Again from Tyrande’s letter to Malfurion in “Elegy”.
For the first time in what seems too long, we are in perfect accord with our fellow members of the Alliance as to how to proceed. Azerite is too precious, and our world too valuable, for us to hesitate at any chance to defend it. What horrors might Sylvanas and her Forsaken create? What dire weapons might the goblins craft or the orcs and trolls devise? I am glad that the last shipment of defenders has departed for Feralas and that our army stands ready to act the instant it must.
Although I deeply respected the late king Varian, I must confess I had my concerns about young Anduin. I am pleased to report that he is proving every day to be a worthy successor to his father. He is so terribly young—but then, so very many are to us, are they not? And yet, he is either wise himself or willing to listen to wisdom, which is perhaps more important. It is wondrous to think that our people, the humans, the draenei, and the dwarves all have priests in leadership positions.
Yet Anduin speaks of hope for a lasting peace even as we prepare for war. The loss of innocence is always bitter, but it is only with our eyes fully open that we can lead. I am glad to be here to teach him what I may, and I am glad that he is listening.
From Tyrande’s point of view at this time she actually feels in total sympatico with how her work with Anduin in Stormwind is progressing.
It’s a popular route to take to dump the responsibility for what happened, especially to Teldrassil on Anduin’s decisions. One best be reminded that Anduin made those decisions in accord with everyone who was advising him, including Shaw, Greymane, AND Tyrande.
Trash writing is not really compelling evidence. Anduin is a child, and he made decisions that a child would have made, that resulted in the Genocide of the Kaldorei people.
I do not so much care what Blizzard says. They have the responsibility as writers to convince me. I am not convinced.
Your reply doesn’t remove my concern, in fact, it only makes it worse because it establishes that Tyrande trusted Anduin, and was acting out of a unified concern that the Alliance had about Azerite. Meanwhile the Alliance had no plans to reinforce the critical flank that was being emptied.
So was Tyrande being pants-on-head-stupid? Yes, but she also wasn’t the only one. It very much seems like the Alliance sat back and jointly agreed on this blunder, when they should have considered multiple possibilities. I do not absolve Tyrande of blame for this, but I also don’t absolve the rest of the Alliance, who not only failed here, but failed to take the territories back.
It just seems…I don’t even have the words for it really. Though, I still think Greymane should’ve been the paranoid one about sending the bulk of the army to Silithus.
Dude witnessed first hand what the original horde was capable and knew exactly what Sylvanas was capable of doing. But that’s me.
Everyone should have - and I will remind you again what the Alliance believed instead Saurfang’s army would do:
Saurfang’s army was supposed to swing south, marching through the expanse of the Barrens. Then, upon reaching the Thousand Needles, they would crowd their whole army at the elevators, and somehow lower it, as well as all of their catapults into the Thousand Needles. The Thousand Needles is impassible due to being flooded, so I guess they would use their catapults as makeshift boats to make it to Tanaris. They would then march through that bug infested desert to slowly make their way to the only way into Un’Goro Crater, which they would also march through, presumably on the hope that their catapults would scare away Devilsaur attacks - and that the notoriously uneven ground wouldn’t prove to be an impedement. After that, they would take their army up the only way out of the crater to finally end up in Silithus.
That’s what everyone believed was totally going to happen, and of course it didn’t.
Tyrande trusted Anduin because he was following HER advice. You seem to be missing that essential point. She trusted him because he was following conclusions that she had already made. Along with Greymane and Shaw.
Take them back… with what? The Alliance had already bled it’s resources in this Fourth War. Would have Anduin literally send his farmers to war in some futile attempt to reverse what had happened?
Anduin sent his forces to places like Arathi and Lordaeron, places that are of no bearing to the security of any Alliance nation, but do exist on Stormwind’s geopolitical wish list. Merely blowing up or establishing a chokepoint at the Thandol Span would have made these conflicts irrelevant, allowing the Alliance to focus on its obligations to its members.
Instead of obsessing over Arathi, he could’ve sent those troops to Kalimdor instead. But nope, Anduin let the diminished and tired kaldorei army, a small fraction of gilnean worgen with Greymane and Ivar with his bloodfang pack do all the fighting.
He wanted peace more than helping the Kaldorei retake their ancestral lands. Dude was more worried about hurting horde feelings than helping his own allies.
Arathi was a ogre infested ruin, that not even the forsaken cared enough about to take over…but Anduin thought it would be glorious for his human empire.
Because Churchill was trying to advance British interests in the Mediterranean - and wrongly believed that it was the “soft underbelly of Europe”.
It wasn’t. The Italian campaign is widely regarded as a complete disaster for a reason - and just about everyone was ticked at him for prioritizing it over France.
Did you forget that Greymane went WITH Anduin to Lordaeron? The Grey Wolf most likely insisted that Anduin take his response to Teldrassil directly to Sylvannas’ herself, not exactly an unreasonable response, especially if you can decapitate the Horde leadership while doing so.
We’re talking about when the battle for Darkshore was about to commence and Tyrande asked for aid from Anduin and Anduin was pretty much like Go die, MUH PEACE must prevail at all costs
Which itself represented a military operation that boggles the mind in all of the things that had to go right in order for it to work.
Practically unopposed landing?
Little to no concern for logistics?
The Horde didn’t even try to harass the invasion fleet?
Did they plan for sieging a castle after that? Did they think that was going to be easy?
No countermeasures for plague?
Did they know that Jaina was going to be there to bail them out?
And of course the decapitation strike didn’t even work, so in the end it was next to pointless.
Churchill’s blunder didn’t really get them any closer to it. It just acted as a meatgrinder. I’m really not sure what else they were expecting when they decided that they were going to try to push through a notoriously mountainous country - other than to make Churchill feel secure about British colonial possessions.
That’s not nearly the picture and you should know that. That scene takes place right after a cinematic that illustrates just how stretched in resources the Alliance was in fighting a war in Kul Tiras and Zandalar. Or did you forget Greymane’s “We’ll be drafting farmers next.” line?
Dividing the forces the way Tyrande wanted Anduin to do was how the Horde got defeated in the Second War. Otherwise, they would have won that one.
