But the Alliance will not have the strength, not in Kalimdor, not with their fleets.
After which,
“They might try to conquer the Undercity … but Darnassus becomes our hostage against that. The night elves will not allow your city to fall if they fear it means you will destroy theirs. The same goes for a strike against Silvermoon.”
You keep misunderstanding ‘killing Malfurion’ instead of seeing it as ‘Malfurion miraculously surviving’. Which causes this.
The story of Malfurion’s miraculous survival would have spread among the armies of the Alliance as proof that they were blessed in their cause.
Malfurion’s impossible survival would give them hope. Their wound would heal.
No it does not. You, again, hyper-focused on the particulars of one point of conjecture meant to be years down the road. It does not depend on that.
It required a wound. A wound his death prevented, according to them. They say this repeated times.
You can indulge in your headcanon all you like, Amadis. It hasn’t convinced me. And you can still be ashamed, victimize, and push yourself for things you legitimately are to blame for. Because it was the same plan the entire time.
Malfurion’s death or neutralisation is the key to holding Teldrassil. With him alive those inside would have expectation of liberation. For anyone would know, Malfurion might be able to turn the Tree itself against any that would try to occupy it.
It was your headcanon that the Night Elves wouldn’t know what to do. The following section doesn’t change that she believed that they would, as the section following that section Sylvanas still believes the Night Elves would demand to take Teldrassil back. Let me fix that for you:
This was just Saurfang buying into Sylvanas moving the goal post, which you should understand, since you’re so apt on that fallacy’s use.
I’m going to break down that whole section, too, since that was rather fun, actually. This is Sylvanas’ internal monologue at the beginning of her emotional break down:
To start, sure sounds like genocide, doesn’t it? But seriously, this is just Sylvanas moving the goal post. The plan was never to end the Night Elves as a people, and it was never about the Night Elves losing their leaders, yet here we are with Sylvanas going on about it:
This battle was not about a piece of land. Even Saurfang knew that. Taking the World Tree was a way to inflict a wound that could never heal. Losing their homes and their leaders would have ended the kaldorei as a nation, if not a people.
This next part is just emotional rambling, as the only way this would have bled the Alliance would have been if Genn left it, leaving Sylvanas with just jumping to conclusions without any reason to believe any of this:
Even the loss of one leader would have been enough to create a tide of despair. The wounds of this battle would have bled, festered, decayed, and rotted the Alliance from the inside out.
The next part is how Sylvanas expects the attack on Undercity and/or the attempt to retake Teldrassil would go:
Anduin Wrynn would have lashed out in a final, desperate war, looking for a miracle, because only a miracle would save them.
And then her thoughts devolve into something not related to how Anduin would behave after Teldrassil was taken, but setting up her own self-chastisement:
But a miracle already had. A miracle granted by the honorable hand of a foolish old orc.
And an overconfident warchief. Best to lay blame where it belonged. This was her mistake as much as Saurfang’s.
And then Sylvanas’ thoughts start to spiral out of control as she starts to panic that she had allowed things to possibly get beyond her:
This conquest of Darnassus would rattle the kaldorei people. They would grieve for their lost, fear for their imprisoned, and tremble at the thought of the Horde ransacking their homes. But they would not fall to despair. Not anymore. Malfurion’s impossible survival would give them hope. Their wound would heal.
Even in this dark hour, they would say, Elune still watches over us.
At this point Sylvanas just starts rambling incoherently and emotionally, like someone having conspiratory thoughts that the world itself was out to get her:
And that was almost certainly true, wasn’t it? Elune had intervened. Perhaps she had even stayed Saurfang’s killing blow. And she wouldn’t be the only force beyond the Alliance to oppose Sylvanas’s true objective.
Sylvanas’s anger grew cold.
She had known this would happen. It had simply come sooner than expected. That was all.
And even through all this, Sylvanas still was going forward with the plan to take Teldrassil:
She strode toward the shoreline, ignoring the last few skirmishes and the wailing of those unfortunate kaldorei who had been unable to escape Darkshore. She studied the shape of Teldrassil towering above her in the moonslight. Soon, it would be in the hands of the Horde.
“Secure the beach,” Sylvanas said. “Prepare to invade the tree.”
And at this point Sylvanas didn’t even seem to know what her plan even was any more and was in a mental spiral of her own:
A wound that cannot heal. Sylvanas needed to think of a new way to inflict one. There was no turning back.
And you have not shown that the “wounds that cannot heal” are possible without Genn leaving the Alliance. You’re so hyper-focused on that vague phrase of which you can’t actually connect any details to that you don’t see that Sylvanas doesn’t have a plan outside of Genn.
