Thrall vs Garrosh was not comparable. It wasn’t vengeance against Garrosh and it wasn’t portrayed as good for Thrall either. We went from annoying Green Jesus to more annoying Green Eeyore.
Illidan vs Gul’dan is just… awkward. At best Illidan is an anti-hero (and I like Illidan). So he’s going to stray from the standard morality path. But even then, Illidan’s true target was the Legion as a whole or primarily Sargeras, who he now presides over as jailer. Counting Gul’dan as vengeance for Illidan is akin to counting Nathanos as “vengeance metted out” for Tyrande.
Thrall vs Blackmoore was somewhat about vengeance for Taretha (and everything else) but he also let the rest of the people there go free and he engaged Blackmoore in 1:1 combat. At the end Blackmoore had thrown a dagger at Thrall’s face before Thrall cut him down. The earthquake was what buried the remains of the camp and Blackmoore’s corpse.
I’m not saying vengeance doesn’t play out in WoW, but really vengeance is often described as the wrong path in the morality part of the tale. In Shadowlands they’ve doubled down on the concept especially with the Uther narrative - that Uther strayed from justice and embraced vengeance and because of that he has to live with the consequences.
If Tyrande were to kill Sylvanas in fury and vengeance ignoring other pursuits, you would likely see Tyrande have to go down a similar path. With that said, if Tyrande were trying to save the cosmos and she encountered Sylvanas, who refused to be talked down or could not be immobilized and Sylvanas died in battle, we wouldn’t consider it vengeance - it would be necessary and unavoidable. I find the distinction to be somewhat … thin … but so be it.
Malfurion and Tyrande with NW power could probably wipe out the Horde. The Horde doesn’t have any characters to even remotely match their power. If Thrall gets back to Green Jesus Cataclysm power, maybe there’s some challenge (Malfurion’s going to be at his strongest in jungles and forests, but in the Barrens, etc, he’ll be less capable).
The issue would be if the Alliance/Neutrals jumped in against them.
- First, Anduin. Game over, you lose. He’d probably talk Tyrande into killing Malfurion then herself.
- Second, Jaina. You lose. She can basically do whatever the story requires.
- Third, Khadgar, Medivh, Alleria, Turalyon, the Ebon Blade, the Kirin Tor, etc. are also very powerful. Combined, they’re probably enough. At worst, the world ends.
Maybe just the end of the world is coming up? Let’s just arrange it ourselves. The cold world of Jaina, the world of Thrall’s volcanoes and hurricanes, the dark forests of Malfurion, the wastes of Karazhan … Yes. It will be possible to destroy EVERYTHING!
And the faction system at the same time. Let’s be a group that has given up on revenge. Or the civilians (peaceful) paid us first and we went after them. The goal is one - to survive in the world of the apocalypse(s) .
Russian
Может, как раз конец света подойдет? Только устроим его сами. Хладный мир Джайны, мир вулканов и ураганов Тралла, мрачные леса Малфуриона, пустоши Каражана… Да. Можно будет уничтожить ВСЕ!
И систему фракций заодно. Будем группой, которая отказалась от мести. Ну или мирные нам заплатили первыми и мы пошли за ними. Цель одна - выжить в мире апокалипсисов.
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You’re conflating Jaina’s existing skills with a power up of THUNDEROUS power that has done nothing. She has done nothing that she owes the thunder king’s power to that per day the blood elves owe the use of anima golems to.
It was a power engine of electrical life that Lei Shen was able to command. But nothing Jaina has done owes it to Lei Shen.
The Horde utilizes the tools it finds and is given. The Alliance get tools and never use them despite all the build up or implied importance of it.
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You mean like the Scepter of the Tides in BfA? Where the entire 8.0 Horde War Campaign revolved around finding and stealing it, only for it to be immediately stolen back? Or the theft of the Divine Bell. The entire catalyst for the “walk-it-back” Purge of Dalaran. That was promptly shattered in a battle between Andwin and Garrosh (that gave Anduin spidey sense)? Or how the entire Horde waged the WoT like we had just came out of BC, and we didn’t bring a single means to get on or into the Skyscraper Island Tree we were supposed to be occupying? The Horde sure uses those tools we were given lol!
And as for Jaina’s power-ups, she’s been juicing like crazy ever since her Focusing Iris boost from the very same incident that blew up her city. Just as it seems likely that Tyrande will here down the road. And their fluctuating power levels has truly very little to do with them as characters, but more vary depending on the needs of the plot. With them getting hit with the Nerf sticks whenever the Horde is forced to play the baddies without means, motive, or opportunity to really functionally do so. To make Blizz’s already forced story slightly work.
