Thrall also said Sylvanas would come to burn Thunder Bluff. Characters’ negative expectations aren’t always accurate.
Ok, let me put it this way. This isnt headcannon, ok? Saurfang left the horde because it was no longer his horde. He blamed Sylvanas, because the horde he was leaving, supported her. Thats a fact. Not my fanfiction. It’s not until right before Mok’Gora that he realizes its not Sylvanas, but the nature of the horde. And Anduin, being so wise convinces him of the inherent goodness of most people. This is all cannon. Its the plot of the better 3/4 of the expansion.
Saurfang did not see his horde as prisoners of an autocrat. He saw his horde as bloodthirsty, honorless genociders. This is immediately following WoT, he struggles with it during the Battle of Lordaeron, and finally chooses to leave in the late stages of the defense, because surprise! Sylvanas employs blight.
Saurfang also believed Anduin could stop Sylvanas. And Anduin talked Saurfang out of believing in the worst. Saurfang’s depressed spiraling is not indicative of the thoughts or feelings of any other soldier besides himself. It is headcanon because you don’t have a single example of any Horde character calling the War of the Thorns a victory.
When did that become the test to judge victories?
And, of those present at the WoT, the only example we have of someone complaining is Saurfang. Nathanos is visibly shocked at the order, but the engineers and the troll mage make no show of shame, or resistance. (Though they either dont hear the order or hesitate, which is open to interpretation, but I’d argue it can be interpreted as nothing more than surprise.)
What we do have from minor NPCs in the War of Thorns is explanation of their hatred for the Night Elves. Their enthusiasm, and hope for a win. The troops marching into Night Elf territory do so with enthusiasm, and, in the case of more than a few, dreams of glory.
AGW (and the entire Old Soldier narrative) is meant to contrast the experienced and less idealistic perspective of Saurfang with that of a younger generation of Horde soldiers.
“The screams continued. They reminded him of Shattrath. He had loved the sound, then.”
Here, we are reminded that, at the time, Saurfang felt no guilt while committing acts of genocide at Shattrath. This isnt just an aside. This gives us insight into the mindset of the enthusiastic soldiers razing Darnassus. It took time and deep introspection for Saurfang to realize that Shattrath was an atrocity, and he only now is realizing that war is always (normally) an atrocity.
Ignoring the nuance of these points in AGW, of the title, of Saurfang’s literal and figurative opposition to our enthusiastic younger orc, is missing the point of the whole thing.
You cannot reconcile the Old Soldier cinematics or the questlines involving Saurfang with him leaving the Horde because he thought it was all bloodthirsty, honorless genociders. He tried to get the Alliance to kill him, but they wouldn’t. Then Anduin pep talked him into helping him overthrow Sylvanas, who Saurfang knew would be coming for his head.
Someone with no faith in something isn’t going to send Zekhan to Orgimmar to rally the troops or make a trip to Outland to get the OG Warchief back in the game.
No. But you can take his brief expression that Sylvanas is the logical spiritual successor of Blackhand’s Horde to mean that he at least faults the Horde in general for following her.
He still loves the idea of the brief era in Horde history that was Thrall’s Horde. He, for much of Anduin’s campaign to foment a horde civil war, is struggling with a lot of emotions. Not the least of which, is his conflicting emotions about Sylvanas’ horde… because thats a thing.
Come Mok’gora, Saurfang sees himself as a sacrifice to redeem the Horde. In order to do so, he has to acknowledge that the Horde is made up of sinners.
Yeah, Saurfang is saying out loud how dumb the writing is and giving voice to how much of a depressed old do-nothing he had become. But they still never bothered demonstrating Sylvanas generating a loyalty base. It’s just kinda there, miraculously, despite none of our leaders liking her or what she was doing (apart Gallywix and Geya’rah). Which is to say, it was a dumber retelling of MoP Garrosh/Vol’jin. Because that’s exactly what it was. They thought they could tell the MoP story better, but they couldn’t. Hoo boy, could they not.
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They definitely could have told the story better.
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I’m pretty sure joe mugs on the street were initially celebrating sylvanas victory.
I personally am not sure there was a better solution to be had with the time and resources available—remember that patch 8.2 was likely already well into development by the time Afrasiabi left. The stuff he introduced into the story was so big, so heinous, so lore-breaking that I doubt there was a truly satisfying way to salvage it by then.
