Why is Alliance lore so bad?

Lore Story Forum
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I want to emphasize that this post will primarily focus on the current state of Alliance lore and how we got to where we are now. You can argue that Horde lore is also in a bad state and I would agree, but this specific post I’m making is focusing on Alliance lore.

Alliance lore prior to and during Wrath of the Lich King wasn’t always the greatest, but it REALLY took a nosedive after the end of that xpac. I really don’t want this post to be a grocery list of bad Alliance lore moments/themes, but I don’t really know how else to structure this post. I’ll do my best to list these moments/themes and explain why I believe they’re bad. This is going to be a massive post, so buckle up boys and girls.

Themes:

  • Almost complete lack of racial/cultural identity with most Alliance races but the Horde enjoys in abundance. This is especially bad for humans. The humans are almost universally tied to the Kingdom of Stormwind despite there having existed 6 other kingdoms: Lordaeron, Alterac, Dalaran, Gilneas, Stromgarde, and Kul Tiras. The orc heritage questline emphasized the major orc clans and their culture and background, but the human heritage questline makes absolutely no mention of the other human kingdoms. Even Turalyon, a Lordaeron noble and the de facto human leader with Anduin gone, isn’t even mentioned or shown in the questline. Sure we have Gilneas and Kul Tiras as part of the Alliance, but they, along with every other Alliance nation, frequently play second fiddle to Stormwind. The human heritage questline also just rehashed old lore for the storyline and didn’t advance the story of Stormwind at all, nor did it or introduce new themes/concepts like the orc heritage questline did with the Kosh’harg festival and the om’gora. As much as Stormwind is pushed to the forefront of the story, the kingdom has no unique culture or anything that makes it interesting. It’s the most bland medieval fantasy Western European nation in any fantasy setting I’ve seen. The story of Stormwind also is told almost exclusively from the point of view of the Wrynn family… which I will absolutely be coming back to. And yes, I know that most of the other human kingdoms have been destroyed or gone neutral in the case of Dalaran, but there would have to be refugees from those kingdoms living in Stormwind, but they aren’t represented at all.
  • The dwarves have unique culture and heritage with their three clans: The Bronzebeards, Wildhammers, and Dark Irons. But the dwarves basically sit around and do nothing in the story while the bland humans of Stormwind take the spotlight.
  • The gnomes STILL don’t control their own capital city in game after being refugees for nearly 20 real life years. While the Darkspear trolls fully reclaimed the Echo Isles after WotLK, the gnomes still haven’t fully reclaimed Gnomeregan. I’ll be coming back to the point of refugees later.
  • The night elves… oh boy, the night elves. Someone at Blizzard must have a personal vendetta against night elves because they get screwed over non-stop. Malfurion Stormrage withdrew the night elf army from Ashenvale during Cataclysm and let the Horde have free reign over their ancestral home. In Mists of Pandaria, Tyrande for some reason submits herself to Varian Wrynn and calls him High King, despite her being 10,000+ years older than him and having significantly more experience in things like war and politics. The Burning of Teldrassil being a nelf genocide and displacing a significant portion of their population from their home. Ardenweald being a cheap knockoff of the Emerald Dream. The Night Warrior story arc went absolutely nowhere and the powerups Tyrande got from it did nothing because she was literally about to choke out Sylvanas, and then Elune weakens her and allows Sylvanas to escape. Elune… probably the worst deity in any fictional setting. In Battle for Azeroth she does nothing to aid the night elves as the Horde invades their land during the War of Thorns, in Shadowlands she doesn’t save the souls of her worshippers from the Maw despite Bwonsambdi being able to save troll souls from the Maw, and actively restricts her champion’s power to let the one who killed so many of her people to escape. And when Sylvanas is finally apprehended and at Tyrande’s mercy… she lets her go. Sure Sylvanas is in the Maw helping the souls she condemned to be there find their proper afterlife, but to me that’s not a fitting punishment for the myriad of crimes she’s committed not just against the night elves, but all living creatures on Azeroth. And while the undead get their homeland back less than two xpac periods after they lost it, the night elves were still refugees in Stormwind. Then in Dragonflight the wild seed that Tyrande got from Ardenweald isn’t used to restore either Teldrassil or Nordrassil in Kalimdor, but grow an entirely new world tree in the Dragon Isles. While of course night elves still live in Northern Kalimdor, the world tree is basically their capital city. Why was it not planted in Kalimdor, their ancestral homeland? On top of that, the night elves lost their savage warrior nature that they had in Warcraft 3. Blizzard neutered them and then basically made them subservient to Stormwind.
  • The worgen/Gilneans not having their homeland back and being eternal refugees in Stormwind. Blizzard said we’re going to be seeing them reclaim Gilneas in game; that’s fine, but until we see it happen, they’re stuck in Stormwind along with the night elves. Why were the undead allowed to reclaim their home after less than two full xpac periods, but not the night elves, Gilneans/worgen, or gnomes? Why are so many Alliance races displaced from their homes and living forever as refugees?
  • The draenei are in a weird state, although do they have the least crappy lore of all Alliance races. Warlords of Draenor gave us an uncorrupted version of their major settlement they had in Outland, Karabor, which of course became the Black Temple, but the settlement has no interior and you can’t actually go inside and explore the interior of the buildings, and despite Karabor having a dock/harbor, there are no unique draenei oceangoing ships/vessels in game. As WoD closed out, the draenei were forced to work with the Iron Horde against Gul’dan and the demon-corrupted orcs, even though the Iron Horde had actively tried to exterminate them as the original Horde did in the main timeline. The Legion expansion, in my opinion, gave the draenei a good ending to the story of their rivalry with the Burning Legion. Although they couldn’t reclaim their homeworld of Argus, they helped deal the Legion a devastating blow by getting rid of the demons’ method of quick resurrection in Antorus and helping imprison Sargeras with Illidan and the Titan Pantheon.
