On the other hand, the majority of races: Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Draenei, and Worgen (Gilneans) as well as their ARs have quite few shared cultural norms. And there is very little competition for recourses. Many of them tie their lineage back to the Titans, many of them are devout Light cultures to various degrees. There isn’t that impetus for internal conflict, and thus there leaves that opening for “unity”. The sole exception of this being the NEs, which is probably why complaints on this specific subject disproportionately come from the VERY passionate NE playerbase.
The NEs are essentially the Forsaken of the Alliance in terms of cultural meshing. Though, in the Forsaken’s current state there is a chance here to finally make them into something at least more symbiotic with the Horde at least. The NE’s racial fantasy is so “maintain the status quo” driven, I fear that that point of contention between them and the greater Alliance will always exist.
I agree with all the things you said, but also wanted to add a little bit.
Lately it’s not as easy to be a fan of a singular race within the Horde, because the Horde itself has stopped treating those races as distinct by and large. The Alliance has that same issue, but the main difference is that while, for example, the Night Elf story boils down to “the bad guys massacre the nelves so the entire Alliance can come at them” and turns their singular tragedy into nothing more than an impetus for everyone else then nearly forgets them… The Horde haven’t even gotten that much since, what? BC, maybe Wrath? I mean, we got MoP’s Purge storyline, so I guess we have that little footnote that motivated nobody in-game. And I get that certain people are going to interpret this as me somehow saying Alliance has it better, but I’m not.
I’m saying the Horde as a singular entity has been the thrust of the narrative framework for so long, it’s hard to be a fan of a single race. Goblins are the only race that could say they’ve been spared, but only because like gnomes, they’re the “joke race”. Otherwise, you could swap out nearly any non-major NPC in any scene or questline with any other Horde race and the only incongruity would be seeing a tauren shoot a fireball.
So, in essence, we have to be fans of the Horde as a whole because the individual races barely exist at all.
Again, for “those posters”, this isn’t to say you don’t also have these problems nowadays and the crap sandwich is one we all share and eat from.
look to the reallive humans, we are the same race, vallued often similiar things, are anything, but united. Only because they have similiar vallues. Gilneas hated lordaeron, lordaeron alterac and everyone hated stormwind, even before wc2.
Wildhammer didn´t like Bronzebaerads and Darkiron, Darkiron don´t like any other dwarf clan and bronzebeard are not liked by both of them.
the samme appearence and values or cultural norm are not a promise of unity; on the contrary, it is precisely from this that disputes just as often arise.
Honestly, I would argue they keep the races more diverse now than they did in the past. Outside of “plot convenience” arcs that suppress representatives acting the way they should for the sake of some hairbrained plot, you do traditionally see Trolls doing Troll things; BEs doing BE things; Gobs doing Gob things; Tauren not getting written at all… This is a far cry from Vanilla where generally speaking … the Darkspear and Mulgore Tauren really were just accessory races to the Orcs. Who, ironically, barely had a story of their own to operate off of. The Forsaken were the only one differentiated back then, and then the BEs after them (and even the, the BEs were sort of driven into a supporting role for the Forsaken after BC).
Like, I can go through Zandalar and think “yeah, this is my Goblin helping Trolls do Troll crap”. Or Highmoutain and think “this is my Gob helping Tauren with Tauren crap”. Or hell, the Vulpera AR recruitment where “this is my Gob distinctly helping the Horde deal with NB, Mag’har, and Zandalari crap”. In Vanilla it really was “this is me helping with Horde OR Forsaken crap”. If I help the Gob Squad, its very Goblin flavored. If I’m helping Paxton and his squad in the same zone, its VERY Forsaken flavored. Ect…
But this started earlier, already in Cata. Back then, when you shouted for the Horde, everyone shouted at the top of their lungs, but for the Alliance?
That’s the point, the Alliance never wanted that shout, they never wanted to be that entity that they were made to be, forced to be, they always wanted diversity, the Night Elves are just the loudest representation, but the other races of the Alliance have taken image damage from it as well.
