I remember Anduin writing that when the Forsaken approached Stormwind for the possibility of a home they were refused, but did he actually talk about the Forsaken Emissaries? Do you remember where he mentioned them being killed?
Well recently the allaince attacked our warchief.
That being said I would point to the writers. I mean the horde as a faction is not and has not been in a good place since cata.
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At what point do you consider maybe thats what the Horde is and they are exactly where they were always supposed to be?
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Firstly, the Forsaken came with an offer of help. Initially they rebuked them, fearing it was a trap. They later got desperate and took a gamble which payed off.
They also shared a lot in common with the Forsaken, including a common enemy in the Lich King and his scourge.
The Orcs agreed to help them get to Outland, they’d also recognised that these Orcs weren’t the same demon-hungry savages that ravaged their homeland.
The Horde as a whole has helped them defend their lands from both the scourge and the Amani, with the Horde being directly responsible for the death of Zul’jin. I’d say that makes amends for their past.
They’ve only ever had minor scuffles with the Zandalari (Namely Zul’s zealots who acted independently of Rastakhan). The Amani empire is a separate thing.
If the Amani were ever to actually join the Horde then I’d raise some serious concerns.
Forgiving the Orcs for a single War is one thing, but the Elves of Quel’thalas have been at war with the Amani for THOUSANDS of years. If the Horde were to ever accept them back into the fold it’d be nothing short of betrayal unless the Amani joined as a vassalage of Quel’thalas beholden to it’s Elven government. But I doubt they’d ever be willing to do that.
As of right now the Amani are still enemies of the Horde and we’re sent to kill several of them via quests and world quests in BfA. So I think we’re good.
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For some of us that point would be when Blizzard wises up and lets those of us that joined the Horde under Thrall, early Garrosh (before he went coocoo for old god coco puffs) or Vol’jin break away from the Horde. That is the main issue, Blizzard is trying to please both the “I play Horde because I want to be a bad guy” idiots and the “I’m Horde because I relate to the struggle the races have more then I do the alliance” group.
I will have zero issue admitting the Horde is what it should be if/when those of us that joined a different (Thrall’s Horde) can say “this is not what I signed up for, I’m gone” without going to the alliance.
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Well, even if you go with that argument, Blizzard has often been very inconsistent on what they seem to want the Horde to be. One of the big issues I have had is that Blizzard cant seem to decide if they want the Horde to be heroes or villians and it sharply swings backward and forward to jarring effect. A horde player will be saving Orphans one minute and then desecrating the souls of the innocent the next.
Really if the Horde is really that villainous then almost every piece of neutral content that they have released has been tonally and thematically wrong for horde players.
I personally have pretty much given up on trying to guess what the writers want the horde to be cause it tends to be rather schizophrenic.
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When the Lightbinding Alliance come, the Horde will welcome any Allies who wish to flee it’s tyranny.
Here is the problem with this…
Thrall was not honorable. Garrosh was not honorable. Vol’jin is debatable, but only because there is so little lore that surrounds him.
Look at the Horde’s history. The Demon Blood, which they drank willingly. Perhaps not fully realizing the affect it would have, but knowing that it’s power comes at a price.
Ogrim dethroned Blackhand and the Shadow Council for the “Honor” of the horde and orcish people… Only to continue along the destructive path the Legion intended for them anyway.
Thrall took a nomadic, war-like people, and settled in a desert with little food and water as a means of repentance, while glorifying the Old Hode with the same flag, and honoring many of it’s warlords, who were War Criminals serving an organization that enslaved the orcs to demonic influence, and waged war with the humans unjustly. Thrall failed to end slavery in the Horde, despite his claims that his people will never again live in bondage. And his racist views lead to him to appoint Garrosh as his successor, despite more level-headed options like Cairne or Vol’jinn.
Right away, Garrosh started splitting the Horde apart with his poor leadership skills, which stoked the fires of his paranoia, and lead to his eventual decent into madness. We all know Garrosh’s evils, so its not worth repeating.
Vol’jinn was the most promising for an honorable Horde Leader, but during his short reign, he broke the peace treaty with the Alliance, over excavation in Ashran. Not a great first impression.
