Neither location are the same scale in any stretch of the imagination nor is what happened to populace of each location that would otherwise impact the stakes and reactions from the characters in question.
Stormwind is the actual relevant human power outside of Kul Tiras and Gilneas (at the time), both of which weren’t actually in the Alliance at that point.
Outside of the self-isolating Gilneas were just towns and small remnants of other kingdoms that didn’t really exist anymore, some of which being just criminal groups to both sides. That was kind of the point of groups like League of Arathor, as the kingdom they came from no longer existed and they wanted to restore it.
You haven’t really made much of a case for it being complex.
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Aside from, you know, Theramore, which for some reason was having almost all of its actions being attributed to Stormwind for some reason in the post I responded to.
Why don’t these people count as forces independent of Stormwind acting for interests that aren’t “what Stormwind wants them to do?” Why doesn’t the fact that the people who live in Stormwind after the Third War had a very high likelihood of being from somewhere else but were forced to flee to Stormwind? During the Third War Stormwind was an irrelevant backwater with no power of influence. It only became as powerful as it ended up being because it ended up absorbing so much of the human remnants from elsewhere.
Do they not count as independent forces acting in their own interests because they were forced out of their lands?
I have many times elsewhere and I’m not always in the mood to spend hours doing other people’s homework so that I can explain it to them only for them to miraculously forget it the next time the topic comes up and return to their old script.
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Same but the opposite. Also, I don’t know how bookmarks work. So I can’t link them.
You have very few times in the same place and you’re always in the mood to spend no time at all doing your own schoolwork so that you can refuse to explain it only for someone to predictably come to the same conclusion on their own in between topics so they can revise their dialogue? 
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I would also like to highlight Theramore in particular.
Theramore was, much like Stormwind would come to be, a refugee haven made up of people who were fled the Third War on Medivh’s advice. Some of them, including Jaina herself, didn’t even get out until the last minute after Lordaeron and Quel’thalas had already fallen and it appeared to only be a matter of time before the entire Eastern Kingdoms fell to the Scourge.
Apparently, as the Horde tells it, they had no right to be there, because it was rightfully Horde land and their attempts to settle further inland encroached on Horde territory, a sentiment that would eventually culminate in Cataclysm and MoP with the destruction of Theramore at Horde hands.
In this narrative, Theramore constituted a purely colonial presence that lacked the legitimacy of places like Orgrimmar because unlike the Orcs, we are told, they could simply return to the Eastern Kingdoms while the Orcs had nowhere to go.
Except they couldn’t return to the Eastern Kingdoms, because the Horde had also laid claims to their original homelands as well via their colonial proxies in the form of the Forsaken. Even after the Scourge was defeated, the people of Theramore could not return to their original homes because the Horde claimed THOSE as Horde land as well, and if they tried they would get killed by the Horde.
So the people of Theramore were left with 3 options:
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Stay in Kalimdor and get killed by the Horde
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Go back to Lordaeron and get killed by the Horde
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Uproot everything that they’ve built and resettle AGAIN in the Southern Eastern Kingdoms
Ultimately they had to do 3, because they had initially chosen 1.
So in my opinion, it takes some pretty serious balls to argue that Theramore was some kind of imperialistic Stormwind proxy that was only where it was for geopolitical opportunism when it was the Horde themselves that had boxed them into a no-win scenario where they couldn’t stay, they couldn’t go home, and apparently the only “acceptable” solution was for them to relocate to a completely different land that the Horde considered it “acceptable” for them to be.
This was, to be perfectly blunt, an ethnic cleansing by the Horde. At minimum, a forced relocation in the vein of the Expulsion of the Acadians or even the Trail of Tears. There was no good faith here by the Horde, it was the Horde deciding they didn’t want humans in Lordaeron and they didn’t want humans in Kalimdor, because they wanted those lands for themselves.
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Daelin absolutely was following the Horde with the intent of wiping out the Orcs once and for all. Jaina and Thrall stopped him.
After that, Theramore and North Watch were built up by the Alliance as foreign bases from which Stormwind continued to monitor/harass the Horde and lay a stake to Kalimdor as an extension of the EK Alliance as opposed to Orgrimmar, which was founded to contain pretty much all the orcish population of the time. All the conflict between Orgrimmar and Theramore is because Theramore existed largely to serve as opposition to Orgrimmar.
There’s not Horde equivalent because the Horde wasn’t trying to set up camp next to Stomwind to ty and keep an eye on them. The “tower in Darkshire that was were occupied by the Forsaken” is single old derelict scout tower occupied by TWO Forsaken. It has no garrisoned troops, unlike Theramore. It has no flightpaths, unlike Theramore. It has no harbor, unlike Theramore. It’s not a foreign base from which Horde troops deploy their legionary forces in order to antagonize other cities, unlike Theramore.
And the actual birthplace of the Earthen/Dwarves is the area that’s now Dun Morough. The Titans are the progenitors of many races across Azeroth, not just the Dwarves, so no, they don’t have any more claim to wipe out Tauren than they do the right to wipe out Frost Trolls any more than Tauren and Forst Trolls have to wipe them out. Less so, in fact.
Blizzard used to make more of an attempt in writing this kind of parity when it came to the factions.
