How can we redeem/rebuild the Horde?

[Kyalin-cenarion-circle (Kyalin)]

To condense some of this - yes, I do pull a lot of what I said from Garrosh and his regime. The reason I continue to put my finger on that, however, is because Grom and Garrosh’s visions of the Horde present themselves as the natural conclusion of the Orcish ideology and culture - and it’s notable that said culture survives through to BFA. Sylvanas doesn’t make her own mark upon it so much as she hijacks it to her own ends - and you see this the most starkly in A Good War, where orcs continue to act according to the values that Garrosh promoted while everyone else joins them for the ride. It’s notable as well that the other leaders didn’t get to know about the plan until it was in motion. For the longest time, it was Sylvanas’s, Nathanos’s, and Saurfang’s secret. Lor’themar was absolutely not brought in to consult on it or anything like that.

To the extent that this fractures, this tends to happen when the non-Orcish parts of the Horde begin to assert themselves, although Saurfang does emerge as an important exception: someone who had been down this road before and should have known better - who learned once again what said ideology led to and then tried to correct matters.

It was a good thing though, that when Saurfang came close to exploring the problems with that ideology, and coming to grips with the damage it does, Anduin was there to remind him that it’s not so bad because the Alliance was somehow responsible for Arthas. It’s a good thing as well that we’re going to treat Sylvanas as a sort of immorality conduit so that we don’t have to grapple with the ideology that she was able to use to successfully hijack the Horde into war.

However, that bitterness aside - the way your third point ends is something that I could give more credence to. My problem is that when Orcish honor culture is allowed to drive the bus though, and the other races just go along with it, I do have to look at what appears to be the higher order term in the equation.

[Vandraeda-kiljaeden]

@Kyalin-cenarion-circle

It was a good thing though, that when Saurfang came close to exploring the problems with that ideology, and coming to grips with the damage it does, Anduin was there to remind him that it’s not so bad because the Alliance was somehow responsible for Arthas.

I agree that moment with Anduin felt a bit odd, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. Arthas didn’t appear out of the ether wholly formed, he was literally the son of one of the primary founders of the Alliance of Lordaeron, and if he hadn’t become a villain he would have eventually become an Alliance leader himself. Terenas isn’t directly responsible for the choices Arthas made, but at the same time Arthas’ actions don’t reflect well on how he was brought up. It was Alliance troops that followed Arthas to Northrend on his ill-fated hunt for Malganis, Alliance troops that backed him up at Stratholme after he dismissed the paladins. Terenas reacted as quickly as he could to recall Arthas once he learned what happened, to his credit, but there were a non-insignificant number of Alliance soldiers who followed Arthas out of loyalty to their prince, and Arthas wouldn’t have made it to Northrend without them. They paid the price for that mistake when Arthas killed them and raised them as the first of his Scourge troops. The difference between him and Sylvanas is that Sylvanas left enough Horde troops alive after the War of Thorns and Lordaeron that she could claim plausible deniability about her intentions to get everyone killed.

Imagine if Arthas’ fall from grace were told over the course of a WoW expansion cycle. To compare it to BfA’s pacing, let’s start with Stratholme in place of the 8.0 opening events, the War of Thorns and Battle for Lordaeron, and we end with Arthas swearing to follow Malganis to the ends of the earth. The rest of the patch questing follows Arthas preparing to leave for Northrend, with maybe a side quest about Uther or Jaina being sad about Stratholme. In place of 8.1 and Baine turning against Sylvanas, we have Arthas arriving in Northrend, fighting the Scourge there with his troops, while Uther rallies the paladins and informs Terenas about what happened. Patch ends with Arthas receiving word that he’s been recalled and burning the ships. Next is 8.2, and instead of Nazjatar we focus on what’s been happening in Lordaeron with Uther and Jaina as the Plague continues to spread, but we go back to Northrend just in time to see Arthas pick up Frostmourne and leave on a cliffhanger there. Finally, in place of the 8.2.5 war campaign finale, we see Arthas return home, and we join the crowds in Lordaeron to greet his homecoming…and then a pre-rendered cinematic plays, and in place of Saurfang’s death we see the infamous Warcraft III cinematic of Arthas killing his father. Turn in the quest immediately afterward, and we realize that his troops are now undead and we have to flee the city along with as many citizens as we can evacuate. In this hypothetical scenario, I’ve changed none of the major plot points of Arthas’ story in Warcraft III, but it’s paced over the course of more than a year as Alliance content, with Alliance player characters taking part alongside Arthas’ troops up until he finds Frostmourne. Would you still say Arthas isn’t an Alliance character, if his story had been told through WoW’s more spread-out pacing instead of the immediacy of a single RTS campaign?

