"Are we the baddies?" Self-awareness of the Horde?

I view it as a sign that Blizzard has gotten lazy in all honestly.

For example when Garrosh was made Warchief Blizzard went out of their way to make him a larger than life figure. You had NPCs talking about his eyes being on us, him appearing in Stonetalon, the Shattering novel helped build up and even revealed that their were rumors that Garrosh personally killed the Lich King.

They made Garrosh a larger than life figure in a sense and those with large shadows have plenty of people who will want to stand within those shadows. Plus they started showing off the orc first mindset here and there, which served as creating a logical reason on why Garrosh had loyalists in the end.

Where as Sylvanas has the loyalty of the people because Blizzard has Lor’themar said so.

Furthermore when Garrosh was Warchief we saw the schism that was being created within the Horde. You had the conflict between Garrosh and Vol’jin revealed in the Echo Isles, Garrosh and Sylvanas clashing in Silverpine Forest, and then you had the NPCs here and there that had a preference. Like Durotar has two NPCs together who were in disagreement with one another because the shaman preferred Thrall’s way and the warrior preferred Garrosh’s way.

Where here Lor’themar mentions that Teldrassil created a schism within the Horde but it wasn’t shown. The closet we got to that was Saurfang going on his own and it just felt more like a nod toward the schism created within the player base.

The resurrection of Derek Proudmoore. Valtrois was reminded of the Burning Legion because of what Sylvanas did, Talanji outright admits to being reminded of Zul by it, and caused Baine and Zelling to liberate Derek and return him to Jaina.

Both the Horde and Alliance helped the Pandaren deal with the Sha, Mantid, Lei Shen, etc… and even before that during the war in Cataclysm Vol’jin warned everyone about the Zandalari backing the Amani and Gurubashi. He even sent envoys to Stormwind about the Gurubashi threat. Vol’jin was risking his life by warning the Alliance and the uniting with the other faction against the threats in Pandaren was risked putting us on Garrosh’s hit list.

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If I changed my others to Alliance would you be in agreement? Because that was the intent behind that statement. Like I said I am not going into this discussion trying to analyze every possible way what I say could be interpreted like a lawyer or lawmaker. If there is a confusion I will try to clarify.

I will not get into an argument with you. No matter how hard you try to bait.

Do you have direct quotes to those? I can’t tell what this commentary from this characters is about.
Everything about the alliance is explicit while the horde is incredibly ambiguous.
That lends itself into tons of conflict.

Horde vs Horde and Horde vs Alliance.

I guess from a Troll perspective, siding with the Horde rather than the Zandalari and coming to the Alliance for a combined attack to stop the Zandalari could be interpreted as self-sacrificing for Voljin but it is hardly equivalent to… say Thrall letting us kill his wife for the sake of faction conflict resolving itself.

I mean Thrall wasn’t even ready to give up Garrosh to Varian.
Well I said I will keep an open mind so begrudgingly will give Voljin a point from a Horde and Troll perspective.

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You could consider typing what you meant instead of typing overly broad statements and accusing others of hostility for reading your words as you type them.

If you had simply typed what you say you mean, yes, it would have been clearer.

Instead you used a vague word like “others” and continue to try to move the goal posts.

One does not need to be a lawyer to use accurate language.

Had you typed “the Horde does not care about the Alliance” or “the Horde only cares about people while they are useful”, that would be something else.

No argument needed. You admit your use of “others” was overly vague and not what you meant. You meant a more specific group, but instead you used the general term “others” incorrectly.

If you acknowledge your word choice was faulty, instead of moving the goal posts on what “others” means, that is fine with me.

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Can someone post that “hans are we the baddies” edit where the fat dude is an orc?

I think I am just going to stop interacting with you going forward.

Thanks for your contribution.

10 characters

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Always happy to introduce lore based facts into nonsense threads based on some OPs baseless head canon.

And always happy to point out such out right lies when the lore easily contradicts them.

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The war of thorns (or the battle of UC) seems barely mentioned on the horde side. Hell the war with the alliance is barely mentioned unless Nathanos is involved.

So you know the conversations become available once Derek is resurrected and you have to ask them their opinion on it.

From Valtrois,
I was skeptical of the Forsaken when I first joined the Horde, but was assured that they chose their state of death willingly. This, however…

The nightborne suffered greatly under the Legion’s heel. The atrocities I witnessed… it is distressing how much I am reminded of them now. I will leave it at that.

From Talanji.

My father’s final act was to invoke de power of Bwonsamdi. De Zandalari are no strangers to calling upon de dead to serve us.

