Sufficient reason did exist narratively, they just chose not to go with it. “Ethnicity via shared trauma” is a thing IRL, just look at any Jewish writer speaking about Jews as a “Nation”, or the post-slavery African Diaspora on the American continent, or even the reconfigurations of Indigenous Tribes/Nations into larger, historically incoherent, ethnically incoherent “new” ethnicities/nationalities for the sake of agency and empowerment across the continetn.
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Warcraft has never been shy about what it thinks about war. That war is a LAST RESORT, not the opening move. That anyone who decided to start a war of annihilation , regardless of their reasons, are the defacto “bad guys”. Even preemtive wars have a very thin line of acceptability.
You can have a logical/at least understandable motivation. That does not mean you are right. In the same vein that Sargeras learning the plans of the Old Gods and deciding genocide was the only the answer is an understandable if totally unacceptable decision.
And the reason he did this is because the Tauren saw their potential and capacity as a “people” and vouched for them. However, they’ve been so mired in being Sylvie’s weapons (increasingly over the years) that they weren’t ever allowed to really develop into what the Tauren envisioned for them.
And this isn’t me wanting them to not be a part of the Horde. They are my second favorite Horde race in concept after all; even if I haven’t liked Sylvanas for years, because I came to believe she was their manipulative abuser. This is me just wanting their participation and inclusion to make sense.
I want them to reclaim, rebuild, and thrive in Lordaeron. I may see the need for them to give up Hillsbrad and Southern Silverpine (if only for national defense reasons), but I would love to see they (along with the FTs and BEs) claim the Plaguelands and Strat (if nothing else, again, for national defense reasons). I would also love to see them developed as a sustainable people. Not only with Voss’s method of “offering” Undeath to the sick and dying for additional time, but also getting them back to basics. With them freeing the minds they can from the nearly endless masses of the Scourge, and harvesting those they cannot. Once Zoval’s control is completely severed. Giving them a remarkably noble, but non-antagonistic method of seeing to their population and maintenance issues. I’m not even entirely opposed to Calia taking up “A” leadership position among them (conceptually to represent the citizens of Lordaeron side of their identity), so long as an equal counterbalance leader is built up to represent the Forsaken side (which is not evil by nature, just exploited by Sylvanas because it was convenient). Fostering both sides of their identity.
In short, I want them to become a sustainable, stable, people who can bring more to the Horde than just a weapon … that the Horde never really needed. Beyond for the conflict the Forsaken themselves brought.
But, what about the trolls who serve Bwonsamdi? Them having to though fairyland just isn’t right. To me at least
Is she though? because it kind of seems like she’s Horde since she’s on the Horde Council.
Your bias against Sylvanas over shadows the really good points you make.
I would say that yes your vision for the Forsaken is exactly what the Forsaken should have and deserve. but your opinion that Sylvanas is just the Forsaken’s abuser is wrong. Sylvanas wanted exactly what you want for the Forsaken. It’s evident in her Silverpine questline speech where she says that the Alliance invalidates the rights of the founders of Lordearon by claiming ownership of all the lands once comprising Lordaeron and her many wars against the Alliance was a push back against incursion into their territory.
The Alliance has no valid claim on Lordaeron.
They think they do but they don’t. The dream one day would have the living and undead people of Lordaeron live in harmony together in their lands, but xenopobia of the living against the undead makes that impossible.
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Other Side is a pocket dimension that only connects to Ardenweald because Bwon cares for dead Wild Gods.
I’m hoping for 9.2 Shaman Land still.
If we walk away from Shadowlands with no Shaman Land might quit tbh.
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My bias against Sylvanas is the reason that since EoN I don’t take anything she says at face value.
She did not lead her Mongrel Race of Rotten Corpses against Arthas telling them they were her expendable “Arrows in her Quiver”. She did not expand them in Cata by shouting “You’re all my meatshields against my afterlife!”. She certainly has never been the type to rally those forces at Lordaeron screaming “FOR ME!!!” She has been presented as someone who will and say and do one thing, while be thinking completely different for years. Nothing she says can be taken at face value.
So after EoN, where Sylvanas revealed that she herself has never cared about Forsaken Free Will (as her need to use them as expandable tools always overshadowed her care for them as people) … I don’t think she personally ever envisioned such a future for them. Tools don’t get to have will after all.
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you really don’t understand nuance it seems.
