And I’m pointing out if Genn believed that Sylvanas betrayed them then Genn believed the treaty was broken and as such Genn believed the Horde and Alliance were not at peace at Stormheim. That “So.”
When has the losing side ever gotten to negotiate favorable terms in a treaty? Point stands, Varian’s stated intentions were:
Neither you or Veloran have anything to show that these intentions weren’t written into the treaty, and as such Veloran’s point relies on ignoring lore that we do have.
Also, this was the start of the conversation that Veloran was responding to, by the way:
Its hard for me to blame Vol’jin for any of that when he was apparently forgotten in WoD, died unceremoniously in Legion, and now we know he was manipulated on his deathbed.
To be fair, I like Vol’jin a lot, and I’m glad he’s back. Vol’jin was treated really unfairly while he was Warchief by the writers. But people love to bring up breaking orders as if that doesn’t apply to Sylvanas herself and not punishing people that do as if that didn’t apply to the Horde when that’s the ironic cause for Stormheim in the first place.
What part of that, if true, matters from the Horde perspective? Horde knows that they held the line as long as they could and sounded a retreat when they had to fall back. They upheld their end of the treaty. Frankly, I’m good with Genn feeling that the treaty was broken when he acted. And if they followed through with that in a logically manner I might be happier with the story.
Because logically the Horde will feel betrayed by that. There was a treaty, lots of them lay dead on the Broken Shore because they held up their end of the bargain. And now the Alliance has broken the treaty and tried to kill the Warchief? (Depending on how the Rogue campaign plays out canonically, they might feel that the were knowingly led into a trap in the first place)
Genn has relatable grudges against Sylvanas, from a storytelling standpoint there is a logical progression to his actions. Neither of those things do anything that makes his attack not break the treaty that was in place, and not be an act of war. I was hoping against hope that that’s how this war would have started, with the Alliance being the one to start the hostilities in a way that is sadly all too realistic, where miscommunication paired with bad blood lead to bloodshed.
Veloran was bringing up Genn’s motivation, so the Horde’s perspective isn’t actually relevant to the conversation at hand.
So, the relevant part of your post was:
As for the last sentence in your post:
I’m pretty sure almost everyone was hoping for that. But instead we got the opposite and the rest of BfA that has followed.
The Vol’jin storyline is one of the few I’m genuinely still interested in right now. I truly have no idea what the writers intend to do with him atm, but I do hope he’s allowed to a role with more permanence when he finds the answers he seeks. I also hope that Bwon is allowed to remain a “Horde” Character. As Neutral an entity as he is, I do think he is one of the more interesting additions to our arsenal.
But you were responding to Carmaggedon’s statement that
Genn can feel that the treaty is broken, but that’s his feeling. The Horde did not break the treaty, Genn did.
And maybe I jumped the gun, but I see in these forums a lot of people who have problems with conflating “This character has an understandable grudge against that character” with “This character took action against that character, and that grudge justifies that action in universe”
You quoted the wrong person there. Those were Carmageddon’s words indeed, but you have my name on it.
We weren’t discussing what justifies actions in universe. The conversation started way back with:
To which people answered “Because Stormheim,” and then of course ignoring the canonical reason for why Stormheim:
All answers lead back to Sylvanas.
Eh, I pulled his quote from a post you made and so it ended up sticking your name on it, and since I said it was his quote I didn’t edit the post to fix it.
I disagree. Sylvanas and Genn have a history. Genn and the Forsaken have a longer history. Or do the Forsaken not get the same right to hold old grudges for the way he abandoned them to the Scourge in the 3rd war? But that has no bearing in universe or canonically for the assassination attempt at Stormheim. It’s just the motive for his act of war.
At no point does the Horde break the treaty that the signed up to. But Genn lets his emotions rule and decided that by retreating and sounding a call to retreat (in the cutscene no one had any doubts as to what the horn signaled, so it was given to them as well) that the Horde has broken the treaty and that he must punish them. He has not seen what the Horde dealt with, or how many died before they gave in, but he knows that they betrayed them. And because he lets these lies he told himself rule his thought, Genn broke the treaty.
