that’d be the one where they kill troll children right
Yes, but it’s called pest control.
Children aren’t adults and thus not people. So this is fine.
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The Kul Tirans there during Vanilla were under orders of Daelin, who was still Grand Admiral of the Alliance when those orders were sent out, so technically they were still Alliance? Whether they had any letters sent to say “Btw you’re not blue anymore” (or whether they particularly cared), we don’t know.
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Blizz, as expected, didn’t do a great job with this. Kul Tiras’ status towards the Alliance was basically a massive questionmark for year.
Tiragarde Keep’s soldiers were Friendly to the Alliance (not even Neutral/Unfriendly). The Baradin Wardens of Tol Barad in Cata were likewise friendly to the Alliance were directly supported/connected to Kul Tiras. The whole “Kul Tiras was kicked out of the Alliance for Daelin’s actions” stuff only came later, after the fact, and wasn’t elaborated on until BfA with Chronicles 3, so in some ways it feels a bit like backfill.
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Guess I learned something new, I was under the impression Kul Tiras was still “allied” with the Alliance but not actually a member, then they were angery during BfA, and then rejoined!
The lore is so confusing at times <.>
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It’s simplier. Alliance or not, Kul Tiran off-shore establishments preferred dealing with their fellow humans to standing alone just because there was a lot of Horde around, be it Durotar or Tol Barad. It’s just a matter of survival of local contingents, not a political decision. Remember how the Horde struggled to find even pirates that would work with them even though they were dead men walking by the Kul Tiran law?
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It can’t be that confusing, here, the lorebook should-
-Unfolds what looks like a kamikaze accident between a magicians knotted hankerchief, a pop-up book, various flavours of soup, a blender, Americanisms and brain damage-
… No, yeah, that tracks.
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I think after BFA the Horde has no reason to exist. It failed its people so many times, that the various groups would arguably be better off forming their own alliances.
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If anything, both factions should just be abandoned by that logic. It’s not an issue exclusive to the Horde at all. In fact, the divisions caused by the Alliance run just as deep and go quite far back as well.
The Blood Elves, for instance, are largely in the position they are today as a direct result of the Alliance’s behaviour. Both in terms of what Garithos and the Kirin Tor did as well as the attempted sabotage of the infrastructure helping to stop the handful of survivors left in Quel’Thalas from turning into Wretched.
Furthermore, even if each playable race were to be given more freedom to operate that doesn’t change much if the hypocritical morality of the Alliance or even modern day real world humans is the framing for what is supposedly acceptable or not within the setting.
It’s pretty easy to agree with the statement that the torture and murder of innocent civilians is a line to never cross. Except it is, repeatedly, though because the victims of the Alliance happen to be non-human 99% of the time, it’s often downplayed and leads to escalation only for that escalation to be presented as the worst thing ever with no possible justification. (Yet at the same time, mysteriously there’s always reasons proposed as to why the Alliance ‘had to’ murder and torture civilians…)
Which is why I proposed more ‘give and take’ earlier on. Keep the factions as a loose frame work, give the various races within more room to do their own thing but ensure that both factions have their fair share of victories over the other. Not the approach of turning Horde characters into unhinged caricatures who are killed off even as their Alliance counterparts get a fight that more often than not results in them being brought down to 1% health and then miraculously walking away somehow. (Hello Jaina, Mekkatorque, Anduin…)
Even if you make the argument that some characters are too big and important to kill off, that hasn’t historically been applied fairly - Night Elves have kept both Tyrande and Malfurion. Dwarves have kept pretty much all of their major leader figures.
Yet even many minor characters are clad in plot armour at this point, even if it doesn’t make much sense. Like I said earlier, the Purge of Dalaran wouldn’t be such a sore point on either side if Vereesa and Aethas had been killed off as a consequence of their actions during that particular chapter and I say that as someone who didn’t necessarily dislike Aethas (until Legion, when he exploited Kael’thas’ tragedy not to make a point about the Kirin Tor’s historical betrayal but to manipulate his way back into their good graces.)
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Yes, correct.
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Difference between this and what Zaphius is saying is that blood elves aren´t Alliance nation. Nor are crimes of the Alliance against Horde applicable to his statements that focus purely on Horde failing its own people.
