[Spoilers] Alexstrasza and the Dream

That’s the crap lore bro, no matter what you say, that’s the ridiculous lore that Blizzard has told and has been telling since Warcraft3.

Did the orcs lose to the kaldorei in Warcraft 3? No, they were winning, and when the kaldorei saw that they couldn’t beat them, they invoked a demigod to deal with them, resorting to a super weapon, and they just didn’t expect that the orcs were also capable of having a super weapon.

What I can’t stand is this ridiculous speech from kaldorei fans about having a win, a win over who?

Why do you need a win? It’s you who are still invested in this ridiculous faction war, and your posing as someone who doesn’t uphold these nefarious values that Blizzard pushes on the fanbase is easily debunked by the simple fact that you like every post that makes that same point.

So please stop self-contradicting yourself and trying to fool us with this self-pity argument, when your real wish is that this game is still based on this stupid theme that for one race to be interesting it needs to humiliate others.

You like it so much that in your head, it doesn’t sound self-contradictory that in order for your race to be restored to that position, it keeps repeating this nefarious cycle that destroyed the game’s lore.

And you hope that if the kaldorei have a chainquest where they go out with a steamroller crushing the Horde everywhere, the Horde fans will sit around saying that they’re finally doing you justice and that we have to applaud that your supreme race is finally being portrayed as she deserves. So please spare me the talk that you don’t like this fascist aesthetic, you do, you crave it, and that’s the only way you recognize kaldorei as an interesting race.

The kaldorei never needed an empire of Azshara to be a race with fascist aesthetics, I understand that you know very little about what fascist aesthetics are, but they are since their introduction a race steeped completely in the aesthetics that define fascism.

This irrational worship of nature that the kaldorei have is fascist because fascism is an ideology founded on irrationality and it is profoundly irrational to worship nature. And the reason for this is simple, nature is a cruel god, and eventually those who worship a cruel god will adopt the elements that define that god. I have already explained the historical reasons that lead fascist movements to develop an enchantment with nature. But in case you still need more elements of real human history I don’t mind providing them for you.

Did you know that one of fascism’s goals was to reforest all of Europe after they won the war? Did you know that they intended to return civilization to a stage of submission to the forces of nature, and that to do so they would simply create means to stop the wheel of economic development after achieving their complete victory?

In any discourse of Platonic love for nature, good old Darwinism develops and is taken to its last consequences. And the consequences of this are almost always that perfection must be a value pursued and preserved at all costs, and in fascist logic perfection is and has always been the mimicry of nature.

That’s exactly what happens in Warcraft3. The orcs were a poor race, the poorest of Azeroth along with trolls and tauren, they live in an unprecedented level of misery, they enter a place rich in natural resources, they develop some settlements there, because they did not know about the occupation of the place , and are merely trying to get resources so that their race can survive.

Did the kaldorei have any semblance of empathy for the social status of the orcs when they first saw them? No, they simply started a slaughter of the orcs, because what the orcs were doing there was destroying their utopia in which nature can only exist in a stage of perfection, and even the orcs were immediately recognized as a sentient race, for the kaldorei it didn’t matter because pieces of wood were seen by the kaldorei as something more important than a race that was starving and needed some resources to survive. Therefore, they actually considered trees and animals superior to orcs. Tell me does that sound like what? Otherwise fascism?

Now you might say that orcs would destroy the entire forest to get resources, but that’s a lie. The orcs have lived for centuries as a collecting race on Draenor, they have always had a relationship similar to that of indigenous people with nature, in which the whole basis of their speech was to live in communion with the environment, renewing cycles, and using nature’s resources to ensure the survival of their race.

Furthermore, the orcs never worshiped nature as a god, as the kaldorei did. And that’s because the orcs understood nature as something it always was, as something dangerous that would kill them at the first opportunity, as is well described in their relationship with the primals in WOD, so they feared nature, they had no illusions about it.

The orcs loved elements , hence shamanism, they loved their ancestors, hence communing with spirits, and they loved the stars, hence the shadowmoon clan’s communion with void forces.

The kaldorei, on the other hand, only love one god, and they think that because of that, all the places that have aspects that this god manifests belong to them. Hence they occupy all the places which are rich in natural resources. And in doing so, the indirect consequence is that they condemn all other races of Kalimdor to live in a perpetual stage of endemic poverty, with no possibility of economic development, because for the kaldorei what matters is and has always been the preservation of their God. That’s why they are present in all these places that could offer some possibility of development for these races. Because they think their utopia must be preserved at all costs.

And for them it doesn’t matter to massacre races that stand in the way of this goal, because they already have a supremacist discourse ready to justify their actions. They already have all the elements that morally justify their actions. Even when the natural consequence of their actions has always been to destroy cultures and other races. Because they don’t care. They didn’t care about the tauren a race that even helped save them in the ancients war, it was the orcs who cared about them. Because that is the theme of the kaldorei, and it is fascist, and fascism does not need empires to be fascism.

