My point is the humans reaction to the Forsaken was entirely unwarranted.
They don’t really have the same horror attached to other undead. I’ve called them blue collar vampires a lot but even that’s not fair.
The horror of the vampire is coming home after burying a loved one. Only to be awoken by a scratch at your window. And it is your loved one, but with demonic eyes and sharp teeth, begging to be let in. And in your grief, you might be foolish enough to do so.
The horror of the zombie is a mix of disease and chaos. A single zombie isn’t a threat to an able bodied person. They’re less of a threat than if a normal person wanted to bite you. But in great numbers? They can burn down communities, even nations.
They’re at most a Revenant. But even those you’ve no need to fear unless it’s the person you murdered. And in this case they might decide they’re bigger than that and just go operate a spider farm outside of Brill.
The Forsaken are fascinating to me because they’re not monsters. They’re just people whom happen to be undead. And in this setting their very being makes them no more unnatural than the humans they once were. If anything seeing how Maldraxxus predates the Titans, they’ve returned to a less artifical existence.
They’re only terrifying in the same way humans can be. But if you don’t attack them and try to live with them then you can. Very easily. As the Argents and indeed the whole Horde prove.
The humans tried to destroy the Forsaken for merely being a bit different. Perhaps the Forsaken over reacted in their response, but the first salvo was not theirs.
Their Hillsbrad quests were rather iffy, but I think a key thing to understand the Forsaken is that their attitude comes from very grim circumstances. Murdured and raised into undead servitude, then regaining their minds to everything they knew and loved being gone. They aren’t wanted by the still living humanity unlike those in Hillsbrad. And we even have a quest about the Scarlets taking what was left for one Forsaken couple away, the dude literally found on a torture table in a Scarlet torture chamber to rub salt into those wounds.
I just wish the narrative did more just to moderately soften their attitudes over the years rather than double down on it. Still with a sense of ruthless pragmatism but less Horde Warcrimes Division that sees the rest of the faction as strictly a means to an end (except when they need to hate Sylvanas for the Horde plot to work).
The quest writers, unsung champions of this game who are the only reason I still bother paying attention to the story that they are, very much have.
And always have. The bombastic moments of the story can be fun, or at least funny when they fail to impress, but I’m here for the subtle moments of humanity.
Which the quests have in spades for the Forsaken. There’s a clearly very confused old Forsaken woman who thinks she’ll die soon but still wants to make warm sweaters for the Deathguard. Delusion and pointlessness but it’s nice this person still wants to help.
And even at their worst they show surprising levels of restraint. I’m a huge fan of Calder Gray because he’s peek deranged Forsaken writing. The guy is a lunatic but he still has a vision, asks for consent and seems to be genuinely moved to tears by his creations. Like he’s clearly a dangerous nut job but he still has his own philosophy about it and all things said is less concerning than some Naaru.
Yeah let me ask how coexisting with the Forsaken under Sylvanas worked out for the people of Hillsbrad
Wait I can’t because the Forsaken killed them all for being there. And they didn’t even try to hide it; they were very upfront that they were the villains in that situation and simply didn’t care.
Maybe you can claim that the Forsaken are harmless if left to their own devices and, after how weak and pathetic they turned out to be in BfA, I’d be inclined to agree with you. But you can’t ignore the fact that for most of their history, they were led by Sylvanas and Varimathras, and Sylvanas in particular made a concerted effort to present the Forsaken as monstrously as possible to the world. And leaving that situation to its own devices is what led to BfA and now, Shadowlands, where the entire afterlife is under threat because nobody was willing to rein the Forsaken in and slap Sylvanas across the face. Not the Alliance and certainly not the Horde.
No he doesn’t. In the Barrens he farms Alliance soldiers for parts and even lobotomizes the brain of an Alliance captain so that his creation wouldn’t "remember he’s Alliance’
The one who treated the Forsaken like monsters the most was Sylvanas herself, who built her rule on gaslighting the Forsaken into believing that nobody would ever accept them, prompting the Forsaken to then behave like monsters and create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In WC3 the first interaction between Alliance and Forsaken is for them to team up to drive the Legion and Scourge from Lordaeron, which is immediately followed by the betrayal and slaughter of the Alliance army by the Forsaken.
