I mean the city was rebuilt in the warfront, but the forces there appear to be little more than a Marionette of Stormwind. Danath is the rightful heir to the throne, but he hasn’t been crowned king of Stromgarde, instead he is merely “leader of Stromgarde”, thus not a king, and thus not equal to Anduin, and possibly subservient to him.
I hope the Kingdom can be re-founded, of course as a part of the Alliance, but not as a vassal of stormwind, but rather an equal kingdom.
I’d rather the opposite. I want to Stromgarde be a vassal state under the Empire of Wyrnn. Danath “pay the Troll Toll” Trollbane shan’t be king of Stromgarde. Instead, he is “leader of Stromgarde.” There is only ONE king of Humanity and his name is Manduin!
Stromgarde will be a fascist state. Arathi will be turned into a Bulwark of the Alliance. Thradin’s Wall will be rebuilt, and the corpses of Horde will line its battlements as a warning to all non-Alliance who dare trespass.
You’re probably right though. Genn is a king without a kingdom, but he’s still equal in rank among the Alliance leadership. It’s kind of sad the Gilneans aren’t as gung-ho about reestablishing Gilneas, They’re really content with squatting in Stormwind.
After the 2nd War, the victorious humans just let Stormwind have everything back. Anduin is gonna do the same.
When Jizzard makes Calia the leader of a reestablished Lordaeron, do you think they’ll finally allow Genn to comeback to Gilneas?
I thought Danath officially claimed the throne in BFA? Or is he just a dude wearing a crown in the Warfront?
Anyone but anduin please. Still bummed they killed papa varian. I just hate how human-centric the alliance is these days; Anduin feels like more of a blue warchief than Varian ever was.
The factions have swapped leadership styles and I hate it. The horde has a council and the alliance has a ‘high king’
Honest question, when did ‘King of Stormwind’ become ‘High King of the Alliance’?
In cata when malfurion said it was a good idea and then everyone elected varian to do it
You’re thinking of Malfurion convincing Varian to vote yes on accepting Glineas because it had to be unanimous and he was the only holdout. The High King concept didn’t appear until MoP.
It was in wolfheart
No, what I described was what was in Wolfheart. High King wasn’t in that book, it was about the vote to let Gilneas back into the Alliance.
High King first popped up in the Blizzcon before MoP where Metzen said Varian would be going through trials during the expansion to prove himself to the other leaders. Then the only ones of these that actually got made were the Tyrande and Moira ones.
The answer to your question is “I dunno”. In Before the Storm when Anduin and co. stayed in Stromgarde before the meeting, it was still a ruin. Unlike Darkshore there’s zero story reasons for the Arathi warfront ingame, so the only lore we have is what we see in the warfront itself, the tiny bit that is said in quests in the zone when it’s under Alliance control, and the tweet or whatever it was that said the Alliance won there.
From what we’ve seen: the guards where Stromgarde colors, but all the buildings are in the Stormwind-style and have Stormwind themes/aesthetics. The world quests we do are all given by Shaw, the leader of Stormwind’s SI:7. And the one-time quests when you first go there talk about, for example, Alliance farmers instead of Stromgardian farmers. Or how Arathi belongs to the Alliance, as opposed to it belonging to Stromgarde.
So I’d say that as of now Stromgarde has not been revived as an independent kingdom, but as an Alliance/Stormwind frontier.
If anything, Stromgarde should be a vassal of Gilneas, purely due to geography.
Genn Greymane, King in the North!
Blizzard has unequivocally stated Arathi was an Alliance victory. That is plain. But what does that mean?
This is a good point. Stormwind and its heir were given complete rights to the kingdom as it was reclaimed.
There were some in the Alliance hoping Calia would push her claim for Lordaeron. It seems as though that would have been respected by the Alliance. She rejected the notion, but the Alliance seemed OK with the idea.
If Gilneas were reclaimed, there is little question that Genn would retain his position. It would be difficult to simply demote him, and label him a vassal of Stormwind.
So, I can see a basis for Arathi being labeled an independent kingdom of the Alliance with a Trollbane King. Based on precedent.
