Yah, the seeds for that argument were there. The problem is that there’s only two visible instances of it with Saurfang and Baine, and one obscure one in Lor’Themar’s dialogue.
It wasn’t enough to really hammer home how terrified the Horde had to be at the time. We needed more of that to really drive home why people weren’t turning on Sylvanas already.
We also could’ve used another Mak’gora. Show Sylvanas get challenged by some no-name orc. Preferably of the younger generation who had fought side by side with the Alliance and does not believe them to be the evil Sylvanas claims they are. Have him challenge her and then die in a brutal, one-sided manner.
This clearly explains why nobody is trying to stop Sylvanas yet. A combination of fear of the Alliance and fear of Sylvanas herself. It shows us that Sylvanas is getting more powerful which in turn sets up Nathanos’ power spike later against Tyrande so it isn’t as absurd. And most importantly it shows that the Horde people are not following Sylvanas because they agree with her methods.
But like you said, Blizzard wanted to surprise us so they kept questions of Sylvanas’ intentions to a minimum and made it seem like the Horde was fully on her side for most of it. Which in turn robbed the Horde of its agency and painted them in a really bad light because surprisingly people can tell a psychopath when they see one. You don’t burn down a tree full of civilians and come off that smelling of moral greyness and anti-heroism. You just smell like a villain who hasn’t washed in a long time.
It truly is bizarre. There were clear seeds that this was the angle that was considered at least to explain the Horde’s delay. The idea that in some ways Sylvie had used Saurfang’s WoT to trap the Horde into following her, out of fear of leaving the Horde vulnerable to Alliance revenge for Teld, was there. It was just really buried, and you really had to search for signs of it. Despite the fact that Sylvie should have been pushing that “reciprocation” narrative.
Hell, that angle makes several key BfA story points just make more sense. The Horde’s delay and pacing on turning on her. Anduin’s hesitance to do anything that would reinforce Sylvie’s narrative; trying to allow Saurfang’s rebellion breathing room to grow. Sylvie filling the Horde boats she dunked into Nazjatar with prospective rebels. Baine’s comments about finally hitting a breaking point where death is less a consequence to living without his ideals. The Derek plan.
Even the intro, where really the buildup to the WoT was the Alliance acting very aggressively, but the tipping point for Saurfang was Anduin’s lack of response to Genn and Roger’s actions in Stormheim. From the Horde prospective, the Alliance was attacking them. From the Alliance’s perspective, they were just trying to suppress Sylvanas. And ultimately the relatively justified Saurfang’s WoT was used as a means of entrapment for the Horde by Sylvie’s Teld.
EDIT: There was a far more nuanced Faction Conflict storyline here with the same story components we got, its just Blizz was so concerned about keeping her betrayal a twist that they threw that prospective nuance in the trash for it.
It was always clear Sylvanas was going to be a baddie and leave the horde ever since we knew she burned the tree. There really was no coming back from that and blizzard really screwed up by making it the start of the expac.
Not to mention with Anduin in charge of the Alliance there was never a chance that the Alllaince would ever be portrayed as ever being in the wrong. It was a terribly setup story going into BFA which there was no way of improving or salvaging.
There were far better way to setup the story but it should have started with the Alliance going on the offensive(with someone else in charge or no highking) and the Horde reacting to that aggression. then culminating to the burning of Teldrassil which then caused the Horde to rebel straight away.
Sylvanas is just guilty of not predicting Alliance’s reaction about everything in the Fourth War and lying to the Horde about her own intentions. Honestly she just failed at everything she set out to do in BfA.
The definition of genocide isn’t an agreed upon standard in many places of the world, especially when the occurrence of one is required before certain international bodies like the UN are allowed to take action. It’s not about body count or political motive, it’s about targeting a group because of their immutable or cultural characteristics.
IN WW2, the Germans bombed London, a city with a civilian population, because they were enemies and taking it over was a strategic advantage. In War of the Thorns, the Horde invaded Darkshore because the Night Elves were enemies and taking over Teldrassil, a city with a civilian population, was a strategic advantage. Neither was a genocide.
Also in WW2, Jewish people were killed in concentration camps because of their culture. That is a genocide. In the Rwandan Civil War, Hutus slaughtered the Tutsi because of their culture. That is a genocide.