I’m sorry that I’m bursting your bubble, but fascism is fervent love for nature, and that’s why romanticism is the starting point of fascism as an ideology, because romanticism is exactly a way of expressing this fervent love for nature that creates the elements that later justify the actions of fascism.

And your race of nature worshipers is just that. They are the dream of any fascist discourse.

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I don’t role play on the Story Forums here. Your ramblings also don’t have anything to do with me, as one of my most participated threads was literally titled: The horde doesn't need a devastating defeat.

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I’m not roleplaying my dear lover of immortal and perfect races. What I’m saying to you is that the subject you think is benevolent is actually the manifestation of a phenomenon present in almost every piece of pop culture over the past 50 years.

The fact that you are illiterate about fascist aesthetics is your problem, not mine. I’m telling you and I haven’t even started using bibliographic references yet, but if you want I will use them to prove my point, that the aesthetic of the race you like is fascist.

Now it’s not my fault that most people think that fascism boils down to merely hating Jews, Gypsies and Blacks. Fascism is not so simplistic, that’s exactly why it always has a revival in society from time to time.

Even because society has never simply discarded fascism, it is something present in countless artistic works, an example of this in North American cinema is the clearly fascist work of Zack Snyder.

Now it’s not because you are completely ignorant about a subject that it doesn’t exist. There are decades of studies in the academy on what fascist aesthetics are, and the different ways in which it is incorporated and glorified until the present day in art. Unfortunately, you’re just another person who has internalized this aesthetic and finds it attractive, most people do this subconsciously as they usually don’t know where things come from.

What I said here in this thread is not my opinion, it is the opinion of experts on what fascist aesthetics are.

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I don’t see how any of this is relevant.

This is your problem, I would say it matters to me, because of the appreciation of this aesthetic, and because of the trajectory of this lore that humiliates races coded as POC, this has made the entire lore of a faction unrecognizable, and completely emptied of its original sense.

Because most people only recognize values based on a fascist aesthetic as a representation of what is good, strong, beautiful and deserves to be saved. And when they don’t have it served them as the main theme of a narrative they feel that the story is being told the wrong way.

This is one of the reasons why it’s so easy to recognize that a huge portion of the Alliance’s playerbase has speeches that are blatantly reactionary.

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While your thesis on fascism is a discussion on Warcraft’s story from a perspective of observation on Blizzard’s writers and where they draw inspiration from, it only ends up being a lot of typing without a cause. Your essays and references would only be read by a handful of posters here, as the Story Forums have never had so low of traffic as now before. Your statements would not affect the thousands of people who enjoy Warcraft, and even less so the millions of people who enjoy other franchises you have brought up. Your words would not likely change the way Blizzard is writing their stories, given the high likelihood of all players being asked again to get involved in content you have identified to be fascist, and the near impossibility of Blizzard acknowledging any statements declaring them aligned with fascist ideals.

So unless you are role playing, there’s not a lot that your posts are doing other than trying to move discussion away from the characters and setting to North America’s systemic flaws, and this is not a politics forum.

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I’m not trying to attract the attention of people who play Warcraft, I know very well what the average WOW player is. What I am saying is that stories are not just stories, they have inspirations, and by pointing this out it becomes impossible not to say that these inspirations have political elements.

By doing this I inevitably end up talking about politics, but without leaving the theme of talking about lore. What you ask of me is that I remain silent about something that is blatant in the lore, because deep down in your opinion nobody cares. And although you’re correct, the overwhelming majority don’t care, it’s important to be told that some do, and that they will also say the reason for their discomfort, also because my point is that the kaldorei were not the only race affected by this lore, the orcs were simply destroyed by it.

And in my opinion the orcs and the Horde had a theme that was much more important to preserve than the kaldorei, simply because they were the only thing that was unique about this game. Every RPG portrays elves in the same way that they are inspired by fascist aesthetics, elves are actually an element of fantasy literature built on top of fascism.

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Calm down, night elves still control more zones in kalimdor than the horde does. Only way to make alliance fan boys like you happy is by reducing the horde to a few camps.

With the latest content, the Orc’s lore has returned much more to Thrall’s intention from Warcraft III. The Orcs returning to their shamanistic and cultural importance in their clans shows surviving through Garrosh, Warlords of Draenor, Sylvanas as Warchief, and the Blizzard writers that enjoyed the original Warcraft and its sequel of Warcraft II more than the more interesting take on the Orcs in Warcraft III.

The Orcs were not culturally destroyed by the burning of Teldrassil, as few ever showed true loyalty to Sylvanas (outside of Orc players that chose to side with her over Saurfang) unlike Nazgrim keeping his oath to stay loyal to the Warchief, as undesirable as that was when the Warchief was Garrosh. The few Orcs that died staying on Sylvanas’ side did so because they had become so afraid after the burning of Teldrassil that the Alliance would retaliate with total destruction, not out of agreement with Sylvanas’ crimes.

