Something I’ve been thinking about lately.
A lot of folks have suffered losses in this expansion - moreso than in any previous one. Teldrassil is the obvious centerpiece of any such discussion - it represents the largest singular loss suffered by any playable people in WoW’s lifetime.
The thing is - Teldrassil’s loss isn’t something for players to be angry about. It’s stuff. It’s an asset. Characters in-game can and should be angry about it, but for players to be angry about it is absurd. We don’t live in Azeroth. We should be interested in characters for who they are, not what stuff they have.
What actually matters is the character of a people - their motivations and emotions. Know what’s a great source of both of those things? Losing stuff. It can be a great thing for pushing characters! Characters can grow and develop a great deal by losing stuff.
The Worgen are a great example. The loss of Gilneas didn’t destroy the Worgen as we know them, it essentially created them! Genn’s fury over that loss is at the core of his characterization, and he would be worse off without it.
So, if losing Teldrassil isn’t a “real” loss, what is?
Well, if we’re sticking with Night Elves: A Little Patience was a real loss. The Night Elves lost no material “stuff” in that scenario, but their military competency was degraded to make humans look good. Sira and Delaryn are perhaps real losses: not because they switched sides, but because their flimsy pretense for doing so makes Night Elves look stupid and fragile.
If this expansion ends with the Night Elves being expected to easily forgive Teldrassil, that would be a real loss, much moreso than the tree itself. The emotions generated by the loss of Teldrassil are powerful, and for those emotions to be discarded lightly would be a terrible thing.
This brings me to other peoples’ losses.
The Sunreavers in the datamined scenario. I’m not upset about the Purge of Dalaran as an act - it functioned as an excellent way to finalize the break between the Blood Elves and the Alliance, and remove any possibility of them ever going back. It created a more genuine reason for Blood Elves to participate in Red vs Blue conflict.
As a story beat, I like the Purge.
What irritates me is when the characters’ anger over this event is treated as invalid, or evil, or stupid - this degrades the Blood Elves as people. This is an actual loss.
Orcs have lost a lot in this expansion, and not for the first time. The premise of WCIII was “What if the Orcs are actually decent people, underneath it all?” The premise of Cataclysm, WoD AND BfA have all been “Actually, no, they’re monsters who will flip into genocide-mode with just the slightest nudge.” Saurfang will “redeem” them, of course… at least until it’s time for them to be the baddies again.
And, last but not least…
The Forsaken have lost everything.
In terms of “stuff,” they’ve lost Lordaeron. This is a big asset to lose, but you’d hardly know it from playing the game. Whereas the Night Elves have been set on a black-eyed vengeance crusade for the loss of Teldrassil, the Forsaken have not been permitted any such grief. Their position in the story as unrepentant villains does not permit for such sentiment.
In terms of leadership, the Forsaken have lost far more than anyone else. Sylvanas has been reduced to a cackling idiot whose every plan fails catastrophically - and who casually murders her own people for minor acts of insolence. Varian? Vol’jin? They exited the story, sure, but their characters were left intact.
If Tyrande and Malfurion were to die right now, the Night Elves would not have "lost" them to the same extent that the Forsaken have already lost Sylvanas.
Most of all, every time Blizzard casually flirts with the idea that the Forsaken might be mind-controlled, it’s a tremendous loss - it invalidates everything about every Forsaken character, totally robbing them of all agency. Word of God continues to tell us that this isn’t happening, but when dialogue writers have Forsaken NPCS thank Alliance players for killing them, what exactly are we supposed to think?
Anyway, this is already too long. TLDR: worry less about losing places and things. Worry more about losing the emotional core of your people.