Which, I kind of have to agree with. Darkspear trolls joined Thrall´s Horde because it saved them from existential threat of the naga. Decade later, those orcs that saved them put their isles under martial law and had to be defeated by Thrall, who even was told by those orcs that he no longer represents them.
Is this one act of aid enough to justify Darkspears being permanent part of the Horde when they experienced orcs treating them as second class citizens?
And should tauren stick with the Horde because it saved them from the centaur when that Horde often didn´t represent them and was more often than not even more destructive towards the land they love so much than the Alliance? Stonespire Tribe´s destruction at the hand of the dwarves is justifiably seen as terrible crime of the Alliance, but people often forget Cliffwalker Tribe that was seemingly annihilated by the Horde for going against Overlord Krom´gar and all its NPCs except their chieftain are either shown directly dead or missing after the situation is resolved.
If dwarves destroying a tauren tribe is such a big deal that it justifies tauren hating the Alliance, why shouldn´t destruction of a tauren tribe by the orcs be the same?
Even blood elves, so slighted by the Alliance, were effectively held hostage by the Forsaken during Wrath, with their so-called allies threatening to widthraw their support and let Ghostlands fall to the Scourge. Lor´themar even had to directly threaten Sylvanas to prevent her from raising his dead during Siege of Orgrimmar.
And that´s not even mentioning general issue of two Warchiefs reigning with iron fist, executing or murdering their opponents. Compare it to the Alliance, where there seems to be zero conflict (to the detriment of their story, I admit, as it often ends up being the less interesting faction because of that) and if a racial leader doesn´t want to aid in conflict, they aren´t killed in cold blood or threatened, the High King keeps trying to convince them instead. In context of this, I really don´t see what kind of benefit the Horde offers to its nations that they wouldn´t get from being neutral or part of smaller networks of more like-minded people without higher authority.
Also, a side note, night elves could have sabotaged every single Arcane structure in Quel´Thalas and the blood elves wouldn´t have turned into Wretched (if anything, the conversion might even stop) as Wretched aren´t a result of mana starvation but rather an elf succumbing to their addiction by feeding on more and more.
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To not be quite so glib; BFA was the perfect time to do interesting things.
Why is everyone suddenly out for blood despite Legion having everyone working well together? Oh no, Old Gods!
Uh, no, everyone is just Terrible™. Hmn.
Oh hey, we can finally break up the outdated two-faction system and have new and interesting combos where… what do you mean No?
Instead we got character assassination (Sylvanas) and Oops More Genocide from incompetant writers, not a glimmer of moral parity or negativity for the Alliance, and Shadowlands.
Which is a sin 
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I don’t think the logic would be the same. While I think the faction dynamic is obsolete and old, I think the Horde has it worse.
Louder for people in the back.
To quote Algalon, the Alliance is often bound together by abstract concepts, such as commitment to nobility and honor. Whereas instead the Horde was grounded on survival, or the idea of strength and honor.
Placing the second aside, which I believe doesn’t fit the Horde any longer, the former, survival, can only go so far to forge strong bonds. It is fundamentally a bond that parties acknowledge it can and should be broken when desperate circumstances aren’t forcing you together, or instead it has to become something more.
But it never did become anything more than that, or when it did, it was basically a world-conquering villlainous faction.
On top of that, as Syelia points out, a lot of the times those in the Horde bound together by survival often resort to infighting, and become their own existential threat - so the very reason that brought them together is kinda erased.
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Which again just ties into assuming the absolute worst of the Horde all of the time and the absolute best of the Alliance.
Again, my point is that the worst of the Horde’s atrocities came in later expansions after much of the groundwork for the more nuanced disagreements and conflicts were laid down and largely ignored.
That, in turn, caused escalation - Garrosh and Sylvanas going off of the deep end doesn’t negate the crimes and incompetence of, say, Vereesa or Aethas if the torture and murder of civilians is indeed a genuine issue.
I don’t particularly care for the Horde or the Alliance as organisation, though I also can’t deny that despite being a detriment overall they at least brought something to the table that wasn’t as lame as the current stance of ‘let’s ignore everything that happened and be best friends’.
