She basically ghosted the Nightborne after Legion. Suspicion is fine but Tyrande never gave them a chance even after the rebellion.
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Oh lawd he comin
The missing element of the OP’s description of Fascism is the economic element. Fascists are the right wing mirror of Communists. Fascist movements are frequently backed by capitalist elites who reap the rewards when their chosen proxies take power.
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On the one hand, you can sort of see some of Eco’s symptoms in the Horde. On the other hand, some of them are kind of weak, as I’ll detail below.
Even more important than that, though—do actual alt-right, neo-natsoc types latch on to the Horde? Eh. Not that I’ve noticed in their communities. What’s much, much more common is WH40K **** and kitschy anime-girl sex slave stuff. I don’t think neo-natsoc types see the Horde as any more fascy than any other similar videogame, and that’s telling.
Anyway, why I find a lot of these arguments unpersuasive:
- Action for Action’s sake (Reflection is emasculating/distrust of intellectuals)
True, Ji firepaw claims to have an “act first, ask questions later” mentality—but then again, the Tauren as a whole (both tribes), Lor’themar, Thrall, Vol’Jin, etc are all at worst cunning and often show something more like an intellectual streak.
We might be told that the Horde focuses on action without wisdom, but I don’t see it shown much in the actual races.
- Disagreement is treason
Sylvanas and Garrosh are totally fascy. I’m reluctant to characterize the whole Horde the same way.
Yeah, the story devs claim that Sylvie has the “support of the people,” but they also say they see her as the best chance for peace, so the devs are full of ****. Realistically, do we really see the Tauren, Highmountain, etc following this line? The citizenry don’t actually exist, and they’ll change their minds whenever it’s plot convenient, so it’s impossible to say, but if each leader is a good reflection of their people?
Again, we’re told this but shown something else.
- Fear of difference
Fear of the Alliance != fear of difference.
The Horde has taken elves, goblins, trolls, Tauren, and literal undead abominations under its wing. Suspicion of their political nemesis is not a fascy tendency. I mean in the lead-up to BfA, Shaw almost literally flooded Orgrimmar with spies. I’d say the distrust is mutual and has some solid basis in reality.
It’s not that humans are different that makes them an inevitable enemy; it’s their history of grievance with the Horde. The Horde can accept Alliance-like races perfectly well, as the Blood Elves and Nightborne prove.
- Derives from individual or social frustration
Again, I’ll admit Garry is fascy—but Garrosh is not the Horde.
Now it is telling that the Horde has accepted a fascist leader twice now. However, I find it hard to take that seriously when it’s been so forced and so bad from a writing standpoint. We’re not being SHOWN a fascist society; we’re being shown a pretty moderate society with bizarrely bad leaders and TOLD that it’s because the society is fascist.
I don’t buy it.
- Obsession with a plot against their nation - followers feel besieged
If paranoia about the enemy after decades of Cold (and sometimes hot) War makes you fascist, then fascism is the natural state.
I could go on with each of the others, but the reasons are similar: Garry isn’t the Horde, the individual Horde races with the partial exception of orcs and the Forsaken are SHOWN to be pretty moderate, and I have a hard time accepting dev word of God when it doesn’t match what’s shown in-game.
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“Disagreement is treason”–this one is typical of LOTS of different types of government, starting with certain flavors of absolute monarchy.
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Didn’t we kill the Beast back in Vanilla Blackrock Spire?
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Yeah the Horde never does ethnic cleansings and we don’t have to trump up the purge of Dalaran to get it to qualify at all xDDD
But yeah. Very lucky their government treats them slightly better than their enemies do.
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It seems like it would be more World War 1 level nationalism. People are fallible, and may well just fall in line with leaders that promise them the world, perhaps literally in this case. Lack of backlash to the Night Elf genocide is its own problem, but it reeks to me of writers not wanting to deal with it much, as it is liable to break any sense of support for the war as a Horde player and any positive perception of their own faction. The real issue being, as you point out, how poorly it is presented. Civilian population thoughts seem to just be something mentioned rather than showing a reasonable case of why someone living in that circumstance would support the war while a player with all the meta knowledge would not.
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The horde is a totalitarian regime with (in theory) utter allegiance to the supreme dictator appointed by the previous supreme dictator required of every citizen… Unless they want to fight said leader.
Except a generational monarchy with complete power in hands of the Queen (and a bit of advice from the council unless she’s less crabby than dear old dad) just joined.
So now it’s two dictatorships, one hereditary! Hooray!
Edit: Ahem. That being said, I’m not sure the Horde is really classic mid century fascists. There’s some economical and social aspects that don’t really seem to fit. Except for the case of needling the people who are like “THE HORDE STANDS FOR FREEDOM brb blood oath”.
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I don’t really know specifics about definition of fascism but when they added Deathcamps in Darkshore PTR (fortunately didn’t make it to live!), It was quite disgusting how they intentionally attempted to force WWII parallels on an entire playable faction.
This could be unrelated to fascism but I just don’t get how they can do this to entire playable faction and expect players to enjoy it at all.
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One area where the fascism label could be applied is the establishment of military citizenship where all citizens of a nation are conscripted into the military structure to some degree. Fascists saw the Great War or World War 1 as we call it now as erasing the distinction between combatant and civillian as the war broke with tradition by targetting civillian populations.
As political parties don’t exist on Azeroth, ther one-party designation part of the definition does not apply.
So the Horde does not fit the Italian model which is considered the base definition of a Fascist society.
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<glances at all the skulls on the Horde uniforms>
Uh oh.
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The bizarre thing is how the Alliance basically gets idealized monarchy and theocracy with its races. Do we ever see Night Elves wanting to break from religious rules and get murdered/imprisoned/tortured outside of the exile of the Highborne a long time ago? Do we see Alliance kings purge groups that they are prejudiced against? Having their opposition killed? Is push back against the Church of Holy Light met with persecution?
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I take no issues with this writeup - it’s clearly intended to be a cogent analysis, not a provocation - but I will say that I will never, ever forgive Blizzard for opening the door even slightly to the question that people who play Horde might have real-life fascist tendencies (which, I know that isn’t what Anya is arguing). They truly, genuinely do not seem to grasp that they went too far and made the entire faction roleplay experience profoundly uncomfortable and unpleasant for a huge chunk of the playerbase. Isn’t this game supposed to be a fun, slightly-tongue-in-cheek power fantasy?
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Kind of. But, for some reason, it’s only after the Horde tortures, kills, and raises them into undeath.
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Seeing how the Horde has been historically presented in game, since Cataclysm, in contrast with how Alex Afrasiabi and everyone else at Blizzard sees the Horde as;
The indomitable Horde is driven by unity. They are fervent keepers of freedom and hope, relentlessly opposed to any who threaten these ideals, including the stringent Alliance.
it’s surreal.
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It’s almost like she saw the exact same society that had helped to cause the War of the Ancients reflected in the Nightborne, and relied on them to reach out and rejoin the fold if they so chose.
It’s almost like her suspicions were immediately proven right once she was done helping to save them and the dust settled…
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I agree with this.
And on the Alliance side, mentioning Teldrassil (an incident designed to get the Alliance playerbase angry and wanting to kill Horde) would work against their goal of having the factions eventually unite to have a Baine lovefest fight Azshara.
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We can have great deals of drama happen in the story. Warcraft 3 had these. Blizzard just messed it up really badly.
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