and she was killed originally by Sylvanas so you reckon they could bond over their mutual dislike of her
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Yes, the Horde and Forsaken are getting a mulligan. Whether they deserve as much is certainly a topic for debate. The Forsaken, on their end, mightâve felt the ends justified the means given that they had living on all sides that sought their extermination. Exhibit A: The Alliance killed their messengers (bad form and sets a bad precedent). Exhibit B: Varian clearly felt claim to Lordaeron and attacked at the earliest when it was politically convenient (when he could get away with it without directly attacking the Horde).
To be fair, its not as though said mulligan is to their sole benefit. Because after all, in exchange the Alliance is indirectly given a mulligan for their own part.
Itâs curious that you say that the upcoming book excerpts reinforce your notion when the main excerpts we actually have involves a majority of the council arguing against justice for the Alliance attack on Zuldazar, which involved the assassination of the Zandalari monarch.
See, this is where the Horde mulligan comes in handy. It cuts both ways. Alliance often complain about having to be the bigger faction and letting the Horde be with the last punch. Well, now the Horde have an unredressed issue of an Alliance punch, and some arenât happy, but the council seems rather set on maintaining the peace that was just won, IE giving the Alliance a mulligan on the Zuldazar attack.
And no reason for peace? Peace allows the Night Elves to reclaim their lands without further bloodshed, probably years ahead of schedule. Peace allowed the factions to turn resources and focus against the Old God threat of Nâzoth in Nyâalotha. Peace allows both factions to hunt for Sylvanas, the central architect of the war, with all haste. Peace allows both factions to deal with the upcoming Scourge threat.
Perhaps its not the most satisfactory conclusion for all factions, but frankly itâs probably the best conclusion for both. As a compromise leaving no one particularly happy, it does its job.
But this is all rather off the topic of my post, which is an observation on Tyrandeâs reaction to Calia giving the most milquetoast suggestion ever (donât abandon your people).
And on this note, a few points. 1) I actually think that Tyrandeâs response makes sense from a narrative and more importantly character perspective. She isnât going to be happy with the Horde, much less the Forsaken, Iâd question Blizzard if they made the vengeful Night Warrior mellow at all.
But 2) This logic is simple guilt by association. It changes nothing that Calia has as much to do with Tyrandeâs reasons for rage as Darion Mograine in the background. That sort of logic would have field days all over Warcraft if evenly applied. Tyrandeâs reasons for anger are understandable, but that anger logically makes her irrational. Like how her venting at Anduin for not helping her retake Darkshore is sensible character-wise, but it doesnât conjure a spare battalion from nowhere whilst prep is underway to stop the Horde from getting a naval advantage.
And 3) Tyrande exists in a narrative structure that is actually fundamentally anti-war except in cases where you have genocidal threats. Thatâs basically been its bread and butter since Warcraft 3, where the formerly genocidal Horde and its nemesis the Alliance put aside differences to defeat the omnicidal Legion, and then that status quo was maintained on and off, barring the times that bad leadership made the Horde pick the genocide ball back up. So sorry, Tyrande is going to have the narrative against her, especially with her ignoring the signs of systemic change in the Horde that contradict her suspicions. Yes, the war against the Horde initially was very justified, and served to counter a real genocidal threat, but against a Horde council thatâs majority in favor of peace, the math changes.
Firstly, MakâGora wouldâve been a pointless rebellion cause it seems everyone realizes Sylvanas is stronger than any of them. Secondly, wait, does that mean that Saurfang by your standards isnât guilty?
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âHey. I dislike Sylvanas. You hate Sylvanas. * Puffin Forest mumbling * Maybe, maybewecanworksomethingouthereâŚâ
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Speaking of the leaders meeting at Icecrown, where is my girl Overlord Geyaârah?
Tyrande talking crap to Calia and the other leaders just stand there? If Overlord Geyaârah was there, sheâd be throwing fists.
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Sylvanas had already used Garithos and his forces to retake Lordaeron back in WC3 and what did she do after that? Oh yes! Betrayed them all and killed them right there.
So it was in fact Sylvanas and the Forsaken the ones who started their free âlifeâ as betrayal psyco killers.
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Thatâs probably why. Nathanos may be able to survive via favortism and fiat (probably some as of yet unexplained JaIlOr PoWeR-uP), but Geyaârah has no such protections. So thereâs no real reason for her to not end up as a pile of moondust and ash, before being able to land the first punch.
