Oh, you don’t understand. Quite frankly, there should never have been sufficient reason for the “Goody Two Shoes” characters to tolerate these two for as long as they did; and they were FORCED to for those characters convenience. In short, the Goody Two Shoes characters were handicapped and prevent from doing what they should be doing (Coming down hard on Sylvie and Wix) … which kills my fun. Because it damages the characters I like for the sake of the ones you do.
If I want to play a villain, I’ll play SWtOR. I don’t look to the WoW Horde for such a power fantasy, because I am under no illusions that the only thing keeping the Faction Together is the WC3 Horde themes we were initially sold. And if you’re “Evil Horde” can’t justify its own existence without requiring game mechanics to force it to … then on a story level it shouldn’t even exist. Same goes for avoiding the consequences of its evil. If the only thing protecting you is game mechanics, than its empty and hollow. And you neither care about the story, or care that your fun is coming at the expense of others.
You’re missing my point.
We’re evil to the Alliance, and the Alliance is evil to the Horde.
That’s all the justification needed.
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But Sylvie and Wix only pretended to hate the Alliance, and were far more Evil to their own people. While the Alliance is never allowed to be evil to the Horde. The two characters you like gave cheap lip-service to hating the Alliance so they could justify throwing their own people into meatgrinders for personal gain. So your point is invalid, because that environment doesn’t exist.
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Yes that is what I am saying we need to fix
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It will be a hard thing to fix after BfA, since depending on who you ask the Alliance now has Carte Blanche to go truly medieval on the Horde and at most be seen as excessive.
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Nah that’s actually perfect.
What better enemy to fight against than one that feels justified in wiping you out?
It makes it all incredibly easy.
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Perhaps. But first Blizzard would need to dredge the Horde’s big names out of the pit of self loathing they are in now, so that they are not wailing before the righteous Alliance about how they all deserve it.
Yeah … that’s never going to happen. If it does, Blizz would bury them under so many justifications they’d look right in doing it (even more than they already have). And the Alliance playerbase would go absolutely nuts if they did not do exactly that. So many of them seem to truly want what they believe the Horde was given in BfA, but have that Moral Absolutism maintained while doing it.
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This justification exist right now, how much more do you expect o.O?
As much a is needed to keep that pearly white shine. And if they really want to let the Alliance go Medieval on our butts in retribution, they’re going to have to really flood the Alliance with it.
I’ll admit to having felt that way back in BfA. Like Horde players got to look big and cool and strong, and the Alliance felt like we were cowering before them and Sylvanas, Master Ruser of Azeroth and beyond. By the end of BfA though that wore off, because… Holy Hell BfA was really not kind to you guys at all.
When I think back on it, think I felt that way because of the Alliance not getting much story, outside of what was pushed our way when the Horde did something. Which… is kind of the Alliance Dilemma. While yes, we have been morally perfect and strong we also just sorta sit around and do nothing. And being perfect like that just makes us boring.
Seems like a theme of Blizzard writing in recent years; Either you get lots of story and lore, but are flying around the moral scale at light speed, or you are static on the scale and are as interesting as watching paint dry.
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Has Droite never read a book or seen a movie where both sides have justification of what they do?
Just because Alliance has some reason and justification to do what they do doesn’t mean its moral.
Wow that escalated in an odd direction.
You claimed folks are posting contradictory statements regarding wanting the Horde to be depicted as honorable and moral and not wanting the Horde to apologize.
Pellex asked for cites.
You asked if you could quote a post of his saying the Horde shouldn’t apologize would he admit he was a hypocrite.
He said he would make no promises because it might have been in a certain context, but any quotes might offer an opportunity to explain any potential contradictions.
Then you added a premise that for the Horde to be honorable and moral they need to apologize and asked if he agreed.
Pellex stated that that was a different discussion.
So maybe I can help with the disconnect.
First, it is important to separate gameplay experience and narrative. Experience-wise, no player wants to be forced to grovel for forgiveness for actions they didn’t even undertake. Generally players don’t want to sign up to be the hero in their story just to end up being forced to be the villain and then forced to be atone for being the villain they never wanted to be in the first place. That’s not hypocrisy. In fact, I’d argue it’s pretty terrible to want a player to be forced to atone for something they had no part in doing.
Second, focusing on the narrative over time, just because players want the Horde to be portrayed as honorable/moral doesn’t necessarily mean they expect it as a statement of “right now.” Given the timeline of Warcraft we’ve seen Thrall’s Horde (the one we get to sign up for in WoW) go from being misunderstood outcasts fighting for survival to being genocidal monsters (on multiple occasions). The treatment of the Horde’s morality has been a downward spiral from Cataclysm onward. This is especially evident when compared to the way the Alliance is portrayed over the same time period. Wanting to be portrayed in a better light in the narrative therefore has little to nothing to do with apologizing to anyone.
