I was more referring to the oblivious assertion that a lust for land and power is the solution rather than a symptom of a greater problem itself. As if this isn’t what caused the fourth war itself by Sylvanas’s own omission. As for this argument, I’ve seen it many times, and it would hold more water if those powerful characters were ever able to use their powerful abilities without being written into being outsmarted, outplayed or into actions completely uncharacteristic of their personalities the second true consequences to the Horde are threatened. Look at Jaina at Dazar’Alor. To borrow a phrase from tabletop gaming, there’s a lot of fluff and virtually zero crunch.
Every undead archer the Horde still has left I guess, atleast one of them would be enough to deal with the Night Warrior.
And since the Horde also has cloning machines, they won’t be in danger.
Oh… so you want the Alliance to retaliate with the same kind of power Sylvanas used in burning Teldrassil. Okay. So you want a big victory for the Alliance.
Will Tyrande burning Thunder Bluff give you satisfaction you are craving?
Trust me it’s not a victory.
The power of retcons and absurd writing?
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Not really. I just want the Alliance to get to win and be powerful in a way that matters, but more than anything, Blizzard has proven that they don’t know how to write a faction war, so I want it to end. It’d be nice if we got to go back to Thrall’s Horde thematically and then got some lore about the Night Elves reconstructing and reclaiming their land.
It’s kind of too late for that after the most recent genocide. There’s nothing left of Thrall’s Horde, my favorite was the shamans that fanned the flames to make sure that as many civilians died as possible, and the torture in the maw after they were burned alive.
There is no night elf lore that’s not about them losing or suffering. Hasn’t been in wow ever.
The next upcoming story is the genocide of the Night Elves being justified lol
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You lost me here at this abstract undefined concept.
Not even Thrall wanted to be part of Thrall’s Horde. So that’s funny to me.
Oh, I know… I was merely enunciating what I want. It’s not that I think it will happen.
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Thrall’s Horde is the Horde under Thrall which attempted to foster peace and generally just wanted to be left alone. It had no interest in exterminating its neighbors because they were there. It’s gaze was turned inward as much as outward and it tried to keep its spirit pure and its vision focused. It was not perfect— The Forsaken were always monstrous, after all, and the Warsong openly provoked war with the Kaldorei, but it did its best with the amount of problems it had to deal with, and the overall feeling was not that you were part of a conquering military force but that you were just trying to survive. I hope that’s made it a bit more clear.
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I personally want to be part of Sylvanas’s Horde because she described the Horde best. She has this line at the start of BfA where she says that the Horde draws strength from it’s diversity rather than the Alliance who try to assimilate to one idea or faith or goal.
I think it’s time the Horde redefined itself yet again to a Horde that better personifies the strength of the Horde’s diversity instead of being Thrall’s Alliance 2.0 concept that doesn’t fit the Horde as a whole.
Thrall’s Horde wasn’t inclusive. We got a taste of that in the Vulpera recruitment scenario where the Vulpera were turned away. Thrall turned away the Forsaken because they didn’t fit his vision. Cairne Bloodhoof had to strong-arm him with ideas that the Forsaken could be redeemed. Cairne is dead and the Forsaken no longer have any allies in the Horde. How long until they are forcefully removed?
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So basically the genocidal Horde and torture innocents for fun Horde
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Sylvanas’s “horde” was propaganda. All the Horde were the Forsaken— pawns to be used, spent and discarded. She did not respect the Tauren tribes any more than she did the Darkspear or even view the two as particularly unique to one another because to her, just like the Forsaken, they weren’t diverse groups of individuals with their own wants, needs and perspectives on the world. They were her property. As for her take on the Alliance, I struggle to name one that could be more incorrect. The Alliance is bound by common purpose— survival against the Horde’s historical aggression. If there were no lust for power as Erevien describes among the Horde, there would functionally be no Alliance after a few short years of peace. It would fall apart as the disparate brother-states turn their attentions to domestic affairs, as it always has.
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That’s also how the Horde saw the Forsaken. It went both ways. Garrosh, literally used the Forsaken as canon fodder.
No, do you know what’s propaganda? Thrall saying to Calia “the Horde has always valued the Forsaken.” That was a big streaming pile of …
I think people who unironically believe Alliance propaganda to be a bit looney tbh. It’s the real blue kool-aid.
Subterfuge through assimilation.
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Garrosh’s Horde and Thrall’s Horde are thematically as different as black and white. Garrosh took after his father in all the worst ways. Those were very dark times, where the Trolls and Tauren, Pandaren and some Goblins of the Horde faced violent and brutal oppression at the hands of their former friends. Sylvanas brought the Horde back to dark times, and somehow you have been convinced that this is a good thing. I would point out that domestically Sylvanas’s regime burnt history books, forcing the Forsaken populace to abandon the names they held in life and tortured/slaughtered political dissidents en masse. This authoritarian hold is a dark call-back to when the Burning Legion ruled the Horde, and respectfully, I will never consider it a good thing.
