Yes, all of her Statements are correct to a fault.
This is correct the Gilneas pretty much wants a piece of the Horde, especially Sylvanas for this bit, and Sylvanas is still Horde.
Correct, the Humans and worgen are infuriated about this very thought, and Sylvanas being seated upon the Throne Room, nearly threw Genn into a frenzy.
Also Correct, Silvermoon and Darnassus are not at the best of terms, especially after they invaded and sabotaged the resurrection project of Quel’thalas.
Also correct Dark Spear and trolls in general don’t like the humans, especially the Kul’tirans.
Correct again. heck even the forum posters of strong Alliance alignment will use this in daily arguments against the Orcs.
Also correct, the Forsaken were hunted by the Alliance and Genocide of the whole faction is always at the back end of the Living’s minds.
also something Posters with Strong Alliance Alignment preaches upon a daily basics.
This is also correct, true peace will never come before these two Military powers until the wounds of old are mended, and after the burning of Teldrassil, the Murder of Rastakhan and so on.
Well, Genn attacked her during a ceasefire while the Legion was attacking the Planet. Attacking the Leader of a Nation openly is practically a declaration of War.
And contrary to many he didn’t know what she was up to, only that she was up to something.
Sylvanas didn’t even try to have talks with the Alliance. We know from Before the Storm that, ridiculous as it is, considering how tightly people from both factions worked together in the order halls, that she didn’t even have enough correspondence with Anduin to make clear that she didn’t just abandon Varian to die at the broken shore.
Her information on Alliance motivations and their willingness to wage war wasn’t up to date. She didn’t try to have talks about how a peace could look, and what prices the Alliance might demand. There were no peace talks that failed, there were just no peace talks.
If you declare peace impossible, you should really have tried out all viable alternatives. Sylvanas tried none. Even letting the desolate council meet their families was never something she approached as a chance for peace, but only as a chance to break any hope of it within the council.
She is deluding herself, if she believes what she says. There can be no peace, because she couldn’t let it happen, not because the Alliance could never have accepted it. She doesn’t understand her enemy, because she doesn’t even try to. She projects her desire for war onto everyone else.
So… I would agree that it is hard to argue against her, because she isn’t reasoning based on facts, just stating paranoid predictions, based on how she believes people she doesn’t know at all would feel. It’s very hard to argue with conspiracy theorists.
She’s right to believe what she’s saying and Saurfang was right to agree.
But the book goes to great lengths to show how perfect the Alliance is and how Sylvanas and her plan was wrong. Though Sylvanas isn’t aware of this since it all happens from an Alliance perspective.
Every point she brings up in the Horde short story, Anduin refutes in the Alliance version. It’s one of the major issues with this narrative.
Even if Sylvanas hadn’t gone full genocide, Blizzard put everything they had into showing the Alliance and Anduin as innocent and pure, so we’d look evil regardless.
I’d expect the same reasoning from both sides. Many points regarding the Alliance hatred can be seen just as unjust or as selfish and biased as the Horde ones.
She isn’t basing her argument on perceptions or some future hypothesis.
She is simply stating the fact that war is inevitable when scars run as deep as they do for both factions.
And yes, Stormheim is an example of reigniting a war based on past grudges.
Her closing statement is that the Horde can’t have absolute reassurance regarding an everlasting peace, unless they carve it for themselves on their own terms.
Pacific coexistence is fickle, and its a concept that has been quite recently debunked.
Whether it suits her to be such is irrelevant. Fact is, that recent times have proven her right in this regard. Its not about trying alternatives.
Even a warmonger can be vindicated given certain context.
Which is much less important than the question if Sylvanas could prove that Genn didn’t know she was up to something.
Genn doesn’t lead the Alliance, so his actions could only be a declaration of war by them, if the has the leadership’s backing. So before starting a war Sylvanas should first try to contact Anduin and demand punitive actions against the rabid wolfman.
Anduin would then ask Genn what happened… and Genn can truthfully say that he stopped Sylvanas from recruiting more Val’kyr by stealing them from an ally in the war against the Legion, while dealing with darker powers of death.
Sylvanas could ask how he knew, but at that point her actions would already be part of the discussion, and it would look much more like both sides were at fault. She could of course demand to see the sources that told him what she was doing… but who would really expect the Alliance to expose their spies? If the Alliance felt generous they could show the documents found in Aszuna.
All in all the discussion would be much more complicated than “Genn attacked me, just because he hates me!”. It could probably be solved diplomatically. She could still start a war over it, as she could over any reason, but the justification wouldn’t be as strong as many seem to suggest.
Apart from that… she didn’t start the war over Stormheim. In Before the Storm Sylvanas and Anduin both agreed that there was no war at the moment.
That isn’t a fact. That’s a prediction. Based on the psychologies of people she doesn’t know.
He was sent there by the Alliance, led Alliance Troops, bore the Alliance colours. Why is Sylvanas needed to prove she didn’t betray Varian, without the Alliance asking, but at the same time she has to ask if Genn had Alliance backing without jumping to conclusions like the alliance?
And for all intents and purposes, by not punishing Genn, Anduin gave his backing afterwards.
You know i really dislike Sylvanas, but there is some stuff she wasn’t wrong about.
