Seems like there’s a lot coming in 11.1.7, figured I’d create a patch post.
This is the latest and I am at a loss. The WoWhead post is all spoilers, so just FYI.
At least we get a tabard?
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Glad to see Eirtrigg has recovered from his THUD AND BLUNDER phase of BfA.
As for the rest of it…I personally kind of like it, but it does smack of “Member Berries” a bit by rolling up three separate vanilla antagonist factions into some new host. (Seriously, how many times do we have to keep killing Scarlet Crusade? You’d have thought by now someone in the Argents at least would have made it public knowledge the Scarlets were always under the thumb of the Dreadlords)
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More notes.
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I do not trust Blizzard to handle this storyline.
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This is good. Really good. Kind of genius, actually. The Scarlett Crusade is basically a bunch of fire guys, right? Holy flame and all that. Like discount Arathi. And you know what else? Defias are red and the Syndicate are orange. Colors of the flame, baby! We’re tasting the flaming rainbow in here!
Frankly I’m not surprised this kind of nuance went over all of your heads. Some of us pay attention. The rest of you… well, you don’t. And it isn’t my job to explain this to you.
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Eh… I will run through this once for completion sake and then never touch it again.
I don’t care who the defias brotherhood sends I’m not paying their wages
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Somehow the Scarlet Crusade has returned. Again. For like the, what, 5th time now?
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I can kind of accept this, at least. I feel it’s implied that the Scarlet Crusade’s numbers and resources wax and wane depending on how pissed off people are at the undead. It was my interpretation that they started out as a localized menace in Classic, became a military force in Wrath, then kind of faded in and out of relevancy over the ensuing expansions (I feel like they had a presence in another one?)
Which, if you took it to its actual conclusion, would be a pretty compelling narrative. Studying how peoples’ material conditions push them toward different ideologies is a classic theme in literature, psychology and economics.
This is Blizzard, though, so we’re going to get Garrosh But Human This Time.
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…Hey! 
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You know what you did.
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*Giggle. *
Yeah.
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It’s weird when they try to establish Human Supremacists in a setting where Elves and Dwarves have co-existed side by side with Humanity their entire existence.
Like I’m not saying racism wouldn’t exist, but there’s literally been no significant tension between the races (And I’m sorry my Sin’dorei brothers, but one racist Human commander post-Lordaeron’s collapse does not significant tension make, especially in light of Kael’s Legion heel turn). So the implication that Faerin is looked down on for being “impure” feels needlessly forced.
Like anyone with eyes and a basic understanding of history will understand the true implications of that comment. And while WarCraft is also not burdened with that particular baggage, it would have come off as more honest then Elf Racism from the people who only exist thanks to the Elves.
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Touching on this, the Cathedral of Light has been pretty open in its ‘tolerance’ of the Scarlet Crusade, even as far back as Vanilla, and has gone in hard to bat for the Crusade, even going so far as to assist folks going out to help ‘fight the Scourge’ get directed to the Scarlets, either for removal (non-Humans) and possible recruitment (Humans).
Add to the fact their acting leaders flat-out denied Arch-Bishop Benedictus was ever acting under Deathwing’s orders, even to the face of the Champion who fought him and to whom the Arch-Bishop monologued about his service to the Void, and the Cathedral of Light, if not the Faith of the Light, being a Secretly Scummy Situation squatting right in the heart of the Alliance, seems to have a significant amount of weight.
The leadership of the Cathedral especially seems more focused on the politics of their situation rather than the spirituality side of things, and with a far-more hard-line and ‘tempered’ Paladin like Turalyon currently occupying the Throne and no official word on if Anduin is ever coming back, I could fully see these rogue elements within the Cathedral of Light making money-moves to re-invigorate the faithful as much for political mileage as any actual belief in the ‘Red Dawn’.
At best, this is a misguided attempt to try and turn these hostile and dangerous groups into a force for ‘Good’ and to service the Alliance’s common people rather than to prey on them.
At worst, we’ve seen that the bulk of the Defias have fully given up on their ideals and now are committed to the life of thuggery, thievery and murder-for-hire, even going so far as to sign on with Stormwind’s nobility, the last people on Azeroth they would ever be willing to work with given the Defias’s origins, and the Syndicate in Arathai is one of the oldest and most established criminal ‘families’ in the world, effectively a nation within a nation of criminals, rogue spellcasters, rogue soldiers and more, all rallied under the banner of the mysterious leaders of the Syndicate. Both of these groups have shady connections to Stormwind’s nobility and if that connection now ties into the Cathedral of Light, which has always had an under-current of Fantasy Racism and/or Human Supremacy, then this could be very bad, given what we’ve learned about the Arathai Empire, and the absurd focus of a certain former Regent of the Arathai people recently.
Considering how much time and effort the Cathedral has put into the common people of the Alliance, if some ‘Hero’ came in and started shouting about corrupt Priests and shady deals with the Void, and the Cathedral went “No, they’re insane.”, odds are 90% of the civilians are going to side with the Cathedral’s leadership because while we’re off fighting Old Gods and Dragons, the Cathedral’s having soup-nights and organising clothing drives and bake-offs to raise money for the orphans and the homeless.
The Argent Dawn/Crusade was always considered a ‘splinter group’ because they took in Horde members as well as Alliance to fight the Scourge, and because Tirion Fordring was a member, and then their leader, and the same people who ex-communicated him and tried to strip Tirion of his Paladin abilities and authority were also senior members of the Cathedral’s power-structure. Tirion then going off and making his own Light army, with Orcs and Forsaken, and actively fighting against the Scarlets that certain folks in the Cathedral were supporting and feeding supplies, recruits and information to, would have kept that connection tenuous as much out of spite and ego as anything.
I don’t think this will be the ‘TEH LIGHT IS EVULZ’ but I do think it will be as close as the Alliance gets to the ‘Horde Rebellion’ story arcs, where its up to the Alliance Champion(s) to infiltrate this dangerous political faction, uncover the truth and just how far their corruption has spread, and start exposing their hypocrisy and evil to both the general public and the Alliance leadership, especially if there really is an Arathai Empire connection and we need to make sure this militant Empire of Light-worshippers don’t try to use this corruption as an excuse to invade and Des Vult their way across Alliance territory to ‘fix things’, or worse yet, use the Cathedral’s rogue elements and the Red Dawn as a proxy army to weaken Stormwind and the surrounding territories enough that the Arathai can just walk in and dominate the literal heart of the Alliance.
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Have the Arathi turned on us yet?
Asking not because I have a bet going that it’s TOTALLY going to happen or anything.
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This is generally the crux of my issues with (waves hands) all of Blizzard.
When they put out things they want to do, ideas, what not, I think yeah that could be super awesome. They want to implement things and they could be super awesome. This is probably the game with the single most super awesome potential ever…that just consistently ends up being, “I’ll run the patch and then go do something else.”
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Same.
I’ve learned to temper my expectations and not let the announcement hype me up. That’s helped a lot.
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It’s really funny that there’s a movie called Red Dawn with the summary being;
Red Dawn is a movie about a group of teenage guerrillas fighting against a Soviet invasion of the United States. The film stars Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, and Lea Thompson, and was released in 1984 with a PG-13 rating.
It has a 66% rotten on Rotten Tomatoes. Are these omens?
WOLVERINES !!!
That is all.
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“For them, this is just some place. But for us? This is our home” - Red Dawn 1984.
WOLVERINES!!!
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