The Kaldorei were actually a very unique element to the setting originally, which is why Metzen had such a hard time selling the notion of quasi-drow amazonian warrior wood elves who were strictly matriarchal to the white Californian gamer bros that made up the team at that time. Most of them just wanted bog-standard D&D wood elves instead.

A lot of that was sadly watered down over time to make them more appealing to a broad audience and fit within an MMORPG’s constraints… but it was unique back then.

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This was merely a nod, and it is still too early to say that the entire destruction of orc lore will be reversed. It was something much smaller than the effort Blizzard has been making to restore the glory of the kaldorei.

But let’s consider for a moment, that the Horde and orcs revert to the ones from Warcraft III, why then would you want to have a victory against them? Can you explain me? Why would you want to humiliate a shamanistic race that simply has a different lifestyle?

Because that’s what I saw you asking here in this same thread. And as I’ve said a few times, Horde players who like Warcraft 3’s Horde don’t want anything to do with kaldorei, we don’t want involvement with kaldorei, we don’t want quests that have to do with kaldorei lands.

We simply want a Horde that has aesthetics and symbols that are valued, and that we can experience playing with heroic races, who live in their little corner of Kalimdor.

We do not want to participate in this sadistic game designed to make some races of Azeroth feel entitled to consider themselves superior to the Horde races, and even less do we want to give ammunition to those who call the Horde barbaric and primitive. We don’t want reactionary Alliance players with their reactionary speeches trying to impute to Horde players this feeling that they are always on the wrong side.

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So I am back to playing WoW… just one month and I still have not purchased Dragonflight.
I resubbed because of this cinematic because I said I would like some positive development for the NE. I always like to reward good behavior but I still need to wait and see more before I buy Dragonflight.

To answer the OP. I like it… I think this is something the Night Elves definitely need after so taking so many Ls in service of absolute nonsense. Some new positive content away from the Horde is a really good thing.

One of the very first battlegrounds is the Horde invading Ashenvale, The Alliance wants to fight the Horde not because they are “Different” there are plenty of weirdos in the Alliance. The problem is the Horde is the invader and the killer that needs to be stopped. Simple as that.

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I think the only simple thing here are the thoughts you are able to articulate.

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There is no one in the Horde left to take victory against over - theoretically. The only places of contention left are Splintertree Post and the Warsong Lumber Camp, and we don’t know Gorgonna’s intentions there. But with the Barrens being said to be recovering from Daelin Proudmoore and Thrall’s secretly Burning Blade advisor Burx’s deforestation, Durotar will luckily recover from the almost two decades of resource shortages.

With Sylvanas already sentenced and the Horde leadership having turned entirely against her coming into Shadowlands, there is no evil faction of the Horde to fight against left, and if the Horde truly doesn’t want to be in Night Elf lands any more, there’s no one left to claim victory against.

Would it would have been nice to do some pre-patch quest to wipe out some hold out Sylvanas loyalists that openly and loudly declare support of her having burned Teldrassil large enough that the Horde hadn’t been able to incarcerate them like they had the Sylvanas loyalist that were in Orgrimmar? Yes. But the passage of time progressed, and the likelihood of any such gathered group has diminished to not being realistic.

Night Elf fans asked for this, yes. And Blizzard did not develop any such content, and has moved the story to a point where any such content would no longer fit in.

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Well that was rude… whats your problem?

I think he was frustrated because you were talking about the first battleground when he was referring to Warcraft 3’s Horde.

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WC3 Horde also invaded Ashenvale though. First thing the Orcs do is attack the natives and take their lands and resources. Even if we want to argue they got shot at first, which to be fair they did get shot at first that doesn’t mean they get a card blanch to do what they want.

Otherwise Alliance would have a whole deck of cards by now.

This was the beginning. By the end, they fought together against the Legion.

Edit: Also I don’t think that’s exactly how it went.

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True but certain elements of them remained in ashenvale, they made a whole battle ground about it, in Cata of course large part of NE questing content was… survive against the Orc/Horde onslaught.

And then we eventually pushed them back in a book. yey…

And of course the whole BFA thing which was just cherry on top.

Because horde isnt the “Hur dur bad races that need to be put down” and they never actually invaded Ashenvale in Vanilla, they were there just trying to have a way to survive. Why is that so bad for the alliance? Its because trees are more important than a sentient race?

They didn’t even know kaldorei patrolled that place. They did not destroy kaldorei villages to build their settlements. In their head was an empty place, and then ghosts appeared in the forest killing them repeatedly and they found out they were the kaldorei later and went to war.

Where would they go then? In the south there were only deserts, desolation, and the only other place rich in resources was also occupied by kaldorei, such as Feralas. The humans had destroyed the place they settled and destroyed any chance they had of a new beginning.

They are not there invading the place in Warcraft 3 out of an insane desire for conquest, they are desperate to have a chance of survival, but in the minds of alliancers, they just wanted to conquer and destroy everything, as this is the standard speech they make .

And if I were in their shoes I would do the same, because it’s better to fight for a chance to survive than to be an imbecile who loves trees more than beings with intelligence.

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