I have Akiyass permantly ignored, I don’t care what she has to say.
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Casual reminder that no canonical proof was provided.
And yet, here you are. Still waiting for those quotes that you “Can totally get but just don’t feel like it.”
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Be Karestae
Accuse someone of saying something
they deny it and asks for proof
Can’t provide proof
ignore person asking for proof
pretend like you are somehow justified.
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I’m conflicted about this in a petty and sour way. It’s not only that it’s alliance characters doing it, but that it feels like the story justifies this in two different ways. Both in the “good person forced to do something bad for a greater good, but it’s okay because it works” and “there’s no morally relative way to be equal or worse than the horde at this point” angles.
And it’s like…ugh. Because at the same time, it’s not something I’d actually WANT my character or faction to participate in, but I feel like I just finished getting dragged along through an expansion where I don’t feel like I’m playing a hero, just to hear about a couple of opposite faction NPCs get “you can have a little bad, as a treat” and still be called heroes and given understanding, even some pity for it.
I dunno, it just feels like a big jumble to me. Kinda like how I both simultaneously hate feeling like a loser, but at the same time I wouldn’t want BFA’s horde to win in any way. So it’s like there was no way to enjoy myself as soon as the expansion was announced.
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Can someone tell Akiyass I have her on ignore and not to waste her time? I literally can’t see anything she says and I have no interest in anything she says.
Casual reminder that what Alleria did was, by definition, torture but because you don’t define it as torture it apparently isn’t.
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Yeah, cause for a long while Alliance was the righteaous do no wrong side.
Everyone disliked that
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Then how do you know I am saying anything? Maybe because you are a liar? Like the time you accused me I said something I didn’t?
Casual reminded that I never say it wasn’t torture. I merely made a distinction because, unlike torture as we know it, this was actually effective and saved lives.
I felt the distinction was necessary to reframe your recounting of the event. I should have suspected that you would have difficulty grasping that concept.
I feel that. So much of this thread shows that a lot of Horde players feel the same way, but are less articulate or less aware.
I do not think Horde fans are necessarily wrong that, even if Alleria’s actions were not justified, Alliance players would still defend it. My point this entire time has not been to be an apologist, but to accurately recount how it has been written.
That’s the thing, Alliance players don’t seem to have a problem with being morally ambiguous. The problem is Blizzard panders to the Male Human Paladin, and wont let, say, Night Elves be the Savage amazons they are suppose to be. Or the cold and calculating, pragmaticism to a fault Void Elves. Or the Imperialist and culturally suppressive humans.
Those are things I want, but have been so far denied. It is more likely that Tyrande is going to go on a mindless revenge spree and end up getting loot pinataed while Shandris praises human exceptionalism. I don’t want that any more than Horde players want that for their characters.
But, I am an Alliance poster sharing inconvenient truths, so I am a bad guy, apparently. Even though, at no point have I said this is how it SHOULD be. I have only ever said that it is the way it IS.
And it’s like Horde posters cant make up their mind up, if the Horde is wrongly portrayed, or is Blizzard is doing a fantastic job?
This is what I have been saying… But Horde posters make it out like I am suggesting that is a good thing.
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False.
You literally said that since what Alleria did was effective that it wasn’t torture.
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No, I said there was a difference between having magically amplified insights into drawing forth life saving information, and real life torture where no such insights are possible.
Sorry I didn’t break it down well enough for you.
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My personal take is that in order for the horde fantasy to work (or at least the one Blizzard sold), I think the faction actually needs to be the one unjustly kicked around or abused. You can’t be the underdog unless you’re actually under the other dog. But that innately clashes with the WC2-chasing themes of the horde playing the part of monsters that the alliance heroically repels, and that requires that the horde be the one to take the first offensive because the good guys are out of a job if no evil is going on.
But the writing seems to want this to go both ways. The most direct path has been the horde “finding itself” with a civil war, which gets narrative focus to explain why the superior, badass WC2 horde is eating itself from the inside. I think this leaves the alliance feeling left out because…they really don’t need that extra justification to fight the evil horde. That already happened in their respective prepatches.
But now that this has happened for the third time (I’m counting Warcraft 3’s Grom face-heel-face turn here in spirit), the game’s left with one faction that just can’t seem to stop themselves and another faction that looks idiotic for letting it happen. I wasn’t happy with MoP’s faction war but I was willing to overlook it as a mulligan or relapse, but BFA’s just felt disastrous. And ultimately, whether the horde player sided with Sylvanas or Saurfang (who are both still war criminals; one’s just depressed about it), the player has to “play along” to progress the story.
Meh, I know I’m just ranting here and this is stuff I’ve been whining about for almost two years now. To put it mildly, it sucks that my stupid little unconventional hero fantasy got twisted at a time when I feel like I needed that kind of outlet more than ever to get away from IRL problems.
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The way you word your posts just comes off as very arrogant so naturally people are defensive.
It’s hard to tell what you want from Alliance characterization when you say stuff like “torture is justified because it gets results”.