[Droité-black-dragonflight]

@Kyalin-cenarion-circle

this tends to happen when the non-Orcish parts of the Horde begin to assert themselves, although Saurfang does emerge as an important exception: someone who had been down this road before and should have known better - who learned once again what said ideology led to and then tried to correct matters.

I give Saurfang a lot more wiggle room than I otherwise would simply because of the conclusion he came up with; and ultimately his goal. Which is why I do think that despite Anduin’s weird dialogue, The Negotiation was the most important part of Saurfang’s characterization in BfA.

Saurfang admitting that he never really knew Honor. That there was nothing honorable about his generation. About what they did. That he cannot shake off the shackles of the past (his mistakes), he can only move forwards from them. Above all, his sacrifice not being about redeeming himself, but simply trying to give the next generation of Horde a chance at the honor he came to believe he never truly knew … is subtle, but powerful stuff. Simple very paternal sentiments.

As much as I love MU Grom and Doomhammer, there is a part of me that always gets a bit twitchy with the concept of “self sacrifice for redemption, or making up for your own mistakes”. Thankfully, that is not what they did with Saurfang. He admitted he could never make up for his mistakes, and his sacrifice was exclusively focused on the needs of the next generation. Which … if Blizz allows for it … he would make for a very flawed, but still better foundation for future Horde rebuilding than the past two.

“We can’t make up for our mistakes. We need to accept them. Learn from them. Do better.”

[Gandred-amanthul (Gandred)]

The obvious difference between Arthas and Daelin and the Horde’s litany of villains is that the ‘Alliance’ villains are almost immediately cast out and just as quickly turn their actions upon the Alliance, whereas Blackhand, Doomhammer, Garrosh and Sylvanas have all had resounding Horde support - until they start losing.

In my opinion the fundamental problem with the Horde narrative is Blizzard’s obsession with making the Horde obsessed with the Alliance. I’m playing through Zandalar at the moment and am reminded of what a good Horde story can be when allowed to develop independently, yet inevitably Blizzard will do a 180 and say actually, what you really want is to own those elven trees, now let’s start WW3 to get them.

[Droité-black-dragonflight]

@Gandred-amanthul

yet inevitably Blizzard will do a 180 and say actually, what you really want is to own those elven trees, now let’s start WW3 to get them.

This has been a trend for a while.

At some point around Cata there was this weird trend in Blizz’s writing where the Horde had to be antagonistic against the Alliance, the Alliance could never be antagonistic against the Horde. Which created this bizarre feedback loop where Blizz tasks the Horde with being the antagonists in a “Faction Conflict” story, but can’t give them reasons for actually being that because the Alliance can’t be allowed to do anything to justify that antagonism. Add in Blizz’s constant refusal to build up the Horde to actually explain how we could be a threat to the Alliance, and every round of this being a shallow excuse to use the Horde as a vehicle and plot-device to simply settup a future villain for a future expansion … and you get BfA.

The Horde barely eeking out the one “win” we got to label us the villains for the entire expansion, and then Blizz was like “allright, we done here. How best to bury Teldrassil as a topic from the Horde side of the story, while we further villain bat them without the Horde player knowing?!!” Seriously … I genuinely do not think they knew how to write the Horde narrative to include Teld, but they still felt they needed Teld. So they did Teld, but had it vanish from the Horde story after. It was so friggen weird? Its like they started with the conclusion of “Sylvie needs to settup SLs” and haphazardly worked their way back to fill in the pieces?

