I mean, it is kinda that bad for the Horde

Lore Story Forum
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The truth is, you don’t want story to change. You think you want to, but people in this thread makes it very clear that Blizzard has you in exactly the place you’d like to be in the first place.

You want changes to the lore, but from the posts of these kaldorei fans and traditionalist hordes, you don’t want to give up anything. It’s simply imposing an impossible choice on writers without you offering them a clear path.

I could only laugh reading this thread, because both sides say that nothing Blizzard does will be enough. If nothing is enough why do you waste your time here discussing this?

The default behavior in this discussion is a clear example of what the French psychologist Lacan called the enjoyment of suffering. You don’t want real change, you just want people to know how miserable you are for being in this situation, It may seem counterintuitive, but people take enormous pleasure in this kind of misery. Now, every choice implies a renunciation, but you folks make a point of making it clear beforehand that there is nothing that can change your situation, that is, you completely refuse to renounce anything. My question is why do you still pay attention to this game if the lore is as miserable as you say and there is no possibility of salvation?

This is a clear demonstration of an ulterior motive of a psychological nature. People love being in this situation of feeling wronged and at the same time having the moral high ground. Basically, no one cared about the kaldorei until BFA and for the last 7 years this forum has basically been a divan for players who play this race to make other players feel bad about what happened to them. People who act like this should see a psychologist instead of making other people feel bad for playing a game.

The same goes for those traditionalists from the Horde of Thrall who constantly accuse other players of being secretly fanboys of Sylvanas and Garrosh.

Now I ask, what’s wrong with liking Garrosh and Sylvanas? They are just characters from a video game, they in no way represent people’s morality. That’s the problem with people here projecting their identity so deeply onto Warcraft. It is impossible to have a rational discussion on any topic. It all ends in this Olympics of who suffered the most with the choices of devs who earn $250k a year.

Things are as simple as they seem folks. Blizzard is completely incapable of writing interesting lore for the Horde that isn’t within the context of faction conflict. This is not an opinion, it is simply the empirical evidence we have. And since you hate faction warfare (because you want the best of both worlds, all without renoucingg anything at the same time) the company chose the easy way out, it completely ignores the existence of the Horde.

Now I think it’s really funny that you haven’t realized after 20 years of WOW that the Horde simply doesn’t exist outside of the realm of factional conflict. Maybe you never understood the purpose of the faction - which was a union of the oppressed against an imperialist and racist force - but other than that, there really isn’t much going on for the Horde.

The only way for the Horde to become interesting again is if what I advocated here on this forum years ago happens, the creation of a third super power in WOW. I thought it would be Sylvanas who would do this, using the Scourge, but Blizzard chose a more interesting path, using this empire of Arathi light fanatics beyond the sea.

Now knowing the professional sufferers on this forum, I know you will be disappointed. But the best narrative will be the one in which the orcs can go back to being orcs and make war. That’s what makes them so fun, that’s why WOD has a leveling that humiliates all the leveling experiences in this franchise. I just cant wait for the day when I see a bunch of human light zealots at war with orcs using Iron Horde technology. That’s the real WOW. And many here will resent this because in these 20 years WOW has never been able to create anything superior to the old formula of an orc and human killing each other on some battlefield.

And Metzen is going to do it again right under your noses in the most obvious way possible and you clearly haven’t realized his true intentions yet.

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I heard it, but it was from people who bought the idea that the system of government was the Horde’s problem, and not the writers’ determination to make the warchiefs bad/make the bad people warchiefs. And they also seemed to think that getting rid of the position of warchief would be a guarantee that the Horde wouldn’t be villain-batted again. I never really understood that perspective.

Me too. It doesn’t feel like the Horde anymore. And there’s no reason you can’t have a warchief and a council.

I disagree with the characterization of the warchief model as fascism. Fascism is more than just having a leader with ultimate authority. Absolute monarchs have unlimited authority too, after all.

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It absolutely is not fascism, fascism was created by Mussolini in the 1920s. The Warchief model doesn’t forbid individualism (there’s multiple religions and customs expressed in Horde culture). They don’t have a strict oppressive hierarchy designed to subordinate members of society. They even allow for local governments to operate autonomously, entirely opposite to fascist policy and ethics.

…Garrosh tried, and ultimately failed to convert the Horde to a fascist state. But he had violated the trust of every consul he had. Like most fascist leaders was fairly appointed, and like most, met an ill fate early.

Anyway yeah the Horde has never been fascist. It’s had some fascist leaders/politicians but at no time would I describe the horde as entirely fascist.

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…the WC3 orcs aren’t and never were wishy-washy- poetry readers though. So they’re railing against something that was never a real thing to begin with.

I think we all would have remembered if this scene ever played out in WoW

"Me are Allen Ginsorc; and this am me new poem, ‘Gorehowl’-
Me saw best minds of me generation destroyed by fel blood
raving hysterical greenskins
dragging themselves through Shattrath streets
looking for more hooved draenei to kill
Angle-bodied Naaru glowing with ancient orderly light
ground to dust for fuel big Blackrock machines"

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I am done here.

