Garrosh was a right-wing Horde orc ethno-Nationalist and emerged as a main character 2008-2014.
A period in time where people were fed up with right-wing warhawks following a Bush Presidency, first black president landslide political victory. And Gay marriage was legalized.
Garrosh didn’t stand a chance at being anything but a villain.
I feel like one problem with the current story, that makes it feel so bland, is that the characters don’t have individual goals - everyone shares the single expac goal of ‘defeat Xal’atath to save the world’, which doesn’t leave much room at all for characters to disagree without one being good/right and the other being wrong/evil.
And I think those clashing character goals and/or faction goals are the core of faction conflict - they’re what can allow the factions to disagree, even to the point of violence, without one clearly being good or clearly being bad. They leave room for argument, and that is what is needed to make a conflict grey.
For example, take Genn and Sylvanas during Legion: Sylvanas wanted to take control of the val’kyr, and Genn wanted to get revenge on Sylvanas, both as side tasks to the general goal of ‘fight the Legion’. They can squabble over their side goals without renouncing the expac goal.
Plus, those goals show character continuity - they were caused by events in the story prior to the expac they occurred in, so they show how the characters respond to events and react to it.
These character disagreements can occur in PvE stories, as well, but they are a bit harder to pull off. When factions are involved, there’s a bit of team rivalry going on - Genn would have less support for his actions if this wasn’t one playable faction against another. Plus, two factions allows two separate experiences - the player can, in some way (though it’s locked per faction), choose which character to follow, making the choice feel more meaningful.
The closest cross-goal that TWW has shown was with the stormrooks - and even then, it was a case of “let’s force these elemental beings to serve us” versus “let’s not force a sentient being to serve us” that got resolved without any tension whatsoever because it turns out the stormrooks conveniently agree that being a stormrider is pretty neat, too. There’s no drama in that, no dual flawed character viewpoints to weigh against each other without knowing for certain which is better, because the story immediately smooths it over to avoid any conflict.
The game really could use more zones like Stormheim. And I’ve said that multiple times over the years. Stormheim is the perfect example of the game letting people pick a side, defend it and not have to feel bad about it.
The beautiful thing about the faction war is you don’t have to write it. You don’t have to write a thing. You’ll encounter noble heroes, merciless killers and everything in between from sheer human nature alone.
You just need to set up a conflict that’s basically reasonable and have players fight in it.
This is why I’m a big believer in the Cold War with flashpoints approach.
The Horde and Alliance being in wholesale war is dumb and inherently dissapointing as no one can either win or lose. But they could take a scenario similar to the Warfronts, make them localized conflicts, and encourage WPvP in those areas that would conclusively end with one faction having it for two weeks or however long. Tie in an evergreen bonus to having it like rep boost and you’d see no end to the warfare.
If I could boil it down to as simple an idea as humanly possible, it would be: both sides want to feel justified and pumped about what they’re doing. That’s it.
Very missed opportunity to have the Alliance support the Scarlet Crusade imo.
Because why wouldn’t they? What human would feel sympathy or empathy for an undead?
A. Literal rotting corpses easy to demonize aesthetically
B. Fundamentally different values and moral ethics
C. Their very existence is a perversion from just about all Religious perspectives Alliance side.
D. Simply the history of Undead and Alliance relations - Scourge of Lordaeron, and Sylvanas’ betrayal of Garithos.
Maybe one can say the Scarlet Crusade burned that bridge by being too elitist, especially racially speaking. But there are some counterpoints that can be made there.
Point is. there really isn’t a good reason, imo, for the Alliance to distance themselves from the Scarlets. There is no real reason for the Alliance to be all that concerned with their image in which they would seek to distance themselves from extremism. Lordaeron is the birthplace of Mereldar and the Faith of the Holy Light (For humans)… It is quite literally their Jerusalem. Their Holy Land. And frankly, I think the Argent Dawn should have been far less popular simply for not being extreme enough and being more tolerant to Horde races… INCLUDING undead.
Alliance being hesitant to fully support the Crusade comes off as… Weak. A very modern, political position to take like “We don’t want to look like bigots, it’s bad for optics” When it really doesn’t make any sense for the Alliance to care about that. Since the only people it would outrage is the Horde, who they should perceive as monsters anyway. It is a writing direction that can only be justified as a willful effort to make the Alliance morally squeaky clean. And that’s boring.