There was no reason for him to attack the Horde fleet going to Stormheim other than the satisfy his anger. Even if we let that letter from the shipwreck in Azsuna be canonically found by the Alliance, he says he has no idea what Sylvanas is doing well into the questing of the zone.
Again, yes, canonically Genn is still upset about the invasion. But being upset does not mean that canonically he is not responsible for his actions when he broke the treaty.
The big problem with the whole Horde is fighting for its survival theme is that it seems like every time that the Alliance does something that threatens the Horde it gets retconned or explained away later in the story. Or just ignored.
Pointing it out in case anyone misreads your post as my having said what you’re quoting.
As far as I know Sylvanas has never brought this up. It wasn’t in A Good War, and while posters here bring it up from time to time, it hasn’t been part of the character lore presented to us by Blizzard. Oddly, the only person who has brought up Greymane’s wall was Varian in Wolfheart when Malfurion had to convince Varian to let the Gilneans back into the Alliance. Sylvanas has never brought it up.
We covered that earlier as well:
So once again, all answers lead back to Sylvanas.
Once again, if Genn believed the treaty was broken, then Veloran’s point is wrong. And once again, the rest of what you said isn’t relevant to the conversation at hand.
Got a whole different thread for you already:
So what exactly is the point you’re arguing here?
I’m slowly going through the thread again, and as far as I can see I’m making very similar points to Veloran, that Genn is a big boy and has to deal with the consequences of his actions. You keep steering the discussion away from the fact that Genn broke the treaty that was there at the beginning of Legion by listing bad things that the Horde and Sylvanas has done. And the fog of war vague Ashran dialogues that are there to support a pvp zone and go out of their way to try and be vague statements that they won’t have to justify in lore.
I am getting confused as to what point you are trying to make here. If we are looking at the story from the outside, with all the facts that we have as players from both sides of the story, did someone break the treaty that was in place at the beginning of Legion before Genn attacked Sylvanas at Stormheim?
I agree that Genn had a motive for his attack. Are you arguing that that motive should shield him from any repercussions of that attack, or the responsibility for having started that ball rolling?
I hope I’ve made my point pretty clearly by now, but if not, I’ll try again:
Main point:
Why is the Horde fighting for its supposed survival? Because Sylvanas ordered the burning of Teldrassil. Why was Sylvanas able to order the burning of Teldrassil? Because Sylvanas was able to convince Saurfang to enact the War of the Thorns. Why was Sylvanas able to convince Saurfang to enact the War of the Thorns? Because Genn tried to assassinate Sylvanas at Stormheim and was not punished for it*. Why did Genn try to assassinate Sylvanas at Stormheim? Because Sylvanas invaded and plagued* Gilneas and tried to assassinate Genn.
All answers lead back to Sylvanas. This is also where the trail starts, as Chronicle makes it canon that Sylvanas attacked Gilneas because she wanted to.
*Secondary point:
Posters that like to harp on the fact that Genn was not punished for going against orders often conveniently ignore that Sylvanas went against orders in Gilneas and was never punished for it.
From the Worgen starting experience quest “The Hunt For Sylvanas”:
And, once again, this wasn’t even solely Garrosh’s law, as Thrall had the law in place as well, as we see when a Forsaken player talked to a Kor’kron Overseer and asked where the alchemy trainer was:
Tertiary point:
Veloran is wrong that Genn’s motivation to retaliate against the Horde for Gilneas was void. Especially if Genn believed the treaty was broken, which you have acknowledged.
Quaternary point:
Even if there was a treaty, Varian had intentions at the Siege of Orgrimmar to take further action against Sylvanas, and during the Legion Invasion pre-expansion events we saw Alliance forces stationed in Hillsbrad Foothills likely to do just that, all which Veloran chooses to ignore without having any evidence to support the idea that Sylvanas would have been protected from retaliation by this treaty.
