At the same time, the Tauren leadership never stated that they had a problem with it. Baine in particular was fine with Theramore’s presence. It was the Orcs who had a problem with it, you’re just using the Tauren as a convenient rhetorical cudgel.
The Horde has actively captured and taken over the bulk of the Alliance’s historical lands, using the Forsaken as their proxy to do so. The actions of the Forsaken reflect those of the Horde, and as such the Horde was actively trying to exterminate humanity from Lordaeron while at the same time whining that humans should go back to Lordaeron.
Or is the idea that BOTH Kalimdor and Lordaeron rightfully belong solely to the Horde? Despite the fact that the Horde established its presence and dominance in both places by slaughtering indigenous people?
Stormwind is not the human homeland. Lordaeron is. You say that the Tauren have been living in central Kalimdor for thousands of years but the same is true for humanity in Lordaeron. Not just the Forsaken, all of humanity.
But apparently, now only Stormwind constitutes human ancestral land? Because it’s an area that the Horde doesn’t want, at least right now? How long is that going to last, since apparently all it takes is one calamity that displaces local populations for the Horde to saunter in and start planting flags.
“After Dalaran’s destruction by the Scourge, Jaina Proudmoore took as many survivors of Lordaeron she could find and sailed west to the forgotten shores of Kalimdor. After the Burning Legion was defeated at the Battle of Mount Hyjal, all surviving humans, dwarves and high elves of Jaina’s expedition found their new home along the coast of Dustwallow Marsh. Between both Theramore and Durotar a tension arose. At one point, Admiral Daelin Proudmoore held the city and started a war against the Horde. The result of this war was a final battle in Theramore ending with Daelin’s death.” https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Theramore_Isle
This is the origin of Theramore. These refugees made their city very defensible just as the Horde did. There is nothing wrong with that. Prior to Cataclysm Theramore made not move into Durotar or Mulgor.
And the Alliance has the Night Elves. If the Orcs and Trolls of the Horde can claim the Kalimdor land based on their relationship with the Tauren then so can the Humans and Dwrves of Theramore with their NE allies.
My whole point is if Orgrimmar is legitimate settlement then so was Theramore.
Thats my only argument that we seem to disagree on.
I agree both factions can be imperialistic and brutal on natives.
Do it. Find the Alliance equivalents to the Forsaken talking about how much they look forward to wiping out humanity and/or all life in Vanilla. I’m on the edge of my seat.
But they undeniably are proxies being propped up by a colonial power in the form of the Horde. They are a puppet state. A Vichy France, intended to present a facade of legitimacy to conceal colonial domination.
Less people probably know about Stonespire than those that know about Garithos.
As for goblins, I assume you mean the goblin starting zone? Its one ship and who will Andiun blame? Shaw? Was he even a thing back then? I don’t think he was present during that incident.
Also I’m pretty sure that everyone involved is dead. Thrall ran them down with a lightning storm in their lifeboats. There’s nobody left to punish, the Horde got their vengeance.
In the LlandoveryCastlecase in 1921, Germany’s Reichsgericht found the accused, two crew officers, guilty of having fired upon enemies in lifeboats in violation of the laws and customs of war after their hospital ship had been sunk. The prosecutor emphasized that “in war at sea the killing of ship-wrecked persons who have taken refuge in lifeboats is forbidden”. The Court rejected the accused’s defence of superior orders on the ground that the rule prohibiting firing on lifeboats was “simple and universally known”.
And I haven’t even gotten into how indigenous loyalty to the Horde in Lordaeron is contingent on having a mind and soul altering condition inflicted upon the indigenous population, usually by the Horde themselves. In at least one prominent case in the context of a concentration/forced labor camp.
I understood correctly that the main ship was sunk. Those who escaped from the ship began to shoot while in the boat. The boat was sunk. Those who sunk the boat were sued. Those who sunk the boat won the trial.
Right?
Here’s 2 I remembered just off the top of my head. Would take me a while to find some more.
“If it brings Phin peace, I’ll destroy every single one of the Forsaken personally. He’s done so much for us since the plague. We never thought we’d find friends or family again.”
“I once served the Scarlet Crusade with honor, loyalty and pride. I believed their cause to be a noble one: to rid Azeroth of the undead.”
(In case this one needs explanation - the Scarlets desire to kill all undead is known and openly spoken about, and the Alliance only stops helping them (or at the very least having diplomatic contact with them) when they realize they’re also killing living people.)