When Imperial Japanese troops captured Nanjing, the death of civilians and children en mass and after achieving certain victory is why the Nanjing Massacre is considered, by some, to be a genocide, although that isn’t officially settled either.
Their culture was not the reason the Night Elves were targeted for this invasion. It was because of the function of Teldrassil as a supply hub and the advantage offered by total dominance of Kalimdor. That is not the same as being targetted for their faith, their physical traits, or their culture, and they were victims of an invasion, but not a genocide.
Thats not entirely true, if you try to wipe a race/culture out, its indeed called genocide. And exactly thats happened in wot and bfa. Btw. As a reminder: Teldrassis is a whole Country…not a city
Well, I mean, because she is an extreme nihilist convinced her perspective on the world is the only correct one she of course is incapable of the first. Then since her intentions where apparently more omnicidal in nature of course she couldn’t be honest.
As, even in the scenario where she found she was able to eradicate the Alliance and raise the citizenry of SW into Undeath, its probable that the broken tool without a purpose she used to do it known as the living Horde would have been next to be destroyed and fed to the Maw.
Honestly her motive being revealed as just ramping up the body count for the Jailer just comes off to me as “I’m not actually dumb, just pretending to be, hurr durr”.
Doesn’t change the fact that’s literally what she did, and it is supported at the very least by the fact that every single one of her tactics during BfA actually do make sense if her priority was to keep the conflict as escalated and prolongued as possible. Rather than to actually allow the Horde to win. Her recruitment of the ARs, the Derek Plan, even filling captured NE territories with the races that would antagonize them the most … all to meat an apparent kill quota.
Oh I agree that’s what she did. No real way to argue that it wasn’t.
I just think it’s bad writing, a shoddy butt-pull from the writers to salvage Sylvanas’ constant failures by bailing her out with this shady secret motive. If it were anything else than secretly heaping on the body count, she’d be an abject failure.
I really hate Blizzard’s ‘wait and see’ take on it, when we might be waiting up to two years to see if the rationale behind these things are worthwhile. Personally, they rarely satisfy.
Of course she would be, but she’s not. And honestly, I’m not really a good person to talk to about the path Sylvie was taken down. While I didn’t know the exact destination, I’ve been expecting this sort of path from her since Stormheim in Legion.
I expected at the bare minimum after that zone that they had placed her in the Warchief position not to fill a role that Vol’jin could have filled better, but instead to stir crap up. Which would at least result in a question I’ve had about her since EoN getting answered: “If ever she found herself in a position that her Bulwark Against the Infinite were as valueless to her as her Arrows in her Quiver became … would she abandon them?” And turns out, I hit the mark on both presumptions.
I got lucky for sure, but so much of her characterization from that short-story refraimed her actions up until that point that I couldn’t expect anything less from a Warchief Windrunner.
Which was Sylvanas intention all along, as she herself internal monologues in A Good War:
This battle was not about a piece of land. Even Saurfang knew that. Taking the World Tree was a way to inflict a wound that could never heal. Losing their homes and their leaders would have ended the kaldorei as a nation, if not a people.
So you can indeed count her plans for breaking a people and genocide on Sylvanas’ list of failures.
I’d put her more close to Stalin, with the casual destruction of both Alliance and Horde lives, honestly. But even that’s not a great comparison… She’s tried reeducating people that disagree with her, which… might make her a little better? Depending on your views.
The Kaldorei weren’t targeted because they were Kaldorei, or because Sylvanas hated them and their moon-worshiping, tree-hugging ways. They were targeted for their part in the Alliance, to create a wound. That’s conflating speculated political ramifications with an anti-Kaldorei sentiment which has never been outwardly expressed by her or most of the Horde, apart from general disdain for the Alliance.
The Alliance was the target. If anything, the Kaldorei were hit because of their geographical location, not because of who they were.
Yeah but we didn’t know that at the time, which feels like it’s being pulled out of Danuser’s butt. Her mistakes and failures lead to many many many unnecessary deaths so by just deciding all those deaths were part of the plan all along no serious guys trust me salvages her uncharacteristic behavior into intentional scheming.
Apparently even blizzard forgot the cinematic where Saurfang even tells her right to her face that her plans failed and she was a failure. Dansuer had to salvage his precious Waifu with the excuse it was some 4D chess move and Insert ham fisted Jailer excuses here