Whats happening in Suramar? (Headcanon)

Wyrmrest Accord
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Think of it this way. Your people are in a bad way. They just got over a civil war, thousands of Shal’dorei are dead, the First Arcanist is now the leader of this rag tag group of survivors, resources are low, and you have to rebuild a city with said low resources. Obviously, you need help. Going it alone clearly didn’t work for the past, oh I don’t know, 10,000 years, so you would like to make friends, powerful friends at that with lots of resources for your war torn city.

Who would you logically go for? Or, another way to put it, who would you likely get help from?

The people who turned their noses up at you, went “UGH! Gross, magic users! I guess we’ll help you, but only because we HATE what you all made, and after that I guess we’ll see what Elune says to do, just know you’re absolute trash in our eyes”

Or…

The people that went through an extremely similar problem VERY RECENTLY, smiled and offered a hand with no string attached, and sympathized very heavily with your plight?

It really isn’t a matter of hurt feelings. It’s a matter of “Hmm, who should I go with, the jerks that look down on us or the people that see us as equals and understand what we are going through?”

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The issue I DO take is them staying in the Horde longer than like… 40 minutes, once they see what Sylvanas is like.

Then again, “Why do they stay?” is basically The Question of BfA, regarding the Horde.

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For anyone curious; here is the diplomat’s take on the situation.

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IMO, I think they’re kind of hoping this will eventually blow over. I personally haven’t played it, only seen a video of it, but from what I gather when Baine is arrested and you talk to the various other leaders of the Horde present Thalyssra does mention how uneasy she is about joining the Horde. It’s not like the “This is fine” meme, unless I’m misremembering what happened.

Not to mention they probably don’t have very many other options. I doubt they’d be able to go over to the Alliance at this point.

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Thank you for linking that. It was interesting to read the opinions of someone actually qualified on the subject - it at least adds some credence to the notion that, yes in fact, the Nightborne did have good reason to join the Horde over the Alliance at a first glance.

The Horde helped out, had a better attitude towards them, and that absolutely does justify her joining the Horde as a result - I feel like her wariness to leave now that she has joined is fairly understandable as well. I remember someone calling Lorthemar, as an example, cowardly - because he did not immediately leave the Horde. It goes the same for the other leaders.

As a leader of the Horde, they can keep an eye on their people - ensure that they’re safe, that they’re not being used poorly, and -try- to make sure that that doesn’t happen. If they rebel and are executed, or are driven off, that race now has no leader - they could rebel along-side you and abandon the faction entirely, or they could have someone else planted in their place, someone more sympathetic to Sylvanas, who could then make things even worse than they would be had they not rebelled.

Lorthemar, Thalyssra, Baine, Mayla, and the rest who showed wariness over what was going on, they aren’t just leading themselves. They’re leading a nation of people who will suffer or prosper based on their actions, because of a leader who has already proven she’s violently dangerous and absolutely willing to burn and destroy countless lives.

In Thalyssra’s direct case, (iirc) the war of thorns had not gotten to the point of Teldrassil yet. She had reason to join the Horde. Safety, her people having an influence on the world, and so on. She could’ve done more research on Sylvanas, but what would she have found? That she was potentially shady? Sure, but Vol’jin also named her his successor and Vol’jin was relatively trusted. Sylvanas did some shady things in Stormheim, but are those things widely known? What is widely known is that Sylvanas led the Horde during the darkest time all of Azeroth had then faced, the war against the Burning Legion.

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We had this discussion a hundred million times when the scenario first came out, so my only contribution is that I can still damn the Nightborne scenario for contributing to the profound cynicism of Warcraft’s writing, where virtually any act of kindness or mercy on the Alliance’s part, no matter how small, is thoroughly punished by the plot.

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Yeah, it is hard not to feel that way given how these things tend to go, so I can definitely see why people have that conclusion. Heck, I was one of them! Still kind of am, though I can also see why the Horde would seem like the more attractive alliance. Even if I feel like Nightborne should have been neutral. It worked fine for Pandas, damn it.

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It worked fine for Pandaren because they don’t have a unifying government, like the Shal’dorei do.

Honestly, I feel like this whole problem would be resolved if Blizzard would let people play what race they want on which-ever faction. Let there be a traitor system if you must gamify it.

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This doesn’t make sense, since she put herself willingly back on the same path.

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Not the tyrant who is more or less exactly the same as the tyrant who they just liberated themselves from?

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Except none of this makes sense, either. Since basically my point is that Thalyssra made a hasty, destructive decision based off hurt feelings and emotion and now you’re arguing that she’s staying in the Horde out of cowardice and thick-headedness?

Like, it makes even less sense since Lor’themar, Thalyssra, Baine and Mayla have all been in this exact same situation and know exactly how it ends and are choosing to do it, anyway, because (you argue) they have to protect their people…who they know are going to be killed, anyway?

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They knew barely anything about Sylvanas at that point, just the Blood Elves. Not to mention they didn’t interact with the rest of the Horde, let alone the Warchief, until BfA.

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So the hypothetically brilliant leader of the Shal’dorei is too stupid to see the obvious parallels and too stupid to think of a way out?

The more we make excuses for bad storytelling, the less incentive Blizzard has to do better.

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Yes, because being wary of the potential ramifications of towards your people is cowardice. I’m sure you’d be a great leader to a people - I’d give it… what, a few weeks?

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She’s not wary of the potential ramifications toward her people. She’s seen it happen. She knows what happens. She went along with it, anyway.

What do you call that, if not cowardice or stupidity?

Who I am or what I’d do as a leader is irrelevant to this argument.

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Not to like, throw my hat in this or anything, but this strikes me as an ignorance you should rectify before throwing in your lot with one of the two global superpowers.

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It really isn’t bad story telling though. There’s little chance the Nightborne would have done that well on their own, given that hasn’t worked for 10,000 years.

You can see it as hurt feelings if you choose, but no one would ever choose to ask for help from someone who acts the way towards her people like Tyrande did.

Sylvanas is a genocidal maniac, sure, however none of this started until BfA. Sylvanas just arrested Baine for betraying her, I highly doubt she’d view that as a good time to bow out of the Horde.

If you don’t like that the Nightborne are with the Horde and call it bad storytelling, I guess that’s just your right to an opinion, I’ve just gotta respectfully disagree.

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I don’t know about the rest of the Nightborne, but mine is making fat stacks off the wine she is selling to the Steamweedle Cartel.

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*yawns/stretches.

Morning, all!

This was a really good discussion to read through with my morning coffee. Lots of valid points and clear passion for our game and the world we love so much. I find it fascinating how passionate we are about the storytelling.

I do feel this discussion has been had many many times before, and Im not one to dwell on the past. I like to live in the present, and I find headcannon one way to create the present until Blizzard writers/developpers do.

So Suramar. Rebuilt? Everyone cured of the addiction? We still working on it? Crawling with Horde soldiers/explorers/tourists?

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Forget the Thalyssa-Tyrande love fest I just want them to give the Nightborne better models.

The male faces look like grumpy raisins and they only have 3 skin colors. That’s the real tragedy of the Nightborne.

But I do feel that Suramar would be either rebuilding or mostly rebuilt at the point. Likely has a lot of different Horde explorers and maybe other races even living there to help them fix up the city. I can also imagine the port being heavily used as it is a good location to reach the broken isles and other continents.

I would also like to imagine that the guard and/or army is in a state of training new recruits or rebuilt. As I can believe a lot of them were killed during Legion between demons and Elisande.

Oh! It would also be neat if the Highmountain and Nightborne are working together due to them being on the same continent and part of the Horde.

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