Daelin Proudmoore was right about the horde

Do they really say the alliance is hard to write for? Because damn they sure do a lot of it.

1 Like

Wouldn’t surprise me, but so far as I know they haven’t outright said it. Just tends to be an immutable characteristic of that faction only being good and just. Every time some good inner conflict presents itself, Anduin finger wags it back in line and is proven Right and Good for doing so.

5 Likes

BfA had a good setup for it too. The Alliance’s leadership was pretty evenly split between war hawks, peaceniks, and the those in the middle, while the Horde had another mad warchief whose entire supporting cast would rather not bother.

6 Likes

Ah yes, that time when the Warchief no one trusted was able to convince the Strength and Honor faction to meekly sit by, too afraid to act openly in opposition to a Warchief with no loyalty base. But Saurfang moped a lot, so I guess that’s something.

8 Likes

or you know do not make the horde evil. Have them actually live up to that word honor for ones.

1 Like

It sucks that, even in an alternate universe, the writing was proving Daelin Proudmoore right about the Horde.

The Orcs could’ve been nuanced. As you said, Garrosh’s future knowledge and technological gifts being used to tame the dangerous world that is AU Draenor could’ve been how he won their loyalty. It could’ve been the WoW equivalent of Paul from Dune (charismatic outsider uses his knowledge of the future and better tech to uplift a warrior culture for personal gain). But instead, it was like the writers flipped the Mag’har’s switches from “good” to “evil” as soon as Garrosh came around… flipped back and forth when Gul’dan took over then flipped them all to “good” after Gul’dan disappeared.

As for the Draenei, you have the Draenei seeking refugee on Draenor, which initially seemed peaceful but turned out to be a hostile, dangerous world. Then the only race they managed to befriend - everyone else they encountered was hostile from the word “go” - goes kill crazy racial supremacists turning Draenei into slaves or corpses. After going through all that, no wonder Yrel’s people and the Naaru concluded the only way to tame this deadly world was a bit of “Lux Vult/Aldaw Akbar”.

P.S. The Burning Legion wanted to destroy the universe. The demons would’ve still threatened Draenor if the Draenei were never there.

5 Likes

Still, if they had actually befriended a race, would have been neighborly, and in their own self interest to actually say a word about the fact that there was a demonic legion they were fleeing from so they at least had a warning it was coming.

2 Likes

Apart from that I don’t know if the Draenei had any evidence for that beyond their word, I think you have a point. I’m not sure if the Draenei tried to tell the Orcs about the demons. In the main universe, the two were friendly before the demons interfered, but not so much in the alternate universe.

I think that the point about the neglect of the Draenei (or at least the story to say if they did or not) to warn the orcs comes out of frustration in the way the misdeeds of the two factions are treated.

To be clear, what the orcs did to them is definitely worse. Not trying to argue that.

But I think that neglect (again, assumption based on lack of any story around it) is the type of thing Velen may have had some sleepless nights over, wondering over the what-ifs and might have beens if he had done something different. It was unintentional, but it still lead a destructive force more directly to these people who didn’t have the means to escape it like the Draenei had.

I think that’s some of the biggest issues with the story from my point of view, is the way each side is treated differently. The story will dwell on all the myriad of ways the horde has done wrong, but seems afraid to touch the alliance in a similar way lately. Not to say anyone should be villain batted, but all beings are fallible, there’s greed and drive for power in all groups, it doesn’t hurt to show that, and it would make for more grounded stories than “She burned a tree to kill hope/whatever the hell the jailer is doing” if it was “Genn and other hardliners in the Alliance push for retaliation for Varian’s death which they mistakenly think was orchestrated by the Horde”

Both sides are playable, both sides need good and bad aspects in them. It’s why I wish we had more events in the vein of Taurajo, pre-book meddling, where both sides had legitimate reasons for what they were doing, and while the actual villains (speaking here of the people who let Hawthorne walk into an ambush to get a dead hero to rally around) may have been Ally side, they were more off stage actors who wanted to keep the war going for their own mundane selfish desires and not some cult whackiness or such, just classic scheming.

5 Likes

Or the orcs might consider them heretics(especially once they learned the whole "your ancestors souls are like fireflies to our glowing naaru). The problem was the draenei had no ways of escape and if they did spread the knowledge of the Burning Legion, there was no way of knowing what the orcs might do.

Who knows.

It’s still a case of a space faring group bringing doom onto a planet without that ability without a peep of warning.

It was a bad thing. It does not equal the bad things that orcs did later, but it was still on its own a bad thing.

2 Likes

Anduin is objectively correct though.

