Well Nathanos hasn’t permanently lost an arm robbing him of his archery skills (yet) so I am inclined to say Euron Greyjoy.
Then again I am not sure if George RR Martin ever really “protects” any of his characters. I am unsure if the Wow writers understand this or not.
I know this is a nitpick from your overall post, but I genuinely can’t fathom how this could believably be portrayed as a heroic moment for the horde player here. The whole reason why the game drags you there is to continue horrible acts that began in the prepatch and so the game can show you what a big mistake you made (are?) by defiling the night elves’ land and people.
(Commentary): I should preface what I say next by stating the following: there is no scenario, no timeline, no universe where the War of Thorns is ever going to stop being one of the darkest chapters in the history of Horde, and nothing will ever again justify their aggression towards the Night Elves as a race short of the Night Elves engaging in some kind of monumental and catastrophic loss of life against the Horde, and even then, it’s only likely to be balancing the scales.
(Commentary): That having been said, the Horde PC is a Hero for saving the lives of Horde soldiers and civilians in the area, for turning what would’ve been a complete route that would’ve left Orgrimmar itself potentially threatened, into a barely maintained conflict. Saving Nathanos, being able to rub it in his face later with dialogue options, would be the icing on the cake.
Meh. Honestly I’d rather see them abandoned to the elves. 
Lore wise the Night Warrior ritual helped, as it empowered not just Tyrande, but all the Night Elves (and even some Worgen, as seen in the Horde’s version of the introductory questing) fighting on behalf of Elune, which was all the forces that Maiev was tasked with leading.
I was unaware it influenced the Worgen, but it does make sense given they carry the curse/blessing of Goldrinn and he and Elune have a sort of history.
Now that you bring it up, I do wish they had reflected that empowerment to players in game by giving some small buff for Kaldorei (and I guess gilneans?) while in Darkshore.
That would have been nice. We at least get one during the introductory questing:
Damage, health, and health regeneration massively increased.
Annoyingly, we actually have unique buffs available in Darkshore from leveling questing:
We had access to them still during the War of the Thorns in-game event, and they’re still there if you talk to Zidormi to phase Darkshore back to what it was before the war, but the buffs are removed by the Darkshore Warfront phasing.
I didn’t compare losing a patrol to that.
Wow, that sounds like great two faction game content.
You realise the War of Thorns was pretty much the reverse of this? (If not worse)
'twas two faction content.
He get it. I write only a visa- versa event without genozide to show how “motivatet” you will be.
And i see - nearly no one - would be feeling motivatet.
So and vilian baitet happened in Wot, not in 8.1
It isn’t a vis versa scenario. God how many times to I have to explain this to people. For it to be a such a scenario the Alliance would have to end up painted as the villains and have the game telling you that your side are all monsters. You want the Alliance to ‘have what the Horde had’ but without any of the downsides.
Cut the crap. Your just arguing that the Horde should get screwed over for the Alliance side of the story and justifying it by saying it is the same was what the horde got before when it isn’t even slightly like what the horde got. Many Horde players HATED what happened in War of Thorn and the outcry at the time was so great even third party gaming news outlets were commenting on it. Only the Old Soldier cinematic did anything to mollify the Horde playerbase.
As for 8.1, you clearly didn’t play, or even watch the Horde side of things because the Horde is pretty clearly getting Villain batted in their lead in quests to the Darkshore Warfront and even more so once the Warfront was set up. They have barely even tried to pretend we aren’t the bad guys even to Horde players.
But Horde players had the choice to be honorable by siding with Saurfang or being evil by siding with Sylvanas and nobody told them that they’re wrong? The Horde also wasn’t written to regret any second of Teldrassil or the War of Thorns so that’s definitely not really a point. You can argue that you didn’t want the Horde to become villains which I agree with, but the game didn’t tell you that you are a monster or that you were wrong for doing it. In fact, the game even gave you justifications for Teldrassil, the War of Thorns and Darkshore as a Horde player.
Also, they are kind of doing that right now with people siding with Tyrande. She doesn’t trust the Horde and doesn’t want to forgive them and she’s wrong and a monster for it and thus you’ll be wrong too if you agree with her.
What? I don’t remember this at all. I’d also love to hear what you think were the justifications for it, because that requires that the horde would have to be in the right to attack the night elves and support genocide. Let’s see you try to tell me how the race deserved it.
As for siding with Saurfang being “honorable”, I completely disagree because it seemed pretty clear that honor in the horde was a worthless concept. All you’re really doing is choosing to side with one mass murderer or another; the former just mopes about it. There was no good choice to be had.
Edit: And even if there was, the story progression still railroads you into continuing to serve Sylvanas for a while anyway. Both sides have you do the “play along for now” junk; people were just more vocal about the Sylvanas side since it was more obvious.
