I think a big part of the disparity in how these two events feel is actually perpetuated by how unbalanced the situation is.
The destruction of Teldrassil has been touched upon by NPC’s, spawned a war front, one pretty awesome cinematic about a terrified troll and a wrathful Malfurion, and somehow became the culmination of Lilian Voss’ storyline. In comparison, the destruction of Undercity doesn’t get anywhere near that much attention. Prominent members of the Forsaken throughout BfA simply don’t mention it and no progression has occurred.
A fair few Night Elf players feel cheated by where their story has gone since the destruction of Teldrassil. Forsaken players are still waiting for their story to move forward enough to even acknowledge the destruction of Undercity.
…don’t even get any airtime. We don’t know anything about what they think or where the forsaken as a faction is supposed to go in the future. For instance, what is their stance on Baine, the faction leader who murdered there own countrymen. Are they sitting around a table somewhere plotting revenge for his treachery?
The difference though is that Teldrassil and Undercity can’t be treated the same way.
Undercity was just buildings and you can never compare that with tens of thousands of civilians that died in Teldrassil (and are being tortured now but that’s another topic).
Night elf population had nothing to do with the forsaken. Even after the burning night elf population is probably higher than the forsaken one.
Same for territory. While the night elf revered their tree more than forsaken loved Undercity, night elf still have other land as sacred as Theldrassil.
Meanwhile Forsaken have nothing else. They are people that lived in Lordaeron while living and still lived there while undead. Just living in a other forsaken building ins’t the same. Forsaken dont really have a forsaken culture compare the the night elf having a real culture.
I am not saying that the lost of night elf is nothing. Its a tragedy.
What i am saying is while the night elf may have lost on a lager scale, the fact that forsaken had less before make their lost at least as tragic for them.
If you want a exemple, imagine the human losing 1000 soldier and a city like daralan while the darkspear lose 100 soldier and their small island.
If you just look at the number and the size of the city, human lost more.
But we can all agree that the darspear would be the one more hurt by this lost since they already dont have that much left.
To be fair, even in-game the Forsaken don’t make a big deal out of losing Lordaeron.
There is more presentation of in-game Forsaken clinging onto the loss of Sylvanas after she abandoned them than there is of them clinging onto the loss of Lordaeron.
The in-forsaken maybe not. But the player yes. The in-game feeling are always inconsistent because it represent how devs feel. Lordaeron was always a big part of them and them not making a big deal out of it just show how Bfa devs doesn’t understand what the player base want.
Both, because role playing is base on story and the story was making Undercity important of the forsaken player and the lost of the city should have been represented as a bigger lost for them.
I’m not sure why you’re hung up on them being treated the same way when all I’m pointing out is that Teldrassil’s burning mattered and was addressed in the story, Undercity’s destruction might as well have never happened for all the story time invested in it.
If the premise that Windrunner used to sell Saurfang on the war was valid, than it’s a valid reason to start a war if you believe that the long term survival of your people was at stake.
“The Alliance might attack a hundred years from now” is not a valid justification for war. If Saurfang was so concerned about people who don’t follow orders or laws he should have challenged Sylvanas’ appointment back in Legion, not waited all the time until he did. But he didn’t, because obviously Shadowlands had to happen.
It is not really a matter of like it or not but more a matter of consistence and represent of what was already in game.
I dont want Baine to be a alliance lover but i do accept it because it is consistent with his character.
I didn’t wanted Galliwix being kick out as a leader but its make sense so i accept it ( even if i would prefer him still being around).
But the forsaken not caring for lordaeron just dont make sense. It was their land when they were alive and still was after being killed. How would anyone not care about it???
The only forsaken that could not care about it lost are the most loyalist Sylvanas fan. Those who only lived for her. In that case the lost of Undercity would be less of a deal but the lost of Sylvanas would be even more of a tragedy for them.
As far as we know, though, with the exception of a few outliers that probably aren’t technically part of the Forsaken faction any more any way, practically all Forsaken were loyal to Sylvanas right up to the point that she abandoned them. Some are even loyal to her even after the fact.