That’s a small percent of the Horde story. What about the rest of it?
Some is made canon to World of Warcraft, and some is not canon to the lore at all. Just like the non canon RPG is not entirely canon, but things get plucked from it now and then.
Blizzard makes portions of it canon, they never made that whole thing canon. It can be entirely ignored as a different game altogether - because it is- until the stuff makes it into the actual lore.
Just your supposition. Could be aesthetics? Maybe its is designed for the type of people who play Hearthstone? The Hearthstone Lore and Game design is not official to Warcraft or WoW.
I do not have anyone on ignore. Sometimes you make posts with relevant information to Warcraft lore. Just not this one.
As I said, if the title mentioned that you were going to rant about a different video game, I would not have even clicked on it. I would ignore Hearthstone threads, if the OP was honest about it in the title.
Since this is a Hearthstone thread, I will bow out and let you have at this non canon discussion. I only entered because I thought it was related to actual WoW lore coming in Dragonflight.
Even the obvious, The Dark Flight, is not accurate. Which flight is that? the Twilights? the infinites? the Black Dragonflight? It seems to be a flight made up specifically for Hearthstone. A lot of Hearthtone’s stories are parodies or wild retelling of events from a satirical point of view. It’s not supposed to be taken seriously.
I remember when Belluar tried to build a case around the Darkmoon Faire Hearthstone expansion as proof the Darkmoon Faire was hiding Old Gods in the big tents. I have yet to see that one become canon in World of Warcraft.
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A good chunk of it is, at least the part dealing with character personality and background to the main heroes, is canon lore/was further explored in Hearthstone.
Or you know, it is a recurring theme/pattern. Again, they did this back in HoTS and now they are doing it again in Hearthstone? I doubt it is a coincidence.
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Again, Hearthstone is canonically a series of Tavern Tales. Some of the tales may be based on real events or real locations (within the Warcraft canon lore, obviously), others are complete fiction, and some characters featured on the cards may be real people or they may be completely made up.
Because they’re tavern tales, they need to be treated as such, and within the context of Hearthstone, you can be sure there will be individuals, especially say Night Elves, who despise the Horde and will write fiction or tell tales about them that aren’t flattering.
If you legit think this wouldn’t happen, you’re frankly, clueless.
So what we see in Hearthstone is something that is more than legitimate in that context. It’s not ‘Blizzard villain batting the Horde’ because official Warcraft story canon isn’t affected by Hearthstone Tavern Tales.
As for HotS. For extremely obvious reasons, any ‘lore’ from that game should be completely disregarded.
I mean. The primary point of this thread is true. Blizzard writers once again used the imagery of the Horde as the go to villain army in a story. The canonicity of it is an irrelevant point to contend, but the fact that it’s not canon I think reinforces the point that the writers will write the Horde as villains, or an easily duped nation even within a vacuum.
As Hannah Gadsby would say, “That was a choice”. They could’ve gone with anything, and they went with that. They could’ve just easily had a character visualize the Alliance or absolutely any other faction being the willing, or easily duped villain army. Instead, they had the character visualize the Horde, because that story beat hasn’t been done to death.
It’s probably not a big deal, but it’s something to note.
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Precisely. And while I am not 100% sure what the future will hold and that Alliance will continue to escape the Villain bat/that the faction conflict will every spark to the same levels again, I wouldn’t be too comfortable either as Horde.
Heck, this was not the only one, HoTS(rip) did the same and framed Alterac Pass as the Horde being manipulated/the Alliance as serving the good guys.
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The canonicity is actually very important.
Because one of the biggest criticisms of World of Warcraft has been how the Horde have always been portrayed as the villains in multiple expansions, while the Alliance doesn’t get close to the same treatment. Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor, Legion and Battle for Azeroth, all of those expansions portrayed the Horde as a villainous force, essentially drumming into Horde players that they are absolutely playing the ‘evil’ faction.
And that is a very legitimate criticism. Blizzard has ‘villain batted’ the Horde for multiple expansions in a row, and this creates canon which then leads into future expansions in one way or another.
But Hearthstone is considered a series of ‘tavern tales’, with no actual legitimacy in WoW canon. There is no three way war over the streets of Gadgetzan between the Grimy Goons, Kabal and Jade Lotus. Medivh is not throwing extravagant parties in Karazhan, the Lich King did not turn Anduin, Thrall, Jaina, Rexxar, Uther, Gul’dan and Garrosh into Death Knights etc etc.
It’s all fiction. Sure some of the individual characters featured in the cards are people who exist in Azeroth. Some of them even making appearances in expansions like Legion, BFA and Dragonflight, but that’s as far as it goes. So this story about how the Dark Flight is using the Horde to mess with the timeline isn’t tied to any real event in Azeroth. It’s a piece of fiction, canonically written by someone with either a vivid imagination or a grudge against the Horde.