Then you have the whole bother of an international incident, and starting another global war (no matter how well-deserved), etc., etc.
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Well she is female Thrall isnât she? Did she not inherit a small ounce of green jesusâs plot armor?
Also she took out a exarch and with how gimped Tyrande is right now in lore, Iâm pretty sure she could get a few solid punches in.
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Yes, Sylvanas killed Garithos after their deal, for the pragmatic reason of claiming a stronghold for a better position to survive in the world.
But realize that killing a Forsaken messenger rather than simply rejecting them is an escalation. On top of being a serious faux pax and a trope for villains killing newsbtinger they donât like, it sets a precedent that the Forsaken cannot expect safe communication with the Alliance, so why shouldnât they do the same and kill any messengers the Alliance send?
I wouldnât blame the Alliance for rejecting Sylvanasâ entreaties after Sylvanasâ betrayal of Garithos. But killing the messenger simply cuts off any and all diplomatic possibilities as an immediate aftermath and condemns with certainty whatever messenger you might need to send in the near future.
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I donât want to defend the Alliance because Iâm mostly only pro Night Elf but after barely suviving the scourge and then being killed by the âgood scourgeâ itâs easy to understand why people would issue a kill on sight protocol.
Had Sylvanas stayed true to what little human alliance remained near Lordaeron things would have been different and any attack by Garithos would only serve to use the victim card by the Forsaken therefore inspiring compassion from other Humans like Stormwind.
Iâd have wanted emo undead trying to survive in a world that fears them rather that the evil murderers we got.
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Iâm not sure whether itâs better story fuel to leave the circumstances of those never-returning Forsaken messengers unknown, or clarify it into one of two options:
Alliance scout: âSir, we found these two undead who can actually talk and think and who didnât attempt to eat our brains the second they saw us! Theyâre saying something about opening diplomatic relations?â
Alliance commander: âUndead who can talk? It must be false. It must be a trick. This is mad! This is heretical! This is-â spontaneously grows Garithos-mustache â-Inhuman! Destroy them immediately!â
or:
Alliance scout 1: âHey, Fred, now that I think about it, those two undead were walking down the middle of the road rather than shambling around like most undead do. What if they werenât normal Scourge?â
Alliance scout 2: âYou got quite the imagination, lad. Non-Scourge undead? Donât make me laugh. Now help me throw the bodies on the pyre like all the others.â
With the current amount of information we have, I feel like the situation is so vague that each side reads into it whichever story is kinder to their own side. Which is useful for building faction animosity between players, but not so useful for arguing the fine details of the lore.
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Stormwindâs compassion from the bottom half of the world would do very little good for a Forsaken faction not only without a major stronghold, but beset by the fanatical Scarlets, the swarming Scourge, and the forces led by a bigoted Garithos (he only tolerated them to get what he wanted, heâd have zero reasons to remain friendly after).
Sylvanas backstabbing Garithos mightâve been a short term move that costed potential partnership with the Alliance, but in the actual long term it was a pragmatic decision that secured a vital grip on a continent thatâs out to exterminate her and her people.
It is now my head-canon that humans spontaneously grow facial hair in Garithosâ shape after being overcome with racist thoughts.
But to the more serious point, I wouldnât mind a glimpse into that moment, cause itâs also possible they acted without even knowing Garithosâ fate.
I like to think that Garithos died an ignoble death in the north, and no one even bothered to notice.
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Does Sylvanas know what Garithos did to the Blood Elves? I feel like that would be a pretty good justification
Probably not. So I doubt that even factored in.
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Still Sylvanas handled things the wrong way but by now we know she was working for herself in order to get back at Arthas.
Being rejected by Stormwind doesnât mean she has greenlight to torture and experiment on living humans. She took what could have been the start of a good society and turned it into a slauther house just for the lolz which served no purpose other than to further her own agenda.
Even a good portion of Forasken are to this day normal and caring people as shown with the Desolate Council but that didnât suit Sylvanas.
Iâm not saying she should have made the Forsaken be push overs but she didnât have to make them murder hobos either.
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I think her torturing humans was more so the teams trying to make the Forsaken this âevil zombieâ fantasy they were going for without thinking about developing the overall story.
The entire Forsaken story has been Sylvanasâs revenge on Arthas. The Forsaken people were just a device to allow Sylvanas to achieve that.
