The insinuation was “if we don’t win now we’ll die later”. She said it in orcish, which he didn’t like and she was right which he didn’t like.
Vol’jin is dead. Who amongst you will help me avenge him?
That was asked to The Horde at large outside of Orgrimmar. Then Stormheim happens, then radio silence. I might be missing a person or two, but I’m fairly certain only the Champion and Arator make the trip to Argus. Sylvanas only showed up as a voice line when you did the PvP towers.
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Elune was embarrassed her most devout follower attempted to destroy a corpse via strangulation and decided to revoke her boons.
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You … that’s actually a very good point. Elune’s just sitting there watching her battery charge bleed, before saying, “Y’know, maybe this whole avenging thing isn’t your cup of tea, after all. Sorry for agreeing to honor your pact, but not really, it’s not you, it’s me, byeeeee!”
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Elune: (whispers over her shoulder to Cenarius) it’s absolutely not me.
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Well, in a few patches/expacs, she may be seen as an early visionary for trying to help Helya throw down Odyn. The Odyn villain batting was always there, but in Dragonflight, we gave the dragons he had a chance to do their own thing, and he didn’t like that.
She also showed up for my favorite part of Legion - where she gathers the old crew to give us a pat on the back.
Tbf…
Stormheim happened.
We still have no idea what the original deal with Helya was meant to be. Heck, it could have been “you do this for me and I say the trigger word to start Operation: Daddy- D and all the Nathrezim imbedded in the burning legion simultaneously turn on the demons.”
She also LITERALLY called a retreat. They had to shut the gates or the Alliance would get in. So what, she should have waited for the Alliance to gut the Horde troops before blighting them? Would that have been more acceptable?
The whole Legion intro scenario showed that the Legion is not to messed with. If you haven’t noticed both the Horde and the Alliance lose there. Badly. The Horde would have had their leadership wiped out if Vol’jin hadn’t ordered the retreat, so avenge how? The Alliance wasn’t that instrumental in defeating the Legion either, if you think about it. The one who really punched them under the belt so to speak was Illidan and his Demon Hunters, they came with the balls out solution like brining Argus near Azeroth.
And what’s amusing is that we ended up making an enemy out of Odyn anyway in DF. So what’s the issue here?
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I’m sorry, what the heck did people think we were doing when we killed Gul’Dan, Kil’Jaden and banished Sargeras to the shadow realm? Was that all meant to be nothing important we didn’t help with?
The gates weren’t shut—Forsaken and Catapults were filing out of it and blasting Horde lines indiscriminately. Then raising them into undeath against their will (which is supposedly what sets off Voss and Baine later w/ Derek).
The leader of the Horde effectively went radio silent during an all out invasion of Azeroth by demons. The only act she undertook was working against Odyn, the Prime Designate Keeper, who was aiding us in our efforts against The Legion. Backstabbing allies (even allies of convenience) when the fate of your World is on the line is not a good leader. Not when Genn does it, not when Sylvanas does it. Odyn being a douche that we piss off later doesn’t change that he was a powerful ally helping us thwart the end of existence.
Most of the Order Halls and NPCs we interact with who aren’t native to the Broken Isles were Alliance based. Most of the people who went to Argus to end The Burning Legion were Alliance based. Illidan, Khadgar, and Velen inform most of the effort’s spearhead from the point that we start fighting back against the demons directly.
We don’t, but I suspect it was “I’ll give you something that will keep The Forsaken going indefinitely, and you’ll [something something] Odyn.”
That tracks with the Legion presentation of Sylvanas, at least. When she was still a well written character who did things that made sense.
And I was really hyped for that story.
Voss not just finding a new undead mommy to follow but stepping up to unseat the Banshee Queen would have sit just fine with me. Especially if it was emotional and relevant. “You were the chosen one! You were meant to free the forsaken, not enslave them!” Sylvanas doing borked up stuff isn’t inherently bad. Without Calia that expansion is fine.
No, she didn’t. She was on the broken isles. She was effectively on the battlefield. All of her troops were put at the disposal of the coalition forces. Neither faction leader was in charge of that. She delegated to us and to the neutral defense. What did you want her to do? Genn was busy hunting HER and almost no one gives him grief. And he didn’t even give his troops to the defense first. He just took a ship his people and the leader of SI5 and went on a personal revenge mission with zero Intel.
Sylvanas was genuinely very humbled by the appointment in Legion. She acted like it. We don’t need our faction leaders to be like Thrall and Kamehameha the big bad at the end of every expansion. It’s ok for them to just thank us after the raid.
I liked Sylvanas’ portrayal in Legion. She acted in character for Sylvanas. Me pointing these things out is to highlight that The Horde’s fanatic loyalty to Sylvanas in BFA was not explained or justified, not to poo poo at Sylvanas.
Her rallying call to the Horde (to help her avenge Vol’jin) was not delivered on. The Horde were barely a presence on The Broken Isles after her ascent to Warchief. She wasn’t anywhere to be found on the battlefield against The Burning Legion, instead focusing on personal pursuits (chasing down an artifact to keep The Forsaken going indefinitely is entirely on brand for Sylvanas at this point). If we’re going to spin that point into a positive, I would say it’s reasonable to argue she thought that swelling the ranks of The Forsaken would stand a better chance against The Legion than relying on Odyn or The Alliance (who were actively hunting her down in the face of an apocalypse).
None of that adds up to a people who, 1-2 years after deposing Garrosh, would follow a psychotic warmonger. It’s another notch in the belt of this game’s allergy to “Show, Don’t Tell.”
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No, she didn’t.
She blighted long and before the retreat was called.
She called the retreat when Jaina blew down the wall.
In AGW, the fanatic loyalty came as a result of the victory at Darnassus. The horde troops were tired of losing. They were tired of feeling hopeless. They were tired of rumors of spies. They were tired of lost pride. Sylvanas gave them an undeniable victory at Darnassus (from the mind of the small folk) and it disgusted Saurfang.
That’s even worse, because Horde lose Darkshore haha.
Yeah. Losing Darkshore made less sense than anything else. Where are all these genocided night elven forces coming from? Oh yeah… It’s all the people that Sylvanas’ intentionally let escape Darnassus. I guess that makes sense.
But pick one. Did she genocide the Kaldorei making for a heart wrenching entrance to ardenweald? Or did she allow them to escape, thus setting up an inevitable loss at Darkshore?
But on the topic of Sylvanas being accepted as a successful warchief in BfA, it’s important to note that AGW and early quests in BfA actually touch on that. Nathanos gets mad about how the horde don’t appreciate Sylvanas even though she does this for them. The undead are treated like second class citizens. Orcs in Orgrimmar are not happy about the sudden undead presence. Then The War of Thorns happens and it inspired a nationalistic fever in the Horde. Suddenly you have a cute little goblin gal correcting someone on a horde expedition for calling someone “undead”
They prefer to be called “forsaken” That was a first. That was intentional.
Depressingly enough, the thing that makes the most sense in justifying BFA is that the Orcs are genetically predisposed towards warmongering. No amount of rebellions against a tyrant will matter, all it takes is one person mildly suggesting a good slaughter and they’re zug zugging into the ocean and drowning to death because their survival instinct is so wildly outstripped by their need to mindlessly kill.
Re: Darkshore, I always thought it was Tyrande returning with the fleet that was dispatched to Silithus. Actual answer is that it’s another case of numbers/populations being so fast and loose they don’t matter. Every expansion hits us with another “our numbers are depleted, on the verge of collapse” and then the next up is just more standing armies. The gestation period for creatures in this setting must be like eight seconds. Like, people are fighting in these wars and there are just infants plopping out onto the ground.
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