drags out the podium and the soap box
Well akshully!!! AKSHULLY!! The annoying thing?!?
Ahem.
Know what the annoying thing really is with BfA’s plot?
When writing the story, they already knew they were including old god stuff. They already had, right in their hands, a third belligerant in this unfolding war, and one lurking in the shadows. And they promised a more “shades of grey” story.
So the annoying thing is that they could have tied both the faction war and the old god stuff together by doing one simple thing.
Have the Burning be the fault of the Twilight’s Hammer. Who was based in Silithus pre-stabbification? Who would have first access to azerite? Who started acting up the last time the factions were at war, and who tried to provoke that very conflict into happening in the first place? You got void portals. You’ve even got night elf members of the TH. It’s all right there, an easy-peasy story.
And you can play everything out right up to the Burning without a change. Just when they’re all on the coast, have Sylvanas ominously say “and now for Teldrassil…” And then boom. Twilight’s Hammer azerite bombs blow up and burn the tree.
Sylvanas, still working for the Zo, denies Sourfang’s demands to communicate to Alliance leadership that the Burning wasn’t our fault, and when he discloses that after his capture, who’d believe him? I mean Anduin, but with just one orc’s word, that’s nothing. Sylvanas can still push the war, even telling the rest of the Horde that she did communicate what happened to the Alliance, but they’re gonna kill us anyway!! Fight on, sons and daughters of the Horde!!
And then you can have a side plot of BfA be the search for evidence that the Twilight’s Hammer was behind the Burning, so when we all work together like pals to fight off N’zoth’s forces, it even makes more sense. Have the evidence be found as part of the rebellion recruitment campaign, hand it in to Anduin, and all that.
You still have a Horde that did the major bad across Ashenvale and Darkshore, so Tyrande can still be big mad in Shadowlands.
You still have an evil Sylvanas who demanded all of that.
But by taking the genocide attempt of Teldrassil off the Horde, you can now actually build a road where redemption for the Horde is possible. And when the inevitable Good Girl Redeemed Sylvanas comes along, there’s a road for that too.
Ok, my off-topic rant about old past bad choices is over.