We all the know The Red Dawn storyline isn’t the best, quite frankly it might be the worst this expansion. But one thing has bugged since playing it.
While doing the 'Where’s Danath" quest we get to a point where we see the Horde outpost has taken in human refugees. And there Eitrigg and Faerin talk about how the orcs have accepted the humans despite the fact that orcs were imprisoned. Eitrigg then talks about doing better or something.
My problem is that this conversation skips over an important fact of Warcraft history, one that to my knowledge has not been retconned. The orcs invaded the humans first. It’s not like the orcs wanted to live in peace with humans and they were nature loving hippies. They were invaders and conquerors that managed to take over Stormwind.
If it was any other orc then this Horde washing of Warcraft history I could probably get it as a biased view. But this is Eitrigg, one of the oldest orcs. He knows why the interment camps happened and what lead to them. And what makes it worse is that during his conversation with Lothar, he talks about Tirion(not by name, God forbid we remember the good characters). He mentions Tirion’s kindness. But he doesn’t portray taking in the refugees as correcting the sins of the past and paying and old debt.
There was always a Horde favouritism at Blizzard, I understand that. Even when the Horde lost, it was badass, it was cool. The type of “Yes we did, what are you going to do about it?” that can make one appreciate the Horde. Weighed by the past, but still recongising it.
Now it feels like that dark past is swept under the rug in favour of a strange view of the Horde. Horde washing the past if you will.
Then again, I don’t know why I complain about Eitrigg being used for this Horde washing, when they had this hero of the old wars(that has seen all types of magics) scared of witches.
All of the stories flaws aside tho I never got the impression that they’re pretending the orcish invasion didn’t happen just because they didn’t mention it. It’s just an orc giving his opinion.
A real retcon would be like what they did with the purge of dalaran where they actively went back to change quest text from the alliance killing sunreavers to them capturing sunreavers (the actual npc’s still die and their deaths still count as the quest objective)
Honestly it should be mandatory for anyone who wants to complain about faction favouratism to have loremaster on both an alliance and horde character because the moment you play both factions you realise that’s just not the case.
Its about how it was presented in the quest. Cardboard went suprise pikachu when she heard about the… summer camps, and Eitrigg going “its complicate, long story, dont ask”. Given the context and the motivation/point of the conversation, its pretty stupid to skip that part.
Must’ve been half zoned out during that questline, I remember hyperfocussing on the fact that the horde actually did something offscreen and I as a horde character wasn’t allowed to be a part of it through a seperate quest so that may just have never registered.
Still don’t think its faction favouratism but more of a trying to scrub or not mention anything that might cause a social media riot ever since the allegations, so no internment camps, purges and the thing that started it all: paintings of women.
Lets not forget the mention of Colonialism, the orcs expunging humans from their ancient homeland and First Nation and colonising it because it resembles nagrand or something.
That annoyed me too, they mention the camps, and Faerin was horrified why the alliance did that, but in the same breath it’s NOT revealed why, why the orcs landed in the camps, precisely because they came as invaders, murdering, plundering.
And ettrig knows that, and what the sins of the past are.
As Tirion also mentioned, he deliberately omits the most important point, the why and wherefore.
but the main thing is that the finger is now being pointed at the alliance.
sry but if you dig so deep into history, then you should set the record straight - and tell everything, from both sides.
an dlet not forgett that the allinace still won arathi in BFa and then blizzard did a 180 tun and decide the horde is allowed to stay there, and ridiculously enough even got long - although they lost.
sry, realistically speaking, and we only need to look at RL history, they would either have been driven out of the country or massacred.
If I were a citizen of Strom…or the Alliance, I would feel betrayed by the government for letting the horde get away with it so easily and even compensating them with land - which is absolute nonsense.
To be fair - the red dawn is right on that point
if the situation had been the other way around, the horde would have pulled out hard,
One of the books or short stories mention Turalyon and Alleria stopping a group of Horde refugees leaving the Arathi Highlands under orders of King Danath Trollbane.
This is such buls.hit, even because 1, turylaion and alleria had a light grunde aginst the horde (because first war), 2, Turalyon woud NEVE be push around by a noboly like Danath, tyuralyon is regent of stomwind and in MUCH higher regard then danath.
This is absolute nonesense, we all know that realistically the Alliance would never act like this, not after everything the Horde did.
It’s classic horde favortism that they are treated like victims and the alliance shows absolutely no clear edge where they should.
After everything the Horde did, driving peoples from their homeland, destroying or burning down entire cities and waging war several times to destroy the alliance, the alliance has every right to crack down and drive them out instead of rewarding them for their warmongering, which is the biggest bulsh.it ever.
Let the alliance take tough (and realistic) action like they did with the camps back then, they have EVERY right to do so.
You want the alliance to show a clear edge or not just be a white knight, well then let them act like that and let them take tough action against the horde and not some ridiculous crap like that in arathi.
“Yeah Faerin, this is the place were the humans once treated us like animals and kept us in poor and unsanitary conditions so that we may slowly rot away, but don’t worry they were like totally justified because we lost a war against them.”
That is not what an Orc would say, not even Eitrigg.