Third, focusing on the narrative at hand, it’s reasonable to assume that not everyone believes in your premise (e.g. that to be honorable/moral the Horde needs to apologize). Whether they do or don’t would seem to be a discussion - hence why Pellex said it was another topic. Sylvanas manipulated the Horde and took some actions in secret. I don’t know whether an “apology” is needed to become honorable/moral. Maybe both sides agree they were duped and lick their wounds. Maybe a show of solidarity with the Alliance by trying to help undo her actions while admitting they were all duped by her is the correct choice. Maybe the Alliance helps rebuild Zuldazar and the Undercuty and the Horde helps with Teldrassil. Hell maybe Anduin marries Baine and we cement a relationship together. I don’t know and I’m not suggesting these are the answers, but folks may disagree that the path forward requires an apology.
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I have actually, which is why its frustrating.
The Horde wasn’t given any real valid reasons to be the aggressor in the WoT. And part of that is because the Alliance are kept so insufferably pure, that they cannot be allowed to anything antagonistic to justify Horde antagonism. Thus, we find ourselves in this absurd situation where the Faction that’s allowed no motives is forced to play the aggressors … because the Faction absolutely buried in them just can’t.
This is Tolkein “evil for evil’s sake” BS with how BfA was written.
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Even Tolkien later felt making his orcs ‘evil for evil’s sake’ was uncreative and morally problematic.
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Even Lovecraft regretted how much his creatures were invented by his self-recognized tendencies of racism, xenophobia, and fascism lol
(He died a communist and anti-racist)
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Never heard that, can you cite a source? At best, I’ve heard he died less racist.
I know he was pen pals with Robert E Howard (Irish) and Robert Bloch (Jewish) and toned down his rhetoric against Celts and Jews partially due to this- not to mention his wife was Jewish, but there’s a difference between ‘not seeing other races as lesser’ and ‘being more polite to lesser races’.
I think you’re right to push us a bit back on point but it is an indication of the narrative mess we are in when everything seems to come back to “it doesn’t seem salvageable.” I think I’ve only seen 4 solutions here that “might” work in some way (I’m simplifying/paraphrasing them so apologies):
1). Time travel. Yes it is a cheap narrative tool, but desperate times as they say. Sylvanas turns Anduin into a Death Knight. She’s hoping to maintain her position so she can turn on the Jailer and kill him but she fails and is turned into ash. Tyrande - as the Night Warrior - tries to help us fight off the Jailer but she dies. The Jailer is poised to win and exterminate the Universe, so Chromie goes rogue to have us change the timeline at key points to keep most of it the same but enable us to win. We stop Sylvanas before her suicide preventing her forced alliance with the Jailer. This also prevents Teldrassil, and while war still breaks out over Azerite, casualties are far less. We stop Thrall from selecting Garrosh as Warchief. He’s no longer a mopey hobo. The Jailer still captures the leaders of Azeroth, but we are able to free all of them before Anduin can be turned. In our final battle with him this time we defeat him. But we cause some unexpected consequences leading to the next expansion.
2). N’Zoth was behind all of BfA. Sargeras’ sword opened his prison and everything we saw and did was altered by his visions. He manipulated every action taken. Once N’Zoth was slain, the Jailer showed Sylvanas she was backed into a corner with nowhere to go, so she escaped to the Shadowlands where she has been trying to unmake everything because most of her (recent) life she’s been controlled and manipulated - but she doesn’t see she’s still being manipulated.
3). Provide Sylvanas with some justification. The Arbiter is disabled and a universe worth of souls is heading to the Maw. She’s been blackmailed by the Jailer because he cheated the system of death to pull her in once, but now everyone is going there. From all worlds. She’s walking a tight rope between trying to find a way to stop his plan and dooming herself to the Maw. Somehow she manages to prepare the evacuations from Tedrassil (from deep in the shadows) so only a few souls are lost to the Maw. In the end, she finds out how the Arbiter was disabled and lets us know so we can reenable it. She’s killed in the process and the newly enabled Arbiter judges her to go to Maldraxxus. Then we go murder hobo on the Jailer.
4). Find a way to make the Alliance less pristine. No matter what, going forward, this has to happen. But basically the Alliance needs to be responsible for a catastrophically awful event. This doesn’t mean the Alliance has to actively participate in it. I suggested Turalyon called upon the Army of the Light for assistance and once they arrived they go way off the reservation causing rampant destruction. Alliance players don’t - but there’s still some responsibility there for letting those folks in the door.
Those are the only ideas I’ve seen that have any chance in my opinion. And they’re not really great ideas (I readily admit). Most are cheap narrative tricks.
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Newly digitized letter to Clark Ashton Smith, folks copied it on github. I knew about it before hand from a book I read that had every letter he ever wrote.
You’d be surprised (or maybe not) how many documents lack digitization.
https://github.com/punchmonster/Lovecraft-Letters/blob/master/19340930-Clark-Ashton-Smith.md
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If you’re a Horde Stan in this thread, and you’re still crying about this game’s story. You shouldn’t continue playing the game honestly.