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This is completely and utterly wrong in every way. Theramore was a city settled by Human, Dwarven, and High Elf refugees from the Scourge who had nowhere else to go, just like the Orcs. And it was the Horde that was keeping them from returning to the Eastern Kingdoms after the defeat of the Scourge.
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I mean, I read an article on exactly this phenomenon some years ago, and I think one of my more common errors is assuming that people have the same information that I do.
Regardless, I see value in sharing and talking about the ways in which the game is viewed and the reactions that it produces. I disagree with the complete emotional stoicism model that a) disagrees with most of what psychologists appear to say, and b) is at odds with the whole point of fiction. And, once again, I see a very cynical and dishonest motivation standing behind the desire to pretend otherwise, and to accuse people of having a mental problem for liking or disliking this or that thing in a video game.
If it is more important to you to put on a veneer of unrealistic stoicism than it is to be honest and open about how you’re feeling, then I can only see that as a desire to save face and to appear right as opposed to having an honest conversation.
That being said:
I hope you don’t mind if I steal this. It’s one of my bigger frustrations as well with topics in general.
I suppose “built up” is not worded perfectly.
The original creation of Theramore was more neutral, but it being used and not really stopping itself from acting as an Alliance staging ground shows its interest to the Alliance as a means of going after the Orcs.
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Theramore wasn’t really neutral, but it was independent. It was a sovereign state within the Alliance that conducted its foreign policy bilaterally within the framework of its Alliance membership. It was not some kind of “colony” or “staging ground” by other powers. Its decisions were its own. (Come to think of it, it’s probably how Dalaran should be at this point)
It had to be this way for practical reasons. Most of its early diplomacy was based on the assumption that Theramore was all of the Alliance that was left. It wasn’t until after the Third War that it was learned that the Alliance was still active in the Eastern Kingdoms, and even then Theramore was arguably stronger than Stormwind at the time, which was handling its own dual domestic crises of mass immigration from the rest of the fallen human kingdoms combined with Onyxia’s political machinations.
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I specify Stormwind because there’s often an attempt to try and distance the actions of Stormwind from the actions of the Alliance as a whole during Vanilla WoW. You yourself tried to lay all the blame of Theramore being built up as a military base as having nothing to do with Alliance, let alone Stormwind, despite the fact that it’s largely staffed by and operates as as an extension of Stormwind troops with a smattering of other races.
Most of these foreign operations are lead by the Humans of Stormwind. The Gnomes of Mechagon were more concerned with reclaiming Gnomergon than taking out the Horde as a whole. The Dwarves were more interested in their clan conflict, uncovering Titan artifacts, and local threats and not trying to run off to Northern EK and Kalimdor for the purpose of taking out the Horde- which they seem to treat more like an obstacles in central Kalimdor than anything. The Night Elves are almost totally concerned with stopping Horde lumber efforts in Ashenvale and could care less about Stormwind’s efforts to contain/eliminate Forsaken half a continent away in their bid to restore old Lordaeron.
In Vanllla, it’s pretty much Humans out of Stormwind who are interested in running Azeroth as part of a plan to contain/eject/destroy the Horde abroad, with other races having little actual interest outside of serving a auxiliary forces. All in the face of a force that posed no realistic existential threat to Stormwind itself.
Humans at the helm of the Alliance used to be more proactive.
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‘Lemme steal this rhetorical method of calling someone wrong while avoiding having to explain when the same could be done just bookmarking where I’ve supposedly done so.’
I agree it is probably less frustrating to repeat ‘I said this before somewhere’ than actually arguing.
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I really don’t know what to tell you other than that you’re factually incorrect. It’s okay to admit that your knowledge of Alliance power dynamics in Vanilla isn’t your area of expertise. There’s plenty of stuff in WoW that isn’t my area of expertise either (Dragons lol)
Iironforge and Stromwind were both closer to Lordaeron than a trip across the ocean is. They didn’t have to cross the ocean, and considering Theramore had a port that went directly back and forth from Menethil Harbor, there’s absolutely no reason they had to stay, let alone build up the city as a military base, let alone station troops there, let alone send said troops to man other bases like Northwatch.
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What’s frustrating is going point by point through an issue with someone, and have them not come up with a good counterargument, only for them to resurface a thread or so later with the same argument that you already took apart.
Why should I have to knock down the same point over and over again? If I have, for instance explained to Ethriel four times that her method for counting maw losses is inappropriate, why should I have to do it for a fifth?
I don’t think it’s realistic or fair to expect everyone else to bookmark all of their posts so that they can present you with links whenever YOU want to see them, or to otherwise type up an essay for YOUR sole benefit.
They were there because Medivh told them to evacuate the Eastern Kingdoms and find salvation in Kalimdor, advice that was vindicated by the time they actually set out (which was after the fall of Lordaeron, Quel’thalas, and Dalaran.)
My god did you actually play Warcraft 3?
They didn’t reconnect with the Alliance proper until vanilla WoW and they certainly weren’t being fortified by reinforcements from the Eastern Kingdoms until Cataclysm.
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And I’m sure that after they reconnected with the rest of the Alliance and especially after the Scourge was defeated that they would have loved to have returned to their homes in the Eastern Kingdoms but wouldn’t you know it the Horde had laid claim on their homelands as well. Your assertion that they should have just gone home is outrageous considering that the Horde was actively exterminating the human, dwarven, and High Elven presence there as well.
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