A strange question perhaps but let me explain! It is safe to say that all of us, not unlike Blizzard, tend to draw inspiration from both historical Europe as well as other franchises when it comes to how things work.
What is a Knight? Well, some may say a Knight is someone who’s been Knighted by a Lord, given a piece of land from said Lord to live in and look after but in exchange be obliged to head the Lord’s call to arms should one come, either at the Lord’s own initiative, or from the King above said Lord.
The details of this from a historical perspective changes a lot depending on what time period and what country one looks at but the above is just one example.
But, then we have orders like the Knights of the Silver Hand where it ties in more with a religious organization and they remind me far more of historical Templars and Crusaders and then to top it all off, we have the actual Knight rank in the official Alliance army!
The latter is what makes me the most curious. Are Soldiers in service of the SW based Alliance Army that reach the rank Knight given land? Is their closest “Lord” literally the King? Or is it just a rank name like any other?
I like to imagine the Human Kingdoms have a mix of soldiers: It’s clear they have standing armies, but they’re also supplemented with Knights and their retinues (both Feudal and Silver Hand)?
As for what makes a Knight. Not sure! Playing the guessing game, I’d wager there are different kinds. Could an average army soldier rise in the ranks and be Knighted? Quite possibly. Would they have the land, riches and prestige as a “noble-blooded” one? Probably not.
In my humble opinion I consider the most important distinction of a knight is to swear an oath - be it to a Lord/Lady, a nation or even an order - and to be loyal to said oaths when called upon by their superiors. Additional specifics are going to depend on the organisation that has employed said knight. Perhaps some of the more human kingdoms may still grant land to knights (though with how it has been incorporated into the Alliance military I somewhat doubt it) whereas the Silver Hand most likely doesn’t
A Knight to me, seem like a Man of Honour, Compassion, and Chivalry. Now this could also just describe any Paladin, so as Faelenn said, the main difference would be a sworn Oath that they uphold.
Three distinctions of knight(s) within the Alliance.
granted through military honour, as seen within the game via PvP & NPC’s.
service of the light. Paladins and those of the Church of the Holy Light can be granted knighthood(damehood) via virtous/chivalric deeds.
fuedal oaths to a Lord/Lady.
All three of these are slightly different in the way they conduct themselves, but are generally:
Of course as well other organisations can ‘knight’ individuals, as seen with the Ebon Blade, but from what I’m aware most of these titles still carry over from the ‘living-status.’
I think the term ‘knight’ in Warcraft is a little confusing.
As many have stated in this thread, it can be used for the usual meaning of what a knight entails, but at the same time, it’s a military rank that any class can become in the Alliance’s military. On paper, you can be a ‘knight’ and be a dirty fighting backstabbing rogue that crept up the ranks.
Alternatively, knightly military orders, which the Silver Hand is/was one. Another example of a knightly order I can think of is Stormwind’s now defunct Brotherhood of the Horse, which was pretty secular if I’m not mistaken.
SIlver Hand is a weird one, we haven’t had lore on them since they became Alliance-only in BFA, so it’d be entirely a sect of the ‘Church of the Holy Light’ you could imagine, from the then mishmash it was in the Paladin Order Hall.
It’d say it would be a rough 50/50 split between where each of them got the titles from.
What do you think of the Ebon Blade knightly titles?
The son or nephew of a noble or aristocrat who wasn’t first born (meaning that receiving titles was the only way for them to get land or well, anything really) whose family is rich enough to convince the local peasants to take up arms for them as well as dress themselves in medieval godmode full plate armour.
When it comes to fantasy you get closer to the whole defender of the realm archetype.
And it’s even weirder and more confusing than that, because a single patch after they showed Silver Hand NPCs in the Warfront, they added Uther’s Tomb into the game.
And for them, I think it’s mostly a leftover from the Scourge, more than any actual knightly / noble significance, since the Scourge uses noble titles as well. It does match the grim, twisted knightly aesthetic though.
Same patch. As I said in other discussion on this topic, it was a pet project from one guy on the art team (apparently not an unusual thing in other games, and something that seems to be happening in WoW in other places, such as the new house near Goldshire): https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/2451847-Uther-s-tomb-probably-isn-t-anything
“The tomb received a major graphical overhaul at the launch of Battle for Azeroth (for images of the original, see below). However, the area is not used in any Battle for Azeroth content. When asked about the reason for the update in July 2020, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas stated that “Honestly, I don’t one hundred percent recall off the top of my head. I don’t think there’s any elaborate backstory there. I think it’s quite possible it was a side project. We have a range of everything from interns to personal passion projects just refurbishing old parts of the game.” He added that since Blizzard usually plans at least one expansion ahead and since Uther plays a prominent role in Shadowlands—the expansion after Battle for Azeroth——the character was likely at the forefront of the developers’ minds as they were looking for places to retouch in Lordaeron in connection to the Battle for Lordaeron event at the start of BfA.”
