If you could retcon the Burning of Teldrassil, would you?

[Amadis-draka (Amadis)]

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.

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’.

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.

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.

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.

I believe Genn is vital to Sylvanas’ plan because of something Drahliana pointed out:

Because basically her memory is fixed on the isolationist uncaring bastard that built the Greymane Wall

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.

But to you, that they feel this way about the burning is just evidence they are lying to themselves.

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.

Is this comment a joke? I need to know if you are serious before I address it seriously.

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.

He should blame himself.

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.

I don’t know what the lines are necessarily saying. But it is hardly clear your interpretation is right.

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.

I don’t think I can convince you at this point.

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.

To be fair the japanese kind of had a similar plan with Pearl Harbor.

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.