The Zandalari were actually still sceptical whether or not to help the Horde in their assault against the Alliance.
It’s like Anduin had said, the death of the King pushed the Zandalari closer to the Horde; and ultimately have forces attack the Alliance more directly.
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Alright, I half agree with this post.
On the one hand, it’s a bit unfair to say that Bwonsamdi’s powers alone killed Rastakhan. While they were probably a contributing factor, I’d say it 95% the 20 or so Alliance champions who repeatedly pummeled him to death. Had Rastakhan still kept the powers of Rezan, he likely still would’ve ended up dead. The Alliance DID kill Rastakhan, that’s on us.
On the other hand, you are correct that this occurred after the Zandalari directly involved themselves in the war, even if they weren’t formally part of the Horde. The faction assaults on Kul Tiras contain a very hefty Zandalari presence, and the attack on Anglepoint Wharf has Zandalari soldiers participating. So Zandalar can’t claim this attack was unprovoked either.
I also agree that Zandalar can only feign so much ignorance when it comes to the events of the Cataclysm Uprising and the Isle of Thunder. There are Zandalari trolls who make direct reference to Zul raising the Thunder King, so they at least KNOW what occurred even if they didn’t support it. So when Zul remains in a position of power, to the point that the Zandalari princess is traveling with him, neither she nor the Empire can claim she was arrested for no reason. It was pretty reasonable to assume at the time that Talanji and the Empire as a whole was in league with Zul’s actions. Hell, even Vol’jin blamed Rastakhan in his dialogue outside Zul’Aman, so the differentiation between him and Zul wasn’t really known by either faction until BFA.
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They were still assisting the horde in attacking the Alliance, Skeptical or not they committed to the war before the Alliance attacked.
Yes, I suppose the Alliance are responsible some what for his death as we did drive him to take in too much of Boswandis power which did eventually killed him. Though The fact we walked away when he was beaten and not dead means we did actually leave him alive.
Fair. We may not of killed him, but we definitely did leave him for dead. Maybe we thought he was dead. The point is that when Rastakhan refused to stand down, there was an authentic intent to kill that the Alliance carried out. Even if the overuse of Bwonsamdi’s power was evident when he died, I wouldn’t say that killed him outright. It’s probable that what we saw as he laid there dying would have occurred if he passed of natural causes.
Keep in mind, this isn’t me condemning the Alliance for doing so.
I’m not a fan of the Zandalaris implementation and I wish I could be because I really like trolls. The zones were amazing but ultimately the main story line and the playable race itself is so lackluster and just kind of meh. Blizzard went out of their way to give the Alliance every reason to attack them and even in their attack they retreat out of the city and do not push forward to actually try to conquer and hold it. It’s completely incomparable to the genocide at Teldrassil to me. Turning Zul into a generic bad guy was also lame.
Zul’jin though? Me thinks revenge time.
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Darkspear trolls.
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I’m sorry, I tried to read through the whole thread but what exactly is Talanji being accused of being a hypocrite over? Choosing to seek help from the Horde instead of the Alliance? Or being upset when her father was killed?
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She went to the Horde in the middle of a war and her kingdom was used as a staging ground for multiple attacks on Alliance.
Is it so shocking the Alliance retaliated?
The death of her father is on her.
That just sounds like you’re trying to shift the blame for Shaw and Jaina’s failure to force King Rastakhan’s surrender (which was the actual objective of the siege of Dazar’alor, you may recall.)
Saying Talanji isn’t justified for being upset with the Alliance for their hand in her fathers death is like saying Jaina isn’t justified in having similar feelings towards the Horde for the death of her father. Comparatively Jaina was more complicit in her fathers death than Talanji since Jaina actively stepped aside in the name of peace, but I don’t think it’s fair to say Jaina is a hypocrit for mourning her father.
As Jaina herself says ‘we’ve all got blood on our hands’.
Talanji is only a hypocrite if you believe the Alliance has no agency, no choice in their own actions, which they clearly do.
Though we as players ourself certainly lack agency if you want to argue that.
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I don’t even know why his death or capture was going to achieve anything helpful but I guess Blizzard didn’t have any other ideas.