While I agree, Blizzard should be more honest with what the Horde is… Their appeasement strategy is the reason why so many Horde players are discontent with the story. However, I do not think one has to look very hard to see the Horde for what they are.
As a people, the Horde has good people. However, as an organization, the Horde has been among the most destructive forces Azeroth has ever seen.
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“The living will never accept us for what we are!”
“Also the nursery situation.”
“If they didn’t want us eating their babies they shouldn’t make 'em so soft and tasty.”
“… The Alliance are bigots!”
“YEAH!”
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Even these can be debatable as if nothing else, one can claim they were honorable by the standards they had set or set for them.
Frostwolves did not drink it, neither did Ogrim. The former escaped the war by settling in Alterac valley during one of the 1st 2 wars or the years between them.
This might have been because, while he did not drink the blood, the rest did and he knew that his tenure as Warchief would be short-lived if he did not give the rest of the Horde a focus for their aggression besides each other.
Was it his views or he feared that orcs would not follow an warchief that was not an orc? As far as more level-headed options? His first choice was killed in the war against the Lich King (Drannosh Saurfang). Now he could have put Eitrigg or Saurfang Sr. in the role but he went with Garrosh in the hopes that advisers like Cairne would be able to reign him in.
Apart from the mess with Vol’jin and the Darkspears, Garrosh was 1/2 way decent in Cata, in fact ones like me WANTED the Garrosh we were shown Horde side in Stonetalon. The one that threw the idiot that bombed the Druid school off the cliff.
Do you think the Horde, if it had any brains, would allow the alliance to get something that could be used against them when ones like Rogers exist? Also, can you proove Vol’jin ordered the attack in Ashran? or did he just send people to check it out and the commanders of that expedition, since contact with Orgrimmar was, lorewise, hard if not impossible, took matters into their own hands?
More honest or at least the only difference being the side of the story you are on, I.E. I expect the Horde to be written as monsters from the alliance perspective, but is it so much to ask that, at least in our story, we get the honorable savage Horde? We get this split in views in our own story, kinda like the writers want us to be proud to be Horde yet also ashamed to be Horde.
Those that play Horde only kinda do, depending on the expansion, just as those that play only alliance might miss some of the things that go on Horde side (like the deal with Garrosh tossing the idiot off the cliff in Stonetalon).
Any more or less destructive then the races that make up the alliance now?
Night Elves: Brought the Legion to Azeroth in the first place, and before anyone claims that was the Highborn, whose descendants are now Horde 2 things: 1) during the war of the ancients Night Elves were Night Elves, Highborne was a caste. 2) Highborn split into the Nightborne (now Horde Allied) and High Elves (member of the first alliance and ally to the Humans), High Elves, after the destruction of the Sunwell, split into High Elves (Alliance connections) and Blood Elves (Horde) now another split has made the Void Elves which are an Alliance Allied race. That makes those either responsible or descended from those responsible for the Legion coming to Azeroth in the first place as follows: Alliance=High Elves (not currently playable but asked for often) and Void Elves, Horde=Blood Elves and Nightborne.
Dwarves: Dark Irons brought Ragnaros to our plane of existence in an effort to destroy their Bronzebeard and Wildhamer kin.
Draenei: While I will admit that the Draenei are not the Legion, their initial race made up the commanders of the Legion. In a way I see the Draenei lead by Velan to be similar to the Frostwolf orcs after they got away from the rest of the Horde.
Humans: it was the Arrogance of a Human guardian (Aegwyn) that allowed Sargeras to infect her son (Medivh) in the womb. It was Medivh that brought the Orcish Horde to Azeroth in the first place.
So to turn your statement around: As an Organization the Allaince is one of the best Azeroth has seen but they have people or members that, due to stupidity, vanity, bigotry or arrogance have been just as destructive, if not more so, then the Horde. The only exception to this would be the Draenei but they look so close to Legion members that mistakes can be made.
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This basically means bad people on the Alliance side are the exception, not the rule. And Horde side seems to be the other way around seeing as every time they get an evil warchief telling them to do bad things, there is almost no dissent among the Horde’s ranks.
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Yes he did.
Not that it really matters because my point was that the orcs did exactly what the Legion wanted them to do anyway.
So you agree that he is a war criminal, and went about doing the Legions bidding even after deposing the shadow council.
