How Can We Redeem/Rebuild The Horde (Actual Horde Edition)

All my threads make numbers :nail_care:t4::nail_care:t4::nail_care:t4:

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Sigh … as a note. If Blizz decides to give an “out” for Sylvanas (where she did have her soul split, and Blizz of course plays that up for sympathy points) … the burden of guilt for BfA is going to come down harder on the Horde (as if that were possible). Because we don’t have the in universe “excuse” for some soul shenanigans for the WoT or Teld. The only excuse we have is a Meta-one, where we were made a vehicle and plot-device for Sylvie to do her nonsense and settup future content. Just like we were with Garrosh, but on roids. But a Meta-Argument isn’t one most people following the story will accept. No matter how true it is…

I really hope I’m wrong, but the idea that Blizz is clearly putting more thought into “redeeming” Sylvanas (or at least giving her an out), than they did the Horde, is frustrating While not surprising, it does show where their prioritize in the Red Faction Lie. Outside the Red Faction now. I honestly have no idea if its a good or bad thing we Hordies no longer seem to have a writers pet anymore? It likely means we wont get attention at all going forward, but at least its less likely to be so much negative attention… We truly “Are Nothing”. And our “Best” and “Heart” truly is just a worthless plot-device who’s own characterization needs are thrown aside for the stories needs to use him; and who’s only value is found in how submissive and convenient his is for the Alliance.

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Using this logic, aren’t the races of the Horde racists towards the races of the Alliance as well? Also, assuming you had narrative control, which Alliance leader would you want to be hit with the racist bat? And what atrocity would they commit against which horde race?

Scapegoating Sylvanas doesn’t stop that from happening. The Horde was fully complicit except for the minority opinion (which is oddly enough shared by 90% of leadership.)

They only decided to stop and turn against Sylvanas when she insulted the Horde personally, they were excited at the prospect of slaughtering all the traitor Horde and Alliance.

The Horde isn’t some paragon of virtue without Sylvanas, they just need to wait for a new leader to give them an immoral order and they’ll revel in the slaughter it causes.

With this context in mind, MOP’s Horde rebellion being the majority wasn’t prompted by Garrosh’s actions against the Alliance or his approach to warfare but simply because he had grown bigoted to the Horde races. If Garrosh hadn’t turned against the Horde, they would’ve been fully on-board with everything he was doing.

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No, that’s the Alliance. They are Mary Sue levels of pure and flawless at this point. Even their head of the Alliance CIA is allowed less moral ambiguity than a Teletubby these days. The Horde is a Plot-Device. We do whatever Blizz wants us to do, and stay silent and convenient when we’re needed to for their “vision” to work. It doesn’t matter how little sense it makes, or how lacking in motives we are. We are a tool.

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That could be one way to do it. As long as they appeared like full on Titan-forged, but still had fleshy insides. But the mechagnome heritage armor does allow for the idea of full on robots to be members of the Alliance. I’d prefer full on Titan-forged.

They’re not flawless, the story just doesn’t draw focus to their crimes/atrocities. BfA is filled with the Alliance doing horribly immoral things, as the world itself is very immoral. We’re (and by we, I mean our characters) living in a world where sentient species are turned into fur rugs by “civilized” races.

90% of basic questing is essentially committing atrocities to the races we deem undesirable or unworthy. The biggest difference with Teldrassil is that it happened to a player race and the narrative went about finger-wagging the Horde, whereas it never finger-wagged for similar atrocities beforehand.

The issue that needs to be addressed is basic consistency. They need to stop finger-wagging at stuff the players have been doing for years against countless factions of people.

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No … their “crimes/atrocities” are just whitewashed, buried under mountains of justifications, or handwaved away (even by their victims). They are flawless, in that they aren’t allowed any real tangible flaws that would amount in consequences for them (outside of the stupid and nerf sticks, which are a requirement since Blizz keeps forcing the objectively weaker faction to punch outside its weightclass). If you ignore the Murder Hobo element of both sides PCs, thematically and tonally within the Meta Narrative the Alliance are artificially maintained as sort of the paragons of every conceivable virtue.

To the point where the only way a member of a Horde race could possibly prove they aren’t evil (not even good) is by how submissive and convenient they are for a member of an Alliance one.

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That’s literally how the current story is written lmao you are correct

Blood Elves and Nightborne consider themselves superior to the Night Elves, the Orcs have tried Orc Supremacy under Garrosh, and more

A lot of them are, which is unfortunate. Though it’s fine when it’s an Alliance-only justification, as Alliance should be rationalizing why their atrocities are happening upon the enemy and they deserve it. The biggest issue with Teldrassil as Horde was that no reasonable motive was provided, it was shoddy story craftsmanship that led us there and the narrative didn’t do anything except go “you should feel bad for this.”

However, there’s a lot of cases where it just goes unspoken for the Alliance.

Most of the BfA faction campaign for the Alliance is about killing ambassadors by sending them to the void, killing miners by the hundreds by searing their flesh with lava or assassinating non-combatant archaeologists.

