Do they? All the Twilight’s Hammer had to do was dress up as Horde soldiers and attack the peace delegation between Hamuul Runetotem and the nelf druids for everyone to blame Garrosh.
Seriously, do you not see the discrepancy here and why a Horde fan might be tired of things like this?
Honestly, I see a discrepancy in the Narrative that the writers don’t show the truth being revealed to both sides equally, though this is to be expected.
But the real problem, I suppose is that it was very easy for the Twilight’s Hammer to do this because of the pre-existing fears and prejudices between both sides…
In other words, the Night Elves could believe Garrosh had done this BECAUSE they know Orcs well enough to remember the first and last time this happened.
And because the truth was never uncovered like it was with Benedictus.
I suppose that’s fair.
We’ll see what Blizzard has in store for the Horde in the future. With the shucking away of their last true “villain” characters (Sylvanas, Nathanos, Gallywix) and the formation of the Horde council, this is the biggest effort Blizzard’s made to make them potentially more good, less evil.
Does this mean all the Horde’s past sins are going to magically disappear? No. Can outside evil parties still do evil things to frame the Horde and make it look believable? Yes. That’s just the hand we’ve been dealt I guess. I’d like to think they’ll get through such trials and continue to improve.
If Blizzard actively villain-bats the Horde again though after all this… That would honestly feel like they’re openly trolling Horde fans.
Folks blaming Garrosh for the Twilight’s Hammer’s deception was kinda inevitable though, since while they didn’t kill the druids and weren’t committing the dismemberment/skinning alive of Sentinels, he did indeed have regular troops running around Ashenvale and harassing night elf holdings. The only reason the ruse held any water at all was because there were actual Horde forces skirmishing sporadically with the night elves at the time, and the cultists took advantage of that situation to escalate things.
Had the Twilight’s Hammer’s actions occurred in a time of relative peace decreasing tensions the whole things would have seemed suspicious to any observer, but the fact that it happened in tandem with actual aggressive Horde troop movements in the area that were under Garrosh’s orders made it seem that much more believable to the night elves and to Cairne. The preexisting fog of increasing hostilities and military posturing served to frame the cultists’ actions as a systematic escalation of what was already going on rather than reveal it as an opportunistic third party taking advantage of the situation to make things worse.
I wish they’d made Benedictus into a real world-spanning villain. I gather his betrayal was a big deal to the Alliance, but he was pretty much a literal “Who?” if you only played Horde, which I did at the time.
There was no self-expense but there was a lot of self-risk. Bringing in the Valkyr meant that she could’ve potentially lost them.
I was also pointing to the character who was shocked at Vol’jin appointing her warchief and stood in a moment of self-reflection at her situation.
That character is now “I will set us all freeeeeee”
And either way, Vol’jin didn’t make her warchief because of that, but because the loa told him to. (now retconned to evil Loa Mueh’zala)… when he told her “many will not understand”, I didn’t expect them to make it “many will not understand because it’s literally stupid”.
Man, watching that makes me feel good… briefly, until reality sets in. That moment could have been a great moment for the Horde.
It sucks how Blizzard found a way to make their previously awesome moments turn to to bile churning misery upon reflection.
That was a touching moment. The Horde uniting under Sylvanas, the woman who saved the Horde, to avenge Voljin.
Now, she was in on it? Great.
Yeah, I’m really salty about how BfA ruined Sylvanas for me. She used to be among my favorite characters. I can’t stand listening to her even talk anymore- she just sounds like generic villain #243, especially in Horde questing.
I’ve called her becoming a villain for so long, was just something that to me fit her character. Buuuut to appease the horde and forsaken Syl should’ve never ever been made warchief and Vol’jin should’ve never been killed, then her fall to villainy could’ve been a more meticulous thing or actually make her interesting.
It’s less so that she was evil and moreso the degree of evil. They made her unrepentantly evil for the sake of setting up an antagonist in BFA and pulled “The Jailer” out of thin air to sort of loosely explain her actions. They even wanted to introduce retcons to WC3 reforged to sort of help it make sense, before they ultimately just phoned it in.
Someone who callously embraces necessary evils, while not going out of her way to inflict them in the worst way possible, might had been an enticing route for Sylvanas, from the viewpoint of an audience. The Forsaken embrace taboo powers and unorthodox methods as a necessity for their continued existence- it doesn’t imply that all of the Forsaken are as evil as some of the heinous things that get down.
I would’ve been happy if she went that route. Thrall comes home, she decides the Horde needs someone who understands it at its core and while she was willing to hold the seat for the Legion invasion, she didn’t want it for the long run and preferred being left to her own devices.
I don’t really care she became evil anymore. But I still think they made it seem like she was going to grow into a character with some actual values. Primarily towards the Forsaken and then the Horde as a whole. Hinted at in say Edge of Night (somewhat), Dark Mirror, and Before the Storm. I certainly think it would have been within a realm of plausibility to show that instead of being of villain.
Appropriate and foreshadowed? Probably. But ‘cursing people with undeath’ wasn’t really shown as the bad as much as terribly horrific deaths and self-destructive acts.
I’m still not convinced she’s in the “villain” category yet.
I think it’s just my expectation that there’s “more” to the story rather than just Sylvanas getting drunk with power. There are too many interconnected parts that are “unresolved” and maybe they’re the end result of poor writing but I like to believe more than likely there is a story connecting them all.
