The Aggrieved - Teldrassil & Beyond

[Vanaelia-moon-guard]

@Jellex-wyrmrest-accord

Fine, apparently you want this so badly, I’ll waste my time.

So…I won’t lie. This made me physically wince. If you’re having a discussion, stating your points should not be a waste of time, especially if you’re speaking with someone new. Feeling like it’s a waste of time gives the impression that you’re coming from a place of superiority, like you’re doing people a favor by explaining your positions. It’s not supposed to be a foregone conclusion, after all. This…is supposed to be a discussion, right?

In my opinion, the following are the losses of the Horde, in no particular order.

1. Characters. Three of them for certain, four depending on how you count it, I’ll get to that in a minute. It is not really disputable that as a result of this expansion, the Horde no longer has Sylvanas, Nathanos, or Saurfang in its ranks. The Horde’s character roster is already extremely thin compared to the Alliance’s, and for the sake of this terrible plot that nobody wanted, Saurfang died, Sylvanas abandoned the faction, and Nathanos went with her for reasons that are honestly quite stupid. In particular it stings to lose Nathanos because he received A TON of screen time, as if he was being built up to replace Sylvanas, but instead all of the precious character development time in BfA (and some during Legion as well) went to a character that is now gone. In addition, instead of getting a character as well-received as Rastakhan added to the ranks, Horde players were instead forced to watch him die and get his far less interesting daughter instead.

Sylvanas is an interesting case. In this argument, I mean. Because she was the catalyst for all of this stuff that it seems a lot of people agree is bad. The War of Thorns, the various atrocities, and all of that. So, hearing that you lost her is…a bit odd. Did you want to keep the person who specifically did all of that stuff? That would be like tacit support for what she did. Do you want her gone? That would be like tacit support for the narrative that the Horde is evil. It’s a nuanced issue.

Nathanos…I have no idea what’s going on with Nathanos. I’ll admit I’m not even really sure if he’s still around, or what he’s going to do. I don’t know enough about this to make a well-informed decision.

Saurfang had a whole character arc. Saying that he was “lost” seems like it misses the point of him concluding his story. I don’t mind a narrative arc concluding like that. Besides, Thrall came back, right? Kind of? In that weird ‘he’s here, but not’ fashion.

I’ll say that Rastakhan does not count, and I’ll tell you why. He was introduced in this expansion. So was his daughter. The Horde hadn’t gained him to lose him. His story was to die, and his daughter’s story was to join. If you feel that she’s less interesting, that’s fine. But it’s disingenuous to act like she’s immaterial.

As a counterpoint, though? On the Alliance side, while the roster has more numbers, a lot of them don’t really do anything. Sure, they’re there, but…how many draenei have you seen in the cinematics? All of the cinematics were about Horde heroes, Horde struggles, Horde triumphs.

I’ll present this as a counterpoint, then. You lost characters because they were actually included in the story to do things. That giant spaceship? The massive Void portals? Hell, night elves? Eh. They’re off doing their own thing, I guess.

2. The war. The Horde managed a single victory that tore the fanbase in half and was packed full of moments to make the player feel like they were the ones in the wrong, slaughtering Night Elves who lamented their deaths as they protected their homeland. Not only that, we learned that they were bled heavily by Night Elf reservists the whole way forward, suffering an 8:1 ratio of losses. After that, the Horde’s war campaign was an absolute joke, featuring quests that were overturned by the Alliance in the next patch, getting played at Dazar’alor and losing the entire Zandalari fleet, and ultimately losing both warfronts and only continuing to exist as a faction thanks to His Grace, Anduin the Moronic. Any Horde player who can count and isn’t delusional knows that the Alliance has been fighting with one hand behind its back the whole war and still won.

Okay. I just want to be clear about something, because that actually will impact the flow here. When you say “single victory”, are you talking about the Burning of Teldrassil?

3. Faction pride. See above “Horde Shame Tally” for a more comprehensive list, but anyone who thought they could continue supporting the Horde as a sympathetic faction was long since disabused of that notion thanks to the events of this expansion. The Horde was portrayed as in the wrong through and through, by story moments large and small, and the “rebellion” storyline was so poorly conceived that they managed to make players feel like schmucks no matter which side they chose. Not only all that, but Horde players played through a story in which their side was utterly incompetent, failing to fix any of the problems that assailed Zuldazar, watching the ally they had come to help fall further and further in spite of the Horde player’s efforts. The war campaign featured a series of moronic quests that barely touched on actually fighting a war, and those that did seek to gain an advantage were promptly overturned by the Alliance’s efforts. Contrast this to the Alliance’s war campaign which - shockingly! - featured a successful plan of sabotage that cleared the way for a raid on the enemy capital.

