Until he decided that gaining “independance” from the Alliance, as you put it, required him to invade Alliance lands and kill the people there, to make way for his people. If he had decided to get that independance through other means i’d agree that he had a point. But his plan from the get go was to take it from the Alliance, not through other means. He was orc hitler from the start.
That isn’t true though. Durotar borders a freshwater river, one that could be used for farming. Garrosh’s short story observed that the farming infrastructure under Thrall wasn’t good. Baine’s short story, which takes place later, establishes that Garrosh sets up this farming - and we also see environmental changes to this effect. That’s one of the one things that Garrosh does get correct - he reverses years of infrastructure neglect that his predecessor failed to address.
That infrastructure neglect is not the Night Elves’ fault, nor is it their responsibility. So no, I reject this idea that the Orcs would have starved to death without the trade deal or without war.
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Ouch. I thought I made it pretty clear.
- Re: the Alliance:
I agree with Droite that
- Re: The Horde:
Here I will happily re-quote myself:
I’m not sure how this (broken) story dynamic is difficult to understand.
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Regarding your requote and concerns with the Alliance, I’m not sure where you think I disagreed - hence why I don’t know what you’re arguing at this point.
Regarding your comment:
That’s true; the Kaldorei did not cause the orcs’ lack of resources in Durotar. But do you know where the fault does lie?
With one (former) Grand Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, the same man who took over Theramore and attacked the Horde without provocation in the “Old Hatreds” campaign in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. He’s directly responsible for Durotar being a barren wasteland—he literally deforested it himself.
And we still, to this day, have yet to see either Jaina, Kul Tiras, or the Alliance at large being held accountable for either that initial action, or the decades-long “Lumber Wars” that resulted from it, which impacted the night elves as well as the orcs.
Because again, the Alliance is never held accountable for its actions, while the Horde is always held accountable to the utmost extreme.
That’s what I’m arguing.
Whether or not you personally agree or disagree is up to you.
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I feel that the narrative actually did hold Daelin accountable for such actions, notwithstanding BFA’s decision to vindicate him. I’m not sure why you would hold Jaina responsible for that action though - she actively worked against her father. Nor am I sure why you’d hold Kul’tiras accountable for it - seeing as how they couldn’t have known about the fate of his expedition at the time.
I will note however, Daelin’s clear-cutting did not justify Thrall’s support for the Vanilla-era re-invasion of Ashenvale. The Night Elves were not responsible for Daelin’s actions, nor were they consulted at the time.
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When, where, and how?
Because no, his death doesn’t solve the problem he caused within that region’s ecosystem.
She’s the current Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras—therefore, her kingdom’s mistakes are on her to correct. This is basic global diplomacy.
How his expedition ended is irrelevant to the measures it took (against an indigenous people, hmmmm).
And that’s a bigger indication of Vanilla’s lackluster writing than anything else.
As I’ve said previously, it would’ve made far more narrative sense at the time for the Kaldorei to actually join the Horde, under the premise of their druids helping Thrall and his shamans regrow the vegetation, and their Sentinels having impressed the orc warriors with their combat techniques.
Literally the only reason the night elves joined Team Blue was so that neither faction had complete control over either continent—that’s a gameplay/PvP reason, not a story/narrative one.
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Perhaps because for Jaina’s part, she killed her own father in order for the Horde to exist, and because she would have opposed his deforestation efforts had she been there to do so. Asking her to apologize to the Horde, when she gave more for it’s survival than most Horde leaders, is nonsense.
For the Alliance’s part, Daelin launced his campaign independant of the rest of the Alliance, which also included the current Forsaken I might add. When he died, and Kul tiras wanted vengeance, the Alliance told them to pound sand. I’m not sure what else you want.
As for Kul tiras, I guess they could be held responsible, and help reforest the place.
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Again, in the realm of global diplomatic relations—which, when we’re talking about how Teldrassil communicates with Durotar, how Lordaeron communicates with Kul Tiras, etc., this very much is—that’s actually not as “nonsense” as you might think.
There are very real RL precedents for the family of a fallen/former ruler being expected to atone for his/her mistakes in governance, especially when those decisions directly impacted another nation.
This isn’t about family ties, it’s about international incidents.