After Arthas’ death, with a new Lich King wearing the Helm of Domination on the Frozen Throne, Sylvanas jumps to her own death. The Val’kyr show her Garrosh using the Forsaken as expendable objects, the remainder jumping into bonfires, but it wasn’t until she ended up “feeling” again - in an eternity of darkness and despair in the afterlife - that she agreed to bind the souls of the Val’kyr to her own. She even sees the Forsaken as her people, her shield from an eternity in torment, and her responsibility (especially where it comes to their inability to reproduce and how to overcome that obstacle).
Okay - we’ve all heard that. Except, a lot of the information seems to have some sort of ties into Shadowlands.
I’d also be lying if I didn’t say there appears to be some similarities to the craftsmanship of Frostmourne and the sword near the Jailer (and even the Jailer’s collar and Helm of Domination). That suggests a relationship between the Lich King, controller of the Scourge, and the Jailer.
So, spitballing here, Sylvanas sees an eternity of torment for her and possibly the Forsaken in the Maw under the Jailer. Eventually it will come to pass. Her plan? Side with the Jailer until she’s capable of overthrowing him to control the Maw as a better place for herself (and maybe the Forsaken too - she is a bit selfish).
Why burn Teldrassil? No clue, maybe she needed to convince the Jailer of her dedication to his efforts. But either way she’s shown she will do what it takes to achieve her goals and to prevent her own suffering.
Problem with forsaken is that they are a playable race so for gameplay purposes they need to adapt the story to guarantee their existence, after so many wars and conflicts undead presence wouldn’t make sense so an ambiguous character as Sylvanas is needed.
I mean, it was literally stupid, even at the time. Vol’jin had literally just became Warchief and he in his first major outing as such gets axed off by random fel guard no.50677 and plot poison to install Sylvanas. It’s literally something straight out of a bad fan fiction.
Not to mention they spend the entire Broken Shore scenario that would lead up to his death spotlighting Sylvanas and even his own death was made to prop up Sylvanas somehow. And the first thing she does as Warchief is to run off on a personal errand to steal Val’kyr off Odyn and consulting with Helya.
It’d been better if the Horde simply didn’t have a Warchief in Legion, it’s not like they did much anyways.
That’s not how they’re portrayed at all. Hell let’s take one of the more recently turned undead and get her thoughts on the matter;
"Plunder Harbor
I’m coming a bit more to my senses, name.
With Lilian’s help, perhaps I can come to accept this new fate.
Though I must say… the further I can get from Kul Tiras… the better.
Banshee’s Wail
It was… invigorating seeing those people get what they deserved.
Is this what it is like to be free? To set your own rules?
Perhaps I could get used to this"
Not sure I’d use words like invigorating or freedom to describe a curse worse than death.
Not to mention, the afterlife can definitely suck. Even outside of The Maw, there are said to be a lot of bad planes. Plus there still exist weird things that eat souls sometimes, with soul obliteration being described as the worse possible thing by Demon Hunters.
Yeah honestly undeath doesn’t sound that bad. Death Knights are a different story as they have to live off humanoid suffering. But regular ole’ boney bois? Sure you have to eat the flesh of humanoids to heal 'naturally and crave it.
But this is Azeroth. Murlocs, gnolls, quillboar, makuara, harpies, centaur, and much, much more fall under that umbrella. The nations of Azeroth treat those as pests nobody is going to care if you eat them.
If anything the undead are providing a public health service. How many adventurers leave just 20 corpses strewn about after every quest? At least the undead recycle.
And what I’d hoped for Slyvanas is she might become the Horde’s ruthless and pragmatic leader. Capable and more than willing to utilize cruelty and treachery but always for, at least from the Horde’s perspective, a greater good. Chaotic Neutral at worst, basically.
Edge of Night wasn’t the reason I stopped playing WoW, but it was the reason I never came back for the better part of a decade. The Forsaken really got the short end of the stick in Wrath and being told our dear leader thought of my faction the same way I think of toliet paper wasn’t exactly an apology. I still distinctly remember believing her seeing the Forsaken being devastated would be her It’s A Wonderful Life moment, only to turn the page and just being utterly insulted.
But that was a long time ago and in returning to Legion her presentation in the Silverpine questline and cinematic and Stormheim story was all aces. I thought maybe they’d abandoned that plot idea and wished they did.
Because Slyvanas could’ve been a great Warchief. She is wrathful and unrelenting but she was also deeply respectful of at least undead free will. She’d been made a puppet before and wouldn’t do that to others. She was also a proven tactican and statesman who basically saved the Sin’Dorei and mustered the Forsaken into a nation.
In the War of Thorns I was interested in her relationship with Saurfang. I’d thought walking in that’d be a fun dynamic. Saurfang would be the voice of the more honorable Horde pushing Windy away from her worst urges.
She could’ve been a great villain to the Alliance and a great hero to the Horde. Someone willing to do the unspeakable for her people, but for her people.
Instead she’s a selfish lunatic and nothing in the decade between Edge of Night and BFA changed a thing.
I hate her more than any Alliance fan does, or more aptly her writer’s, because - well;
Enslaving a people or a person for your own benefit isn’t evil? Like am i living in the same planet as Horde players?
Yeah, sorry for popping in on a two day old comment but, yeah no.
We’re not talking about GoTG2 Rocket stealing some batteries; inert objects that are ultimately replaceable. We’re talking about the enslavement of sentient beings. A ‘race’ of beings in the case of the val’kyr. For an indefinite amount of time. That would’ve been evil.