Was that the actual canon ending? We’re doing the bad comic book thing where the villain was only defeated because deep down he wanted to lose?
And we’re really out here saying BFA’s story was remarkably bad lol?
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Maybe I read too deeply into it, but to me, it was, “Without a Lich King, they’re about as dangerous as they were under Arthas, but if we have a responsible Lich King who can keep them under control, then they shouldn’t be a big problem.”
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Just as an aside; as one of the biggest fans of the faction war, I really don’t want another faction war for a long, long, time.
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As a filthy neutral who wants the factions to be dissolved completely, I appreciate this sentiment.
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They went with the same parable they always do, that war is bad, cooperation is necessary, and the cycle of hatred brings only death and misery.
Then they told us in post-expansion interviews that it was all meaningless, that the meta need for two warring factions overrides any temporary peace, and that nothing is ever going to change. How utterly pathetic.
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Better story than mop btw
BFA is like that kid who copies all your homework and somehow manages to get a lower mark than you.
You are MoP in this.
At least with MoP the faction conflict and the old god story was connected from the get go. It was a cause and affect. We war on a landmass that turns our negative emotions into physical beings that seek to kill us. We ignored the natives who warned us what would happen if we continue. We ended up causing a domino effect that allowed 6 sha primes to escape their prisons. We destroy Yu’lons hope of rebirthing herself. The sha of despair corrupts Chi-Ji, its rival. Fear corrupts the Mantid Empress, causing them to swarm 10 years too early. Causing the Yaungol to move into Kai-Lai. Making the shado-pan having to deal with the sha, the mogu, the Yaungol and the mantid at the same time. We stress out Taran Zhu too much he gets corrupted by hatred.
So we have to clean up the mess we started. All the while an orc with emotional issues hears about this power and wants to control it by any means necessary. Even if it means resurrecting an OLD GOD.
BFA has the faction conflict and the old god stuff separated from each other that blizzard had to shove in some form of connection. Which is the deal Sylvanas made with Azshara. MoP had its problems, but it was far better than BFA in everything.
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Me and friend of mine were talking about the Scourge and the whole Lich-king thing the other day and we came up with the same questions with the added:
“Northrend is miles away from most land masses right? They’re also mindless right? So are they going to be more dangerous without direction if they couldn’t figure out how to get around a basic stone wall.”
It just seems weird.
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A “victory” won the the assistance of Vol’jinn and those Horde who rebelled with him which was pretty much every non-Orc. and much of the Orcs. The only way Garoosh was able to make it a fight because of his use of Old God mojo.
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I mean, there are some smarter ones but I get what you’re saying and have had the same thoughts. We’ve basically contained them all to one really big island. Not sure why its such a concern. We’ll just airlift all of our taunka and tuskar friends out first and let them fall into various sink holes or get frozen into blocks of ice
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If so it’s the weakest and most out of context point ever made in the world of warcraft. Its called “Warcraft” for a reason and to sylay war sucks when neither of thenl writers content creators ever faught a real war.
Furthermore, NO! The Kaldorei did loose allot like the Forsaken. The Kaldorei lost more than both factions combined for no other reason than someone’s necrolia. Im sorry, but their is no good ends, or points about BFA, Lore wise or class wise. How the hell are hunters still missing their gun sounds when rogues get gun sounds when not having any guns. Or Warriors with their charge scream???
Personally I’m feeling blizzard has drifted further and further apart from not only their player base but their own lore. BFA screwed over so much and produced so little. Every single opportunity for BFA from Najatar to freakin Crestfall has been squished like a roach on the kitchen counter.
With N’zoth free, shouldn’t we be fighting for survival against the rising Black Empire? The same way we fought back the global forces of the Twilight’s Hammer cult??? Because i remember Cataclysm very well, and with just about every boss a world menace, and cult more innovative and dynamic than the cult of the dammed, Cataclysm did a bloody darn good job of conveying a bad situation.
On the other hand, the only thing blizzard has done in BFA was to finde some half hashed excuse, to make Kaldorei horde (undead) and grant Sylvanas god mode. I’m sorry but BFA had no good points. They didn’t even expand on the shipping system when both continents were Archipelagos.
As someone who’s been playing Warcraft since WC orcs and humans, of all the direction’s blizzard has taken in the past year, BFA has taken the least creative lore wise.
What your doing is putting vanilla frostong on a crusted turd; no, there is no deeper point of bfa. War of thorns was an half hashed GoT rip off and the siege of Undercity was a farce. Making Sylvanas a Demi-deiety working for N’zoth imo is evenna greater farce as it villans bats annother iconic and developed WC character, Horde otherwise. If that dude loved the forsaken so much, he would have spent more time developing and pushing forsaken characters, instead we got a love affair between two corpses flicking off the rest of the world…
Have the Scourge in the Plaguelands been entirely wiped out canonically?
Hard to say. As of Legion there’s still pockets of Scourge resistance and Stratholme is still a no go zone.
I’m also pretty sure the Cult of the Damned is active. I’m not sure where else those Expedition Necromancers with the same models and job titles would be from.
I’m not sure to what extent if any they’ll be involved in SL but I kinda hope Kel’Thuzad ‘lives’. Doesn’t need to be a big bad just keep him as a reoccurring villain we can’t quite kill as he had the bright idea to hide his phylactery extremely well. He was such a sassy Lich I’m up for him just being around.
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This was what I believed as well, so I just wanted to double-check. The Cult of the Damned, I feel, could be a potential credible threat, considering they tend to be the more sapient of the Scourge. Regardless, the entirety of the remaining Scourge population doesn’t appear to be relegated just to Northrend, so there’s still the possibility that they could become dangerous to mortals.