  • The Alliance allied races… generally suck. Overall, I think the allied races shouldn’t have been made as entirely new playable races, but instead have their unique character customization given to the core races of each faction, but I digress. The Lightforged draenei are in the same boat as the regular draenei, in that without the Burning Legion to fight, they’re rather irrelavent in the lore despite Turalyon being the new Alliance leader and their commander/general… plus we never see their ship the Vindicaar do anything. Void elves were a cool idea on paper, but executed badly, and aren’t a good substitute for playable high elves, who have been a core Alliance race since Warcraft 2. They’re rather limited in what they can do with void elf lore outside of void/Old God stuff, but even in patches 8.2 and 8.3 when Azshara and N’Zoth were out and about, the void elves didn’t show up at all. What a waste. They should have just been regular high elves from the start. The Dark Iron Dwarves have had the most development out of the 3 dwarven clans, but like their cousins they still play second fiddle to Stormwind. Kul Tirans are easily the best Alliance allied race in terms of lore, as their whole kingdom was one of the selling points of BFA and their lore is great… but they still take a backseat to Stormwind, AND their fleet was entirely wiped out in the same xpac they were introduced in, and their fleet wasn’t even wiped out in a freaking NAVAL BATTLE. If the Kul Tiran fleet HAD to be destroyed for the story (which it definitely didn’t) then it should’ve gone down in a massive naval battle. Weird that for the naval themed expansion pack, there were basically no naval battles between the Alliance and Horde. Mechagnomes have meh lore and as a playable race are super restrictive with their physical appearance, as their mechanical body parts limit their transmog options. Mechagnomes are my least favorite Alliance allied race.
  • The Alliance is centered almost entirely on the human Kingdom of Stormwind, which I’ve already said before is an incredibly bland and boring nation. Every single other Alliance race and nation is essentially subservient to Stormwind and aren’t shown off in the story on their own without Stormwind being involved somehow: even in the Kul Tiran questline to unlock the race, Kul Tiras gives their best ship and best crew to Stormwind. Stormwind literally hijacked Kul Tiras’ theme of naval supremacy, and then we never see or hear of that ship or its’ crew ever again. The Alliance being homogenized under Stormwind is detrimental for the racial/cultural development and story of the non-human races, and Stormwind being as boring and bland as it is just makes it even worse.
  • The Alliance is constantly portrayed as foolish and incompetent when it comes to warfare. They are never prepared for when the Horde attacks, nor are they prepared for WHAT the Horde throws at them, despite being at war with them numerous times for extended periods of time. I’ll go into more detail in the ‘moments’ section, but as a quick example, the Alliance had nothing to counter the Forsaken blight at the Battle for Lordaeron at the start of BFA, even though they knew that they had blight from past experience. That moment of incompetence/unpreparedness cost the Alliance thousands of soldiers’ lives and hampered their push further into the ruins of Capital City.
  • The main cast of Alliance characters are AWFUL. Let’s start with Anduin Wrynn, everyone’s absolute favorite Alliance character. Not only is he written badly, but he’s constantly shoved in our faces. Prior to Legion, his constant preaching about peace in a setting literally called “WARcraft” was insufferable. Anduin did have a good story arc in Legion and the start of BFA trying to follow in Varian’s footsteps as a strong king and a good war leader, but then he made the BFA war all about going after Sylvanas rather than punishing the Horde for the war crimes it committed under her leadership. Anduin can never do anything that is morally questionable or bad. He is so focused on being the good guy that he is boring and annoying. Genn Greymane is the only Gilnean/worgen character who does anything, but the only thing he does is basically act as Anduin’s advisor and nothing else. Jaina Proudmoore constantly flip-flops on loving or hating the Horde depending on what the story needs her to do, and it is incredibly annoying and makes no sense. Jaina getting no closure with Arthas in Shadowlands was absolutely criminal: they were lovers and were even in an arranged marriage at one point. Turalyon has been the de facto human/Alliance leader since Anduin was taken to the Shadowlands and has done nothing since taking up that role. Magni Bronzebeard is one of the few relevant Alliance characters and even then he’s been neutral since Legion and all he does is shout about Azeroth’s “WOONZ!” Khadgar is also neutral, but not in a good way. Him being neutral in WoD would have been fine if he had at least leaned toward the Alliance like how Thrall was neutral but still leaned toward the Horde, but Khadgar was completely neutral. Same deal with him in Legion. In BFA he should have absolutely rejoined the Alliance: him being neutral and ‘helping’ deal with Sargeras’ sword was just bad. He didn’t even do anything in that situation. The Horde starting a new war of aggression and genociding the night elves was apparently not enough for Khadgar to even consider rejoining the Alliance and aiding his faction of origin. Besides these characters, most other Alliance characters just sit around and do nothing. Darius and Lorna Crowley, Ivar Bloodfang, Velen (really any draenei) post Legion, Grayson Shadowbreaker, Shandris Feathermoon, Mia and Tess Greymane, any gnome who isn’t Gelbin Mekkatorque, Muradin Bronzebeard, Kurdran and Falstad Wildhammer, Moira Bronzebeard/Thaurissan and her son, Proudmoores who aren’t Jaina or Daelin, Magister Umbric, Alleria Windrunner (really any void elf), I could go on. The Alliance sure has a of characters but the grand majority of them are irrelevant and do absolutely nothing, or if they do anything, they aren’t allowed to share the same spotlight with Anduin, Jaina or Genn.

