Actually the idea is to convince them to make the other side’s soldiers die more. It’s rather counter productive if they just die.
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On the contrary. Fear is an effective motivator to convince soldiers to kill. Unfortunately, fear is also a deterrent to risking death. The idea that to not risk death is cowardice, and a deficit of honor, is the purpose of honor/valor/glory in warrior cults.
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What is the quintessential list of books for a Forsaken™ fan?
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I think there’s two parts to this:
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European westerners writing what they imagine Eastern based honor to be in a story, especially Japanese.
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The honor of a soldier in a war.
I have a real irritation with AGW and how the “Old Soldier” character was entirely demolished by a puerile and superficial “honor” that was mere plot. (And in fact, a disgraceful display of ego and self-centeredness that, when extrapolated out, was self-reductio.)
In the kindest read for the writing team, Saurfang confused the honor of a duelist in a duel, and a commander and soldier in a war.
The best thing they could have done with the arc is have Saurfang be another victim of Mueh’zala’s lying whispers.
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Orc honor makes no sense. Shooting someone in the back is considered a legitamate military strategy.
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I disagree with the premise here. There is no magical divide between western honor and eastern honor, in this context. And Saurfang’s realization didnt even finally come until after Lordaeron, even after his imprisonment. Its not a question of this or that, duelist or commander. It is a culmination of all of Saurfang’s life experiences, that lead him to the conclusion that the Horde warrior cult is not noble, nor honorable and never was. That Sylvanas is exactly the leader that many in the horde wanted, because she is the natural inheritor of Blackhand’s horde.
Japanese warrior cults are not different than Roman warrior cults. Self disemboweling is not different when you use a pugio instead of a tanto.
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Yeah. Gunning down unarmed and retreating traders and profession experts in Silverwind Refuge was apparently “glorious.”
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Part of the Turajo fiasco was that you can’t trust Baine’s narrarive because he was trying to broker peace with the Alliance by downplaying Horde losses. Part of that was to mitigate retalitation by Jaina. He could have been serving it up as a sacrificial cow (no pun intended)
It’s a mess.
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“It’s the safest way, isn’t it?” Garak to Odo “Deep Space Nine”
Military strategy is about WINNING, not looking good in a sonnet.
I felt VERY noble savage while spraying chemical weapons on my enemies and allies alike. Much honorable.
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But muh honor.
-some sad orc who’s partaken in multiple genocides and pogroms.
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I do not find the Saurfang honor story-line resolvable as more than plot as it stands (so my comment was not aimed at staying in the story).
Now the survivors were doing the last, desperate act a losing army could do—bunching up into small groups and defending against all sides until they were brought down. Saurfang believed he had seen one of the night elves’ ranking officers, a Sentinel, fight on despite being hit by several arrows. Brave.
Honorable. And hopeless.
There’s no way some don’t get killed from behind, nature of the beast. But yet Saurfang, in the story:
War was war, but Saurfang had lost a duel with Stormrage. And now he had struck him down from behind.
Here we end up with the duel issue introduced, improperly. And that a battlefield “fire-ball” is somehow an evil, in one two sentence paragraph, taken with the next paragraph:
A dishonorable blow , Saurfang thought numbly. He is a hero of ten thousand years of war. I once fought at his side. And now I’ve felled him like a coward.
This is insanity: A surprise war, launched partially because only one of the two leaders would be there, with a goal of killing that one; but somehow, doing a soldier’s duty and fighting the enemy you see - in combat with your people - is bad?
To make it worse still, this happened before:
“Does the Horde need a reminder that we are in a war? Does the Horde need—”And then he stopped. His next heartbeats seemed to last an eternity. His fatigue‐addled mind had finally caught up with his hard‐earned survival instincts. That boy had not been sent to kill him.
He had been trying to lead Saurfang outside.
In his haste to lecture his guards, Saurfang had done exactly what that boy had wanted. You just killed yourself, you old fool. He turned and flung himself back into the inn. An instant later, the ground shook as Malfurion Stormrage landed where he had been standing.
“Lok‐Narash!” he yelled. To arms!
His advisors and tacticians were already forming a line in the common room, pulling him behind it and standing at the ready. Like many night elf buildings, this one had open walls on three sides, giving them a view of the chaos roiling outside. Siege crews scrambled away from Malfurion, only to fall from arrows and blades in their backs.
This wasn’t just Malfurion. This was the kaldorei’s last stand in Ashenvale, a decapitation strike on the commander of this battle. And Saurfang—they had drawn him in so easily. Astranaar was an island with limited access. Easily defensible. Impossible to escape
Saurfang and Malfurion are NOT Kenshin and Shingen, honorable enemies.
Malfurion sent a boy to die as bait, so he could kill Saurfang from a blind spot… that Saurfang’s senses caught on in time, and Malfurion’s did not, is Malfurion’s problem. There is simply no course for an honor calculation in what Saurfang did on seeing Malfurion rise.
(BTW: Saurfang not using a boy as bait makes him better by default.)
To make the self-reductio clearer:
Let’s move Zekhan back to Darkshore, for argument: As Saurfang is pictured in late AGW, if Malfurion had come up and attacked Zekhan, keeping his back to Saurfang, Saurfang would have let Zekhan die, despite standing right there.
Saurfang himself was seeking the fight, writing him suddenly turning to an “oh, my honor” was just plain weird:
He followed the sounds of a terrifying battle. Near the shore was a monstrous clash between two powerful creatures.
The warchief battles Stormrage alone.
