That’s the danger of using allegories. People will study the subject you used to make the allegory, too.
While I agree a lot of these examples like Brennadam were turned up way past 11, I don’t think it’s “completely, wholly, and objectively” counter to the Horde’s character - even for Horde PC questing.
As people have said, the undead PC has tested blight and poisons on prisoners. And Gorgonna’s sister (I forget the name) was shown to be the violent type who was going to execute a fellow Horde merchant for passing off one type of fur for another - these had nothing to do with presenting these characteristics to the Alliance player, who never saw either of these cases or many others like them.
These traits aren’t the entirety of the Horde’s character, but they still were an element of it. Blizzard just took those villain elements and plastered them over a larger group of Horde than usual in BfA.
I wouldn’t compare the Horde to the Norse ever. Historically, the Raids that came from Scandinavia were caused by a population Boom in the region. Due to traditions of inheritance limiting only one son daughter, and the rugged landscape of Scandinavia itself, this caused a lot of Norse people to resort to raiding and immigration for survival.
Wide scale war between the Saxons and the Vikings were more often a conflict of faith. Missionaries from Western Europe would come to Scandinavia to spread the good word, while also destroying sacred sites and artifacts of the Norse, using their Runestones as building materials for their churches.
Saint Olaf, who to this day is the patron saint of Norway, was Christianized in France, and came home and decided to kill anyone who did not Convert. To this day, Saint Olaf is revered in Christianity.
The Viking Age, in truth, was the Last Stand of Europe. The last sanctuary of European culture and Pagan tradition as the Middle Eastern Christian Faiths sweep the land like a plague.
We do not so much see a conflict of religion in Warcraft, but more than any other race, we see other races insult the faith of the Night Elves. such as Velen having the audacity to say “Your God might just be my God and you don’t know it.” And the likes of Delas Moonfang converting to the Holy Light.
The Horde never really has that problem. A better comparison might be the Mongols, which a union of Tribes came together to spread an empire. Though, after Genghis, they struggled with leadership. They had a hard time unifying, but were still a considerable threat for Europe into the late period of the Medieval ages.
You could defiantly poke holes into that too. Maybe, now that I think about it, the best historical comparison of the factions are the institutions of Christianity and Islam in the Medieval period. Both were aggressive with the spreading of their word, and both came into frequent conflict with one another.
Sure! I can whip up a whole bunch of arguments, ranging from convincing to paper-thin, on how Staghelm wasn’t representative of night elves or Alliance as a whole, how he broke off from the Alliance, how his goals weren’t in line with the Alliance, how he was tricking the rest of the night elves and Alliance player in order to pull off his villainy because he knew the Alliance would not have supported him, and how the Alliance itself turned on him and took action against him once the villainy was discovered - but that doesn’t mean he didn’t come from the Alliance, that others in the Alliance might (secretly) still share his mindset, or that Horde players or NPCs can’t feel that the Alliance was to blame for shaping him.
Similarly for Gorgonna’s sister - there are plenty of valid arguments that could be made for her not representing the whole Horde and the Horde itself turning on her, but it’s still within reason for people to wonder whether she’s such an outlier or not, and whether her personality was shaped by the Horde culture or not, and whether there might be others like her.
I don’t think the existence of mitigating counterarguments means that the original argument must have no basis at all.
And yet both were characters who thrived and reached a position of command within their respective factions.
So they’re examples of what is not accepted… and also representations of what can fester within their factions, which the factions need to be on guard to spot and remove. (And which the opposing faction can feel is more prevalent than the home faction believes of themselves.)
This is why I but heads with so many Faction-minded players. I get frustrated with the portrayal of Night Elves from a cultural standpoint, when it seems anyone else are just angry that their faction is capable of villainy.
If your favorite race/faction isn’t capable of villainy, then it’s not believable. There is a capacity for evil in every single person. This thread boils down to “I wish the Horde were actually good guys and the Alliance were bad guys”
Have yall read any of my posts about the Alliance? That Alliance is awful… It’s just the Horde is too.
Edit: It’s frustrating because it is just one big game of schadenfreude. No one wants a fair representation of their race or faction, no one wants the defined edges of a cultural footprint. They just want to see the other faction lose.
The fact is that bad actors exist in all walks of life. You cannot judge a nation and a people because a bad actor exists therein. Every race has a bad actor foil. The Tauren have the whatever tribe, the night elves have the highborne/naga, the blood elves have the Sunsworn, orcs have folks still sold out to the legion, humans have the defias, etc.