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I think the anti-war message is intentional, as WoW (at least) has always come down against war between the Horde and Alliance. It invariably villifies the warmongers and champions the peacemakers.
In Vanilla, Daelin’s push for war is what threatens to disrupt the uneasy peace between the Horde and Alliance and he’s absolutely treated as a bigoted jerk. Thrall/Jaina, and their desire to remain friends in the face of the conflict is who we’re meant to see as the ideal.
When Garrosh comes in, his lust for power and focus on defeating the Alliance is very heavy handedly played up as his flaw. It culminates in MoP, where he is defeated only when the Horde and Alliance come together.
Meanwhile, Jaina’s anger at the Horde under Garrosh’s reign is presented- not as morally righteous/justified- but as a dark turning point for her character. Baine and Anduin’s cross-faction relationship saw both of them eventually becoming the most morally pure and righteous characters in their respective factions.
Sylvanas was always a duplicitous and untrustworthy character that was using the Horde as a tool, but at least around the opening of Legion, she was framed as rather heroic. As BfA continued, however, and she made the case for war with the Alliance, so to did her sympathetic/heroic framing end.
And how was she defeated? Saurfang/Anduin and Thrall/Jaina getting together to push for an end to the hostilities between Alliance and Horde.
And yeah, Sylvanas is pretty obviously the bad guy. There might be some confusion, as she’s the kind of cool, calculated, charismatic badguy with an abusive past that sees the big picture. She, like Thanos, the Joker, or Sephiroth- gets her fair share of “Was X right?” or “Was X evil?” but the narrative pretty clearly decries their actions.
WoW does this regularly. Most major villains in WoW (Illidan, Kael’thas, Sargeras, Sylvanas, Garrosh, Arthas, Azshara, etc) were at one point or another paragons or allies of a sort that eventually made the slide into antagonist. Usually with an accompanying slide into Saturday morning cartoon villany so we don’t feel as bad about fighting them.
Back to the overall franchise…
The idea that the Horde and Alliance are uniquely distinct aspects of the franchise, doomed to forever be locked in some form of conflict is indeed a defining aspect of the franchise. Framing the “monsters” as equal rivals to the “heroes” is pretty much what distinguishes WoW from any other bog standard high fantasy franchise.
But outright war between the Horde and Alliance in WoW has always been this tragic thing. Something that the most morally righteous characters speak out against. They get momentary victories, but the conflict lives on.
Just as there will also never be a day when the heroes of Azeroth can rest on their laurels, confident in the fact that all supernatural threats have been eradicated. There will always be some big bad evil guy with a faceless army of otherworldly monsters threatening all of existence.
These are among the various ongoing themes in the franchise.
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The Cult just seems like a more credible threat as they operate within society. I’d hope at this point we all know not to trust green grain but I’m sure they could figure out another means of attack.
I also find them scarier as, they’re basically bioweapon terrorists operating in cells scattered throughout Azeroth. The Scourge is a great force of nature, collective villain but the cult’s weapon is paranoia. Any random NPC could be one.
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I dont think wiped out, same can be said of Ghostlands, but largely defeated and their overall threat diminished. Stratholm has some strange always on fire magic going on, but the majority has been taken care of it seems with only small pockets remaining.
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World of Warcraft has always prominently featured cautionary tales on power and revenge, not necessarily anti-war sentiments.
But the definitive proof that it is incidental is the tacit admission that the Horde vs Alliance conflict will be a permanent fixture in WoW.
The build up to Battle for Azeroth itself was all about glorifying war, including the depictions of combat in the cinematic.
“We have forgotten what makes us strong.”
The common refrain of For the Horde! and - the very tacky - For the Alliance! are nothing if not pro-war incitement. As long as those calls are synonymous with continuing the faction conflict they always will be.
I don’t doubt that there have been intentional anti-war messages in Warcraft history but for Battle for Azeroth specifically my impression is that those are unintentional; collateral for the beats they wish to play.
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But as we all know by now, the BfA launch trailer was in no way emblematic of the actual expansion. The assault on Lordaeron, which is was not righteous, heroic, or a victory for any side involve. The battle for Darkshore and burning of Teldrassil, even less so.
The BfA trailer is actually the first time we’ve seen a cinematic where the Horde and Alliance forces really go at it too. Pretty much all other cinematics involve one on one clashes when it comes to Horde vs Alliance, with MoP’s notably ending with the Orc/Human being defeated and bonding peacefully over drinks.
But having a story/franchise defined by war, and even giving us moments of triumph and victory, doesn’t mean it can’t have anti-war elements or carry an anti-war message.
When I say “anti-war” I don’t mean “not ever depicting war/armed conflict”. I mean ultimately decrying the reasons/conduct of war, which WoW tends to chalk up to people lusting for power or seeking revenge or acting on bigotry.
Many anti-war works are chock full of battle scenes. Many franchises (like Gundam or Star trek) that preach peace as the ideal are full of long standing military rivalries.
WoW’s writing if anything, is blunt, and the narrative is very blunt in pushing the idea that the Horde and Alliance fighting isn’t ultimately in ethier’s best interests/ Even if the franchise repeatedly pits them against one another for the sake of conflict.
However, the Alliance and Horde pretty much never go to war for what we’re supposed to believe are justified reasons. Always due to- as you pointed out- someone’s lust for power or revenge. Also often bigotry and general cycle of hatred. And stopping the person orchestrating the conflict and reestablishing some semblance of peace is invariably the goal we as the players are tasked with.
If the narrative were really that cynical, it definitely wouldn’t let Anduin- the most pacifistic of all the major lore characters- be portrayed as so righteous and morally upright and inspiring. He’d be dead already.
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What even is an anti-war message in a franchise that has us fighting planet ending threats every few years?