To be fair, this might have been actually been the Night Warrior before Azshara ever even made it to power if Maiev was saying the truth at Darkshore.
The difference is the non-Highborne Night Elves didn’t believe Azshara was with the Legion, and thought she was innocent and it was all actually Xavius, until they learned it had been Azshara all along.
Everyone knew Sylvanas ordered the tree burned. And they still followed her. So still not remotely the same.
Chronicle says Azshara and her Highborne we’re expanding the empire. Azshara is also the one who agreed to let the Zandalari keep their mountains only because she was tired of beating them down and couldn’t be bothered to finish them off. Azshara was quite clearly out here doing some questionable things to other people way before the Legion came… as is the way of things.
I don’t think the Legion invasion is the comparison. I think the lowborn clearly looked the other way/didn’t care when Azshara was conquering other people much like how the citizens of the Horde looked the other way/didn’t care when Sylvanas burned Teldrassil. That’s the comparison I’m making.
A viable alternative is always an important thing when it comes to these sort of issues. Its great to say that Horde should have risked themselves to turn on her, then faced the ire of the Alliance with no backup plan; but that’s the effective equivalent of saying “The Horde people should risk themselves en-mass for a longstanding enemy”. Especially with the fact that nobody on the Horde side save Sylvanas knew the reasons for the burning.
Even Saurfang believed initially that the reason she did it was that the NEs had no intention to surrender. Only Sylvie knew for certain that there were “only innocents left in the Tree”. And we are talking about a race that is portrayed as so powerful, that within that very same pair of short stories an NE baker was able to fight against 8 to 1 odds with trained Horde soldiers. For all anyone save Sylvie knew, Teldrassil was going to be a meatgrinder for the Horde.
Bluntly, because Blizz put so much of Saurfang’s journey in the cinematics … the Horde had no idea what he was doing. Not to justify this trash writing, but those that turned on her were essentially those that had issues with her leadership style; and were given an alternative when it became apparent the Alliance wasn’t invested in a war of extermination against them. Saying they should turn on her “cuz genocide” is great, but when the alternative seems to only amount to them getting slaughtered by the vengeance filled Alliance … few would be willing to do that for an enemy.
4 days late but now just reading this post.
I’ve joked for years that despite the Horde being the one that’s supposed to represent the underdogs banding together against a world that hates them, most of the Alliance races happen to be refugees by the end of BfA. So yeah, why not run with it.
Have the various Alliance factions look at each other and say “Well, now that the Horde is finally not a problem, we’re gonna peace on out.” And start “splintering” (not gameplay because seriously, but lorewise they stop cooperating closely. This could be the challenge Anduin faces as he tries his best to keep the bonds together while everyone else, rightfully say “Yo, we’re good now. . You do you boo.”
EDIT: One thing I would, personally like to stress, is that the splintering doesn’t even have to be hostile. We don’t need the everybody going at each others throats with very heavy handed “these are not the ones you root for” scenarios.
For the most part just simple, understandable, and justified breaking up with everyone going off to do their own things.
The thing about the War of Thorns is not once in ten thousand years have the Kaldorei shown any inkling of a desire to be expansionistic as the ancient empire was. They only attack the Horde when the Horde invades their lands and despoils the forests on their western border. Not once have they tried to expand beyond the ancient borders of the Southfury river into modern day Horde territory, even after repeated attacks BY the Horde.
It seems logical to me that at this juncture even a commoner of the Horde would be aware if the Horde just… left the Kaldorei alone they would be left alone in turn. As such one would imagine that attempting to destroy the civilization of a people who literally do you no harm unless you provoke them should invoke a bit more disquiet among the general Horde populace.
The horde population arent drpicted as the brightest bunch the warchief says the alliance might attack they get scared because the warchief is always right otherwise they wouldnt be warchief.
Ironically you provided an example of Azshara being less heinous than Sylvanas, who didn’t let her enemies keep their capital.
I don’t have access to my copy of Chronicle right now and I’ll check later, but did Azshara start the conflict, or was it the Trolls?
Based on both these notes, your comparison doesn’t hold very much water.
Anduin and Alleria just offered to have the Blood Elves join the Alliance again. Saurfang spared Anduin at Lordaeron in hopes that he would defeat Sylvanas. The backup plan that was always available to not face the ire of the Alliance was always the Alliance itself.
Must have been my subconscious. I am after all the self proclaimed #1 Deranged Azshara Stan.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think they explicitly say Azshara started it. I think it’s heavily implied that Azshara was the aggressor between them saying she wanted to expand and Cenarius being upset by the Highborne’s actions (I don’t see why he would be upset if they were the defenders).
That being said I don’t think the Night Elves are bad people for continuing to support Azshara until they became her target. It’s a very human thing for people to rationalize their leader’s actions towards others. I can’t think of an example of anyone in history rebelling against their leaders because they were sh*tty towards an outside group, let alone one who they were historically hostile to.
I was able to look it up. It was on page 97:
Comparing Azshara summoning the Legion for genocide to Sylvanas’ attempt at genocide on the Night Elves? Fair. Though, as noted, the Night Elves did not follow Azshara after they learned of her actions, while the Horde did follow Sylvanas still. Hence the topic of the thread.
Comparing Azshara’s battles with the Trolls to Sylvanas’ attack on the Night Elves? Not even an accurate comparison in the lore.
Fair enough, I stand corrected.