Because that’s how writer’s pets work. The only Horde leader who’s still chomping at the bit is Talanjii and even she’s fine with at least shelving her beef with the Proudmoores for the time being.

Prolonging the war would’ve been a bad move. Because everybody’s souls were being cast into perdition to be made into intolerably boring enemies. The narratives pretty clear on this.

Don’t get me wrong I think it would’ve been interesting if the Alliance didn’t care and abandoned justice to pursue vengeance.

But Blizz isn’t going to do that. Because the Alliance are blameless boyscouts. Even when it really seems like they’re doing something completely wrong headed and cruel, it’ll turn out

A. Those were bad actors going against orders.

B. Were actually doing a completely justifiable if harsh thing once you get more perspective.

Or

C. Were being manipulated by a black dragon, old God, dreadlord etc.

This is why I’ve struggled to get into the Alliance’s storyline. Duskwood is a prime example of this.

At Raven’s Hill cemetery there is a stockade affixed over a well with a bloodied guillotine blade attached to it. I was really curious what kinda dark ish was happening there.

Turns out there isn’t any. They use that stockade to hold feral worgen and I think at one point it was going to be at least implied they beheaded the worgen they couldn’t save.

But they don’t. That’s never even suggested. So it’s just a wildly unsafe way to try to contain something you don’t mean harm to.

And that’s the Alliance in a nutshell to me. The story works so hard to make sure they never do anything cruel to the point where they just come off as incompetent idiots.

15 Likes

Oh…that would mean I get to burn down Stormwind and shatter the Alliance from within.

Blizzard just doesn’t have the gusto to properly break the ignored status quo of our factions.

It’s all just Sylvanas and friends these days, the writing is that bad.

What would’ve been interesting is if we learned the Draenei never mentioned the Legion because they looked down on the Orcs.

They’re zooming around in Crystal powered starships afterall and these dudes are in wooden huts. Them having a bit of a superiority complex and dismissing the Orcs as stone aged dumb dumbs wouldve been interesting.

They didn’t tell the Orcs about the Legion for the same reason you wouldn’t inform your dog about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even if you could somehow convey the information, what could they possibly do with it?

And of course they’re proven wrong about the Orcs in the most catastrophic way imaginable.

But that can’t happen. So as is often the case with Alliance factions, not giving them any negative aspects makes them come off as just idiotic.

Never thought to mention to the Orcs that if somebody offers them green goop they should say no? Just figured your ultimate enemies would never try to weaponize the wolf riding locals?

15 Likes

Blaming victims.
So hot right now.

Btw, in WoD Garrosh warned them about the burning legion… most of the iron Horde joined them anyway.

4 Likes

That’s always been a thing I’ve had arguments with people over. The draenei could’ve at least tried to convey that a demon literally named The Deceiver might try to pull some crap eventually. The orcs might have been wary when their ancestors started saying some really wonky stuff about the draenei.

Point being, the draenei never bothered to try. :wolf:

10 Likes

Seriously what was the reasoning?

It can’t be a Prime Directive sort of deal because I’m pretty sure starting a country there is going to alter their developmental trajectory a bit.

Do they just hate to break bad news that much?

11 Likes

I think it was a bit of arrogance on the draenei part. They don’t tell the orcs about the legion, but decide telling them their ancestor worship is fake and than act suprised when that didn’t go over well with the locals.

I really wish we knew what the draenei were thinking during that time period. Because they did make some…questionable calls that made it really easy for Kil’jaedan to get the orcs to turn on the draenei :wolf:

5 Likes

See that could all be explained by just saying some of the Draenei leadership is pretty racist.

They are different species afterall and the Draenei are outlandishly more technologically advanced. I could see how an otherwise decent person might write the Orcs off as being primitive screwheads

Particularly because Ogres genuinely are quite dumb. So it’s not the biggest stretch for the Draenei to presume the Orcs are as well. They’re similar enough to interbreed afterall.

It’d still be a wrong headed and arrogant assumption but not unforgivably so if you consider their perspective.

4 Likes

Why is this your go to?
They were aliens from a different world. You think if humans crash landed on an alien planet they would be just interacting with locals and spread what untold diseases? Heck no! they would quarantine themselves for everyone’s safety.

Additionally if they started telling the orcs about the burning legion… well it just takes ONE orc to chance it and check it out themselves and the jig is up.
Furthermore what right did the draenei have to interfere between the ogres and the orcs?
These peoples lived their lives they way they did before the Draenei showed up.

Who are the draenei to choose which side to join and help the other to oppress? And if the draenei started to throw their muscle around who’s to say the Legion wouldn’t detect them?