Wanting to be hated

This topic has actually come up many times throughout the years, especially during BfA.

Before BfA it was generally more an indirect topic, with posts being made in the guise of “As a Horde player I find the Alliance boring. Here’s how to make the Alliance more interesting.”

During BfA the discussion was more out in the open that frankly the Horde had no real reason to want to fight the Alliance because Blizzard really never gave the Horde any significant reason to dislike the Alliance, which drained a lot of Horde player’s motivation to play BfA at all since they were being forced to fight the Alliance while the Alliance had all the reasons in the world to resent the Horde - yet Anduin turning even Genn and Jaina to siding with the Horde to end the Fourth War instead.

But this is the most directly stated I’ve seen these sentiments made yet:

And frankly, I do not believe I will ever understand this mentality.

If you are the type who does not like reading about people’s personal lives it might be best to turn your squeamish eyes away now and read a different thread instead.

I was born in Mexico, and my parents brought me up to most affluent part of the Bay Area of California when they were accepted in through a work visa program when I was two-and-a-half years old, which lead to the three of us getting green cards. It wasn’t until I was in middle school that a big boom of Latinos moved into the area, and during elementary school I was one of two Hispanic children in my grade. And I got a lot of weird looks because of the color of my skin. Walking through a rich suburban area to get to school I even had the great pleasure of some well-to-do adult yelling at me from their doorway “You don’t belong here!”

Being the young age that I was, this completely tainted my view of this country, and despite that I could have become a citizen when I turned eighteen, I stubbornly held onto my green card instead, under the philosophy of: If this country doesn’t want me here then I’ll just live here but decidedly not ever join it.

This lasted until three years ago, by which point I was thirty-one years old, when my views changed from “This country doesn’t want me here” to “Oh shit, this country doesn’t want me here.” Sure, I was a legal immigrant, not a reviled illegal immigrant, but I already didn’t trust this country, so I wasn’t going to take any bets against it taking turns for even worse, so I got my U.S. citizenship as quick as I could. But hell, even now my U.S. passport card - which I carry around at all times out of paranoia - still prominently states “Place of Birth MEXICO” on it (seriously, in that capitalization), so that’s still unnerving.

This is all, of course, only my personal experience, and I have only ever lived in the Bay Area of California and gone to college over in New York, and I don’t know what it’s been like in other parts of the country, or even other parts of the world, or different times.

But because of what I have experienced, I do not believe I will ever understand this desire to be hated. Being a person who as a young person did build their identity on the views of racists towards me, I do not believe I will ever be able to empathize with the desire to establish a video game identity revolved around being antagonized by racists.

Of course, I also think that the faction rivalry in WoW should be done away with, so if your enjoyment comes from the Alliance and Horde faction “War in Warcraft” then we already don’t see eye-to-eye even on a story based level, given my indulgence in that Warcraft III was all about the factions coming together, let alone everything else above.

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Speaking for myself, I want to see both sides having a mixture of characters: some who are pure, shining champions of decency and some who are completely vile. And yes, that means that in my ideal version of the game, there would be some very prominent racists in the Alliance who would drive conflict from time to time. Characters that the Horde player could feel good fighting against. But that wouldn’t be the same as saying “the Alliance” is racist.

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The entire original concept of Warcraft and up until Cataclysm was recurring racism lmao

Anywho here’s my full non-cherry-picked post:

Blizzard is unwilling to write the Horde as a functional anti hero, let alone as a hero, so give Alliance a few swings off the villain bat and have them go back to basics (Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 racism).

There is no other villain bat the Alliance can be hit with that makes narrative sense.

Making the Alliance Racist Again™ is the only villain bat that makes narrative sense, provides motivation for both internal Alliance conflict and Horde conflict, and would actually solve the current narrative racism problem of every expansion the POC/BAME/etc metaphor races being hit with a villain bat.

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Blizzard is plenty willing to write the Horde as heroes. The Zandalari campaign was all about the Horde aiding the Zandalari and Vulpera and saving the world from G’huun.

Blizzard also just has to stop writing the Horde as villains and undermining all that.

As per my last paragraph in my first post, and the examples in this post above, this does not need to, and in my opinion should not, be the Alliance the Horde should fight against to feel good about itself.

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No, that was the Horde Champion helping the Zandalari. With some Rokhan cameos. Who is now the de facto Troll leader for 3 expansions and doesn’t have a unique model. :clown_face::earth_americas:

They also need to knock the Alliance down a peg or two and give the faction as a whole a Fatal Flaw. Because in all likelihood blizzard isn’t going to stop villain batting the horde.

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If you’re set on believing that Blizzard won’t stop villain batting the Horde - and frankly I don’t blame you for believing that - you’re already in an unsolvable problem, of which I would not indulge a conversation being locked to “lets make the Alliance just as bad” because that won’t actually lessen the Horde still being villain batted.

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So you want to discuss an unrealistic idealist situation that runs contrary to the past ten years of writing for this game? Because you cannot bear the Alliance have any fatal flaw or sin?

