Does anyone have any information on Moonglade’s current state given the Horde invasion of Night Elven lands? One would assume at first glance that it’s been left alone due to the alleged neutrality of the Cenarion Circle, but given the heavy influence of the Night Elves over the Cenarion Circle, can we really assume that they are “as neutral” as they used to be?
On the flip-side, can we say for certain that Sylvanas would have left Moonglade alone? To pretend even for a moment that she would have any care for Druids or allies of Malfurion Stormrage would be delusional at best. Though of course that doesn’t necessarily mean anything has happened, but as much as I’ve looked around, I can’t seem to find any information on what’s been going on in Moonglade as far as the events, the political relations between the Night Elves and Tauren there or the geographical state of the area (damage as a result from the Legion invasion for example?).
Any and all posts or links that refer to Moonglade in the BfA period will be very much appreciated.
Moonglade sits on the border of Darkshore, Felwood and Winterspring.
Often seen as the home of the druids next to Hyjal.
Attacking Moonglade would have the same reaction that attacking Hyjal would have, rebellion.
But there are also deeper lying issues with attacking Moonglade. By attacking the Circle in Moonglade, Windrunner would prove that she has no qualms about attacking neutral parties in this war.
The Argents would likely see this as Scourge 2.0 and mobilise as the Horde has now become a viable threat.
If Windrunner considers the Druids of the Circle to be Alliance aligned because of their (once neutral leader), the Argents (who are mostly Alliance races) who see this as reason for them to also be attacked and thus join the fight.
In short, attacking one neutral party can cause a domino affect.
True enough. The only problem is that her attack on the Night Elves was unprovoked, which is essentially just as bad as attacking a neutral party. Both the Alliance and the Cenarion Circle were/are in peaceful, dormant states, and yet the Alliance was attacked with the kind of reasoning only a psychopath like Sylvanas could justify.
Almost every Alliance leader that Sylvanas has a problem with (Anduin and Malfurion come to mind) is a leader that has good relations with the Horde (Anduin’s friendship with Baine and his cordial engagements with Varok Saurfang, Malfurion’s friendship with the Tauren as a whole etc.) so she clearly doesn’t have any issue with attacking people to the Horde’s own detriment. I think if anyone could have settled the dust between the Alliance and the Horde it would have been Anduin and Baine, and yet Sylvanas walks around pretending like she has the Horde’s best interest at heart and that the only way to protect the Horde is to genocide every single race that has ever had dealings with the Alliance and ergo eliminate any and all threats against the Horde.
On a side note, it also raises the question as to weather or not the Cenarion Circle should really just become an Alliance faction that is friendly towards only the Tauren, given that the other races of the Horde EAGERLY marched into Night Elf lands and slaughtered innocent people. I’m not saying it because I want the Horde deprived of a Druidic faction, but the Night Elves can surely only take so much of the Horde destroying their demi-gods, their land and their people before even a traditionally neutral party just says “that’s enough” and fully commits to supporting their own people’s survival via the Alliance.
Unless the druids of Moonglade take an active stand against the Horde, doubt we see them attacking it any time soon.
It would be pretty stupid to turn whatever remnants remain neutral of the Cenarion Circle into open enemies.
Regardless of the fact that many are already siding with the Alliance in Darkshore.
In fact, I’d expect that area to be empty as of now, after having most of its inhabitants either siding with either faction, or travelling down to Silithus, like Broll, Hamuul, and Zenkiki did.
Remember that the Night Elves are not all Goody-Two-Shoes here, I mean in BfA, yes that was an unprovoked attack. But so was the Night Elven attack on Quel’thalas, which was at the time a Neutral state during TBC. So lets not imagine that they are wounded innocents, any more than getting a more severe taste of their own medicine.
Moonglade will be neutral.
Reason being?
They have far bigger fish to fry. The Faction War is a -trivial- thing when compared to the planet dying, for them to pick a side, would be to instantly lose 50% of their ability to stop the planet dying.
Likewise, for Sylvanas to attack Moonglade (When she has no real reason to do so) is to risk losing the support of the Tauren, some Trolls, possibly the Blood Elves, and by extension the Nightborne.