This meme that humanity had it in for the Forsaken from day dot is entirely unfounded. When even Garithos is willing to work with the Forsaken against a common enemy, the rest of the faction is hardly going to be unwilling.
The intro for Forsaken in vanilla makes it pretty clear the Scarlet Crusade have been quite the problem for them, and they are in fact their main contact with humans after Garithos.
And if Blizzard didn’t try so hard to make Garrosh hold so much of the blame (which is arguably contradicted by the MoP lesson about the cycle of revenge, which implies the intention wasn’t that the Horde were the only reason the war happened), then making an abomination out of parts from soldiers that are invading the barrens shouldn’t be seen as much worse than the Alliance utilizing warlocks who tend to use people’s souls for power.
Can someone please acknowledge it is insane to agree with the outraged Horde NPCs that claim the Alliance is not judging them fairly and yet time and time again they do exactly (thanks to the writers) exactly what the most “racist” Alliance NPCs claim that the Horde and its member races will do?
Or am I taking crazy pills?
Actually this brings up a question I never considered.
Are there any times that the Alliance UNFAIRLY judged a Horde race for a crime they did not commit?
Like… “Oh no this village was burned and pillaged by the Horde… only they would do something so heinous!!” But it actually turns out its someone else?
Because everytime in my experience it really was the Horde…
Certainly seems they want to retcon it as such. But pretending that is even sort of the case is asinine.
Also I think Sylvanas sort of undermined that point by aligning them with the Sin’Dorei.
The point is humans were unreasonable pricks to the sapient undead. To say otherwise is BS. They did have their own reasoning, afterall how did they know this wasn’t a Scourge trick?
But once you’ve undead hanging out in Light Hope’s Chapel shooting the ish with Paladins over who got the best Scourge kill that prejudice moves over into bigotry.
Survivors of the Scourge were perfectly valid in being suspicious of the undead. But once presented with their humanity, they rejected it and still called for their eradication. That is not a crime one forgives.
And I do think this is something Blizz has addressed well. I’m not a fan of Anduin most times but the idea he is more open minded to the undead because he simply came of age in a world that includes them is good writing.
There was always undead in Azeroth but never an organized army like the Scourge, much less a full blown nation like the Forsaken. Stands to reason Genn and Varian would be wary about it.
But to someone who just grew up in thus world, the idea undead aren’t inherently enemies and can be friends and allies must come as a tremendous relief. Much like Jania recognizing the Orcs as just people. Azeroth has enough cosmic threats already, if anything lurking in the mountains or dark corners wants to stand in her defense, it’s nothing but good news.
When did this happen? Are you talking about the Scarlet Crusade?
Nothing has been retconned, you just always assumed that certain things happened when in fact they hadn’t. It’s not a retcon for Blizzard to ignore your headcanon.
I am reminded of the fact that the great orcish redemption story I always hear about consisted of them killing their way out of prison, killing their way to a human fleet, stealing said fleet, killing some more humans in Kalimdor, and then teaming up with the remaining humans to save themselves from a demonic invasion.
At no point is any effort made to atone, only to run away from the people they victimised with a willingness to repeat-offend whenever convenient.
People who unironically lap up the propaganda of Horde warchiefs are bizarre. I’m sure players of the evil factions in other MMOs don’t act like this.
Yes the Alliance has all the flavor and complexity of Flintstone’s gummy vitamins. Not sure why you’re mad at us for it. Character creation is always there if you want to venture out of the kiddy pool but if you want some uncomplicated good guy fantasy after a long day I won’t judge.
Like, you seem to think that at this point people are prejudiced against the Forsaken out of fear but that’s not the case. Nobody is afraid of those losers anymore. The Forsaken are probably going to keep Lordaeron but that isn’t because they held it, it’s because they got their bony old behinds clowned on so hard that the victors feel sorry for them.
