I feel the Horde needs a feel-good moment before SL ends

… Because the writers wanted it that way. Which was Jenakira’s original point.

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It’s not about how htey got there - lots of villains have tragic backstories. it’s how they’re written.

Well first off, Genn’s pride doomed his people to either become werewolves, or be torn apart by werewolves. That is 100% and completely on Genn’s shoulders. not the Horde’s not the Forsaken’s, not the rest of the Alliance of Lordaeron, not even on the Scourge; that was ALL GENN. Since rejoining the Alliance, he’s been constantly urging Stormwind to more and more aggressive and warlike action (usually unsuccessfully), and has been scheming his way into power in the city. Further, he did, you know, try to murder an allied leader in the middle of a demonic invasion, so… Just because you can understand why he’s the way he is, just becuase he’s a sympathetic character, does not make him a heroic character, or even antiheroic. This is villain writing.

I notice you didn’t argue about Maiev.

Karen Proudmore is an arrogant, entitled cretin who imagines herself a victim because her own actions have consequences. To soothe her self-involved ego, she’s attempted genocide multiple times and succeeded in at least one ethnic cleansing. There was a time that the people around here were pretty certain she was possessed by a Dreadlord, because of how gross she had gotten. jaina has so obviously been written like a villain, that the writing team has had to go back and literally retcon more than a few things she’s done, just to make sure that Golden’s favorite remains virtuous and pure.

Shaw is the CIA and I don’t trust the CIA and neither should you.

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Well maybe the taurens should not have been helping Garrosh attack the night elves and pushing Ashenvale/Stonetalon.

Again, if the Alliance ended up attacking them it is because the Horde was attacking the night elves first.

As a person who is generally OK with Jaina’s general story (for the most part, its not like people are screaming for Vareesa’s head; and she was arguably worse than Jaina during the Purge), its hard not to notice that Blizz is fairly hesitant to pull the trigger on Alliance characters being portrayed as aggressive of antagonistic. At least not in ways that have consequences. They have far less reservations doing that with Horde characters; or at bare minimum making Horde characters convenient for those will take that antagonistic role.

Blizzard never has the will to commit to Alliance aggression. Its been a common writing trend from then since the start of Cata. Which brings with it a whole ton of problems.

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It is, and it’s his greatest regret. He believed that his people would be stronger on their own. He was wrong.

The same leader that destroyed his kingdom and killed his son. She deserved worse than death, both then and especially now.

You mean spending her life helping out the Horde, only to have them Destroy her city with countless people inside of it? I too would go berserk with rage. The fact that she forgave them so quickly in bfa was quite surprising. I would certainly have not.
Also, we’re setting the barrier for genocide quite low here. By your standards, the forsaken have attempted and succeded with multiple. Do you believe they deserve to be wiped out for that?

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the alliance side is missing some kind of unrepentant attitude of selfrighteousness, the part that turns murky the edge of lawful good and evil.

you’re just lawful and you do dubious things to keep order.

i really dont know what the heck is wrong with them, this is a side they couldve explore as going too far before…

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I just think they’re disconnected, and far too comfortable writing within the confines of what the Alliance is right now. They have a bit of a safe-space of character archetypes they feel comfortable with writing; and generally they are of the Anduin, Jaina, Baine, Thrall variety. However, for some bizarre reason (I feel this is largely thanks to the positive response to Zandalar questing and the Zappy-boi phenonema) they seem to have become far more comfortable writing positive portrayals of Trolls lately. Which is a nice change of pace while it lasts at least. I feared for Bwon for a while.

I don’t know if its partially because they’re afraid to accidentally stepping on the toes of those Alliance players who do revel in a Moral Absolutist power fantasy, but the issue is bizarre … and apparently self-reinforcing. It has also had dire consequences for the story as a whole.

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Pop into this thread and people out here really going to bat for Magatha Grimtotem.

And people consider the night elf whingers delusional…

/kamuiOutOfThread

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There is a segment of the Horde playerbase that only really quantifies a “good” Horde leader by how much they make a stink about hating the Alliance. It doesn’t matter if they are actually being genuine, or how many of their own people they slaughter or hurt in their power plays … as long as they give that Anti-Blue Lipservice they get a pass. Its frustrating.

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Isn’t Magatha the one who outright betrayed the Horde? Why would anyone want her as leader?

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this

10char

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I’m certain we’ve fought over that once or twice before and my personal dislike with that kind of thinking.

But there are far better candidates for the irrational hate train than Magatha Grimtotem.

I just…/sigh

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Some people don’t see it that way, because her “public” reasoning for it was she wanted to protect the Tauren from the Alliance. It doesn’t matter to those people that that was total BS. That she orchestrated Cairne’s death and then sent her Grimtotem on a slaughter spree through Mulgore … for her quest for power. It doesn’t even matter if some Grimtotem tribes outright joined the Alliance against the rest of he Tauren in Cata. Reinforcing just how BS it all was.

She gives lipservice to hating the Alliance … she gets a pass from some. Far more than “Alliance-Lovers” like Baine, Hamuul, Muln, or Dezco would get if put in the spotlight. Garrosh and Sylvanas have both had similar phenomena attached to them too. It didn’t matter how many Horde they slaughtered, as long as those lives took Alliance ones with them.

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Priorities, am I right guys?

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Well there was the slight problem that she walked off completely scot free after what she did. I would agree that it was poor writing that she did but because of it i’m just happy he got a punch in against her, and a solid one to boot. I agree that the timing was poor. Well it would have been poor, but because of what she was trying to do it turns out he did it just in time.

…You do understand that the forsaken have been pretty consistently written as villains in WoW’s story, right?

Thank you for supporting my point that the only thing keeping the characters I named positioned as "heroes’ is the fact they wear blue.

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Yes. That was the problem when Genn attacked the leader of a world power during an armistice joint effort to destroy the most powerful force the living universe had ever seen, whom had destroyed or conquered every single planet they had ever visited in their entire history save for Azeroth.

I agree completely, you’re unerringly correct.

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As did Vareesa, who arguably was worse than Jaina during the purge … for worse reasons. Regardless, their lack of consequences do not really overshadow what happened with Aethas … /shudder. He didn’t even know about the theft of the bell till it was moments too late to stop it, but he still had to bow and apologize for what happened to his people during the Purge.

That was … very, VERY gross.

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Are they? Then why do you complain that the Horde is depicted as villains, since they are in cahoots with the Forsaken?

Which she did nothing to help with. She just waltzed off to Stormheim, not having a care in the world.
Also, at that point the Horde and Alliance attack had failed. It was up to the Order halls to try and fight the legion. Or can you remember a single Alliance or Horde soldier in any zone besides the starting scenario at the broken shore?

That absolute moron decided that instead of Alerting Jaina that the bell had been stolen, he choose to hide it from her because he thought Hellscream would be worse than Jaina. That is nothing but sheer cowardice. I agree that their actions were overblown, but don’t pretend that Aethas was innocent. had he alerted Jaina immiedietly, it would have been far easier to stop Garrosh.

I’m not a fan of hers and would never want her to be tauren leader. But I think some people have latched onto her just because she is in every way the anti-Baine.

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