Yes, but not independent of the Admiralty of Kul Tiras.
You answer your own question:
Especially considering they literally have their own clan/tribe of druids now, who even specialize in the type of vegetation that’s native to Durotar and the Barrens (Thornspeakers).
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Durotar’s environment fluctuates between barren wasteland to semi fertile desert depending on the writers nonsense. But the general gist of history since Cata has largely been “invalidate any reason for the Horde to be antagonistic while simultaneously forcing them to always be antagonistic”. Including the environment of Durotar itself. Since again, “struggle over resources” isn’t allowed to be a valid justification. As the Horde isn’t allowed justifications. Which is why Blizz more and more over the years just sorts of defaults to “Its X Horde Race, thats just what they do. They’re just evil by birth”.
At its core, this is the reason that this original post brings out so much apathy from Horde players. Because we know two stark realities: 1) That the Horde is not a faction to built up, but rather a plot-device to settup future villains and future expansions; and 2) The Horde not being an actual Faction means that time doesn’t need to be wasted even considering the consequences of what Blizz wants to use us for, and thus it wont stop them doing it again. And since so many issues of the Horde stem from these fundamental writing philosophy issues … there will never be a method to redeem or rebuild us.
The Horde is a compilation of abomination races and cultures that should not exist, and can only prove they’re not evil (by birth) by how submissive and convenient they are to the increasingly flawless Alliance.
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Funny, there almost seems to be a RL racial parallel in there somewhere…
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This!
The actual cause of the current stagment and rot of the storylines in one sentence.
Other settings use this situation to make a new storyline for characters and keep a domino effect on their actions which makes the world more real and hence why the story went full cartoon. If only one day this wasn’t the norm, the storyline could start to heal
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And she did, by killing him, at a great cost to her. She lost both her father and her homeland by doing so, and lost a large part of her life, while not expecting nor recieveing any personal gain from it whatsoever. She would be the first to say that Daelin was wrong, and actually was.
Eh?
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I think we already have a thread that has discussed that topic to death, but yes there is a bit of discomfort that comes from that corner Blizz has written for itself. And it wouldn’t be such an issue if the Races of both Factions were allowed Virtues and Flaws, but that’s not the environment Blizz has crafted by a long shot. Rather the races of the Horde are drowning in Flaws and allowed very few avenues towards Virtues. And the Alliance are oversaturated in Virtues, but allowed almost no tangible Flaws. That’s where things get iffy…
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That doesn’t solve the problem of the orcs having had their natural resources stolen and exploited by a foreign invader.
Which is why the responsibility at the time would have laid with Catherine, being the de facto Lord Admiral after Daelin’s death.
For obvious reasons (namely, her likely sharing most of the Alliance leader’s anti-orc bias), that didn’t happen.
I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying here; obviously, at the time, there was little Jaina could do on her own—she was a refugee of Lordaeron as much as any of the Alliance soldiers at Mt. Hyjal, after all.
But now, as the current Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras, with access to an army of mages who specialize in water magic (read: rain for crops) and a nearby clan/tribe of druids who, again, are quite literally called the Thornspeakers?
Yeah, if she still prides herself on being an inter-faction diplomat who wants peace, she’s more than capable of doing something at the official/national level.
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Responsible is too strong a word after all:
Responsible would mean that you really have to fix it, but the Horde player doesn’t have to. He gets told, and that can - especially as a Horde fanboy - be very annoying, I think everyone understands that.
But it’s not the player’s responsibility to fix it, that’s what the leader characters do. The highest level of emotions would probably be quests that you have to do, but as of now, it doesn’t seem that way.
The reason why Durotar became a desert, and a wasteland before, is that even before that it was capable of maintaining only a small forest. That’s why the Druids didn’t heal Durotar before, something they immediately started doing again at Desolace after the 3rd war, or Felwood. It can’t grow again because it doesn’t correspond to the great plan, what the Emerald Dream pretends.
