It’s pretty clear it’s not a redemption story. Some people just don’t pay attention
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Kolgar Flameguard says: You answered for it, Duroz. You were in that camp for years. You stood against Garrosh, against Zaela, against Sylvanas. You regained your honor and you defended it.
Duroz Scaletaker says: I broke whelps younger than these, Kolgar. Some honor can’t be regained.
They note clearly what he did. He was remorseful of his acts, and acted at odds with his clan and Garrosh at personal cost as he did run afoul the Kor’kron. He also clearly says he feels what he did was unforgivable no matter what he does.
Not facing death awake is a huge dishonor to an Orc. They value death in glorious combat very heavily; at the very least you should face it as an opponent awake. That was intentional on Duroz’s part.
The thing was the Reds had forgiven him a long time ago. The only one who wished him to suffer, was him.
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On that note what kind of redemption/atonement do you want to see in WoW?
Like do you want something like Dark Vader saving Luke, Vegeta sacrificing himself against Majin Buu, Angel’s never ending crusade against the forces of darkness, etc…
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I would’ve killed for something like this after Mists/during Warlords of Draenor where we have some of the orcs actually taking the time to properly reflect on their bloody legacy. Especially back when it was even more relevant to the themes of the greater expac as a whole.
But if that had been done properly, and the right amount of time allotted to that discussion, I really doubt BFA would’ve unfolded as it had. If at all.
Still, really glad to see this though. It feels like proper acknowledgement of one of Warcraft’s darkest moments.
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I wanted this Orc to have met an adult dragon that was a kid during this Old Orc’s tenure as a dragon slaver.
Forgiveness should have come from that character
And maybe this old orc in his younger days freed some whelps or refused the order of stealing eggs. By deliberatly ignoring a crate full of them.
Something. Anything that he may have done for the dragons as his act of redemption.
Or he could have lived and be made to teach the younger whelps of their history and the Orcs. He would redeem himself as a teacher something as far away as a warrior possible.
These are just a few ideas.
A genuine action towards the people that he directly hurt.
Feeling sorry is not enough.
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I honestly don’t think this would be that effective, if the Dragonmaw Orc who was dealing with the Red Dragonflight in this case was one who was always an ‘exception’ rather than an active participant of the cruelty of his own clan.
In that case the forgiveness that would be given would amount to, ‘some of you orcs are alright’ and that would be an end of it. And it would, at least in my opinion, be really hollow because there would be nothing to really address those who actually had a hand in those terrible acts of cruelty. There would be no real indication of a shift in mindset among the orcs, which is something desperately needed after the last few expansions.
But here we have an orc who did do all of those things who, despite a lifetime of ‘regaining his honor’, chooses in his final moments to do something particular unorcish and reflect on his darkest deeds before dying. This isn’t a case of redemption or forgiveness, this is acknowledgement and regret, which needs to come first before the former has any real meaning.
I do agree though that there should be something done to show the remainders of the Dragonmaw working on behalf of the Red Dragonflight. Even some throwaway ‘Dragonmaw Defender’ NPCs guarding a camp or a clutch of eggs or something would go a long way.
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this is one of my favorite mob short stories
I want koak and steel in dragon isles.
it’s a shame they don’t do short stories anymore we didn’t have any in shadowlands and if I remember correctly in BFA we only had the date between lorthemar and thalyssra which I love but it’s very little! in all those months without content they were able to get some short stories
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That would be amazing.
Yeah A Moment in Verse was the only short story for Battle for Azeroth, while Shadowlands had Terror by Torchlight and We Ride Forth.
I’m honestly surprised that we haven’t gotten new short leader stories. After all we got the allied race leaders and new leadership for some of the core races. Perhaps if Blizzard is truly follows through on this time skip, we get them for Dragonflight to help show case how the leaders and the world have developed through the skip.
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Bit late to the conversation, but anyone else seeing the same pattern cropping up in Blizzard’s writing?
Sylvanas commits genocide against the Night Elves, Tyrande opts for, ‘Renewal,’ to basically let the greatest war criminal in modern Azeroth’s history get off with a paid vacation to the Maw. Honestly, the closes this comes as a punishment to Sylvanas is being forced to have Anduin tagging along. Been there, done that, don’t even wish it on her.
Now we’ve got a Dragonmaw Orc, another of Azeroth’s worst abuser’s/victimizer’s, being given the same treatment, with the same underlying story element: Victims should forgive their abusers.
Me thinks Blizzard’s subconscious is bleeding into their writing.
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The Dragonmaw Clan died when they sided with Garrosh and Zaela was killed.
And I want Zaela to be alive again and kick some butt. But Idoubt either of us will get what we want. Blizzard never treated the sub factions of the Horde well.
I think you’re seeing what you want to see and not what’s actually there.
Which doesn’t surprise me. That’s a growing trend with story “critics”. They see only what they want to see, then get furious at Blizzard for what they think is there when the reality is very different.
There is a quest chain in the Dragon Isles featuring the Dragonmaw, and it does involve an old Orc who engaged in horrible acts against the Red Dragonflight. But he does not ask for forgiveness. He believes himself undeserving of it because of what he did, and he’s right. No member of the Red Dragonflight forgives him for what he did, it never even comes up. So where this ‘victims should forgive their abusers’ BS comes from, I really have no clue.
By the way? Tyrande and the Night Elves never forgave the Horde, the Forsaken or Sylvanas either.