The Cenarion Circle is -not- a Night Elf Organisation. It is a Druidic Organisation. It is not therefore for the Night Elves to go “Right, done with your stuff, we’re going Alliance!”.
Their numbers are going to be denuded as it is, as Zarao points out, many -individuals- will have picked a side, the organisation as a whole however, will not have. They can ill afford to alienate anyone right now, not when they seem to be the only ones concentrating on the hossing great sword sticking out of Silithus whilst everyone else is bashing each others heads in with rocks and sticks…
Irrelevant, you’re dragging in the poor, poor, poor blood elves by their hair because you want to somehow proof that the night elves are just as vile and evil as the Warchief of the Horde and that they deserved it or something?
Besides the situation between the War of Thorns and this minor skirmish on no man’s land aren’t even comparable.
You’re kinda dense if you think that a minor skirmish over no man’s land because of a cultural difference of opinion is comparable to the genocide of an entire race because… of reasons.
Was it a dick move of the night elves to do that in Quel’thalas? Certainly, but they had a excuse (however minor) to act the way they did, unlike the Horde and the War of Thorns, where there was no excuse, no reason.
Except for: “They’re totally going to attack us, believe me, the notoriously untrustworthy undead banshee! We must attack them first, slaughter them where they stand, and kill there leaders, that’ll demoralise them! Also the Alliance is totally going to ignore the fact we killed one of their leaders and occupy one of their member states”.
I’m not so sure the Cenarion Circle isn’t going Alliance, or the Earthen Ring isn’t going Horde.
Remember during invasions you see Earthen Ring tabard wearing shaman fighting for the Horde, and Cenarion Circle tabard wearing druids fighting for the Alliance.
Preemptive attacks aren’t usually based around some cause-effect reaction.
They are often based around “What ifs” that rely on reasoning that might or might not end up manifesting as expected.
WoT was based around two major hypothesis that include, an attack on the Horde leader that could be used as an example of another kind of aggression they might suffer in the future, and the existence of a substance that could tilt the balance against them in the long run.
The espionage on Quelthalas was also based around an hypothetical scenario that had Night elves believing Blood elves could be following the steps of the Highborne and threatening the planet with their magic.
Both are gambles that rely on certain odds and incomplete information. And each faction has a different reasoning to feel excused about their conclusion regarding them.
Neutral factions are bullsh!t, always were. Cenarion Circle shouldn’t have existed in the first place, same with Kirin Tor and Argents. Just a way to leech Alliance out of it’s story power. And therefore, Moonglade is still neutral, because it would be unfair to the horde.
This is a little hyperbolic. The Night Elves spying on Quel’thalas out of a genuine fear that a group of people who have traditionally been obsessed with magic to the point where their ancestors almost destroyed the world multiple times and flat out refused to even consider toning down the use of arcane is very different from multiple Horde races marching into Night Elves lands and sacking their cities like Astranaar, slaughtering innocent men, women and children and then literally following up with burning down their world tree and attempting to genocide and entire race of people.
One of them is motivated by a genuine fear based on 10,000 years of history and the other is based on what can only be described as paranoid schizophrenia. I would almost understand if Sylvanas went ahead and did this to humans, a group who have notoriously hated the undead (despite being lead by their most peace-loving King in history who just happens to be close friends with Baine Bloodhoof, another man of peace), but do march against the night elves sort of seems arbitrary at best.
True, but the night elves weren’t out to remove the entire Thalassian race from existence, just to stop the (in their eyes) second Sundering the blood elves would certainly unleash upon Azeroth (and they weren’t that wrong, considering Kael’thas).
The Horde however, chose to start a war of genocide against the night elves (and Alliance as a whole) after the majority of the Alliance leadership had proven themselves open to peace with the Horde, and co-existence for both factions mutual benefit.
To be fair, most of the Horde wasn’t out for eradication either. In fact, the initial plan was to strike without really shouldering the weight of the enemy casualties and then let the enemy faction collapse by itself.
The “war of genocide” wasn’t really on the table until Sylvanas ended up giving the faction plan a sudden twist.
Anyway, I’m just saying that in both cases the factions gambled on stuff that hadn’t really happened yet, and used said reasoning to start a conflict with some other guys.
