Maybe the Horde isn't evil? They just lack morals?

Lore Story Forum
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This is an idea I have been tossing around for a while.
Maybe the reason we think the Horde is getting villain batted is because we don’t understand them.

We are projecting human morals and emotions on them.
Simply put the various races within the Horde have different values than we do.

The Orcs, Undead and Trolls probably don’t really care who they are killing. As long as they are the enemy then they kill them.
Soldier, farmer, man, woman, child or even a toddler.
They simply don’t care. It’s an enemy so they just kill it.

Goblins on the other hand probably think of ways of using them as cheap disposable labor or merchandise to profit from unless some organs are more valuable removed rather than keeping it attached.

Blood Elves and Nightborne probably have a superiority complex and simply do not care what happens to a lesser race. Kind of like how you don’t feel sorry for killing a rat in a trap or stepping on an insect.

I would say the Alliance has similar issues but they are presented as intensely moral in-comparison. In any cinematic, cutscene or quest they bombard you with disclaimers how they are honorable and how humane they are in sparing the civilians or staying their hand. Which I find very interesting and frustrating at the same time.

Thoughts?

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I think its a combo of what you said and generally not being able to think for themselves or muster up the brains or heart to go against the norm. Sure theres outliers here and there but overall you cant argue with consistency.

Besides one note antagonists are never in low supply. Look at Dragon Ball.

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Maybe they just aren’t libs and don’t sympathize with their enemies. I don’t think the Horde should sympathize with their opponents unless they are incompetent or just want to die. OR WAIT;… maybe they want a Garrosh 2.0

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did you really need to add the RL politic rhetoric to your rant?

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He’s just a troll, and not even an entertaining one. Your reaction is his reward.

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Wait, wait, hold everything.

sits down

:popcorn: Continue.

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Do we really need to have another discussion on why one sovereignty should feel bad for attacking the other?

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hmm… you may be right.
Silly me for giving people the benefit of doubt.

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But in all seriousness, I was using them as a comparison for the current embodiment in which the Alliance players and some Horde have taken on, despite you not being one. M’bad

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I mean this is just a theory I read somewhere (Can’t remember where on these forums for the life of me) but a partial explanation to the orcs’ behavior, namely their willingness to attack forested night elf lands, could be a left over instinct from their breaker ancestors whose line of thought could be summed up as,

“Plants = bad”

And if trying to clear said plants drew out hostile purple elves well then they must be bad too. Again just a bit of a fun theory that isn’t mine, wish I could find the thread I read it in.

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I think you’re trying very hard to head Canon your own fantasy lore into the game.

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The very first words were literally saying these were my own thoughts and theories.
You don’t need to think about it. I am literally telling you. lol.

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♪ Our only major quarrel’s with your total lack of morals ♪

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BFA is mostly Blizzard going through a handful of character story arcs with faction conflict as a backdrop. How much any of these character’s attitudes or actions are supposed to be a reflection of your average soldier, civillian or even player of that race/faction is debateable.

Similarily, if a minor character or simple footsoldier does something bad (or good) is he supposed to be a representation of that race’s ideals, morals, combat prowess etc?

In other words trying to gain an understanding of the Horde races based on what we’ve seen in BFA will probably just give you a headache.

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I don’t think the issue is that they lack morals, or that we measure them using “wrong” morals. That isn’t to say there isn’t a moral filter that tints their view. Obviously, Orcs are a lot more nonchalant about war than Humans might be. But still, we’ve seen plenty of Horde operate on standard morality.

The issue comes with the consistency. The Horde can be moral, then the next patch/expac will do something incredibly immoral. Their portrayal keeps swerving all over the place.

In the same expansion, we have Saurfang vowing to not harm innocent civilians, and then Orcs spearing innocent farmers for yucks. It’s like Blizz can’t decide if they want the original Dark Horde portrayed in Warcraft 1 and 2, or the Noble Horde we were shown in Warcraft 3.

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The problem is we’ve actually been shown that the Horde races do have a degree of moral standard, in theory and related to their honor codes, typically. Heart of War is a story that rather clearly illustrates this idea.

“Our parents fought in the wars,” she said slowly.“They drank the blood of Mannoroth like your father did, and they were parties to its curse. They committed terrible acts in the name of the Horde. They attacked and murdered the innocent.”

“An ambush on open troops waiting to fight is one thing. To attack a regiment already engaged in battle with another from behind? What would you do next?” Garrosh demanded. “Would you sneak into their camp and poison their water? Would you enslave one of their commanders with magic and force him to murder his troops while they sleep? Would you rain disease upon your enemies, like the Forsaken? Would you fight the way they do?”
Blackscar stuttered, at a loss for words.
“There is no combat but honorable combat, Blackscar.” Garrosh held up the report in front of his face and crumpled it in his hand. “This? This is coward’s work! I will not have cowards among my ranks!”

Then Saurfang mentioning his shame and regret for what he did during the First War. So clearly Orcs, at the very least, have some degree of morals and empathy. Trolls perhaps to some lesser extent, given they view degrees of stealth and trickery fine. But there remain various social norms we observe. I don’t really want to dig for quotes all day, but clearly a lot of Horde races distinguish between the ideas of right and wrong. Blood Elves have shown degrees of empathy, aid, and moral view in relation to humans before. Nightborne might be more in line with apathy towards other races, though they at least have acted liked they cared at times.

A secondary aspect of this, does lacking morals make you not evil? These are self-aware entities with some emotion and assumedly free will. Even asserting they don’t have morals (which is suspect beyond the Forsaken), they should have morals, logically speaking.

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This smells a lot like a Horde bashing thread with a very thin veneer trying to hide it, but I’ll bite anyway…

The Horde is fictional. The races within the Horde are also fictional, as are the various characters contained within. Since they are all fictional, they were created by humans.

Unless your argument is that Blizzard writing staff has done epic level top tier culture building to flesh out non-human races with cultural details so far removed from the basic humanocentric assumptions that are guaranteed to bleed into anything humans create, the notion that we just “don’t understand” the Horde is incredibly unlikely.

We know the Horde is not evil because Blizzard has told us this. And up until certain actions in BfA there’s only been stand alone incidents that were up for debate, so Blizzard has more or less backed up there claim.

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I agree. I think many posters and players cant help but push their own moral values as a theme.

The worst and quickest part of Human nature is calling others evil for not following your views.

People create this moral code IRL in their own heads, and expect all beings in all universes to agree automatically in all instances - or they are evil.

I consider it a lack of perspective. Or self-serving sanctimony (Sylvanas and the Horde are evil - so every act committed against them is good!)

To lay real-life guilt and emotional trips on a video game story is odd - especially because when people make real-life comparisons, they usually remove all context from the WoW Universe.

I dont see it that way. I think the OP makes a good point.

I could be wrong - maybe they made this thread intending to bash the Horde. But if some people see it as bashing - I see it as fitting.

The OP seems to be saying that Players are bringing their own hang ups and projecting them on the entire universe, instead of considering the VERY different universe we are discussing.

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“we know the horde is not evil”
“we burn women and childrens alive”
totally not evil.

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Counterpoint.

We’ve been outright told the Horde isn’t evil.

We’ve never been told those women and children weren’t evil.

Checkmate.

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