The constant bait and switches over time certainly don’t help, though as someone who enjoyed the Blood Elves based on their original iteration I’m still far more displeased by the treatment and ridicule of Kael’thas (and by extension, Lady Vashj and Illidan) than I am over the Horde being written to later be over the top ‘evil’ by the same hack writing team that turned Redridge and Uldum into movie references.
Ultimately, the faction war is a tangled mess that makes very little sense and can be readily picked apart on many fronts, with out of character behaviour and poor decision making being readily seen across the board. Though ultimately I don’t see that as reason enough to excuse the Alliance’s shadier actions. Which are always downplayed, even when they happened before the Horde went completely off of the deep end (twice).
So I stand by my earlier point - either both factions go or none of them go. Disbanding and dissolving only one of them would…accomplish what, exactly? Further peddle the impression that the Alliance are exclusively the ‘good guys’ and the ‘protagonists’ with a few token ‘scary races’ as side kicks every now and then?
Even ‘token’ is a stretch since most of the current expansion is exclusively neutral or Alliance characters.
Judging by the main cast of TWW it already happened. Remind me, what does Thrall even do down there these days, while Anduin and Alleria have the spotlight?
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I’ll admit, it is amusing that he shows up in the cinematics and expansion art but then he’s only there right at the start of the expansion to hand out a quest when Dalaran is destroyed…and then again towards the end to say some ‘motivating words’ to Anduin.
Who by that point had already had the same thing occur at the behest of Faerin and Khadgar. My guess is Metzen managed to squeeze in a few Thrall scenes but the original setup for the expansion had none…which is worrying, since the ‘Horde representation’ would be non-existent without him.
Nah. The proposal was that the Horde should be disbanded as a faction. Garrosh was killed for his misdeeds and mistreatment of the Blood Elves. Vereesa wasn’t - and neither was Sylvanas (though she was at least ousted from a position of leadership).
It’s relevant to me as a Blood Elf enthusiast who has maintained a healthy distaste and wariness towards both factions. I can walk away from the mess that was Garrosh with the satisfaction that he was cut down like the rabid dog he was.
I can’t walk away from the mess that was the Purge of Dalaran with any real sense of justice. Which, again, is precisely why I have spent most of this thread pointing that out - so I’m not sure why that means that I am supposedly ‘talking to ghosts’. I proposed the concession of the Purge of Dalaran leading to Aethas and Vereesa both being taken out to give both factions some sense of closure. That didn’t happen, though, so it’s an ongoing issue that has never really had any satisfying conclusion and worse yet, outright retconned.
It doesn’t matter to me that what Garrosh and Sylvanas did is technically worse. I’ll readily admit that it is. I’m far more concerned with broken aesops and protagonist centred morality that conveniently excuses and downplays the misdeeds of the supposed ‘good guys’.
I don’t expect you to ‘get it’ or even necessarily agree. Though I fiercely oppose the idea of one faction being eliminated, especially when the current expansion shows that just leads to bland slop and the Horde being reduced to what is barely even the role of a token sidekick.
That’s an even worse position than being hit with the tiresome villain bat since at least then the Horde was front and centre (with the resistance elements also being representation as well).
You´re arguing with ghosts right now. Neither me nor Zaphius (as we have repeatedly told you) are talking about whether Horde did more damage to the Alliance than Alliance did to the Horde. We´re saying that Horde did a lot of damage to the Horde while Alliance didn´t do pretty much any damage to the Alliance, and as such, Horde as a unified concept may have actually been detrimental to many of the nations within the Horde.
You keep talking about what Vereesa did to the Sunreavers, as if it´s in any way relevant to the conversation about what Garrosh and Sylvanas did to the trolls, tauren and blood elves.
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This has been a rather vocal criticism of the Alliance for a long while mind, in that the only real tension we’ve seen has been Tyrande and the Night Elves spitting on the armistace and doing their own thing.
Ultimately the Horde has suffered from the devs retelling Warcraft 2 on repeat. While the Alliance has suffered from being the same small roster where everyone agrees and we’re all lawfully stupid together. The High King thing was never given a warm welcome, for example.
