Well we’ll see I suppose. Good luck to them if they try, I don’t see many people buying it.
I hear Blizzard jail is pretty nice based on what Toast says.
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You are excused.
…You monster.
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Oh, I’m expecting nobody will buy it. The writing team on the other hand…
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The writers are telling a story about characters.
Not factions.
They don’t care much about the score board of faction grudges.
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The writers are absolutely telling a story about factions. Characters drive the faction storylines and thus the two are intrinsically linked.
Sylvanas (and a few of her diehard loyalists) will get all of the blame, and all of the other Horde characters (Saurfang, Eitrigg, Rexxar, Garona, maybe even Nathanos depending on how things work out, as well as everybody else down to the lowly peons) will be absolutely absolved by Anduin and everybody will be expected to play along with it.
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Or, my personal preferred method, both factions are left in such disastrous states at the conclusion in the War that neither side can really afford to assert authority over the other (revenge is a luxury after all). Though … saying that, the chances of “Mostly” Faction exclusive continents does go up with that route (even if its small) … so I may reconsider my stance on it.
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And what, per-say, would be your solution towards resolution? ![:smiley:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")
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Break both factions and continue the war on a smaller scale.
And never again put the Horde and Alliance races in the same hub again unless they earn the reputation for it.
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OK … and why would that happen?
The shared cultural norms between the Humans, Worgen, Draenei, Gnomes, and Dwarves provide a binding agent for those groups (and the lack of competition for resources and land puts a damper on potential conflict). What would prompt them to leave the faction? ATM, few of them have PERSONAL reasons to do so, with the NEs being the exception as always (and, even then, their lashing out against the Alliance kind of feels like they’re just shifting the blame; just like Quel’thalas did after the Second War to justify the elves leaving the Alliance of Lordaeron).
What I imagine?
Tyrande after retaking Darkshore she begins with the whole “First we retake Ashenvale and then we kill them all.”
Que the Andiun morality police.
Genn, Jaina and Tyrande being on the side of “Dismantle the Horde” thing.
Meaning never again will Orgrimmar hold armies from all races in its borders to threaten the NEs.
They disagree and leave.
Andiun and whoever is willing to follow him leave with him.
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So, essentially a repeat of the conclusion of the Second War; but without all the moral “grey-ness” of Internment Camps. Also, Jaina and Genn are currently on the side of Anduin on this topic; with both deliberately saying that their primary objective is removing Sylvanas from a position of power within the Horde (and I don’t think they just mean as Warchief). That could change with the Derek issue, but for now … Tyrande is the only one sitting in the non-Anduin camp atm.
Also, even IF Genn and Jaina change their minds … it would essentially mean that the Alliance would be deliberately weakening itself due to this disagreement; AND it presumes that the Alliance will be in ANY position strength-wise to assert authority over the Horde by the end of this war (which I really, REALLY doubt. There is a reason they didn’t attempt to maintain a forced occupation of even Dazal’alor … can you imagine how resource intensive it would be to maintain those types of sanctions on the Horde)?
It would be immense…
Occupy Dazaralor?
Why? I would have set Azerite bombs all over the place as I retreated.
Set the whole city on fire and utter devastation.
cripple their ports and leave a crumbling ruin behind. Any Horde and Zanadalari forces inside the city would be completely eradicated.
Take the fleet straight to Quel Thelas and begin bombarding the city. Have void elves infiltrate the Sunwell and put a small garrison inside the island.
Should the Horde ever break their treaty the void elves would corrupt the well.
Then take whatever force can be mustered and attack orgrimmar.
Boom.
Faction war over.
Forever.
Kill everyone in Orgrimmar. Doesn’t really matter.
Well at least thats how I would do it.
Battle for Dazaralor was pretty pointless.
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So yeah, commit genocide against every Horde race. Not going to happen, and … the idea that the Alliance is committed to a War of Extermination against the Horde is exactly how Sylvanas has been able to maintain control of them after Teldrassil. Them actually doing it would reinforce her rule, and justify the Horde going to greater and greater extremes to defend themselves.
Honestly, the Horde aren’t SO weak that that won’t turn into an absolute meatgrinder for the Alliance forces if Blizz pursued your little route; especially since several Horde races are being handicapped in the A-morality of the tactics they SHOULD be using within even the content in 8.1. If you let the Forsaken and Bilgewater truly off the chain, there shouldn’t even be a Darkshore left to reclaim if both race’s thought they genuinely couldn’t hold the region.