Even if the Crusade was destined to fail, as a Dungeon for Horde players. Give me the Scarlet Veterans appearing in the Alliance army. Give me an Operation Paperclip equivalent with Scarlet refuges getting placed into positions of authority in the Stormwind Church. Or Bay of Pigs style operations with Alliance Marshals training and arming them for unsanctioned skirmishing against Horde positions.
Give me the unapologetic Crusader who justifies his war crimes with:
“The Scarlet Crusade was an explosion against intolerable conditions, against remediable wrongs which the old world failed to remedy. We were people who felt themselves threatened with death and were determined to live, and live greatly.”
Night Elves should be way more vicious too, but that’s another rant I could go on.
Because the Alliance learned the Crusade was bat crud crazy and were burning villages of living people? And that Stormwind had good relations with the none human races to the point it was sending its armies overseas to help them and would be antithetical with helping an organization that expunges such racist beliefs?
Oh and apperently we also have the Forsaken to thank for the Alliance being distrustful of the Crusade:
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Forged_Scarlet_Memorandum
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Jamie_Nore
So, ugh I guess thanks Forsaken? They actually did something useful and helped the Alliance dodge a bullet if for their own benefit.
Brother Crowley’s still in the Cathedral.
So… was the Scarlet Crusade human supremist, or did the Forsaken make that up?
Couldn’t the Forsaken just get a real racist Memorandum?
And why would the Alliance care if the Scarlets were human supremist anyway? They are trying to retake a human Kingdom from the undead?
“We know you are fighting a greater evil. but we draw the line at racism” is some major shriveled grapes energy.
Oh they were.
Oh I am sure they could but then, why bother when it would be easier to forge it? These are rogue quests so it seems pretty rogue like to go the easy route instead of actually searching for incriminating evidence.
Because the Alliance of Vanilla was only 1/4 human and Stormwind in particular maintained a good relationship with the non-human allies?
Or the Stormwind humans being devoted to the Alliance knows that it wouldnt do itself any good alienating its allies for a group unwilling to see reason.
An anacronism. Lorewise the Alliance do not have good relationships with the Scarlet with Shaw even calling them a cult. Or maybe he is just one of those Scarlet Priest that ultimately turned on the Scarlet Onslaught/Crusade?
What reason were they unwilling to see?
The Alliance adopting the symbol of Stormwind’s Lion wouldn’t do that already? If the Alliance was not a human-centric organization, why is humanity it’s dominate culture?
The Alliance working with the Scarlet Crusade in the past? I think it could have worked in a sort of “only in Lordaeron” type of situation. Openly letting them in Stormwind might have come off bad, with the Night Elves and possibly High Elves and Dwarves and Gnomes. Much less the Worgen, Draenei, Pandas, and Void Elves that came later.
Maybe if it was a “not exactly secret but low key” regional effort. Perhaps if Renzik was the one organizing it behind the scenes - it would add humor to the Scarlet liaison being a Goblin, and it would have kept Shaw and the Leaders (Varian/Bolvar/Anduin) safely out of the stain of racism.
That’s how I might have done it in the past.
Going forward? I think it’s possible to hook them up with Turalyon and Yrel and some of the more rabid Arathi we may encounter, and have an antagonistic Alliance Faction that makes sense.
I think the Scarlets would not fit with the Alliance as a whole, but I’d love to have the Alliance passing supplies and funding under the table to prop the Scarlets up - so they can keep the Forsaken occupied, stopping the Forsaken from fully securing their core territories and thus preventing them from expanding any further.
I’d like to see two main groups of Alliance supporters in this way: those who hate the undead on a theological/philosophical/moral level and thus support any cause that will destroy them, even if that cause would shun them as well, and those who simply don’t trust the Forsaken as a geopolitical entity and want to keep them contained.
Anduin can disavow these supporters, and prevent any and all official Stormwind support… but every time he uncovers and tears out one supply chain, the supporters will scatter and eventually create a new one.
