We were told that MoP did not solve the identity crisis of the Horde, we only learned through Vol’jin and Thrall that it is ‘family’.
BFA only had Saurfang admitting to the dark legacy of the Horde and the whole ‘brothers and sisters’ thing. Brothers and sisters are family I guess.
So if we’re done with our identity crisis this time what is the Horde now?
I ain’t seeing anything. Anyone else manage to catch it?
Clearly, the Horde is NOTH-
TBH. The Horde is Blizzard’s favorite toy and they like to strap firecrackers to it while it’s stuffed into the tailpipe of your least favorite teacher’s vehicle. The Alliance is the best friend that can’t talk any sense into them, so we stand around with a nervous look on our faces while the show goes down.
Okay, that was a little salty and I apologize. In seriousness, I think what the Horde is will be redefined in the very near future. Perhaps once and for all? I get what you mean, though, and honestly I’m not entirely sure what to expect or want for.
That’s the question I would throw back at you, and honestly any Horde lore fan; what do you want to see the Horde as, going forward? Have you enjoyed the more recent iterations of its “identity” as opposed to the old? Why, or why not?
Loaded questions, I know, but I think 8.2.5 has boiled a lot of people over and I like hearing whether their takes on the topic have changed or remained the same in its wake.
~Maddie
I’m pretty sure they’re still hammering in the message that Horde is family. When Saurfang observed that those who sided with Sylvanas were “still Horde” and they were his “brothers and sisters”.
Siblings will fight, but in the end they still love each other because they’re family.
Honestly, that’s as much as I got out of it. Same thing we got with Garrosh except with an abusive stepmother instead of an abusive stepfather.
What it was from the beginning: A club for big strong orc men to shout “HONOR!” while flexing.
And also some side characters who occasionally show up.
I want it to dissolve. It’s a bad organization.
Yeah, I’m kind of struggling to see how this solidified the Horde’s identity. I didn’t really subscribe to the whole “Sadfang” thing until now, but despite the end message, I thought those cutscenes had a more depressing tone than a hopeful one.
Maybe they’ll shore things up in the next patch, but to me, we’re currently just the Alliance with a more checkered past.
It’s a fair question with many answers. For me in particular, I think Vol’jin’s Horde was my ideal Horde. “We are all family,” is kind of a vague statement, but for the Horde I thought it worked.
Thrall, Vol’jin, and Cairne were all very close as individuals to the point of calling each other their brothers, something the three races emulated. The Forsaken and later Blood Elves and Goblins threw a bit of a wrench into that with Sylvanas, Lor’themar, and Gallywix being somewhat separate and distant. Then came Garrosh. I thought Garrosh’s exclusive True Horde was a fantastic way to drive even the more distant groups together and solidified the Horde as a single united front instead of being divided.
All in it together, even if we don’t agree we’re still family. Even the Forsaken and Sylvanas. They do shady stuff we didn’t agree with, but they’re still one of us and we look after our own. Just as they would back the rest of the Horde up when push came to shove.
That’s the Horde I prefer. Too bad we learned nothing and seem to have done the same dance and have lost even more of the characters to showcase that familial bond.
Probably not as a family-- they would’ve developed Vol’jin or Suarfang’s families.
I’ve always been a fan of Vol’jin so I’m definitely inclined to agree with this. Vol’jin reign as warchief gave an air that was similar to how Thrall felt as warchief in Warcraft. I liked that, personally.
To be fair, Lor’themar has come quite a long way of late! At least it seems that way to me, no? I agree, once upon a time the Blood Elves were a bit… stand-offish, but after the last couple of expansions they seem to have really been inched closer toward the others. I haven’t played Horde in quite a while, though, so maybe I’m misreading the situation.
~Maddie
The Horde is that black kid who constantly needs their white friend to bail them out of messes.
If mop and bfa have taught me anything
No, you’re reading the situation perfectly. Everything that made the Blood Elves’ relationship with the Horde interesting has been discarded in favor of everyone being best buddies.
yep its only been the forsaken who kept themselves outcasts in the horde, I really have no idea why people lump the belves with them like if all the xpacs since bc dont exist
Treat us like the allaince, we want to be the good guys and win. I don’t mean in a faction war, just over all. I want horde characters to be in netural content and lead some of them too.
Develop more horde characters damit, at least give us parity to the alliance. Don’t leave without racial leaders. Explore horde lore, like blade-masters(orcs) Samuro, redo world map and give horde story content outside of faction wars.
I ramble a lot here so there’s a tl;dr at the bottom.
The Horde’s current identity crisis stems from the Garrosh era.
