Irrelevant to your take.
“Is” and “ought to be” are different so anything bad that happened irl doesn’t need to be glorified again.
It’s not the same in any circumstance because these playable Eredar are supposed to be actually repentant and on path of atonement.
…I am very surprised that was added, considering how that storyline was wasted in Legion. Imagine instead of it being just the Draenei on Argus we got the equivalent of this with Orcs and Draenei. (Perhaps Varok Saurfang and Prophet Velen? ) 
I like they are very frank about this; there is no forgiveness here. It is neither offered nor asked for. Arzak’kal fully admits he is a monster, but he wants to put that to good use, finally. No amount of good deeds is going to make up for what the Man’arai did but inaction in the face of that fact is even worse. And so, the penitent Man’arai are going to act until their dying days.
Real. Like, I’m gonna be honest this is one of DF’s best questlines as far as I’m concerned.
Who’s glorifying it?
That’s what I’m saying. So I don’t think it is necessary to bring “I was just following orders” into this to compare the Man’ari to those real events. Genocides are bad, fascistic regimes are bad. The game doesn’t contest this. What the game is saying is that if people do good with their lives after atrocity, it doesn’t make up for what was done but it provides a path forwards. History can never be atoned for, what was taken can never be given back. At most all you can do is get on with it.
It actually isn’t.
It’s a terrible scenario.
They should have just went with after kiljaden sold their planet and people to Sargeras there was a splinter group of Manari that left. They’ve been at war with the Legion the whole time but we’re still fel practicors not inherently good or evil.
Instead we got cringe full guilt manari that are like ," uWu sorry i genocided countless COUNTLESS civilization/ planets, i regret doing that"
Velen didn’t force the Light on the Blood Elves. The Blood Elves chose to leech Light from the Naaru M’uru, and then demons turned the Sunwell into a gateway for Kil’jaeden and a storage of Fel. To undo that, Velen replaced it with Light.
I agree with the rest of your assessment, and it highlights the inconsistency of morality in the story, which is one of its biggest problems.
What the Man’ari did make the crimes of the Death Knights look like stealing an apple from a shop. Them getting a similar welcome to Death Knights would be lenient.
It sets a huge precedent. If the literal demons who genocided planets can be forgiven with just a “I’m sorry”, and stopping, anyone can. The Scarlet Crusade? All they need to do is stop and apologize and they should be forgiven too. The Cult of Twilight’s Hammer? The Naga? Druids of the Flame? Yrel’s Lightbound? Same for them.
Playing a formerly evil character is more interesting. It challenges you to think outside the box.
I’m sure a splinter group of Man’ari eredar wouldn’t have also been hunted down and slaughtered like the Draenei were, and not had the benefit of a Naaru vessel to carry them away.
The recent asmon video highlighted this perfectly… current wow writers are a bunch of Steven universes writers.
Except youre not… instead you’re the person that had their head down while gas chambers were being used but accepted it cause you were afraid to step up.
You’re playing a spineless loser.
At least a splinter group wouldn’t have been a group of cowards
I liked it. I feel it was the best way they could have handled giving us playable Man’ari, and while I’m not exactly confident in our chances at getting Broken, the little tease at the end gave me a bit more hope.
They clearly drew a line between reintegrating Man’ari into the Alliance and giving them carte blanche forgiveness, but I like using the ata’mal to show their sincerity.
My only complaints are sort of the usual with Blizzard: I feel they don’t do nearly enough worldbuilding when it comes to shaking up in-world social mores, and that leaves us wondering what comes next.
While I liked the story, from the perspective of someone in WoW I would be kind of worried that they’re fundamentally different from Death Knights and Demon Hunters in two pretty key ways: they’re not an organization, or a faction, so they don’t have any leadership or self-governance. We don’t know to what extent Velen directly exerts any control over them, or if he’s even trying to keep them on a leash. It was nice to hear “We aren’t going to unilaterally forgive you for everything, but this is a start”, but the sentiment feels a little…awkward, if the end result is that they’re just kind of given free reign to do whatever. A little epilogue where Velen establishes some ground rules would have been something to work with.
Also, they aren’t really appearing to us in a time of desperate need. Realistically they could have joined up with the Argus Broken. They aren’t like demon hunters or death knights, who had an expansion-relevant role in taking down the big bad threat. They’re here, realistically, because Velen is a softie and wants to give them a chance – which I don’t think is bad, but it feels like something that would cause such a huge uproar realistically.
I guess it’s a weird problem to have, but the more Blizzard ignores its previously established norms and attitudes, the more fuzzy everything else gets. I’d just like for them to slow down a little bit and tell us how Azeroth is responding to this development, and I’d be happy.
So when playable Forest trolls are coming? If we get San’ln, Man’ari, and other things, surely other troll tribes uniting isn’t off the charts?
That is a fair point, and would add more customization to the races.
Realistically, if they’re integrating something as abhorrent as demons into the Alliance with so much as a handwave, The Horde should be getting forest trolls, Dragonmaw and Grimtotem with little upheaval.
For all that I’m glad WoW is free of the taint of Afrasiabi and his ilk, I might watch that video. Link please?
I wouldn’t even say that Dragonmaw were the baddies, in Cataclysm they rejoined the Horde, sure there was Warlord Zeala, but her episode ended. And in Orc Heritage Questline, they’re still with the Horde. So why not?
And there are friendly Grimtotems with Jevan being their “face”.
And Forest trolls are part of the Horde since Vanilla with Revantusk Trolls, but heck why not to implement Amani themselves? Especially when they didn’t really do anything wrong other than trying to reclaim their territories.
Surely it can’t be worse than Scourge and Burning Legion leftovers.
How about the Scarlet Crusade and Druids of the Flame rejoining the alliance? We even had Scarlet Onslaught defectors join the priest class hall in Legion.
Agreed.
If there is one thing that the implementation of Man’ari proved, it’s that literally no one in the story scape can be denied redemption, or at least penance. Anything the so-called ‘evil’ Horde aligned races have done are a drop in the bucket against what Man’ari have been doing for millennia.
I know a lot of folks are leaning on ‘well, we forgave the Death Knights, the Undead and the Demon Hunters!’, the Man’ari are literally responsible for ALL of those things. This implementation is something unique from that, imo.
They already have been to a lesser capacity. Scarlet Crusaders are just humans, there’s been examples of them rejoining the Alliance since Classic. There are also datamined members of Druids of the Flame in 10.2 who have defected back to their kin.
To be fair, I have nothing against Scarlet Crusade being Part of the Alliance. But acting more like a rogue element. There are Alliance players who want to be more pro-active and let’s call it “shady” So I see no reason why they shouldn’t have an option to play as something that isn’t typically lawful good.
It would allow for both factions (H/A) to have both good side and a bad side. Just allow players to pick what path they’d like to follow.
I agree, I think both factions should have true ‘gray’ areas to explore nuance in the story for both sides. I was honestly hoping for more of that in with the events of the Battle for Darkshore between the Kaldorei and the greater Alliance, but alas.
I recall reading that the Scarlet Crusade was intended as an off-shoot Alliance faction in the earlier inception of WoW, but the idea was ultimately scrapped since it was a bit clunky to implement balance-wise. At least there is always RP to keep those elements alive.
All trolls joined when we recruited the Zandalari, it’s why the Troll character customization got so many variants even dark troll skin tone.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3aEkaJAdv-E&si=km7WEmRosI7k1rKw
I could care less about Asfrabi warcraft it was the worst part of WoW history.
All of these factions have already been in the Horde.
Welcome from the rock you’ve been living under.