He didn’t “pardon” them. In fact the entire questline basically says they probably can never be redeemed. Having said that they will spend their entire lives effectively trying to redeem/making up for all the evil they have ever done. Sounds like something the Horde as a whole can learn from.
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He still works with them. And is actually nice. Despite them doing intergalactical genocide. Giving the orders since they were the leaders. You simply don’t care on that details cuz their victims weren’t the alliance which is why we are stuck on the infinite anti Orc shame route.
More like civil with the Man’ari. And again he is working with them so that they actually do what they promise which is make up for the horrible crimes they commited.
What are you even talking about? Did you think the Man’ari didn’t hunt down the draenei or that these same Man’ari were not the ones the Alliance had to fight to beat the Legion?
Rejection is actually the important bit. They reached out the Alliance and were “Forsaken”.
Now you can’t prove, in a forensic sense, that they didn’t fall off a cliff, get lost, get taken abducted by aliens on the way home, etc… But this fiction, If your interpretation is that, when someone keeps telling you about something, that they aren’t trying to tell you something, you need to revaluate. They were making a point when they told you about the belongings that were found near the Alliance position.
Do you really think they are going to tell you they “got lost” or something? It’s going to more the narrative they set up, the killed emissaries.
It may not fit with the idea that Alliance is never to blame, but the The Forsaken were “forsaken”.
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I have to speak up for Velen. He is one of the few actually noble characters in WOW (including the Alliance). Accepting redemption is a noble act that puts morality above revenge.
The eredar in question accept they did wrong. (Like I said, this is pretty much the only problem I have with Jaina’s redemption.) and we’re willing to change their ways.
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If that was the narrative they wanted to set, they would have done so in Sylvanas’ novel. As it is, we are never told what happened to the emmisaries. All we know is they vanished and all Sylvanas found was a locket(?) from one of these emissaries.
And again, if all Blizzard wanted was to paint the Alliance as these monsters responsible for all the forsakens actions they could have told us what happened to the emissaries. Instead it remains an open mystery. And as I mentioned there were two forces actively trying to make sure the Eastern Kingdoms didn’t just outright unite into one force, hence why it could simply have been Onyxia or Varimathas making sure these guys disappeared.
I know you’re one of those types that everything needs to be spelled out very explicitly for you to accept it, but any half decent writer can drop hints within the writing about what happened without having to spell out the obvious.
The emissaries are one such example. They were sent to Stormwind to negotiate, they went missing and all that was found was a locket.
The writers are telling us what happened but here we are, years later still arguing about it
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Why would the exact particulars their fate be in the Sylvanas novel of all things? When the novel is very clearly from the perspective of Sylvanas who never gets closure on what happened to those people she sent out on what was an attempt to do diplomacy. Since it’s from her perspective, and she never finds out, that novel is the last place we’d learn about it.
Hey now, the fact that the someone from the Alliance probably killed those emissaries doesn’t mean the Forsaken are suddenly not responsible for their own actions. Nobody is even saying that.
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Calia all around just feels like a character who is never going to work out. I’ve never liked the concept of Lightforged Undead. Everything about it and her backstory just feels goofy.
I feel like many Horde and Forsaken players will forever see her as a boring “Alliance” themed character that is ruining one of their iconic factions. Trying to force “The Light” as a big thing in the Forsaken’s culture just makes them feel like humans but on the other faction. It doesn’t fit and it also essentially just devalues what little flavor the actual humans even have. And as an Alliance player i don’t care for her since at least how she’s been portrayed in game, cares nothing for her people who are surviving humans but only cares about her people who are the Undead.
I like the idea of the Desolate Council as the new Forsaken leadership, but there’s better and more interestingoptions they could have went with rather than Calia being on it and the narrative mess that comes with her.
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Your not alone in this I have at least 2 real life friends who actually pointed out to me when they did the Eredar quest and compare it to Jaina, redemption.
Well one of them literally can’t stand her since the Dalaran incident, they just went on a unhinge rant after the Eredar quest. They are super passionate about Blood elves and the Horde. Positive is that at least I got them to try WoW again! 
