Because if you play Hordeside, it’s made clear that citizens of Taurajo were NOT given time to evacuate. In fact, the Alliance waited until most of the warriors were out hunting and then deliberately surrounded and burned the town. Some of the women and non-combatants made it out carrying children. Some didn’t. The path to the Southern Barrens is tracked with Tauren dead. There’s a quest to shoo hyenas away from the corpses.
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We don’t ignore it. We don’t ignore the fact that we’re following a genocidal maniac either.
The writers ignore it and the rest of us aren’t given an opportunity to change anything.
Given realism, the moment Sylvanas turns around the yells “BURN IT,” Saurfang challenges her to a Mok’gara (like he absolutely should have done) and the whole battlefield erupts into a Forsaken-vs-everyone brawl.
The Horde went to hold, plunder and ransom an Alliance city and drive wedges between the leaders as to how to recover it. They didn’t go to commit genocide. The darkspear trolls and tauren have made it clear that they’re not going to be a willing party to it, and started trying to overthrow Garrosh immediately. If Cairne hadn’t been cheated, there’s every chance that the whole matter would have ended right there. And Baine and Vol’jin were immediately against Garrosh for Theramore, that’s why he had to keep it secret from them, then try to kill them.
There’s no reason in the world the orcs, tauren and trolls should have stood there and watched history repeat itself. ESPECIALLY not the tauren and trolls, who share druidism with the kaldorei. And there’s no profit in just burning the place down, so the goblins shouldn’t be down for risking their neck for no profit either.
It was basically a stupid setup for a forced war, put in place by writers who don’t seem to be able to remember a character from one patch to the next and put a self-insert OC in a superman position with no justification.
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“I said she was the bomb!”
“…She was the bomb?”
It concerns me how many people are unable to understand nuances.
The Alliance blew up part of the Zandalari fleet. What does fleet mean? “a country’s navy” navy meaning military operations at sea. The Zandalari are with the Horde and thus in the middle of a war with the Alliance. So it makes perfect sense that Jaina blew up their ships - especially given the current conflict. Largely, the population of the Zandalari were unaffected.
The bombing of Theramore didn’t just kill Theramore soldiers. It killed thousands of INNOCENT people. Women, children, elderly, etc. Theramore was home to almost 10,000 people and only a dozen or so people survived.
You cannot seriously compare the two events.
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No one is wholly just. Everything about war comes down to hypocrisy.
“We’re doing this atrocity so you don’t do this atrocity later!”
“This atrocity is for when you did that atrocity earlier!”
Cycle of hatred mah dudes.
When attacking the one major city of a population such a thing is impossible no matter how you try to spin it. The Alliance hit Dazar’alor so hard they expected a surrender or total victory within weeks. You don’t get that and somehow prevent civilian casualties.
Granted they didn’t consider Sylvanas to be as twisted as she is either.
Pot ![:point_right:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/point_right.png?v=6" ":point_right:")
Kettle
Thank you for that, I had no idea that the mana bomb went to that extent. Not that just Theramore wasn’t bad enough.
I mean, if we go by the “at some point” logic, we could probably justify every war.
Rastakhan probably did something, somewhere, somehow that made him have it coming (in this case, it was invading Pandaria, supporting genocide and enslaving his daughter). Gallywix probably did, too. And Lor’themar. And Baine. And Genn. And Hogger.
Hogger did nothing wrong!!
This is alliance code for “oh crap I don’t have a good retort for that, let me just patronize you instead because damn good point actually” except by decree of the High King they’re never allowed to admit when they’ve done anything wrong so they have to phrase it like this but we all get the idea
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Are we playing the same raid? The Alliance gave Rastakhan the chance to surrender and become a prisoner of war. Rastakhan chose to fight instead. An assassination implies surprise or underhanded tactics. Knowing your options are surrender or fight kind of throws that out the window.
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The age of Teldrassil is of little relevance. The Night Elves created it in an unclaimed area and designated it as their home after sacrificing their immortality and many of their peoples lives, again, to keep the Burning Legion from destroying Azeroth. Orgrimmar is a new city created by alien invaders, originally sent to eradicate all life on Azeroth, and attempted to destroy/claim their ancestral homelands (most of Kalimdor). The Night Elves are literally the “chosen of Elune”. They’ve been defenders of Azeroth and nature for thousands of years. They’ve been stalwart allies of the dragonflights, nature’s demigods, and of some of Azeroth’s most ancient races. Not only have they protected Azeroth directly, but they’ve also protected the Emerald Dream.
