War of the Thorns killed the Warcraft franchise

Lore Story Forum
442

That is not an accurate interpretation of the lore.

    Lady Liadrin:
      With Saurfang dead and Sylvanas… absent, Orgrimmar is without a warchief.

      Meanwhile, the threat of N’Zoth looms over us all. We mustn’t allow Orgrimmar to descend into chaos.

      Remain vigilant for any signs of N’Zoth’s influence… along with any who cling to Sylvanas’s twisted ideals.

      Some who sided with the Banshee Queen have seen the error of their ways. They are to be left alone.

      I care not if you fought against them. We must forgive and unite if we are to remain strong in the face of peril.


Key word being some. Former Sylvanas loyalists who are no longer loyal to Sylvanas were folded back into the Horde.

Horde players were forced to turn on Sylvanas and go after her in a both the Korthia campaign and the Sanctum of Domination raid. And after Sylvanas’ sentencing she even tells the loyalists players that her actions had not merited dedication to her.

2 Likes
443

That had already been broken in Wrath with Varian. Things like Garrosh’s rise to prominence, Golden Jaina, and Cata Thrall make it seem tame now, but it honestly started in Burning Crusade with Velen and Kalecgos.

444

Well I am glad to see there is some enlightenment going on :

Indeed.

The Alliance attacked the Horde at Stormheim, so it was awesome and good to see the Horde answer Alliance aggression with the War of Thorns.

Saurfang himself considered the Alliance’s aggression at Stormheim when he agreed to the War of Thorns.

Some Night Elf partisans want to poke the Horde, but then they get rather cranky for years when the Horde answers.

1 Like
445

As for “accurate interpretation of the lore,” the modern writers are very eager to have Sylvanas vocally disqualify herself as someone to follow while the Alliance give the Forsaken lots of hugs, but that doesn’t reflect any part of the last 20 years of storytelling.

1 Like
446

I have to point out that plenty of Alliance posters were against it as well. Either they felt that having the Horde help with rebuilding was sending the message that the Night Elves weren’t Strong Enough™ to do it on their own, or they just felt that the Horde (as an in-game entity) neither could nor should ever be tolerated again. I recall one vocal Night Elf fan who even proclaimed herself “disgusted” that Ardenweald Horde PCs could get the quest to save Night Elf souls from the Maw in SL.

447

Exactly this. Some of these guys are coming off crazy as hell.

Which, I mean, I don’t have much room to judge there, but being unable to look at this game’s story outside of your factional lens is just weird and unhelpful.

To those like Cursewords who think I’m just complaining about others and have no solutions: I gave some of my suggestions above, like them or not. But I can definitely tell you what ISN’T the solution: arguing over faction politics as though the players are to blame, when it’s Blizzard who’s been ruining both factions since MoP.

I know some of you are wondering why this annoys me so much. It’s because it enables Blizzard. Seeing us bickering with each other like children who will never be happy just perpetuates the idea that there are no satisfying solutions here, and that Blizzard can continue to sit on their hands and let the story fall apart around them. It’s enabling Blizzard’s own fatalism and inaction.

"See? We can’t change the status quo. We can’t improve the faction dynamic. The players are gonna flip out and scream “favoritism” no matter what we do. We should just keep ignoring the factions and hope the fans forget what they’re angry about. "
-Blizzard, probably

Watching Horde and Alliance players argue in the year 2023 is like watching children fight over scraps in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It’s social cannibalism and it’s not helpful. Azeroth is burning around us. We’re never going to force Blizzard to improve if we’re so entrenched in our own role-play that we can’t see the forest for the trees.

Because here’s the thing: almost none of us have the proper solutions. We’re players in a live-service game. It’s Blizzard’s job to read the room, manage the room, and build content based around that.

Blizzard wants to avoid accountability for the decisions they made in their own story, and we’re helping them do that.