Well, the War of Thorns was justified with the fact that Night Elves would eventually attack the Horde in the future and they need to fight for safety
Fighting in Darkshore was justified with the fact that “Those evil Night Elves are attacking Horde land”
Anyway, I’m pretty sure they’ll add even more justifications later when Sylvanas turns out to be good. The writers don’t even acknowledge (or care) that they made the Horde evil (as they described it as noble heroes and protectors of the living) so we’re basically back to zero starting into Shadowlands. Same thing with Tyrande being portrayed as wrong and since most Night Elf fans agree with her stance, they are automatically also wrong.
I guess, but most Horde players don’t even know that Saurfang was behind the whole thing. The general majority thinks that Saurfang was the perfect honorable warrior. The writers only care about what the majority thinks, and the majority are those who only watch cinematics thinking that Saurfang (and thus themselves) are noble heroes when they sided with him.
A justification requires that your actions be in the right somehow. What you’re listing are excuses and lies. And they’re proven false pretty damn fast when you see that the night elves have no idea why they’re being attacked in the first place.
Yes, the night elves sent their army down to Silithus, but it was still in response to what looked like the horde mobilizing their army to go down there first. And can you point to where the night elves are made to be evil for fighting back in Darkshore? Calling it horde land comes with a really big * when it’s only in the horde’s hands because they launched a war of conquest and extermination in the first place.
I don’t care what misinformed players think. That’s on them for ignoring the facts.
From a meta standpoint, sure. But the writers intentionally portrayed it all as justified, just like they portray Tyrande as wrong and evil now (and we both know that most Night Elf fans will agree with Tyrande to not trust the Horde, yet they are being told that they’re wrong for it).
They also portrayed Saurfang and the Horde as honorable at the end of BfA, which a lore enthusiast will obviously question, but what the writers think and want people to think is all that matters in the end and the Horde is fully redeemed at the end of BfA according to them. They will use their cgi cinematics, race descriptions, quests and more to make the masses think that it’s actually this way.
This just further proves that Tyrande and those that were on her side are wrong.
I’d blame it less on the players and more on the writers for intentionally portraying things in a way that contradict previous lore events.
They absolutely did not portray the War of Thorns as justified. From invading another nation’s land, to intentionally screwing with nature, to having Tyrande herself call out Saurfang for the war being pointless and obviously dishonorable, and the “killing hope” nonsense, the horde player is clearly on the bad guy’s side every step of the way. I don’t know what more you could need before you accept that.
(Speculative): I suppose Tyrande could’ve cut a bloody swath through the Horde’s invading forces all the way back to Orgrimmar before setting it alight in an ocean of Moonfire, and Horde players desperately try to rescue 900ish NPCs in 5 minutes and never get near that score, but the issue is I don’t know if this could be seen so much as villain-ish as evening the scales of morality.
The difference is that it would all be justified as long as she only kills armed soldiers. Something many people don’t seem to get including the writers because well, Tyrande is wrong for killing Horde soldiers in Darkshore.
We worked for an undead boobed hitler without question for an entire patch before Saurfang got of his butt, which he only did because Anduin talked him into it. Horde players got jack all chose. We never do. We follow the monster round by the nose for long enough to make any claim that the horde has any honor or we aren’t complicate in what Sylvanas does a complete joke. I mean Horde players spend pretty much the entire 8.0 patch being one of her go to champions.
As for justifications, they gave jack all and flimsy ones at best and for the War of Thorns the only spelled out reason was out of game in the novelette they released at launch.
And bullcrap that Tyrande is a monster. She hasn’t done jack to be called a monster for. Are you seriously comparing her to Sylvanas. Please. The Horde player hasn’t had a real antagonist amongst the Alliance since launch. They are always treated as heroes and the few times they show any sign of throwing the Horde a bone they double back on it almost the very next moment.
I am assuming by the way, that since you are claiming Tyrande is in the same company as Sylvanas by comparing the two and player dealings with them as similar, then your fine with them both having the same fate, wether its redemption or death? For some reason I dont think you are, considering your last posts.
Stop telling Horde players what their experience was. It isn’t any better than Horde players telling NE players to suck it up because it wasn’t so bad. What your effectively doing here is trying to justify claiming that the Horde players getting absolutely trounced even worse than they were in the Darkshore quests, while still playing the villains, is fair. It isn’t.
It would have to be something that bad along with screaming children dying to actually make people think she is going too far. Unfortunately many people seem to see horde citizens as combatants so just murdering hundreds of adults, whether they are soldiers or not, wouldn’t cut it. Of course that would lead to the Horde seigeing Stormwind and the City being blown up to stop the Horde from capturing it, not actually killing anyone of not but just a lot of nameless grunts.
I have said from a long time ago that the BfA story is unsavable. There is nothing you could change about the whole Darkshore debacle that wouldn’t make it a disappointment and unpleasant for at least half the playerbase. Blizzard wrote themselves in to a corner.