Yet de raising of Derek Proudmoore makes me uneasy. It reminds me of what Zul did to my beloved Rezan… a foul deed that broke my heart.

De Alliance must be brought to justice for my father’s death. But we must not let rage blind us… or make us forget de honor dat makes de Zandalari great."

From Thomas Zelling.
What have I done? All I wanted was to be with my family, to take care of them and ensure that they had everything they needed. And now…

Derek Proudmoore didn’t ask for such a fate. He died a hero to all Kul Tirans, and he has earned his rest beneath the tides. To think I had a hand in this… this…

Forgive me, <name>. We must set this right.

From Baine.
I cannot abide this, <name>. Each time I think Sylvanas has gone too far, she finds a new line to cross. I have watched her commit one dishonorable act after another.

She desecrates more than the memory of a fallen enemy. She desecrates the Horde itself.

This cannot stand. Something must be done. And soon.

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I think the Horde dont seem to see it as a problem because this is a common occurrence.

The majority of people living in western nations eat better than the kings of Europe did 500 years ago. You never have to wake up wondering if you will be murdered or attacked by wild animals.

Most of Azeroth is a brutal place in the best of times and hellish in the worst.

Imagine you are a young Orc born 6 years before the the Third War. You have already seen half a dozen world ending threats and countless lesser dangers. You have likely lost at least one family member to any number of enemies. You have lived a brutal and hard life and you are still very young.

OF COURSE you would be desensitized your default setting would be kill anything not Horde before it could kill you. For most of the Horde survival means being better at killing than everything else giant deadly scorpions are a common problem for crying out loud Azeroth is a hell world.

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And yet the characters and stories that are made must still resonate with the audience. One that will hopefully never understand those trials and tribulations in any way except the academic. If you stray too far in that direction things start to come unraveled, sure. Trying to beat Garrosh into submission with “what about the Geneva Convention?” was probably too far. Treating, say the Horde, as a collective of murder machines that only live to kill and apparently don’t care about the difference between a giant scorpion and another sapient that can be reasoned with? That’s too far the other way.

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I can think of plenty of times where Malfurion, Khadgar, Anduin, Jaina reached out to the horde, promoted peace or whatever the call at least once.

Then you have Velen who’s literally jesus and is willing to forgive just about any atrocity done to his people (he only snapped after his son died) and without him the blood elves would be either gone or terribly dimished without the sunwell.

Yes, everyone was laughing about it before the fact. After the tree burned everyone got quiet so we dont really know if they were having nam flashbacks like Saurfang or they were getting off to it.

And on the other side of the draenei coin you have Velen and im quoting myself for this one “who’s literally jesus and is willing to forgive just about any atrocity done to his people (he only snapped after his son died) and without him the blood elves would be either gone or terribly dimished without the sunwell.” so im not really putting a lot of worth on the opinions of clearly traumatized and vengeful youth who’s willing to write off an entire race.

These two are true enough.

My opinions on the sunrevears and why they are in the wrong and deserve what they got could fill an entire different thread so im not even gonna go near that one.

The truth of the matter is that if no character had plot armor and the writers werent so dead-set in this trainwreck of a plot Sylvanas would have long been deposed and Anduin replaced with either a competent general or someone who actually cares about the alliance instead half assing being high king.

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Aside from threats the Alliance is also hostile with, the only group the Horde is hostile with is the Alliance. We get along just fine with the Tuskarr, Mainland Pandaren, Tol’vir, Arakkoa, Steamwheedle Cartel, Dragonflights, Vulpera, Tortollans, etc.

And we aren’t always heartless in regards to the Alliance. We are now, but Blizzard has written us to be very wishy washy.

Regardless of if they are a Horde race now, we’ve also helped many other races. As others have stated, the Nightborne, Highmountain Tauren, and the Mag’har Orcs joined the Horde because we helped them, and our aid did not come with the contingency that they paid us back by joining.

Likewise, when no other group of people were willing to give the Forsaken a chance, Hamuul Runetotem did, not because he wanted to use their forces, but because he thought he could help them. That’s it. His only motivation was to help a people that was suffering.

The only ones the Horde are nasty towards are the Alliance and our mutual enemies. If you are looking for Horde speaking out against our actions in the War of Thorns, you have to keep in mind that that’s the exact event Horde fans have been complaining about for over a year now. We’re upset that the War of Thorns was forced and out of character for us. If you are asking for examples of Horde being compassionate and remorseful, you aren’t the only one.

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What you’re asking for is a level of altruism that some schools of philosophy would argue doesn’t even exist.