[Karserd-ragnaros (Karserd)]

@Droité-black-dragonflight

The Horde barely eeking out the one “win” we got to label us the villains for the entire expansion, and then Blizz was like “allright, we done here. How best to bury Teldrassil as a topic from the Horde side of the story, while we further villain bat them without the Horde player knowing?!!” Seriously … I genuinely do not think they knew how to write the Horde narrative to include Teld, but they still felt they needed Teld. So they did Teld, but had it vanish from the Horde story after. It was so friggen weird? Its like they started with the conclusion of “Sylvie needs to settup SLs” and haphazardly worked their way back to fill in the pieces?

They want the shock value without having to deal with nuance and those pesky consequences.

[Droité-black-dragonflight]

@Karserd-ragnaros

They want the shock value without having to deal with nuance and those pesky consequences.

Well, considering their takeaway from the Red Wedding … yeah that would prob be accurate. They conflated “Shock and Awe” with actual competent writing and settup to earn such an event, And ignored the massive consequences that event had on the story moving further. I mean … sigh …

EDIT: And now I’m a little bummed Martin will likely never actually finish that Book series.

[Velskàr-stormrage]

@Droité-black-dragonflight

And now I’m a little bummed Martin will likely never actually finish that Book series.

He’s still set for life from the TV series.

Inevitable effect of having a show inspired by a work that was ongoing; the pacing and success gets out of the author’s control every time.

[Karserd-ragnaros (Karserd)]

@Droité-black-dragonflight

Well, considering their takeaway from the Red Wedding … yeah that would prob be accurate. They conflated “Shock and Awe” with competent writing and settup to earn such an event, And ignored the massive consequences that event had on the story moving further. I mean … sigh …

Well ive seen some of this trend on current media, someone comes and thinks they can do a storyline better (hell im guilty of this), by making things a certain way, however it turns out the original author had an idea of what to do and wasnt thinking of just bigger or the same with a twist or the same but female etc… what you get is a hollow product that tries to undo and old one with just spectacle.

What i dont really get is why is this a thing, these are mistakes of a budding artist, starting with imitation then you go from there to do your own thing, the only thing that i can think of is that theyre forced to do this because some kind of limitation.

Imagine bfa if you could consider it on a vaccum, imagine you could relate to saurfang and took all those cinematics at face value, suddenly the story makes a bit more sense and you can sympathize with the characters and be invested on a story, the problem is that you have to consider how the alliance feels and how this fits with the previous narrative, then suddenly its all crap.

@Droité-black-dragonflight

EDIT: And now I’m a little bummed Martin will likely never actually finish that Book series.

me too.

[Droité-black-dragonflight]

@Karserd-ragnaros

Imagine bfa if you could consider it on a vaccum, imagine you could relate to saurfang and took all those cinematics at face value, suddenly the story makes a bit more sense and you can sympathize with the characters and be invested on a story, the problem is that you have to consider how the alliance feels and how this fits with the previous narrative, then suddenly its all crap.

I’ll say it once, I’ll say it again. If you want the perfect microcosm of how wonky BfA’s writing was, you need look no further than the Xal’atath questline. We are compelled to free her, and if you are Horde you are FORCED to give it to Sylvanas. Who then gives it to Nathanos. Who then gives it to Azshara. Who then gives it to Wrathion. Who then uses it to “I think” seal away N’zoth.

Wut? Truly … wut? Who the hell wrote this? Are we playing pass the plot McGuffin?

[Ninh-draka (Ninh)]

Technically we give it to N’zoth after freeing Xal’atath, then get it back after later killing Uu’nat and give it to Sylvanas.
Just to add more strings to this madness.

[Gladwell-wyrmrest-accord (Gladwell)]

@Zarrín-zuljin

I don’t believe the Alliance shows this aspect either. There are some sentiments expressed from small groups within Worgens that could be taken as akin to this, but that’s a bit of a reach.

I briefly wanted to touch on this with dueling. Human society has this well in place, as well as trial by combat. Strom’kar the Warbreaker’s lore has a bit on it and how it was instrumental to the foundations of human society, too.

[Gladwell-wyrmrest-accord (Gladwell)]

@Kyalin-cenarion-circle

One area I will push back on regarding this is that you appear to have a lot of focus on the major characters - and I think that this has been one of WoW’s greatest failings as an MMO - that rather than focusing on telling us more about the world and the cultures that inhabit it, they have instead focused on a narrow cast of favored characters that often don’t represent the playable races that they belong to. I see this as creating problems for relatability. If I (if I were a hypothetical Horde player) can’t identify with the average, ordinary people on the ground because the story sees them as extras, then why would I feel motivated to protect them?

