Blood Elf Shadowpriests aren't canon

Lore Story Forum
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Garithos never should have made it past a footman. it’s insane that people try to justify him being anywhere near Allianc leadership in any circumstance.

So, we have one faction that was

  1. Literally mind controlled by the Scourge
  2. At BEST under the influence of demonic blood
  3. Helped the Blood Elves when the Alliance wouldn’t

And the other

  1. Let’s open racists serve and rise in the ranks of their military
  2. Without being under the influence of anything, committed genocide against them and tried to have their king murdered
  3. Spied on them. Tried to kill them in their own homeland. All before they officially joined the Horde. And I just did the Ghostlands quests the other day. I’m near certain the night elves were sabotaging the arcane power lines. Reason the Night Elves did nothing in Dire Maul? Maybe that’s a sign that they’re not perfect and are a bit biased against elves outside of their sphere of influence. This just goes to my point. Besides, Dire Maul is, at best, a single ruined city, versus an entire country of (at the time) dark magic users.

The vast, vast, vast, VAST majority of the Cult of the Damned were willing humans, led by a human named Kel’Thuzad. The Scourge was led by a human within a year or so of its creation.

This is a silly argument. One side was under the influence of greater forces, and ended up helping the Blood Elves despite previous bad blood. The other betrayed them, tried to commit genocide against them, spied and attacked their citizens on their own soil.

This argument that Blood Elves don’t make sense in the Horde is nonsense. Obviously I would’ve preferred if we got the third faction WC3 teased us with, but in a 2 faction game they justified Blood Elves joining the Horde quite well.

The problem is that players cant reconcile the Alliance doing anything wrong ever, because Blizzard refuses to allow the Alliance to be realistically flawed like they were in WC3 and early WoW. So the Alliance that abused, exploited, and alienated the Blood Elves makes no sense when compared to the Alliance that gleefully accepted Void Elves into their ranks and has no problem at all with dark magic.

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Garithos as a leader/general had some tactical/strategical acumen in that he was able to secure Dalaran and fight off an invading Scourge army (iirc, i forget exactly what he pulled Kael’thas’s standing troops to do after Kael repaired the observatories), but his cons/negatives (prejudice of just about anything that wasn’t a human) and his lack of common sense far outweighed anything else.

I wouldn’t put him anywhere near leadership just for the prejudice, but the man lacked common sense.

be garithos
get mind controlled by a dreadlord
be freed
blindly trust ANOTHER dreadlord and a dark ranger and unironically believe they’ll keep their word.

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I mean, you won’t hear me try to justify it, just pointing out his background. He wasn’t chosen off of merit, only pity.

And after being free of that mind control, well… War of Thorns was basically the Fall of Quel’Thalas redux, complete with the tearing down of a magic wall, and raising the enemy commander into undeath. Orcs were, at best, under demonic influence, at worst, well… Ogrim knew exactly what he was doing. He knew Draenor was doomed and his people needed a new home, and he was not above forcibly taking that home from it’s existing residents.

As for the Alliance not helping the Blood Elves, you’re welcome for your Sunwell back. How is that withdrawal going for you these days?

To be fair, Garithos wasn’t a racist until after his home was destroyed, and when in his right mind, didn’t really let that interfere with his duties. After being freed from the Dreadlords, he allied with an undead elf, the combination of the two things he hated, and even would have kept his end of his bargain with her. Not saying Sylvanas was wrong to kill him off mind you. I’m 110% certain he’d have gone after her after entrenching his power.

Who? Garithos? Already mentioned that we don’t know when he was being controlled by the Dreadlords. Considering divide and conquer is one of their M.O.'s, having Garithos try to wipe out Kael’thas and the Blood Elves fits perfectly.

Spy? Yes. Tried to kill them in their homeland? Uhm… no. The Night Elves had an illegal presence there, absolutely, but they never attacked Tranquillien or anything. The Blood Elves attacked them first.

And controlled by the soul of an Orc. Mind you, there were also High Elves in the Cult of the Damned. Not positive if Dar’khan Drathir was in it or not… Pretty sure he was JUST a traitor and not a member.

When did we make this the discussion? Last I checked we were discussing the definition of sedition and who is or isn’t guilty of it, not whether or not Blood Elves belong on the Horde or not.

Oh I think you’d be surprised. There are even quite a few players, in the Alliance in particular, whom would be quite glad to have the Alliance doing more objectively evil things to the Horde. Of course, with the faction war narrative all but gone, that crowd isn’t exactly all that vocal anymore.