I’d kinda want Shaw to be in on this, as the leader of SI:7 - not out of any personal animus, perhaps even acting reluctantly, but out of ironclad duty to keep Stormwind safe, even if it requires lying to Anduin. After the fall of Lordaeron, the Wrathgate, the many Horde wars, there’s plenty of reason for a Stormwindian POV to feel that the Forsaken cannot be trusted to their own devices and allowed to operate with impunity. I like Shaw, and I like how he is a good person even in his role as spymaster - but that ‘spymaster’ role needs some bite to it as well. Something at least slightly shady.
I think there is too much assumptions that the Non-human side of the Alliance would care about the Scarlets getting supported. Or Anduin would have to disavow them to avoid political pushback.
I don’t think that would be the case. Mainly for the reason that, no matter how racist the Scarlets are… at least they are not shambling corpses. I really think that would be the perspective of 90% of the Alliance. Human Ethno-Religious-Nationalists is much more preferable to the Undead. Who, even in Modern WoW, has proven to be a greater threat to them, personally, than the Scarlets ever have been.
The Scarlets, as far as I know, never encroached into any Elven or Dwarf territory. Or has defiled their lands in anyway. (Excluding Gilneas I guess? Even though they didn’t really invade, they just moved in. - And I think that was a weird questline anyway. The Scarlets just seems like an easy, low-hanging fruit enemy for Blizz to toss in there. )
They are simply unaccepting of outsiders… Which to a degree, included humans. And it is entirely a defense mechanism against plague and possession.
Oh that not everyone outside their order was unclean/a plague carrier? Look, the pre Balnazzar Scarlet might have gotten some Alliance support, but the moment Morgraine died and they started killing innocent villages, all bets were off.
Just because a human created and that they honor the memory of that person(Lothar) does not necessarily mean the organization will be human centric/or more precisely focus on only human goals. Like, the people of Stormwind were loyal to the Alliance as a whole and are willing to sacrifice for their friends and allies.
Shaw calls them a cruel and narrowminded cult.
I feel like I addressed this here:
Maybe not, but as a whole… adopting human iconography, ceding authority to the Human King (At least during war time), The multi-ethnic military structure of the Alliance seems to follow a human template, with Human Rank titles, and Human Legion Names, and human uniforms…
It looks human centric to me.
At best it has human centric iconography which is just skin deep. Ultimately its goal is focused on shared value. Also, the main reason the humans get a good chunk of say is because it has always been its biggest supports. Starting with Lordearon and later Stormwind, like they are the biggest contributors to it.
I think the non-humans and humans alike would have balked the moment they found info about the Scarlet torching villages. Yeah, they may hate the Forsaken but they hate senseless slaughter even more.
Well, also the whole thing where the Crusade was taken over by a Dreadlord, then another Dreadlord, then whatever Joseph the Insane’s deal was, and so on.
The organization has inherent corruption, with a very bad track record of becoming puppets for the Burning Legion. And the Alliance became aware of this around when they really understood the whole level of threat the Forsaken might pose (IE: Vanilla).
And prior to that, all they really knew about the Scarlets were that they were previously part of the Silver Hand, who started viewing other races as lesser prior to the Hand disolving, and that the Argent Dawn believed the Scarlets had already become corrupt. The same Argent Dawn who the Alliance already had good relations with.
I don’t see when the Alliance could view the Scarlets as potential allies beyond the very loose relationship they had in Vanilla (limited to letting two of their members try and recruit people to help them kill undead, one in Stormwind and one in Desolace), let alone any kind of formal support.
As bad as the forsaken might be, the Burning Legion is equally bad or worse, and it didn’t take long at all to learn who the Scarlets really served, whether as the initial Crusade or as the Onslaught.
I mean… the Forsaken is doing their fair share of senseless slaughter as well. At that point, it becomes, do you support:
a. Senseless slaughter done by the living and your own species.
b. Senseless slaughter done by the shambling undead remnants of the apocalypse
It’s the classic Warhammer 40K argument. Is the Imperium of Man the best option or not?
To be fair, I am not talking about Scarlet lore as it is currently written, but rather critiquing Blizzard for not using the Scarlets as a mechanism to make the Alliance more morally nuanced. Rather than squeaky clean boring good guys.