Right on the head.

WoW circles around these primary characters as a window to explore the world. It doesn’t scatter its attention across a vast cast of characters in the way a series story would (like a movie, or a TV show, what have you), where it’s limber enough to explore the world without it circling a central character. I can see how they fall into this trap, since books tend to hone in on the protagonist and build the world around them most times, but, for a setting that is sold on a “World” and not “The Adventures of Anduin/John Smith/Whoever”, it falls apart quite quickly.

Which I think was the best part of Classic story telling; it told the story of the world, through the people and things you could interact with, but not through the lens of a central character. You could interact with these characters that had prominent standing in it (like attunement to BWL with Rexxar, and some homefront business with Thrall) but in no way were they anything other than second fiddle to the overall experience.

Since this is rooted in WoW’s foundation by as early as Wrath of the Lich King and taking full swing in Cataclysm, and isn’t likely to ever go, you can see why people are very prickly when a roster of characters in a subsection of the story begins to dwindle, or, why things such as a great host of characters in a certain section’s storytelling is brought up as a point of contest in conversations about Blizzard doing side A or H dirty. They’re important to the very heart of the story. You have to groom another character for a long amount of time for them to even be a replacement worth consideration, otherwise they lack the necessary grounding needed to actually view and tell the story that surrounds them.

[Rathi-echo-isles (Rathi)]

How to fix the Horde? You can’t. The solution involves Blizzard admitting they messed up in BfA, and Blizzard doesn’t usually own up to their mistakes. But since you wanted a creative answer rather that a defeatist one, I’ll give you my proposal.

The Horde can’t be fixed with the War of Thorns as part of their history. You may as well ask me how to fix your relationship with your siblings after you murdered your parents. You have to erase that event. Make it so it never happened. Impossible in the real world, but WoW already has a way to roll it back.

It’s cheesy. It won’t be satisfying. People will be mad about it, but people are already mad, and will be no matter what we do or don’t do.

We lose in Shadowlands. Badly. This is the one world-ending threat we simply couldn’t prevent. But fortunately it hasn’t happened yet. This is just a possible future shown to us by the Bronze Dragons, or Velen or Zul or some other prophet.

Basically, it was all a dream. I know, it sucks. But the alternative is it wasn’t a dream, and I find that so much worse.

Present day is still before Teldrassil. Even better, present day is before Broken Shore, before Vol’jin died and Sylvanas became Warchief. Basically, when the Horde was still a faction worthy of its players.

We’d then have to deal with the Burning Legion, N’Zoth, and the Jailor all over again. And it creates a problem for players of Allied Races who shouldn’t be part of their factions yet, but those are new problems for another discussion. Right now, we are trying to fix the Horde, and the only answer I can come up with is not breaking it beyond repair in the first place. Time shenanigans.

[Velskàr-stormrage]

@Rathi-echo-isles

The solution involves Blizzard admitting they messed up in BfA, and Blizzard doesn’t usually own up to their mistakes.

@Rathi-echo-isles

The Horde can’t be fixed with the War of Thorns as part of their history. You may as well ask me how to fix your relationship with your siblings after you murdered your parents. You have to erase that event

Which then necessarily carries the danger of, “Well, you’re just trying to erase your crimes, rather than atone for them.”

There’s no right answer.

@Rathi-echo-isles

It’s cheesy. It won’t be satisfying. People will be mad about it, but people are already mad, and will be no matter what we do or don’t do.

@Rathi-echo-isles

We lose in Shadowlands. Badly. This is the one world-ending threat we simply couldn’t prevent. But fortunately it hasn’t happened yet. This is just a possible future shown to us by the Bronze Dragons, or Velen or Zul or some other prophet.

Ironically, this would actually make for a nice change of pace.

@Rathi-echo-isles

Basically, it was all a dream. I know, it sucks. But the alternative is it wasn’t a dream, and I find that so much worse.

Maybe it did actually happen, but the newly-revived Ysera preserves us in a dream, or works with Nozdormu to send us back in time via our dreams?

I don’t know, it’s magic! Make something up!