But that is what people do all the time - and game-wise, it’s one of the more neutral ways to keep the two factions at odds with each other without completely villain-batting one.
Garithos, Daelin - even Fandral and Benedictus if Blizzard would mention them - are bad actors that made the Horde distrust the Alliance. Even Saurfang was persuaded to distrust the Alliance post-Legion because of bad actor Genn.
Garrosh, Sylvanas (even before BfA, she was a major antagonist to the Alliance) are bad actors that make the Alliance distrust the Horde.
Each side has reasons to believe they excised that bad actor and surely won’t let it happen again, and the other side has reasons to believe those are excuses rather than guarantees and these bad actors will keep popping up.
Sure, but you can judge a people for their culture. I would at least say Orcish and Undead culture is problematic to say the least. That makes up the bulk of the Horde’s leadership since it’s founding.
We’re not speaking of NPCs though. NPCs can be wrong. You and I both know that Anduin will never do anything remotely evil. We also know it’s reasonable for Saurfang to accept that Anduin didn’t punish Genn, and thus allow more attacks.
See, we’re as close to omniscient as it gets. We don’t have the view of one character. We see the whole debacle. That’s why I know that Brennadam can’t be attributed to the Horde. The Alliance’s quest team went off on their random because they failed at making Stormsong interesting via using pigmen.
And if I made the argument that the night elves in Ghostlands don’t count, that “I know” they can’t be attributed to the Alliance, because the Alliance PC never hears about it and I think it makes no sense and was only added to create Alliance antagonists so the blood elves would go Horde?
Whether I like it or not, Blizzard created this event and assigned it to a faction. They can go back and fill in the blanks or retcon things, but until they do, this is the story.
It’d be on you to be able to prove that was true. Meanwhile, they flat out admitted that they changed Brennadam to Horde to make it more interesting for Alliance players late in development.
This doesn’t change the fact that it is canon. Just because you personally don’t see it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
It’s still in game, and part of the story.
Sylvanas has indeed been Lich Queen since Cata. I replayed through Silverpine lately, and it is 100% Sylvanas forcibly raising the Alliance forces against their will. Nothing has changed, and yet people still try to defend her actions.
All of Silverpine is mass murdering the defenders, and forcing them into undeath.
Big deal if Saurfang orders you to rescue five civilians for a quest; that is immediately invalidated by the masses of the Horde willingly abiding Sylvanas’ order to burn the tree. That there were no defections then says everything that needs to be said about the Horde’s collective perspective on prisoners and civilians alike.
We’ve decades of lore bound evidence of the Horde’s thinking on the matter, regardless of which Horde it is.
The original Horde raped and murdered their way across Draenor.
Orgrim’s Horde captured and enslaved dragons, and forcibly bred them to be used as enslaved mounts.
That same Horde continued a brutal genocide across the span of an entire continent.
Thrall’s Horde features Sylvanas capturing and torturing innocent civilians who are caught up in Lordaeron, along with Alliance soldiers.
In Cata, we saw the brutality of Garrosh’s Horde, including the taking prisoner of civilians and survivors from Theramore who are not only chained up and used for fights, but are also mounted onto pikes and used as axe and spear throwing targets.
Then of course we have Sylvanas’ Horde which, again, is guilty of pursuing genocide without restraint.
Sylvanas’ Horde also has players carpet bombs a civilian district in Boralus during the faction assaults.
The Horde doesn’t rebel against any of these people until it’s their own necks on the line. Through these, and other examples, there’s troves of evidence to support the fact that the Horde does not spare civilians, nor care about them in the first place.
One Orc handing out a quest is easily outweighed by the severity of the other crimes.
But the Horde didn’t rebel because of how Garrosh was treating the Alliance; they rebelled because Garrosh finally turned on those members of the Horde who tried to oppose his new direction.
It is a legitimate point though; the Alliance did attack. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t without reason. We might not like that reason, but the Alliance wasn’t attacking without justification.
In BtS there is some mention of Genn being reprimanded for it (I don’t have the book with me atm), so it is in there; but Blizzard needs to do better about putting this crap in game.
This remains one of my biggest gripes with BFA; none of the characters behave in a way that they’ve been set up to.
Thought that didn’t make it to live? (I can’t be bothered to go check Darkshore, so hopefully someone who has done it recently can tell us or link a screenshot.)