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I donât think the current Alliance knows much at all about anything that happened in the Garithos saga.
I believe one of Jainaâs books had a side character (Kristoff or something like that) who was a former soldier under Garithos, who has some lines like âgood thing I deserted, Garithos and his unit met some bad fate like I expected that idiot wouldâ - which implied to me that the Alliance only knows that Garithos was operating in the remnants of Lordaeron and never came back.
It also leaves the door open to there being more Garithos-unit deserters or survivors who could spread their stories, but I have yet to hear of any others mentioned anywhere. So until/unless another gets introduced, it sounds like the knowledge of Sylvanas helping Garithos, then betraying Garithos, died along with him and his unit.
(And I also like to think that the Alliance either doesnât know what happened to Kael, or thinks that these must be exaggerated rumors because a commander couldnât possibly be that stupid when he needs every man available to fight for him, right? Good olâ armchair strategizing, projecting cool, calm, and collected thoughts onto a chaotic situation, completely incredulous that the people who were operating in that situation didnât pick the optimal and rational choice.)
Personally, I like that the events during the Fall of Lordaeron arenât well-known, arenât clearly written in history books, and are muddled even for the people who got to see one chapter of it, because it drives home the theme of how catastrophic the collapse was and how utterly it broke normal society. So I prefer these little canon misunderstandings and assumptions made by each side because neither has the full story.
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Acquiring an ideal stronghold in order to survive is conducive for both the Forsakenâs continued survival and Sylvanasâ ultimate goal of revenge against Arthas.
It doesnât, obviously, but when Stormwind evidently executed the Forsaken messenger rather than send back a simple rejection notice as Silvermoon had done, they effectively announced an intent to exterminate. So faced with human opposition with no expectation of diplomacy possible, what do the Forsaken have to lose by torturing and experimenting on living humans? Morality means nothing in the face of the Forsakenâs survival, and they viewed developing the Blight as an essential for their survival,
If the Stormwind humans didnât kill the messenger, or even extended the possibility of at least neutral relations, that introduces a pragmatic reason for the Forsaken to stop human experimentation, or at a bare minimum carefully select their test-subjects from purely hostile human groups like the Scarlets, so as not to tip the scales into aggression.
As it stands, yeah, Sylvanas geared the Forsaken to be murderhobos, and perhaps she didnât have to⌠but the Alliance killing her messengers didnât really give her a reason not to, either.
Hmmmmm, no, it made sense that the Forsaken wanted a weapon and wanted it to work on both living and undead. Their methods were heinous even in Classic, but in a reasonably desperate situation with a lot of enemies on all sides and your main allied group on the other side of the world, its reasonable to assume they believed the ends justified them.
Cataclysm is what really drove the Forsaken into âevil zombieâ territory without thinking about developing the overall story.
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Basically Sylvanas said: âOk⌠you wonât help me? Prepare to die!â.
Sylvanas could have shaped the History of Azeroth for the better but she sought only death and destruction.
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You keep omitting that the Alliance viewed the Forsaken as monsters. Thatâs a huge plot point in BtS, that most relatives of Forsaken wanted nothing to do with them and viewed them as monsters. A number who did express interest were turned away because Anduin or Calia sensed they had malicious intent. Even among the chosen there were those who backed out at the last minute. Their messengers being seemingly killed reinforces that there was never even an opportunity to talk due to this.
The Alliance had no love for the Forsaken, no action they took would have changed that. Say the agreement with Garithos was honored and he gained control of Lordaeron. It would be logical that the Forsakenâs diplomacy to the Alliance would hinge on him, either directly or through different channels to ensure that they were legitimate. Can you say with a straight face that Garithos would have vouched for them?
Sylvanasâs way was cruel, but it was really one of the only good options they had. Defend themselves or be exterminated.
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I mean, slight correction, Sylvanas was like âOk⌠you kill my messengers when I ask for help? Prepare to die!â It wasnât just that they denied assistance.
Indeed, her actions following that were still bad, and her focus was death and destruction, primarily revenge. But what reason would she have to improve relations with a faction that killed her messengers on sight? What indication would she have that itâd be worth it?
It kinda took until Anduin was in charge for any attempt to bridge the divide to be made. And by that point, Sylvanas was an agent of the Jailer, so it wouldâve been moot except for the Desolate Councilâs interest.
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