-You are now deliberately ignoring the fact that the issue I have talked about is non-faction conflict lore.
-The idea that I “blame the alliance” is both a straw man and ad hominem.
-It does not matter how much you claim “fact”, your interpretation of things that aren’t even relevant here is still your interpretation.

This is little more than shouting. So I’m going to go ahead and just block you.

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Stormwind now has a “House of the People,” so now the Alliance is more democratic than the Horde.

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This is objectively false. I’m going to concede that there are parts of your quite well-written statement later on that do ring true. But I, myself, have conceded arguments in this very thread. And on top of that, rationalized myself more to arguments that, as an example, hearing and absorbing more of a specific Night Elf poster here, and being at least a little more empathetic to the plight they’re experiencing, personally.

It’s not about wanting to find myself in the, “enjoyment of suffering”. It’s that I want the story to be a little more coherent with an obvious direction in regards to the shambles that the Horde is in now. And if that means switching things up, and having to go with a different narrative direction with the Horde that isn’t soley about the “Thrall Horde” or “Faction Conflict”, then so be it. That’s the purpose of me creating this post in the first place.

You have a depth of well-thought out arguments and critiques throughout the majority of the diatribe you typed up, which honestly feels like it could be the beginning of an compelling essay(and I absolutely mean that as a compliment).

I think you’re doing a disservice to it by prefacing it with, You all live in your own faction bubbles and I’m smugly mocking you about it. I can change my opinion, modify it, empathize. And I’ve seen others do it, too.

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And look what that mindset got the Amani and Zul’jin. Dead and will keep villain batted.

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I was just kinda quoting for glib sake, Zerde, I didn’t mean real substance behind it.

Well written villains are memorable, though. But really, what do I know? People surely aren’t talking about Arthas 15 years after he died.

*And yeah, before it devolves into it - I know Zul’jin was a victim in many, many ways. Back when this story made an iota of sense.

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Eh, funny enough people are talking about it again mostly because of Chronicles 4 and Arthas’ end there. Not to mention we kinda just got done with Wrath classic. Oh and he gets to be a “memory” next patch.

A lesson to learn in WoW is yes, you can be a victim, but if you ultimately victimize others you are probably no better then those who hurt you.

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Are they any good? I’m a bit of a lore-nut, but, most of it has been through the wiki’s and in-game portrayals, or Youtube videos (like, when I’m not playing that faction, currently.)

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I can’t say anything about 4 because I don’t have it and have only seen snippets of it. I enjoy the other 3 mostly because they are a quick recap of events. They are a mini wowwiki.

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Well, and to also keep current retcons in mind, and contextualizing that with current lore, would be my guess.

I’d also hazard that part of what you were mentioning prior has a lot to do with worrying they’re going to screw up Arthas in some way. There’s not a non-zero history of Blizzard taking beloved characters and diminishing them by expanding on their backstory.

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Well, lets looks at the typical aspects of Fascism.
Autocracy: Check
Ultranationalist, nation over individual: Check, ‘For the Horde’
Single dictatorial leader: Check
Militarism: Check, it is Warchief after all
Forced suppression of opposition: Less obvious during Thrall’s time, but I would argue still there.

It kind of hits all the point.

While I am confident it has never actually happened in RL, in theory fascism could could be okay (I would argue just okay, not good) so long as it was a good person leader. Though I am not a historian. But the chances of that happening are near zero. But in the fictional world, Thrall being a good person running it can be the story.

But I would argue the Warchief structure of the Horde was a fascism.

Fascism doesn’t have to outlaw religions and individualism. It just has to put them under the nation in priority. Which the Horde absolutely does.

First off, moving the goal post.

Second, not true. Even IF you exclude the faction conflict expansion you are still left with:

Vanilla: A bit more Alliance (though I would argue that is mostly because WC3 set up the Horde more and the Alliance needed more fleshed out, but let’s give it to the Alliance anyway)
Burning Crusade: More Horde than Alliance
Wrath: Themed around the scourge, which is you know FORSAKEN story. Yes Arthas was a human, but he was from Lordaeron the home of the Forsaken. At best you could call that expac neutral.
WoD: More Horde story than Alliance.
Legion: Two zones were Alliance heavy (Val’sharah, Argus), two zones were Horde heavy (Highmountain, Suramar). Of those Suramar played the largest part of the story of any zone/story line and they are part of the Horde. I would call Legion mostly equal. If anything Horde would have a slight edge, though only slight.
Shadowlands: Mostly neutral but slightly more Horde (Sylvanas and Jailor FAR more connected the Horde). Also Kaelthas, Bwomsamdi, loa, etc. being at least equal to the ‘night elf’ parts.
DF: Mostly neutral, Slightly more Alliance

That hardly paints a picture off the Alliance ‘having a monopoly on lore.’