She didn’t need to prove that she didn’t betray Varian. But if she wants to claim that peace is impossible, she has to try to make peace before that. And that includes discussing issues like the broken shore that make it harder. But yes, Genn’s actions would have to be discussed then, too.
That’s assuming he knew everything. Which you really can’t, when the only Alliance witnesses were Genn’s people.
Gilneas and Lordaeron? Genn and Rogers proved her right in that regard in Stormheim.
Darnassus regarding Blood elves? Tyrande in Suramar, TBC quests, Lorash…
Darkspear and Orc grudges? Shadows of the Horde clarifies what Vol’jin feels about humans. Interactions between Zandalari and Kul tiran further point at some underlying animosity between trolls and humans. About the orc part, even Saurfang agreed on that one.
Forsaken hatred? Before the Storm. The bulk of the human kingdom despising on undead.
She brings a rightful question after that paragraph: Would Anduin be capable to reign all that hatred even if he wanted to? He wasn’t able to do so in Stormheim.
Should the Horde open themselves to those sort of attacks and trust the Alliance to not engage against them? Should they be even willing to?.
Why would they want to reign their own founded hatred against the Alliance?
Wouldn’t it be more simple to just finish with it once and for all?
Its a valid logic. A warmongering one, but valid.
And founded.
Besides, its not all about predicting what could/would happen in the future. There are a list of things of the past that the Horde had decided to overlook. Unwillingness to continue doing so is just as understandable as the times the Alliance decided not to do so either.
She doesn’t have the information to know if she is right. She is quite the cynic, and of course some of ther predictions are valid. But she has problems factoring in more elusive motivations like honor and loyalty that can stop an orc from slaying a defeated enemy, get some humans to embrace their undead kin, or help Worgen with sticking to the people who helped them in the past.
She assumes the worst, and that sometimes comes true. But she ignores more positive possibilities. She doesn’t know Anduin. She doesn’t know Genn. She doesn’t know Tyrande. She is projecting her way of thinking upon them.
That is a legitimate question. Maybe she should talk to him, to get a better picture of his developing persona as a leader, instead of just assuming she knows the answer?
Should the Horde commit to a war that will inevitably lead to enormous losses, when peace actually cannot be ruled out?
So… they should make war, because they hate the Alliance? Well, you don’t need all that pretty reasoning for that, just go nuts. Just don’t claim that there was no choice.
The things that happened in the past would be something discussed in peace talks. Agreements for the future can be made, reperations discussed. If you think that only blood can pay for blood, though, it doesn’t matter if your enemies have turned to angels that would never hurt you now, you would still come for them.
But that isn’t her argument.
Of course, if you can invent the premises, you can make everything logical. Conspiracy theorists don’t have to be stupid. it’s enough if they are prone to bias and projection.
Many of the concerns she brought regarding a set of key elements and grudges between factions have been proven right. With differing degrees of accuracy.
She has been proven right, to some degree, by both meta and ingame reasons such as the ones i quoted above.
Stormheim was enough answer. Calia and The Gathering was another one.
Peace under Alliance terms that open the Horde to any kind of reprisal because of both valid and perceived past affronts, isn’t a peace worthy enough.
Not when Sylvanas and Saurfang think they have the strength to create one under their own terms.
No. Sylvanas logic is to make war to prevent a fickle and tenuous peace concept that from her point of view, allows stuff like Stormheim to be overlooked, and that again leaves a whole set of grudges and wrongings unanswered.
I’d expect the same reasoning from the Alliance.
In fact those were more or less the peace terms they offered after SoO.
I don’t know either, to be honest, they are mostly killing me these days. Anyway, I promised a view on Tyrande. One of the greatest reason people praise her is because we are frustrated by Anduin.
The very fact that a teenager is our High King and military commander despite people like Jarod and Turalyon being present is just insane. He has no warfare experience at all and his world view is naive as hell. And we are all stuck with him. Any deviation is welcome at this point.
As for Tyrande, she didn’t really do anything to weaken the Alliance. She didn’t pull night elven troops from Zandalar or other places, you can see them fighting in Nazmir. She did not weaken the war effort, she just went ahead with her own thing, and she did so alone.
Maiev, Shandris, and Genn came after, and without Tyrande asking. She is also right in the fact that the night elves fighting a guerilla war against the Horde in Darkshore and Ashenvale did not have time. So she rallied them and turned a guerilla effort into open warfare.
In the light of the fact that she did not act selfish, that she helped her people, and that she was successful in killing a val’kyr, directly endangering Sylvanas, I consider this a smart move on Tyrande’s part. Alongside with the previously stressed strategical part, of course.
Ironically, the war that Sylvanas started to ensure Horde world domination, will result in the extermination of all remaining Horde races on the planet. Except of course those who wish to bend the knee to the one true High King…
Even Nixxiom realized the might of our High King. He has seen the truth and soon all other heretics will be enlightened, or purged. Unity through Purity. United we stand under our glorious High King, (M)Anduin, who shall cleanse a blighted world in righteous fire of retribution.
Sylvanas is wrong. A great man once said, ‘’…that peace is the noblest aspiration. But to preserve it, you must be willing to fight!” Sylvanas would never have allowed peace to thrive and she must be removed, like Garrosh was. We had two long years of peace after Garrosh was gone and more might have been had if Vol’jin had not been slain.
……we must still burn the Kul’tiran fleet, as part of the peace terms. This cannot be avoided.