State of the Scarlet Onslaught

That, and there’s an even bigger appeal to edgelords as the punching bags in their power fantasies (especially since they’ve been losing nuance and legitimate grievances).

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I don’t think the Scarlet Crusade was ever intended to be sympathetic by the time you encounter them in WoW? I don’t see anything wrong with wanting them back just to be bopped. They serve the role well.

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I’m not the only one saying they have sympathetic qualities. In my case it’s the “reclaim their homeland from the Scourge aspect” (they initially didn’t know about the Forsaken). Why do you think they’re popular with some fans?

More likely they didn’t care about the Forsaken… Undead is undead and they’re Horde as well. Then again they’re just as happy to kill the living who don’t conform.

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Perhaps, and yet the Scarlet Onslaught are still on the backfoot and not in a position to be a threat to anyone outside their territory.

If the Primalists convinced thousands to join their ranks then Scarlet Onslaught would probably convince millions.

Also, at least the Scarlets have a nice and interesting aesthetic, whereas the primalists just look like some common npcs you find in cities.

I hope they come back eventually but being smarter than usual. Since they’ve always behaved just like Team Rocket from Pokemon.

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The Primalists take all races while the Scarlet Onslaught only takes humans. And what aesthetic are you talking about?

New Hearthglen was still active as of the Priest Order Hall story in Legion. But as mentioned above, they were very disorganised with little leadership to speak of, and turning their inquistions on each other.

If the war was about religion it should have started the minute the arabs attacked the Byzantines.

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The Scarlets were done dirty in the lore imo.

Before Dathrohan was possessed by a Dreadlord, they made significant strides in the effort of retaking Lordaeron. They had non-humans in their ranks, who were vastly respected with statues of them in the monastery even after the Crusade started limiting themselves to just humans. They have one of the coolest aesthetics and lore in the entire game, and frankly, Saiden Dathrohan is the coolest Paladin in the lore imo.

They really had the opportunity to be a Silver Hand for the Common Man. Where the Silver Hand was full of Noble born knights that were larger than life. The Scarlet Crusade had the opportunity to be a humbler organization of Pius peasants who were strong of faith and selfless in the pursuit of saving the Holy Land of Mereldar (Lordaeron) from the curse of Undeath.

Instead, they kind of just made them Hyper Religious National Socialists. Which we all KNOW the only reason Blizz took them in that direction is for the sake of giving the Forsaken an enemy in which they don’t feel bad about murdering.

And I am not saying “The Scarlets should have been the good guys” what I am saying is there was some very clear nuance in the situation that Blizz, as usual, completely slept on for the sake of narrative convenience.

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Probably that Warhammer style Templar aesthetic.

They brought back the Scarlet Crusade like four different times and even repeated the “that guy is a dreadlord” gimmick. At this point the most interesting thing they could do with them is make them a force for good again, like they were under Alexandros and Fairbanks. Unfortunately there were three expansions in a row that could’ve made a cool subplot out of that and didn’t, and now no one actually cares, beyond the handful of people who want to imagine their youth pastor or whatever while killing them in game.

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For all people’s talk of the Scarlet Crusades’ “nuance” and being “interesting”, I strongly suspect what you said the real reason people want them back. In fact, I think certain writers themselves have been using the Scarlet Crusade - and characters like Yrel and Xe’ra - as stand-ins for their youth pastors.

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Yeah that whole pamphlet thing was pretty over the top even by Joseph the Redeemed standards

True. It even goes back to Wrath where there was a Scarlet Crusade pamphlet called “Give to the church and the Light will provide” in the Death Knight starting area, an on-the-nose jab at prosperity gospel ripped straight from r/atheism. While I oppose prosperity gospel, I would not wish violence on - or have violent fantasies against - those who spread it.

And look how many plot holes people ignore for these story beats.

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Oh man I forgot about that Scarlet Enclave one, the new one makes that look grounded and believable. They went from prosperity gospel (and where else are you spending your money as a Crusader in the Plaguelands really) to crackpot conspiracy theories about subjects they have no reason to care about.

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Good point about spending all that money in the Plaguelands. Especially since they won’t do business with non-humans.

It’s also telling how some people assume Turalyon would work with them even though he’s more reasonable than that (some people think being devout and being reasonable are mutually exclusive). They also think the Scarlet Onslaught and Brotherhood would work with him when his Void elf girlfriend/baby momma and half-elf son would be dealbreakers for them (and that’s not getting into Turalyon’s Draenei and undead friends).

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These people successfully petitioned to wash a fictional slur against demonic mutation out of Danath’s mouth. Now combine that mindset with Turalyon’s epiphany from Tides of Darkness and you’ll see what’s really going on.

I know they want Turalyon villain-batted and dead, what do you see going on here?

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The actual reason why: in the Tides of Darkness novel, Doomhammer referred to Azeroth as “your world,” leading Turalyon to the epiphany the orcs didn’t belong on Azeroth and so outside the Light’s embrace could be struck down with impunity.