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Here you go with that downplaying again.
Yes or No?
Did Alleria torture an Alliance civilian in front of their children to get information?
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Again, just so nobody gets it twists. Torture, IRL, doesn’t work. It is very ineffective, far to ineffective to justify someone’s suffering.
Azeroth is a fantasy world where magic exists though. So, its not that Alleria’s methods proved to be good retroactively, rather she was provided magical insights that lead her to believe that those methods would deliver her the information needed, in a manner that was timely and necessary to save lives. Those insights were proven to be correct with Sira’s capture.
That is a far cry from “Let’s torture this person and maybe we will get something useful.”
It is the distinction between “This might work” and “This will work” that makes all the difference. And with the meta knowledge of how things play out as a result of those actions, we can say objectively that the ends justified the means.
I personally like that for Alleria. It is the cold calculous that I find appropriate for someone weaponizing the void. There is no empathy of compassion, but merely the pragmaticism of “Many is more important than few”
And of course, it is morally ambiguous. It makes people uncomfortable, as one might expect from a Void Elf. I have only argues, is it evil? Which I don’t think anyone can actually say. You can certainly say “This goes against my personal, moral beliefs, and not something I would do or condone.” But, anyone with a vague knowledge of Star Trek can understand the premise of “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
What I don’t like about Alliance charactiztion is, as mentioned before, the pandering to the male human paladin, and it being the core of Alliance identity. I much rather see more the likes of Garithos. I would much rather believe that Shaw intentionally let the War of Thorns happen as a means of justifying war with the Horde. I would much rather have the likes of Calia, Derek, Delaryn, and Baine be manipulated as political puppets by Stormwind, influencing detrimental or Alliance favoring policy for the Horde, and make that a result of Alliance subterfuge, rather than just Horde leaders being weak, which seems to be the current state.
I don’t want there to be clear good guys and bad guys. I am just saying, right now, the lines are pretty clear.
You know, that’s a really good point. It’s like, the very setting is inherently inhospitable to what Blizzard wants to do. Which, honestly, is pretty garbage writing. It shows a completely lack of care with the story. Like pushing a square peg into a round hole. Change the story to accommodate the world, don’t change the world to fit your garbage story.
Read what I said above.
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There are some solutions that I can think of. First, more nuance and substance in Blizzard’s writing. Which probably wont happen. There would need to be some actual politics to personify the individualism of Horde and Alliance citizens, and their nuanced and variated opinions.
The other solution is just to say both factions are BS. The Horde being the oppressed underdog and the Alliance being Knightly heroes… All propaganda. neither being true, and merely the ego of each refusing to take responsibility for themselves and their own behavior.
I don’t even think that’s the point. You shouldn’t be asking “well, did magical torture work for Alleria?” You should instead be asking “what am I supposed to feel about Alleria, when she does very questionable things?”
So she tortures a mom with a small child. Are we supposed to feel conflicted? Or are we supposed to shrug it off because she got results? Does it even matter if she got results? Did the mom deserve it?
I think that having a character torture someone, be successful and then not have that character lose any good guy points is bad writing.
Yeah, that sounds pretty neat, actually. Hopefully that was conveyed clearly in the story. Hopefully the story wasn’t written in a way that makes it seem like what Alleria did was “objectively right”.
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No one has mentioned in real life torture but you. It’s a strawman.
You refuse to call what Alleria did torture.
Justifiable or otherwise, it’s torture.
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Why? Why is the predictable thing the only option that is “good writing?”
Don’t misunderstand me. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t comment on it’s writing quality. I just don’t think having a character do something morally questionable, that achieves a greater good, should be inherently bad. Have you never done a renegade run of Mass Effect. Renegade Shepard is a jerk, but he is still a good guy who saves the galaxy.
Again, why can’t we say it was objectively right? if we can’t measure objectiveness by the mathematical quantity of lives saved, then by what means can it be measured? Is how it makes the reader “Feel” somehow a more true indication of right and wrong?
It’s not like Alleria was given a Halo and Angel wings… She creeped out everyone, including her own husband. But at the end of the day, there are far more people who get to continue their existence than otherwise.
I am not refusing… I have called it such repeatedly throughout the thread… I am just not interested in the semantics. I think the means and rational is far more important.
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I think the main problem is that the faction war does not work with the type of game Blizzard wishes to design. Why can’t we be different flavors of hero saving the world from the villain of the year?
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do something morally questionable
inherently bad
It’s kinda in the name, is it not? It’s morally questionable.
Sure, you can be a jerk with a heart of gold, you can chaotic good. Whatever you want to call it. But usually those jerks admit that they’re jerks. Or at the very least the narrative makes it clear that they are jerks. They commit crimes, they hurt people. The story never makes us feel like those deeds aren’t shtty, tho. They do lose good guy points. They’re asholes!
If what Alleria did isn’t morally questionable, what are we supposed to think about the mom? Did she deserve it? If so, why?