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Anduin and Sylvanas go their own way after their little conversation. Plus you are underestimating how many souls were sent to the maw. Not to mention how many are still inside Torghast with its ever changing layout. Who knows how long Sylvanas will be in the maw, finding every soul she helped put in there.
His presence, the treatment the Orc receives, are indications of forgiveness. Actions speak louder than words, and in this case Blizzard all but told us through the interactions here that forgiveness was given, without being earned.
No, they just decided to stop pursuing justice and let their victimizers get off consequence free. Something else I’m sure Blizzard wants people to take to heart right now.
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No it’s not, not if they have no clue about what happened, which they don’t. Red Dragons don’t have a hive mind. Also being cordial with someone doesn’t mean you forgive them. I’m cordial with the family member who assaulted me. I have not forgiven them for what they did and I never will.
Going into spoiler territory here:
Part of the dialogue of the side quest in question specifically comes from Duroz. When he averts his gaze from the Innkeeper, Kolgar asks if he’s worried that they know about his clan and Duroz replies with:
“No. They’re too young. I pray that evil never reaches their ears.”
So these Dragons that he encounters during this quest were not old enough to have lived through what the Dragonmaw did to their flight. So naturally if they were not old enough to have experienced it, and were not told about it (which is entirely possible, most beings who experience any sort of trauma don’t like to talk about it after the fact), then not having a hostile reaction to an old Orc (who doesn’t announce that he was Dragonmaw in the first place) is 100% normal.
Now you could argue that because Batharos preserves Duroz’s spirit in a gem after his death, he was clearly being more than cordial. But Batharos, like the other Dragons, is too young to know about what happened, so again, completely normal. On top of that, Bathoras clearly states that dignity is a right to all life, it cannot be ‘deserved’, so even if he was old enough, knew about what happened to the Red Dragonflight and knew that Duroz was a Dragonmaw Orc, his own personal belief that dignity is a right to all life would drive him to act the way he did, not because he ‘forgave’ Duroz or the other Dragonmaw Orcs.
This never happened.
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At least one expansion.
I would be surprised if it was longer.
BFA and Shadowlands finale say otherwise.
In both expansions we have warcriminals we are supposed to feel sorry for.
They answer for nothing they have done and then plung willingly into their own penance. Which we the audience + victim character are supposed to tear up or clap for.
Saurfang is a hero now remember?
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No they don’t.
We’re never encouraged to feel sorry for Sylvanas during BFA. As for Saurfang, he does not participate in the genocide of the Night Elves, only the war itself against soldiers. He does not order the murder of civilians and even orders you, the player character, to save civilians from the town of Lor’danel where they would be taken into custody, questioned and then released.
When the tree is burned, Saurfang is one of the first to object to the burning, making it very clear he does not support the action and then he abandons the Horde after watching Sylvanas turn blight on her own soldiers just to ensure the Alliance is defeated at the gates. He stood up for what he believed in, which was the honor of the Horde, and he died for it.
People who claim Saurfang is a war criminal simply didn’t pay attention to his character at all. The most dishonorable thing he did in the War of Thorns was hit Malfurion in the back with his axe to save Sylvanas from getting killed by the Archdruid.
As for Sylvanas, again we are by no means encouraged to feel sorry for her. The closest we ever get to that is the cinematic where Uther reveals that her soul is in torment. That’s it. But critically, even Sylvanas knows that her crimes cannot be forgiven, which is why she doesn’t object when Jaina goes nuts at her during the quest chain in Zereth Mortis and why she submits herself to the judgement of Tyrande Whisperwind at the end rather than accept some light sentence from Pelagos, who likely would have given her a redemption judgement because of her fight against the Jailer.
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First villain were we visit her brain thanks to uther and multiple cinematics where she has talk sessions with Andiun and a whole book about her and her “trauma” that led her to this point.
We are supposed to sympathize and feel sorry for her.
They were mostly armed citizens.
Still an unprovoked war led by Saurfang
And he is the one emabled Sylvanas to do what she did.
Without a doubt he and the rest of Horde leaders are guilty by association for the genocide and the war.
He does no such thing.
He says to not kill them and just question them. Thats it. He does not lead any rescue missions.
This is the third baby killing genocide he is involved in.
If you paid attention to his character you would know this but like I said some people just love worshipping the villains.
So we are supposed to feel sorry for her.
And don’t forget the book… I think its the third or fourth book about Sylvanas.
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Missed the ‘during BFA’ part I see.
They were soldiers. Militia are still soldiers. Saurfang makes it clear he will not slaughter innocents, and he doesn’t. Yes, he planned the war, but he did not order it, and he even objected to it at the start, only being swayed over when Sylvanas pointed out that Genn faced no repercussions for his unprovoked attack on her and the Horde in Stormheim and is now whispering into Anduin’s ear and advising him, which makes the Alliance more of a threat towards the Horde.
Fighting in a war, even an unprovoked one, is not a war crime. The slaughter of civilians is, which he did not partake in, and strongly objected to when it did happen.
He does, those civilians are going to die, he sends you in there to get them out. The dialogue your character specifically says when talking to those NPCs is:
“Come with us to safety. We will not harm you.”
Sure it’s no real ‘rescue’ compared to the Alliance version of that same quest where you’re actually pulling the civilians out and getting them to safety, but it is still a rescue in the sense that they are being removed out of immediate harms way and being taken into custody.
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