Lemme ask you this, if Humans decided to put all the Orcs to death for justice for those they killed would that have been wrong of them even though the death penalty exists IRL.
And if not, how is making them slaves, when it’s the punishment for a heinous crime worse then the death sentance?
I’ve had this argument many times before, the Draenei literally separated themselves from the Eredar and it happened over 10,000 years ago. None of the Draenei who were alive on Draenor were ever part of the Legion, while virtually every Orc committed crimes against the Alliance.
Ok first of all, they didn’t create the well of eternity lol it predates Night Elves even existing. Second of all, every single Night Elf that was on the side of the Legion or part of the Highborne caste are the ancestors of either the Blood Elves or Nightborne, BOTH of which are on the Horde lol.
You do know the Orcs were an ALIEN race to the natives of Azeroth right, not only aliens, but basically demonic aliens to, they got no rights.
Do you honestly believe if a super powerful alien race invaded Earth, wiped out 50% of the human population and by some miracle we managed to defeat them which also ended up stranding them here we’d be looking to the geneva convention on what to do with them? We’d 100% do whatever we wanted with them lol.
Your moral compass is extremely messed up and I’m gonna go ahead and put you on ignore so I don’t have to see the truly distressing things you’re saying. I hope you are one day empathetic enough and educated enough about history to understand why the things you’re saying are just… horrificaly evil and wrong.
If they killed my family or wiped out my home or city, I wouldn’t just be 100% in favour, I’d apply to be slavemaster myself.
Sorry can someone educate me, which century was it where murderous aliens decided to lay waste to humanity before we defeated them and enslaved them? I seem to have skipped that history lesson, the only RL analogues for slavery I know of are when a stronger nation or people subjugates and enslaves a defeated one for the purposes of selfish conquest, not punishment for a horrific crime.
I think the whole point is that the Horde’s government is, for the first time, equilibrating into a state that’s even capable of asking questions like “what do we stand for?” It began only as a confederacy of individual cultures banding together for survival, and nothing else. With the volatile position of warchief gone, the Horde government is actually able to settle into a state where it starts hammering out the “boring” nitty-gritty of its politics, principles, laws, etc.
I mean, it is really until now that there’s a governing body that is presumably stable enough to encourage bureaucracy. When your government has only ever existed as an emergency coalition for the purpose of survival or war, what sense does it make to prioritize writing laws and hashing out a set of official principles?
Yes, it took way too long to get here, but I, for one, am excited. I don’t know about anyone else, but these questions you ask are now on the table to be answered, with the Council in place.
In a video game Universe where one race tried to genocide the other out of existence then lost and was at the mercy of the one they tried to exterminate? The choices Humans had in Warcraft were either death penalty for the Orcs or imprisonment/slavery, what 3rd option would you have chosen?
Like, especially race-based slavery that is passed down generationally to children. Its canon that children were born in the camps and not given freedom that even a peasent would enjoy. I mean, Thrall wasn’t born in a camp but he was an infant when he was put in one, he was certainly not guilty of any war crimes, and he was not only raised in slavery but he was raised to be a GLADIATOR, as in to risk death for the amusement of his masters (and the possible military usurpation of the lawful government, but that’s a whole other post…). Like, I really don’t think some people think Orcish Internment through when they try to throw out reasons why it wasn’t so bad. Its been a bugbear of mine for years.
I don’t know if I would go so far as to say that the Horde NEVER until the current time went through any process of modernization, bureaucratization or other steps toward nationstate building. I mean, its fairly clear that the Horde is a “Superpower,” in terms of its military organization and force projection capability, and that it has the economic sophistication to support such a military. I never felt like the Horde LACKED an identity or principles under the Warchief system. Just watch Thrall’s Heroes of the Storm trailer. It always sounded to me like a speech he gave on the day Ogrimmar’s gates were constructed or something.
That said I DO think its fair to say that the Warchief system allowed for extreme authoritarianism and cults of personality which made it easy for individuals to BEND the Horde’s basic values. “Unstable,” as you put it is a great word to describe it. The Horde had institutions, but they were weak institutions which struggled to outlive any individual leader. The Council system they’re implementing now creates the possibility for stability and long-term identity building which wasn’t possible before, and THAT I can agree is exciting. The transition from a fractured empire to a modern power. Holy Roman Empire to a united Germany, or whatever parallel one would prefer.
The problem with going the whole “the Warchief was the problem” is that the story then holds up Anduin as this monarchist dream of a perfect heir, where, despite supposedly not having the same authority of a Warchief, is basically portrayed as a positive version of the Warchief role.