Which Alliance abused, exploited, and alienated the Blood Elves? Last I checked, Stormwind wasn’t even involved in what was going on up north with the Blood Elves, Gnomeregan was sealed off so they wouldn’t detract resources from on-going conflicts, and Ironforge’s support was just as maltreated by Garithos as the Blood Elves were. In WC3 the only interaction the Night Elves and Blood Elves had was quite cordial, providing mutual aid and support to one another to further their own goals. Pragmatic, but surprisingly more pleasant than one might have thought.

I get that the Blood Elves had a grudge against Arthas, but putting all that on the modern Alliance which had virtually nothing to do with it feels asinine. Of course, Blizzard can’t do subtlety. They can’t give the Blood Elves any other reason for joining the Horde than imagined or overblown slights the modern Alliance had not been guilty of. New atrocities had to be made, often making the Alliance do completely inane nonsense to make it work.

Do the Blood Elves belong on the Horde? That’s not even a question worth starting a discussion on. It is LONG since been decided.

Was their addition to the Horde well written? No, not really. Could it have been? Absolutely, but this is Blizzard.

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Who cares if he had tactical acumen? Why does this matter to me, a Blood Elf, whose people just got abused exploited and murdered by him?

Do you think that argument would win many people over irl?

“Oh yeah, this infamous racist whose been leading my people into suicide missions is bad, but I guess the Alliance has the right idea since he’s good at his job. Well, I’ll just bend over now”.

Replace Garithos with any other infamous racist dictator. Then say that line again about him having tactical acumen.

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You’re just making excuses at this point.

“Which” Alliance? The only one that exists. Imagine this was [insert real life military alliance here]. If one country in the Alliance starts comitting acts of war against an outside country, the entire Alliance that’s propping them up shares culpability.

This is a military alliance. They either signed off on these actions or they’re too incompetent to sympathize with.

You’re also being incredibly, disturbingly reductive when it comes to the human’s role in the Scourge. You know full well the vast majority of the living Scourge members were willing humans. It’s not just Arthas the Blood Elves were pissed at. The Alliance sent them on suicide missions, then betrayed them. At the same time, living, thinking humans were committing mass murder against them. Again, why is this stuff always left out when we have these discussions?

So, you’re downplaying and making excuses for every reason the Blood Elves decided to leave the Alliance, while making it seem like the Horde (based on their actions in WoW) wasn’t the obvious choice for them to join.

We’re getting off topic and I’m done discussing this. It’s just gross to me when people try to downplay Garithos and the surrounding systems that allowed him to exist in the first place. Disturbing, honestly.

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Who cares if he had tactical acumen? Why does this matter to me, a Blood Elf, whose people just got abused exploited and murdered by him?

I’m not talking about in-universe logic/reasoning, obviously the Blood Elves would have no reason to care then and still don’t have any reason to care now.

Do you think that argument would win many people over irl?

No, and it shouldn’t because his racism/xenophobia should deter anyone from wanting to follow him.

Replace Garithos with any other infamous racist dictator. Then say that line again about him having tactical acumen.

You realize this is a fantasy video game, yes? Where we ride dragons, shoot laser beams out of our eyes and can call upon magic? IRL inspirations can certainly occur and have, but do you truly think it wise to draw comparisons with racist dictators IRL who’ve done far worse atrocities and damage than Garithos could have ever hoped to have achieved?

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So? People are still people, orc elf or otherwise. I’m not arguing the existence of magic and dragons. I’m saying in any universe, it’s not cool to downplay the actions of an open racist who tries to commit genocide.

I don’t think this is a controversial statement to make.

Wait…and also wtf are you even talking about? Even IN-UNIVERSE WoW condemns acts of genocide. The orcs butchering the Draenei, Arthas butchering the Blood Elves, Garithos (again), even the awful writing that was the burning of teldrassil. We had a book named WAR CRIMES for God’s sake XD

Rarely is it handled with the proper nuance and maturity, but Blizzard definitely expects people to take some elements of their real world morality with them when observing the atrocities of Azeroth.

If anything, Warcraft has a habit of treating in-game atrocities with TOO MUCH real-world comparisons. Remember, it was the devs who first dropped the term genocide on us a couple years ago.

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Well, first of all, there are two Alliances. There’s the Alliance of Lordaeron (which crumbled in the aftermath of the Third War), and the Grand Alliance (which seems to have started shortly before Vanilla when the Night Elves join Stormwind, Ironforge, Gnomeregan, and Theramore, possibly Dalaran? Probably Dalaran).