The Night Elves had also created an agreement for the withdrawal of Horde forces from Ashenvale and with the Horde being allowed to keep Azshara… Imaginably, I have issues with the Horde’s constant whitewashing or undermining the reality of these situations. Tauren and Hightmountain Tauren are noble, I think. Some Orcs can be (although many still seem to be willing to go crazy with their former bloodlust). The Horde, however, has… destroyed so many innocent people…
I can see, potentially, the Forsaken attacking some of the living humans in Tirisfal Glades because the living humans were deathly afraid of the undead who completely ravaged and destroyed their entire kingdom… I think more could have been done from the Forsaken side to attempt peace. Understandably, they would always have to be at war and attempt to destroy the Scarlet Crusade. The push/assault and destruction of Pyrewood Village, Ambermill, Fenris Keep, Dalaran (pre-WotLK), Hillsbrad, Southshore, all of Gilneas lands (who didn’t even want to be involved in the war at all), Stromgarde Keep… Trying to assault/destroy Wildhammer Dwarves and High Elves in The Hinterlands and Eastern Plaguelands… This doesn’t include the vile experiments of the Forsaken against so many humans…
Theramore obliterated, the few survivors captured, tortured, forced to fight to their deaths in the streets of the largest capital of the Horde for pure amusement… The Horde gained such power by ambushing and murdering neutral dragons who were taking the Focusing Iris to a secure, obscure location so its power could not be abused again… Those dragons were neutral who were part of the dragonflights who just sacrificed their immortality and power to destroy Deathwing and save Azeroth (and, by extension, the Horde)… Destruction of Thal’darah Grove… Experimenting on Druids in Dor’Danil Barrow Den… Eventual destruction of Astranaar, Maestra’s Post, Raynewood Retreat, Silverwind Refuge, Forest Song, Silverwing Outpost, Lor’danel, Grove of the Ancients… Genocidal rampage against the Night Elves with destruction of Teldrassil/Darnassus… Killing survivors or turning them into undead…
But that Camp Taurajo, man. That was some bad stuff. Massacred at least five billion species on three million planets in four thousand dimensions. . .
I recognize there have been Alliance assaults and very infrequently some Alliance have been cruel/sadistic, the Horde has been far more aggressive, destructive, and intentionally/joyfully cruel towards the Alliance… Even through the various times the Alliance could have destroyed the Horde… Even through the various times the Alliance has shown mercy to the Horde…
Edit: In relation to Jaina, she sacrificed basically everything to attempt to forge peace for her people… She was betrayed multiple times by the Horde… Those betrayals resulting in the level of destruction she has been forced to experience… I’m surprised she’s as calm as she is.
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I feel that members of the Alliance have very good reason to dislike the Horde. However it’s a continued lack of understanding and refusal to cooperate from the Alliance that furthers the divide.
Think of the races that make up the Horde. Other than the orcs, who have had their own set of issues, the Horde is mostly made up of misfit races that wouldn’t have survived on their own. The Darkspear were the smallest tribe to break off from the Gurubashi empire and were constant targets of bigger tribes. The normally peaceful Tauren were constantly being provoked by invading centaur. The Forsaken are former Lordaeron citizens given another chance at life (kind of life). The Blood Elves and Nightborne had their font of magic either destroyed or taken, and were ousted by the rest of the elves and human kingdoms. The Mag’har were forced out of their homeland by fanatics of the light. And the Bilgewater Cartel’s home straight up exploded.
Thrall and the subsequent leaders of the Horde were the only salvation for some of these races. And let’s face it, any attempts at diplomacy were shut down by now Alliance members. The humans and night elves can never forgive the orcs for rampaging their kingdoms, which to a degree is understandable. But it’s that hatred that keeps this conflict going.
Thrall tried to make peace with the humans that kept him and other orcs locked up in camps but was instead met with hostility. The Forsaken tried to return to their families but were deemed monsters by their loved ones. After losing their fonts of power, the blood elves and nightborne were treated as lesser by the humans and other elves. The tauren and trolls are merely seen as allies to the monstrous orcs. And goblins are looked down on by everyone.
Basically the Legion started these conflicts, but the human kingdoms and the elves remained too arrogant to try and make peace after the Legion lost influence so the cycle of hatred continued even though Thrall, with the help of Jaina, attempted to break it. Now Thrall is having an identity crisis, and Jaina’s patience has been tried too many times so we’re at the present.
Moral of the story, Green Jesus saves
Edit: I do think it’s unfair to put the blame on Jaina. She is one of the few people who has made legitimate efforts to make peace only to have it thrown in her face without end, not only by the Horde, but by the Alliance. Can’t blame her for becoming jaded in those circumstances.
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Theramore was, I will agree…Teldrassil was not though.
