanction to their beliefs and views by letting them all just stay and attack people on-sight. I cannot fathom in what world Danath is living. Even Karl Popper, Gods strongest Liberal, was incredibly clear that groups unwilling to concede to rationality must be opposed and silenced with force.