Also, to note, Veloran found different evidence for the treaty, so Ashran doesn’t need to be considered at all:
Triple post. Ew. Sorry. But technical note, Genn actually did get punished, but it was pretty much just a slap on the wrist:
None of that was in Varian’s words though. His words were a warning, a threat, or an ultimatum, not a statement that he would invade the Horde after they made peace.
There is no evidence anything he was talking about to the player came to the pass.
As Carm says, the Gilneas are part of the Alliance, and they are by necessity part of any peace the Alliance chooses to make. Not to mention, Genn used Stormwind’s forces to attack in Stormheim, meaning that even if everything you say is true (It isn’t), he still ordered Stormwind to break it’s word and betray the peace.
Again, Varian’s words were merely a warning. You have no evidence they were actually ratified into law binding both factions.
Genn was wrong. That’s all there is to it. His justification of the Broken Shore for breaking the peace was invalid by virtue of it being based on a falsehood.
Half the reason they made a treaty was that continuing to push a war would produce pyrrhic results, meaning the Alliance couldn’t afford the Horde to refuse them.
Do you see a garrison near Theramore? Did you see the plague cleansed from Gilneas? Did you see the Horde “ended”?
No, you didn’t. None of those things happened.
Previously you insisted his motivation was Gilneas, but after I stopped responding you switched to insisting that his breaking of the peace was justified because Genn believed the Horde betrayed the Alliance at the Broken Shore. But both of those justifications were wrong, the first because that makes him a liar, and the second because he was factually incorrect.
Your own argument supposes that Genn attacked the Horde at Stormheim, blew up their fleet, and tried to kill their Warchief, for what amounts to a personal grudge, while being utterly ignorant of the truth of the crimes at the Broken Shore he accused them of.
It is reasonable to think that, when attacked by someone who fights out of a hatred they can never give up while not caring about the truth of whatever pretenses are used, you are fighting for your survival.
I’m not saying that belief is wholly accurate, but Genn completely avoiding punishment for his actions does not help assuage fears on the subject, it paints the picture that his actions were sanctioned by the Alliance at large.
No, because belief does not equal factual accuracy.
No, I’m not. Genn agreed to set aside retaliation for Gilneas as a valid casus belli at the same time he agreed to a peace treaty with the Horde. You don’t have a war, make peace, and then justify another war on the premise of the previous one, that defeats the entire purpose of making peace to begin with.
You’ve provided no evidence linking those forces to the intent you prescribe to them, and Sylvanas was protected by the treaty by virtue of being a member of the Horde. Again, you would need to provide an extreme degree of evidence to prove the claim that a Horde client state was not protected by a treaty of peace the Horde agreed to.
I’m assuming this is what you’re referencing when you say Chronicles says that Sylvanas is responsible for invading Gilneas?
I’m not reading that the same way you are, there’s two statements there. One, that Sylvanas wanted Gilneas and Two, that she talked Garrosh into letting her lead the attack he ordered. She may have wanted it, and it makes sense it’s close to their borders and has a port, it’s a tactical goal. But wanting to doesn’t mean that she would have done that on her own. It could have been too costly an undertaking for it to be worth it to her, who knows? But when Garrosh tried to rid himself of the Forsaken by trying to send them into a meat grinder they weren’t ready to fight she managed to take the reigns and use the tools at her disposal to protect her people, from both the enemies she was facing. I wish they’d write Sylvanas more like that, she might leave you feeling dirty with the methods, but in her cold way she’s being protective of her people.
If you want to pull out on going history, Sylvanas invaded Gilneas because Garrosh ordered her to, Garosh was going to war in part for resources because the cataclysm hit Durotar hard and the Twilight Cult attack stopped the trade with the Night Elves. Durotar was particularly vulnerable because Daelin Proudmoore in his following and attacking the Orcs clear cut Thunder Ridge in order to start desertification of the zone, which worked. So Daelin Proudmoore is behind much of the actions of the Horde going forward.
