The Scarlet Crusade in classic/vanilla went from being an overzealous movement that lost its path due to the manipulation of Balnazzar with a heritage of high elves, humans, and dwarves to an objectively worse written rendition involving the supremacist viewsets of Abbendis.
The Ashbringer comic has done irreparable damage to a splendidly morally grey movement to an objectively evil punching bag with zero nuance.
You have a possibility to do what the Illidan novel did to Burning Crusades with clarification and streamlining events, without erasing what was and still is one of my favorite enemy factions.
Bring back the inclusivity of the Scarlet Crusades beginnings while addressing its fall from grace through the manipulations of the Dreadlords in their desperation to neutralize the threat of the Ashbringer.
Its not too late.
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Even in Vanilla they were depicted as ultra-racist humans.
The entire point of the faction was to be a spiritual successor to the extremely racist humans in WC3: The Frozen Throne.
The comic didnāt change anything in that regard.
There was never supposed to be a legit morale justification for the Scarlet Crusade.
They were always the bad guys.
And if they werenāt, they wouldnāt have been hostile to the Alliance.
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Havenāt read the comic but Iām gonna tell you this:
Unless they pretty explicitly states in the comic that āWe never liked Garithos and we definitely never sided with him, or held any of his stances, or opinions, and thatās definitely not why we were easily manipulated - in fact it was really difficult to manipulate us and we were definitely and totally fooled by themā, thereās not much that can be redeemed about the characters.
Several of them even had multiple chances to do better, to be better, to learn from what had happened and ā¦ nothing. Precisely nothing changed when Lilian escaped her ādaddyā.
Nothing about them was splendid or morally grey. āObjectivelyā evil doesnāt exist, but the vast majority of Scarlet Crusade members are definitely morally reprehensible as an average and at best, completely amoral.
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All I heard was āScarlet Crusade did nothing wrongā, and āmake Alliance great again.ā
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All Balnazzar did was unite a bunch of racist humans into a movement, lol. The racism was there before him, see Garithos. Scarlet Crusade, āmorally greyā, lol.
I mean yeah Balnazzar manipulated and led them, but all he did was direct their racism toward the things he wanted. He only enabled them to accomplish things, he didnāt change them.
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Yea theyāve been openly anti all no humans the moment they were founded
Mind you, if you were a human in western/eastern plaguelands, they were were probably the best heroās you could hope for back then since just remember how much territory the scarlets actually had in those zones, including an entirely unplagued city
But well, their hatred of all outsiders kind of eventually lead to their downfall
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Iām not arguing for an abject removal of what makes it a perfect villain faction, Iām arguing to remove the retconned beginnings of the Crusade as the Ashbringer comic implied it. Before the effects of Balnazzar, the Scarlet Crusade had an alliance between Dwarves, Elves, and Humans in an attempt to bolster forces across what would become the plaguelands and silverpine to defend Tirisfal.
The comic, which many of you are either unknowingly referencing or pulling inference from, states that there WERE no such origins to the Crusade despite it being evident even in their very halls.
Iām not asking to remove it, Iām simply asking to cement and clarify their downfall in the beginning instead of affixing to that absolutely atrocious storyline presented in the comics.
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Do not waste your breath. The Light knows the truth.
Love live the Scarlet Crusade!
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I am going to enjoy wiping out the Crusade goons in Gilneas. We need the next patch asap.
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If it becomes a ācanonā redemption (The Scarlet Brotherhood heavily implies they have Caliaās daughter) Iām for it, but man Iām not enjoying how Caliaās been written so far.
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I think at least joesph, voss, and whitemane were redeemed scarlet crusade members. Maybe something can be done with those characters? 
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