Is The Horde Even Worth Salvaging At This Point? Should We Just Give Up?

Lore Story Forum
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Let’s set aside all discussions of faction CONFLICT for a moment and focus solely on the storytelling and identity of the Horde.

Blizzard wrote the Horde into the most unsolvable corner I’ve ever seen for a playable faction in a video game.

They decided that, canonically, virtually everyone in the Horde is either stupid or psychotic. They insist on making us fall for obviously evil tyrants over and over again. They told the same Horde story from MoP but made it worse. The Horde is not a society that is mature enough to govern itself without the Alliance coming in to set us straight every few years.

With the blood elves banishing the void elves for using forbidden magics, they got rid of the idea that the Horde is a place where outcasts, exiles, and unconventioal lifestyles are welcome so long as they serve a greater good.

We’ve had so many bad warchiefs that Blizzard FORCED on us that the title has been abandoned in favor of a council that does nothing.

So the Horde is now an alliance of many races, whereas the Alliance is a High Kingdom ruled by a (currently absent) High King.

…What?

Anyway, if Blizzard had any writing skill, they’d realize that the Horde is far, far too gone to ever be accepted as a global superpower again. Realistically, the Horde should be seen as an existential threat to the world that could go crazy at any moment.

The Alliance was, canonically, right all along about the Horde: a bunch of (conveniently minority coded) monsters are incapable of forming a society that can ever be a net positive force in the world.

So, where does the Horde go from here? You might say that faction representation is done with, but the Alliance seems to be doing just fine and their characters get to do more things.

They cant LITERALLY get rid of the Horde, but I dont see how they can ever bring the Horde back to the forefront either. Thrall’s experiment completely failed. We’re all just hopelessly evil or stupid monsters.

But what do you guys think? I’m sure a lot of people in the comments will say the Horde is doing fine, faction representation is over forever (ignoring the stars of this expansion), or that the Horde was always meant to be this way.

But these just sound like excuses for catastrophically bad writing decisions that have hurt BOTH factions in the long run (I swear I didnt wanna burn down Teldrassil, guys, I’m so sorry :[ )

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The Alliance races aren’t “ruled” by a King. The predominant bulk of the military was from the kingdom of stormwind which made the King the de fact leader of the Alliance military forces. Though the position of leader is currently held by Turalyon. None of the other Alliances races or leaders are sworn to serve Anduin other than Genn who did it as a personal choice rather than an obligation. The title of High King is a holdover from original post-Lothar Alliance of Lordaeran with Menethil as the High King among an alliance of Kings. It doesn’t denote the Alliance actually encompassing one giant Kingdom.

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I have been saying this for awhile.
I made my character, Aliya, here… A xenophobic isolationist, with the assumption that, overtime and through experience, her views would evolve.

And they sure have. But not in the way I was expecting. Instead of her Xenophobia slowly being eroded away through foreign exposure and experience, she instead became completely vindicated in her fears. Xenophobia turned into outright racism, and it is really difficult to argue against her.

And part of me wonders if this was the product of sheer stupidity and carelessness from the writing team, or if this was the goal. If it was a mistake, then it was a spectacular mistake. If it was intentional… Then the writing actually seems somewhat logical.

Thrall had 2 Educators. One was a human, responsible for his early development. He was raised to have human-centric values and a human worldview by his human captors. The other was an old Warchief romanticizing the “Good Old Days” and very obviously not being entirely honest about the orcs or their goals at the time.

Thrall simultaneously sought to leave the Old Horde behind, and yet still honored the leadership of the Old Horde with their names as landmarks, and flagships and anything else.

After settling in Dutotar, Thrall failed to maintain peaceful relations with the Night Elves simply because the Warsong didn’t respect his Authority. The Warsong raided into Ashenvale purely without Thrall’s consent, deforesting for the sake of it: “the main forces of the Warsong continue their logging operations, but in their warring zeal cutting even more wood than they can possibly use, leaving it to rot while their blades bite into fresh trees.”

And even though Thrall had made Slavery illegal in the Horde, he was completely incapable of stopping it from taking place. With characters like Valeera being sold directly into it from an Orgimmar prison, and participating in Gladiator duels AS A SLAVE in the Ring of Valor WITHIN ORGRIMMAR.

So, as a reader/player, what am I to take away from this?
Imo, what it says to me is that Thrall fundamentally misunderstood the culture of his own people. His perceptions colored by a human upbringing and a romanticization of the “Noble” warriors the old Warcheif claimed them to be.

And this couldn’t possibly get any more clear with what happened after Thrall stepped down, putting Garrosh in his place. And not only what Garrosh would go on to do, but the support he had in doing it.

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I really hate that they’ve turned the Horde into Imperial Japan after World War II. Commits some of the most horrrific atrocities known to man, yet unable to face justice for unrelated reasons. (Cold War politics for the former, the fact that they’re a playable faction for the latter.)

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The Horde Anime is going to be sick though.

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Thrall’s experiment didn’t fail, to some extent a meta perspective is needed when it comes to looking at how the story played out. You had a tug of war between people who kept retconning then re-retconning things, you had all the behind the scenes toxic workplace stuff, people in charge of writing the story breaking each other’s things on purpose. Even the original nature of the orcs was retconned, all to suit the narrative team that brought us the car crash of ‘what if we made our most popular character into an overtly evil villain?’ Sylvanas.