Garithos is not exactly a celebrated hero in the Alliance, and in the aftermath of the fall of the northern kingdoms, there was a LOT of confusion. Support and aid were sent, and those troops and resources went to the highest ranking survivor, which was Garithos. However, Garithos was not an appointed leader by the Alliance. He didn’t sit on the throne of Lordaeron. He was not the equal to Varian, Magni, or Gelbin. No one in the south even knew what he was getting up to, because everything was a mess.

A better analogy would be if eastern Europe became a nuclear wasteland, supplies and troops were sent to help, and months later we learn the highest ranking individual out there had been brainwashed by (insert hostile country behind the nuking here) and had been alienating allies by sending them on suicide missions.

Yes, it’s a military Alliance, not a nation. None of the surviving rulers signed off on anything, they just upheld their mutual obligation to send support and troops. Again, they did not know what was going on. The entire northern continent was in chaos.

Not really? I never said humans weren’t the majority of the Cult of the Damned. What I’ve attempted to repeatedly draw your attention to is the fact they were in service to, and following the commands of the soul of an Orc, whom was the actual one enslaving all the undead. Those human necromancers certainly raised plenty of undead, but the Lich King was the one in control of them.

Humans whom were or were not under the control of Dreadlords. The jury is out on that one, and while you’re happy to give the Orcs an instant pass just for having quaffed demon blood, you seem intensely determined to ignore this.

I… what? How could the Blood Elves have left the Alliance? The Blood Elves never joined it! Quel’Thalas withdrew from the Alliance under Anasterian. The Blood Elves didn’t even exist until after he was dead.

As for the Horde, ‘not being the obvious choice,’ in a two faction system choice is pretty limited. But, I’m not getting into that discussion. The Blood Elves joined the Horde, and that’s ancient history. I personally think it was poorly written and could’ve been done better. Maybe you disagree. I don’t even know how this came up when originally we were discussing the Void Elves being guilty of sedition or not.

Well, it’d be nice if Blizzard themselves didn’t downplay him. I do not remember the last time Garithos was mentioned in-game. It certainly never came up much in the BC Blood Elf narrative, which struck me as very odd.

But if you find yourself disturbed by discussion of a fictional setting, maybe you should take a break?

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Dude don’t get hung up semantics. You know exactly what I meant when I said Blood Elves in the Alliance. Stop distracting. I am speaking of the elves from the WC3 Alliance campaign “curse of the blood elves”. The ones who went on suicide missions for Garithos, and were eventually betrayed by him.

And I know there have been multiple alliances throughout history. Again, you’re being willfully ignorant and it’s obvious. What I was saying was in response to the other poster, who was asking about the Alliance during TBC which comitted acts of war against the blood elves.

I’m not disturbed by the game, I find people who downplay Garithos’s crimes, and what it says about the greater Alliance, to be disturbing. Because it says a lot about your understanding of power dynamics and systemic abuse.

so let me rephrase:

I am disturbed by people who make excuses for the Alliance’s Garithos problem.

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And who here is making an excuse for it? I’m sorry, but did I ever praise Garithos or insinuate nothing was wrong at all with how he came into that position? Discussing the circumstances and events is not, ‘making excuses.’ We’re examining the narrative and having a discussion.

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So? People are still people, orc elf or otherwise I’m not arguing the existence of magic and dragons. I’m saying in any universe, it’s not cool to downplay the actions of an open racist who tries to commit genocide.

…Since when have I downplayed it?

Wait…and also wtf are you even talking about? Even IN-UNIVERSE WoW condemns acts of genocide. The orcs butchering the Draenei, Arthas butchering the Blood Elves, Garithos (again), even the awful writing that was the burning of teldrassil. We had a book named WAR CRIMES for God’s sake XD

I am aware, yes.

Rarely is it handled with the proper nuance and maturity, but Blizzard definitely expects people to take some elements of their real world morality with them when observing the atrocities of Azeroth.

Correct, it is rarely handled with the proper nuance and maturity.

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So then whats your point about applying real life morals to fantasy worlds? Or your point about Garithos’s good tactical acumen? Every single time Garithos comes up, there’s a few people who rush to say positive things about him, or excuse the Alliance’s choice to let him anywhere near a position of leadership, or say you shouldn’t apply your feelings on racism and genocide to the game world.

