Was The Alliance Trying To Achieve Maximum Dazar'alor War Crimes?

I meant more this one, though that one is pretty bad too.

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The first time I did it, the terrified stomp took off 2/3 of my health bar. Granted, my Horde monk had just dinged 120 and had an ilvl close to 300, but ouch. Learned to watch the cast bar after that! :laughing:

It feels that way. I mean, the Highmountain Tauren are a lot like the normal Tauren as far as culture and values go, so that’s nothing too new. The Nightborne just suffered a pretty terrible Civil War, so I expect them to be trying their best to show to the world that Elisande and Azshara are not cut from the same cloth as them, but rather are the exceptions.

The Zandalari have a lot of arrogance you’d expect (and I have to admit to loving it), but definitely seem to have a strong moral foundation, which you’d honestly expect from a society as developed as theirs.

The Mag’har… I’m not quite sold on. Geya’rah’s lines in particular make me think they’re not evil, but easily manipulated.

Compared to the Alliance though, the Horde’s Allied Races are definitely pretty well morally grounded.

The Lightforged are warmongering zealots with racist undertones.
The Void Elves are responsible wielders of Dark Magic but still doing some pretty horrible things, even if in a responsible manner.
The Dark Irons are kicking butt, taking names, and not caring about the repercussions.
The Kul Tirans definitely have a darker edge to them. More brutal.

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I am starting to question how non-canonical the Scouts report is. Because as I said before, these events seem to happen simultaneously, and it seems like the Alliance just doesn’t see this. I do wonder if what Blizzard might be communicating isn’t strictly that the Alliance don’t do bad things, but rather that the Alliance PCs kinda just…tune out…some of the bad things that happen. I would say that it’s possible that the Horde doesn’t see the bad stuff they do too, but it actually tends to get thrown in our face rather often.

Hell before everything with Saurfang, you had the perfectly valid option of killing ‘inferior’ Gurubashi mindslaves with Zul rather then breaking them free.

It would be a somewhat interesting twist if the ending of the story has Anduin and the PC with good intentions, but revealing that the actual subordinates of the Alliance army aren’t exactly…well behaved. It wouldn’t be the first time, just look at the communication breakdown between Jaina and Varian in the Purge of Dalaran.

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I find it interesting on two levels.

Firstly, this means the Alliance does not respect Anduin’s rule for whatever justification. He said to keep civilian casualties as minimal as possible, and keeping the Civilians boxed into areas where the combat isn’t going to reach does do that, but at the same time, some are obviously going to fight back.

Secondly, this means if the Alliance does win the War, Anduin will forever have to question if it was because people went against his orders. I mean, we’d all have to question that one. I’m sure the speculation would never end.

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Oh geez, I’m late but I liked to think on this:

I wonder if the Alliance can forever refer to the horrible moral level of the Horde to justify its actions. I mean, did you read what you said? Killing civilians and doing a series of atrocities from level 1 to 99 is totally ok because the Horde has made a level 100 atrocity, lol.

Each faction has to reflect and take responsibility for their own actions beyond the accusations of the antagonists. I have almost never seen the Alliance enter into a really interesting internal conflict or reflect deeply on the evil deeds they have committed, partly this is the fault of a convenient forgetting of events committed by the writers. What I want to conclude is that killing is killing, some think that justifying it makes the action less evil than it is, I say that is foolish.

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I’m not sure even if it’s so much they don’t respect his rule. Remember that Genn Greymane did something that would of likely started a world war in real life by taking and running with one of Anduins orders, but that doesn’t mean Genn doesn’t respect Anduin. Rather it’s just kinda the fact…war isn’t that clean cut, bad stuff happens.

It’s more a commentary, to me, on Anduin’s naivety. Unwittingly he put the civilian of Daza’lor in a situation where this was inevitable. The Alliance breach point is the docks, they can’t escape through Vol’dun and ESPECIALLY not the Blood Gate(Where they think both the Blood Trolls and Alliance are.) so you have all these civvies gathered in one part of the city. With Dark Irons rampaging through the Zolaco, all those merchants and civvies will find themselves in the firing lines as they try to get out of the city.

Anduin says he wants to avoid casualties, but saying you don’t want to kill people isn’t good enough. War has a level of practicality that must be applied(Something Sylvanas would surely agree with ironically.) and by forming an optimal battle plan…he’s also accidentally optimized civilian casualties.

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I no longer wish to be apart of a peaceful loving Alliance. The Alliance has let the Horde push them around for too long and Teldrassil should have been the point were the Alliance became morally grey, but instead we keep getting the peaceful stuff forced on us by Anduin and Jaina.

8.1 was a step in the right direction, atleast for Darkshore. I loved the cinematic in Darkshore and that perfectly embodies what the Alliance should be going forward. I wish Garrosh and Varian were still alive.

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I don’t disagree, but at the same time I wouldn’t be surprised if the likes of Shaw, Wyrmbane, Shandris, etc… decided that they would do what needed to be done for the Alliance, and if Anduin didn’t like it, he could take solace in the knowledge he wasn’t directly responsible for it.

As an example, part of me wonders if Anduin is aware that Umbric sent Horde Ambassadors to the Zandalari one a one-way trip to the Void, to deprive the Zandalari of valuable information regarding the Alliance.

How would Anduin feel about that if he did know? I can’t imagine he would be pleased. He might argue those Ambassadors should’ve been redirected to the Stockades and held prisoner instead, but as Shaw/Wyrmbane would point out, it’s not as if the Horde hasn’t already broken in there.

