basically you guys are frustrated that the alliance is not a proper antagonist and that elsa is not actually hitler or what?
We don’t need anyone to be hitler or even cartoonishly evil - Jaina can be an antagonist without going off the deep end. But the Alliance is failing in their duties as antagonists to the Horde, yes.
Each faction must be heroes of their own story and antagonists to the other - and to be clear, I think it is totally possible to have two competing ideologies that are incompatible but that both have merit. Currently this has failed spectacularly, however, and the Horde have no motivation and the Alliance has no satisfaction.
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Yeah… no.
That wouldn’t be in character.
Not at all.
Why do people think Anduin could be easily “steered” towards starting a war?
Seriously…
Hating war and violence and the desire for peace are the characteristics that most define his character. These aren’t just little character quirks. It’s not a phase he’ll grow out of. You are talking about undermining the entire foundation the character has been built on.
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If they took away the underserved dominion Anduin has over the Alliance, maybe then it could’ve worked.
That I can agree with. Someone else starting a war and Anduin being compelled to go along to protect his people from the Horde.
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I didn’t say that. I specifically said that the narrative could easily have him consider this action a necessary retaliation against Forsaken aggression. In my example, he believes that the Horde started this war through the many crimes of the Forsaken, and him moving against Lordaeron is just the best step to serve his people - like he thinks about Dazar’alor. He just didn’t conceive that Sylvanas would do scorched earth - because he’s as you describe, built on a foundation of desiring peace.
I am not saying he could be steered to starting war. I am not saying he would start war. I am not saying he would desire war.
I am saying that the Alliance under Anduin could attack Lordaeron for rational, established reasons and not consider it an act of primary aggression, but from their perspective it would be a just act of self-defence or even reprisal. The Horde are still occupying Gilneas, for fork’s sake. The Horde would see it differently, but of course they would.
Um because he has jaina and gen as his Chief advisor s coupled with the fact he is a young impressionable ruler with zero experience dealing with a world that has a complex Geo political situation in which two super powers have only been prevented from all out war by the fact that if one faction is destroyed the other will be overtaken. If anything it’d make more sense for anduin to start the war. The menthils harbored his father after the second war and the last of them died because of winder runner. Wanting to rebuild the kingdoms and restore the old alliance is a noble goal that at the same time directly opposes the horde and would lead to a faction war
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If Genn or Jaina tried to get Anduin to start a War his magical broken bones of righteousness would likely interfere.
Orly? ![:thinking:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/thinking.png?v=6" ":thinking:")
![:smirk:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/smirk.png?v=6" ":smirk:")
I think you fail to grasp how much he reveres life and how much maintaining whatever peace with the Horde they had mattered to him.
I also think you grossly underestimate his intelligence if you think he wouldn’t understand that reclaiming Gilneas (after nearly a decade of the Alliance not bothering!) would lead to a new war.
Anduin isn’t young and impressionable.
Young, yes.
Impressionable?
Hard no.
He regularly butted heads with Varian over his ideals and never wavered.
He also doesn’t have zero experience. First time he was crowned he was ten. Bolvar and Prestor may have done most of the heavy lifting, but he wasn’t sitting on the throne playing with toy soldiers either.
He was raised to rule. His primary mentors were Prophet Velen and O’ros. He practically worships the Pandaran. He was Thrall’s biggest fan. He even wanted to save Garrosh’s soul!
It absolutely does not make sense for him to start a war and anyone who understood his character would laugh at the idea.
Pretty sure he wouldn’t need his bones to tell him not to go to war. He was a pacifist long before he got smooshed.
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Yes. Really.
“It would not at all be hard to position it from the Alliance standpoint that they considered the war to have already been started back in Cata, or even at the Broken Shore. Plenty of Alliance such as exiled Lordaeron(ians?) and Genn would be eager to steer him to that viewpoint.”
Reading is hard but the very sentence previous to the one you quoted shows that ‘that viewpoint’ is exactly what I stated it as; The Alliance could easily attack Lordaeron because they perceive they are already at war with the Forsaken, and thus the Horde. My position hasn’t changed. Genn and the like could steer Anduin to this precisely because it would not be starting a war.
I think you fail to understand how much these aren’t issues if the perception was that the Horde were already an active aggressor. Anduin loving peace doesn’t stop him fighting for what he thinks is right, and if he was convinced or already believed that Sylvanas’ actions at the Broken Shore, Gilneas, Southshore and Stormheim were the actions of an active combatant then it wouldn’t be ‘aggression’ on his part to want to march on the seat of the person he considered an active threat. It would just be sensible behaviour.
Let me state that again, to be super clear. In this scenario, Anduin does not start any wars or break any peace - not by the Alliance perspective. In this scenario, the Alliance political view would be that the Horde had started a war and were still waging it against the Alliance.
In this way Anduin can march on Lordaeron and not consider it the breaking of a peace, and thus it would not be a breach of character. Anduin is willing to fight to make the world a better place and to defend his people. Dazar’alor is proof of this very exact thing, so don’t tell me this is out of character.
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Um you’re counting the time he was 10 and someone rules as regent lord on his behalf as experience? And he’s extremely impressionable he is always searching for a mentor
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Anduin isn’t an unknown. Aside from quests in game, we’ve had whole sections of multiple books in his perspective. We know how he thinks. He doesn’t want to see people on either side suffer and die in war. He wants peace with the Horde. After Gilneas and Southshore and Theramore he still thinks the Alliance is at peace with the Horde.