If Sylvanas fell, it would be up to Saurfang to finish the job. He was not sure he could.
The fighting was still hundreds of feet away. Saurfang crept toward it, watching flashes of dark violet and emerald green ahead.
The honor of a soldier springs from doing their duty to their State. Not their personal code of conduct, if every soldier stopped for a personal moral evaluation of each of their actions one-by-one, war would be un-prosecutable at scale and merely the realm of murderers.
It is by adding the duty to the State, and the asserted honor of upholding the State in war, that control is given to restrain war. Good people are thereby asked to be the main body of power, and in their goodness is a barrier to limit bad leaders who would otherwise depend on killers and mercenaries for the worst acts.
Saurfang had already agreed to the war being right, and killing Malfurion - maybe even Tyrande - being right. He even reiterates it to Tyrande:
“We dare because we must,” Saurfang said. “And we must succeed.”
Saurfang’s misconstrued “honor” was what opened the door for the worst act, hence my desire for Mueh’zala to be the driver as a manipulation of Sylvanas.
Instead we got honor cheapened to a plot device.
Transitioning the story to a broad arc of “honor cults are bad” is transitioning the Horde to being simply bad. This is alleged to have nuance. If they thought they were doing that with Saurfang’s arc, they messed up.
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The whole start of War of Thorns was to attack a largely civilian population. Both books emphasize that the night elf military is mostly not involved. What the Horde is attacking is random night elf citizens and the Darnassus City Guard, not their warriors.
Which was a really odd choice for beginning a plot point that would hinge on MUH HONOR.
While what defines honor is extremely fluid between cultures (and orcish honor, in particular, has always been a moving target), a sneak attack with the ENTIRE HORDE ARMY on a bunch of unprepared civilians who’re minding their own business is usually not Glamorous Fantasy Honor material.
Which makes Saurfang’s final realization that maybe the whole thing wasn’t very Muh Honor land with the same wet fart effect that Sylvanas’s “I WILL NEVER SERVE (she says, after apparently years of serving)” did. For me, anyway.
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It mirrors the emotions of a soldier of an inperialist army suddenly having the scales fall from his eyes when he shoots a child, instinctively believing that child to be a threat. The guilt doesnt come until after the holes have been punched.
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And yet warrior cults evolve to create these special codes, that set them apart from the rank and file soldier. The members of these cults are typically the elite. These cultists tell soldiers that honor comes from doing what you must. Defying fear of death, defying repulsion at killing. Meanwhile, the warrior cultist often sees himself (usually male) as a cut above, the natural inheritor of more honor. Having a deeper understanding of honor. He can respect a worthy adversary if he sees said adversary as a warrior peer and man of honor. Moreso than he can respect his own subordinate. Its absolutely stupid. There are few religions stupider. And thats exactly what the horde is.
This isnt some new revelation either. Saurfang has been working toward this realization since the death of his son. Actually prior, but the story was introduced to us through the death of Saurfang the younger.
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If that was the writing intent, it was totally failed.
Saurfang struck the most lethal combatant the Night Elves had on the field. He knew that’s what he saw.
The same combatant he specifically itemized as a kill target in the plans, there’s no scale to drop there.
Again:
The Horde is not presented as simple evil:
The indomitable Horde is driven by unity. They are fervent keepers of freedom and hope, relentlessly opposed to any who threaten these ideals, including the stringent Alliance.
The Horde has never had a coherent honor system presented.
Blizzard has used imagery and formulations indicating a reliance on Western imaginings about Japanese Feudal culture (Blademasters make that clear enough).
That culture is not a simple toy to copy for a generic, 20th century, “honor is bad” story.
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This is an over simplification of generations of storytelling by multiple people.
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That argumentum is not particularly convincing:
The social systems, and how the concepts of honor functioned in them, cannot be simplified into one.
Even in Rome there would be a gulf between the ancient, pantheistic Legion and the Late era Christian Legion.
Oh how people now would take the ruse the first Roman settlers pulled to make sure they had a future! (Which Japanese honor never would have tolerated.)
It is a simplification to say the Horde is an honor cult.
Since when do Goblins fit that descriptor?
Functionally, Saurfang does not reject honor:
High Overlord Saurfang says: Make sure you know the difference between loyalty and honor.
Honor falls into a plot device to move the story, and make drama, not as something that is actually a code of conduct.
Having Saurfang find the faults of the Horde’s honor while in the tender mercies of a blond haired prince is not good storytelling.
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Doesn’t help that the writers don’t even know what Horde/Orc honor even entails. It’s varies far too greatly depending on which particular orc is describing it. There should some sort of basic baseline that everyone agrees on. We dont even get that much
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Ah… see; you see the Horde as a faction which encompasses all player characters of a selection of races. And the name Thrall (unwisely?) gave to his new nation in Durotar as some sort of silly homage. Realistically, the true Horde is the collective army of warlike orc tribes under the rule of a horde warchief, for the purpose of waging war. The culture of the horde (cult) is a warrior cult in the most caricaturesque and exaggerated terms. Elements of warrior cults from around the human world have been borrowed to bring that cult to life. The most Japanese parts from the RTS era took a backseat to Roman, Apache and Maasai warrior cult inspirations by the time WoW aimed to tell us theor story, but the Horde in lore is not the faction. The Horde in lore is the horrifying sea of greenskins coming to kill you. Then it becomes more nuanced, but as long as it continues its customs of honor, glory, strength worship, zug zug, slay them all, Lok’tar Ogar (victory or death), it will always be a random objective away from becoming a horde of murderous orcs.
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