The Forsaken’s control of Lordaeron is driven by the Forsaken. Any Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, et cetera in the area are almost always individual civilians, not colonizers. The western Horde actually has so little to do with the Forsaken’s operations in this area that they didn’t even know the Blight was being made despite the Forsaken barely even trying to keep it a secret. This does start to change with the military aid in Cata (although it accomplishes little and was done seemingly without the consent of the actual Forsaken leader), but by then, the Ally/Horde conflict is in full swing and has evolved into an entirely different beast from its origins.
Regardless of whether the Forsaken are evil or not, saying the Horde has or is attempeting to “colonize” Lordaeron is a massive stretch and just feels like you want to say the Forsaken are so evil they must have done every bad things that exists.
Well Stonespire is mentioned in-game explicitly and Garithos isn’t, so like…probably not. Regardless the point was more of a meta one. I’m not mad the Alliance did those things, I’m just vaguely annoyed that even the people they were done to in-universe don’t seem to be allowed to care.
People bring up Metzen’s comment about the dichotomy of the Horde and the Alliance being similar to that of Wolverine and Captain America. Captain America is a boyscout, someone who tries to do the morally upstanding thing in a romantic revision of the 1940s: if you’re in trouble, Captain America will save you, and that’s a promise. Wolverine has never been that simple, and he gets muddier if you don’t read the comics. People think that Wolverine is just an anti hero (or perhaps an anti villain) that butts heads with folks like cap because of attitude more than anything else. While it’s true that’s part of Wolverine, the core of the character is that he’s a good man who’s lived a really crappy unforgivingly long life. This guy is 180 years old. He’s seen it all: the rise of humanity from wild campfires to nuclear powered cityscapes. And with those city scapes came genetic testing and manipulation. Wolverine’s suffered some of the worst humanity has to offer, but despite all of that, Wolverine wants to do the right thing. The Horde was like that, once. They suffered fel tempering and enslavement by the Legion, but eventually broke free and tried to do right.
Take this comic, for instance. I have no doubt there are readers amongst you who think Wolverine had no trouble doing what he did. But this sort of stuff, the missions Xavier can’t trust to Jean, Cyclops, Gambit, or Colossus, he trusts to Logan. And to be frank, Xavier takes advantage of him a bit. Because no one else would do what Logan did to save the rest of mutant kind. And he didn’t just walk in and kill the guy. He brought beer, and a proverbial shoulder to cry on. He explained what happened, and why – not to be cruel, but so that J could at least have some peace of mind. Things always seem so much bigger, scarier than they are when you don’t know the whys or hows that they operate on.
Thing is, Nu-Blizzard either forgot this part of the Horde, or they never knew it. We aren’t the noble hardtack anymore. We’re just flat out idiot, angry villains. Last Blizzcon, Gregory or whoever was talking with Golden announced to the world that Garrosh’s sins were because he was “the orciest orc to have ever orced.” He put the onus on his orcish heritage, like to be orc is to be evil. Nu-blizzard doesn’t see us as Wolverine anymore. We’re the Sentry. And that ducking sucks.
The citation doesn’t make mention - I rather doubt that such was the case given its lack of mention (I would have otherwise expected that to enter the defense). There’s also the matter that the stricken vessel was a hospital ship, so…
So you think Andiun should have mentioned stone spire and the goblin ship attack in that rendered cinematic? It would have probably sounded worst than Arthas or Daelin.
My point is the Alliance isn’t allowed to do bad things otherwise Andiun could at least find two examples.
Horde though? Saurfang could name things for half the video. For every stonespire there is another Southshore or some Night Elf camp. There are many to count but we never do because we have to downplay the evils that blizzard makes the Horde do.
The whole reason the Orcs decided to settle in Kalimdor and not keep wandering is because of their alliance with the Tauren people who’ve lived on the lands since prehistory, who welcomed them in and shared their struggles against their ancestral enemies with them.
Baine didn’t welcome Theramore. He, and the other leadership of the Horde, were just of the opinion that attacking it openly would accelerate the shaky peace they had with the Alliance. In spite of the fact that Theramore had twice already been the source of attacks against their city. Theramore, along with Northwatch and all the remaining Alliance forces on the doorstep of Orgrimmar just chomping at the bit for a chance to attack Orgrimmar (again) was very plainly set up.
And then WotLK ended with King Varian declaring war on the Horde!
I guess they finally get their chance, huh? Theramore was the site from which a logical Alliance blockade/invasion/siege of Orgrimmar would take place.