And that context is key, because there are absolutely going to be people in Azeroth who hate the Horde and will have grudges against them.
But I’m not really expecting much, seeing as the person making this argument is also using HotS lore as a supplement for their point, and I’ll remind folks, HotS lore features crazy things like Malfurion being a Demon Hunter and Jaina being a Dreadlord. Aka, so far beyond being considered ‘canon’ that it’s laughable.
Again, the point is not about how canon/non-canon this is. The point is Blizzard continues to use the Horde as the go to villain. Regardless if said storyline can be its own separate thing from main Warcraft continuity.
In both cases it is more of showing “what if” what if Jaina was a villain, what if it was Illidan who did become the druid/Malfurion the demon hunter. Even in said what if scenario I think the biggest takeaway was that Tyrande would still be bound to Malfurion, although as his jailer and not a lover.
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How can you not understand what the main point is?
The main point of the whole thread is not to accurate if the story in question is cannon or not, but to show that BLIZZARD, the company , the writes, the developers, the PEOPLE behind the FRANCHISE, thinks about the horde and how to use/portrait it.
“Oh but hs is not wow”
The same ppl who works on hs can work on wow and vice versa, this kind of change of product is kinda common.
So what happens in one game can affect the other in one way or more.
So yeah blizzard will keep repeating and using the same old themes again and again until this sinking ship is done.
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Why wouldn’t a Horde fan Hearthstone player feel the same way? How is it different just because it’s Hearthstone?
Why do you assume the only in-universe Hearthstone players who are telling these tales are Alliance?
If your point is that both Alliance and Horde play Hearthstone and make up their own stories for it, where is the corresponding Horde-centered Hearthstone storyline that paints the Alliance as the villains?
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So, debate aside, has anyone figured out if this AU timeline is in reference to the player faction Horde, or the Old Horde?
Because they’re kind of fairly different and distinct entities.
Why is it so hard for people to realize the horde just aren’t very good. I’ve seen these posts for years and there’s always surprise.
Because you don’t play as the Alliance and Horde in Hearthstone? You’re not required to make that choice. You’re never asked ‘Alliance or Horde’ and the cards you pull for whatever class you pick are mixed up from all races and factions. It’s not remotely the same.
Also, again, these are Tavern Tales. Not actual lore that is used in expansion after expansion.
Never said that. What I said is that the writer of this tavern tale is probably a member of the Alliance, and that the creation of such a tavern tale is completely understandable given the animosity the Alliance has towards the Horde.
That is not totally true. In fact, Hearthstone had an entire event recently where the player can choose to support Alliance/Horde.
Interestingly, the Alliance won said event. Which might have help promt the decision to just villain bat the Horde(if more players like the Alliance/identify with them, why villain bat it?)
Yes but that is one event, and not the norm. Also it doesn’t change the fact that your cards for a deck come from all factions, not just Alliance, not just Horde. There’s no bonus that you get from fielding an ‘All Alliance’ deck, or an ‘All Horde’ deck.
Hell one of the more recent expansions was a pro-Horde expansion which did NOT paint the Horde in a negative light. That expansion being ‘Forged in the Barrens’.
Funny how you seemed to forget about that when trying to push your ‘they’re villain batting the Horde in HS all the time’ narrative.
I never said “all the time”. However even that particular set of expansions was modeled more after the state of affairs in Vanilla WoW which culminates in just a big old faction brawl.(you know the same state when the Horde was probably closest to being a morally gray organization)
This latest one on the hand just decided to portray the Horde as just easily duped or used Villain army.
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I said “Horde fan player.” The second word is important. Players are drawn to different parts of the world and story, whether they officially play those factions or not.
I don’t think that is as big a deal as you seem to suggest.
So, again: where is the Hearthstone expansion written from a Horde perspective?
And it had an Alliance counterpart expansion (the Stormwind one).
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Everyone who’s been playing WoW for very long should know that this isn’t an artist-driven game; it’s a metric-driven game, and was one of the first games that could be classified as such. Branding, engagement, etc.
It is good to adopt that lens here; no one is raising a question of canonicity; they’re raising a question of branding, because that branding indicates how the lore may be driven in the future. Because there is nothing a marketer hates like confusion over product identity, and the Alliance and Horde are both central product identity to WoW marketing.
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With all this villainous use of the Horde, when/if they switch to giving the Alliance a turn as villains, their actions will pale in comparison to what we’ve seen from the Horde. The Bombing of Theramore and the Burning of Teldrassil make the purge of Camp Taurajo look tame.