I actually thought that was very much out of character when it was first announced. It’s easy to forget how things looked before BfA started, but when she became warchief, I believed she wouldn’t go seeking out war—not because she was too good to do so, but because she was focused on not dying again and on finding a way for the Forsaken to survive. Poking the Alliance bear would run completely counter to those goals.
The Warbringers video made it look like the burning of Teldrassil was the opposite of cold and calculated, which a lot of people called out at the time.
Yes, they wanted to hold it, so they should have done that. There was no strategic reason to burn it.
How is “Oh, we only burned a limited number of children” good for the Horde?
They were talking about Malfurion taking out a an entire battalion on his own. Also, the Horde has been fighting the Sentinels since Vanilla. Heck, Wolfheart had them confront the entire night elf military+Alliance support.
It has been Warcraft writing level. Look, Warcraft has never claimed to be some epic level military book. It is high fantasy/comic book style writing.
I didnt even say it was superior. Even Saurfang seemed to doubt that. The point is no one had a decent enough navy to actually fight/move their entire troop to Darkshore and another point was to capture every the nearby areas so the night elves could not escape. Not to mention the feignt might not have if the night elves did not see the Horde marching though the Barrens.
Why should we? Again, both factions were dealing with the Broken Shore and Genn whole assault. That was the reason why we were all in order halls! The story was done in a way so that we knew both factions hated each other guts enough that not even the threat of mutual annialation would get them to truly work together.
And what should happen to those individuals and the Horde for the blame they have for Teldrassil?
Even if you want to retcon that instead of 90% died to 30%… the Horde still did those things.
I mean, we could argue about that. If we are to cling to the Elegy genocide narrative, we might also indulge the AGT strategy narrative which lays it out pretty clearly. Then we can complain that that doesnt make sense… but thats the strategic reason.
If what you’re saying about AA is true, I just came up with a theory; what if the Burning of Teldrassil was (at least in part) revenge for the Bombing of Theramore? On that note, I strongly suspect he had a hand in Legion and was behind the parts that read like a pro-Illidan fanfic.
The whole Horde didn’t have a role in the Burning of Teldrassil, but it wasn’t Sylvanas alone who did that; Nathanos gave the orders and who was operating those catapults that flung the Azerite ammo?
imo I can sympathize with retconning the Burning of Teldrassil into a not-so-big disaster, or make Sylvanas’ occupation canon but the burning itself a side-effect of Azerite or Azshara framing Sylvanas. That would be difficult to do well, but I think it would be less bad than the dreck AA came up with.
According to that Warbringer cinematic, Sylvanas died because she somehow figured powersliding into melee range of a mounted knight as an archer wearing belly-baring armor was a good idea. And that Sylvanas burnt Teldrassil to spite one dying night elf who had surrendered the battle.
Oh I’ve hated a bit of his content before Shadowlands. And the problem with Sylvanas isn’t just whether or not she’s out of character… but her ridiculous plot armor. Seeing Sylvanas’ atrocities restarts hostilities between the Alliance and the Horde, but all Sylvanas gets is a wrist-slap punishment of having a few Kor’kron Orcs looking over her shoulder. This is in a story where we’ve kill bandits over stealing clothes, much less experimenting on and enslaving POWs. While she gets her Val’kyr plan ruined in Legion, but gets away with abandoning the fight to chase a “Get out of hell” free card. Then in BfA we get these new powers pulled out of… anyway, Sylvanas gets new powers for the plot and… I’ve said enough.
Very glad so many of you are finally coming around to “actually we need to remove the Burning of Teldrassil entirely from the story and use the Magical Reality-Altering Engine Of Creation in the plot to rewind, undo, and fast forward into a new canon” like I’ve been saying for the past three years.
Even if you use the Magical Reality-Altering Engine of Creation to undo Teldrassil you still have the Horde who are responsible for their actions.
The Alliance weakness to defend their people.
All the Horde characters responsible for the burning still walking around.