If they can get the Horde back to Wrath themes, then it will be on the right track. Not that I expect most on this forum to recognize this even if they succeed.

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Both of these things can be true.

Thrall’s experiment failed BECAUSE the writers wrote it that way due to their toxic infighting.

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I liked the interplay there, with Thrall trying to mitigate the rougher edges of his people in pursuit of spiritual roots they had forgotten or abandoned. Warsong hating trees for no apparent reason was always dumb, mind you, but the world feels more lived in with fringe elements fraying at the edge of the tapestry.

The Alliance or Horde effectively governing an entire continent and some satellites should be a very fragile balance imo.

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How could they succeed in your opinion?

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Nah, horde is Germany, and got De-Garroshified and has to live with the (rightful) eternal shame of what they’ve done

Alliance is japan, and every wrongdoing by SI:731 and the like are just kind of brushed under the rug and forgotten

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I don’t think there is any circumstance in which generational shame is rightful.

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Wrong for the both the Horde and Germany.

Edit: Another example of that Freak DK’s bad views.

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The war for Ashenvale never should’ve been about trees specifically. It should’ve been about the Horde races living in (mostly) barren wastelands while the Night Elves hoard all the fertile places, when it was the Night Elves who’s war caused the desertification of Kalimdor in the first place. Mulgore aline can’t sustain a nation the size of the Horde.

This would have allowed both sides to have valid points (“who are the night elves to decide whether or not the ‘monster’ races have to starve?” "Who is the Horde to invade our sovereign lands just because they live in the desert?)

Why do these things seem so obvious to us but not to the writers? It cant just be hindsight. Anyone with a brain could tell you that wars are primarily fought over essential resources. It’s actually VERY easy to create war scenarios that don’t make either side seem like psychopaths.

It’s especially weird considering that this was once an RTS company. You know, the games all about gathering resources and using them to go to war? Why is this so hard for them??

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Could’ve just been The Warsong having a chip on their shoulder about their initial reception from the kaldorei/Cenarius and spoiling for a good rematch.

Would have been cool for it to be a respected enemy situation where they’re keeping their claws sharp rather than truly hating one another.

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Remember, this isn’t a thread about faction conflict specifically. Though we can definitely draw upon these examples.

That said, these are good points regardless.

All of this would be better than the situation we’re in now.

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I wouldn’t call it “Hoarding” when it’s literally their ancestral homeland for the last 15,000 years. It is fertile specifically because they have nurtured it to be that way.

Tbh, the resource war doesn’t make much sense aside from the Warsong just holding a grudge. The Horde could have negotiated with Jaina un Dustwallow for Lumber, or traded with Venture Co in Stonetalon.

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Return the Horde and Alliance to the balance of frenemies at best, cold war with skirmishes at worst. Add complexity and nuance by focusing on internal threats in addition to the external, and create stories that exist outside of the relationship with the factions.

Fix up the wrecked Horde zones like Barrens and Durotar and advance their stories by fleshing out cultures and lore for the core Horde races. Expand the relationships the Horde has with other powers, such as the Cartels, and the troll tribes, and the interplay between those. Make that a unique aspect of the Horde again, where because it’s a collective as opposed to an Alliance of powers, they have a larger expanse of allies outside of themselves.

In particular any allied races that are added should be ones that have a larger community than any added to the Alliance, one based on more personal honor and friendships, and reliability, as opposed to the more treaty-based one of the Alliance. Place heavier emphasis on Shamanism as a spiritual lynchpin for many of the Horde races, as advisors.

And make Thrall Warchief again, doing away with the council. The council quite literally is just the same inner circle of advisors and friends the Warchief had before Garrosh, it doesn’t need to be its own special thing.

Edit: And for god’s sake revert Durotar from a desert when it’s fixed, dealing with that tired resource war issue. I think they forgot the desertification isn’t its natural state.

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Re: the topic, salvaging the Horde is as simple as finding the WC3-Vanilla touchstone and refocusing on what made it compelling.

At present, I think that basically boils down to how much pressure Metzen exerts on The Horde’s place in the narrative. If the same people that had a hand in post-BFA continue writing The Horde as they have been, it is cooked. Scorched. Placed on the cooking spit and turned to charcoal to make a sign to put on your storage boxes. Wait, wrong game.

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IIRC they planned on doing this with the Orc Heritage. But WILL they actually update Durotar in-game? Probably not.

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You’re making my point for me.

THESE are the arguments I WANT to have with you guys. Nuanced discussions about the war based on our personal priorities and values and how that relates to our chosen faction.

Personally? I could argue back that it was the Night Elve’s fault that Kalimdor is the way that it is. This is explicitly explained in the vanilla Barrens questline when we’re told that Kalimdor became a desert due to the war of the ancients.

The Night Elves destroyed the continent, and took control of most of the fertile remnants, and they expected the many races of Kalimdor to be fine with that?

Looking at this from a dialectical materialist lense, you could even argue that the reason the other races of Kalimdor have been at eternal war with each other (quillboar, tauren, and centaur) is BECAUSE of the lack of resources making them desperate and hostile to each other over time. Hell, we already know they were fighting over Mulgore before the Orcs arrived.

THIS DISCUSSION we’re having right now is so much more compelling than, “hurr durr we wanna chop down trees for more war machines”.

But here we are talking about faction CONFLICT again. What I really want is faction REPRESENTATION, RELEVANCE, and DEVELOPMENT.

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