Grong, what happened?

Have you not read A Good War? I am pretty sure she talks to Saurfang and learns of Malfurion before confrontly Delaryn in the novel.

Also, not beheading Malfurion was itself a calculated move. She was testing Saurfang’s loyalty by making him do it. Or at least that is what it seemed to me.

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Oh I did. Unfortunately I paid the extra money for this expansion. You got me there, I had to reopen the book since memory was failing me. But she did realize mere moments before the decision was made to burn the tree. A couple minutes maybe.

However, you can see the hint of the theory there in testing Saurfang’s loyalty. She herself in the novel attributes it to her arrogance “And an overconfident warchief. Best to lay blame where it belonged. This was her mistake as much as Saurfang’s.”
When she originally left him with Malfurion it’s the same as it was for the War of Thorns event. There’s no test, she was legitimately congratulating him and allowing him the kill since she attributed multiple points of the victory to him.

Though the Burning of the Tree was still a Chaotic move. Even if Malfurion lived, it was established earlier in the book that this would be a powerful piece to hold over the Alliance’s head. They wouldn’t dare risk the lives of the innocent, and if they did. It would be a bold reckless move. So she still wouldve gotten that “full tilt” attack.
The decision to swap it from that, to burning it was completely random.

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Makes sense. Though I will say again Lawful Evil does not necessarily mean smart. She miscalculated with Saurfang by making him kill Malfurion. Similarly she believes she miscalculated with Teldrassil, which is why she chose to burn it.

It wasn’t an act of pure whim. She made a call with very little time to think about it, but it was the best plan she could come up with on the spot.

Lawful characters don’t always have the luxury of time to think out their plans, but that doesn’t make their mode of thinking no longer lawful.

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Yeah but I’m not the guy who advocated Chaotic is stupid, and Lawful is smart. That was someone else. I know that Lawful means you truly believe the Evil you are doing is for the best, and usually though not always, follows a certain guideline of inherent beliefs or values (yours, not a universal one).
Whereas Chaotic is more “loljustcuz.”

It’s comparing the Joker to Ras’ Al Ghul.

Like I said I guess we just interpret her handling of it differently. You see it as a Lawful decision. I believe that the previous plan which was a Lawful one, still worked. Dead Birdman or not, it still worked fine.
And I believe a Lawful Evil character would not deviate from their plan unless they had to, and by no means did she have to.

I’m very Glad that you came back to this forum though Kisin. It’s rare I can have a healthy back and forth with someone, you are a pleasant sir or mad’am.

Not to mention your original contribution was the greatest, I had forgotten. The Moolah War. 10/10 would participate.

I can see where you’re coming from. To me both plans still fall under lawful because they were both made with very clear goals in mind and for the purpose of expanding Sylvanas’ personal power. While I personally agree that the first plan was still sound Sylvanas did not think so, and in her mind she needed a new plan to go forward.

It was a selfish and monstrously cruel act, but it was one she can justify to herself as a means to an end.

And thanks. You are a very even temper debater yourself.

It is true. Super intelligent gorillas in golden mechs fighting goblin on a field of dollar bills is the future of this game!

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It’s called making a mistake. She thought that Saurfang had the matter in hand and in her mind, she was tossing a loyal dog a bone. Sylvannas has a history of ruining perfect plans because she gave into an impulse. That’s why Arthas the Death Knight survived to become Arthas the Lich King.

What is the point you’re trying to make? Of course it was a mistake, she even realizes that. I’m not directing the Chaotic Evil to choosing Saurfang to execute Malfurion. I’m directing it at the torching of the tree.
Btw, Sylvanas had Arthas the Death Knight pinned down and at her mercy. He only survived to become Arthas the Lich King because Kel’thuzad saved him from her.
Prior to BFA, what is this long history of ruining plans for an impulse? Old Sylvanas can be described as meticulous and cunning. Which does not go hand in hand with Impulsive.

Which would not have happened if Sylvannas hadn’t used a paralyzing bow instead of a killing poison. Or had moved to kill him immediately after her bow shot, but she wanted to take the time to savor her kill and so Kel’Thuzad showed up and drove her and her banshees away.

There is no garauntee a single arrow would’ve killed him.
He is fairly resilient, a paralysis toxin was the way to go but she should’ve gone in for the kill true, but wanting some form of revenge isn’t throwing a good plan out the window.
It’s a reaction that some people have from being captured or tortured. They want to inflict that pain back on their wrong-doer. You can only say you would react differently because you haven’t been. But no one truly knows until they have, but it is a documented reaction so I am right to say it is a normal possible reaction.