And that’s assuming that Stormheim was the only reason they’d have to feel that the Alliance is a threat to their survival. The Alliance has invaded the barrens, seiged Mulgore (and Orgrimmar too) the imperialistic Dwarves have invaded Mulgore and got a warning to Magni about not doing that again, and then they wiped out the Stonespire tribe for not agreeing to let them dig up land that was sacred to them, Jaina twice sent a tidal wave that would have wiped Orgrimmar off the map if it had not been blocked, and even Daelin, when the Orcs tried to take themselves away from the conflict, Alliance forces hunted them down to try to kill them. Kinda like Stormheim, where when there was at that point no reason for the Alliance to attack, old sins were dredged up to justify attacking the Horde when there were bigger fish to fry. So while the story tends to gloss over it, there’s still been a lot of actions the horde can point to and tell themselves that no matter what they do the Alliance will find a reason to attack them if they want to.
Secondary point is whataboutism. Sylvanas is Sylvanas and Genn is Genn. Their actions lay on their own heads. Whatever happened with Sylvanas in Cata does nothing to calm the fears the Horde might feel when Genn is still standing by Anduin’s side after an assassination attempt on the Horde Warchief.
Third Point. Motive does not give him carte blanche to do what he wants. It gives him the want to do that thing, but it does not excuse the fact that he was wrong and the one that actually broke the treaty.
Fourth Point. And? The actions Genn took were first strikes. Sylvanas had not done anything to be retaliated against. Hillsbrad could even be seen as the Alliance threatening the Horde from the Horde POV.
The point about Genn being rebuked is a distinction without a difference. Yes, Anduin got upset that uncle doggy did a bad thing, but then went right back to him being one of his top advisers.
Indeed. Hence the key phrasing in Chronicle is “Garrosh Hellscream was not the only member of the Horde who desired Gilneas. Sylvanas Windrunner was eager to bring the kingdom under her dominion.”
All this is true. I agree. And history continues for why Daelin did what he did. And why the Orcs did what they did before that. And so on and so forth, until we get back to Sargeras, and even then when we go back to the Void. See how it isn’t so simple for people to say “Because Stormheim”?
Once again, already have a whole different thread for that.
It is. Hence my asking:
Because people like to avoid that’s what they’re doing. Or as Veloran might put it:
Something neither you or Veloran or anyone has established was that the treaty was still active after the Broken Shore. Once again, even Lor’themar and Blizzard phrased the Broken Shore as a betrayal:
Especially considerable that the two people who would have made the treaty, Varian and Vol’jin, were both dead.
Technical note, the Night Elves had already stopped trade with the Horde before the Twilight Hammer attacks. The Night Elves had stopped trade because of the Wrathgate. Very foolish on the Night Elves’ part and never should have happened, but it did.
Desire does not equal action. Many in the Alliance desired retaking Lordaeron for years, but did not do anything until after Teldrassil. The statement does not say Sylvanas acted on that desire, just that she had it.
You mean start a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing everything possible to keep the Orcs from being able to survive without expanding?
If you’re going to banish discussion of anything other than Stormheim from answers for “Why is the Horde fighting for its survival” then stop bringing it up just because you can blame Sylvanas for everything if we limit it to only Stormheim.
Where does Lor’themar phrase that as a betrayal? All that says is that the Alliance wants blood for the loss of Varian. The next line from Ji makes it sound much more that the Alliance might become a threat. Again, Lor’themar is just stating the fact that the Alliance are mad, not laying any blame on the Horde for doing anything to spark that other than existing.
Lor’themar Theron says: The Alliance lost its king on the Broken Shore. Its people cry out for vengeance.
[Ji Firepaw] says: We need them focused on defeating the Legion, not focusing on old hatreds.
And yes, gasp, in the period when Blizzard was doing everything they could to drive up the faction conflict, a Blizzard employee made a comment designed to whip up faction conflict?