Not the case, no. Medivh was outright possessed from birth by Sargeras, and his willpower was so strong that even at the height of the possession he was holding back. There wasn’t any real tricking so much as Sargeras manipulating his thoughts. Anyone even slightly less strong-willed would have been made a sock puppet, but when Sargeras tried that, Medivh’s inherent power fought back and put him into a coma for years.
I tend to roll my eyes at times when people try and defend WoW villains as victims or misunderstood, but Medivh it was 100% him being a victim, and he was still able to avert the main plan. Him guiding the Horde and Alliance to Kalimdor was his way of trying to atone for what he saw as his own weakness.
Manipulating his thoughts from birth with false scenarios was still tricking him, though. The Horde were going to pave the way for Sargeras’s and Legion’s invasion of Azeroth, not save it. “Save” by Sargeras’s point of view was he would kill Azeroth stopping her ascension into a dark Titan.
Here is an idea. Dustwallow Marsh… Literally no one there.
Or import lumber from within the Horde from Undead and Blood Elf territories.
Like, when can we stop pretending that lumber is some necessary resource for the Horde that they can’t get from anywhere else other than the place who’s people believe trees are sacred.
Probably when Blizzard explicitly addresses the “can’t we et lumber from somewhere else” thread instead of leaving it up to players’ inferences and headcanon, plus when they give the Horde a comparable new legitimate reason to have conflict with the Alliance.
The lumber scenario is one of the few ‘noble’ sources of faction conflict the Horde has - who wouldn’t want to bring needed resources home to make sure the civilian population can survive? Until the story explicitly gets rid of the last shred of possibility that a lumber issue exists, it will always be a good fallback for Horde-minded players to use when they want to feel that they have civilians they need to provide for and will fight the Alliance to do so - because Blizzard hasn’t provided anything as touching since then.
(Of course, to me, that makes the lore that ‘Thrall chose to settle in a desert for repentance’ become downright reprehensible, if they chose to remain there even after realizing the desert couldn’t sustain them and they’d have to raid their neighbors for survival. But that’s Blizzard writing for ya - write one thing one day, ignore the logical consequences when the next plot rolls around, and let weird scenarios like this continue without addressing or fixing them.)
Actually people -do- collect wood in swamps. Not just that, but the wood found in swamp is very high quality. “Swamp ash” or “Green ash” is a common swamp wood that is very strong with excellent bending properties. It is one of the best building woods you can get.
But you know, maybe the Horde doesn’t need it for building. They need it to maintain the giant bon fires that have all around their territory. Or they could use oil lamps like normal people.
The Alliance doesn’t need to invade for lumber because they control most if not all forests. There’s a great deal more logging camps like Elwynn Forest. This is a clear resource advantage the Alliance has over the Horde.
Resource sharing/disputes are the foundations of global politics. The Horde also gets lumber from Stranglethorn Vale because it’s not owned land, it’s disputed land, and trolls have the most claim to it.
It is still dotted with trees. Destroy those first.
That is not a retcon. For it to be a retcon it actually needs to disagree with establish lore. At worse it is an expansion of the original reason why Thrall decided to settle durotar which it it resembled the orcs original home(although with the expansion of our knowledge of Draenor now makes that statement barely make sense but still).
He wanted to settle Durotar precisely because he thought the rough conditions would keep the Horde a relatively hardy people.
I don’t think the Horde needs to be in Ashenvale but lmao if you don’t get why one would chop down a forest next door compared to trees in a recovering ecosystem halfway across the world.