The WC1-WC2 era Horde has a very clear identity–demonic army bent on conquest and slaughter. Cut and dry. Forest Trolls joined for a chance to reconquer their lands, and get even with old enemies. Goblins joined because money (?).
The WC3 Horde is a union born of mutual defense from hostile native elements in their new homeland. The orcs recruited the dark spear trolls during their exodus to Kalimdor, and the trolls settled in Kalimdor along with the orcs. The orcs assisted the Tauren in the Barrens against the centaur, and in return the Tauren provided troops and supplies to the orcs as they traveled to Stonetalon.
Both the Trolls and Tauren joined the Horde in an official military and defensive union during Admiral Proudmoore’s invasion of Durotar (the plot of the ‘Founding of Durotar’ campaign from WC3). This union persisted following the invasions end likely to ensure mutual military support in case of future possible problems (worth noting Thrall had excellent diplomatic relations with both Cairne and Vol’jin). THIS would be the “family” Horde that’s been previously referred to, and these three races have always felt very close (just as an example Crossroads in Classic has Tauren and Orc guards which shows the military cooperation, Trolls had their own section in Orgrimmar, small things like this). It’s a union born of mutual trust and spilled blood. It feels very natural.
So now we have the Classic era Horde. The big change is the addition of the Forsaken, an addition that has always been somewhat contrived and you feel it in their quests. There’s a clear divide between WC3 Horde Quests, and Forsaken “Horde” quests. As such the Classic Horde essentially feels like the WC3 Horde, but with these new associates who are radically different and feel totally apart from the original three races (which canonically they were). If they were a family member, at best they’d be an adopted sibling you don’t really like or consider a sibling.
The TBC Horde adds Blood Elves, also a somewhat contrived addition. The BElves also are very much like the Forsaken in that they also feel more like another set of new associates who are radically different and totally apart. This iteration is more or less the same in Wrath.
Garrosh’s Horde changes this radically, and part of the problem is the side lining of the other races almost completely in favor of more and more orcs in the spotlight. From here you really only start to see Orc soldiers, quest givers, and architecture (referring to the Cataclysm remakes + new zones, which full disclosure I haven’t played through in probably six+ years now, so I’m going off the impressions in my memory). So instead the Horde feels like this monolithic orcish entity, and hey sometimes there’s these other guys here.
tl;dr The Horde has never had a family style identity beyond the original three WC3 races (Orc-Tauren-Troll). Each addition afterwards has been somewhat contrived and those additions have always stood apart and had their own distinct experience typically apart from the original three. The identity crisis is because the Horde never bothered to properly integrate the additional races (though from screenshots and gameplay I’ve seen they do at least try now by having stuff like BElf soldiers alongside Orc ones, etc).
While I don’t disagree that controversy is interesting, it has been… what, 12 years since their induction into the Horde? Some gaps were bound to close, no?
~Maddie
Edit: Phrasing
TBH it’s kind of interesting how polar people’s opinions are on this, depending on their favorite faction. I know a LOT of Alliance players that would prefer the villain bat right to the mouth instead of our current role.
I speak only for myself, of course, but I wouldn’t mind being the villain if it meant being proactive for a change.
~Maddie
A miserable little pile of secrets?
Honestly, the Horde/Alliance conflict has been backwards ever since Cata. Thrall’s Horde was originally formed as a cooperative to protect the individual member races from annihilation at the hands of outside forces, the biggest of which was the Human-led Alliance. The Horde was supposed to be scrappy, and primitive, and always just trying to survive in a world that didn’t want them. They should never have been the aggressors because they never should have had the numbers to actually pose a real threat the Alliance, but just big enough to be too much of a risk to try and wipe out.
I feel the story of WoW would have been far more interesting if they had stuck with that narrative where the aggressors were almost always the Alliance, like with Admiral Proudmoore’s invasion.
“What is the Horde”?
Well, since we’re going back to the ethnocentric Orc-based culture with the removal of Sylvanas:
Hypocrites.
The Horde is a bunch of hypocrites.
The Horde is a cunning beast, waiting for the world to enter into a semblance of peace to then snatch just alittle more of it in a tide of blood soaked atrocities.
Then when they are beaten down by the Alliance or otherwise they make their pathetic leadership the sole perpetrator of their crimes and then enter into dormancy waiting for the world to fall into a passive state once more so they can rise again taking another piece of the world through bloodshed and conquest.
And the Alliance is powerless to stop this. For they will never have the conviction to purge every last creature that calls itself Horde to the last child without they themselves becoming monsters in the process.
So we’re the… Herpes of Azeroth?
I can’t… I’m dying. YOU CAUGHT US AZEROTH, SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN FOOLING AROUND WITH THAT DRAENOR BOY!