World War 2 is not a good conflict to pick for this argument, because the entire concept of Strategic Bombing is explicitly about targeting civilians to ‘erode a nation’s will to fight’ and that was used by both sides of the war extensively.
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I’m pretty sure there’s only like, one developer that even enjoys the Alliance as a faction.
The Alliance will never be interesting as long as that Wrynn albatross is God-Emperor for the writers to fawn over hog the spotlight.
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There are several that do have their main as Alliance, the “problem” is that I know at least 2 higher ups are gnome mains, or they like the classical Alliance themes and won’t explore new areas, and when they actually do try we get void elves. The void elves started as just a random concept art one of their artists did, and the rest of the team liked it so much they made it an AR, remember that the allied races had 2 lead people in charge for them, one for the horde and one for the Alliance who do play their respective factions.
He helped introduce a lot of the lore everyone accuses him of breaking.
Lets assume that WoT, was lore breaking, for more reasons than just being a surprise and lets assume Alex Afrasiabi is to blame for that. There isn’t much better to come out of the franchise since Afrasiabi left. The Afrasiabi era gave us much better lore than the post Afrasiabi era. If anything, WoT is Afrasiabi’s midichlorians.
You do know that Anduin is probably not going to be king/high king? (as per the Dragonflight interviews)
You might actually get your wish but I’m pretty certain you won’t get what you truly want. I’m all but certain the night elves will end up hugging it out with the rest of the Alliance and finding common ground again. Hell, Blizzard made it quite certain that the night elves are part of the Alliance in their spin off game(and not given their own faction like the Undead)
Honestly, i would argue they don’t even explore the classical Alliance themes either.
Humans have largely lost most of their edge and core themes that they had from WC3-WOTLK. Their identity has been stripped down to the bone and given to the Alliance as a whole. Or even to Neutral human factions. The main human nation is Stormwind which is like the only human nation with almost zero relevance to WC3 and it really hasn’t been developed beyond Vanilla WoW.
Dwarves for whatever reason do almost nothing. The Council of Three Hammers should have been a cool story but itss really done nothing but keep the Dwarves irrelevant and from taking charge to do anything. Dwarves really just show up to to get beat up alongside the humans whenever it happens. It was nice seeing Muradin show up for the Warfront, but it boggles my mind how little he does. Here we have a surviving WC3 Dwarven character that is little more than a prop in Ironforge.
Gnomes speak for themselves. We’re over a decade past Cataclysm now and they still can’t retake their city. Gelbin is a decent character but overall really hasn’t done anything all that interesting if i’m being honest.
High (Void) Elves were introduced in the most ridiculous way possible. I’ve said it before, but i think most High Elf/Alliance fans would have been alright with the Void twist on High Elves if it was done right. Customization wise, they were and still are in the dumps. Most of their hair styles, especially for the males were unappealing. There’s no variety. They should have had Natural Skin Tones/Hair styles from the start. I’ve always thought it was silly to give the Alliance ANOTHER Blue/Grey skinned Elven race when they already had Night Elves. Whereas the Horde got Blood Elves with natural skin tones & Nightborne with Blue/Grey Skintones.
And of course, the big failure with them being Blood Elves from the start rather than Silver Covenant or some other faction of High Elves.
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I agree that dwarves should be featured more, they’re pretty much a powerhouse of the Alliance now with the three hammer council. While I’m happy with the dark iron portrayal during BFA, it was also the expansion they were introduced in so can’t really judge too much yet how they will continue with them. The bronzebeard have been criminally underused since cata where the world revamp gave them something at least, same with the wildhammer.
I think gnomes got a bit of content in BFA, not enough due to how neglected they’ve been but it’s something at least. So yeah, a lot to improve.
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Not sure why they would. Sylvanas took a plan to achieve a permanent victory over the Alliance by keeping the Nelves effectively at gunpoint and turned it into a war crime that practically guaranteed The Horde would be destroyed. The only reason we’re still here is Anduin’s supernatural ability to override logic and consistency in other Alliance reps.
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Alliance isn’t capable of destroying the Horde though. Maybe its better to say Andiun changed the policy/intent of the Alliance to want the Horde dead.