You know, I actually looked at that “Horde Shame Tally” list. A fair number of things were based on comments some NPCs made, sometimes just during a quest. Which, I don’t know…I’m not entirely convinced. And even if I were, that’s…that’s one of those issues that raises an eyebrow. A lot of the comments I saw on that thread were things like “this made us feel bad”, and not a lot of “I wish I hadn’t done this”. You know? “They made me feel bad about stabbing this person” and not “I wish I hadn’t had to stab this person”.

But to the point of the war. I…I remember Chris Metzen mentioning at one point he likes the Horde because they’re underdogs. I hear similar sentiments from a lot of people. A group of people banded together for survival. Underdogs.

I don’t know how to say this delicately, but underdogs are called that for a reason. It’s generally expected that they wouldn’t win in a fight. This isn’t limited to WoW. If you ask someone on the street who is most likely to win in a competition between A and B, if B is the underdog? I’m fairly certain most people would say A.

4. A capital city. I can almost hear the screeching about how this doesn’t count because Sylvanas destroyed it to keep it out of the hands of the Alliance. However, this city is still gone, the Forsaken are still refugees squatting in Orgrimmar, and it’s no more inhabitable than Teldrassil is.

…I mean, do you not think that’s a valid point? Sylvanas destroyed Teldrassil. Sylvanas also destroyed Undercity. But that was just the city. Teldrassil was a whole zone. And Darkshore is under war. And again, this is something that was done by Sylvanas.

5. Faction identity. Anyone who thought that the Horde could still be thought of as a sympathetic group was rudely disabused of that notion by the story of BfA. Note that the Horde which was portrayed in BfA, as a confused, bumbling group who fails in every campaign they launch and resorts to atrocities to win battles is in direct contrast to the present, existing description of the Horde that Blizzard themselves have provided. This was supposed to be an expansion which explored how the “Honor Horde” and “Pragmatic Horde” learned how to co-exist and work with each other. Instead, Blizzard drove the wedge so deep that many Horde players harbor more resentment for the “other faction” of Horde players than they do Alliance players. The Horde player base is so deeply divided now that Blizzard can safely ignore us while we squabble with each other instead of demanding better. Not to mention that anybody who played Forsaken to be something more than “hurr durr evil zombie” has seen their race’s themes and identity totally torn up root and branch and given an empty hole in the ground to replace it.

This is a valid point, and I have little to add to it. I wouldn’t necessarily refer to it as ‘faction identity’, but there were serious missteps taken here. Anyone who played a Forsaken wanting to have a shred of humanity (a la Alonsus Faol, Leonid Bartholomew, and others) is relegated to following someone acting exactly like the Lich King. Although I will say I think that Saurfang’s point about “the lie upon which the Horde was founded” is a relevant one and needed to be exposed. It would be nice if something came from this, but given the direction the story is going…

6. Motivation and future relevance. I bundled these together because they are two relatively smaller points, but needless to say, it’s hard to feel any kind of motivation or justification going forward. Blizzard has relentlessly gone backwards through the story to whitewash the Alliance’s gray moments and darken the Horde’s, going so far as to take one of the legitimate complaints the Horde had in the Purge and forgive the Alliance for it on our behalf, forcing us to kill survivors of the event in direct aid to the Alliance. Moreover, the Horde is in an utter shambles now, with an uncertain future in its “council” which Baine seems to use as a veil to cloak his leadership in legitimacy, and which still can’t stop the internal strife of the Horde from causing issues as seen in the preview for the new book being released. In such a state of disarray with its hero characters gutted and its faction identity shattered, the ability of the Horde to partake in future, non-faction war content is seriously called into question, and we already seem set to spend time following Alliance characters around in Shadowlands (Tyrande) where we will almost certainly be berated once again.

I think this was one of the points that Saurfang was trying to make. The Horde did have some very dark moments in their history. Too many people were ignoring that. Bringing it to the surface to deal with it is a way to heal and move forward. Baine is an excellent person to do that, both for his temperament and for his political clout.

“Seem set to spend time follwing Alliance characters around in Shadowlands (Tyrande)”. Yeah, that’s sure something. I mean, you would think that she would have had her story wrapped up in this expansion, right? You know, because it was supposed to be a big deal? I’m sure it wasn’t a case where we pretty much ignored the fallout of a massive tragedy that literally caused a war until it was concluded with the night elves winning back land they already owned.

Now, go ahead. Tell me why none of this counts. Slice each reason apart line by line. Prove to me that I just wasted my time in attempting to provide the reasons you so desperately seemed to want to see.

I’m…not your enemy. I don’t hate you. I don’t dislike you. I don’t even know you. But if we’re having a discussion, I do need to know your actual stance on things if you want me to respond to them.