Everything was just stuffed into Stormwind, whether appropriate or not, Stormwind even lost its own lore culture because of it. The Alliance lacks its own identity because it is not a state, it is an alliance, the Horde needs its own identity as a state, the Horde are member states of a superstate, the Alliance were always independent kingdoms that negotiated and spoke with each other as equals. so we need not the identity as state, we need the political position of the members, and what they want and are willing to give to archieve their goal. We need discussions of the leaders, even sometimes about trifles (relative), we need negotiations, as I said, it is not a political entity, it is a military one, each member state is absolutely politically independent, everything that happens as an “alliance” must happen with the blessing of all members, otherwise nothing happens. (that was btw the actually inefficient part of the alliance, a real advantage of the horde)
yeah, but in cata and mop, the horde were allready much more diverse shown, compared to the alliance unity -crap of cata/MOP.
And again we go back to the primary issue with the Alliance. They are the less diverse faction culturally, even if they are as diverse racially as the Horde. Outside of the NEs, they just have so many cultural factors pressuring that unity you dislike, and very few pressuring a maintained distance. Light Worship is the norm (or at least partook in) by at least 4 of the 6 core races (Gnomes, I dunno what their deal is). Ancestry stemming from titan constructs is also shared by 4 of the 6 core races. And again, even amongst the tightly packed EK Alliance … due to the regions they live and how they exploit their environments … there is very low natural competition for resources. Thus again, little room for major conflict and strain.
Simply put, there aren’t a lot of major environmental, cultural, or even historical factors driving the individual member states of the Alliance to maintain that distance from one another. While the Horde has such a massive lack of shared cultural norms, that that hegemony is simply less of a risk.
The dispute actually always arose within the alliance precisely because they were independent Kingdoms/empires, it took deals to get them in line, they didn’t do it because they were so sweet and nice, they did it for political reasons. The alliance is/should be far more driven by intrigue, the peoples of the alliance are all on equal footing. You want to know why, despite all these characteristics that make them equal, there was much more that made them different in the past? Because they were kingdoms and they behaved like kings, they didn’t want to give them up. The alliance peoples never wanted to become an empire, they always wanted to remain their independent kingdoms, it was never the sense to become a republic or an empire of men.
But isn’t that then as arbitrary and nostalgia driven as the Warchief position being maintained for the increasingly diverse Horde? If there is no cultural, historical, or environmental impetus to maintain that distance between the majority of the Alliance races … that distance simply will not be maintained. If there are enough shared cultural norms to overlook cultural differences, that distance will not be maintained. It makes sense that until such impetuses are introduced, that distance between most of the Alliance races (excluding the NEs) wont be maintained. Unity is a natural conclusion.
Just as the Horde’s Warchief position, which increasingly failed to represent the increasingly diverse Faction it was supposed to represent … was maintained largely through increasingly nostalgia driven motives.
We are still talking about independent rulers, why should they give up privileges in favour of a High King who does not even correspond to their own realm?
That was and always is the problem, they are real rulers, they are born into that position, they are leaders who have been born with the right to lead, have been prepared for it, all their lives. Why should they now give up their rights for the sake of an experiment?
May it be nostalgia, but it’s still not the Alliance anymore that many old timers liked, because the Horde used to be the faction of unity, the Alliance the faction of diversity, I’ve been around for a really long time, in Warcraft, maybe it’s my nostalgia, but I can say the Alliance definitely lost a lot of “charm”, with this unit.
People are delusional. She is not getting redeemed. That would shatter too many narrative conventions and plot threads. It would be more toxic to the playerbase than ten Teldrassils.
At worst this is a moment of weakness later to be exploited at her downfall or the final trace of goodness being snuffed out at as she turns Anduin into the Jailer’s weapon.
This character is toxic and is tearing the fandom apart and has already poisoned three entire expansions. Her time is up, the amount of backpedalling Blizz would have to do to have her return from sending innocent people she mass murdered to omega hell would break the fiction of the game.
And those scripts have flipped, largely in the way that make sense for them to flip. The current Alliance have little reason to maintain that distance from one another, and thus have become more culturally unified. Thus, a High King can in theory fulfill the role of representing them to some reasonable degree. The current Horde, due to its increasing diversity, has become less unified from the original 3 Shamanistic Peoples of WC3 … and with that diversity the Warchief position became less and less able to represent them. Thus, a council does make more sense for the current Horde.
Its not the end of the world, its just giving opportunities for new stories to be told on either side that would be old stories for the opposing faction. What really matters is whether Blizz does something with that … and Turalyon currently being High King does create a few vain hopes for both creating tension with the Alliance High King position … and testing the Horde Council. You want diversity reasserted within the Alliance, and Unity refounded within the Horde? You need the proper catalysts to do so. And High King Turalyon could be the catalyst needed to create that diversity and unity respectively once more.