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And yet Thrall made Garrosh Warchief and is partially responsible for Garrosh’s crimes.
Thrall’s Horde is the reason why the Horde civil war in BfA happened. Clearly there are two sides to this fence. Idealists and loyalists. You can’t change loyalists minds. We’ve already choosen our side.
The writers wrote A Good War, showed us Sylvanas and showed us Saurfang and asked us to pick who was right, and gave us both reasonings, and many of us choose Sylvanas for good reason.
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It should be noted that generally, Garrosh just saw the Forsaken as disgusting and dangerous. Which is why his use of them in Cata was more about just making them be a distraction for the Alliance as long as they held out; so the Alliance couldn’t fully reinforce their NE allies on his prize of Kalimdor. Garrosh had no interest in EK. But, his treatment of the other non Orc members of the Horde (and even those Orc members that fell under Eitrigg’s sphere of influence) was just as bad; and far more personal in a lot of cases.
A great example of this being his deliberate turning of Theramore into a Horde meatgrinder, to distract from the Mana Bomb. Who was on the front lines? Baine and his Tauren. Vol’jin and his Darkspear. And Eitrigg’s 2nd in command and the Orc forces loyal to Eitrigg. The Forsaken were just a tool to keep the Alliance distracted, but since Garrosh had zero investment in EK, he didn’t ultimately care so much about what happened to either the Forsaken or the BEs. He did however care far more about all these ugly non Orc purists were on “HIS” Kalimdor.
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Thrall made a mistake promoting Garrosh to Warchief over Cairne, one that he later laments and is ashamed by. It doesn’t change that he tried to do a good thing, and achieved good results despite his inexperience and humble beginnings. As Thrall said, Garrosh made his own choices— Thrall made the mistake of putting Garrosh in power, but it was Garrosh who chose to ignore the counsel of friends who wished to help him rule, pushed away any who didn’t fit his ideal of a real “Orc warrior” and indulged his own youthful arrogance to the point where needless destruction bathed the world for his ego’s sake. While it undoubtedly started the chain of events that put Sylvanas in power, it is a great leap indeed to state that Thrall’s Horde is responsible for Sylvanas’s misdeeds.
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Ah… but that mistake cost the Alliance and the Horde lives, and you can’t just sweep that under the rug. Thrall has made poor choices. When Thrall (or any Warchief) makes poor choices the whole Horde suffers for it.
This is a fundamental conversation and it’s already playing out in the Thread “How can the Horde be redeemed: Horde Edition” so if you want to join that discussion, it’s there for you.
I want to stay on topic of this thread, talking about the Vindication of Sylvanas. Thx
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You seem to be implying that Thrall’s poor choices make Sylvanas’s infinitely worse choices somehow more acceptable and I do not agree. I have swept nothing under the rug— I just believe people are responsible for their own decisions in life, whether their opportunity to make them is provided by another or not. With respect, I doubt we will convince one another, so I will agree to disagree.
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Im not implying that at all. What I’m saying is Warchief’s make choices and not everyone agrees with those choices. Case in point Saurfang agreed to the capture of Teldrassil, he agreed to go to war and kill night elves. His own personal honor code changed his mind when it became a personal conflict of interest… he still chose to go to war and kill Night elves, he was okay with defeating/decimating the Alliance no matter if it was as he described “a long and bloody road.” Her alternative was a less long and less bloody road, but that requires letting her use her underhanded tactics. If you want Sylvanas held accountable then Tyrande is right, ALL the Horde must be held accountable.
But it’s not that simple because then Tyrande would be no different than Sylvanas in terms of morality. She would lose her moral high ground and that’s really the only thing the Alliance has over the Horde, is the moral high ground.
Jaina could drown Orgrimmar but then she’d be no different than Sylvanas.
What drew me to side with Sylvanas personally was a line in War Crimes where Vol’jin and Sylvanas and Baine all debate the Alliance. Baine, of course chooses pacivity, but that doesn’t sway Vol’jin. Sylvanas says that the Horde needs to have people in the Horde to go toe to toe with people in the Alliance like Jaina, Malfurian and Tyrande who could potentially wipe out the Horde and when Vol’jin chooses Sylvanas as Warchief instead of Baine, I thought it was because he saw that she was right and she could be that person to defend the Horde…
…and she very well could still be, if her redemption facilitated her return to the Horde.
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