Whether you want to believe everything is justified is entirely based upon the individual, but that type of war-crime committing is something that anyone who puts reasonable thought into the narrative should go and realize has disturbing implications and the Alliance protagonist/crew aren’t as heroic as they portray.

Again, the key difference is the Horde story has a character present who is aghast at similar actions being performed by the Horde character. The Alliance character is pat on the back as a true patriot and hero.

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True, i mean in theory you’re not wrong that adding or rather highlighting this negative(but realistic) trait that does exist on the alliance is a valid answer. I don’t trust blizzard at all to actually pull it off well or to actually do it at all.

My biggest dislike with the faction racism is that it’s gradually shifted to be about the other rather than remaining in-house.

One of the best parts about the Sin’dorei aspects from TBC was their obvious dislike of the Horde races and seeing them as assets/tools, rather than individuals. Same with Orcs disliking Blood Elves or Forsaken, etc.

I doubt it can ever be recreated naturally without it feeling extremely arbitrary, however.

Yeah, sending waiters and waitresses into the void is never seen as “morally justified” even as an alliance player i knew it was messed up. Umbric just came off as crazy as F.

They literally already do it well:

  • Gnome vs Goblin rivalry
  • Internal Troll discrimination (Zandalari thinking themselves superior to the “Lesser” tribes; the other Troll tribes thinking the Zandalari are a fallen decaying people, which is parallel IRL African vs African Diaspora Twitter Wars at their worst)
  • Internal Elf Prejudice (Night Elf vs Blood Elf/Nightborne vs Void Elf vs Dalarani High Elf)
  • and more

They just need to recognize WHEN they do it well and recognize when they have failed spectacularly

The problem with Blizzard writers is not their writing per se, it’s the fact they what they think is best writing actually SUCKS (eg Teldrassil) and what is golden is literally actively ignored and minimized (eg Gnome vs Goblin, eg Bwonsamdi/Intra-Troll problems)

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Honestly, that’s the type of stuff I loved about the Alliance campaign. You commit so many horrible things but the story doesn’t stop to have a character look at the camera and go “wow, this isn’t the alliance I know” and wink.

Its not JUST Teldrassil. They did it with the WoT. They did it with Silithus. They do it constantly. They’ll put more effort into absolving Hawthorne for Taraujo, then they will on Taraujo itself. They’ll dial back and dilute the severity of the Purge several times over the years, to the point the only one to ever have consequences for it was the leader of the Victims Aethas. Varian declares war on the Horde in WotLK, only for a treaty in an in between expac book to show up just in time for Garrosh to “start the war”. Despite Theramore throwing all neutrality out the window in Cata, another convenient treaty in another in-between expac book shows up … just in time for Garrosh’s attack on Northwatch and Theramore to be “unprovoked”.

My GOD its all over the place! Any time the Alliance even fringes on Grey, Blizz buries it to retain and return to that flawless shine. While they can’t even be bothered to allow the Horde motives, or means to do most of what we’re forced to do; and only forced opportunity at best. IT IS REDICULOUS!

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True. It’s left up to the player to feel that way or not.

Even the other ones had alot of potential. Orcs vs NEs. Humans vs Forsaken. Dwarves vs Tauren. It all comes down to how they frame the various conflicts through good/evil morality instead of putting in the time and EFFORT to make it nuanced.

One of the good parts of A Good War is Sylvanas basically ignoring all that spit shine and just laying it straight to Saurfang who goes “Hmmm, good point.”

One of the big issues that BfA had was that motive for the Horde was there but the in-game story didn’t want to dwell on it, nor did they want to address it and it requires the player to take the lens from someone in-universe.

Tewdee the Troll wouldn’t care about the treaties or anything, he’d just care about the Alliance’s acts against the Horde for example. Tewdee the Troll wouldn’t see what he’s doing in Darkshore to be any different than what he’s done to the Harpies, the Quillboar, etc. Hell, he’d revel in it more because they’re elves.

Alliance would’ve been motivated to siege Lordaeron even if Teldrassil hadn’t happened, and it’s why the narrative of BfA would’ve worked far better had Lordaeron happened first. Alliance players and characters have every justification to siege Lordaeron, it wouldn’t have been some unprovoked utterly irredeemable act.

Teldrassil would’ve been the Horde’s response and could’ve still been horrendous with Sylvanas basically escalating it to total war right out the gate rather than leaving the notion of it just being a regular conflict/war on the table.

It would’ve made the Saurfang/Sylvanas story far more involved too, as siding with the Alliance isn’t an easy choice.

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One of the things that really bugged me about Teldrassil was the fact that the Vindicaar wasn’t used to quickly evacuate the civilians, and that simple fireballs fired from a catapult completely destroyed a massive magical tree surrounded by water.

A change that would make me feel better would be if the Vindicaar was actually allowed to intervene and rather than catapults with regular fire, The massive goblin cannon was used to destroy the tree. The cannon would fire a “nuke” a combination of Forsaken blight with Goblin explosives and some azerite to make it “work”. But the alliance was able to rescue the civilians. So the Horde gets an impressive display of power and the Alliance don’t look incompetent. And no genocide.

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