Since the topic of the Ashbringer have been somewhat revived recently, i went back to look at Legion and the paladin order hall and realized even more issues that i did not pay much attention before.
Firstly, it is important to explain why the Paladin Order Hall in Legion is a problem by essence, lets put it in a simple way…let say that, you have 3 religious groups, that basically pray the same God or Divine being, (Here its the Light) and you would say that, these religious groups would put all their issues with one another aside to team up, BUT they would team up the headquarter and use the symbol of ONE of the 3 groups ONLY to represent their union…how stupid and impossible do it sound to you ? Well, thats the pill the Paladin Order Hall try to make you swallow.
Secondly, the problem is with the nomination of the class itself, because yes, PALADIN in the LORE is a very specific thing : It is an Order of Holy Warriors that was created during the 2nd War by Human Kingdoms. It is SPEFICIALLY human, which means that none of the other races that can be Paladin in GAMEPLAY wont be called that IN LORE. And the problem is, that Blizzard when they came with the idea of the Order Halls, did not think enough or at all to make specific race to classe Order Hall.
Because yes, The Silver Hand, is NOT a Tauren thing, is it not a Zandalari thing, it is not a Draenei thing either, and even for the dwarves, it was actually never really explained how they came to that order. So here is the major issue of the Paladin Order Hall, if you play a human and do the campaign then its fine, but if if you play something else well…it just feels weird. The weirdest moment is when they push you Apony (the tauren sunwalker girl) with her silver hand tabard saying « for the silver hand » this to me was just weird…
Other than that the return of the Silver Hand itself was a complete « wait what ? » moment to me, it was always stated that the Silver Hand since Vanilla was dissolved into both the Argent Dawn and the Scarlet Crusade, then during Wrath Tirion came and made it into the Argent Crusade, so how the hell, did the Silver Hand magically came back ? And not only did it came back but also accepts races and faith that are not even related to their Order ? And the thing is, i see a lot of peoples complain on BFA saying « Ho but why the Silver Hand is not neutral anymore ? Why is Liadrin agaisnt Turalyon ? » And to these peoples i ask « Why was it neutral to begin with ? How did it even came back ?! » Because thats a Legion issues, not BFA’s so why people complain about BFA when it is not the root of the problem ?
Now, the 3rd point i want to talk about i the title of the leader of the Silver Hand itself, and by that i mean, the stupid « Highlord » title that they give the player in Legion ;, BECAUSE it was the title firstly of Alexandros Mograine, but then of Tirion Fordring…but the thing is, that title is stupid…why ? Well firstly its not a unique title because well, many peoples have it who are not even related to human culture…like some ogres have it, but also, it is not a title that really reflect the Light or the Silver Hand. It is even joked upon during the secret quest of the hidden Ashbringer apparence when Darion says to the players « You are not the only Highlord, Highlord, me too i am the Highlord ! » (real thing here)
And thats the thing here, the title of Highlord, is mainly related to one thing : Ashbringer, so not only, does the Order Hall, tells you « Play Human Palaidin » but also yell « PLAY RET PALLY !!! »
But, you know, there could have been a far better idea than this « Highlord » lazy one, yes, you know who was the leader of the Silver Hand do you ? It was one and only Uther Lightbringer (who by the way never held the title of Highlord which show how silly uing this title is for the player.), and what if, the title Lightbringer would be our title as leader of the Order Hall as an honour to its leader ?
Let me give you an historical example : Caesar was originally a name, related to the person Julius Caesar, later the name was taken by not only his nephew Augustus to make his ancestry to Julius apparent but also it was taken in honour of Julius Caesar AND Augustus by the 10 emperors that followed. Later, it became not a simple name, but a title in honour of the man. And if you did not know, this will later be used by other nations to become Kaesar in German and Tsar first by the Bulgars and then by the Russians.
Thus, it is very possible and cool in my opinion if we had the title Lightbringer instead of Highlord, and to put even more emphasis to this, let me remind you how is called the Tabard that the Silver Hand members use during Legion : Tabard of the Lightbringer !
In case you ask, the title of « The Lightbringer » do exist in game, but it was added in 7.3 so long after the Order Halla was added into the game.
