Well, I don’t think any of us are talking about every Horde character right down to the Peons? But as a political entity, the Horde certainly is evil, both by measure of cruelty and severity of destruction.
And each national entity within the Horde, as a political entity, are also pretty evil. Thunder Bluff didn’t act until an arbitrary threshold was crossed; Baine was not moved enough by the genocide at Teldrassil to act morally.
Especially since the Alliance aren’t really helping the night elves either .
I mean, if you’ve come in search of someone who isn’t in favor of Anduin being eradicated from the story, I’m afraid I can’t help you.
I think the problem is that the Horde is, at the very least, relatable. The struggles to stay out of villainy, to lean towards good, are constantly seen throughout their story arcs, even as they tend to inadvertently slip into the role of bad guys.
Nobody debates the Scourge’s evil. Scourge supporters are doing so because they’re an evil power. Same with the Legion, the Old Gods, etc.
The Horde, on the other hand, has nuance. Every race can at least be understood to some extent.
I refuse to buy into the idea that Horde and Alliance players are somehow fundamentally different, myself. I was an Alliance main from Cata to Legion, and moved over to Horde in late Legion/BFA because A: There was more late night RP, and B: a lot of my friends quit and I wanted a fresh start. But even now, I play both factions. I’ve spoken at length to people on both sides, seen the trade chats on both sides… We’re really all the same in an OOC sense. So yeah, Gentarn’s right. There’s good and bad players on both factions.
Sticking up for the Horde, though, isn’t fundamentally bad. Believing that they can reform is even LESS so. Hell, my whole guild concept is dedicated to rebranding the Forsaken - giving them a fresh start as free-willed people, and trying to detach from the murderous undead monster vibe they’ve given to the world in recent years. I think the idea of a reformed Horde is a fun plot point.
I also think, quite strongly… that in our empathy for the Horde, it’s good to seek understanding of motives. Sure, that the Horde has been the more evil of the two factions in wow’s history is undeniable. But to say that they haven’t suffered, or that their suffering is irrelevant because the Alliance has suffered more, is also unfair.
I’d also like to point out though, that for all our various moral grandstanding and arguing here… The OP was literally only asking us how we RP the dilemma of being blood elves in the Horde, when the Horde’s committed so many evil acts. I took that to mean we should be looking at either justifying an RP character’s hypothetical decision to remain a supporter of the Horde, or simply to exist within it despite not supporting it.
I dunno why this devolved into another “WHO’S THE MOST EVIL FACTION?” debate. Or even “WHOSE SUFFERING IS IRRELEVANT BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE SUFFERED MORE!?!?”
It’s an honest RP question by the looks of it, guys. From someone who seems to be pretty new, I would guess. Take it easy, for goodness sake xD
That’s sorta where I’m at on it. Hell I don’t think any one of us live in a country irl that’s totally morally upright. We don’t necessarily support our government’s actions by simply living there - it’s the politicians who are accountable imo.
That’s certainly the more Doylist take on it. How can one push back against the system or even defect if the game mechanics prohibit anything of the like?
I really hate how the Horde is always written as literally supermurdering the absolute dickens out of everything within reach but it’s never okay to acknowledge how messed up and evil that is. Ever. Maybe this keeps coming up and keeps being beaten into the ground because every. single. time. it just gets closed down with “that’s too harsh” or “that’s offensive to Horde players” or “that’s an unfair bias”
The most honest answer is that the nature of the game right now is that it’s unpopular in a way that’s actively distasteful as opposed to just bad, a problem which is unlikely to be solved at any point within the next six months or so, and talking about other games we like better (Final Fantasy) risks us getting our posts mass-flagged by the apparent silent majority that reads the forums regularly, never posts, and hates us all for some reason.
So basically the only thing we can do is talk about the game, and since it hasn’t changed much and probably won’t change much anytime soon, we’re stuck basically marking time.
i almost forgot what OP was about if Sarestha hadn’t done a recap on it, that’s how-- interesting, if out of hand this thread got, and i’m not even sure if my answer is gonna be that interesting on this topic
Keyás especially is neutral towards either faction; he’s been to stormwind and teldrassil (that was, shocking to him, knowing it’s just…gone, y’know) and many other places, he’s aware that there’s a difference between the government and its people, but this darn game won’t let me go neutral shakes fist at
my quel’dorei specifically had a breakdown over the purge of dalaran, b/c he used to have hopes that maybe…maybe they could get along, but that forced him into hiding in his fiance’s basement in eversong, and BfA didn’t much help either, he peeked out only a little when it was all but speculated if quel’thalas was gonna become a battle field or not
on a little greater scale: my characters have only so much influence within their social circle - they may not agree with the bigger politics, but what can you do if not look out for the folks who are closest to you?
I can only speak for me, but when you let the double standard slide in lore arguments, the double standard eventually slides into how people are treated.
Heck, you’ve already seen it: the Horde’s feelings are considered sacrosanct, whereas no one really gives a crud about abuse flung at Alliance players.
I mean I think the vast majority of people on this post have been saying the entire time that it’s absolutely appropriate to do that. So, it kinda IS okay to acknowledge how messed up and evil the Horde’s actions have been. Most people do, OOCly. It certainly comes up in a lot of threads. We live in a wide world with lots of opinions, so of course some people are going to disagree. Most have been dismissed as trolls in this thread, and even flagged. But I certainly fail to see how this means acknowledging the Horde’s overall evil is somehow taboo on the forums - I’d suggest it’s quite the opposite.
Doesn’t mean that ICly, in RP, (the framework which the OP’s question appears to be asking about, specifically) that every CHARACTER in the Warcraft universe is going to agree. People tend to focus on their own suffering - it’s not necessarily unfair, even if it’s a bit unreasonable, for people like the Blood Elves to do this.
This same conversation happens each time a thread like this pops up with the same people saying the same things about their perceived treatment based on their chosen faction. I live for the drama though
My toons left the Horde in MoP when Garrosh went full genocidal maniac. They do townsfolk things or are stationed defending Quel’thalas. They live quiet little lives and roll their eyes at yet another warchief (Sylvanas) becoming a monster. They feel powerless to stop things so they disassociate.
They saw parallels between the lich queen burning the tree and their near extermination and are at minimum horrified and at most suffering from triggered PTSD remembering their own trauma from the news.
They’d defect to the Alliance but game mechanics prevent that.
It’s not all about Horde players marching up and down the forums demanding silence, but rather how the social pressures work.
I mention the Horde are evil as a political body and there will be people lined up to spew abuse at me for doing so, no matter how obvious the evidence. Whereas in this thread, abuse victims were mocked and it was hours before anyone pushed back against that.
You can say this when you’re not actually experiencing what’s been pointed out. But I don’t really have any more energy tonight to work on convincing anyone else that water is, in fact, typically wet.