Hopefully you can see why it looks like you’re downplaying his actions a bit by showing how skilled he was, and downplaying the Alliance’s unforgivable decision to create a military structure that allows open racists to rise through the ranks.

If that wasn’t your intent, and we can admit that the Alliance was 100% to blame and in the wrong for everything Garithos did, then we’re on the same page.

So, when you compare what the Alliance did the Blood Elves without any evil influence clouding their minds, to what the Horde did after they were freed from their corruption to help the Blood Elves, I think it makes a lot of sense why the chose the side they did.

Back to Blood Elf shadowpriests.

This entire situation is a continuation of the Blood Elves devolution into generic High Elves. With the Nightborne filling out the arcane expertise of the Horde, the Blood Elves feel kind of aimless and washed up right now. Really, the only things they got going for them right now is the Reliquary and their born-again Light worship. Without any edge to balance them out, they’re just flat out BORING now.

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Again, which Alliance?

Are we talking about the Alliance of Lordaeron, of which Garithos was a part since he was a part of the Kingdom of Lordaeron? Or are we talking about the Grand Alliance which he was never a part of?

You seem so keen to gloss over everything the Horde did, and again-

Dreadlords. Controlled. Garithos. You keep ignoring this.

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I mean you’re the one who immediately downplayed the human’s role in the Scourge, and compared the Alliance’s free-willing crimes to the Horde whose crimes were committed while drunk on demon blood or literally being pupeteered by the Scourge . I genuinely don’t know what point you’re trying to make in all this.

I’m done engaging in this conversation. Let’s talk more about blood elf shadowpriests.

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I didn’t downplay anything. I pointed out facts. The Cult of the Damned has never been exclusively human.

You’re the one continuing to ignore the fact that the Dreadlords had control of Garithos, influencing his campaigns, even at one point mind controlling all of his forces in effect. Yet you still cling to this idea that the Alliance forces involved in that were, ‘Free Willed,’ or acting without outside influence affecting them.

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Actually, canon is that the dwarf wanted to observe a sanctum that was malfunctioning. That is what his letter to Night Elves said.

And a sanctum just coincidentally happened to malfunction while the dwarf wished for it to happen. That is some Warhammer 40k wish power right there.

You are totally misinterpreting the whole questline as: “Oh, this sanctum is malfunctioning?! Let us observe it” no, it is: “Hmm, I wonder what would happen if the sanctum was malfunctioning”

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Excuse me, when did I say they were exclusively human? I said the vast, vast, vast, VAST majority were human. Meanwhile you were focusing on the single orc who didnt even run the show for the majority of the time, and wasn’t the major figure the high elves fought in Quel’thalas.

Looks like you’re putting words in my mouth now.

Also, you’re saying Garithos was mind-controlled by Deathlords through the entire Curse of the Blood Elves campaign? Thats news to me! Maybe I missed that last time.

Enough. Move on.

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That because said Orc literally controlled all of the undead. Every undead raised BY the necromancers, death knights, liches, etc… were under the Lich King’s control. That’s how the Lich King works. Regardless of what the elves faced, this is a fact.

It happened because they increased the load on the Sanctum, and against it’s keeper’s warning. The NPCs even say there was no sabotage.

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I think your also reaching there, the point of the quest was there was no Solid proof either way that the Night elves of dwarf had any actual involvement with the Malfunctions. The blood elves wanted to simply believe the Night elves were guilty because to consider that the sanctums were simply overloaded, and malfunctioning would show incompetence and would prove the night elves had been right to exile them all those years ago for their dangerous arcane use.

Difference between the Cult of the dammed and the Orcish horde is that a small minority of all humans made up the cult. Where as the orcish horde was essentially all the Orcs even clans like the frostwolves that didn’t drink the blood still participated in the atrocities.

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Obviously I get your point about Ner’zhul ruling the Scourge for its first few months. But that’s still one orc versus thousands of human necromancers who almost butchered the entire high elf species.

So, my issue is that you bring up Ner’zhul (who IS a valid person to bring up) but then in the same breath act like free-thinking humans weren’t the entire backbone of the cult of the damned. It feels hypocritical, and it comes off as though you’re downplaying one side to emphasize the other.

As for Garithos, again, if you’re telling me he was controlled by Dreadlords during the entirety of Curse of the Blood Elves, then that’s news to me. So, he was just mind controlled and was never a genocidal racist? The Alliance never allowed an open racist to rise in their military? That’s pretty funny actually, and makes the entirety of the Blood Elves hatred of humans completely idiotic.

Can we put this behind us now and get back on topic?

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