This is what gets me about this plot more than anything. It’s the giant elephant in the room.
More than undead elves turning on their kin, more than Rexxar acting like a different character.
I know we all have our personal pet peeves about the plot. This is mine and I really want it answered by Blizzard because it shouldn’t be that hard.
Saurfang says make sure you know the difference between loyalty and honor and pray you never have to choose. Um, yeah except we literally did it a few years before.
The character, even an Orc character, overthrows Garrosh whether the player wants to or not. The history of the Horde is nothing but a revolving door of Warchiefs and we raided our own city to take down Garrosh only recently.
Why is it the only one that gets a choice is Sylvanas? The choice was made years ago for our characters. We attacked Garrosh for better or worse. As someone who liked Garrosh I believe it was for the worse. But it’s done now. To start wondering about loyalty now is just adding hypocrisy and confusion. Sylvanas is worse than Garrosh, but they added a choice to join her?
There needs to be some kind of explanation for how Orcs can even be following Sylvanas at all. Orcs and Trolls don’t even have a racial leader in the faction. How can Blizzard pretend support for the zombie elf is even a thing in game? This is not a moral issue it’s just a lore consistency issue. Loyalists to the Warchief? Where do they even come from post Garrosh?
Because her rabid fanbase cried and moaned for being “forced” to turn against her, so Blizzard shoved in some last-minute special dialogue to appease them.
The difference as I see it is Sylvanas is 1) not being racist about the other races 2) she is actually doing things to benefit the Horde as a whole, Garrosh seemed only interested in benefiting the portion of the Horde he found worthy.
Now the question is going to be presented to the Horde in a slightly different way. Is honor truly valuable? Especially if pragmatically you will be worse off?
Only if you’re an orc tho. Garrosh above all was racist and treated undead like dirt, trolls like enemies, taurens like nothing and blood elves like traitors. And goblins like neccessary evil… justified
Garrosh turned on the Horde (aside from Kork’ron Orcs) before the Horde had a chance to turn on Garrosh. That’s the difference.
Try to see events from the perspective of an average Horde citizen rather than from the perspective of someone with all encompassing in-universe meta-knowledge.
Sylvanas has not done anything to the Horde except sacrifice a few soldiers in a tactical decision during a major battle that was very nearly completely successful. From the perspective of an average Orc soldier Sylvanas is the best Warchief they’ve ever had. She’s not going to throw their lives away chasing “honor”.
Traditionally when the light raises you you just come back normal. Like the Warrior player dies in Legion and gets raised as a Valar’jar but he isn’t undead. It was originally because dark magic was “twisted magic” in WoW so it reanimated the corpse instead of truly reviving.
Ever since Pallys on Horde you can raise undead with the light too but it still seems more gameplay related than real lore. At the end of the day Undead lore is a total mess in general. We see this in the recent Darkshore Undead Night Elf lore(or rather lack of it). I think Calia if chosen by the Light should’ve just reversed her undeath entirely.
So in conclusion, it’s a lorelol but undead lore in general is a mess so I don’t find it worse than anything else undead related recently.
Oh, this is nonsense. Garrosh did nothing more to attack the Horde than Sylvanas did. Garrosh executed traitors which is the same thing Sylvanas did, but Garrosh’s war was for Ashenvale’s resources.
Sylvanas on the other hand threw lives away by starting a meaningless war and she locked up a Horde leader just recently, which Garrosh never did. You’re nuts if you say she is the best Warchief the Horde had with a straight face, she’s literally the worst Warchief since we could’ve had peace.
The very fact she’s a zombie should raise alarms amongst any civilians with a brain and she has no honor. It’s amazing that you can say Sylvanas looks better to the average citizen with a straight face.
Canonically Garrosh kicks out multiple races from the Horde to form a racially pure Orcish True Horde before he is overthrown. That’s much worse than anything Sylvanas has done. Feel free to correct me when Forsaken are patrolling Thunder Bluff.
Anti-Forsaken prejudice is part of the whole complaint the Forsaken have against the Horde, that they are treated like cannon fodder by the likes of Garrosh and others. The Honor Horde have never viewed the Forsaken as equals, that’s why Baine’s protests about “free will” fall on deaf ears.
Starting his own Horde without traitors trying to undermine him makes him worse than Sylvanas who commits genocide and lies and deceives everyone… well, we all have our own opinions I suppose, badly thought out as they may be. Even if you believed this it doesn’t explain what any Orcs are doing following Sylvanas.
This part you completely made up. Sylvanas uses her forces as cannon fodder the most of all.
Eh, I’ve explained to you why an average Orc soldier would choose to follow Sylvanas. She’s playing to win and saving their lives in the process. Remember the interaction between Saurfang and Sylvanas during the Battle for Lordaeron? “What good is honor to a corpse?” “I believe Horde lives are worth saving” any of that sound familiar? How many Horde soldiers will die in 8.2 for Baine’s honor?
Do you have an example of Sylvanas using the Forsaken as cannon fodder the way Garrosh does? Or are are you going to just quote “arrows in a quiver”?
Garrosh made the Darkspear prisoners in their own homes. Yes, it is no wonder they would prefer Sylvanas.
Well, they claim it’s because the Horde didn’t do enough self-examination after what happened with Garrosh. Or not the right kind of self-examination. Take that as you will–personally, I find it unconvincing, but it’s the only official explanation we have.
Then there’s a conspiracy theory that it’s all about a behind-the-scenes power struggle between Kosak and Afrasiabi. We have absolutely no way of knowing whether that has any grain of truth, but it would explain some things.
I think the difference is that Sylvanas has not done anything explicitly bad for the Horde. Her decisions might be morally questionable but they have been made with the Horde’s best interests in mind. Garrosh didn’t love the Horde, he wanted to change it into something different from what it was. Sylvanas will do anything for the Horde, no matter how immoral.
I consider that to be Saurfang’s opinion. I don’t think what he says is gospel. I think he takes his idea of “honor” very seriously, and he thinks that it would be better for the Horde to lose to the Alliance than to win without “honor.” The problem is that Orc honor has always been inconsistent, subjective, and loosely defined, so trying to follow Orcish honor or fight a war based on it is a fool’s errand.