There is no indication whatsoever it was a 1-man “hackathon” project from an intern that just got put into the game. The Uther Statue model also uses the Model made for his Shadowlands cinematics both in-game and external.
Anyways, we don’t know the current state of the Silver Hand atm because there’s 2 different flags and some went Alliance, some might’ve remained neutral w/ the Argent Crusade. There is no agreement even from Blizzard as to their current state (but we do have Tyrhold gaining a neutral Silver Hand + Tyr Guard presence in 10.1.7).
I don´t think Ion saying “this could have been a side project or something, I don´t know, we all were thinking about Lordaeron and Shadowlands at the time” somehow disproves that this was a pet project of one person.
Definitely doesn´t make the Uther´s Tomb rework some deep storytelling where stained glass window with symbol of Argent Crusade and flags of Silver Hand signifies that Silver Hand stayed neutral back in BfA. Now, some definitely could have, but we don´t need the Tomb to get to that conclusion.
I will accept the word of the leading developer and project manager over an anon on mmochamp with absolutely no source to back themself up tbh. Additionally,
Nobody was arguing this, what Knells and Colin were discussing was entirely different and just regarded the ambiguous nature of the Silver Hand in current lore times. There was absolutely no need for this to be brought up nor turned into a hot debate.
Yeah, I was just mentioning how it’s highly confusing because, just like they added Uther’s Tomb with no lore or plot points attached to it, they also added a single unnamed Silver Hand NPC to the Warfront with no lore attached.
I am not saying it’s one way or another right now, as, really, it’s not as if they have written anything that we could compare and only need to wait a few days for 10.1.7’s lore additions to clear some things up. I am just pointing out how confusing it is, as they simultaneously added two different in-game instances of the same organisation that have wildly different and clashing implications with no writing attached to it whatsoever.
I don´t think this is necessarily confusing, we only need to look at real life to find multiple groups claiming the same name with relatively similar main objective. My favorite example are these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_of_the_Orders_of_Saint_John_of_Jerusalem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta
Also, I firmly believe that there is nobody in the world who can figure out the exact number of orders of nuns named after random cathedrals called Notre Dame.
We already had two Silver Hands back in Vanilla, when both Stormwind paladins and Tirion´s group used the name. There can easily be paladins of the Alliance who went full aggro at the Horde calling themselves Knights of the Silver Hand, and neutral wholesome guys who stayed in Light´s Hope calling themselves Knights of the Silver Hand.
“It’s not confusing, it could just be two organisations with the same banner, the same name, all while they have no lore written about said organisation(s) since 2017.”
why are you making this an argument we literally just mentioned the silver hand being confusing to the point people still have debates about it 5 years after they added a random building update and a random npc with no lore to speak of other than displays of mental gymnastics in passing in a thread about what knights are in warcraft
Right but we have no clue if this is the case or not, that is what Colin and Dreadscorch were talking about. We cannot infer a single thing about WoW lore from IRL Knight orders own histories.
Yes, you could have Neutral/Alliance Silver Hand in BfA however the fact that both were waving the banner of one singular order is the part that has confused even Blizzard because we’ve had no real answer as to the state of the Order post-Legion, even just to tell us whether or not its “every-man-for-himself” now with regards to how the Silver Hand works.
I also think we can probably leave it at that because its pointlessly clogging up an unrelated forum thread.
Despite being a Don Quixote reference, I think Maximilian of Northshire can give us a pretty good idea of what a traditional sort of Warcraft knight is like:
“You must know that a knight embraces no tenet more tightly than that of chivalry. He clings to his generosity as tightly as he clings to his lance. His valor shines as brightly as his armor. And while his smallsword may be sharp, his manner among allies is soft and courteous.” (https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/An_Important_Lesson)
This implies the existence of some sort of code of chivalry, and that besides martial prowess, a knight is taught and expected to conduct themselves in accordance with a set of principles. I imagine a code like this where certain knightly virtues are emphasised must have been heavily influenced by texts like the Tome of Divinity / Tome of Valor, similar to how historical knights derived a lot of their chivalric teachings from the Bible. As such, I would guess that knights who do not adhere to these virtues, like the backstabbing rogue Dreadscorched mentioned, might be ostracised or deemed lesser by the more virtuous sort of knight.
To me, the horse also plays a big part in what makes a knight. Both in real life history and Warcraft history, the main role of a knight has been to serve as a powerful horse-mounted warrior in military cavalry. We’ve seen this most prominently with the Brotherhood of the Horse, obviously, but whether it be paladins, death knights, or blood knights, all sorts of knights seem to share a close bond with their chargers.
Are not all paladins already knights by default? Like all paladins are knights but not all knights are paladins sort of thing. I’ve always viewed paladin as just being another word for a holy knight, but could be wrong.
You keep saying it’s a single unnamed Silver Hand NPC when in reality it’s several NPCs, both named and unnamed, one of whom literally wears the Silver Hand’s tabard, fighting besides Silver Hand banners.
