Oh my, now we’re defending that abomination of a “justification” story?
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Its not a question of normalcy. Its a question of believability. I find the entitlement to be less than genuine.
I dont like the story telling. I think its a hack job. But I also dont like the criticism that suggests that the writing should be different, not because it is a bad narrative hook, but because its not fair.
It is good you are invested. Its good you empathize with the characters. It is not good to expect an alliance win… today. Thats faction pride based tribalism. It is not good to criticize what you dont like about the story, then condemn fans from the other tribe for criticizing what they dont like about the story. It is interesting commentary to point out “The writers always have the horde committing atrocities and they write the alliance as reactionary.” When it comes from certain people, however, it comes across as a complaint about a personal slight, not a writing criticism. When it comes from other people, it comes across the same way, but the opposite— Oh, we are always made to be the bad guys, Blizzard hates us!
Garrosh fans were horrible in MoP. If you only read internet complaints, you would be forgiven for thinking horde fans played horde specifically to follow the racist, xenophobic autocrat bent on wanton destruction. That playing the bad guy was exactly what horde fans wanted. They were angry, that their strong, warmongering orcish leader was being displaced by a coalition of Alliance and Horde forces.
On one hand I sympathize with Blizzard. How could GRRM write GoT if half the fans were identifying as Starks and half the fans were identifying as Lannisters? You cant kill off anyone without people taking it as a personal attack. If you are going to kill someone off to tell a tragic story, you better wrap that tragedy up quick and give that side a win before the mid season break! OMG, you killed almost the entire Stark family! GRRM hates Stark… fans.
On the other hand, Blizzards writing is crap for many of the same reasons the last couple seasons of GoT were crap. If you are going to write a serial narrative, you have to be very careful about how you give fans what it seems they want. It can be a curse and a blessing and it requires a Quentin Tarantino, jerk faced creative director who believes so much in his vision (and who has proven that his vision actually is good) that he doesnt care what critics say, is a perfectionist that demands his exact vision is executed, and delivers on that vision.
If you arent as good as QT (or Charles Dickens might be a better example) then you need to be extremely careful about how you try to give your fans what they want based on emotionally charged feedback. In fact, you shouldnt even try, mid narrative. Execute your vision and if the fans are unhappy at the end, try to do better next time.
But I digress…
Point is, no one was actually hurt in the burning of Teldrassil. No one was actually hurt in the Siege of Orgrimmar. No one was actually underserved by Sylvanas’ judgement. Acting like blizzard owes any of us anything, right now, for those moments of the story we might not like, seems disingenuous to me. It seems like people just want to identify as a victim entitled to compensation and they will manufacture outrage.
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Yup, we’re here now, where people are actively arguing Tyrande was wrong to be mistrustful of the nightborne, so the nightborne joined the Horde, stuck by the Horde after Teldrassil burned, stuck by them when Darkshore was despoiled, and didn’t they just show Tyrande how wrong she was to think maybe she shouldn’t trust them??
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I largely agree with your entire post. Its this conclusion that really I think is the problem with the interpretation.
I am not even going to get into the whole “what does blizzard owe” argument. End of the day they produced something, I think it sucks, it could have been done better and I have some ideas where some of those lacking areas are.
In my many discussions here all I have done, said or talked about has been strictly this.
I can’t speak about anyone else but myself but in my experience, as I have pointed out the areas where the story sucked for me, what areas are still unaddressed and sometimes what could or could not be a solution has caused me to be insulted, mocked, misrepresented and etc and etc.
I am sure some Horde fans Garrosh or Sylvanas fans have had a similar experience.
Yes I agree that no one was actually physically or even emotionally hurt but any of this story.
It just sucks and as fans who do indeed have biased tendencies are interested and want something better. Now that is a very subjective request, I don’t mind discussing lore. Honestly its more fun than actually playing this dumb, outdated game. Elden Ring has taken much more of my time and its been an absolute blast.
What I find troubling though is the onslaught of verbal abuse that one has to put up with on this forum when just sharing their thoughts. I don’t think anyone would be talking about wow lore if they were anything but 100% genuine. This story or franchise is nowhere near good enough to keep even the trolls interested.
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There is no cure for the withering. They are essentially mindless husks, whose purpose was markedly more improved by Thalyssra using them as recruits in the rebellion rather than leaving them as beasts, terrorizing the Broken Isles.
In order to dismantle Elisande’s regime, she had to kill and orchestrate the killings of people who betrayed her, stabbed her in the back, and tossed her in the ocean to die, choosing to serve the Legion instead of joining Thalyssra in defying Elisande.