Nope. Instead they rewrite the Barrens quests to get rid of the Dwarves wiping out the Tauren, make Turajo a thing, only to walk it back as not REALLY any Alliance’s leader’s fault, but the have the Warchief nuke Theramore and then turning his attentions towards Kalimdor, and then the world!
Well considering the Forsaken are made up of the citizens of Lordaeron, they do have some claim to the land. I definitely don’t approve of them killing the humans that also share the lad with them, but also recognized that Blizzard has few problems portraying Forsaken and their leaders and such actions as being creepy, disturbing and in the wrong.
Someone expressing anger after the Forsaken killed a close friend of theirs with “I’ll kill them all!” despite not having any ability or orders to do so isn’t really equivalent to the Forsaken’s industrial extermination policies.
Yes, namely the Scourge. The Forsaken in Vanilla didn’t really figure prominently in the Alliance’s calculus in Lordaeron at all. They were a pimple on a gnats rear compared to the threat of the Scourge.
You’re confusing settlers with colonizers. Except in Alterac Valley (where they were straight up settlers,) the Orcs, Tauren and Jungle Trolls weren’t settlers, but they were absolutely colonizers. They were representatives of a foreign state exerting military and political control of a region at the expense of its indigenous people. That they had indigenous collaborators doesn’t change that.
No my point was the exact opposite of that and it’s amazing that you don’t seem to grasp that. Of course it would be stupid if he mentioned it. That’s the point. But it wouldn’t be stupid if Alliance atrocities were given the same amount of spotlight Horde ones were instead of being instantly resolved and forgotten about.
I think you mean Cairne and he had no authority over Durotar either.
If the Orcs wanted to live on land that explicitly belong to the natives then they should have setteled Mulgor.
You can’t say Orcs have a right to Durotar but Jaina’s people can’t claim Dustallow marsh. Its hypocritical.
The point is Alliance atrocities are too small in scale and too few compared to the Horde.
I am amazed you haven’t grasped that.
Atrocities like Stonespire that happen on the Alliance side don’t get that much spotlight either besides the zone they are involved in.
None of this is equivalent to the Tauren wanting it gone. They welcomed one group of colonizers and tolerated another. Every time it came up the Tauren were against attacking it. Whether their reasons are moral or practical is irrelevant, you can’t claim to be acting in the Tauren’s interests when the Tauren plainly stated that they don’t want to attack Theramore.
Sure. But their mere presence and willingness to support the Horde’s geopolitical interests doesn’t elevate their indigenous interests above everyone elses, especially considering the Forsaken’s conduct towards other indigenous groups in the area and the fact that they’re a a demographic minority. It doesn’t make the Horde any less of a colonial force in the region any more than the Alliance allying with the Grimtotem did in Kalimdor.
This is great cause that dudes still alive and you didn’t even bother to check.
Defending parlaying with genociders because you don’t really care about the people they’re genociding and consider them “gnats” whos deaths are a justifiable side-effect of fighting a larger enemy is not a particularly great defense.
Btw I enjoy how you leap back and forth from “Forsaken are literally holocausting the humans with industrial extermination” and “Forsaken are so weak the humans don’t even care about them”.
Alterac, by all accounts, was uninhabited when the Frostwolves showed up (aside from like, Troggs, but if we’re getting into that territory nobody has any moral high ground there). Describing it as colonization, knowing what that term implies, is absurd.
Meanwhile the Dwarves proudly describe their own actions in Alterac as imperialism.
Probably because there are some people in Stormwind that were from Lordaeron that would rather retake their homes than resettling alongside others.
Probably because the Horde keeps attacking them and/or their allies.
They have been working with the natives like the Night Elves. And they’ve desired peace with the Tauren. But that’s not really easy with the Horde aggression that happens.
The Tauren lived in what is now Durotar, the Barrens, Mulgore, and all across Kalimdor. That they ended up restricted to Mulgore was the result of campaigns by the Centaur and Quillboar to wipe them out. And the Tauren ended up getting assistance from the Orcs and Trolls of the Horde and iviting them to settle the land with them. Orgrimmar has a considerable Tauren population.
No, the Alliance on Kalimdor received no such welcome from any natives. They’re allied with the Night Elves of Northern Kalimdor, but not even they seem interested in letting humans, dwarves and gnomes actually build settlements on any of their lands.
Also, isn’t, “The natives want our assistance in dealing with local threats!” basically what Stormwind/Alliance uses to justify it’s efforts and hope to eventually resettle in Lordaeron?