Gotcha.

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And you want to discuss an unrealistic situation of Blizzard villain batting the Alliance that runs contrary to the past ten years of writing for this game?

Your standards are double.

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Blizzard villain batted the Alliance since Warcraft 1. Horde’s also been villain batted since Warcraft 1.

Except only one of the two factions stopped getting some villains written in as heroes ten years ago.

Try again.

Back to basics is the solution. Make the Alliance Racist Again.

Emphasis on Again, returning to a prior state.

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I’m not sure I see your point other than being offended that Baalsamael said racism would be a good reason to hate the Alliance, which it would be. It’s not that he wants to be discriminated against irl.

And he’s right that discrimination is a huge part of the Horde’s origin story. Part of what drew me into the Horde when I started the game was that we were the underdogs, persecuted by people who didn’t understand us. A lot of people relate to underdogs and I always have. I don’t want to be hated in real life, but I’ll enjoy playing the little guy in a fictional world.

Some people also enjoy the faction war but you said you won’t be able to understand that point of view so I won’t try to explain it. Personally, I don’t think it makes sense anymore in the story as the Alliance has moved past their racism for the most part (not entirely though) and we’ve worked together plenty of times to realize war isn’t profitable and that cooperation is important in this world where cosmic forces pop up every two years to kill us.

I assume the Alliance posters opinions have changed since I last frequented these forums but it used to be them calling to be the villains for a change. They were tired of being forgiving pacifists who only reacted to the Horde’s aggression (a valid opinion). Perhaps they didn’t mean it but they would ask to be villain-batted for the next expansion.

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The writing of Warcraft I and II have no stylistic carry over to anything in World of Warcraft. “Prior state” is a state that World of Warcraft has never been in, and thus, no more or less possible to be expected than Blizzard suddenly no longer villain batting the Horde.

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Reminder to all of you I’m an Afromestizo Andean from a Tribe in the Pacific coast of Colombia and bisexual so uh yeah lmao

Have been physically assaulted by Racists in Texas, New York, Paris, kicked out of restaurants in Madrid and Italy, etc.

? If you’re seriously arguing in WoW never has a faction leader or lore relevant hero been racist among the Alliance toward the Horde, you are both ignorant of the lore and delusional.

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The thing is, Banuka, being misunderstood is no longer a plausible state for the Horde to be in, for the very reason that the Alliance has spent all these years - under Jaina, under Malfurion, under Anduin - understanding the Horde.

Which of course Blizzard undermines by villain batting the Horde again - yet at the same time, still blatantly has the Alliance step aside after each war and say “well, that sucked, but the core of the Horde is still good, so, that’s that (again).”

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There have been plenty (Varian when he was Blue Garrosh, the captain who wanted to sink the Bilgewater Goblins while going after Thrall, Ambassador Gaines in the Southern Barrens, the Alliance captain in Quest for Pandaria - Part Four, “Knowledge IS Power” Jaina). And none written in the style of Warcraft I or II.

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I totally agree. Like I’ve said, we’ve worked together for so long and the humans were even willing to accept the Forsaken back (probably their most hated race in the Horde). There was that weird bit with Zelling where his wife didn’t recognize him and treated him like a monster after being resurrected immediately after his death but as a whole the Alliance isn’t racist anymore.

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Great glad you agree, just Make the Alliance Racist Again like they were in-game for the first ten years of the game and its a wrap, Alliance as a faction now has a general flaw that isn’t based around a grumpy werewolf or a misogynistic characterization of an edgy Wiccan.

Just walk it back like they’ve walked back the Horde to Warcraft 1 levels. Easy enough.

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I do not agree with you in general at all.

Going back to your point of “writing of the last ten years,” the consistent example is the minor Alliance characters who are racist being quickly killed off usually as soon as they are introduced, and the major racist characters resolving their racism and working with the Horde. Varian, Genn, and (flip-flip again) Jaina all coming to see the Horde has worthwhile people after all.

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Ah yes Genn, beacon of Horde and Alliance unity, who was so disgusted by Alonsus that he stormed off before he could witness Turalyon attempt to blast him with Light to see what would happen.

Fine, let’s say the Alliance doesn’t have to be racist.

What other villain bat are you willing to grab to hit the Alliance with to give faction as a whole a flaw?

Or are you unwilling to even do that?

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I get it sucks being villain-batter again. At the start of BfA I was like, “there’s no way they’re gonna pull a Garrosh 2.0, they said they won’t, they just botched the prepatch story is all, Sylvanas isn’t gonna become a villain”, but two years later, here we are.

The faction war just doesn’t make sense anymore lore wise, especially with the leaders we have. The Horde are done with the war now and only Tyrande is trying to continue it on the Alliance side, but Genn is a time bomb in my opinion.

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This argument is irrelevant because Blizzard will likely never end the faction war so long as WoW continues.

The discussion must first and foremost always recognize that.

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