I mean, that’s not really how I view justice. I don’t find it just to kill someone who had nothing to do with a given crime - but that’s what a racist reprisal is all about.
Again, I could see characters adopting this mindset, but I could not see such a character being justified, not unless the narrative went out of its way to try to twist the act as being moral or necessary.
This is my biggest issue when it comes to the discussion of racism in fantasy. It’s just a common scapegoat for “My team isn’t justified or wins as much as I would like.”
If the Alliance was portrayed as more openly racist, sure, the Horde would have more moral footing in the story. But Horde players are already calling the Alliance racist anyway…
Blizzard confirming Alliance racism would allow Horde players to accuse Blizzard of “Whitness” and “Imperialism” being internalized in the story telling any time the Alliance wins at anything.
In a lot of ways, I think its better if things aren’t directly defined, so people can interpret things their own way.
I would only say perhaps these races and people operate on different values.
Perhaps for an orc dishonor to clan is a perfectly justifiable reason to kill every member of another clan.
Perhaps to the draenei this is a monstrous repercussion for something irrelevant.
So the term justified is completely meaningless in this situation.
As a viewer who views everything on a meta level everything seems unjustifiable but at least we understand why they do it.
The problem with the Horde’s post Wrath endless aggressive warmongering is not understandable and thats where the problem with them is.
At least in my opinion.
And I do think that was the point of a lot of the original Warcraft lore, from the internment camps we see in Lord of the Clans to Daelin’s actions in “Old Hatreds” during The Frozen Throne.
Like, you’re clearly not meant to agree with the Alliance’s racism, but in the context of both the First and Second Wars, you can at least understand their motivation.
The thing is, Games Workshop and Wizards of the Coast are constantly evolving their settings all the time regardless. Nobody is holding a gun to Wizards of the Coast and telling them to change the orcs. They’re doing it because it is what they as the IP holders want to do.
Just like how Games Workshop decided they wanted their orks to be spore-spawning mushroom men when prior to this they were a fully animal species that reproduced off-screen so we’d never see their females.
Orks were not conceptualized as the crazy mushroom monsters we know today. That was a retcon between editions because GW couldn’t be arsed to make female ork models for their tabletop game.
Similarly Blizzard retconned their orcs from literally worshiping Satan into the shamanistic, humanized orcs we all know and love today.
These IPs are evolving with the times to become more unique and more attractive to our evolving cultures. If stories like these formed and then stayed in their original form we’d not have… Well, most of the things we love about these IPs now.
I think Horde players call the Alliance racist for the same time that we get into debates about whose atrocities are worse. Blizzard sold Horde players a given bill of goods, and then provided something else. They lied - and so now people are trying to work out a way that they didn’t choose the morally black, spectacularly racist, genocidal evil faction that Blizzard turned the Horde into. It’s a pretty far cry from the anticolonialist critique of the Horde being a cast of misunderstood monsters who weren’t really monsters.
This isn’t helped when Alliance posters assert that the bill of goods that Blizzard sold them was a fantasy that they never should have believed in. Horde players by and large were lied to - it’s natural to find a way to reconcile their choice in what they wanted to play in context to that lie - kind of like when we point out the Night Elves’ military prowess as it exists in the lore, when as it comes to its depiction in the game, that’s revealed to be a lie.
I mean, for reference, the Kaldorei used to represent/include an army of guerilla fighters that:
A) Were referred to as “savage!” by the most bloodthirsty orc clan at the time, the Warsong
B) Literally drove Grom Hellscream to go back to drinking demon blood in order to have a fighting chance
Compare that to what you saw at Teldrassil, and it is pretty clear that fans of the original Warcraft days got screwed regardless of faction.
To me the Horde can never be redeemed to the Alliance (in lore) unless we are talking about some really specific characters like Andiun or Jaina. For the players themselves I don’t think there is anything the Horde can do at this point that would received as anything redeemable. Its way too late for that.
So best thing for the Alliance is to smack Horde around a few times to give the Alliance their much deserved finale to this seemingly never ending string of violations and massacres.
But to the Horde and its players themselves? Absolutely they can be redeemed. To make the Horde its own heroes that stand up to hatred and prejudice to wipe away the stain of Teldrassil somewhat? Hell yeah it can be done and its not too late to do it.
Which is in the past. I don’t want to derail this thread - but like the Warcraft 3 vision of the Horde now, that didn’t manifest in current WoW. The scant callbacks to it coming from a company that has no intention to actually depict it are cynical lies that are peddled to get us to believe in something that the current writers don’t want to create, but know that we want.
The same is true with ascriptions that Horde storytelling is “morally grey”.
Don’t forget WoD where the demon blood excuse thesis collapsed in on itself.
Ah yes, Central European mythiology. Kind of weird, but still neat
I mean, if Blizzard thinks Sylvanas burning down Teldrassil is morally grey unironically, I think we can safely assume what the story team take on various 20th century historical events are.
Lots of “Sure it was bad and a war crime, but”.
But to me, getting that kind of redemption or recognition from the alliance would be critical for validating that fantasy. It doesn’t seem like prejudice if their accusations are correct; that the faction is made up of monsters not because of what they are or how they look, but what they’ve done. That’s not a story of pushing against hatred that seems compelling to me. And introducing new characters for a neo-WC3 story isn’t a journey I think the player character can follow, as they’re now the Saurfang in the setting.
As I said, I think it’s a lie.
I think someone in marketing said that modern audiences are too stupid for a nuanced conflict, and that therefore there needed to be understandable good guys and bad guys, in a three act structure that suits the “narrative resources” that they’re leaning on. Homogenization directly factors in here, and serves a larger impulse to make the world and its lore simpler, more digestible, and less messy.
Think of it as a part of “pruning”.
I don’t think it’s a lie on the other hand, I just think a lot of the Blizzard writers aren’t beacons of morality or war ethics.
That, or the “BFA was rewritten last minute theory”
I think that’s offering way too much in the way of the benefit of the doubt, especially when they repeatedly broadcast messages to the playerbase about needing to see both sides of the story, or claiming that certain actions weren’t necessarily evil. Before that, they led people on to this idea that there was going to be some twist to Teldrassil, leading people to assume that maybe Azshara did it, or maybe it was a mistake. “Maybe Jaina did it!” some people seriously thought.
And then, after leading people on with this, they revealed the cinematic, with a predictable audience response.
I’m quite certain that their intentions behind this sort of thing were and are dishonest.
Between the main cinematic and how the things progressed in game were totally different and felt out of place? I’m leaning in the There was a massive last minute rewrite theory.
I think unfortunately any chance of that left the station with BFA.
Virtually at every crossroads the faction and to a degree the player took the worst turn.
The best solution I can offer is the Horde and new (or old) characters fleshed out in an onslaught of Alliance.
Where Horde player can put down hate filled new characters like Daelin.
The “oh wow I guess all the Horde are not evil afterall” train has, as I said, left the station.
You mean like literally creating an Achievement for completing the War Campaign in both factions and calling it, “Two Sides to Every Tale,” even as they clearly paint one side as morally-virtuous and the other as clearly-evil? 
Like I said, tone-deaf. You cannot make this stuff up, folks.
Is Alliance really that moral?
Seems to only fetishize being a victim and idealistic.
I have lost count of the amount of single tear moments various Alliance characters have had.