Meaninglessly repeated, as analyzed above. Repeating something several times can be a fallacy in itself:
Proof by assertion , sometimes informally referred to as proof by repeated assertion, is an informal fallacy in which a proposition is repeatedly restated regardless of contradiction.[1] Sometimes, this may be repeated until challenges dry up, at which point it is asserted as fact due to its not being contradicted (argumentum ad nauseam).[2] In other cases, its repetition may be cited as evidence of its truth, in a variant of the appeal to authority or appeal to belief fallacies.[3]
This fallacy is sometimes used as a form of rhetoric by politicians, or during a debate as a filibuster. In its extreme form, it can also be a form of brainwashing.[1]
Oh, that’s the saddest line anyone can ever give. Are you so self-important that you think convincing you is that goal to anything for anyone? You can enjoy a conversation with people just for the sake of discussing things, you know.
Certainly can, and he does.
But the burning wasn’t, and he blames himself for it, too. If anything, the cinematics he’s given are pretty much a sequence of him finally being able to realize that the burning wasn’t him, but Sylvanas:
Saurfang’s Flashback:
“Old Soldier”: So… You know me? Is that it? What I’ve seen? What I’ve done?
“Lost Honor”: I have given EVERYTHING for the Horde! Bled for it… killed for it… And Sylvanas is destroying it! She will destroy everything!
“Safe Haven”: Do you know? Do you know what she’s done while you’ve been hiding?
That last line, as I’m surprised I haven’t seen more people pointing out, Saurfang might as well have been saying to himself with Thrall as a stand in for a mirror.
A “would that cannot heal” specifically used as a metaphor for, yes, the original plan:
“The Gilneans will be furious if the Alliance acts to help the kaldorei first,” she said. “The boy in Stormwind will have a political crisis on his hands. He is smart, but he is not experienced. What happens when Genn Greymane, Malfurion Stormrage, and Tyrande Whisperwind all demand differing actions? He is not a high king like his father. The respect the others give him is a courtesy, not an obligation. Anduin Wrynn will rapidly become a leader who cannot act. If the Alliance will not march as one, each nation will act in its own interest. Each army will return home to protect their lands from us.”
That’s the horrible irony of proof by assertion. If you’re going to repeat yourself, the only way to counter that is to repeatedly refute it. And then we’re both just going ad nauseam.
Was never the plan, and matches what I showed before:
Also, thinking upon this more, to be fair, Genn does credit the Night Elves for taking in his people.
See above. Sylvanas had originally expected Malfurion to live and join Tyrande in divide Anduin’s attention with Genn, while Sylvanas had already already assumed she was holding Teldrasssil.
Her plan was fatally flawed in the first place. Blizzard went out of its way to put it into Elegy to say so.
Even worse so if we go by her in-game logic, since azerite started popping out everywhere, and Kul’Tiras ended up way closer to Stormwind than Teldrassil was.
While they would demand Darnassus, they Alliance couldn’t take it (because of lacking ships). That does put them in an unclear position of what to do. Hence why they are hypothetically blocking motions to attack other cities. If it makes you feel better, I can rephrase that the Night Elves would demand Darnassus but, being unable to take it and unsure if they can attack elsewhere without retribution, the Alliance in general would be unclear of how to proceed.
I don’t reference it that often, do I? Anyway, I just see it as the same plan, considering she thinks it to herself.
It gets addressed by the fact that destroying Teldrassil clearly doesn’t get Genn to leave the Alliance. But according to both planners, satisfies their need for a wound. When they come for us, they will do so in pain, not in glory. To weaken their moral, create inner conflict, working to split them apart in different hypothetical ways. They never give a reason the Dwarves might go back in the original conjecture, but it is still noted as part of their eventually plan for the individual nations to go defend their own lands. (Because it is given as something years down the line.) That’s why Gilneas is clearly not necessary to them.
But to you, that they feel this way about the burning is just evidence they are lying to themselves.
Is this comment a joke? I need to know if you are serious before I address it seriously.
He should blame himself.
Those lines can refer to a number things outside this speculation that he somehow doesn’t blame himself for Teldrassil. The second and third line could as much killing her own troops/raising them or the Lordaeron bomb trap.
I don’t know what the lines are necessarily saying. But it is hardly clear your interpretation is right.
I agree that if we both do not accept each other’s point, there’s no progress. I don’t think either of us has engaged in that fallacy. I can agree to disagree if you want. I don’t think I can convince you at this point.
To be fair the japanese kind of had a similar plan with Pearl Harbor.