I would ask how you do not believe the storyline is biased against the Horde itself (and especially the Forsaken and Sylvanas). I’m willing to be corrected, but factually:
- The Horde, once more, is responsible for initiating conflict in multiple areas
- The Horde loses at both Darkshore and Arathi Highlands
- The Forsaken lose the Undercity
- The Forsaken lose the only Forsaken main character that defines the race
- The Forsaken get put into the “Human Potential” box via Calia Menethil to the rescue
- The Horde is hit with the “Leader is upcoming purple dispenser” bat but in this case she’s doing worse than before and yet somehow the servant of some greater evil and has been for the last decade
- The Horde is basically guilty of what we (in our world) would consider war crimes at both Teldrassil AND the Undercity
- Even during the Horde playthrough, you spend the entirety being told how bad you are
Yes, the Alliance has Teldrassil burn, but the Horde actually fails on numerous fronts during the attack. Instead of killing Malfurion, supposedly Sylvanas’ goal, they fail. They’re slowed at numerous points by the Night Elf guards and janitorial staff. On top of that, the Alliance loss of life at Teldrassil is vaguely dismissed by a massive number of refugees escaping (not that this isn’t a good thing overall).
The Horde gets crushed in the narrative in BfA. The Forsaken are basically obliterated. We get told the Alliance doesn’t have the resources to fully dismantle the Horde. The biggest Horde “victory” is that they managed to beat back the overpowered Night Elf support staff before attempting to commit genocide.
I concur wholeheartedly but I expect not in the way you mean. If I’m wrong in my perception of your views, I apologize, but frankly the Horde has spent the last decade being portrayed as a plot-device for “evil” in a lot of variations, then spent most of the rest of the time being smashed for it. That’s been used as a perpetual plot device to keep justifying everything against the Horde, to a comical extent.
Even just in background context the Horde is vilified. The Pantheon (generally seen as good since they created most life) orders Azeroth by first banishing the elementals. Remember when Shamans were Horde only? And they were the class calling on the elements? The Light is associated with holy powers - and most of the major Paladin and Priest characters are in the Alliance. Oh and Paladins were originally Alliance only. Elune - the only confirmed deified creature - is the patron of the Night Elves, while spirituality of other races (Taurens, etc) is seen as secondary. Night Elves are part of the “evolved” version of Trolls (and remember, Blood Elves, Void Elves, and Nightborne are added later, Night Elves were the original version). Gnomes, Dwarves, etc were created by the Pantheon (though cursed by the evil Old Gods to be mortal). Humans are offspring of the Vyrkul (also created by the Pantheon). The Tauren? Descendants of the Yaungol (basically, yetis).
That’s pretty much the portrayal for the last decade. Even the Alliance declaring war was walked back just so that the Horde could be the villains.
And let’s emphasize this point for the folks in the back - if internment camps and Daelin’s actions are examples of “bad actors” and they do not reflect their kingdoms as a whole - then why should we have to constantly suffer from the narrative that the “bad actors” of the Horde reflect on everyone? Especially the player.
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Starting a war is not a bias, and for every argument you listed, I can offer you at least as many arguments for alliance, however, I don’t want to start another contest of “who has it worse”, I just don’t do that. And if the Horde had succeeded everywhere you list, that would have been one at most: Horde bias, do you realize that?
In such a case, Alliance A) would have several heroes lost, territories (in addition to the initial loss), and the reason for the very existence of this faction would have become even more ridiculous.
its not dismissed, if you try to evacuate an entyre COUNTRY in one week, you are only able to save…20-30%, you know. We don’t know any numbers, but Teldrassil was not a city, it was a whole country.
Durotar’s environment fluctuated exactly once - this happened in Cataclysm, where the Southfury flooded out into Durotar and effectively provided the irrigation canals that the Orcs elected not to dig themselves. But I object to the terrain argument here. I live in the functional real world equivalent to Durotar, but where the Valley of the Sun and Durotar differ is that the Hohokam - without the benefit of the wheel, dug canals that are still in use today over a thousand years later, to irrigate the local freshwater rivers for farming. Again, Thrall did not - hence - along with throwing out any hope of a good relationship with the Night Elves - causing the issue that Cataclysm raises.
Well, actually, the reason Durotar became a desert is because old man Proudmoore literally built a working lumber mill out in Thunder Ridge and deforested the entire area to build Tiragarde Keep.
But sure, we’ll retcon it as, “all according to the Emerald Dream’s grand plan,” can’t have the Horde being shown in a sympathetic light, now can we?
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