Uh, Thalyssra was the leader of the Nightfallen rebels. Her sigil was the symbol of their revolution. In what world does she not lead the Nightborne?
Thalyssra recognized Tyrande was only there out of a desire to defeat the Legion, and not to potentially find reconciliation and kinship. Further, Thalyssra has acknowledged the contributions of both factions in defeating the Legion and liberating Suramar, as of Battle for Azeroth.
Thalyssra : Not long ago , Alliance and Horde fought together to liberate Suramar from the Legion.
Thalyssra joined the Horde to find allies in the world as a fledgling race in an unexplored Azeroth.
Thalyssra and the Nightborne, were never shown to be present during the War of Thorns, nor was there perspective on that ever explored. You can be sure that if the War of Thorns would be Thalyssra’s introduction to Horde warfare, we’d know about it, particularly after she was scorned by Tyrande.
When the time came to rise against Sylvanas, she stood with Lor’themar in Anduin and Saurfang’s rebellion.
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I feel a lot of people are clinging on to WoW due to the sunk cost fallacy. That just makes them bitter and cynical.
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That’s what she wants you to think. She didn’t even try.
Or she could have convinced them to join her rebellion, again, didn’t try, didn’t care.
Not alone. Valtrois and Oculeth were as well. Now she is just ordering them about. Being First Arcanist can get pretty handy when you want to become a dictator.
yep, she repaid that in kind. Oh wait.
Thalyssra joined the Horde in the era of Sylvanas and personally led the offensive after the WoT, despite the people affected being the ones who directly aided her.
Convenient. Always on the winning side.
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Agreed. People should just quit while they can.
Blizzard and its mess isn’t worth it.
Hopefully Microsoft starts over with it.
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I see what you’re doing Faranoth.
I approve.
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I think I’m convincing myself too 
Who knew Thalyssra was so shady.
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Plenty of the nightfallen rebellion was spent sowing dissension and feeling out allies in Suramar. Quite a few of Thalyssra’s collaborators, including her new military leader, were loyalists she convinced to switch sides. By 7.1 the citizenry was defecting in droves due to her “dusk lily” propaganda.
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There’s a word for that; delusion. 
I can only speak for myself, but WoW provides my family with endless hours of enjoyment. My 13yo just started her tanking career 2 days ago and it fills me with a sense of pride to adventure with her while she takes on a new, intimidating challenge and I get to share in her triumph… literally. While I do enjoy watching her run cross country, or track, those are moments in her life that I can’t directly share in with her. Playing wow together gives me a feeling of connectedness as she becomes more and more her own young woman. My wife suffers from a lot of psychological triggers. There are aspects of MMOs she just can’t engage with because they give her a lot of anxiety, but WoW has quite a few features that she can enjoy, in rated and unrated pvp, and open world content, that other MMOs just dont do as well, if at all.
My investment in the lore may be a sunk cost, or blind optimism, but WoW has earned my subscription fees in gameplay, time and time again.
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They were already waiting in the shadows for someone to help them, if you mean Silgryn. Once they found out the Dusk lily, aka, Thalyssra and her rebellion were still alive, they joined her forces immediately without much convincing.
But there were several others particularly in higher ranks (who could challenge her) she didn’t even ask and decided to slaughter without a word. She enjoyed killing many of them.
Btw I just remembered she even manipulated Shandris about how the Shal’dorei went into the bubble to save Azeroth… something that defies all previous knowledge, and how convenient at a time when Tyrande was going crazy and Shandris was set to take up the mantle.
For sure, I find WoW fun to do casually. The key to shadowlands is to not consider it too deeply, and just enjoy it in the moment, I think.
I feel, however, there are many people who stay around because that is just what they have done for nearly 20 years now, no matter how unhappy it makes them.
and that is very sad, to me.
Let’s not forget that it was Tyrande who held onto a grudge and set the tone for their relationship with the Nightborne going forward from Legion.
I wouldn’t want to align myself with someone who didn’t want me around either.
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tbf a lot of those we kill “seemingly without reason” aren’t too unlikely when you look into it
For example, a lot of people didn’t notice that Tel’arn was growing a nightmare seed under his boss arena and wondered why he was an enemy in Nighthold, narratively
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Intentionally misrepresenting in-game events to confirm a bias is delusional?
Huh.
Who knew?
Actions > words spoken out of mistrust because said person left you and your people to die in a world ending invasion.
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I think its easy to get that impression, because we all complain. Twitter, internet forums and reddit… they’ve turned us all into amateur content creators. We all have to have something to say. We can’t just strap in for the ride. I like it, but thats probably narcissistic.
But I genuinely think WoW is on top because its usually, holistically a better game.