However… granting that king a seat at the table equal to Velen and Tyrande seems a bit problematic. All of a sudden, a group of homeless Humans who were basically Alliance soldiers are upgraded to an equal seat at the table as far as Alliance command? That seems like a potential powder keg.
Either way, it seems potentially problematic. I could see Anduin and the Nobles of Stormwind pushing for complete annexation of Arathi… and that would undoubtedly make the Gilneans concerned.
Perhaps this leads to the Alliance drama many of us have found lacking.
The Stormwind Nobles I have no doubt but I just don’t see Anduin jumping at that idea (not without some major Political pressure from the nobles.)
I could see Anduin going the other way and giving away much of the Alliance’s lands to those he see’s entitled to it.
His future wife-to-be would have an interesting option on the manner as well. Would she want to claim her right to Lordaeron or would she be against breaking up the Alliance’s lands?
I’ll grant you that it’s heavy on the Stormwind themes but we really don’t have an idea of what the original Stromguard themes were because what isn’t completely in ruins in just sort of bland and boring, and the architects of the rebuilding were obviously Stormwind so of course they’ll build what they know best.
But there’s a significant red-brown in the architecture so maybe that’s what Stromguard design was heavy in?
Isn’t that kind of what the Alliance needs right now? Some internal political drama?
It is likely Stromgarde is a vassal state at least at this moment, as it is just getting on its feat after being a nonentity for decades. It is going to have to rely on Stormwind heavily for supplies and other essentials. Being a bit Cynical it was also effectively refounded only because Stormwind backed them, so of course the political shadow is going to loom large there.
As for Gilneas…
Gilneas is stated to be an inhospitable wasteland as the Cataclysm sank a huge portion of the kingdom and tore up much of the rest. Plus, what is left the Forsaken have had years to blight to oblivion. There is very little left there to even want to reclaim as it is. It require a plaguelands level cleanup.
Stormwind is in a first among equals sort of place. it’s not like Anduin has been exactly dictatorial to the other racial leaders. He let Tyrande disrespect and walk right out of him in front of his face, and he didn’t even rebuke Greymane publicly for his antics in Stormheim.
The idea that ANY kingdom is “subservient” to Anduin or Stormwind is laughable at best.
And if Stromgarde has been reestablished it’s in a huge pile of debt to Stormwind and the rest of the Alliance.
Actually writing Alliance as pluralistic would take effort and nuance, something that gets in the way of CHAMPIEN WE NEED TO GO ON A WALK TOGETHER
(Commentary): Danath may not be King because he simply has no heir, and is too old to sire one (most likely). That presents a very tangible problem with re-establishing Stromgarde as it’s own independent Kingdom. That problem is further compounded by how devastated Stromgarde’s population has been over the years since it’s fall. As unfortunate as it is, for the foreseeable future it’d probably be in the best interests of the survivors of Stromgarde to remain an extension of Stormwind, to receive financial and military aid as part of the Kingdom of Stormwind, though at that point it really should be called the Empire of Stormwind. Once Stromgarde’s population rebuilds, nobility can be selected, and a new regime crowned, but that time is not near.
From a meta perspective, they just reused garrison assets to make it quickly. But I do think it’s notable that the one new asset they made, the Altar of Kings, is 100% Stormwind. It’s a giant Lion’s head with white stone and blue tiles. So both from a meta perspective AND from an ingame one, no effort was made to try and give a unique “Stromgarde” identity. Even using Stromwind architects/builders, they could’ve made a statue of Thoradin instead of the Stormwind Lion. Not to mention the other, smaller lion statues throughout Stromgarde.
It’s especially egregious since we now know the different kingdoms had unique architectural styles (mostly). Gilneas, Kul Tiras, Dalaran and Lordaeron’s Capital City all have different looks. I was hoping a rebuilt Stromgarde would have some updated architecture beyond the Vanilla-era “all humans make the same buildings”. Technically we got it, but it’s just generic stuff from Stormwind.
At they very least I think they should’ve had red-tiled roofs, since as you point out red is a Stromgarde motif.
If there is anyone who had the rightful claim to King Thoradin’s throne, it would have been Anduin Lothar.