This is is what a lot of people were basically asking for. People wanted him to be contemptuous of the Alliance and drop shade, so Blizzard gave in.
For an in game explanation, the best I can give is:
He heard the story from a Horde 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ect hand. And, as we have seen Blizzard has shown the unreliable narrator. So, he may have gotten a really skewed story. But, the problems…
Well, his original plan was for him to capture the city while Sylvanas killed Malfurion. So, technically he was not the one doing it. But he was the one that planned it. So, yes it was some serious hypocrisy.
And you can add to that. He was part of the original Horde that sieged Stormwind, killed its king in his home and then sacked the city. So, for him to even hint at moral superiority in this case is a real stretch.
Yep… So its unanimous right? both sides think this exchange is bollocks… even if it makes shaw look cool… saurfang should be mopy right now, not snarky nor sassy, maybe seeing thrall gave him some sort of pride by proxy.
Saurfang is an interesting character in this xpac to say the least. He executed the most successful campaign ever fought against the night elves he has no problem fighting a war with the alliance however he won’t stand by genocide. To say he supports anduin is a little out there though just because he wants the genocidal pyscho out of her role as warchief doesn’t mean he’s an alliance pawn come on now
The Zandi trolls, specifically Talanji, have no one but themselves to blame for the war reaching their island. They were the ones who sought the aide of the Horde, not the other way around (I think, correct me if I’m wrong on this).
In general, I think you are correct. Most everyone thinks this is dumb.
However, I cannot agree that Saurfang should be “mopy” right now. I think it would be best to have him just be a determined warrior. Have him be the ‘lets just get the job done’ guy on the Horde side.
If, and I stress the IF part, it is determined that some sass should happen I think the unreliable narrator would be the way to play it. Have Saurfang accuse the Alliance of some atrocity that we all know did not happen. But have it be something that could be a several telling exaggeration of something that did. Have Shaw be confused and say something to the order of, ‘Um, that never happened.’ Saurfang could not believe him. That way you can get a little of the sass back and forth. But it would make more sense for him to be upset at the Alliance if he is hearing extreme stories.
Somehow Blizz managed to have the Alliance define the aims of their strike on Dazar’alor in the one specific way that made it a failure, at least under those stated goals.
True, but they were kind of screwed either way. If the Horde hadn’t turned up Azeroth would probably be dealing with another rampaging Old God right now, though admittedly probably not on the same scale as N’zoth.
That said, a foe who specialised in corruption through disease would probably offer a whole new set of challenges to the factions than they traditionally face.
Actually, I am not sure about that. Zul was pivotal with G’huun. Remove him from the equation and it would probably be some time before we had to worry about that little problem. And before the Horde decided to get involved with the Zandalari he was in prison. So, at the very least G’huun would have been delayed. Long term, from there it is hard to say if G’huun would end up a larger or smaller problem as there are a lot of other variables.
Zul never lost his composure during the Stormwing Extraction scenario, he likely knew he was getting out of Alliance clutches before they even caught him and Talanji on the ocean. For all he got suckered into an Old God’s megalomania, his prophecies put Velen to shame in the practical sense - he got his way right up until he had a loot table.
Which is to say - I’m not sure that him being in prison was ever him being ‘Out of the equation’. It was probably part of the plan. He’d been setting all of this up for a long time, if the visions recorded in the Temple of the Prophet are anything to go by. I got the sense from his dialogue about Lei Shen being a learning experience that all of his schemes in Cata/MoP might have been test runs for his grand plot to revive Dazar and awaken G’huun. The Alliance and the Horde were both patsies in this particular ploy.
I’ll never forget when Zul tells us when criticizing his protege that the most important skill a prophet can have isn’t their ability to foresee all possible outcomes, but their ability to plan for all the possible outcomes that they’ve failed to predict.
smh. Dialogue means nothing in this expac. It’s actions that count and Saurfang has been worshiping his human masters since Wrath.
Blizzard hamfist characters uncharacteristic dialogue to lazily explain what they want players to think about the characters. It’s lame and Blizzjam should feel bad about their failure to placate the Horde in a literal FACTION PRIDE expansion. SHAME!
Blizzard has critically botched the presentation of Saurfang, such that an almost universally beloved character is now highly divisive within his own faction. Throwing a bit of confusing shade at the Alliance is not enough to get the war hardliners on his side after his betrayal. You’d be more convinced by actions, and this is the fair part.
However, characters in World of Warcraft rarely have an opportunity to act, and even when they do, those opportunities usually only come for them to act in a single story arch in pursuit of a single goal. Saurfang is on a neutral content story track and is pursuing what will become a shared antagonist with the Alliance. He’s not going to have a chance to act against the Alliance to establish his ‘For the Horde’ bonafides and requiring he do so is the unfair part.
I’d like to suggest that there’s a middle ground somewhere, if Saurfang had a more legitimate grievance to level against the Alliance, something personal to him or relevant to his character. Something that didn’t jar me completely out of the exchange, and he had given voice to THAT, I’d probably be cheering for him. But Blizzard has written themselves into a corner, they’ve neglected to provide Saurfang with a personal or relevant reason to oppose the Alliance and so having him do so now missed the mark.
Oh, Saurfang has acted towards the Alliance before. The message I was given is that Saurfang feels reluctance every time he has to fight his masters in blue. However, the opposite can be said when he kills members of the Horde. I’ve seen Saurfang kill more pro-Horde characters than I’ve seen him kill pro-Alliance.
One of the reasons why I think dialogue doesn’t matter is because they’re mostly out of character. Garona, for example, felt shame when wielding the daggers that killed glorious King Llane, but when confronted by Nathan she talks about killing him with a hint of pride. One might say, that she was lying. We can’t really say that now because Blizzard has been spinning characterization around with their dialogue.
Saurfang has plenty of reason to hate the alliance. The orcish internment camps weren’t some kind of golden age solution enacted by an enlightened and benevolent king. Children were preforming slave labor and being trained to be gladiators that’s pretty unforgivable. The alliance is an institution and sometimes that institution fails. the orcs did some terrible things but their children had no part in that, and they were raised in those camps under inhumane conditions. Most of the orcs of fighting age were raised in those internment camps through no fault of their own. Many of the horde races have plenty of reason to hate the alliance that being said most if them STILL stand up against tyrannical war chiefs.
The internment camps are arguably the best thing to happen to the Orcs. They were fed, they had a place that wasn’t corrupted by fel magic to live in, and they were educated in superior human culture. Thrall, the greatest of the Orcs, used his human education to reforge the Horde into something that might resemble a proper civilization. That all got thrown out of the window when he left and the Horde returned to their self destructive culture.
One of the biggest problems I have with people bringing up internment camps as a reason to hate the Alliance is because the camps were the best solution King Teranas had. What were they going to do with a people that know nothing than to destroy? There’s also the issue of the story writers not even making the Alliance do anything “dirty.” This causes the pro-Horde to always come back to internment camps as if they were a bad thing. The camps are never brought up a reason to hate the Alliance in the game. Why should I, the player, care if the characters don’t.
No thrall was educated to be a weapon to bring down the alliance other orcs weren’t being taught the “merits” of the human kingdoms they were treated brutally. Sorry to say the alliance has a long and storied history of things like that. Kul’tiras assaulted the darkspear trolls In an attempt to exterminate them. Is that justice? What about when the leader of the alliance in lordaeron attempting to execute the sovereign ruler of an allied nation was that justice to? The alliance often acts as if it is the moral authority on everything and refuses to acknowledge any mistakes it’s ever made. Yet they still wonder why something like the horde exists…