I have to admit, even as someone like myself who finds Sylvanas redemption to be a foregone conclusion (they’re not being subtle about her obvious looks of regret in the cutscenes, Blizzard has the subtlety of a flying brick), to use words like “morally unforgivable” to one of the most compassionate characters on Azeroth while also advocating that Sylvanas be redeemed in the end of the narrative is quite strange to me, where’s the sense of consistency in this?
I’m open to a “Light bad” story, I think it’s well done in FFXIV, but I don’t think Blizzard could pull it off that well. I think it would just look too much like an a*spull for Turalyon to go from a kind and noble traditional heroic Paladin to more of a subverted edgy Light-using warmonger and that’s because I don’t think Blizzard has the proper talent to really make it work.
I really hope that it turn out to be Anduin that come out of his ordeal with the jailer has jaded and reaches out the the light looking for a easy solution when he is saved by Yrel and her people. They then Light forge Thrall, Baine and Jaina.
He comes back to azeroth to remake the world in the Light with Yrel at his side but is resisted by Turyalon (having warned anduin to not be blinded by the light). He returns and demands his place back as High king stating he will “cure the world” Alleria argues against him and perhaps Anduin attempts to kill her calling her an abomination. We instead then side with Turyalon against Anduin and his lightforged (including calia) as they try to Light forge all of us.
We have to then have to save those we can from the process with the Assistance of the void. Specifically a Old god that returns after looking out at what was happening in the universe.
This resolves alot of issues with the plot. Firstly fixes anduin being to Naieve and showing that there is a consequence for such a outlook. secondly The Army of light with Anduin jaina and the orders at his command makes him a decent threat especially if alot the the alliance falls in line. Thirdly it means we don’t villian bat the entire faction just those that have been indoctrinated. This also prevents them villain batting the Lightforged PC players on the alliance.
Funny enough, the ONLY person appalled about what Turalyon and Alleria were doing was Jaina, and when she went to Anduin about it, all the boy king did was make excuses for it.
I think that’s the biggest issue the alliance has. Blizz writes these morally questionable acts for them and than blizz gets scared and immediately has someone alliance side or ally adjacent like Baine justify said actions.
During the early days of the Legion-invasion the Alliance was still under the assumption that the Horde betrayed them at the Broken Shore resulting in the death of a nation and military leader of the Alliance Varian. With SI:7 having also been infiltrated by agents of the Legion they weren’t even able to get the real story for the longest time. And a seemingly betrayal as such gives more than enough justifications for a military strike. Outside of the personal bias of Greymane and the Alliance soldiers in general. Can’t trust Sylvanas, which turned out to be true in the end.
Does it make it good? Bad? Does that even matter? Stormheim is one of the few moments in Warcraft, where I felt that I was actually dealing with actual characters. No rational decisions, no big morality. Just Alliance soldiers who wanted the head of the one they thought responsible for the fiasco of the Broken Shore and many, many other crimes over the years.
(Outside of the fact that the problem is mainly that diplomacy doesn’t exist at all in Warcraft. Neither the Alliance nor the Horde ever send a message over to the other faction like, “What the FAQ happened back there?”)
Until after, when even the Horde itself was not allowed to have an opinion or react to such an attack. Which I suppose as a plot-device Faction, such reactions are superfluous. The Horde can not be allowed to react to what clearly was a declaration of War by the Alliance (when Anduin’s total lack of response was Factored in). Because we simultanously “have to” start the next Faction conflict, but can’t actually have the luxury of pesky things like motives to do so (let alone valid ones). Because to justify that antagonism, the Alliance might have to do something antagonistic (that’s allowed to count). And they can’t do that.
EDIT: Also, the Horde held an absurdly public funeral outside the gates of Org for Jin. With an Alliance member and soldier secretly in attendance (Jin’s friend, Tyrathan Khort). If that was not a big enough queue to them what had occurred at the Broken Shore, I don’t know what to tell them.
By this rationale that the Gathering was totally fine, because the provocation that the Forsaken would defect to the Alliance is motive enough to quell any uprising without long term consequences for Sylvanas or the Horde.
Sylvanas’s “crimes against the Alliance” were crimes of survival. And she wasn’t responsible for Varian’s Death, perceived or otherwise.
Even if at the end of Battle for Azeroth Sylvanas was proven to be duplicitous, doesn’t make the actions taken against her and her Forsaken to be good, that’s not how it works. The Alliance contantly provoking her could also be the reason she continues to mistrust and betray the Alliance at every opportunity. The Alliance have proven that they cannot be trusted when it comes to the undead, this isn’t just a living vs Sylvanas thing. Even a paragon of the Light, Alonsus Foal calls the Alliance out on their bigotry of the undead and that’s why he refuses to pledge his allegiance to any one faction.