And third, even if we believed non-faction war expacs favored the Alliance in amount of lore (again, they don’t), how is excluding the ones that clearly and objectively favor the Horde in amount of lore fair? Even if the Horde got less in those between factions, they still clearly got more in the faction war ones. So, what you are basically arguing is that the Horde should always get equal to or more lore than the Alliance. That the Alliance should never get more in any expac even though the Horde does in some. You might not see that is where you argument leads, but it does.

Are you seriously going to contend that doing the Horde content first, creating more content for the Horde, and building the Alliance content around the Horde (which are all things that happened, not interpretation) all come together to give the Alliance ‘monopoly on lore?’

Again, let me say:
You are free to having complaints about the Horde story direction. That is 100% fair. And I would probably agree with a fair amount of them. I have certainly agreed with some in this thread. There are legitimate problems with the Horde story. But, those problem are NOT a result of any lore monopoly by the Alliance, or remotely Alliance favoring.

It think you are lumping everyone under one extreme or the other. Sure, there are those here that are full on ‘ignore the other side, give me what I want.’ But I don’t think that is the majority of the people here.

It will never be perfect, true. But it could be better.

That just isn’t true. There were plenty of discussions around the Kaldorei LONG before BfA.

I don’t think there is much of that actually happening. Sure, it does happen. But not all that much. Most of those ‘accused of being fanboys of Sylvanas and Garrosh’ directly say it. There are those whose main complaint from the faction wars is the Horde did not get to destroy the Alliance. So they are a thing. And enough of a thing that Blizzard added loyalist options during BfA.

That depends on how far they take it. For instance, are they the ones that think Garrosh/Sylvanas should have been allowed to win at the cost of the Alliance players? There is a line that can be crossed that takes you from ‘liking a character’ to advocating for the other side to get wrecked in service of that character.

That is your personal taste. I for one didn’t care for WoDs leveling story. That is all subjective.

They could screw it up with a retcon. But at this point I think we will largely be safe. Arthas path and history has been pretty clearly laid out. I really don’t see them changing much, if anything. I think, in this case, the odds are good nothing changes about him.

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No, it really doesn’t. Several of those only work if you uncharitably stretch a point, which I can see you’re very much inclined to do.

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Which ones do you think are a stretch?

IMO, the only one that is even kind of questionable is the suppression of opposition. Which I would argue did happen, even under Thrall. It tends to be largely ignored because most of what he suppressed probably should be. And Thrall did not do it nearly as much as the other leaders because of who he was, not because he couldn’t. The Warchief had the authority.

And even if you exclude that it still clearly hits all the others, which I would argue 4 out of 5 is enough to put it in the same category.

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I have varying levels of quibbles with all of them.

  • Autocracy: The definition of autocracy is “government by one individual with absolute power.” As I said above, this also applies to absolute monarchies.
  • Ultranationalist/suppressing the individual in favor of the nation: Using the battlecry of “For the Horde” doesn’t prove that.
  • Using the loaded word “dictatorial” to characterize the leader.
  • Militarism. Again, the fact that the leader’s title is “warchief” doesn’t prove that the society is militaristic. You don’t see the military pervading everyday life any more on the Horde side than you do on the Alliance side, and it doesn’t affect the life of the Horde PC any more than it does the Alliance PC.
  • Forced suppression of opposition: That’s way too vague. No government wants to be overthrown, so of course (some kinds of) opposition are going to be suppressed.

And that’s leaving aside the fact that your list of characteristics defining fascism is extremely short and general. You only list five items, of which two (“autocracy” and “single dictatorial leader”) are more or less redundant. Umberto Eco’s famous list, by contrast, includes fourteen items, and other models are similarly detailed.

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I’ve lurked on these forums for many years. There have been discussions about Kaldorei culture many, many times. An example I remember is reading more than one post about the “defanging” of the Kaldorei from their Warcraft 3 counterparts and they were well before BFA. There have been passionate Night Elf fans since the inception and there has been vocalization about them since I can remember, in regards to Warcraft.

I’ve been, at times, fans of both of these characters. Sylvanas a bit more than Garrosh, but my Vanilla warrior was Forsaken and I found Sylvanas’ story to be compelling. She had a lot of levels to her.

Garrosh’s narrative journey was interesting, too, though. A big portion of his entire narrative in the beginning was about living in the shadow of his father and being ashamed of it. And we got to see him grow, and watch as Garrosh’s opinions on that matter changed.

With Sylvanas, I’ll probably always be upset with how her story went. But like you were saying, me being a fan of these two characters at some points in my Warcraft experience does not mean I wanted to see the Alliance player’s faction be wiped out, or their experience lessened.

The game is a two-faction game. Advocating for the other side to take massive causalities to the point where their faction is annihilated is just plain selfish and short-sighted. And not to mention impossible for Blizzard to do or write considering the split playerbase due to said two-faction systems.

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There are a LOT of people asking for WH40K Empire out of the Alliance.
Numbers of people asking for things contrary to the setting =/= correct and/or valid decision to make.

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Same could be said of the Alliance. There is no democracy on Azeroth. You either have a High King or a Warchief. Even with the council, we didn’t vote for them. I’d never vote for them.

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