So lets just say ONE of my friends was more in line with your thoughts in this! haha 
Then again we do have that Telangi and Anduin Datamine un-finish meeting scene and I don’t remember if they ever release the scene of Jaina making peace with the Sunreavers… or whatever that scene was going to be about.
Maybe we finally get some closure and Jaina gets to do community work for the Trolls and Blood Elves affected relatives? Seeing how Sylvanas is doing community work in the Maw for the Night Elves…! (I’m joking)
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I agree with you, but when I tried to come up with an Alliance bad guy recently, I was shouted down and told it could never happen because the Alliance leaders are just too wise and good to allow anyone with bad intentions to gain any power.
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Stares at herself.
Turns and stares awkwardly at Velen.
Begins to sweat profusely.
Sure. Yea. The absolutely wise Alliance leaders are just too good at making balanced and unbiased decisions that will NOT have grand, sweeping consequences.
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I’m sorry, I think Blizzard will feel, legitimately so, that they have made it clear what happened to them.
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So shout harder. Seems like this is how things get done around here.
Oh boy if I had the power to do things in the WoW story…
First I’d go for the Humans. Forget Cryduin. Turalyon is a good candidate. That Naaru that got struck down by Illidan lives in his mind whispering, convincing him that only worshippers of the Light can be trusted. That the perfect world is composed out of the happy people who pray to the light and those using the light to protect them. The Lightforged are on his side, for obvious reasons. They start taking over Stormwind.
Tess Greymane, she’s a smart girl. Actually smart, not your typical girlboss who get all the experience and power she needs out of nowhere. Now that her city is hers, she’s aware that it’s just a matter of time before the Forsaken do something awful to them cause you know, Forsaken are crazy zombies, even if Calia acts like they are her new pets that wouldn’t hurt a fly and so Tess decides to do what her daddy didn’t. Be ready for anything. First move is to make sure her greatest weapon - the Worgen aren’t gonna fade in a few generations. So she begins making it mandatory for her subjects to volunteer at least one person to be turned into a wolfman. Also she repairs the wall broken by the Forsaken to further secure her kingdom. With her kingdom protected by the wall, she starts training her worgen troops to specialize in fighting Forsaken. Just as a precaution… at first.
Anyway, many ideas, don’t want to type a wall of text that people ignore. Thing is I’m not a writer and I don’t even consider my imagination to be that good, but if I can come up with crap like the above, imagine what people with a rich imagination and knowledge in writing could do. In fact I encourage people who have ideas to post them. Maybe hell will freeze over and one of these ideas might inspire the terrible writing team at Blizzard. Right?
But they didn’t. That is the point, all people have are speculations as to what happened. And considering the state of the world, Onyxia or Varimathras making sure an entire continent was not united is as valid as anything.
Honestly, a chapter later specifically during Legion could have inserted and had Sylvanas lambast the Alliance for how they treated her ambassadors. There were many ways to insert that particular information. Anyway hence why I mentioned Chronicles 4. If we were ever to get any definitive answer on that, a chapter talking about the Gathering, and what lead to poor Alliance/Forsaken relations will be the most likely place to get it.
No they did not. In fact, we have Chronicles 3 talking about the emissaries and all it talks about is they went missing. Nothing more nothing less, everything about their fate is simply speculation. Hell, even under the assumption it they were killed by the Alliance, for all we know they were killed by some random people and their deaths was not sanctioned by the Alliance at all.
“Will” feel. They put passages in a couple places to make sure. But now the important point is, in fact, not speculation. We know they reached the Alliance and were rejected. The Forsaken were “forsaken.
Even that they were killed, which more color than plot, is clear enough. They have used a couple classic literary devises to indicate this. I don’t imagine they will bother trying deal with what is now willful denial in future. Few authors would.
Conseqeunces are for the Horde. I can assure you not a single alliance person will ever be punished even if they do bad stuff.
But this conversation is not about that. This conversation is about the emissaries. And their fate.