As for Shaw or Jaina. Restakhan’s survival or safety wasn’t their responsibility.
Talanji got her own country and father into this conflict knowingly.
She can blame Alliance all she wants but as the viewer we know better.
Its Blizzard’s attempt at a false equivalency.
Jaina may have her hands bloody but Horde characters like Saurfang or Thrall have their arms and whole body drenched in it.
She is a naive fool with a temper tantrum. Maybe lacks the power of self reflection. Dunno about hypocrisy though.
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Talanji knew her kingdom was in big trouble and went looking for allies. Although factions of the Zandalari had been in conflict with both in the past, the Horde actually includes trolls, and until recently had a troll Warchief, while the Alliance has effectively had a kill on sight policy towards most trolls since WC3 (the Kul Tirans in particular, if you’ll recall). I mean, the Alliance leadership literally includes the “Trollbane” family. Is it any wonder that she chose to ask the Horde for help instead?
Then the Alliance captured her and threw her in a dungeon without even apparently trying to talk to her. Which kind of confirmed her choice, no?
Then the Horde sent people to rescue her, and helped save her kingdom, exactly as she had wanted. While the Alliance sent invading forces, blew up most of her nation’s fleet, and killed her father in a raid that also massacred civilians (if you do the Horde raid, the first wing features the Dark Irons killing indiscriminately, including unleashing fire elementals on NPCs that are specifically labeled “Zandalari shopper”, many of whom are lying dead in the streets).
I feel like her hostility towards the Alliance kind of makes sense.
Also, I note that Talanji has been careful not to officially join the Horde. She emphasizes that they are allies but that she is not subordinate to anyone.
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I mean, I feel it also bears mentioning that in the Warcraft Universe, ‘trolls’ and ‘humans’ have both endured literal generations of blood war with each other, so, Talanji has a cultural framework not to view the Alliance’s actions positively.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that the Zandalari hadn’t joined the Horde yet, so the Alliance invading them could be interpreted as, like their actions against the Vulpera in Vol’dun, the Alliance deciding who other sovereign peoples get to talk to. It’s kind of the ‘I’m allowed to do anything and my reach can cover the entire world’ big-stick imperialist mindset that lead Anduin to excuse Genn’s assassination attempt, and for SI:7 to flood Orgrimmar with spies in peace time, both talking points that Sylvanas used to convince Saurfang of the War of Thorns. The Alliance’s foreign policy always has been ‘I can do whatever I want’.
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I’m pretty sure this is just the classic case of “poor timing”.
If she had chosen to ally with the Horde when they WEREN’T at open war with the Alliance, there wouldn’t be any issues at all. Horde would’ve solved their G’huun problem, their kingdom would be re-stabalized, Talanji wouldn’t have unwittingly allied with a group of mass murderers, and Rastakhan would still be alive.
Because frankly this war really should not be their problem.
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Are we even sure Talanji had full knowledge of what Zul was up to during Catacylsm? I seem to recall her saying she was only a child during that time period (unless I imagined that).
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This, too. If the Zandalari hadn’t sought outside help for the whole G’huun thing, then it very easily could have reached a fever pitch that would have been a much bigger problem for the entire world. They had every reason to believe the Alliance was off the table, so… seeking the Horde out was probably the morally necessary thing to do.
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Actually I think the parallels between Jaina and Talanji specifically are intentional. I think it’s meant to engender a degree of sympathy for Talanji in the Alliance player, though apparently in you at least this has been ineffective.
Let me try to simplify my point for you though. Let’s throw away the whole background of the faction conflict and all the window dressing of race and creed. Let’s boil this down to the simplest terms:
Let’s say someone committed a terrible crime… like they sent monitory aid to a territorist organization or something. Their father is complicit in this because it was done by his permission, but actively all he’s really done is aided and abetted his daughter and her friends.
Now an angry lunch mob shows up in the fathers home and demand he submit himself to mob justice for his crimes. He refuses, resists, and dies in the process.