5 Likes
448

This is very true, as many of the more disgruntled posters complained that there was no way that Alliance characters should ever trust Horde characters again, let alone accept help from them without expecting to be stabbed in the back.

But the story has already moved on from that. The story had moved on from that from the very beginning of Shadowlands when Thrall of all people was worried about Tyrande and was the one saying they couldn’t just leave her in the Maw before the player got to Oribos.

1 Like
449

We know Blizzard is Saurfang biased.

450

I feel like you can fix it, but it is something that will require time to patch up. I think saying it killed the franchise is a bit much, and I hate BfA lore more than any other expansion. I think it can eventually be undone, because I would say they already did this much damage once before with TBC.

In The Burning Crusade Blizzard:

  • Turned Illidan and his allies into villains, something that they have been grappling with the ramifications of since.
  • Wasted all of their cool new ideas on terrible executions, blowing through villains like Murmur, Dimensius, and more on non-essential side content.
  • Blew Zul’Aman and Zul’jin on a story about treasure hunters raiding the city.
  • Bringing the Caverns of Time into the game and doing literally nothing of use with it.
  • Whatever you call the story in Karazhan.
  • Having us deal with Kil’Jaeden BEFORE the Lich King.
  • Wasting legacy characters such as Kargath Bladefist and Gruul on forgettable instance content.

I could likely go on, but they came back from this. I say if they keep up what they’re doing in DF, in a few years, things will have settles down and the story will keep going mostly unhindered, all things considered.

1 Like
451

Quick side note, but I think this is a bit of a misinterpretation of the actual story as it was released (before TBC and Legion retcons).

TBC did ruin the Illidari, but not because they made them villains.

Play WC3 again. Illidan was a villain. All Warcraft material from 2003 to 2007 portrayed the Illidari as arcane-addicted, magic-obsessed anti-villain rebels.

That was their appeal. They weren’t good guys, nor were they pure evil. Hell, maybe ONE DAY they’ll stumble into an adventure that ends up saving us all, but they are not heroes. Illidan’s campaign focuses on him working for Kil’Jaeden to take down the Lich King. Illidan is more than willing to aid the Legion if it will ensure the survival of himself and his people.

But don’t just take my word for it. Here are some of Illidan’s lines from the game:

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…I have come to replace you. You’re a relic, Magtheridon. A ghost of a past age. The future is mine.”

It really doesn’t seem like morality is Illidan’s issue with Magtheridon. Seems more like he thinks he should rule in the Legion’s place.

“HEAR ME NOW, YOU TREMBLING MORTALS! I am your lord and master. Illidan reigns supreme!”

Does this sound…anything…like the guy we met in Legion?

Kael’thas and Akama were the only “good guys” in the group, but even then they only cared about their own people and their new allies.

There was no indication that the Illidari were these self-sacrificing anti-heroes with an edgy Jesus complex. I’ve been combing through old material lately, even stuff written in-part by Chris Metzhan, and everything we saw from WC3 to Vanilla portrayed Illidan as a “rogue demon” who wanted to be free from the Legion and study magic on his own terms. He even says the latter in Warcraft 3 cutscene.

“I never wanted mastery over this world. Only the magic!”

Remember, this was back when the Legion was portrayed as masters of Arcane magic (back when Fel and Arcane were two sides of the same coin). Going by Archimonde’s speech in Dalaran, they see the Arcane as something that belongs solely to them, and only those who serve them should be permitted to learn it.

So the Legion is an enemy of Illidan, but not out of any desire to save the universe from evil. It’s because Illidan is a rebel who wishes to serve no one.

Honestly, MoP did more to fix and expand upon Illidan than Legion did. From what I remember, the green fire questline revealed that Illidan was looking for ways to wean his demons off of Fel magic by replacing their “diet” with Arcane. Illidan was a sorcerer as much as he was a demon hunter, and he wanted to use magic freely and without corruption or restriction.