Which was unreasonable. No leader worth their salt would have surrendered in that kind of situation. The Alliance wasn’t even at war with the Zandalari at the time, they’re at war with the Horde, whom they had already coaxed out of the city. They had no business marching up to the king and demanding anything of him in the first place, let alone something as extreme as giving himself and the city up without a fight. There’s no way the Alliance reasonably thought he would give up peacefully. If they did they would have tried a more diplomatic approach first. Starting by kicking his door down and immediately demanding he drop on knees smells like they went in itching for a fight.
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Hypocrites calling other Hypocrites hypocrite. Epic.
Lets all agree we are all hypocrites.
List cities Horde destroys and then list cities alliance destroys. And we point fingers at each other calling each other hypocrites.
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We did enough for the light last expansion against the Legion.
BFA is when we throw a bone to the void lords with all of this chaos
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I think the Alliance has, generally speaking, reached out more than Horde. Think about how many Alliance characters and factions have become neutral. The Kirin Tor, Cenarion Circle, Argent Dawn, and many others would likely never have been neutral if WoW was not released (for balance/simplicity).
Again, I’m not too familiar with the backstory of the Darkspear trolls. I can understand aligning with the Orcs for survival, but Tauren seem like they would have been much more appropriate allies of the Night Elves than Orcs. I understand they interacted with each other at different times, but the similar reverence for nature of NE/Tauren would make then good allies.
Although the Forsaken were rejected, initially, by their former living family/friend, I still think continued attempts at diplomacy instead of murder and torture would be more effective at convincing your living compatriots you mean well.
The Blood Elves are interesting. They had a positive exchange with NE in WC3. The NE generally try to help… The few surviving citizens of Quel’Thalas present when Arthas murdered everyone were supposed to have gone through to Outland with Kael’thas. If my memory serves correctly, vanilla had no mention of Blood Elves. The only elves were exclusively Night Elves and High Elves. Blood Elves were put with Horde for gameplay/balance reasons. If the lore would have continued without being swayed by gameplay or balance, I think we would have seen them only in Outland unaligned with anyone but the naga.
The Nightborne’s reasons for joining the Horde, especially so rapidly after the almost complete collapse of their society through civil war and demonic involvement… Seemed strange (especially since Sargeras just stabbed the planet). Rather than fixing their city, purging the remaining Felborne/demons, and protecting Azeroth (as they said they wanted to do), they joined one of two opposing factions that both helped save them…
I’d be interested to know much more about what was happening on Draenor. We have one side of a, likely, more complicated story. I can understand trying to escape eradication, however. Their story, in some ways, is similar to Draenei. Draenei, who resemble Eredar, were embraced by the Night Elves… I feel they would likely do the same.
It’s constantly and continually initiated by the Horde, though. The Alliance could have dealt death blows to Horde several times (Battle for Undercity in WotLK, Siege of Orgrimmar in Pandaria). They chose not to, and then super savage unitiated attack from the Horde.
I can understand that. I can also see how it would take time. There were humans willing to move on. Jaina was one of them - she left everything she knew behind, left behind her prejudices, and even allowed her father to die for the belief of peace between (at least) the Horde and Theramore. We all know how that ended. . .
I don’t think Blood Elves were treated that way by NE in WC3. Garithos was racist towards basically any non-Human. Nightborne, even on the verge of becoming withered, were actually quite arrogant… Both Oculeth and Arcanist Valtrois were going to kill us on the spot. Thalyssra and Lunastre seem to be exceptions rather the rule.
Green Jesus is a monster. I can’t go through helping him like I did in the Cataclysm again! #traumatized
I think the Alliance (and Horde, until Sylvanas wanted more arrows for her quiver) was at war with the Zandalari still for the actions taken in Pandaria. Although, I do think the entire premise of invading a faction’s city to make them second guess joining your enemy’s faction is. . . not quite the greatest. I agree that greater attempts at diplomacy should have been made. In some fairness, Zul had just tried to burn down Stormwind in his escape… Personally, I would have tried to reveal Sylvanas for the monster she is… Also, I’ve mentioned confusion before. Talanji has some bloodline oath to serve or whatever Bwomsamdi who hates Sylvanas. I’m unsure of why she would join Sylvanas… Further, if most of the Zandalari’s usefulnes… I mean fleet is destroyed, why would Sylvanas care anymore? It might cost her more meatbags to protect the new meatbags causing her a net loss of meatbags!
I mean she burned a tree. Its not her fault they all live on it. Pretty sure the other things that lived on the tree died to like those furlborgs, harpies, satyrs, Dryads, ancients , tourists, wisps, bears, cats etc.
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To get to this “one tree”, she passed through hundreds, even thousands of other trees, why she traveled so far only to burn this particular one?