I trust Alonsus, more than I trust Turalyon to know what is right and what is wrong, and in Chapter 26 of Before the Storm Alonsus calls Turalyon and Greymane out for their ingrained biases. Those biases are essentially Turalyon’s fatal flaw, so if they were going to give Turalyon the villian bat (which I don’t think they are going to do, as Turalyon seems like he’s actually more conflicted and wants to do the ‘right thing’) they have a perfect opportunity to exploit his personal biases only to have him reel himself back in by realizing he’s been wrong. His love for Alleria is totally being exploited by her and may cost him.
And SI:7 was firmly in the hands of a dreadlord who are known to be master manipulator and in older lore only a few of them were capable of bringing down entire planets (sadly we never see this kind of manipulation ingame). While the game portrays SI:7 pretty often as somewhat incompetent, they really aren’t in the overall lore. It’s not unreasonable that SI:7 would be capable of withholding information in one way or another. (Especially since during one of the rogue quests you come across the two agents who killed Amber Kearnen, who got their orders to kill her from ‘Shaw’ and they don’t question it.)
I blame this on the presumed rewriting of the ‘Battle for Azeroth’ storyline. We got another event like this in Silithus, with the Alliance making a first strike against the Horde miners in the area but the book later downplays this whole thing, even turning the Horde into the ones who started it by slaughtering an entire expedition of dwarves, gnomes and night elves.
I don’t see the problem here? Defectors got executed and in the overall politics Sylvanas was dealing with rebels in her own ranks. It might look wrong for the Alliance, but really what’s the problem for the Horde here?
And for the Alliance meanwhile Sylvanas is responsible for the destruction of Southshore, human experimentation, the destruction and blighting of Gilneas and plenty more.
It really looks like both sides do have plenty of reasons to hate one another and it does look like many of their actions have plenty of justifications for certain characters. The only thing missing is Blizzard giving both factions the equal treatment and not glossing over Alliance and Horde actions in order to force a certain narrative like they did in BfA.
Yeah … Silithus. I have a lot of issues with how that played out. As charming as they were in BtS, it is very clear that the abduction of Sapphretta was meant to be the “handwave/whitewash” moment that justified SI:7’s attack on Goblin civilians. As Sapphretta was working with the Explorer’s League during her abduction. But, at some point late in the game, Blizz realized that chronologically that excuse would not work … and defaulted to “Goblins LOL! Its what they do!” Forcing in a downright nonsensical, unprovoked (even for Goblins) attack on the EL … before their second (original) attack for Sapph. And in both incidents, the Horde was not allowed to react to SI:7. Because it had to be them that started the war.
Blizz is HYPER non committal to Alliance acts of “Grey” or “Aggression”. They have been so since Cata. With ever increasing escalations of whitewashing, handwaving (even by the Horde effected), and mountains of justifications to prove them right in the end. While simultaneously (and consequently) the Horde is forced to increasingly be the Aggressors without any real motives to do so. Because the Alliance can NOT be allowed to give them any. Which then results in Blizz creepily defaulting to “Its Horde X Race, its just what they do” more and more. For a company once lauded for so expertly subverting the “Evil/Good Race” trope that Tolkein himself came to regret using; they’ve thoroughly seemed to embrace it (and then some) now.
My favorite was Gilneas. It’s framed as this war the Forsaken are gang pressed into that turns into a fight for their very survival once the Alliance turn up and Garrosh’s reinforcements are all incompetent and drunk.
But nevermind Sylvanas was working with uh, Alpha Prime. A ridiculously named character even for this setting. To get the Scythe of Elune, so she could control all the Worgen and rule the world. I guess.
And the thing was the Forsaken were still the antagonist in the Gilnean story. They’re invaders, you don’t care about someone’s reasoning if they’re throwing grenades at your house. But on the Forsaken’s side you see they didn’t want this, were forced into it, and are in over their head desperately scrambling to keep above water and force a stalemate.
But nah that was just too interesting. It had to secretly be about some Saturday morning cartoon ish.
Southshore was terrible from a design perspective. Hillsbrad turned into am unplayable slaughterhouse because pairing a 20s Horde hub and a 30s Alliance hub perpetuated a relentless cycle of violence.
It needed to be destroyed. And my only lament is that it’s destruction wasn’t playable.
Frankly just making the Bulwark have a Blue FP you could get to on a free flight from Refuge Point would’ve made more sense.
Seriously if you’re curious about my seething hatred of the place go roll a Horde toon and try leveling there on a Classic PvP serve. By now it’s probably dropped to “Extremely frustrating” from “unplayable mess that needlessly pads the game as you scour the globe for other quests in your level range”.
I loved that place.
Everytime I wanted to pvp back in the day I would go there.
In Classic I had some great fun in that zone.
Besides lorewise it was this tiny piece of Lordaeron that survived so all in all it was one of the more interesting zones.
It has ties to the Scarlets but it was actually destroyed because it’s the port city that canonically brings in supplies and Alliance forces that perpetuate the conflict over the Arathi Basin. It’s a civilian site but it’s also a military target for the purpose of canonizing ongoing pvp in Arathi.
