As a long time Alliance player, I was not too excited to hear about this “Trials of the High King” right around the launch of Mists of Pandaria. As the game’s story has progressed and the title implemented on the newly returned Varian Wrynn, I noticed that the alliance story slowly became more… bland. Stagnate. Predictable. The Alliance has either deliberately or inattentively stopped being an alliance of multiple nations with their own identities and cultures and morphed into a human-ran empire with vassal races who signed away their sovereignty the moment Varian was elevated about his peers. And now with Anduin Wrynn named High King with zero explanation, I am fully convinced that the Alliance of old is dead and rotting. I know Blizzard has gone out and said otherwise, but saying one thing in a dev interview and not showing it in game is a terrible trend that further re-enforces player misunderstanding of the faction. I will try to theorize how and why this happened.
Blizzard Wanted a Alliance Warchief Equivalent. Even if it means copying Horde stories.
Many people who played before Wrath of the Lich King can attest that “faction Pride” was mostly a Horde-only trait. We’ve all seen or heard about how Early BlizzCons would kick off with a loud, hearty “FOR THE HORDE!” that was followed by a limp “for the alliance” that was sometimes booed and jeered more loudly than the cheer was. The Alliance did not have a real central figure in early WoW. All the member nations had their own issues and were focused on putting out their own fires than working together to fight against the common foe that it was born to counter.
As the Expansions dropped and faction stories started to move towards the center stage, there was a clear discrepancy between the two. The Horde had Thrall, a character that was largely beloved by most of the Horde player base. The Alliance had no one. Around the timeline of Wrath, Blizzard decided to do something about this. So Metzen brings back the Vanilla endgame quest trivia NPC Varian Wrynn, with a comic book story.
If you’ve read Varian’s comic (and ignored the abomination that shall not be named in the latter half) you will notice a lot of similarities between Varian and Thrall’s early history. Both were slaves forced to fight in a gladiator pit, struggling to find an identity. However they deviated near the end. Thrall worked tirelessly to build the Horde we know in Warcraft 3 from nothing. Varian however took leave to rescue the Night elves in their new permanent role of damsels in distress that they will now regularly find themselves in. After kill-stealing everyone’s favorite black dragon and ripping off a Marvel duplicate character arc, he was then promptly installed as the King of Stormwind and then center of the Alliance spotlight. I believe Chris Metzen wanted an Alliance frontman, and unsure how to present it a new way that fits in with the Alliance, just repeated a formula that he’s pulled off in the past with a more heroic light at the middle.
An Alliance of Equals? Or Humanity and Their Silly Sidekicks?
Varian immediately dominated the Alliance story. He was technically an equal at the round table of other Alliance leaders; yet due to being the new guy on the table or a sign of future machinations, Varian monopolized the narrative and overshadowed his supposed peers. Varian was the one calling all the shots, the other members either non-existent or following his commands.
(fun fact: there’s a surprisingly similar example of a small time NPC with an overnight explosion of overexposure of importance to both factions in BfA: Nathanos Blightcaller. Take from that what you will)
Fast forward to Cataclysm, but mostly the novels written during this expansion. Looking back at this time with the benefit of knowing what comes next and we see the seeds of the Trials of the High King. Varian has a significant presence in almost all the books, much of it impressing or proving his worth to his allies and single-handedly saving the day. The Night elven damsels once again fall victim to Orcish aggression, and Varian’s leadership this time gets divine endorsement by both Elune and Goldrinn.
On the other side of Azeroth, Magni Bronzebeard; who arguably was the cornerstone that held The alliance together, is incapacitated. Gone now is the one Alliance leader who arguably could rival Varian as a Blue Warchief. Furthermore, Moira Bronzebeard comes out of the depths with the Dark Iron and undermines Ironforge’s stability as a nation. After all this is said and done, the Dwarves of Ironforge are without a sole ruler, bogged down with a council, and are no longer a threat to Varian’s claim as a linchpin holding the alliance together.
Now is Mists of Pandaria, and Metzen’s ideal of a Blue Warchief comes to fruition. The Trials of the High King are announced, and they only get to two Trials in game before the story line is suddenly dropped. There was some significant backlash to them, especially the one with Tyrande in A Little Patience. A lot of people objected to some as revered by the fanbase once again being reduced to a blithering idiot once again to make someone else look good. Blizzard has always struggled to build up a character in its own, they seem to be only capable of breaking down other characters to make them look less than the one Blizzard wants to rise up.
To sell the idea of High King and its necessity, Blizzard has systematically chipped away at other races stability and competence to leave both Varian and Stormwind as the sole sane choices.
An Alliance of Nations, or an Empire? Someone Clearly Skipped or Flunked Out of Their Social Studies Classes.
Both Chris Metzen and Dave Kosak point out in Twitter that this “High King” is anything but a King. Its an elected position. It supposed to be like the Supreme Allied Commander once held by Anduin Lothar and Turalyon. They even compared it to General Eisenhower’s job during WW2. Did we see any of this in game? Not really.
