So … they attacked the Explorers League to keep the secret of the Giant Sword sticking out of the planet from inviting investigation from the Alliance. My god is that an absurdly shallow reason!
It literally boils down to “LOL, cuz Goblins! Its what they do!”, because Blizz wanted to make sure the Alliance had an excuse. Because … they always do. That’s how it works. Horde races and cultures are evil, flawed monsters by default and don’t even deserve to have justifications written for them … while Alliance can do no wrong ever.
But the Sword itself was impossible to hide, and thus the Azerite is thus impossible to hide. And since the Alliance is of course going to investigate the sword at the very least, they are going to discover the Azerite. Attacking the Explorers League does absolutely nothing beyond giving the Alliance a flimsy justification to slaughter Horde civilians just harvesting a resource the Alliance has no claim to. This was cheap BS that serves to do nothing but invalidate Alliance aggression to ensure that the “Horde is always the baddies”, while essentially operating off of “Goblins will do what Goblins will do”.
the explorer league was the alliance investigation…
Chronological order:
Goblins reached Silithus first, found the new material, knew it from Khezan times and started to mine it
Explorer League appeared, goblins attacked
A few Sentinels and a few explorers made it out alive, made their way north.
SI:7 shows up
Goblins tried to capture two SI:7 agents (the gnome/gob couple) because they knew something (I only read the novel once, thought it was so bad I blocked it out)
And killing them did nothing but result in having people investigating their deaths. There was no way in hell the Goblins were going to hide anything there. But Blizz needed an excuse to handwave away and justify Alliance aggression BEFORE the attack on the Bilgewater minors; because the abduction of Sapphy (another forced attack on the Explorers League) happened afterwards.
Sigh … its all about preserving the infallibly pure image of the Alliance that Blizz has built up. And does nothing but reinforce the idea that there are no Horde tragedies, and no wrong can ever be done to the peoples of the Horde. They are always deserving of everything bad that ever happens to them.
Would you really want to, though, to be honest? Here in the forum Taurajo is already being played up as if it was the terriblest of terrible tragedy, just imagine if the night elves had destroyed Orgrimmar in 8.1.5 for example, the Horde would have had their tragedy, tell me, what would that have made better?
To tell a story in tragedys without even focusing on this tragedy is a bad way to write a story
It’s played up as a tragedy because objectively, it is one. An attack on a civilian population center, civvies given a chance to flee but end up fleeing into quilboars, the whole thing is tragic.
But it’s a tragedy that’s really a footnote. It’s small scale compared to the massive tragedies on the other side. And it’s one of the very few times you can legitimately point to and say “this was a bad thing the Alliance did”. And even that’s complicated.
If Camp T was one of many similar incidents affecting the Horde, Camp T would hardly be mentioned.
My argument was not in any way that Taurajo was not tragic, my argument is that it is blown up bigger than it really was and you find yourself in hyperbolic arguments here when you read about Taurajo that you often get the impression that a huge city has just been destroyed.
I’m saying it’s blown up as bigger than it really was because it’s literally one of maybe three or four people can even point to. That is there were five other tragedies of that scale, Camp T itself wouldn’t be something people always have to go to. That it gets brought up so often because there aren’t many other things to even bring up.
Taurajo is so heavily focused on because it wasn’t allowed to be a tragedy. Not really. With even Horde leadership handwaving it away, and far more work put into diluting Hawthorne’s culpability than was actually put into Taurajo itself. Theramore was even more of a “Valid Military Target” than Taurajo by the time it was bombed, but didja notice the absurd difference in approach to its portrayal? With entire books written to focus on Theramore’s victims, where as again … more effort was put into trying to absolve Hawthorne than was actually put towards Taurajo itself.
Theramore is portrayed as a Tragedy, even though it was also a valid military target. Taurajo is portrayed as a Valid Military Target, even though it was also a tragedy. And part of the reason I think the latter is so fixated on by Horde players is that they are upset about that fact.
It’s simply, like you said, the alliance isn’t allowed to be Morally Grey or to be seen as slightly evil by the horde.
The two times it happens, Camp T, Hawthorne is pretty much excused of his actions and Stormheim ends up being sheer dumb luck on Genn’s part.
Blizz makes sure to give the alliance mountains of justifications for their actions, while the Horde is NEVER allowed to justify their actions against the alliance. It’s always Hur dur, we did da evil again! It’s tiresome and not even realistic.
I briefly want to touch on this and ask; was Teldrassil an Ash Juniper?
Because it seemed more like a flat top acacia with an extreme wide base. All the art I ever saw about Teldrassil made its boughs all lead up to one plateau at the top.
I’m just glad Shadowlands and the Night Fae convenant in particular is even dealing with the subject. Because after SL is over, we can put these NE fanatics out to pastor and ignore them.
That would be nice wouldn’t it? But, I kind of doubt it. Even in the best, most simple case scenario, with Thrall, Baine, and Jin having a tangible effect on ensuring Tyrande get’s Sylvanas’ head (which is up in the air even now) … Teld is going to be held over the head of the Horde and its players forever.
Sigh … I do approve of Blizz using the Night Fey to deal with the issue in some form of a tangible way, but lets not kid ourselves in thinking that its going to resolve much for the “NE Fanatics” or the MHPs. Teld was not just an atrocity, it infringed on both the NE power fantasy of being able to solo the entire Horde into perpetuity, and infringed upon the heavy thems of “returning to or maintaining the status quo”. The combination of which is truly unforgivable.
I’d say, because of the bark on teldrassil, it’s closer to an alligator juniper. The leaves look super dated and blurry so it’s hard to tell what they’re suppose to be. But the shape of it is kinda juniper. The branches along the side are kinda short though