Moments:

  • The Broken Front in Icecrown in Wrath of the Lich King. The Alliance was on the verge of a major victory against the Scourge, the main threat of WotLK, but then the Horde comes out of nowhere and starts killing the Alliance. Then the Scourge kill everybody and start raising bodies to replace their losses. Of course this moment isn’t the Alliance’s fault, but even if relations between the factions fell apart because of the Wrathgate, this is a bad look for the Horde and reinforces a point about the Alliance that I’ll make later.
  • The Battle for Andorhal in Cataclysm. The Alliance was caught off guard and didn’t expect the Forsaken to have val’kyr to raise dead Alliance troops, costing them what otherwise may have been a victorious battle.
  • The Battle for Swamp of Sorrows in Cataclysm. Despite the Alliance commander of Marshtide losing her parents to the Horde, she says she won’t stoop down to the Horde’s level and leaves a fully intact Horde fortress in Stormwind’s backyard. If you’re a Horde character questing in Swamp of Sorrows, the Horde commander doesn’t even recognize their losses and declares the battle a victory for the Horde.
  • The Alliance not using anti-undead forces like priests or paladins against the Forsaken in the Plaguelands. The Alliance would have just had a lot of priests and paladins gain valuable experience during the war against the Scourge in WotLK, so it made no sense that they just didn’t use those forces against another undead enemy in Cataclysm.
  • The Creation of the Council of Three Hammers just before Cataclysm. Varian stomped all over dwarven independence/sovereignty and forced the three clans to work together, and none of the dwarves pushed back whatsoever. To me, the very existence of the council itself was Blizzard’s way of making the dwarves be ‘too busy’ to do anything big in lore and take a back seat to Stormwind again.
  • Gilneas rejoining the Alliance in Cataclysm but then losing their homeland in the same xpac they were introduced. The Gilneans put up a valiant effort in resisting the Forsaken invasion, but somehow even with support from the night elves and then the main Alliance army, they STILL lost. And of course Prince Liam being the superior prince to Anduin: standing on the front lines of battle, making rousing speeches to inspire the troops, and not preaching about peace despite all the war and death right in front of him. But since Liam stood in the way of Blizzard’s precious undead elf queen, he had to die. Despite both the goblins and worgen losing their homeland in the same xpac they were introduced in, the goblins got their own town in Bilgewater Harbor while the worgen were just shoved into Stormwind City and Darnassus and that was that. They could have gotten their own unique town/enclave in Duskwood where they fit perfectly in terms of theme and aesthetic, but they didn’t get anything like that. In addition, the status of Gilneas itself changes constantly. First it’s in Forsaken control, then Alliance control, then it’s plagued and abandoned and then back in someone’s control. And at the end of Shadowlands, why did the Alliance have to negotiate with the Forsaken to get their troops withdrawn from Gilneas despite the BFA war being over for years at that point, and the Alliance also having Gilneas surrounded by their own forces? Makes absolutely no sense.
  • The Forsaken literally having a concentration camp for human captives in Hillsbrad in Cataclysm. Like… really? Why? The Alliance gets crap all the time for the orc internment camps that existed after the Second War, but no one bats an eye when the Forsaken do the same thing but worse. I know the Horde have a questline to depose the Forsaken mayor/governor/whatever that’s responsible for the camp, but the fact that Blizzard put it in the game at all is baffling.
  • The Horde raid group in the Dragon Soul raid riding the Skyfire, an Alliance airship, to chase Deathwing. At this point, the Alliance and Horde were still very much at war. Why on earth would the Alliance allow their enemies to hitch a ride on one of their airships, one of the Alliance’s most valuable weapons?