The council could easily just turn into the Galactic Republic, which had clear preferences in which groups mattered more. Blizzard doesn’t go deep enough into the politics and systems of the societies they want players to get invested in representing so it just comes across as whatever they want to happen. The majority of the council and the Horde’s people could suddenly get all thirsty for Alliance blood again, as informed to us in bits of dialogue as our highest ranking leaders perform atrocities that are largely accepted for unclear reason.
Yes, but why is that a problem, necessarily? One of the critical assumptions of democracy and democracy-adjacent systems is that the existence of perfect, awesome, and benevolent dictators are not points in favor of dictatorship, because you can’t depend on your dictator always being so. The majority of all countries choose to avoid dictatorships and monarchies for precisely this one reason: that you can’t bank on them always being good, even if you happen to get lucky a few times. Flukes happen, and they don’t have to mean anything.
To be fair (which Blizzard certainly hasn’t earned but whatever) Anduin’s rise as the perfect idealized philosopher king has conincided with an increasing fracturing of the Alliance. Subordinates to his authority are increasingly bucking against him and his ideals despite him ostensibly always making the morally correct choices (I use that phrase at the risk of opening a can of worms, but bear with me here, arguing about if Anduin’s choices are the right choices isn’t the point.). Anduin himself is also gradually being led astray by those subordinates based on the Shadow’s Rising book, where he justifies Alleria and Turalyon’s actions based on nothing more than them being Heroes of Legend and therefore that their actions must be right despite Jaina’s disgust at his tactic approval.
Anduin is becoming something of the opposite of a Fisher King. Although he is a righteous king who follows the proper path, the Land is not green and good. In fact, rather than the King bringing supernatural health to the Land, the Land itself is sick in spite of him and indeed is poisoning HIM rather than the other way around.
Blizzard MIGHT have an ultimate point in discarding the Warchief System to replace it with something more Representative (although far from democratic or even republican) in nature because of The Worst Warchief and then panning over to the Alliance to show that having The Best King doesn’t fix the inherent problem with the POSITION. We’ll see I suppose.
I think it’s because whatever horde government the writers make can’t help but be compared to alliance versions, since they share a game space. Whether it’s from idealistic writing or just plain neglect, their problems don’t seem to be a result of their systems, but specific bad actors that are easily idealistically excised from the faction because they don’t really represent what their faction is about.
A horde race religion was corrupted once, almost two times. The faction representative gone superbad twice, and the second time blaming the entire system for allowing them to have so much control. But like Aurirel said, you can look across the aisle and see the alliance doing it better. So unless you take the meta view, I get the uncomfortable feeling that what’s left from an in-universe level is the game just having the majority of the horde be bad people in general, since Sylvanas was apparently popular for as long as she seemed to be winning.
The story cannot, with good faith, condemn the Horde for having the Warchief position while ignoring the problems with effectively the same system. Think Thrall would have Doomhammered or would Vol’jin spear Lor’themar if he had left or threatening to/reduce support during either of their rules if Forsaken and Blood Elf relations broke down or something? Probably not.
And no, an in a book and probably never going to be impactful bit of questionable dialogue from Anduin doesn’t change that unless they really go in on him making meaningful mistakes and addressing the issue of the rather humanity first direction of the Alliance.
Well, if it makes you feel better, I think I’d bet on the High King of the Alliance being seen as… not so great by the Alliance rather soon, if the bread crumbs leading towards Turalyon pan out the way some of us predict. Who knows, maybe they’ll mimic the Horde’s arc and trash the idea of authoritarians as a result?
Assuming the answer isn’t just kicking him off of it and reinstating Anduin.
BFA didn’t really explore the sociology and psychology of why the apparent majority of the Horde populations are super, violently hawkish against the Alliance for dubious reasons. Getting rid of the Warchief position was just a band aid, minimal effort job at actually addressing a problem they barely began to explain to begin with.
With that being the writing standard, its arbitrary how much of an Alliance structural and cultural problem a deranged King Turalyon would be.
This has been grinding my gears ever since the idea of “warchief bad” was pushed in the story. At least a Warchief is chosen based on merit, unlike monarchies, which the Human Kingdoms are chuck full of, naturally.
Anduin was what, 19, when he became Stormwind’s King? That’s not criticised as a problem?
Actually based on what we see Warchief was based on being appointed by the previous Warchief. At least from Doomhammer to Sylvanas. Except Vol’jin I guess, but he had Thrall’s endorsement.
But yeah, some criticism from primogeniture monarchy would certainly be nice after they went so hard on dunking on the concept of Warchief, which was one of the most iconic titles/positions in the Warcraft franchise.