And all the Defias downed tools and went back to Stormwind to live happily ever after except from the three that didn’t (they’re actually super evil).
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It’s very rarely used as a case of “gotcha, allies are actually just as bad as horde, deal with it.”
It’s just a case of pointing out that the Alliance is actually guilty of some nastiness that Blizzard plays very little attention to and most players pay very little attention to, because the moral purity of the Alliance has only been a little tarnished with these stains of darkness, while the Horde has had buckets full of monstrous evil poured all over it and it’s much easier to notice and point that out.
Hence my bewilderment at the start of the thread, when it was said that the Horde’s crimes were being swept under a rug.
The Horde is a coalition of disparate peoples, brought together because they acknowledge that they are only able to survive and thrive through solidarity. Considering how the Warcraft setting is bursting with existential threats like the Scourge, the Old Gods and the Burning Legion, how could the tauren or Darkspear trolls hope to stand up to such evils on their own? History has proven several times that the peoples of Azeroth are only able to fight back by fighting together.
Combine that with the fact that many of the Horde’s races have reasons to be wary of the Alliance or to be chummy with other Horde races, and that’s why they form the Horde rather than standing on their own. Warcraft’s history has shown that trying to stand on your own against the forces that be ends in death and defeat.
And the most notable instance of a major Alliance character getting killed, Varian Wrynn, ended in the Alliance community demanding an equivalent death for the Horde, which is what got Vol’jin killed.
This is where I’m going to get a little more emotional and speak as a Horde fan.
Hopefully all of the examples I (and other people) have cited and arguments we’ve given have made it clear that the wrongs suffered by the Horde at the hands of the Alliance, no matter how minor, are often ignored or retconned, while the wrongs suffered by the Alliance at the hands of the Horde are exaggerated and comically heinous and inexcusable.
The amount of effort that Blizzard has put into depicting the Alliance as morally immaculate (despite the numerable wrongs that they’re responsible for) and smashing the Horde into the role of ‘idiotic villain’ and making them do the most reprehensible crap is hopefully easy for everyone to see at this point.
With that in mind, I hope people understand why a Horde fan might not be happy with people suggesting that the Horde should receive further, more realistic consequences for its ridiculously written misdeeds, on top of having its narrative ruined, several of its core characters killed or booted out, and a large chunk of its appeal destroyed.
All the while, any suggestion that the Alliance should have ever received any sort of canonical pushback for any of their sins (yes, the Horde has done worse, but whataboutism doesn’t excuse that the Alliance did bad stuff at some points) is often met with dismissal, refusal and derision.
This narrative favouritism even features in something as simple as the environments.
Stormwind City is an entire city of wood and stone rebuilt in two decades, with no sign of any of the ecological damage that would have been required to acquire those resources nearby, except for a few innocent-looking mines.
Ironforge is an industrial city built into a mountain, full of stone and metal and machinery which requires fuel, with only a few innocent-looking quarries dotted here and there throughout Khaz Modan.
Orgrimmar is a city of stone and wood that has to acquire lumber from Ashenvale to survive, the environmental devastation is apparent and obscene and the air is full of smog and ash and it’s so appalling and horrific, no wonder the night elves are upset.
Sure, maybe the Horde should have suffered slightly more consequences than it has over the years, or maybe it shouldn’t exist at all, if you want to think realistically about the situation. There are reasonable arguments to be made there.
It just seems like those arguments are only ever made when the Horde is concerned. Realism leaves the building as soon as the Alliance gets involved, because the Alliance gets to be the noble and idyllic coalition of heroic good guys immune to introspection, while the Horde, which has been smashed into the role of ‘idiotic villain’ time and time again, must be subjected to serious and grounded critique and consequences.
In short:
As a fan of the Horde, being horribly written to the point where Blizzard has killed off most of the interesting characters that the Horde has, where roleplaying and fan communities across the world has lost interest in the Horde and where Blizzard doesn’t even know how to write the Horde into the narrative any more, is punishment enough.
Even more consequences that are even more realistic aren’t needed, especially as long as the Alliance remains borderline untouched in comparison.
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