Which is a racist perspective, since his Horde was supposed to be differentiated from the Orcish Horde… But thus far, he has done nothing to make that distinction.
Nothing you have said so far really changes anything.
Killing druids, prompting a duel with Cairne, resulting in Cairne’s death via poison.
We can call that a misunderstanding and an accident, but his hot headedness and inability to persue diplomatic solutions successful ostracized the Trolls and Tauren from the Horde. He didn’t exactly have a great relationship with the Forsaken either… For someone who was “halfway decent” Everyone in his faction hated him. Which, as I said, stoked the fires of his paranoia, insecurities, and lead to his eventual decent into madness.
Stonetalon is literally the only example anyone ever gives of a honorable Garrosh. To me, he wasn’t hit with the Villain bat, he was hit with the honor bat for one and only one instance in Stonetalon.
He was a massive D**k every other time.
I expect the Horde to abide by their code of honor and respect the treaty that was signed. If they didn’t think the Alliance would stay true, then they shouldn’t have signed a treaty.
That never existed though. The horde were never “noble savages” they were demon corrupted conquerors, and even as Thrall was trying to change that, he glorified that dark history.
The Highborne did, and there is a cultural distinction to be made there. The Highborne did not worship Elune or nature, and saw the Kaldorei as a lower social class. The Kaldorei, (current Alliance Night Elves) Defeated the Legion twice… Three times if you include Illidan.
Dark Irons have never been Alliance until recently, and the current Dark Irons condemn the cult of Ragnaros. Still, you can’t really pin the sins of the Dark Iron on the Alliance, when those sins happened before they joined the Alliance, and the Dark Irons do not glorify that past like the Horde glorifies theirs.
The Dreanei are those of the Eredar who did not join the Legion specifically. Your accusations thus far have been entirely racist, blaming entire races for the sins of others of the same race but of different facets of power. I do not say all orcs are evil, I say the Horde, as a faction, as an organization is evil and always has been.
I can say the N@zi party is evil without saying all Germans are evil. You are not making that distinction, which is why I am not going to address your point on humans because it is more of the same.
The Alliance as an organization has not been destructive. All the examples you listed were people of a shared race of the Alliance, but not part of the Alliance themselves. You can not say the same for the Horde.
Hey, I admit the Horde, at best, has a checkered past. My issues rise from the fact that since WCIII the Horde was supposed to be overcoming that past yet instead we are forced to relive it again and again and again.
I play Tauren, Blood Elves, Pandaren, goblin (take more of a want to earn profit to support others stance with them) and the allied races (Mag’har, HMT, Nightborn) Horde side and Draenei, Worgan, and allied races alliance side. At least as far as the core races, most of what I play would be the kind that would be more then happy to leave the other side alone if they left us alone. Horde side the ones I play would likely NOT be in the Horde if they were not even slightly like they were made out to be in WCIII.
This is what I would expect from the ALLIANCE, what I was asking for is Horde side, I,E. the story written for the HORDE player, we get the “noble savage”. If not that, then at least a faction that is the darker shade of gray, I.E. what it does is not always “good” or “right” but it is pragmatic.
To put it another way, I WANT the Horde to appear as villains to the alliance but I want the story we get Horde side to show at least why races, like the Tauren and Pandaren, are members of the Horde and not neutral or alliance. Orcs might not have been “noble savages” aside from clans like the Frostwolves or the Shadowmoon orcs that aided the alliance in WoD but can you say the same about the Tauren, the Darkspear Trolls, etc.?
And yet, at the same time, as Tong tells Wrathion in Mists of Pandaria, the Alliance and the Horde are not strong despite each other, but rather because of each other.
I question the logic of that statement. The Alliance and Horde’s capacity for war has been severely crippled by their constant conflicts.
Yeah, at the time of MoP it felt like they could have done something with that theory, but then everything after MoP has undermined the whole concept by showing the Alliance and Horde to both be consistently weak and inept whether they’re fighting each other or not.
Even Chronicle’s whole thing about the Old Gods seeing that the strength of a united Alliance and Horde would be unstoppable was outright discredited when Legion started with both factions crashing and burning in the first engagement so badly that they were practically forced out of the war altogether.