Blizz going toward no class/race restrictions

Quel’Thalas was just trying to pay off their debts to Arathor by helping the Alliance of Lordaeron for the Second War, and Quel’Thalas was even quicker to abandon their allies thereafter. Lor’Themar had already tried to jump ship from the Horde to Varian during Garrosh’s war. Quel’Thalas being a fickle ally is rather well established at this point.

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It always amuses me that people on these forums tend to forget that and think Quel’thalas was always this staunch, loyal ally of the Alliance. The Thalassian elves are literally direct descendants of Azhsara’s Highbourne. Except for a tiny minority of them that, for some reason, have it bad for humans… they didn’t really care what happened to the human kingdoms. Only when the Amani began to directly threaten them did they help the humans in the Troll Wars; and it took Lothar invoking an ancient oath to get Anasterian off his rump and commit even a token force during the Second War. Soon as the Horde was routed and the Orcs placed in camps… they noped out of the Alliance and went back to their forests.

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Imagine them handling Paladin, Druid, and Demon Hunter like they did with Warlocks for all races.

There was a lot of noping going around, no one wanted to contribute to the costs of running those camps. Gilneas and Alteraac also decamped out of the Alliance at that time.

I think you meant to say Gilneas and Stromgarde.

Because Alterac was sacked by the Alliance for supporting the Horde during the Second War.

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Funnily enough, the Alliance that the Blood Elves have a huge problem with is the Alliance of Lordaeron, not the Grand Alliance. Garithos wasn’t some noble from Stormwind, and it wasn’t Stormwind’s prince whom destroyed the kingdom and 90% of it’s population, as well as corrupting it’s Sunwell.

But we need to ignore that.

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By the time Garithos was a factor the Alliance was pretty much dead as a functioning government.

Yes, but that wasn’t my point.

It’s always felt odd to me anytime the Forsaken were given this sudden limelight in the story as the people of Lordaeron because… that should really make their allies hate them. The internment camps were built and run by the soldiers of Lordaeron. Thrall himself was abused and maltreated by a noble of Lordaeron. It was a prince of Lordaeron whom destroyed Quel’Thalas and 90% of it’s people, and it was another noble of Lordaeron whom attempted to have Kael’thas and his followers executed for the crime of surviving their suicide mission.

Don’t get me wrong. If the Forsaken are super proud of their heritage, more power to them. Just seems like these are plot points Blizzard had to bury to make the narrative of the Forsaken being in the Horde work. That’s a bit of a recurring problem too. The Zandalari join the Horde, and what do the Pandaren and Blood Elves/Nightborne have to say about it? Nothing, apparently. Ji just wants to punch some dinosaurs, while Blood Elves head over to the capital of their most ancient enemies to act like tourists.

Whenever a race joins the Horde, existing members or the new member themself just need to ignore history and atrocity and act like it’s their first time meeting, because otherwise these allegiances just don’t make sense. That, or Blizzard would have to put in the time and effort to make it all add up.

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Something I wish the game would’ve actually gone into is the fact that the forsaken essentially went through a similar arc the orcs themselves did, and have that be an opportunity of understanding since the forsaken are unique among WoW’s races of having crossed sides of the human/monster ostracization divide.

I guess the game sees little value in it, though, and it doesn’t help that the story direction seems so allergic in portraying flaws in the alliance that it undercuts the narrative point of the horde existing. :dracthyr_shrug:

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Instead the game occasionally brings up the Orc internment camps as reason for the Orcs to dislike Humans, when the Humans that interred them are the ones from Lordaeron all the way down to Tarran Mill, who are the Forsaken now. This never gets brought up, either.

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I feel part of that also chalks up to how much someone feels the people of Stormwind are actually the living heirs to Lordaeron or not. It feels like that place’s legacy is in some quantum state where only the idealized parts get to be alliance while worse stuff like the camps get to be solely blamed on the forsaken.

Well, you need to keep in mind that after the Second War, Stormwind was being rebuilt, it’s refugee population having largely returned home. There were no internment camps in Stormwind’s territories (whether because it was unfeasible due to distance, or because Stormwind wasn’t strong enough to prevent mass breakouts). Indeed, Alliance funds were being split between Stormwind’s reconstruction, and maintaining the internment camps.

Given all of that, to what extent could Stormwind have been responsible for the internment camps? At most you could blame Varian for opting to spare the Orcs rather than seeing them mass executed.

I’m talking about Lordaeron refugees fleeing the scourge and relocating to / repopulating Stormwind.

That is a fair point. I don’t know how many people from Lordaeron relocated to Stormwind (successfully, at least). It always seemed to be that the Scarlet Crusade were the bulk of what remained of Lordaeron’s original population. That and perhaps some forces in Theramore. How many of those individuals had any sort of connection to the power structure of Lordaeron in the aftermath of the Second War, I couldn’t begin to guess. I’m pretty sure Jaina had in her service a former aid to Garithos.

Regardless, just seems to me that whenever the Internment Camps or Arthas/Garithos gets brought up, the Orcs/Blood Elves ignore the Forsaken and glare at Stormwind for some reason.

I’d say that’s fair with Turalyon in charge, and him being from Lordaeron, but he wasn’t there for the aftermath of the Second War, let alone the Third War. I kind of wonder what would’ve happened if he had been. Would Arthas have turned out any differently? Would he still have mentored under Uther, or would it have been Turalyon?

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Holding the Forsaken responsible for the camps doesn’t make much sense. Old Lordaeron was the home of both many people fated to become Forsaken and many people who took refuge in New Stormwind. Lordaeron has become home to the undead of many nations. Most of the people who personally had anything to do with the camps were probably killed in the orcish uprisings, or not long after.

There are a few pointed examples of Lordaeronian survivors in Stormwind. Gryan Stoutmantle is one.

Factionalizing Arthas as specifically an Alliance failure seems to be a recent, retroactive theme. When he was alive everyone called him a traitor.

There was an AU where Blackmoore went rogue, killed Doomhammer, took over the Horde, killed Lothar, killed Uther, killed Terenas, and named himself king. Somehow young Varian, Arthas, and Jaina made it back to Stormwind alive, and Arthas still grew up to become a paladin. I always imagined Turalyon was responsible for that.

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From the Orc"s point of view… Humans are Humans. They all take up the banner of the Alliance save for those renegades in Kul Tiras.

When he came knocking on the doors of Quel’thelas he was addressed as the Prince of Lordaeron.

In Cataclysm the Forsaken started digging up the graves in Lordaeron to raise new undead up with the Jailer’s Val’kyr to try to recruit them into the Forsaken, so that would be a lot more people of Lordaeron, many of which might have ended up in those graves because of the Second War, given they were buried before Arthas’ welcome home parade.

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I remember them calling him “fallen prince” and “butcher.” I also remember him insisting on being called King.

I know Anduin compared him to Daelin, but I don’t really think a guy whose idea of a battlecry was “For Sir Lothar!” compares to a guy who considered “At last, the Alliance is finished!” a victory. I guess it’s true they both disliked orcs.