We also know Garithos’ fate is a well know fact in the Alliance. If the Alliance found out about Garithos before Sylvanas ever sent her emissaries the Alliance would have every right to reject them. Garithos was horrible person, but he kept his word and he got betrayed. There would be no reason for the Alliance to simply accept the forsaken wholeheartedly after that.
I would also point out the Silvermoon elves rejected them as well.
We will see won’t we? Again 3 months isn’t too far away. And if anything, milking that drama is something authors will likely do. And with the Gathering being the catalyst for the events of the Fourth War I expect we will at the very least see more about Alliance/Forsaken relationships.
I was unsubbed while that discussion was going on, but I for one really like that idea.
I feel like this game’s strength as an MMO is the breadth of its setting, and that means they can and should have representations for a wide range of characters on both side - friendly and aggressive, good and evil, clever and not. And the aggressive+evil+clever sorts are the perfect ones to be long-term antagonists to the other side, as long as its shown why the good people on their own side can’t remove them (and may not be fully aware of everything the evil character is doing).
Honestly, I feel like most of the opposition is from either:
- ‘But I don’t want to play on the evil side!’, or its close cousin:
- ‘In faction arguments, other players tend to only see a character as pure good or pure evil, simplifying away nuance, and therefore, if my faction has any notable long-term evil character, then the other side’s players will use them to constantly argue that everyone else on my side must also be evil, and I don’t want to play on the evil side or have that accusation thrown in my face every day’.
Like, I side strongly with the night elves on the whole Ashenvale issue, but I felt the other side’s arguments were still strong ones, and I liked the slight bit of nuance that Thrall couldn’t do much to rein in the Warsong because the Warsong were popular for procuring resources taken from the greedy elves.
And before Sylvanas’s character was made to take a full swan dive into villain territory, I liked her as the utter villain to the Alliance who was useful enough to the Horde and made enough plausible deniability for her forbidden actions that they wouldn’t remove her.
I’d be happy with the same for the Alliance. With Stormheim, I was hoping that Genn would fit that role - have Anduin attempt to censure him, but Genn declares that they are equals as kings and thus Anduin has no authority over him, and the rest of the Alliance leaders side with Genn for clear procedural reasons whether or not they agreed with him morally, while the common folk celebrate Genn for foiling an undead plot based on the exaggerated but true details his supporters have told. The Horde gets to reasonably conclude that the Alliance will not deliver justice on their behalf, and allow Genn to keep harassing them on a whim, while the Alliance as a whole doesn’t have to be evil to do so.
And with a large pool of characters, the factions can get to occasionally root out one of their own evil characters to show how they are paying attention and are actively working to better themselves.
But, again, I feel the biggest barrier is the second thought process I outlined above. Too many players will feel like the addition of one point against their own side will only be giving ammunition to ‘those annoying people on the other side who always ignore the circumstances to twist things out of proportion’ - and since there’ll always be at least one jerk on the internet who actually does that, it’ll never feel safe to let one’s own defenses down.
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The usual claim, and the important one, is that the emissaries never made it to the Alliance and the Forsaken were never rejected. And that isn’t speculation. The emissaries made it there.
There is the point about whether some thing happened to them on the way home, or if the Alliance just killed them. IMO, Blizzard has made the clear enough. The idea that the space used on the subject, and the standard literary devices emplayed, make that clear enough.
The stuff about Garthos is speculation. Not only is there no hint of what you are speculating on. And it conflicts with every treatment of the issue. Bliz gives different reasons for the rejection as does pretty much anything Blizzard has to say on the subject. IMO, there was a reason it only started getting brought up when the claims that the emissaries never made it to the Alliance became too hard to sustain.
But then I think that, given Blizzard chose to name the race “The Forsaken”, efforts to claim they weren’t “forsaken” were clearly doomed.
And? I mean it is true (mostly) but I don’t see the relevance. I wouldn’t even bother with it, but it is interesting to me that, Sylvanas persisted with them in way she didn’t with others was a testament to lingering feelings toward her former people.
We will. I think you are dreaming. But their your dreams to dream.
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