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So Sylvanas is keeping control because she convinced the others that the Alliance is conducting a war of extermination.
So… regardless of what the Alliance does they in the same situation so why NOT exterminate those that are already exterminating you?
You know, I’m not sure it’s ever made much sense that the Night Elves were “guerilla fighters”.
From a strategic standpoint, it’s a complete sham. The Night Elves are - Were? - A very populous race with many large settlements housing sizeable civilian populations. A guerilla strategy is centered around striking quickly and retreating before retaliation can come, usually undertaken by a small force against a larger and more organized force. But for the Night Elves, their enemies have targets to hit back at. Like Teldrassil, for example. If the Night Elves could just flee anywhere, if they didn’t have a civilian population to protect, they could have run the Horde around their territory forever. But because they had to defend their city, they had no choice but to form a sort of defensive line to halt the enemy directly, while only employing hit and run tactics in a minor way.
I’m also not sure it follows in a historical sense. The Night Elven military has always, since way back in the War of the Ancients, been shown to engage in pitched, line-to-line battles. Against the Demons, the Qiraji, even the Horde in WCIII they usually fought in a direct sort of way.
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Yeah, its subtly implied within small dialogue with several character (Eitrigg, Voss, Garona, Lor’themar), but its a topic that has not been well represented in game.
It doesn’t really matter if the Horde is mortified by Teldrassil or not, while it was a questionable military decision by Sylvanas … burning that tree was a pretty effective political move on her part. While it doesn’t outright silence decent, it does suppress it heavily; because moving against her means weakening the Horde, and leaving it exposed to be destroyed by the Alliance. In the case of Baine, the reason he’s not likely dead after his betrayal (which I’m fairly certain she wanted) is that she’s using him as a hostage to keep the Tauren in line. Zelling had no such value.
Bluntly, Anduin’s plan … isn’t terrible (even if its not deliberate). Taking out the Zandalari fleet lowers the Horde’s mobility sure, but sitting back and allowing the Horde some breathing room breaks down the narrative that allows her to maintain control … and thus, allows those that would move against her some space to do so. Tyrande in contrast is reinforcing the narrative that keeps Sylvanas in charge, and … honestly … may be making things more difficult for the Alliance (didn’t you wonder why the captured NE territories were filled with the two Horde races that would piss off the Kaldorei the most)?
Turns out, Sylvanas a REALLY good at prioritizing control.
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I dont see anything wrong with the alliance weakening itself in the long term.
Why? It would mean less author fiat, Mcguffins, alliance commanders being window-licking stupid, and other garbage story hooks for the Horde to even have a chance against the alliance in a faction conflict.
Let’s not put our heads in the sand and ignore the stupid plot contrivances we’ve seen in the past, much less this expansion to justify the Horde not being steamrolled for the nth time the second they stick their heads up.
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As much as I agree that Blizzard/WoW should focus on racial narratives over the overall faction narrative, this claim is quite silly.
Sylvanas burning Teldrassil/Darkshore shenanigans pale in comparison to
- Illidan powering a portal to blow up a planet by sacrificing Draenei/Broken souls
- Illidan force-feeding Magtheridon’s curse to orcs
- Grom Hellscream being Grom Hellscream
- Orc history in general
In current WoW, Illidan is redeemed, Grom is redeemed, and orcs are redeemed.
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True though it is, it doesn’t mean that any Alliance would go so far as to trust the Horde for any length of time. If anything, you’d trust the Black Empire more; They are at least forward with wanting to kill you/enslave you. With the Horde after all this time you don’t know what they’ll do.
The only believable outcome there would be that dealing with the Horde is shunted to the side, in favor of the current big bad. May be a few operations against them here and there during moments of breathing room, just so they are kept off their game.
In short, even if both factions were torn down, Alliance teaming up with Horde should be downright impossible. Already been stabbed in the back by them twice now, what sensible person would gamble for a third?
I say this all with the same mindset as Allerya though; Everything is “fixed” by BfA’s end solely because the writers say it is, regardless of how asinine it is or unpopular.
Does it make a difference if I never did the War of Thorns on my Horde toons? Because I didn’t.