In short, The Illidari are a bunch of mutants and magic-addicts who were intent on mastering magic and freeing themselves from its corruption. They were ALWAYS villains, but not stupid and insane like they were portrayed in TBC. They also weren’t the cringey Hot Topic heroes we saw in Legion.

They were a unique idea for a faction that could only exist within the lore of Warcraft as it was known at the time. Now that arcane magic is no longer corrupting (or even related to fel magic) their old lore doesn’t really make any sense, so now they have nothing to do but be the self-righteous demon hunter faction.

Sigh. There was so much cool stuff in this franchise that Blizz has just gotten rid of…

5 Likes
452

Wasn’t aware of alot of that. I do like the change from the Legion being Fel/Arcane to just Arcane, while tying the usage of Arcane by Illidan to his backstory.

Until Legion, I agree, he was never really a by-the-books hero, though having only played WoW, I was unaware to what extent that went in WC3.

I do know that in terms of Kael’thas, he was needlessly villainized. I recall that he was a bit weird in the Arthas book, though to my knowledge, that aspect of his characterization didn’t come until the Wrath era.

Even the current story of Illidan feels a little goofy, given that (to my knowledge) literally half the events of TBC wouldn’t have even happened if he had ever just gone up to the Horde, the Alliance, or anyone else and just said “Hey, we’re using portals to blow up Legion planets, want in?”. We brought back Teron Gorefiend just because a ghost sent us on some quests, I’m pretty sure Illidan doing this would’ve worked.

453

Now this we agree on entirely. Kael’thas WAS intended to become more villainous over-time (this idea goes back well before TBC) but the idea that he would EVER betray his new allies (the horde, who helped save his people after the Alliance betrayed him) or HIS OWN PEOPLE is a fever dream written by a mad-man.

Illidan shouldn’t have been turned into a raid boss. Ideally, he would’ve led a third faction, but that wasn’t feasible for WoW. I wish they could have found a way to give the Blood Elves to the Horde, while still maintaining their relationship with Illidan and Kael’thas. Severing that connection so early, and turning the Illidari into crazy people (and then heroes???) was such a bad, bad choice.

It’s stuff like this that makes me pray for a story reboot / reset.

5 Likes
454

What’s the source for this? Not saying I doubt you, just curious where this comes from, as I hadn’t heard it before, and I’d like to know more.

1 Like
455

honestly a third faction would have been a more welcome inclusion, Have a faction lead by Illidan, kael, akama and fish chick. Hell i’d even have had Sylvanas/Forsaken join them.

1 Like
456

Well my subscription is ending and well aside from the extreme nature of just ending Arthas, everything else in SL and stuff was par for the course, I mean, it was really topsy turvy, but with the experience of BFA and SL is coming to an end, the burning of Teldrassil was given some kind of context and meaning.

I feel like I mean geez they literally made a whole expansion entirely to the nature of Arthas, the Jailer, Sylvannas, Anduin everyone who goes the bad way and what should happen to them. It may as well have been lets make a concept to make Battle for Azeroth make sense, Battle for Azeroth, the afterlife.

It all basically worked for me, with the possible exception of eradicating Arthas entirely, although I guess lots of people that were slain for the second time like Kel Thuzad and stuff shared the same fate, and I feel like it’s kinda impossible for human beings to weigh the value of things living an eternity of misery versus I guess whatever actual death brings in the warcraft universe (beyond SL), it still feels like a weighty hand coming down pretty fierce and sort of violating the rule of cool.

Anyway, I don’t know if they planned all of the Sylvannas, arguably, “redemption” arc, in BFA, but they certainly seemed to realize they went in a major crazy direction with Teldrassil.

There are still things that don’t make sense to me, like in SL Sylvannas says I thought it ended when I fired my arrow, but I became him and committed crimes against my people, like, she didn’t attack high elves after she became a banshee I don’t know what she was referring to really.