  • The Destruction of Theramore before the start of Mists of Pandaria. Theramore was somewhat of a contintuation of the Kingdom of Lordaeron after it fell to the Scourge, and was made up of humans from various kingdoms plus members of the other Alliance races. So why did it need to be destroyed? Because according to Blizzard, apparently the Alliance wasn’t taking the war with the Horde seriously enough, despite the war covering most of the known world at that point, so they level a beloved city and leave it in ruins forever.
  • The Alliance story at the start of Mists of Pandaria being chasing Anduin around an entirely new, unexplored and hostile continent. And then when the Alliance finally find him, Anduin runs away again. Besides how silly it is to keep chasing him around, Anduin should have known better. As the sole heir to the throne of Stormwind, if he died, House Wrynn would cease to exist once Varian passed away, which would create a power vacuum and start a civil war between nobles vying for the throne.
  • The Alliance being forced to help the Horde rebels take down Garrosh after he randomly became a villain. Not only is the Alliance forced to help them, but I recall some troll headhunters insulting the Alliance player sent to negotiate with them saying something like “look at what washed up from Theramore.” Even the Horde rebels who we were supposed to be helping were laughing at us and rubbing salt in the wound caused by the warchief they supposedly hated. During the Siege of Orgrimmar, Sylvanas raised dead human soldiers as Forsaken right in front of everybody, and the Alliance didn’t call her out on it or try to punish her. And when Garrosh was finally deposed, did the Alliance ask for some concessions from the Horde? Did they request territories that were conquered during the war to be given back? Did they ask for monetary reparations to pay for damages caused by battles? Did they request to do a prisoner exchange so soldiers on both sides could go back home and see their families? No, the Alliance demanded nothing from the Horde because the Alliance are incompetent, spineless idiots.
  • The Alliance being unprepared for a new war once the Legion was defeated. From the War of Thorns short story and how it’s portrayed in game, the Horde army defeats the night elves and make it all the way to Darkshore in a matter of days and then the Burning of Teldrassil happens. Makes the night elves look toothless and pathetic, and unable to properly defend their homeland.
  • The Alliance being unprepared for the Forsaken blight at the Battle for Lordaeron at the beginning of BFA. The Forsaken used blight on Alliance captives in vanilla, they used it at the Wrathgate in WotLK, they used it in Gilneas, Southshore, Andorhal and Silverpine in Cataclysm, and they used it at the Warden Towers in Legion. Why, why, WHY would the Alliance not expect the Forsaken to use the blight again to defend their capital city from attack? It makes them look like absolute idiots.
  • The Alliance attacking Dazar’alor, the capital of Zandalar, and killing King Rastakhan, even though the Zandalari weren’t full members of the Horde yet. All that did was guarentee that the Zandalari would join the Horde for their own protection, giving the Horde a new permanent ally. Another moment of sheer incompetence and stupidity.
  • The Alliance being forced to help the Horde depose another warchief, Sylvanas this time. And once again, the Alliance asks for nothing in return for helping them.
  • Shadowlands retconned a lot of old lore, especially Alliance lore… and the retcons were beyond terrible. Uther the Lightbringer, one of the most iconic human paladins in all of Warcraft who said to Arthas that “vengeance cannot be a part of what we must do”, turns into a vengeful a-hole who threw Arthas’ soul into the Maw behind everybody’s backs. Arthas went from being a deep fallen hero archetype character to a puppet mind controlled by the Jailer with no free will of his own. And even though Arthas was mind controlled by Zovaal, he apparently is irredeemable, but Sylvanas who did way more evil things than Arthas ever did apparently is redeemable, as long as she helps souls escape Warcraft Hell. Incredible double standard. I hope Anduin and Sylvanas stay in the Shadowlands forever, but given how obsessed Blizzard is with those two characters, they’ll be back before we know it.