[Karserd-ragnaros (Karserd)]

im in the same boat, if things are unfixable you go back and change it, this is fantasy, it will be crap but whats the alternative for both factions? having to forgive the guys that genocided your home or eternally atoning for something you didnt wanted on the first place? no this is going to suck either way we might as well get rid of the story introducing a timetraveling expansion, or just moving altogether to a different timeline with a different outcome, SOMETHING different ffs, as you said id rather zovaal just win.

[Ninh-draka (Ninh)]

@Rathi-echo-isles

We lose in Shadowlands. Badly. This is the one world-ending threat we simply couldn’t prevent. But fortunately it hasn’t happened yet. This is just a possible future shown to us by the Bronze Dragons, or Velen or Zul or some other prophet.

If Blizzard was ever willing to do another world revamp, they could go with having Bronze Dragons turned Infinite send us back in time to stop the Jailer in the distant past (would require a bit of handwaving, but still) thus preventing a ton of events he had some measure of effect on.

Heck, even stopping him as late as Wrath before any of his plans started unfolding would probably get the job done.

[Velskàr-stormrage]

@Ninh-draka

…even stopping him as late as Wrath before any of his plans started unfolding would probably get the job done.

A questline that culminates in us preventing Sylvanas from jumping perhaps?

Sylvanas gets redeemed and we get a nice lesson about how people with depression and suicidal tendencies need our help/empathy/compassion. Win-win.

[Zarrín-zuljin]

@Rathi-echo-isles

We lose in Shadowlands. Badly. This is the one world-ending threat we simply couldn’t prevent. But fortunately it hasn’t happened yet. This is just a possible future shown to us by the Bronze Dragons, or Velen or Zul or some other prophet.

I’m preparing myself for the inevitable backlash that this post will bring, but I’ll suggest it anyway.

What everyone is suggesting is that there isn’t a path out with including Teldrassil as part of the Horde narrative. However, there is one other path out.

Sylvanas being right. Not redemption or atonement for her for her actions, but have her story show her as actually being right the entire time.

She made a pact with the Jailer in EoN (unwittingly) then when BfA starts, the system of death is broken. Trillions are being funneled into the Maw. She needs to do something to save literally everyone. She gains favor with the Jailer in an attempt to do battle with cosmic forces that no one can understand. She takes this burden on alone, trying to limit the backlash on the Horde, making shady deals, delving deeper and deeper into an anti-hero course of action that she feels only she can undertake, because the enemy sees everything. Her conversation before Teldrassil’s burning was actually her wavering on taking such frightening action, but ultimately realizing the consequences of faltering.

Then she saves the Shadowlands and everyone else in reality. The Night Elves still question whether the ends justify the means, but some folks in the Alliance quietly suggest they may actually in this case.

Moving even further away from the narrative that I expect to see, maybe the Jailer has been in charge of keeping the Runecarver (some super evil - maybe even “Death”) in check and the Runecarver was responsible for sending Frostmourne out. The memory we see is the Jailer trying to find out as much as he can to help defeat the powers of the Runecarver. “Death” is part of an infinite cycle, and eventually consumes all (akin almost to the Reapers from the Mass Effect series) before the cycle begins anew. The Jailer is responsible for disabling the Arbiter, but all as part of a plot to aid in finding a way to destroy the system that has cyclically kept empowering “Death” to the detriment of the universe making them akin to male and female Shepard from Mass Effect. In the end, the Jailer dies and Sylvanas is forced into taking a role maintaining balance in the Shadowlands.

It doesn’t solve everything. Many were sacrificed in the battle. And some folks will still not forgive Teldrassil. She’ll be branded as a hero in some circles, sacrificing her freedom to save the entire universe, a villain in others where she has murdered many, and a conflicted character in the remainder. It lessens the blow for the Horde as she can be seen as having some legitimate justification of the greater good - maybe not as pure as the Alliance, but still saving folks in some way.

I know that solution doesn’t go over well with a ton of folks and I expect a lot of backlash for even suggesting it, but it does aid in alleviating the damage Teldrassil did to the Horde overall.

[Velskàr-stormrage]

@Zarrín-zuljin

Sylvanas being right. Not redemption or atonement for her for her actions, but have her story show her as actually being right the entire time.

NOPE.