Every time we show you an example of someone in the Horde helping someone, you claim it’s for selfish reasons (even though Hamuul helping the Forsaken was anything but, especially when you consider how the Forsaken have payed him back).

You keep coming back to this Velen example, but when viewed in the same cynical light that you view Horde actions, even Velen isn’t altruistic enough to meet your standards. He benefited from cleansing the Sunwell. His number one motivation is defeating the Burning Legion. He’s never cared about Horde vs. Alliance, which is why he freely asks the Horde for help. He took notice that the Blood Elves also opposed the Legion but were weakened without the Sunewell. Helping them meant more people fighting against his greatest enemy. And, as he probably foresaw with his prophetic powers, the Blood Elves answered his call to go on his spaceship and bring the fight to Argus. That’s a resource he wouldn’t have had if he didn’t help them. He knew the day would come that the Blood Elves would repay him, and they did.

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i always saw the horde has the bad guys,minus some exceptions like in wc3.

definectly villains during cata and mop but at least the alliance had more or less some shady acts.

But they went to the extreme with bfa.
they will be forever remembered as the villains who deserve to be exterminated. the faction is beyond redemption, nothing will change that.
unless it’s retconned or something.

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You don’t care, either. You want a moral podium to admonish from.

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This is a long thread and I didn’t read EVERYTHING here, but here’s my take.

The OP’s argument is predicated upon the premise that what Sylvanas is doing now is evil. If that’s the premise, then the only conclusion you can get is that yes, it’s evil and yes, the Horde is evil.

But my view is that for the Horde, you have to look at 3 factors.

First, why was the WoW horde created, as it relates to the story? The original WoW Horde and up to the Blood Elves, were created because of the outright cruelty, neglect and otherwise indifference of the Alliance. So none of them would have much sympathy for the Alliance as a whole, irregardless of any propaganda their leaders might espouse.

Secondly, there’s Sylvanas the leader. Traditionally, Sylvanas always had relatable motives, although her actions may not be “good” in the sense. Up until Wrath, her motives were finding a place for her people to live in while trying to get revenge on Arthas, and post Wrath, she was all about propagation of the Forsaken as a species while securing her borders.

He motives as Warchief now is less clear. But because of her past deeds as the Forsaken racial leader, she would receive trust, or at least the benefit of the doubt, by rank and file of the Forsaken and most of the other Horde races.

Third is Sylvanas as a person. She used to be an elf (current blood elf) before she was killed by Arthas. Her variety of elf had been spurned by the night elves after Azshara, then high elves spurned them for their magic addiction, THEN the living spurned the undead after they had their minds restored.

So in Sylvanas’s mind, the Night Elves could be the source of all bad things in her world. She might be thinking Teldrassil is to Night Elves what the Sunwell is to the Blood Elves. And just as destroying the Sunwell would cripple the Blood Elves, she may be thinking that destroying Teldrassil will cripple the Night Elves.

I think Blizzard has been doing a pretty decent job of storytelling, at least where technique is concerned, even if the content is not to the liking of some players. And it’s not always about good vs. evil. If it was just about that, then the story would get boring real quickly. It’s CONVENIENT to put Horde=evil Alliance=good archetype, but it’s not a very good storytelling mechanic.

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Meanwhile I still sit here confused as the best narrative route the Horde story could have gone they wasn’t MoP 2: Undead Boogalo was a godsdamned God of War reference.

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You and me both.

The blood elves were high elves they only renamed themselves after arthas sylvanas was never a blood elf. So there was no spurning of the blood elves by the high elves till after she died and even then only a tiny fraction remained high elves.

Sylvsbas even her inner thoughts never thought of the noght elves as the source of all bad things and the burning was basicly a gamble to save her failed plan. Her plan was never to kill hope or do a sunwell on the night rlves she wanted hostages as a bargaining chip which is a good idea. When malf didnt die her plan didnt wirk so she in snger made up a plan B expecting the alliance to crumble which again flailed.

Second sylvanas admits in edge of night she didnt care about a place for her people they were tools. They were always tools for her personal vengence after she didnt care. Now they are her tools to kerp out of hell.

Thrid the only founding horde race that has a leg to stand on for cruelty from the alliance is the darkspear. The taurren knew nothing of humans and had never met thrm. The orcs had been put in camps but that whole a rather curel thing to do is something of a mercy given not 20 years ago those same orcs had invaded in a genocidal horde. The camps were cruel and inhumane but the orcs couldnt go home and the wild orcs were mostly still attacking people why give thrm more fighters.

So long story short is sylvanas evil yes is the horde evil no or at least they they shouldnt be so i say no.

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