As my final point, I’ll boil it down to this: The story of Warcraft is driven from the Horde perspective, while the Alliance exists on the sideline to act as the Horde’s punching bag. The Alliance can never do anything morally questionable, and if they do, they are eternally condemned for it by everybody while the Horde’s numerous war crimes are ignored and swept under the rug. I don’t even care that the Alliance lose battles and wars; it would be silly and unfair to the Horde if the Alliance just won all the time. But the fact that they are so incompetent and stupid is painful as a longtime Alliance player. Let me also say this: I do not want the Horde to be beaten badly to make up for the Alliance’s awfulness; I want both factions to have good lore, but not if it means one faction is propped up at the expense of the other.

I think I’ve made my opinion on the state of Alliance lore abundantly clear. Alliance lore isn’t simply bad, it’s downright terrible. I’ve never seen any group, faction, organization, or set of characters in any fictional setting written as terribly as the Alliance is in the Warcraft universe. Not that the Horde has it good; the Horde is written badly too, but absolutely nowhere nearly as bad as the Alliance is. And at this point, I’m convinced that Blizzard writes the Alliance this badly on purpose. No wonder the Alliance playerbase is dying.

I’ve rambled on for long enough, so I’ll finish off by asking you, my humble readers, your thoughts on the matter. Are there any Alliance themes, concepts, or moments that I missed? What can Blizzard do to rectify this problem? Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

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Took a minute to read this, and I agree with a large amount of it, but there were some issues I took with it.

It wasn’t a cheap knockoff of the Emerald Dream. Ardenweald is connected to the Emerald Dream, as the Emerald Dream relates to life and nature, Ardenweald relates to the connection between death and nature. It’s why the leader there is called the Winter Queen.

This argument feels weak to me. I get Anduin being irritating in MoP, but justifying that annoyance by stating that it’s “WARcraft” makes it sound like anyone not wanting to constantly be at war would be out of place in this universe.

Again, I get Anduin being annoying, but there are plenty of characters who don’t do anything questionable or bad that are less divisive. Just a few off the top of my head are: Tirion Fordring, Prophet Velen, Gazlowe, Vol’jin, Muradin Bronzebeard, and Khadgar.

That said, I think I see what you mean, I’d say it’s probably that the others are just morally good, but with Anduin (and a couple others, like Baine and Thrall), Blizz constantly keeps stating how they are the paragons of good in comparison to others (which I’ll agree, get’s old fast)

Personally, heavily disagree. Khadgar has become the closest thing to a truly neutral major character, which makes sense, as he is essentially THE Kirin Tor character and now the Guardian as well after Legion.

He’s basically been a neutral character for as long as he’s been in the game, even helping players get into Karazhan in TBC regardless of faction. Plus, this is just my personal opinion, but Khadgar from WoD to now has been one of the most enjoyable characters in the game.

I could be wrong, but did the Alliance even know that Sylvanas had recruited the Val’kyr yet? If not, that’s not an example of Alliance incompetence; that’s an example of Sylvanas outplaying them by catching them off guard.

I mean, Deathwing was kinda the bigger threat in the room. The Horde ship got destroyed literally a few seconds prior, not like you can just tell the Horde to take their own gunship.

I just don’t think Anduin cared, tbh. In fact, given his disappearance after Shadowlands, I’m not convinced he does now either.

If you want a better explanation, it’s a common trope for characters to not even consider that their parents or guardians can die, especially if said parent or guardian is a larger than life figure. Given all that Varian had been through and survived, it’d make sense if Anduin saw him this way and the idea of the Wrynn family line ending literally never crossed his mind.

