Adding on to that, you notice how the only input we get on something like that is purely between Jaina and Anduin…and even then, it’s all about the optics.
Ok, so then what happens when Anduin tries to cover up something big? Are we finally going to get input on what all the major Alliance leaders, from Velen to Moira to Muradin to Falstad to Gelbin, think the Alliance should stand for?
We don’t necessarily need the Alliance to commit a pseudo-Teldrassil against the Horde.
We do need them to experience the same level of faction identity crisis.
In my opinion, what would redeem the Horde would be if they punished everyone who had anything to do with the war crimes committed in BfA. The Horde is under new leadership again and if they tolerate the Sylvanas loyalists and what they did to undermine the Horde, then they can’t be forgiven by their own people.
Realistically, I doubt this will happen and expect Blizzard will just use Sylvanas as a scape goat. Whatever fate she suffers at the end of this expansion they will be considered our redemption. It won’t be satisfying, but at least some of us can forget BfA ever happened.
If you want to talk about a faction identity crisis - then something probably could be said about the Alliance’s repeated failures to put boots on the ground in Ashenvale just about every time they’ve been needed.
There’s not much of a point to being in an Alliance if they won’t come to your aid when your territories are being threatened or occupied.
I figured someone would mention that when I typed it but rolled with it anyways. Of course no one is going to literally forget BfA and everyone who died and all that was destroyed but at least it won’t be in the foreground anymore.
Yet the Alliance remains united and no hint of resentment from Tyrande at Anduin or the other leaders. Because the Alliance can’t be written as anything less than perfect.
Turns out, Anduin was correct in not sending additional assets to Darkshore because the Night Elves were able to get it back without all the resources they asked for.
I don’t know, Tyrande won’t talk to him given that and given that he’s pursuing a peace treaty that ignores her interests and what just happened to her people.
Like, you can argue military necessity, and you might be right (I’d dispute it - it seems like they could have taken out the fleet without the land invasion, and the latter was just for making a point), but you’re still going back on what you said you’d do when you agreed to join a military alliance. Defending the territories of that Alliance’s members is your first priority, safeguarding them is your second. If you aren’t comfortable with doing either, then you’re betraying that agreement.
Honestly, between this and another post I once saw comparing Warcraft III night elves and Forsaken to their WoW counterparts, I almost want to see these two races do a faction swap.
Night elves decide to ally with the Horde after Thrall delivers on his promise by helping to kill Sylvanas at the end of Shadowlands. Kaldorei have also gone back to their original, Third War versions of merciless savagery (which of course is too much for Anduin to handle), and of course no longer have any trust in the Alliance to serve their interests.
Calia brings the Forsaken over to the Alliance side to help them find purpose in the Light, etc. etc.
Would it give the two factions complete dominance over a continent, which is the only reason for night elves going Alliance and Forsaken going Horde to begin with?
Sure, but considering the characteristics of the two races, it still makes more sense, and on some levels, is what Blizzard should have done from the start.
We’d need to know the terms of the Alliance insofar as what each charter nation is contractually obligated to provide as far as assistance before we come to any conclusions.
I think we can infer based on the logic of at least a mutual defense or assistance pact, something that the Night Elves honored when Stormwind was under threat during Cataclysm - you can find their soldiers in Vash’ir - while their own lands were being invaded.
In such a pact, the territorial integrity of the member nations kind of comes first. Before securing other-member geopolitical pipe dreams (Lordaeron), or invading a territory and then leaving it, thus ensuring no lasting territorial or strategic point (Land invasion of Dazar’alor).
Who? Saurfang died a flawed martyr and is now being tortured in the Maw. Sylvie and Nate yeeted the hell out. Gallywix cut his losses and made tracks. The only Core Horde racial leaders left are the two most deliberately kept distant from the WoT (and the most amicable with the Alliance) Baine and Lor’themar. Thrall, Rokhan, Voss, and Gazlowe were not in positions of real authority during the War. The ARs leads were sort of just along for the ride. And we have no way of identifying non-named NPCs that took part in those events. There is no way to tell who partook in “war crimes” within the faceless masses.
Not to mention, the Player PC was front and center for the majority of the darker Horde actions, so are we to punish them too? We didn’t have a choice in the matter, but there we were. On top of what it sounds like you intend, to purge what remains of our rather pathetic character roster? In what is a very hero centric game, ensuring narrative sterility. Or is the whole “rounding up the remaining loyalists in chains” not sufficient, because there aren’t any named NPCs on the chopping block?
We could, but then we’d be applying logic to a situation that left it a long time ago. Anduin should have never been made high king in the first place. King of Stormwind? Sure. Supreme commander of the entire Alliance military? No.
Remind me how long the Greymanes have been waiting for the Wrynns to help them reclaim Gilneas…?
Honestly, the most realistic ending here would be for Stormwind Keep (the royal family, not the city) to finally go bankrupt trying to pay back all its debts (Westfall, Gilneas, Teldrassil), with the ending cinematic showing a bunch of humans, worgen, and night elves marching Anduin “Let Them Eat Cake” Wrynn to the guillotine.
The jury is out. At the end of Cataclysm’s forsaken questing, the Worgen were in control of Gilneas. Then subsequent writers kept forgetting about the status of the area, and to this day, no one knows for sure what’s going on there.
Edit: But Varian did send the Seventh Legion to Gilneas. So, then. At least then.
Honestly, the Horde doesn’t need redemption. It needs direction which none of the writers have really explored and instead went the route of “Oooga booga ork smash!” Since Cata they have been so flip flop schizophrenic in values it is kind of saddening.
With Sylvanas literally anyone who played WC3 could have seen this coming, she has always been out for herself. I wish she had gone the route where she actually grew as a leader and character to lead her people instead of trying to play this poorly written cartoony badguy.
I hope the horde players get this and are able to not just be bad guys.