The fact a crime was committed does not absolve the lynch mob of their guilt in being the direct cause of the fathers death. While I agree that the daughter shares some of the blame in committing the acts that angered the mob in the first place, the mob is still responsible for their own actions and the daughter cursing them for carrying out their version of ‘justice’ is still completely justified.
That’s the problem, as I see it, with the way the Alliance wages war. They always talk about justice and punishing others for their crimes, but war is not about justice and never has been. War is about depriving your enemy of resources until they either are forced to the negotiating table or cease to be a threat. Justice is what comes after war, when the courts and tribunals get to judge what happened after the fact.
Even then it’s rare for true justice to be done.
Either way though, the Alliance isn’t an agencyless victim lashing out in defense. The Alliance is a nation that actively invaded an enemy, demanded that enemies surrender, and then killed them when they did not comply. Talanji may not be an innocent in all this but neither is the Alliance.
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I don’t think there is a single parallel between the two besides the dead father thing.
I read your example and there are some aspects I agree and some I don’t since it seems like you are mischaracterizing things.
Though Alliance may have invaded they have done it the worst way possibly.
None of the objectives or how they help us to win this war in a matter of weeks don’t make sense at all.
Sacrificial troops, trying to reduce civilian casualties, leaving the city undamaged and not attacking because the trolls are sad.
Alliance may have ‘agency’ as you call it but its completely hampered by the fact that Blizzard makes the characters tiptoe around to protect the Horde as much as possible and pander to their ego.
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Okay, I usually try to understand your points because I think you argue in good faith, but if you genuinely think that the Alliance is the faction whose portrayal is bent around so as to protect the Horde playerbase’s feelings, then you’re on a level I cannot follow.
The Alliance (and by this I mean, the EK Alliance) gets all the superheroes they want. They get an infinite supply of dehumanized enemies who will start wars with them, so they can feel good and just and right and so that Anduin can be Big Man War King like his Dad but also Soft Always Right Protagonist Boy. The Horde NPCs around them are always spitting villainous slogans and acting like caricatures of themselves, so the Alliance can feel like they’re defending civilization from these unwashed brutes.
The Alliance gets pants-on-head idiotic at times not so that the Horde player can feel good, because the Horde player never feels good anymore. The Alliance acts stupid because, after all the other gifts that Blizzard gives them, acting stupid is the one way they don’t just instantly win, which is the one thing Blizzard can’t let them do.
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Talanji, Jaina, Thrall, Saurfang, Anduin, Genn, and almost everyone is a hypocrite.
Sylvanas at least admits both Factions have been awful, and both will foster their grudges - she expresses her concern as simply coming out on top, a peace on the Horde’s terms. Geyarah at least does not pretend to have a false sense of piety. And Gallywix is very upfront about his PoV, and stays true to form.
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Both Talanji and Jaina were Princesses beloved by their people and raised to think of their homes and their morals as absolutely right and justified.
Both Talanji and Jaina are powerful in the extreme in their chosen field of magic, so much so as to attract the attention of outside powers.
Both Talanji and Jaina have sought peace with the Horde leading to an alliance (temporary in Jaina’s case) that wound up leading to their father’s demise.
Both Talanji and Jaina then became the leader of their respective peoples (for Jaina first with Theramore and later with Kul Tiras proper) and had to deal with subjects who would try to undermine their rule (ashvane in the case of Jaina and the white widow in the case of Talanji.)
I’d say there are a lot of similarities and parallels. More than just their fathers dying at any rate.
The writing being bad does not revoke the Alliance’s responsibility for their actions within the narrative. It just means Blizzard sucks at writing the faction conflict to anyone satisfaction.
It’s notable that Blizzard May think that since no one is satisfied, that means they are doing a good job. Which would explain BFA as a whole in my opinion.
Side note, I kind of feel like the effort to make the Alliance ‘tiptoe’ as you put it, is more about preserving the Lawful Good Overdrive part of the Alliance from getting their hands dirty rather than any mercy for the Horde. If the point was to preserve the Horde in any way, it would be Alliance leaders who were dying and Horde leaders escaping at the last moment wounded but alive and showing up in the next raid standing side by side with the Alliance.
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