We, the player, may know it’s pretty cut and dry. The characters did not though.
This is the 3rd to the last quest in the zone, where the Alliance openly admit to not having a clue what Sylvanas wants.
The very next quest:
the Alliance figure it out. And the final quest:
Is the confrontation.
The attack on the Horde flagship was solely for revenge. Justified revenge on Genn’s part, but lets not kid ourselves into thinking that it was all fine because it turns out Sylvanas was doing bad things.
What happens if Blizzard writes that Teldrassil and the elves in it were a Old God instrument and all the elves in it were slowly infecting Azeroth so Sylvanas had to put them down? It would feel pretty dirty for people to say “Oh well ya she burned the tree and it was terrible, but LOOK! she was totally right in the end so it’s all fine!”.
Being retroactively justified is a very slippery slope.
Its also the home of the Vrykul, so not as cut and dry as you think. Not a good justification for an attack on an ‘ally’ in the middle of a demon invasion.
They don’t know the specifics, but they know she is after something. Which I argue they know from the beginning. And there is no discernible proof that isn’t the case. In fact, I think there is more circumstantial evidence that at least Anduin knew that right away.
With the vagueness of this statement, and the Alliance knowing the Vrykul had the Aegis of Aggramar, something the Alliance should have been concerned about should have been that Sylvanas was seeking to steal the power of the Pillar of Creation for herself. In that way, the Alliance would have been working to stop an enemy from getting their hands on one, just like they were doing in all the other locations on the Broken Isles.
I mean, you can argue that they knew it from the beginning. But you’re going to need to provide proof that they did. We have quest text stating that they didn’t know what she was after, only that she was after something. I’d be hard pressed to believe that someone wanting something is reason enough to try and murder them. Especially when that someone is the leader of the Horde and would very likely restart a war.
A valid point, however it’s not backed up by any dialogue by any NPC or Dev statements anywhere. I don’t read too heavily into lore though, so if you can link me to something proving otherwise I’d appreciate the update.
After the fact. Genn did the right thing after the fact.
In the moment though, he had zero information other than “she wants something” and he openly tried to kill her and restart a war. If Sylvanas hadn’t been trying to enslave Eyir, would he still be right?
And if he’s right, I’d pose my Old God corrupted Teldrassil example. If Teldrassil is shown after the fact to have been the correct move, would you defend Sylvanas for it like you’re doing with Genn?
I’m not sure what you’re asking here. All that’s legible in the captain’s log is a letter v. The Vrkyul were the only thing in Stormheim that the Alliance knew of importance that started with the letter v. The Pillars of Creation were also the only thing the Alliance knew of importance on the Broken Isles. As everyone has pointed out, the Alliance did not know what Sylvanas was after. But that should have been the Alliance’s first worry, specifically because they didn’t know about the Val’kyr.
Luckily this is a moot example, as the cleaning and blessing of Teldrassil was not just in a novel, but brought up in-game as well.
Speculating on what-ifs seems pretty useless when Genn’s intuition was so spot on. What is the big take away here? That Genn was a judgmental jerk who acted from a place of emotion? Or that Genn’s venom and hateful ire was completely correct?
I think we should be more concerned that he was right. It’s not just emotional driven rage at that point. It is a true and accurate perception of evil.
I would blame Sylvanas for burning so many innocent people to death before I blame her for destroying Teldrassil.
We know Teldrassil wasn’t corrupted though, because it carried the blessings of the Dragonflights.
I don’t think we can say that definitively. It could just as likely be a true and objective judgment of Sylvanas’ moral character. One that he was correct about.
Fair, but again, what should be the big take away when making justifications for war? Because that’s how this entire conversation started. Genn’s actions was what made War of Thorns justifiable. But that’s only if you are ignoring the context of the situation, and ignoring the reasons such actions were necessary.
To be fair, neither Sylvanas nor Saurfang ever actually mention Genn to any of the Horde soldiers under them when they hype them up for the War of the Thorns, so Genn’s actions aren’t really relevant to why the Horde soldiers went along with it.
I assumed the idea was that ultimately it wouldn’t matter if Sylvanas was trying to do something wrong or not (and I feel dirty even trying to make this argument). That Genn attacked without knowing for certain is supposedly the reason why the horde couldn’t trust the alliance to trust the horde in the future, so you may as well be the bad guy and try to force a peace on your own terms.
Of course, the whole thing feels like nonsense because if that was really the case, I’d think Sylvanas wouldn’t have agreed to what was supposed to be a peaceful meeting anyway in Before the Storm. I feel like it throws away what sliver of justification there possibly could have had because as usual, Sylvanas just had to be the unrepentant bad guy from start to finish.
Sorry I misread your original message. I thought you said that the Alliance did know something was going on, not that they should have known. In that you’re correct, they should have.
Not really a moot example. If Blizzard wants the tree to be corrupted, it will be corrupted, whether or not it was ingame or in a novel. Similar to Sylvanas’ inner monologue being disregarded for her character despite being ingame and a novel.
Don’t get me wrong, it would be a terrible idea. But given the state of lore these past years, I wouldn’t put it past them shrug
True, they are relevant to why Saurfang went along with it.
But that was only because Sylvanas onitted the part she played in that conflict. So it a funny to me when Horde players bring that up as a justification for the War of Thorns. Because it just means they are gullible enough to go along with Sylvanas manipulation despite objectively knowing the truth.
And they say “Well Genn didn’t know, so his actions aren’t justified.”
I explained how he might know. But even if he didn’t, he made a judgment call, one that we all can understand and rationalize. And it turned out to be true.
So, it’s just Horde players being desperate for some Alliance guilt once again.
And we now know in hindsight that it was a manipulation to make Saurfang an accomplice to genocide. So… again, why are we acting like assuming the worst of her is completely unwarranted?