The Horde was never dark in WoW. Nothing about the Orcs, Trolls, or Tauren was dark or evil, aside from perhaps a bit of rage-induced battle-mania with regard to the Orcs. The Darkspeak abandoned their crueler ways at Thrall’s behest, and the Tauren have always been the poster children for Team Good. So long as a Bloodhoof leads the Tauren of Thunder Bluff, they are squarely in the Good camp.
The culture around Forsaken was arguably evil, yes, but even they weren’t 100% there; you had Forsaken seeking virtue in the world, you had Forsaken seeking forgiveness, and you had Forsaken filled with regret at what the Royal Apothecary Society did, and this was before Wrathgate. Hell, the title ‘Forsaken’ only means something if the character(s) still long for whatever it was that had forsaken them. Turning them into ‘evul crewl dudes lol’ makes them one-dimensional edgelord cringebait whose entire personality begins and ends with their stench.
Then why the hell is either side allowing the other to exist within their faction? We had an argument in-house over whether the Horde was going to keep eating babies or not and we staunchly said no. Having a dichotomy like that is how you either get civil war within your faction (Horde) or one member of a group completely undermining the values and efforts of the rest of it because they need to be edgy and ‘dark’ (also Horde).
Blame WC3, then, because it put the path forward toward the Orcs being able to eventually kick the Mannoroth diet. It makes zero narrative sense for Thrall’s Horde to decide ‘well y’know actually drinking demon blood might kinda give us an edge here and there so y’know what? A little sippy cup. As a treat.’ No, Thrall moved heaven and earth to get Grom clean and unshackle the Orcs. Rightfully, any group that even remotely suggests going back to the Slurp Juice gets rightfully purged outta Orgrimmar and made into the new 5-man dungeon.
Then you run into the narrative problem of 'why do these forces with the exact same intent and plan keep fighting each other like idiots instead of, you know, working together?
We’ve done a lot of housekeeping and got rid of a lot of the garbage. Can new garbage eventually seep its way upward into power? Maybe, but then the sane minds within the faction would call in help and favors to get rid of it, hopefully before another Teldrassil.
It would make sense for smaller scale incidents to maybe crop up once in a while. That said, the people in charge of the Horde and Alliance are naturally going to want to ask ‘wait, what’s happening’ and try to clarify things with the other side. The hotheads are either dead or out of power now and that’s good; Garrosh should have been a master-class in why you don’t want someone that goes off the rails at the slightest criticism anywhere close to the levers of power.
Correct, and those mistakes get addressed and corrected either completely internally or with assistance from abroad. If some Sylvanas hardliners detonate a Blight bomb somewhere in Gilneas, you can bet your bump that Calia and the Horde will immediately open lines of communication with Stormwind and Gilneas and start coordinating a response to crush those latent loyalists.
For who to be hung up on? The Old Guard is gone! The only one left with anything resembling a grudge would be Talanji, and she has a nation to rebuild after the events of BFA and is subservient to the larger Horde. Even Genn put his ghosts to rest, and he and Tyrande are probably the two people on Azeroth who really, really should have gotten the zombie-elf’s severed head by the end of Shadowlands.
Everyone currently in power knows and values the strength of teamwork and cooperation versus being some pigheaded charge-ahead moron that swings first and talks never.
Oh boo-hoo, how dare the Forsaken ever be asked to clean up a mess they brought to bear. And technically, Forsaken presence was extremely minimal; you had Calia, Voss, and the Horde champion on-site, and the rest of the Forsaken forces were kept back to ensure there was no possibility of interpreting ill will within the operation. You basically got loaned out to Tess to help push out the Scarlets and open the door for the Gilnean home team. The Forsaken barely helped outside of logistics and wetwork assistance from Voss.
‘Meaningful conflict’ he says in reference to a fight that can’t possibly budge one way or the other because of the reality of both sides being player factions.
Yes, sudden pop-up villains are a problem narratively, but that’s not the fault of the factions slowly coming together, that’s the fault of no villain being intelligent enough to last longer than an expansion. They ran out of the WC2-3 references by Cata and MoP, and it got so bad they retconned Illidan back to life and into a hero in Legion instead of leaving his idiot self dead and just having someone else pick up the mantle and pieces and start training new DHs.
Then what you’re asking for isn’t Horde VS Alliance, you’re looking for another superpower on Azeroth to suddenly manifest. Or, you’re calling for the factions to be completely rearranged membership-wise, as in the member-races of each change their allegiances somehow.
Nobody on either side in a position of leadership is remotely interested in kicking off the Fifth War, and because this new generation doesn’t have the old baggage of the past dragging along with them (for the most part), they’re willing to talk with each other and figure out what’s happening as opposed to pulling a Genn/Garrosh and just sending it full-steam into ‘the enemy’ just because they’re there.