First…she says the Hallowfall Arathi share similarities with the Orcs, because they try to survive in a foreign place against all odds and are quite a martial people…which is true.
Second…Hallowfall IS a colony of the Arathi-Empire.
Btw, I doubt that the Arathi-EMPIRE claimed a whole continent trough just diplomacy. Empires tend to expand their borders with war.
No…Trollbane didn’t order anything, what are you talking about, that is nowhere mentioned in the book. The refugees where leaving because the fourth war destroyed their homes.
“Alliance Dogs” The Forsaken in heavy black robes shuffled forward […] “Where is your compassion? These are innocents, homless and starving, just pawns in your endless war!” (Apothecary Cotley, ‘Shadows Rising’ by Madeleine Roux, Chapter Nine, Page 86)
There is much to critisize about the Arathi-Questline, like the dialouge that is quite…charring sometimes even for Warcraft-Standards, and the quite unsatisfying end to the storyline in my opinion but could we please stay away from things like “This shows Blizzards Horde/Alliance-favoritism!”? It is quite annoying.
At least give more context instead of pointing fingers and alliance evil because camp that farin can act indignant hearing half the story…
Ettrug isn’t a fool, he knows well the dark paths the horde cross and the price they paid for.
Speaking of tirion who ahoes mercy and compassion while sont ever mentioned why.
Give a little more dialogue how its partially justifiable instead of stupidly frame the alliance.
Shall i point out the hypocrisy that the horde complain lack of compassion while they actually never show themselves and mercilessly killig refugees (hillsbrans, theramore, Gilneas) and are 90% of the time themselves responsible foe the qar waging and mongering.
Also complain lack of compasion but start right away the conversation with an insult.
You’re quite late to the party, sadly. Story forums is full of quiet posters ever ready to vigorously shake their red and blue flags.
Doesn’t go anywhere, and everyone always ends up sad, disappointed or commit a mass exodus of the thread. But y’know what, at least their voices have been heard. Until the next thread comes up.
The truth, Eitrigg knows the orcs waged a campaign of genocide against the humans, elves, gnomes and dwarves. Two of which are Faerin’s ancestors and that the humans imprisoned them for that.
He can still complain, or call the humans out, about the fact that they were used as nothing but slave labour, forced to fight, kept in unsanitary conditions etc especially since the average orc wouldn’t know that Terenar Menethil II might be looking into what the Kirin Tor’s Antonidas suggested.
Had they just lost a war the Internment Camps would not have been justified. But having lost a campaign of genocide against four different species makes the Internment Camps a mercy, especially since Quel’thalas (their now ally), Gilneas, and Stromgarde (the kingdom who’s lands they now colonize) wanted every orc to be put to the blade.
You’re right, I heavily misremembered how that book went and I should double check stuff in the future if/when possible.
Sorry about that.
Blizzard kind of forced that role unto the Alliance because they made slavery and genocide acceptable to the Horde.
I mean, in my humble opinion the Alliance’s darkest period is way less worse than the Horde’s darkest periods.
Yeah, they have done dark (and evil) things, but atleast the Alliance hasn’t gone on multiple campaigns of wholesale genocide against two Horde races.
I admit I sometimes get blinded by my blue flag… :grumble:
Original alliance were really hardline so to say so it doesnt really feel that the role was forced on to em. It is in the details
It is like medieval societies compared to renesance era with old alliance and modern alliance.
And no im not trying to whitewash horde what they were, bloodlusty hordes that were corrupted by demon blood to do others bidding. I still think there could have been better way to fix the situation but i think the whole camps thing really fit to the old alliance narrative so well so i wouldnt change it either
I think we should not forget, that there is 2 Horde ,3 if speaking of garrosh.
The first one the corrupted one and orc only and the second horde the group of race who had troubled past and trying to survive.
Mostly the first generation horde have paid what they did.and speaking of eitrigg has a veteran he would omits some details not for be see has a bad guys but more out of shame and sadness. Ptsd
Blizz always do this . When playing only one faction you don t have full pictures but only your faction point of view.
One thing blizzard used to be great was creating the faction based POV.
Good example is the horde introduction to legion vs the alliance one
To alliance its shown that horde were just cowards who let their king to die, but from horde POV the situation was dire and they had to get out
Because Modern Day writers are afraid of reality and consequences.
It’s insane, honestly. Insane. This is the 1st collapse of the movie industry all over again (while the Movie/Show industry is rn in a 2nd collapse alongside).
I swear, if this trend about “identity first” continues for us, a species that evolved around tribalism and societies focused on cooperation through dependency, we will soon start WW3 over some petty stuff like who called whom what pronoun…
Individualism is killing communal goals more and more. Loneliness is in every western country on the rise and takes a massive toll on mental health, AI is further ruining this with Social media.
That’s what happens when egoism comes first before socialism. Which agencies like DEI and such ultimately have furthered. Egoism and Narcissism.
Just look at the Show Ironheart from Marvel. It’s the newest low of the low in entertainment media at the moment. Even worse than what She-Hulk was.
God, I miss that!
Especially considering the population at that time (in the books) wanted them all DEAD! Even more so Alleria wanted to kill every Orc under the Sun for the killing of her Brother Lirath Windrunner
( https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Lirath_Windrunner )