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First of all, the ally side of quest shows clearly that we are killing goblin poachers. Trade Prince is actually plundering Zandalari during chaos as well. Nobody knows how many underground operation he runs behind the scene that other horde member doesn’t know. The Da’kani were small in number and then goblins crossed the red line again. I understand the frustration on the other faction but it’s not alliance’s fault that goblins happen to have an total Ahole leader. Thrall should have killed him on sight before he pass the mantle to Garrosh. It is a similar experience I felt when nightborne joined horde when Tyrande insulted them. I mean, we players played the good guy but the faction leaders decide the flow of actual history event.

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Agreed. The entire opening quest chain for the goblins involves trying to free themselves from the lunatic who enslaved them only for said lunatic to be named their official leader. Huh?

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What does any of this have to do with the issue actually brought up in my original post? From your response it seems you aren’t understanding my qualm.

The confusion I am getting from this turn of events is from the drastic shift of relations off screen, with no explanation might I add.
Where the Horde left off, the player (as well as the Bilgewater Cartel as that’s who originally who called for them) were on good terms with the Da’kani, as they had recently rescued them. Though the Gorillas did not want to mine, they weren’t making any claim on the Kajamite, they didn’t care about it, so they weren’t an obstacle either.
And when the Alliance arrives later on, suddenly the Horde has placed those exact same gorillas back into the cages they just freed them from. And began to hunt and kill them. Not to mention the Goblins aren’t even mining the Kajamite, they are just killing the Gorillas.
What happened?? The issue is I have to accept that humongous leap in relations with zero context.
How do you go from happy friends and liberators, to skinning your friend and enslaving them after their liberation?
The correct way to tell a story is to show not tell, but in the case of the Da’kani it is neither show nor tell. You just go from chapter one to chapter 20 and are expected to be satisfied.

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Alliance can do the Da’kani Quests as well once they find the Winged Hozen in Zuldazar(yes my Alliance Character saved the Gorillas from the violent Gorilla leader after already doing the Warfront Quest where I saved them from the Goblins)… Guess we know which side is Canon: The Alliance(who rarely even stumble upon the Questline in all irony).

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I know the Alliance can do it, that’s not the issue. It’s that the Horde do it but apparently for no reason since we decide to just put them back in the cages. I believe both are intended to be cannon, both the Horde and Alliance help them. The Alliance for I suppose altruistic reasons, the Horde because the Aggresive branch of the gorillas are in the way of the Kajamite.

The Horde Player clearly wanted that one Talking Gorilla’s reward(after stumbling upon it after being directed to the bad ones by the Winged Hozen) while the Alliance wanted to help the Gorillas once they met the pacifist ones.

What the Horde Player did with the Gorillas clearly had no effect on what the Goblins did with them!

It reslly reads as if they got part way through the quest line and stopped

No. The previous leader of the Gorillas wanted to war against the Horde (and probably everyone else too) but he was killed by the Horde PC and replaced with Grong who wanted a peaceful resolution.

I read every word of your original post and I agree with your point actually. What I write about in my first post was about “rationalize its possiblity in lore”. Perhaps blizz doesn’t want horde players learn the true dark side of their operation. (Enlist Blood prince, burn bennadam village and so on) I agree it’s a wrong way to tell the story. My points are. 1. It is not the first time they did this.(Nightborne). 2. Lore is not decided by random adventures.

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Whyever not? They’re spending a lot of time and energy telling us that we’re bad people and have joined the bad faction in this expansion.

I don’t know how long you’ve been reading the boards, but it was confirmed that there are two story teams for at least the leveling content in BfA. The san’layn and Brennadam storylines were written by the Alliance writing team for Alliance players. We can only speculate as to why the Horde writing team didn’t also use them. But given the tone of the rest of the expansion, I don’t think it was out of a desire to make the Horde look better to the Horde player. (See thread below for more on this.)

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I honestly laughed IRL reading Grong’s dialogue in the Alliance war campaign. It’s like, jeez, can you make it any more obvious that discount Winston’s gonna ~tragically die~? The Bilgewater Cartel suddenly showing up to do evil capitalist things to the Da’kani b/c evil capitalists made it even more funny.


Subtlety, thy name is not Blizzard Entertainment, lol.