You don’t need anything like that as a catalyst, you simply cannot artificially recreate the unity of the Alliance and say that it has only survived thanks to this unity. That was never the story of the Alliance. In times of peace, the Alliance has enough civil movements that divide it; in the case of the Alliance of Lordaeron, it was peace that literally shattered the Alliance, even though there was no enemy left.
The Alliance has enough reasons to make a move outwards, it does not need a tragedy to do so.
Then the catalyst was “peace” for that eventual breaking of unity. Which the Alliance has not enjoyed for quite some time, with ever increasing near end-of-the-world situations. So yes, you do need a “catalyst”. Just as Sylvanas should need a more sufficient “catalyst” to turn from her current course than the lectures of a 19 year old heart throb. Otherwise its “arbitrary” … and arbitrary rarely makes for good writing.
Give the Alliance a divisive High King, and they will divide before peace is achieved. Give the Alliance a threatening High King, and he can press for unity within the Horde. All it takes is for Turalyon to be that while all we peaceniks and PCs are safely locked away from the world in the SLs.
Peace was actually the final nail in the coffin, it had clearly gone badly before, in terms of unity. The alliance simply no longer has any freedom, this is gone, the charm of the alliance consisted precisely of this freedom of the peoples, they were not underdogs, they were powerful empires that joined together to defy a threat for which they alone were possibly not strong enough (only partly true again, some empires were also strong enough on their own). This story was then politically spiced with intrigues and dislikes among themselves, tada, the perfect material for many possible stories and the stage is opened, let the play begin.
You say it became where it makes more sense, that’s not actually true. The Horde peoples were always sworn to the warchief, they were his subordinates, his subjects, in the Alliance the subjects of Tyrande but far from being the subjects of Anduin and vice versa. Politically, there is no division of power. So it is only natural that treaties and talks are constantly being held in order for this to work at all.
Always does not necessarily mean forever. Only the NE Racial Fantasy truly revolves around a healthy dose of returning to and maintaining the status quo. Only they receive change as normally a negative. I see very little reason culturally for the current Alliance not to continue getting more unified, the same reason I see no reason for the Warchief title to need to come back for the Horde. Nostalgia only goes so far.
You want more independence and division within the Alliance, you need to be willing to give them a reason for it. You want the Horde to find unity once more, you need to give them a reason for it. Expecting them to randomly change course with no sufficient impetus to do so is not so different than those wanting Sylvanas to change her course in SLs because they simply want her to. It may give some people what they want, but its not quality storytelling. Its simply “arbitrary”. It has to be, because it simply has to be.
Seriously though, there’s one topic I seldom see anybody talking about and it’s the shattering of the soul that Frostmourne can clearly do. We tend to place full blame on the characters after Frostmourne has run them through, as if they are as whole in their unlife as they were previously.
We know now what exactly it did to Uther. It allowed even such a good-natured soul like Uther to be twisted and corrupted enough to go over the Arbiter’s judgement and dump Arthas in the Maw, potentially undeservingly, and become an enemy of the players who joined a faction that manipulated and killed Innocent Kyrians.
We know what it did to Arthas - it reaped his soul instantly. Even the maddened, desperate late-stage living Arthas from the Northrend WC3 missions had a visible difference in personality compared to DK Arthas in the 1st undead mission.
Sylvanas was also run through by Frostmourne. Who’s to say her soul hasn’t also been affected in such a way? How do we know that the Sylvanas we’ve grown accustomed to was Sylvanas at all? Just a piece of her.
That said, Teldrassil was a fully purified beacon of life that actually saved the world from the Nightmare in the novel Stormrage. If not for Teldrassil’s living will and spirit (the tree itself, not the people on it), the Nightmare would have consumed Azeroth.
Burning it down only strengthens the powers of death.
I’ve been literally saying that the Forsaken at large are a “piece” of themselves for over a decade. We know from canon lore that Arthas went out of his way to permanently twist Sylvanas soul into something that isn’t salvageable. On top of that Sylvanas also suffers from the Curse of Undeath.
I think its safe to say that Frostmorne gave Arthas the ability to manipulate souls. I don’t think he knew about the soul wounding and how it affects the soul in the afterlife.
The storytelling crew have really earned all of their pay with Shadowlands. The story so far has been captivating to say the least.