The whole point was to find common ground and connections. Pretty sure that’s Anduin’s intended goal when he sets it up.
Doesn’t really show anything to say ‘you missed it’ without saying what you seem to think it is.
Ok, then editing after I’ve responded with a bunch. Gotcha.
That’s untrue and pessimistic. We see success taking hold.
Not just for being undead, also for her actions. And yet they’re still willing to talk to her civil and engage in diplomacy.
Well a lot the Forsaken have fed into whatever starting fear there was by mostly being as bad as people worry about. Cannibalizing people, engaging in biological warfare, psychological warfare.
No faction is full of all good people. It isn’t truly safe and welcoming for anyone.
That doesn’t meant you can’t form societies anyway. The Blood Elves were butchered by undead enmass. Yet they’ve allied with the Forsaken and been working for them for years. The Horde as a whole have helped them all things considered. The Ebon Blade have been working alongside the Argent Dawn and Alliance without being butchered.
Is it easy? No.
Will there never be bigots? No.
But that’s true of basically any race, it doesn’t mean there can’t be peace and alliances between the living and undead. Because we’ve seen it.
I do find the whole scenario conceptually interesting though, because it’s a reminder that your average Joe Schmoe civilian in the game wouldn’t have access to really important information that we as players would consider common knowledge.
It’s very possible that your average Forsaken might find a Lordaeron history book, read it, and be all “Wait, Terenas founded the Alliance? The Wrynns were his close friends? What do you mean Quel’thalas abandoned Lordaeron?” and all sorts of other information that Sylvanas/the Horde might find problematic for their interests.
So…this is the novel about the pivotal point in her cat and mouse game with Anduin that…occurs in-game some months before the books release?
This bit of the blurb just isn’t striking me as a selling point; it might have been more compelling before we saw Anduin go stabby-stab on the Archon, but as it is, the framing story has been defanged and all that remains is retcon.
Well, there is that. But I think you like to overlook the majority resolution in favor of the two that are convenient for your VERY Pro-Alliance argument. Of the dozens that were on the field during the Gathering, only two families reconnected to the point where they’d try to defect. There was a significantly larger group (that Genn mentions) that met their loved ones, and both sides simply (amicably) realized that they had little in common with one another anymore. There wasn’t enough there for that rekindling of a connection, so they sadly parted ways … but on peaceful terms. There were also quite a number that never got to meet. With their living relatives turning away the moment they saw their families on the other side of the field. Its only members of this final group that Sylvie allowed to live, since they reinforced her narrative.
Long story short, reconnection for a few is possible. But there is quite the range of resolutions that can occur in an attempted reuniting of Undead with their living loved ones. The rare genuine reconnection. The sad, but amicable separation. The instant rejection. Or if you’re really unlucky, you end up like Lilian Voss.
That doesn’t mean that all the details would be common knowledge. I doubt most Americans are aware of even the past couple of decades of American history aside from the basics, for example, despite the fact that they all lived through it.
We don’t know how many of them there were at all familiar with Lordaeron’s history. There were many there who didn’t even identify with Lordaeron at all but they still showed up.
But the ones that we KNOW had strong connections to Lordaeron, like Parqual or that guy who was one of Terenas’ guards, are the ones that we saw defecting.
True. You have to imagine that dissemination of information is a lot lower in Warcraft than the modern world. After a few years, a lot probably gets muddled from word of mouth.
How is this different from the oath to the Warchief the Horde takes? Do you imagine Night Elves are free to not obey Tyrande? She exiles anyone who disagrees with her. Do you think Stormwind is a form of democracy?
The fact that Sylvanas didn’t personally wipe out the Desolate Council the second she returned to Lordaeron already proves that Forsaken society was closer to a free society than any of the absolutist monarchies the rest of the races in the game favor.
I don’t think anyone is claiming these people are free to govern themselves, though. They’re governed. Not in the same manner, of course.
‘The Forsaken are free to govern themselves.’
‘Not really?’
‘What about these other kingdoms?!’
You’re not wrong, it is just a nonsequitor.
Except their restrictions seem worse. I don’t see many other races stealing books or heavily restricting travel of their people. And ultimately, a lot were just killed.
Tyrande banned all arcane magic for thousands of years and the Night Elves languished in their forests with no advancement while the rest of the world passed them by. That’s a pretty heavy restriction in my opinion.
Not really?
They didn’t seem to languish. They seemed to do pretty fine.
And their ‘advancement’ seems fine. They don’t seem to want indoor plumbing, which isn’t really related to arcane magic. But they also seem fine with that.
It was a pretty broad restriction, sure. Though that’s gone now anyway. Not long after they actually joined the Alliance.
In Stormwind you can see that the Alliance actually has some form of public education.
Stormwind also has a House of Nobles which apparently wields political influence independent of the King, meaning that it’s not an absolute monarchy so much as a post-Magna Carta monarchy. Lordaeron was the same way.
So I would just implore people not to go buy this book if you care about the lore of the game. Don’t reward blizzard for pushing out a garbage narrative.
Anyone can tell this is going to be full of heavy retcons and is just going to justify their continued use of character like Anduin and Sylvanas as the protagonists of the universe.
Doesn’t surprise me that we are seeing alot of the senior wow team members bailing from the company with the direction they are taking the game.
Anyone who cares about the lore of the game should want BfA to be retconned as much as possible in my opinion. The single worst piece of storytelling Blizzard has ever produced (with some small bright spots like Bwon’samdi and Jaina’s…whatever that was)
BFA was penned by the same minds who put this book together. Its only going to get worse, I can promise you that there isn’t going to be some amazing revelation that is going to make BFA make sense only make it worse.
Sadly while the Horde is so terriblly lacking charcter development Blizzard are allowing Authors to keep churning out novels about the same 5 characters over and over and re writing the universe and charcter motivations each time. We have to send a message that this isn’t want we want.