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Which faction holds Suramar after the other one did the Lion’s share of helping free it from the Legion’s grasp again?
I don’t hold Gallywix resonsible for the bad writing. I know you do.
Oh no … the Arcane Elves went with the cousins they have a lot in common with, and that wanted to get to know them … rather than the siblings who hold nothing but contempt for them and their culture even existing. Who would have guessed?!
Also, your point would be more valid if the Horde Elves actually weren’t one of the most neglected in terms of actual racial story telling out of any Horde race. Just shy of the Tauren. Where just like Baine, their reps don’t really have stories of their people to represent, which just makes them easy to tack onto Alliance stories. Also, Thalyssra openly admits she’s weaker than Jaina, and fangirls all over her in 8.2.5. And the BEs have zero characters that can match up to the Alliance powerhouses. Not even close.
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It’s easy to forget at this point but Belves were sidelined in Wrath which was basically a continuation of their own story, then mostly used for borderline homophobic jokes in Cata, then Isle of Thunder which just sort of skirts the main story iirc.
IIRC Liadrin had literally no presence in the game from Sunwell Plateau to AU Auchindoon, Suramar is more or less literally the first time the devs use sin’dorei for main storylines since BC
Also Suramar is emblematic of where the writing went wrong after Legion but lmao at the idea that one faction did the lion’s share of anything there. This is just posturing.
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Doesn’t change the fact that Thalyssra, even in a weakened state, is a powerful magus and Occuleth is literally the master of portals in the setting to the point where he can establish a full network to every major Horde city within Dazar in a near instant.
Valtrois can detect leylines almost as accurately as a blue drake and before she fell Elisande could literally bend time as if she were a Bronze.
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Yes and Rommath was once supposed to be one of the most powerful mages in the EKs. The writers aren’t going to do anything that threatens human potential on that front.
(also I don’t like the idea of Oculeth as a battlefield mage, too much of a lovable dork)
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No one said Human potential wasn’t an issue. I’d love nothing more than to watch Stormwind burn and Jaina go down with it.
But Jaina’s existence doesn’t translate to “The Horde has no high magic.” When they hold two cities of nothing but magic users.
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Every time she pulls some crazy stunt like the flying ship, people on the forums defend it by saying, “But she has the staff of the Thunder King, so OF COURSE her power is off the charts!”
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In fairness the Thunder King staff is the only way to make sense of this, she’s starting to pull stunts that make Rhonin’s worse Gary Stu moments look tasteful and measured
And yet both of these individuals (Thalyssra and Occuleth) aren’t portrayed as inherently powerful, not in the same way Alliance characters are. Rather, their “power” manifests from like 10k years of constant study, and technical knowledge. Not so much outright power. This truth also holds for the way the BEs are portrayed. Truly, with the exception of Thrall (who is even going through is own weird thing right now), Horde character powers rarely manifest in outright “innate power”. But “technique”. And with how dumb Blizz writes, technique is really not that valuable, and never results in these sort of “focusing iris/night warrior” style DBZ power boosts.
Like, even if she is being forced to rest at an inopportune time to face down Sylvanas (who is very unlikely to “die” in the raid), based on those eyes I don’t think for a moment that Tyrande wont come out of the Night Warrior experience without some sort of Jaina-esk boost. But, just like all those sorts of boosts, she will be the victim of the plots needs when using those powers going forward.
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I don’t disagree, but it seems like people are trying to have it both ways. She’s simultaneously always using the staff and never using the staff.
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Yet there’s nothing that implies that sort of debt to it. Jaina got the power up with the intent to “bring down the gates of Orgrimmar”. But even when we were literally at the gates. Jaina did nothing with it.
What crazy stunts has Jaina done?
- magic boat ride?
So what, we got a flying city filled with mages.
- Traversable Ice bridge?
Jaina was already an esteemed cryomancer prior to this.
- mass teleportation?
Jaina has always been able to do that in Warcraft and WoW.
- Blizzard dispersing blight?
Honestly, that was dues ex machina bs that really made no sense. You may got me there.
All that plus freezing the friggin’ ocean. Yeah, she’s a cryomancer, but freezing salt water takes special talent.
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This one specifically I’ll note takes a ritual from basically the entire city’s mages to move the damn thing and probably took that to make it lift off.
People called foul when Rhonin started doing stunts like levitating hills (besides the obvious issues of his self-insertion)
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We’re comparing a boat.
A seafare vehicle made of wood, glass, and metal. Able to be lifted with some magic
To an entire city and it’s in-depth sewer system and appropriate land foundation Which canonical population is undetermined.
For the hill I was more thinking of the stunt with freezing large amounts of saltwater as comparison; the boat is impressive sure but probably not over the top