Don’t really what to start weighting who had the biggest impact, because obviously it isn’t comparable: one reasoning was used to kickstart animosities with a single race while the other ended up igniting a world war.
Point is, that I don’t think that the initial premise to start the WoT lacked reasons. It certainly had a few from the Hordes point of view.
And they weren’t instantly presented in a way to excuse a war of extermination.
Doubt they would’ve convinced Saurfang if they had.
Because so far, and regardless of the innuendos and hints we’ve had, it seems like the warring segments of the Horde are using the conflict as a way to vent their rage and further their personal goals.
Not once this is marketed as “And now we are going to hunt down and eradicate each and every man, woman, or child we find wearing Alliance colours”.
Doubt most of the Horde sees the war that way.
Best you can argue here is the Forsaken. And even them seem to be heavily relying on a more specific goal that is Stormwind.
How Sylvanas thinks she is managing the military, might be very different from what the soldiers think/are doing.
I disagree. The Horde had just suffered an attack on their leader, and had just discovered a substance that could be weaponised and tilt the balance for or against them with ease.
The reasoning was: “Either we attack now, or we find ourselves outgunned in the near future, and suffering from the kind of attacks we had in Stormheim”.
And then, the list of past grudges was exposed as an additional incentive.
The kind of logic to support preemptive attacks is usually subject to debate because it often relies on probabilities and subjective reasoning.
But arguing the Horde point of view was baseless, isn’t right. They certainly had some ground.
Even if from their point of view alone.
Referring back to Moonglade, as much as it is an incredibly important cultural site to the Night Elves, it is also important to the Tauren. An open attack on Moonglade would have fractured the Horde for certain, likely with all but the Goblins turning on Sylvanas (and the Goblins would have just stood to the side and watched opportunities to profit).
The other potential reason is that Moonglade itself was of no interest to Sylvanas, only Malfurion and Darnassus were. Why? Both are a powerful force and representation of Life on Azeroth.
If you haven’t seen the cosmic forces chart from Chronicles, there are 6 major forces in the Warcraft universe: Light & Shadow, Order & Disorder, Life & Death. These are represented by 6 sets of beings: Naaru & Old Gods, Titans & Burning Legion, Wild Gods & Undead. More and more Sylvanas is becoming a champion of the force of Death and seeking to destroy her opposite just as the Naaru fight the Old Gods and Sargeras sought the destruction of the Titans.
Just wanted to say that it’s outright Word of God (Blizzard) that Sylvanas is immensly popular among the general populace and soldiers of the Horde.
Yes, it seems so because using Sylvanas’ logic the Alliance could’ve started a war at basicly any moment in time with the Horde for every minor inconvience and still had a more solid reason for it then she currently has.
I doubt the attack on Darnassus was meant as a way to go against “Life” and more to do with the fact that it was the biggest military asset the Alliance had in Kalimdor after Theramore was nuked of the face of the planet.
And as much as I don’t mind Sylvanas turning into a more literal representation of the cosmic force she wields, I’d say that it’s to soon to tag her motives as something inspired by it.
I doubt she’s aware of it but I wouldn’t put it past that being the case given where the story has been going investigating what representation of death helped make her Warchief.
Ok then. Cenarion circle allies with Alliance. No further discussion necessary. Alliance posters have decreed it so. I would have thought they remained neutral, but apparently not.
Just pointing out that it’s quite likely because there’s Cenarion Druids and Earthen Ring Shaman fighting for the Alliance and Horde respectively.
Aren’t you the one that keeps talking about show don’t tell all the time anyway? Ms. The fight in Ghostlands is comparable to the genocide of Teldrassil.
Man alive! How you can compare three open scouting camps in a contested area - which Ghostlands was at that time - to Darkshore is beyond me.
The Blackrock Orcs around Northshire Abbey (human starting zone) cause more damage than the Night Elves in Ghostlands.
To compare the latter with the burning of Teldrassil is quite frankly tasteless, to say the least.
Besides, as anyone who is familiar with WoW lore knows, the Ghostlands’ episode is a reaction to events on Azurymyst/Bloodmyst Isle. So you are most definitely comparing apples to oranges.
