There’s a world of difference between “justice as a concept” and the sort of draconian “justice” that we’ve seen from many characters—though most famously from the Alliance of Lordaeron—in the Warcraft universe.
Especially considering, as many others have pointed out, the go-to response is usually, “Go kill them.”
See, and this ends up being rather disturbing to me—and probably many Horde players who know the history of their faction, or at least the orcs—when you consider what the original Alliance’s “justice” ended up looking like.
On this, I agree, which is why I do think people like Antonidas—who wanted to actually study the orcs in order to devise a cure for their felblood addiction, and thus remove the need to incarcerate them at all—could have been considered progressive when compared to the “average” human leader (Daelin Proudmoore, Adelas Blackmoore, Garithos).
Kinda sorta, but in my minor defense I didn’t use the word dreadful. I just said I wouldn’t be happy and it’d seem lame to me.
To me, the appeal of the horde was the inversion of having typical monster races that could have been protagonists. Blood elves being added was like a double-inversion of that, I guess. I’m not a fan of it myself, but I can get the appeal to others even if it’s not really my thing.
But putting that double-inversion in the driver’s seat would have robbed the faction of the charm of having protagonist monsters if you’re just going to make them led by a traditionally-protagonistic fantasy race. But BFA did a good enough job of ruining the protagonist monster thing anyway so meh.
Well looking at it from in game lore Calia isn’ta mustache twirling villain so in Lor’themar eyes she’sa more sensible leader. In the players eyes though she is literally just an alliance character being shoe horned in to the forsaken leadership, I’m nota forsaken player though never cared too much for their lore but I do like horde and the forsaken players should get a leader they at least like.
The Alliance’s justice in the form of internment camps is a difficult subject to broach because of the nature of criminal justice itself. Let’s follow A and C. C arrests A, A goes to trial. A is found guilty, A goes to jail. In other words, society has determined that A is a threat to society and needs to be separated from it. That’s ultimately the point of a jail - it’s to prevent people like A from doing further harm.
So, great, we put A in an internment camp. Is that evil? No.
Now, let’s introduce D and E. D and E are prison guards, and they visit A’s cell to beat A. Is that justified? No. D and E are committing immoral acts. But do D and E’s immoral acts mean that it was unjustified to put A in jail? No.
The internment camps are somewhat more complicated, because we would agree that we should not also throw F in jail too just because F and A share a skin color. The moral outrage of internment camps is that we are punishing F unjustifiably. However, in the specific case of the aftermath of the second war, both A and F are members of a demonically raised and empowered army whose goal was to kill everyone - but the demonic army is also the Orcish people.
What alternative is there? Clearly death is the wrong answer, but given that A and F are part of the same army, and there is no land to put them on, we have a problem. Society sequesters off A in order to protect itself. Sending A home may mean that A can strike again. Sending the demonically raised army to some plot of land and hoping that they won’t train themselves up and strike again also feels like a bad option.
Lor’themar has shown himself to be the best leader, siege I love how he threatened to kill Syl’vanas where she stood if she ever dared touch the Sin’dorei’s dead.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again … if we were going to end up with a Forced Lead in the Forsaken leadership chair, it boggles the mind that the one who does actually embody a lot of most important elements of the Forsaken Racial Fantasy is being shilled as a “Steward of Gondor”. Voss has her problems, but she could be made to work at least with the right story direction and TLC. But Blizz having her “keep the chair warm” for mommy Menethil is more than a little frustrating. Especially with Lor’s forced doting, and Calia weird “thank god your safe, I’ll let Aggra know” in SLs.
At the end of the day, if we “need” a Calia, the only way I can fathom to make her work is to have her simply represent the Citizens of Lordaeron side of that people’s identity, and for someone of equal prominence to be built up to represent the “Forsaken” side. With Voss, weirdly, being the most likely to take on that counterbalance role. Then simply back both Equal Leaders with an appropriate cast.
The way my mind is picturing why blizzard did this is “Oh she’s a Menethil, people who liked Arthas may like the return of the Menethil dynasty to lead their people.” Which is kind of dumb, but you know what I think would have been a better idea if they went with the whole Menethil dynasty? Just raise ole Terenas into an actual forsaken, he was the actual leader and beloved by his people and could actually be brought into the forsaken plight and such.
Belves are NOT the traditional elf trope dude… they´re too “impure and flawed and humane” to fulfill that trope.
She´s the sister of his own worst nightmare, who to add insult to injury, literally ignored the consequences of the events her dearest brother caused the Forsaken and who says blatant stupid stuff like “muh people” when she doesn´t even interacts with regular not forced Forsaken reps like Belmont, etc.
Well can’t blame Calia for Arthas’ actions, be like blaming Terenas for them. I get where you’re coming from and like I said I’m not a forsaken player and never cared for their aesthetic and lore but her being forced into the horde and its leadership Is dumb, but in Lors eyes she is far better then Syl who caused a world war.
I’m still thinking visually for the most part, because that’s always mattered a lot to me. And I’m not denying that the way blood elves have been written has them making sense being part of the horde, and I do think there was a kind of ironic appeal in that the conventionally-prettiest horde race ended up having the most monstrous elements of them all at the time.
It’s just not my thing, that’s all. You’ll probably find this funny/weird but my Overton Window for “monster” skews waaaaay to the side, to the point where I don’t even think orcs as they look in-game are monstrous enough for my tastes. They and trolls are just demi-human at best, and meh. The only two that I think really fit the bill are tauren and undead.
Sucks for me that I’m averse to zombie aesthetics or else I’d happily just play a forsaken mage.
Same, every media but WoW has portrayed Jungle Trolls with fabulous beards and rasta hairstyles(one even like Avdol from jojo) and you have a Zandalari?
A mon of good culture.
Belves are just copy of the High Elves from Warhammer fantasy
I would say specifically high elves, as in, “blood elves before they renamed themselves blood elves, sided with Illidan under Kael’thas, etc.” were originally inspired by the “traditional Tolkien elf” trope.
But much like with orcs, that concept eventually evolved into something that broke the mold to become far more interesting and less one-dimensional.
As soon as I saw they where a horde allied race and they became available to unlock I ground rep like I did for my Mag’har, burned out doing that but it was worth it. Then I power leveled my Zandalari for that armor, but no darkspear would be so much more appealing with glorious beards, tusk ornaments and a heritage armor similar to Vol’jin armor.
I’ve usually mained horde since Cata, did main my human dk when I started in wrath though due to my love for wc3 and Arthas.