Strike the US pacific fleet. Make it so the US is crippled for a time and make the loss so bad that the American people already fighting in europe would not be willing to commit to a war on both sides.
Well they attacked before a formal decleration of war which was just pure fodder for the propaganda machine.
Even the guy that planned and led the attack was skeptical. But it DID happen so what Sylvanas did was not exactly that insane.
It happened in real life.
The lack of ships wouldn’t have deterred them. We know that from the Darkshore Warfront, where the Night Elves demanded taking Darkshore back despite Anduin thinking the Alliance had a lack of resources.
Saurfang laid out that the Night Elves would have opposed any plans to attack the Undercity or Silvermoon because that would put Teldrassil in danger. By their estimations, the Night Elves would have pushed and demanded that Teldrassil be taken back first as a priority before anything else, and in doing so be in disagreement with people Sylvanas expected would demand to march on Undercity right away instead, or take Gilneas back as yet another alternative.
But Sylvanas always believed the Night Elves would always be resolute about taking Teldrassil back. But her plan was based on the notion that other elements of the Alliance would not want to do that first. And then, yes, with that many voices demanding going in different directions, Anduin wouldn’t know what to do, and then Genn and others would pull out of the Alliance to follow their own priorities, but then not actually being able to accomplish those priorities when standing alone and ending up having to concede to the Horde individually.
But the Night Elves would always known what they would have wanted in this projection of Sylvanas’.
Which was moving the goal post again, since the original plan was for the Alliance to not be able to come attack them at all in the first place:
“It will take years before they can even consider retaking Darnassus.”
“You understand, High Overlord,” Sylvanas said. “Think it through. What happens next?”
“They might try to conquer the Undercity . . . but Darnassus becomes our hostage against that. The night elves will not allow your city to fall if they fear it means you will destroy theirs . The same goes for a strike against Silvermoon.”
This sudden idea that Sylvanas’ plan was actually to get Anduin to attack in a bumbling way was pulled out of nowhere from Sylvanas’ mind and was never part of the original idea.
I believe Genn is vital to Sylvanas’ plan because of something Drahliana pointed out:
Sylvanas was around for the first splintering of the Alliance, when Quel’thalas left and then Gilneas and Stromgarde followed after. I believe what she sees Genn as is the first domino, and the Gilneans leaving would be the push the other members would take to leave as well after, like Quel’thalas had been after the Second War. She didn’t bother coming up with a reason for why the Dwarves or anyone else would leave when she had expectations that Genn would be the instigator to the Alliance splintering again.
Even if it turned out she was wrong.
Definitely what I feel, yes. Made to feel more so when the burning didn’t break the Night Elves, which Sylvanas was also lying to herself about. “Can’t I?” No, turns out she couldn’t.
I will grant that Anduin did indeed go to attack the Undercity without proper planning, and that he did make it through only thanks to the miracles of Alleria and Jaina. But once again, that was never the plan, when the plan was to put the Alliance in a situation where they could not attack the Horde at all. There’s no reason to believe Sylvanas would believe that Malfurion surviving would change Genn’s mind about taking the fight to Gilneas and Lordaeron first. In this case, I wouldn’t say she was lying to herself, she just wasn’t thinking clearly and had just completely forgotten what her goal even was because she was so upset. And then ironically she herself ruined her original plan by removing taking Teldrassil back as an option at all and leaving “attack Undercity” as the only voice left and uniting the Alliance. When uniting the Alliance was the fail condition of her plan.
Not a joke, but rather I was irked by the “It hasn’t convinced me” line, as people have been using that from time to time as if that announcement diminishes my points. I’m not here to convince anyone. I’m just here to discuss the lore with people, and the “change my mind” meme has started to exhaust me. That’s not what I’m here for.
The burning was not his plan, nor did he give the command. He tried to get the Horde to stop. He should acknowledge what he did, and he does, but to blame himself for the burning unfairly detracts from Sylvanas’ responsibility for it, which is exactly what she wanted by exactly trying to dump blame on him.
That is always the case with interpretation. But that’s what I’m seeing. A slow progression from self-blame to putting blame where it actually belongs and finally being able to pick himself up passed the self-blame and actually do something in response to the wrongs committed instead of just hiding away or trying to kill himself for not being able to handle things any more.
To be fair, I don’t think you’ve really presented an alternative case to believe in. You’ve at best said “her plan was a wound that could never heal” without actually addressing how hopelessness would actually spread from the Night Elves to the rest of the Alliance. Which is especially difficult now in the present when we know that the Night Elves don’t even become hopeless themselves, let alone it spreading to the rest of the Alliance.