Like I said earlier, all those “clarifications” on High King’s limits and powers were only in tweets. In game, High King Varian behaved more like a ruler than a military commander. We never saw a “formal” Alliance gathering like we read about during the First and Second Wars. Varian made all the calls himself even when it involved other member nations and flexed his authority on other rulers. This is further strengthened when Varian dies, and his son Anduin is with no explanation or clarification outside of a CM assuming the Developer’s intent as to how and why he got the title. Not even in the book Before the Storm is there any explanation or clarification. Additionally, Genn Greymane referring to both Varian and Anduin as “my king” is a sign of submission in real life royalty. Canon versus perception is an ongoing issue with Alliance writing.
How many times have we seen other players incorrectly presume that High King was a literal “king” of the Alliance? That other Alliance leaders were vassals subject to his absolute power? Even big streamers familar with Alliance lore like Bellular is factually wrong to presume that Anduin is Tyrande’s literal “King.” There is a title for a hereditary monarch who doesn’t change their seat of power and rules over multiple nations, Its called an Emperor.
Blizzard may claim that the non-human member races are equal members of an Alliance. But in practice they are very much vassals. By voting Varian as High King, they voted away their nation’s sovereignty to a human kingdom with no chance of ascending to leadership themselves or voicing any input to a who a successor should be. Until someone who isn’t the king of Stormwind is High King, member races might as will be and always will be client races to a human king.
At the same time the Stormwind military became the universal Alliance military. If other races were present, they were either as token support or were fully consumed into the Stormwindian way of war, wearing human armor, using human weapons and tactics and abandoning their own. They even go as far as to wear Stormwind’s banner and heraldry, something that in real life, only vassals of an empire did. Wearing another nation’s banner at war in modern times is actually a war crime.
I’ve seen a call for “Unity” to become the Alliance rallying call. But as someone who doesn’t play a human character, what pride is there in Unity if it means throwing away what makes you unique? If I wanted to play a knight of Stormwind praising my king, I’d play a human paladin or warrior, not a Night Elf Druid.
A Rallying Figure for Alliance Players? Or a Tool to Excuse Writer Apathy?
As we’ve seen in other media as well as in real life, actual alliances are filled to the brim with intrigue, ambition, political maneuvers and backstabbing. Lots of gratuitous backstabbing. Even NATO, the one organization that Blizzard often points to as inspiration for the Alliance, has more intrigue and inner conflict than the Alliance. Even monarchies and empires are filled to the brim with it, as even absolute rulers have to walk on eggshells when dealing with key supporters. Many a president, king, or chairperson has meant an untimely end taking their position for granted or applying too much power to the wrong subordinate.
In spite of that, The Alliance has no intrigue at all. Nothing. This organization was formed by rival kingdoms who trusted each other slightly better than the Orcs invading their kingdoms with knives in their left hand as they shook with their right. They then promptly broke up the second the Horde was no longer a real threat. Not anymore. Ever since Mists of Pandaria, everyone is happily holding hands and singing koombiah. No inner conflict, no lack of trust, misunderstandings, jealously, or power grabs. Blizzard has gone as far as to suppress or retcon any possible division that could jeopardize this perceived “unity.” Even Stormwind itself got watered down to a city of drones who rubber-stamp anything their king proposes. No scheming House of Nobles, no economic crisis, No rivals in power, nothing. Everyone is happy to grab a sword and throw themselves into blight for their boy king without a second though.
Why would Blizzard do this? Game of Thrones and The Three Kingdoms have shown that inner conflict is all the rage in media lately. My theory? Because Blizzard has little or no interest in writing compelling stories for the Alliance outside of a Lawful Good bend. They also stated once that they thought is was rather hard to write stories for Lawful Good, so why force the Alliance into this corner?
Its simple. Writing for the Horde is and always was their passion (I’m not saying they are doing a good job at it Hordies). Dumbing down the Alliance into a Human-ran Empire stuck in a Lawful Good Overdrive chord means they can stop writing Alliance stories outside of the narrow focal point of their High King or other characters close to him (coughJainacough), marginalizing the other races unless called for. This lets them ignore the Alliance entirely and focus all their attention into the faction they seemingly care for in a demented fashion the most: The Horde. Not to mention writing for human characters is laughably easy compared to non-human characters, which requires thinking outside of the box and not reusing old tropes like “Humanity is Special” and other low-effort cliches. Chris Mezten flat out stated that the Alliance’s theme was “Lawful Good Overdrive.” Even though races like the Night Elves, Worgen, and now the Dark Iron are not compatible with the Lawful Good alignment, and forcing the first two into hole has damaged their racial identities in the past.
As someone who does not mainly play a human character, I am rather bored bored with this insipid “story” about how sad Jaina and Anduin are, and am insulted by the lack of effort and lackadaisical treatment other story-lines are thrown out just to regurgitate the same old boring cliches because their writers lack passion for anything Alliance side not Lawful Stupid Overdrive revolving around one or two human characters.
TL;DR- High King was created both to serve as a Thrall-figure for the Alliance, and to simplify the faction into a mundane entity that exists solely to react to the Horde and its stories.
