I think people conflate ‘aggression’ with ‘evil’ too much. A group does not need to be the aggressor in order to be wrong, and the Horde being a historically more military oriented aggressive nation does not strictly make them evil. Especially when the organizations that have joined them are historically groups like the Forsaken or Sindorei who have experienced persecution and have to aggressively defend their territories.
You can make a ‘defensive’ evil easily, and it’s all about themes of persecution, retribution, and culpability. This is something that Varian did masterfully, he engineered situations where all the Alliance would be behind his actions because they both served to protect a member state, and also expand his reach and power. That way when he went into a war he both had the backing of the alliance, they had some pretense of a moral highground, and he had everyone onboard with him and this didn’t take away from the factions identity as a defensive coalition. He got everyone to hang together, rather then hang separately.
Making Varian an aggressive warmonger actually takes away from what makes him an effective antagonist from a Horde PoV.
But you don’t disagree it’s unworkable. We discussed whether it was workable, and your response was to throw your hands in the air and declare it would crap on Anduin and Stormwind’s thematics. Even though neither Anduin or Stormwind are necessary as the igniting factor for an aggressive Alliance.
You just don’t want it. And you’d like to present your distaste for the idea as impracticality and unfortunately when that has become your only argument, you have stopped adding.
No, that’s why its unworkable. You have to make the Alliance into something it isn’t and hasn’t been since Warcraft III when the faction was turned into evil tyrants to die for the Horde’s benefit. Or Scourge’s too I suppose.
As you point out Warcraft 3, even if you personally dislike it, establishes the Alliance as having these traits. And Blizzards own faction description establishes the Alliance as enemies of Hope and Freedom.
I will sympathize that this topic makes the Alliance into something you don’t like. But as a Horde player I understand very well that what I want my faction to be and what my faction actually is are two different things.
But even so. So what? This is a hypothetical situation. It is going to require changing things.
Because the scenario you presented does not fit within the established game structure and lore. You were the one to bring up Anduin being revealed at the “evil warmonger” which would take a big dump on his characterization as well as him wanting to impose a human empire, again going against his character arc. Furthermore Stormwind’s entire arc as a people since WC1 has been of a people who were stolidly independent, humbled, and then worked for the betterment of all their friends and allies.
Tell me again how that “Human Empire” crap doesn’t go against their thematics. Please.
Nah, don’t think so, your hypothetical is purely resentment based zero-sum crap. I can sit here all day and point out it’s plethora of flaws and how it is unworkable.
You’re projecting, and coming off as desperate for attention. But it’s okay, you have a good three other people willing to tolerate you. I’d suggest you talk to them.
I don’t know why ‘most of the Alliance leaders want a war of aggression and the rest get talked or strong armed into it’ seems like a somehow impossible scenario to you.
Cute, you were the one who stated, multiple times, that you have zero care of the Alliance story aside from how it protagonizes the Horde. I on the other hand have actively tried to find common ground that is allows both to be protagonists outside of the faction war, which I have denounced multiple times. So yeah, naw you’re stuck with me here in this thread.
I mean we have a perfectly good antagonist in that vein with Genn Greymane, there are more workable scenarios where the Horde could be the protagonist and yet still be more aggressive then their Alliance counterparts. I remember back in MoP after Siege, when Varian was chatting with the PC about containing Sylvanas into one particular region. It reminded me of a certain project we had(Until a recent slow dismantling) where we tried to contain resources in a rising superpowers economy by limiting their influence over the ocean and a intercontinental super highway.
Of course to the Alliance this isn’t evil, it’s justified because Sylvanas has been a hostile power in the past, and yet it’s not necessarily a good thing to do nor is it something that would make a hostile retaliation unjustifiable in turn. These little power plays in the Alliance would both give the Horde a reason to be aggressive without destroying the Alliance core identity.
Because the Kaldorei are isolationist and defensive, they attack those who go into their lands. Which is textbook defensive.
The humans of Stormwind are actively seeking peace and draw down. The Gnomes just want to build stuff, the Dwarves are still trying to consolidate their lands. Even Genn Greymane in BtS is no longer a warmonger. So tell me which leaders would you make warmonger?
@Darethy, except they even sanded that aspect of Genn down. So it would have to regress his development to even get him, just him, back to warmonger status.
Which then would need development and distinction , and then balanced with does the events fit that character, and multiple other considerations.
Sure we can say the developers can write whatever they want, that doesn’t abrogate significant changes that would have to be done to affect that difference, which would negatively impact the play experience for the people who signed up for the OG things. But if you want to inflict what is going on with the Horde right now on the Alliance, just be plain about it.
I was told sylvanas is the morally grey aspect of the horde from day 1, and then she burned a tree full of unarmed women and children.
Things can change for the worse in a hurry.
They’ve all also suffered years and years of on/off war with the Horde. Do you deny this fact? I see nothing contradictory if they were to decided enough is enough.
Key statement being ‘Before the Storm’. Obviously the ship has sailed given this current war is already a thing. But he would have been ideal. This entire thing is a hypothetical based around whether the structure being an issue. Turalyon would have been good as well.