I am not an unconvinceable person, and I am always willing to admit when I’m wrong. Even by people who have frustrated me. Carmageddon has a notion that the Forsaken see the Alliance as an existential threat that I honestly did not believe and argued against for a long length of a thread, but I did have to concede when I remembered that Genn screamed out “Monsters! You have no place in this world!” (Of course now Genn’s changed since then and will even be working with the Horde in Nazjatar). And even Veloran - who lives off in his own little world on which I don’t find the air there to be very breathable so I don’t like visiting it any more - was right that a peace treaty existed between the Alliance and the Horde during Warlords of Draenor and I admitted as such when he found lore reference to the treaty outside of Ashran.
That is to say, I generally do not agree to disagree, because that’s just the death of a conversation right there. I prefer people actually discuss what they think if people can have a good time discussing it. You know, barring people being toxic, which is the opposite of a good time.
You know what’s the craziest part about that? People around here act like the Night Elves should never forgive the Horde and that peace is impossible. When Japan is one of the U.S.'s closest allies and partners now. My brother lives over there now, and I visit him whenever I can.
I think the difference is both sides were at war and a stalement.
Cities were being flattened all the time. The only thing unique about the nukes was that all it took was one plane and one bomb instead of thousands.
If the US, say had conquered Japan and THEN decided to nuke/chemically attack half or even two thirds of the entire country.
That is when it will be an unforgiveable sin.
The situations are completely different and no one is under any illusion how horrific the japanese army was.
They did not care about their people, they weaponized them and would rather kill them or have them suicide so they do not fall into enemy hands because it would be dishonorable to Bushido.
There is very little comparison besides some minor details between the WoW and this WW2 pacific theater.
I don’t think it’s impossible, though. Like, Saurfang and his rebels could come help the Night Elves take Ashenvale back as at least a start towards atoning for what they did. Though, I don’t expect that from Blizzard. But I do expect them to just make the Night Elves be all for peace one way or another.
If Saurfang wanted to make amends he would have either stopped the burning or lead a rescue squad to save as many people as he could.
Blizzard decided he will not do that.
Instead he would meakly follow Sylvanas.
Just because you feel sorry does not give you any right to forgiveness.
No sir.
The only defense to this notion that Night Elves will go back to the status quo can only be achieved by two statements.
They can’t because they will die because X threat.
Blizzard said so.
That is all.
There is no logical argument in any sane world that if Tyrande had the power would not only retake Ashenvale for the third time from the Horde but also permanently remove that threat from Orgrimmar.
He both yelled for the Horde soldiers to stop firing the catapults in A Good War and tried to let Lor’danel civilians go free in the in-game event. It wasn’t that Blizzard decided that he would not. Blizzard just decided he would not succeed at the time.
That’s what I expect, though. I don’t expect anything sane or logical. I just expect Blizzard to sweep it under the rug and not address it again.
I think for the sake of discussion let us simplify the events and THE EMOTIONS IT EVOKES.
read that bold part. Make sure you get it straight before reading any further.
If we wanted to simplify the emotions that this story evoked would be witnessing an abusive relationship that leads to trajedy.
The woman, Night Elves, forgives and gives chances multiple times and ignores the warning signs until finally the partner, The Horde, commits rape.
There is shame, there is pity, there is anger, there is sadness and so much more.
The abusive partner goes into councling. Tries to change. Makes some sacrifices.
Whatever.
Whether a TV show, a Book, a movie or whatever else I think everyone here will have absolutely ZERO sympathy for that scum and cheer as she goes to the authorities, throw him in a hole and move on with her life.
Not forgive him.
Not go back to the same relationship.
And that is where we are in this story.
Hence why I am so done with this story. All I can do is keep a sense of humor.
The sub time will run out eventually and there are other games to play.
That’s definitely not a fair comparison. The Horde and the Night Elves were never in a committed relationship with fond emotions that can be taken advantage of. The Horde didn’t even stop attacking them after the Battle of Mount Hyjal, despite that they were all supposed to be in a Grand Alliance together. Hell, in Elegy Malfurion thought upon how the Night Elves expected this to happen eventually, they just thought they would be prepared for it instead of being taken by surprise.
Yeah, but that’s very different from a relationship where someone is taking advantage of their partner’s love for them to abuse them move. Those aren’t the same emotions.
I don’t really agree there, either, since I definitely always thought it was something Sylvanas would do.
More it was something I didn’t believe Blizzard would do. Even specifically argued once that Blizzard would never touch Teldrassil. And while gameplay wise I was right, lore wise I was obviously dead wrong.
