if we start using “the ends justify the means” to justify every crime, both factions would be absolved of all their crimes.
What’s the difference between burning innocents alive and scrambling their brains and turning people into vegetables? if the line is life, that’s a really low bar.
If you read down a few paragraphs, from where you quoted you will see the sentence where Alleria says the only difference between her and Sylvanas is the thin amount of restraint Alleria has + the illusion of morality.
I don’t know, who did Alleria turn into a vegetable? As noted in the book, the mother would recover. Same with the smuggler.
Again, this doesn’t make what happened any less evil or atrocious, and just because an action can be justified does not make it acceptable or less evil.
It is discussions like these that convince me why Blizzard is so loathe to make the Alliance do anything that isn’t totally upright. Something incredibly mundane for this setting that every PC has done a number of times during questing is turned into a great moral evil and placed under the microscope, used to hypothesise on the character’s future downfall and all the evils that await him. I’m getting WOTLK-era Varian vibes from all this.
WotLK Varian is given so much crap because of the miraculous twisting Blizz had to do to make sure Garrosh “started the War” in Cata; after Varian literally declares war on the Horde in WotLK. Despite the fact that before he was turned into Orc Hitler, Garrosh was compelled to war due to the reaction of the Alliance from the Wrathgate. The very event Varian declared War on the Horde for. But thanks to a handy-dandy treaty created in an in between expac book in time for Garrosh to break it, Varian’s declaration vanished into the wind. But … the Alliance’s other reactions and punishments didn’t…
Varian was both hyper aggro, and frustratingly non-committal. With the writers dogmatically going to bat for him regardless of how much he bounced back and forth.
The problem with Varian is that until Wrath he only existed in the manga. I honestly think Blizzard expected Alliance players to sympathize with him, to feel he had the right idea, that he was in the right to declare war. Instead most of us at the time (from what I recall of the forums) wanted him gone for having the nerve to insult Thrall (a character loved by a majority of players and across faction lines because of WC3). Back then there were people saying, “so, when can Anduin take the throne again?”
If I had to guess, Blizzard misinterpreted players hatred towards Varian as him being a warmonger and players not wanting the Alliance to be the warlike faction. He was so obviously set up to be the architect of the war that came in Cata and MoP, and Garrosh was clearly set up to be his foil, but with actual room to grow considering he at least accepted and valued words from Saurfang and others, while Varian brushed off the reproaches of Jaina or Rhonin.
And then you have the flip of that, and the negative reaction to Green Jesus. With Blizz nerfing the crap out of Shamanism, the Horde Roster, and Thrall himself. When ironically, the very same type of Demigod Tier heroes were ramping up like crazy on the Alliance side … even as early as MoP. And REALLY took hold in Legion, where the Horde had zero presence and got none of that “power spike”.
Which is why you end up with weird situations like in BfA where the Alliance Reps are so potent that the Horde has to throw literal platoons at them as a counter … while the Alliance reps have to repeatedly get hit hard with the stupid stick so they didn’t just steamroll their current Horde counterparts.
Thrall got ruined hard by Cataclysm. Him stepping down as Warchief was the dumbest thing they ever did with him. He could’ve been a powerful Shaman and Warchief of the Horde just fine. I really think the decline of his character started a little earlier, in Wrath’s pre-patch event. Garrosh got angry over how the Horde was living in Durotar, called Thrall out, challenged him to a Mak’gora, and was winning, and then we’re told later, “Oh, no, Thrall was toying with him and could’ve laid the smackdown anytime he wanted.”
SHOW DON’T TELL!
From that point it was a steady stream of this meek, soft-spoken Thrall trying to reign in Garrosh’s bravado by whispering at him. What happened to the Warchief who killed that one guy from (I think) the Rageroar Clan in one of the novels for trying to drag the Horde into a war with the Alliance that was completely unnecessary?
This is why I never take threads like that one about the Lich King Bolvar being Alliance because of some Shadowlands dialogue that seriously. It’s just another, “Okay, assuming you’re not reading into this dialogue to support your personal bias, so what? Do you think in the next war that the Alliance will unleash the Scourge on the Horde?”
As far as the Horde losing it’s power houses, the problem is they didn’t have enough to begin with. Thrall was it. Sylvanas was strong, but a Dark Ranger isn’t the same kind of power house an Archdruid or Archmage is.
It’s also why I’m a little frustrated with Shadowlands. As absurd as it may sound, I wished they’d gone the route of redeeming Kel’thuzad and having him join the Horde by joining the Forsaken in an attempt to help those he victimized while serving the Lich King, Ner’zhul. I think it’d be within his character to want to see Arthas’ kingdom and people thrive, and he single-handedly could probably solve the Forsaken’s renewed inability to increase their numbers.
If Kael’thas doesn’t get a chance to return and join the Horde to serve the Blood Elves… well, I won’t be shocked, but I’ll be numb, because there’s only so much disappointment you can take before you can’t feel anything anymore.
see Turalyon being a puppet is bad simply on the grounds that he’s not accountable for his actions. Again this is Alliance moral plot armor.
I would like for the imbalance to be tipped because a character makes a conscious choice. He spent years trying to convince Alleria to give up her vengeance on the orcs, maybe he’s just as fed up with the Horde always being the antagonists. He is biased against the undead, maybe Genn gains some of his sympathy in that regard. Him siding with the Scarlet Crusade is not far fetched.
He literally just committed heinous crimes in Shadows Rising simply because he can be persuaded that the ends justify the means. There is room to doubt his integrity.
The devs actually said that with Turalyon specifically they wanted to dissect hero worship… obviously you are the only one who didn’t get that memo.
Which would be pretty easy to do. Turalyon understanding that rash actions can come with risk does not mean he’s opposed to action in general. Him admitting that one’s “Will” and “Mind” should be considered when dealing with Faith in the Light also does not automatically mean he would value all minds and all wills. Those opinions of those who he might consider evil for example, might be exempt from that belief.
All Blizz would have to do is provide a sufficient enough catalyst to convince him that the Horde is both evil, and a danger to Azeroth that he has to play the Hero against. Then uses the Lightbound and Yrel to offset the risks and costs of such an endeavor. Add in the dogma of Yrel as a “Friend”, his being backed by the House of Nobles, and a Dreadlord having his ear … there is a recipe for a bit of a Ner’zhul situation here with Turaylon. One where he is tricked into a conflict and only realizes too late the truth. “The Golden One claims an Empty Throne. The Crown of Light will bring only Darkness”. Turalyon is acting High King atm.
No? Like, I cannot fathom someone more absurdly Gold in Warcraft than Turalyon right now, and he is quite literally sitting in an empty Throne. As he has been made interim High King in Anduin’s absence, and is apparently backed politically by the House of Nobles. Unless something happens with Calia, the only character atm that whisper could possibly apply to is Turalyon.
i aint disputing it doesnt mean turalyon what i mean to argue is your interpretation of it, you are interpreting darkness as a bad thing, i mean it could mean alleria and that shes in cahoots with the void, its like… his wife is darkness and thats it…
I’m not suggesting the Darkness part refers to Alleria at all tbh. Considering we’ve had several implications that the Light Cosmology is likely to come knocking at our door, it is possible that Turalyon in his current position of power could lead to something negative on his own steam. No Void Waifu needed.
That being said, with how sheltered and insulated from anything even resembling grey the Alliance are kept, even if that is Turalyon that is being referred to in that whisper … its probably his tenure as High King “bringing only darkness” while probably be something as bland, safe, and whitebread as him installing dimmer switches into SW castle because he likes seeing his armor glow in the dark.
