I was reading up about WoW and I found something that made me realize a big part of Uther was left out of his Bastion quest.
Uther sentenced Fordring to exile for trying to Eitrigg the orc from being executed for merely being an orc. Uther claimed Tirion’s decision was motivated by pride even when he was forced to give up everything as a result. For all the character development Uther, received, he remains racist against Orcs. Since he was killed by Arthas after Jaina left, he never knew about Thrall or the Battle of Mount Hyjal.
Surprisingly, this doesn’t come up at all in Shadowlands at any point during the Bastion campaign, “A New Path” or exploring Uther’s memories… I don’t even know if anything comes up if you play an Orc PC.
We don’t really know, as he hasn’t really interacted with any Orcs on a meaningful level yet.
The stuff with Tirion, at the time, made sense given the context. All Orcs Uther had encountered at that point had been either Felblood fueled rage-o-holics or nearly catatonic ones. An Orc that wasn’t afflicted by the malaise would be considered in the former category because few if any people had encountered one who didn’t fall into either category.
In addition, since Paladins were literally created to fight Orcs, it was probably baked into their code to… not break bread with them, so to speak. We don’t really know Uther’s personal feelings on the matter, because regardless of those feelings the rules were rules. Lawful Good’s going to be Lawful Good, even if it’s more Lawful than Good. While he made a thing about Tirion being prideful, it was his job to show that Paladins, all Paladins, were held accountable for breaking those rules.
That ruling was wrong, of course, but the nuance is what made pre-Cata Orc lore that much better. It was the proper thing to do, but not the right thing to do.
You make some good points. I wasn’t saying that Uther’s racism didn’t make sense in that context, I was wondering if it got resolved.
Before we go to the Shadowlands, the reason the Kyrian purged their memories was so they could be fair and unbiased psychopomps. Racism is one of the things that could’ve clouded their judgement and interfered with their job (eg; if someone like Garithos became a Kyrian and kept all his prejudices…) I also wondered because in A New Path we go through some of Uther’s memories, and racism sounds like something the new Temple of Compassion (formerly the Temple of Loyalty) would be very much against.
The only meaningful interaction Uther has had with Orcs in the Shadowlands is Horde Orc PCs. While not every PC is an Orc, in hindsight you’d think it would come up at some point.
I think Uther gets a lot of free passes in this game, but I don’t think racism is very applicable term in regards to his attitude towards orcs. Its more than likely based on real experience rather than a preconceived ideology or attitude. If wc3 is anything to go by he only ever met orcs acting a fairly reprehensible manner.
In order for his racism to be resolved, this current crop of writers would have to know about it. Seriously, how many of these writers actually know the lore from the early days of WoW?
Same with Garithos. He should be somewhere in SL but he’s nowhere to be seen. He was such an integral part of the story off the Blood Elves,Kael’thas, and the Forsaken.
In my opinion, Garithos was a prime candidate for Revendreth (in fact, both of them interacting with each other as part of their penance could open up a lot of story ideas).
Uther sentenced Fordring to excommunication and exile not for helping an Orc who was just an Orc. Eitrigg escaped the camps and as such was a criminal. As far as I know, Eitrigg participated in the Second War and the atrocities of his people. Imprisonment was his sentence. Breaking out of jail is against the law.
Beyond that, however, Tirion Fordring attacked the guards attempting to recapture/kill Eitrigg. In other words, Tirion assaulted men doing their duty under the law.
I don’t think Uther was ever racist against the Orcs, at least, not moreso than the average human.
Do we know if racist views are considered a flaw by the Arbiter? I’m not trying to start an argument about subjective versus objective morality, but I just want to know what she judges it as.
We do not have the standards by which the Arbiter judges souls.
What we know is that the Arbiter experiences a soul’s entire lifetime in a fraction of a moment, and determines their ideal afterlife based on that lifetime of experience. Character flaws such as pride, hatred, racism, sexism, etc… I imagine play some role in these decisions. Some Kyrians were once in Revendreth, supposedly.
That’s a good question. I don’t know. My theory is that racism, depending on how severe the racism is and what the person did in the name of it, could either get them sent to Revendreth to atone for their actions or it would be purged with the rest of their memories in Bastion if they have the right character traits for service.
Labeling it racism is an oversimplification anyway. Between roving groups of armed and equipped orcs like the Warsongs still raiding villages throughout Lordaeron basically up until WC3, and with the campaign against Grim Batol dragging on several years after the closing of the Dark Portal (not to mention Blackrock Mountain housing a still-hostile Horde presence all the way up to WoW), any free-roaming orcs found under arms in Lordaeron would have amounted to enemy combatants who’d either escaped the camps or evaded capture, at a time when the Alliance was still engaged in active hostilities with functioning segments of the Horde.
So to Uther and the other paladins, Tirion had basically assaulted Alliance soldiers for the purpose of freeing an enemy of Lordaeron and the Alliance. Itself an act that would be considered a betrayal whether Eitrigg had specifically been an orc or not.
It hasn’t really had a specific reason to come up, Uther hasn’t had any significant interactions with Draka or Thrall so far, for example. It would be interesting to get some more insight on him to see if anything has changed his outlook on the matter since his death. We don’t know if such traits were addressed in his early Kyrian training.
In regards to Tirion’s case specifically, I’m not sure we’ll get anything about Uther on that topic unless Tirion himself makes an appearance (which I would be all for, but that’s another topic entirely). The only other person already around who would know the details about Uther’s role in Tirion’s exile and might care to bring it up would be Alexandros, since he knew Tirion before his exile and continued to speak well of him even afterward, when the rest of the Silver Hand had dismissed him as a traitor. That said, Alexandros currently counts Draka as a respected colleague, and he also starts his Korthia “stay awhile and listen” dialogue with Darion by talking about Tirion, so it wouldn’t be completely out of nowhere if he did decide to have a chat with Uther about past events and prejudices.
I identified with the Forsaken, in the sense that I would like another shot. As Judy Garland said:
“When my number is up, I want an other one.”
There can be an element of selfishness in selflessness. Some times, IRL, I feel like I should do things that others never consider. I feel like I should be helpful, or considerate, or be of service - and others never consider it.
If I was offered a chance to either serve for eternity, or rest in peace, I would probably happily choose service, and then regret it for eternity.
What if you were in your ideal afterlife; living happily ever after and then was suddenly snatched back to the land of the living, but one you don’t remember your afterlife and two you crapped out in the game of Curse of Undeath. Instead of remembering you were a pretty chill guy that loves helping people, you come back and want to destroy everyone with elbows. Now the Arbiter is sentencing you to Reverdreth*/The Maw because you weren’t lucky enough to roll 7 or 11 in the game of necromancy.
Nawl bo, I’m good lol.
I’m so glad she got crushed like the soda can she is.