They also basically erased the identity of Sylvannas as a ruthless pragmatist but still with a moral compass of some kind, all in favor of no she was bad all along to an extent. They also made such a big deal about how angry Tyrande was with her, but the Forsaken basically never did anything to Night Elves until War of the Thorns, not to mention the Forsaken had been pulling stunts to deal with their undeath semi-functional state for a long time and arguably breaking the wheel of death and changing the fabric reality was just a really desperate Sylvannas seeking out her final method of dealing with the problem.

But whatever, the point I took from SL is you weren’t actually (Horde side in BFA) aiding a complete sociopath.

That said, I feel like they must of lost like 2 million subscribers between the end of Legion and the beginning of Dragonflight, partly because of the age of the game but also because their story moves drained player motivation like a BELF draining a mana wyrm in TBC.

2 Likes
457

Kael’thas was a hero and I will never forgive Blizzard for killing him twice.

1 Like
458

IF they could balance it, and I’m not convinced they could.

1 Like
459

-Chris Metzhan’s interview on the Blood Elves during Blizzcon 2007. It’s on Youtube. Granted, he’s talking more about the Blood Elves as a whole here. He goes in to more details on his plans for Kael in…

-The RPG books, which at the time, were considered canon, and were written in part by Chris Metzhan. It lines up with and further supports Metzhan’s assertions in the interview as well. It’s hilarious to me that Blizzard has gaslit the fanbase into thinking the RPGs were never canon. It’s like saying Rogue Trader isn’t canon to 40k. It’s just an earlier edition of the lore.

We all know the vision for the Blood Elves changed A LOT during TBC and onward, but Kael’thas was never meant to stay an Alliance-Style hero.

Example: remember the Scorched Grove in Eversong Woods? That’s a reference to the RPG canon, where Kael’thas ordered Quel’thalas to be burned so the Scourge couldn’t get it. They even burn a high elf alive in his home because he refuses to join them and they see him as a traitor. TBC downsized it when they decided to make the Blood Elves less crazy, so now it’s only that tiny grove near the Ghostlands that’s burned down.

Blood Elves becoming goody-two-shoes light worshippers was never a part of their original identity. They were true neutral, caring only about each other and their allies, and the idea that they would ever worship…any form of magic or deity, as opposed to bending it to their will is kinda crazy when you look back on their development.

But yeah, Kael’thas was NEVER meant to go full evil and betray his allies and subjects. But he was DEFINITELY not gonna stay a traditional hero. This inevitability was also hinted at in Warcraft 3.

Illidan tells Kael there is no cure to arcane addiction but more arcane. As we all know, arcane magic was waaay more dangerous back in the day, and will eventually mutate you into a demon and drive you insane. The RPG even claims that all high-level blood elf spellcasters are insane, because the magic they feed upon is inherently corrupting, and they’re not using it in moderation like the Kirin Tor.

There was no path left for Kael but to eventually become a monster like Illidan. His fate was sealed when he joined him. That’s kind of the point in the end. We even see this when Kael agrees with Illidan to help Kil’jaeden. Sure, he’s fighting the Lich King, but at the cost of helping the Legion? He was already going down a rogueish path.

So yeah, would Kael have ever gone full evil? Heck no. Would he have remained a good ol elf boy, just trying to do whats right? Not at all.

460

If the RPGs were ever canon, it was only for a year, tops.

1 Like
461

Your point?

You’re also factually wrong. The RPGs remained semi-canon for many, many years. Again, it was just an early edition of the lore. The lore developed BEYOND the RPGs, but they were never meant to be non-canon. RPers back in the day would even quote from it. It wasn’t until many years later that Blizzard eventually decided it was non-canon. Before that, they were considered fair game. Like an “expanded universe” type of thing.

Even WoW quotes from the RPG at times. The original human mage quest makes direct reference to the Laws of Magic, created in the RPG. There’s stuff all over WoW that originally comes the RPG. I think even the Zandalari and Rastakhan begins there.