Wishing everybody back doesn’t solve any of the underlying issues.
It doesn’t absolve anyone or allow anyone to be redeemed if you 3d print everyone back into existence.
All this does is gaslight people into not being justifiably mad because you refuse to admit its existence.
It’s really funny when Blizz is seeding out rumors that the Burning of Teldrassil was Afrasiabi’s idea. Like, yeah, I am sure the last 4 years was all the work of the obvious scapegoat who left the company 2 years ago, and those that remained did absolutely nothing to coarse correct after he left.
Yeah, that’s def what happened.
Just retcon SL and BFA. No one will be upset about. In fact, we will rejoice.
I’d say that’s definitely something to argue over… I loved the first half of BFA but the second part completely lost me. The Derek Proudmore thing, the pseudo-loyalist path, Nazjatar, N’Zoth… To me none of those storylines were functional. But that’s another debate ofc
To lead the Horde to war, maybe. To burn the tree… I don’t know. Not that she wasn’t evil enough to do that, but it completely went against her “cold and calculated” persona. The entire War of the Thorns was a carefully crafted plan (letting Alliance spies gather fake intel, faking a Horde march on Silithus…). But the Burning of Teldrassil ? They wanted to capture Teldrassil. Warbringers made it clear that she did the burning thing out of a rush of blood to the head. Or should I trust A Good War and believe that her purpose was to shatter the Alliance’s confidence and prevent future conflicts (a purpose that had been intended to be met by Malfurion’s death at the hands of Saurfang) ? Or maybe I should trust the SL explanation that she burned it in order to send waves of souls to the Jailer ? Tbh, I don’t know at this point.
Same goes for her feelings towards Forsaken. Before the Storm made it clear that she considered them to ber “her people” and that she longed to return living among them. I don’t know what to think about that. There are so many contradicting sources.
Well, nothing, because in such case it’s closer to regular war casualties (by Warcraft standards). And the war is over, an armistice has been signed. So what should happen to the Horde for the blame they have on Teldrassil ? Nothing, unless we say something should also happen to the Alliance for the unnecessary attack on Dazar’alor and the assassination of Rastakhan.
How would a hard retcon fix the fact that the Horde burned down Teldrassil? Multiple Horde leaders implicated. An Alliance fails to be an alliance to protect anything.
Night Elves and Alliance still waiting for even one iota of justice and reconciliation?
It doesn’t fix anything.
A machine that undos and action or goes back in time doesn’t undo what was already seen happened.
If they are still in the game then they did happen.
All you are doing is giving Blizzard an out on doing ANYTHING to make things right.
Now they can go on their idiotic cosmic storyline and other dumb storylines.
How does it? Baal is still suggesting we use the first ones 3d machine to undo what the Horde did.
Well even if we undo it the Horde still did it, and have the potential to do it again. Nothing has changed.
if you are talking about a meta level like a developper says BFA and Shadowlands never happened then they have to remove that content or completely rework it. Since you know its still in the game. Are they going to make another Battle for Azeroth and do it right? I doubt that.
No it has not. It is you misrepresenting what happened/what was said in the ToV scene to assume that they have never fought the full force of the night elves when in fact it was about Malfurion.
And yet you are still here? Again this is not the type of story that ever cared about minor details like this. This story has always cared more about major beats as oppose to how many died/how big the world is etc(that type of info needs to be nebulous because otherwise it would severly limit their story options).
I think it is more of you having a different expectation than what Warcraft is willing to provide.
I said it was a “weak point”(it is in quotations for a reason) not that it was superior or inferior to the Horde and even clarified the Horde was not much better.(if at all)
Again the factions did not unite. We literally have the order halls dealing with the Legion and some semi neutral elements fighting them in argus while Genn and Sylvanas forces were out capture Warden towers and fighting where ever they could.
Also, we have united before to defeat the Legion back in Warcraft 3. Look how quickly that peace ended.
