And just because I am tired of this particular lore fub you keep making:
Varian Wrynn’s stance against our people is becoming increasingly militaristic, Jaina Proudmoore is his friend is sympathetic to our cause.-Baine She is still Alliance Scrum!-Garrosh She is still Alliance, yes, but anyone who has served with me or who has bothered to read a single historical scroll over the last few years knows that she is ahuman with integrity and wisdom. Do you think Cairne Bloodhoof disloyal? -Thrall
The Shattering, prelude to cataclysm
The original story as I recall was the night elves were so impressed with the Alliance being the vanguard against Achimonde they decided to join it.
Granted that is probably been retconned but considering Stormwind/Ironforge did not even know about the night elves and were dealing with their own issues at the homefront, they likely didn’t send anyone to try to get them to join.
I am just tired of this particular argument that seems to keep popping up every so often. Man, I could have ended it a long time ago had I bothered to reread The Shattering.(mental note to remember this passage)
As an aside, there used to be a quest chain in Duskwallow marsh prior to the Cata mess where the Alliance PC would have Jaina, her bodyguard (Night Elf Warrior), and one of the Mages from Theramore Teleport to your location when you turned in one of the quests on the chain. This was on the broken road through the swamp in Duskwallow.
I was doing the quest chain on one of my Paladins when I had a high level Orc rogue griefing by killing off the quest givers. I managed to complete the quest when the NPC respawned and then Jaina and company teleported in with the Rogue in the middle of the three.
They weren’t neutral. And I wished I had known to record it.
I don’t intend for this to sound sarcastic, unfortunately reading things sometimes conveys the wrong intention, but I am genuinely interested in your opinion. Could you please explain why you consider Orgrimmar a major military base, as opposed to a racial/faction capital?
It’s the Horde’s center of government. The counterpart is Stormwind - is Stormwind also a military base? Would annihilating it - and the civilians and government - be okay?
Is it because an army is/was stationed there? Doesn’t that make basically every racial city a military base? The Night Elf army was stationed at Teldrassil.
Does the fact that the Night Elf army deployed to Silithus make it no longer a military base? Does a location stop being a military base when their forces leave?
I genuinely am curious about your opinion on this.
From my point of view, a racial capital (and especially a faction capital) can’t be considered a major military base. Yes there are military forces there, but that’s due to the fact that it is a capital more than it is to serve as a military base.
In contrast, a place like Theramore (and I’m not justifying dropping a bomb on Theramore) fits the description of a military base (to me). I also don’t think the fact that military forces may have been deployed away from a base makes it no longer a military base.
They are not mutually exclusive.
Orgrimmar is a major military base because its built like a fortress and the Horde armies march out of Orgrimmar rather than elsewhere. And if you need to know Stormwind is also a military base though more of a military port.
You can clearly distinguish where the military portion begins and ends.
Think of it as soldiers leaving their houses in Stormwind city and then make their way down to the harbor which is their military base and begin their expedition elsewhere.
All the other cities have a degree of this and you can see it in the architecture… though to be fair game representation and actual lore representation are probably vastly different.
No the army leaving it does not remove its status as military base.
If it functions as a base then its still a base. The presence of its other functions as city doesn’t negate its other purposes, nor does it give a protective moral bubble that protects it from retaliation for the things it is directly responsible for.
Garrosh himself made Orgrimmar a target, and holding Theramore captives and his own citizens as human shields from retaliatory attack is on him rather than the attacker.
Theramore being blown up is morally much less darker than Teldrassil. At Teldrassil the city army was gone. It was totally defenseless… Sylvanas and the Horde could have just walked right in.
Theramore though was actively being held and the Horde wasn’t able to get to it. It was already evacuated as well so honestly the meme “garrosh did nothing wrong” slightly has point. He targeted a military base and destroyed it very effectively but Jaina still has right to seek vengeance… she didn’t start the war. Garrosh did and had she not joined the Alliance in their defense Garrosh would have come after her people anyway.
That’s quite reasonable. Cities contain part of the command and control aspects as well as infrastructure, therefore making them valid military targets. I don’t necessarily agree to the extent that it makes it more palatable (not your word - I just don’t really have a better word) to wipe out a city, but I understand your reasoning and can respect it.
And you’re right in that it’s (at least partly) due to the in-game representation (and my own interactions). In-game, most of what is shown are city guards, shopkeepers, and random citizens walking around. It’s absolutely fair to say that the lore represents it differently than my own interactions.
I think that the other part is that I somewhat view racial and faction capitals as being “special” in some (completely arbitrary) way. I think it’s because I spent a lot of time within them and leveled up characters through them and as such it made me feel like they were more “homes” than militarized, but I understand your point of view, and it’s completely valid.
Well first off I am glad we can come to a sort of understanding.
Honestly most of my issues stem from false equivalency between Jaina and Sylvanas and their actions.
I think someone earler said Jaina was an 11 and Sylvanas was 12 but thats just not true.
There is a reason we have the expression “Cold Blooded” for a person, palatable is probably not the right word but for me I understood why Jaina did those actions and why she targeted orgrimmar.
You have a cause and effect situation happening and if the criticism is “Its not a perfectly clean hit” then these people are asking for Disney level villains rather than something better.
Like you know the villains who choose to commit suicide as the hero tries to save them? So the hero gets to kill the villain but still be innocent. Thats boring, it should be messy, complicated and dark.
Honestly, it would have been better narratively if Jaina did destroy Orgrimmar (obviously partially).
Thrall saves the world but fails to save his nation… a nation that was destroyed partly by his own incompetence by someone he used to call a friend.
And heck for gameplay purposes we can see an orgrimmar with an actual harbor after its revamp.
I don’t see the problem with the particular lines quoted. Also, she may have written the novelization of the events immediately prior to the Cataclysm, but how much of it did she really come up with herself, and how much was her just working with what she had been dictated to do?
Thats why I think Christie gets FAR too much hate amongst certain fans. Most of the lore she places in her books, I’m willing to bet are coming from her bosses and not her herself.
This was the lore from long long ago(BC) at least this was what was on Wowwiki at the time. I am not sure if it was official or whatever.
Still even without it we know the night elves clearly like Jaina and process of elimination, she would probably be the one who got them to join it.
They joined because this was going to a two faction game. Just as until Wrath we never actually had any lore on why the forsaken join. I do think this it is long past time we got an “official” lore response on why the night elves joined.
Personally I want to see it. If only because it would be a good starting place to try and heal the divide between the night elves and the Alliance. Knowing why they joined in the first place would be a good start.
Besides, the Forsaken reason for joining was added in Wrath. Why not add the night elf one now?
Because with everything that happened in BfA and SL, giving a official reason on the NE joining the alliance is a literal non issue, no one but you cares
it’s certainly a less pressing issue IMO, but AFAIK it’s still never been adequately explained, beyond ‘Alliance represents Classic DnD hero races, and therefore needs elves. And for some reason not the ones that live closest to them’.