I would find that kind of narrative to be interesting. One can say Anduin never compromised his morals, but what of the rest of the Alliance? Following orders is the same crime much of the Horde is guilty of with Garrosh, after all. If the Alliance forces are doing terrible things to the Horde, it doesn’t really matter who gave the orders. The Alliance still has that blood on it’s hands.

There’s also something to be said about owning your actions. Sylvanas is more horrific, the actions she does are more brutal, but they are in the service of ending the war decisively. Whether the reason she wants to end the war is devious or not, she has a complete overview of her situation and if she was allowed to do things unhampered by her own faction the war might of been ended cleanly. Sylvanas is more evil, more cynical, but the quick defeat of the Alliance she envisioned may of ultimately saved lives. That doesn’t excuse how she started the war, or the tremendous purposeful loss of civilian life, but at least it was done with wider calculations.

A unresponsive rogue army has no such calculations. C.O’s and leaders bucking orders may not be doing so for cleanly ending the war so much as to simply brutalize their enemy for the sake of brutalizing, to take resources and lives because they are ‘inferior’ and on the wrong side of the war, or just for petty vengeance. In a way this is even self defeating, when so many civilians have died to Alliance hands the people of Zuldazar will want vengeance, not negotiation.

When trolls hear Mekkatorque yelling about he ‘Owns this primitive pyramid for the Alliance!’ they’ll be all the more enraged. There’s something to be said for Evil but competent vs Good but dumb, and if the latter is actually better then the former for the world.

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I’ll just leave these here, too, since I was looking up World Quests earlier:

    https://wow.gamepedia.com/Honoring_the_Past

    Arcanist Valtrois says: We Nightborne owe our unmatched grace and intellect to a noble heritage. The ancestors at rest in Tel'Anor deserve proper tribute.

    Arcanist Valtrois says: Quel’vala thonos. Nobility through tradition. I thank you, outlander.


    https://wow.gamepedia.com/Air_Superiority

    First Arcanist Thalyssra says: The Moon Guard have a long tradition of training hippogryphs for battle. Take flight, and rain justice from above!

    First Arcanist Thalyssra says: I will see to it the Nightborne end their long isolation as defenders of Azeroth, not conquerors.

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I think this (as usual) is where the biggest disconnect is. The Alliance player is kept far, far away from even the slightest hint of the consequences of their actions, while it’s repeatedly thrown in the Horde player’s face. By all means, let the Alliance be morally grayer. The part some posts up about the particular destructiveness of the molten giants I found quite interesting - this isn’t an elemental you summon unless you’re just interested in indiscriminate damage. Even if the Dark Irons say they can control them better, I’d suspect that just means they can keep them pointed in the direction of the enemy - a being like that is going to set things aflame just by existing. Using such a thing in a civilian district filled with merchants is pretty shady.

However, like the “kill 300 Goblins” quest, there’s insulation placed between the Alliance PC and the actions of their faction. The deaths of Goblins are comical for either side, so they pretty much don’t count for anything. The indiscriminate burning of a shopping district isn’t treated with any moral weight for either Alliance or Horde. The narrative always finds ways to smooth over or lessen the impact of the Alliance’s actions, which is aggravating because they get to reap the benefits of said actions (see: Void Rex) without having to question anything, whereas the Horde player is moralized at constantly (see: Voodoo Army) for doing the quests placed in front of us. Have any Alliance NPCs questioned the morality of consuming ambassadors with Void portals, or worried about the impact corrupting natural life with Void energies will have? Have Horde targets ever died with even the slightest hint of sympathizing circumstances? Even small details are constructed to make Alliance PCs feel better about what they’re doing. Alliance airship crews are just “7th Legion Crewman”, but their Horde counterpart is the “Bloodthirsty Crewman”. There are so many instances, large and small, of Blizzard narratively coddling the Alliance player that it can be hard to even see them all.

Random mid-rant thought: when you kill Opulence in the raid, the Alliance soldiers/heroes pause to loot artifacts from the treasury. Is not the pillaging of artifacts also a contravention of the laws of war?

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Her stated goal was to kill every single human in Stormwind, down to the last child. The Horde is waging a war of extermination against the Alliance. There is literally nothing the Alliance can do in this war that isn’t completely justified because they are fighting for their very survival.

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I don’t know what Blizzard is doing anymore, and I’m increasingly finding myself not caring. The story is big on ‘don’t rely on what happens, rely on what’s said’.

I suppose the line would have been if Jaina had used three catapults to just burn down Dazal’alor instead of the whole raid occurring to begin with. Honestly that would have been easier and more efficient if there’s apparently no difference in results anyway.

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Because burning down a city of stone and gold is possible, right? The trolls are just smarter and didn’t build their home atop the biggest unlit bonfire.

Doesn’t seem to matter what the Alliance builds their cities on top of:

    Zul the Prophet says: One would think dat a city of stone would be less... flammable.
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Are we really giving brownie points for being more brutal in order to win the war faster, when she’s the one who started the war in the first place?

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Though Stormwind is a city of Lumber AND stone. Dazar’alor is more the city of stone then Stormwind is.

Yeah.

I never understand the logic in comments like those… it would be one thing if she was at least right about a war coming and was genuinely acting in the Horde’s best interests… but we know Anduin isn’t the pushover Sylvanas paints him as and we know that Genn and Jaina have gotten softer on the Horde and we know that Sylvanas wants her new Forsaken babies.

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False, do the Raid, genn is still as murder hungry as always and Jaina is much the same. Anduin is literally. LITERALLY the only one who wants peace.