Her “Arrows in a quiver” line was about not squandering lives, not about using the Forsaken as “meat shields.” She will not squander one life in the war that she has to topple Death. which I think is paralleled quite squarely with what has already been built up with the Jailer and his “every soul has a purpose. Denathrius served his.” that’s the fundamental thing that Sylvanas and the Jailer disagree on. He sees every soul as disposable to his ends, she doesn’t. And I hope Chains of Domination proves that to you. Though I doubt you’d accept that, you’d already made up your mind.
Just jumping in to point out that this comment assumes that they were planning Shadowlands back in Cataclysm, and that this was what was meant by this.
Given Afrasiabi and Kosak’s undercurrent personal beef, the retcons that had to happen to make this work, and the character that BFA seemed to take, I rather doubt it.
Eh I mean. Do you do archery Droite? Or hunt with a compound bow?
Because “arrows in a quiver” does not mean they’re expendable.
Literally the opposite. Each arrow is hard to make, difficult to repair, and must be aimed are precisely to minimize losses while achieving the end (hunting, protection).
Edit: This is a bit like the “Blank of the masses” comment from Marx, that substance in the 19th/early 20th century was radically different culturally than today.
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Do you believe that this was the impression the writers were intending to give off? I would argue that the vast majority of WoW’s audience does not have this knowledge - and that the writers probably don’t either.
I mean Metzen is a former catholic who was deep into the occult and is edgy otherwise, so I think he would yes.
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Metzen didn’t write that story though. Dave Kosak did, at a time when he was increasingly taking the reins from Metzen.
To the ‘arrows in the quiver’, from Edge of Night
’“They merely need to delay them as we fortify the Sunwell’s defense,” she answered, her tone measured.
"They will die!"
"They are arrows in the quiver," Sylvanas said. “They must be spent if we are to win this.”'
She uses it in life to explain the necessity of leaving people on a suicide mission for the sake of the war. If anything the entirety of the Forsaken live by this mantra since the death of Arthas/destruction of the Scourge was a goal they would do literally anything to accomplish.
As for the ‘meatshields’ thing, also from Edge of Night
’The army of undead that surrounded and protected the Dark Lady was still hers, body and soul. But they were no longer arrows in her quiver, not anymore. They were a bulwark against the infinite. They were to be used wisely, and no fool orc would squander them while she still walked the world of the living.'
She pretty explicitly states that they can’t be sacrificed, as a meatshield would be. She’s still entirely transactional with her care for them but it’s not to say that she distinctly doesn’t care. The Bulwark against the Infinite makes it so that the Forsaken are entirely unexpendable/irreplacable to her.
EDIT: bolded quotations and put more spacing for easier reading.
EDIT: It’s also kind of funny that with Sylvanas’ declaration to the Val’kyr on Icecrown, we essentially end up blaming her for wanting to die.
Except we’re all forgetting that never once has she ever used that phrase in reference to a tool she intends to return for. While good archers can and do reuse arrow, Sylvanas (with her Rangers, with the Alliance/Horde during the Northrend campaign, with her own Forsaken) has always exclusively used that line to refer to ammunition that is abandoned once expended. Valuable ammunition certainly, but ammunition left behind once their purpose is fulfilled. Outside of when she experienced hell AFTER attempting to abandon them, then decided she needed them again. And OH LOOK, she pulled another Sylvie Special in BfA and abandoned both her Bulwark and her Arrows AGAIN!
EDIT: Rule of thumb for Syvlie. Take everything she says out loud literally, but read between the lines heavily with her internal dialogue. Which means all of her inspiring speeches reveal her true character, but her horrible internal thoughts must have deeper meanings. Give her the massive benefit of the doubt every time she does, says, or thinks something horrible, because if you don’t you might realize she’s sort of a horrible person. I mean, using others as tools for personal objectives then discarding them once they cease to be of use? Sure she’s done that like half-a-dozen times since WC3 (and people expect her do it with Zoval), but its totally out of character for her to do that with the Forsaken … a 2nd time…
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Wait, do you mean you don’t recommend A Good War, or you don’t recommend Elegy? If A Good War is the “logical” book, wouldn’t that make it more objective?
Could just go with recommending the pre-patch version of events, where you get dialogue that contradicts itself.
Glad to see Droite is still trying to rationalize the contradictory nature of Sylvanas internal monologues.
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lol this is literally the opposite of reality as has been repeatedly demonstrated again and again over multiple expansions and books.
You might as well be playing a completely different game if you still believe Sylvanas’s account of events despite her repeatedly being outed as an unapologetic liar.
This is just screwing over human fans and a recipe for even more dumb Forsaken-prompted conflict.