If he didn’t take that view before… why would he now?
Oh right.
You think he can be steered into starting a war by tricking him into thinking he’s already at war.
A distinction without a difference.
Fighting against an opponent who made it explicitly clear she wants to end the Alliance by any means necessary when she started a war with an unprovoked genocide and trying to make sure she doesn’t gain the ability to finish what she started.
Vs.
Being tricked into starting a war against an opponent who you have no active fight against because they’ve done some bad things over the last 10 years, most of which you’ve never considered an obstacle to peace before.
These things are not equivalent.
So impressionable that he went back to a city he was held hostage in to tell off his dad because he disagreed with his warmongering ways… wait… that’s the opposite of impressionable… that’s standing up for his convictions in the face of adversity and challenging someone who he deeply loved and respected.
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No. I don’t think it’s being tricked. I don’t think you understand what I am saying.
I’m saying that there is a rational, existing portion of the Alliance that believes that they were already at war with the Horde, and through argument and discussion, Anduin comes to share this belief. It is not ‘tricking’ someone to influence them to your perspective. He’s not being ‘tricked’ into starting a war at all.
You’ve taken the position that attacking Lordaeron first would be starting a war, and that any other interpretation is a falsehood, and thus anything that influences Anduin to do so is a trick.
But this isn’t cut and dry. Depending on your position, there are multiple valid stances on what interpretation of current events is ‘true’. Go to any thread on the Battle of Dazar’alor and you’ll see that people both have fully formed, rational viewpoints on whether or not something was, or was not, a victory. This example is great because the holders of that opinion aren’t split along faction lines.
Anduin can attack Lordaeron and do so with it not being a breach of his character.
Sure. But he didn’t attack Sylvanas. He ordered an attack, with an associated suicide mission, on the Zandalari. With his stated goal being to prevent them from joining the Horde. This means that he had to, at the time he ordered an attack on them, consider them a third party. This was an attack designed to frustrate Sylvanas, but was by his own definition directed at non-Horde. He may not have seen them as neutral, which is fair, but they were far less of a threat than Sylvanas was at the end of Legion and he ordered them to be attacked. And he doesn’t seem too broken up that Rastakhan died as a result.
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He has literally been raised to deal with a world that has a complex geopolitical organization. He was Varian’s only heir. His job, since birth, has been to learn how to govern, something he got a first-hand taste of when Varian went missing. It’s not like Varian died and they picked up some kid off the street to be king.
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I do.
I just vehemently disagree with it.
Indeed I have.
Because they aren’t at war.
You are discussing a viewpoint that is demonstrably false.
Post MoP there is no war with the Horde.
There was a clear, unambiguous cessation of hostilities between the two factions.
One that Anduin specifically is immensely grateful for. It’s not just that he hates war as an abstract concept. Anduin does not want people to die.
Period.
That’s the part I think you aren’t fully understanding.
If by some chance he could be persuaded to think that they are currently at war, contrary to his prior viewpoint (and reality) attacking Lordaeron after a years long cold war status would be an escalation that causes thousands of lives to be lost unnecessarily.
That’s why the nudgenudgewinkwink we’re already at war argument fails.
No.
The Zandalari are hardly a third party. They’ve already been helping the Horde in their war effort and participated in attacks against the Alliance. Their joining is basically a done deal. The raid was a hail mary attempt to get them to split before they are able to fully integrate. But he clearly doesn’t revel in it and yes, he is also clearly saddened by the whole affair including Rastakhan’s death.
I also think you might be overlooking what the Zandalari Fleet represents. The reason seafaring allies are supposed to be so critical to the war effort is that neither side has the ability to transport the number of troops and supplies required to assault the other continent. If Sylvanas gained access to the full Zandalari fleet she would have the means to launch a full scale assault on the Eastern Kingdoms.
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So is he capable of it or not?
Gonna acknowledge all the reasons the situations aren’t equivalent or not?
I don’t agree that they are. The Alliance and Horde are openly killing each other in Legion and after the Broken Shore have every reason for renewed animosity.
Your turn to answer.
My answer is that actions taken to avoid what appears to be a war of annihilation are very different from actions taken during what is at worst a cold war even after Legion.
This is what I dislike seeing most in threads like these. If Alliance and Horde posters want to take shots at each other for the various complaints they have about the story, like Alliance not winning enough, or Horde getting hit with the villain bat too often, that’s all fine and dandy.
But then you have Alliance posters like these who constantly call for the indiscriminate, wholesale slaughter of Horde races, women, children, and all. They literally won’t be satisfied with any Alliance victory unless it results in entire races being culled from the face of Azeroth.
Sure, there are a couple of Horde posters who call for the total destruction of the Alliance too, but they’re usually so comically evil in how they write their declarations that you can inherently tell they’re people who just like playing the villains and at least know that what they’re saying is the typical “big bad evil” spiel.
The Alliance posters I have issues with, like Akiyass, are the ones that call for genocide and still believe they’re justified, decent people as they do it. It’s honestly jarring, they’re sound so convinced in the way they defend their views on ethnic cleansing, it’s almost as if they’d harbor the same beliefs in real life, against real nations or people that have also had a history of war crimes and aggression in the past.
At this point, I don’t even feel like I’m defending the Horde specifically when I argue against them, I just feel like I’m defending…the basic rights that all sentient life should have.
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