While I usually only play Horde, it feels like the opposite.

Everytime the Horde does something wrong, it gets constantly brought up and doubled down on for the remainder of the expansion, until the faction as a whole gets a pass when the evil characters are taken care of. But it’s usually not ever completely swept under the rug, it’s usually just sitting there in the corner to pile onto the list of crimes the next time something else happens.

The Alliance usually only has some low ranking quest giver be evil or they just have their warcrimes ignored or retconned.

The Horde always has to keep the skeletons in their closet, but the Alliance’s are always just seemingly gone whenever they’d be a valid point to bring up.

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Storywise, it is a separate thing from the Emerald Dream but is also connected to it. My gripe with it comes from the general crap lore of Shadowlands, and it feels like Ardenweald is a less cool version of the Emerald Dream where everyone becomes a cute Disney animal when they die and go to this particular realm of the afterlife.

I should have clarified that I do think there should be periods of peace in Warcraft to allow for reconstruction of areas that became battlefields, repopulation to justify all the soldiers we see on screen, for old stories to conclude and for new stories to begin. It would be unrealistic if everyone was at war all the time. My gripe with Anduin’s constant preaching about peace in this time period is that the Alliance was typically the defender in the war and the Horde was the aggressor, and to me he was just acting like a sheltered rich kid (which in reality is exactly what he is) who thinks he knows better than everyone and doesn’t know how the world actually works, and is telling everyone to stop fighting simply because “war is bad :smiley:”.

I agree that most of those characters don’t ever really walk the line of morals, although Tirion/the Argent Crusade didn’t stop the Horde invading Ashenvale when they had killed two Argents there, nor did they stop the Forsaken from re-plaguing the land that they and the Cenarion Circle had just cleansed in the Plaguelands. That’s pretty wrong to me but that’s a whole nother topic that I don’t wanna get into right now. After Tirion, yeah most of those character’s don’t ever really act morally wrong, but most of them are also characters who typically sit around and do nothing. Vol’jin himself was warchief and did nothing of note that I can think of during his entire time in that position.

I hate Khadgar being neutral because he’s a long time Alliance character. He’s a veteran of the First and Second Wars against the Horde, and one of the Sons of Lothar who lead the Alliance Expedition to Draenor after the Second War. Maybe spending time with A’dal in Shattrath opened his mind to working with the Horde for the greater good, I’ll give you that. I also agree that it makes sense that he would be the Guardian as he was the apprentice of Medivh, the Last Guardian. I brought him up in WoD because Thrall objectively leaned more toward and favored the Horde in that xpac, which makes sense and is fine to me. Khadgar should have been the same way but with the Alliance, but wasn’t, talking to and giving quests to Horde in that xpac. Ignoring the player character being the ‘commander’ of WoD, Thrall and Khadgar were their factions’ respective leaders in WoD, but Khadgar did not lean toward his own faction like Thrall did. Maybe I’m hating on Khadgar too much, but I don’t like his constant corny jokes, and the questline he gave in Legion where he was a head in a crystal ball was silly beyond belief, but that’s just my opinion.

I don’t know for sure if the Alliance was aware of the Val’kyr joining the Forsaken. If not, I’d say it’s not the Alliance being incompetent, but Sylvanas getting one up on them because she has to be the biggest brain in the setting and one step ahead of everyone else because she’s so cool.

You got me there. I just rewatched the Dragon Soul cinematics and I forgot that the Horde airship got destroyed, but did he HAVE to? It feels like an underhanded way of Blizzard screwing the Alliance again by forcing the Alliance airship to allow soldiers of the enemy faction to board it.

That makes some sense, but the historian in me is looking at it from a historian’s perspective. In the Middle Ages, the prince of a kingdom would have been educated to prepare him for ruling the kingdom when his father eventually passes away. He would be constantly reminded of his responsibilities, including not acting like an idiot to embarrass his family or get himself into dangerous situations where he could be hurt or killed, and endanger his family’s grip on the throne: Anduin did both of those things. Like I said in one of the previous points, Anduin is a sheltered, spoiled rich kid who acts however he wants regardless of the potential consequences, including losing his own life playing explorer in Pandaria.

Maybe I don’t realize how bad the Horde have it since I’ve played Alliance pretty much exclusively since I’ve been playing WoW; I acknowledge that I could be wrong with how the Horde’s actions are perceived. But it does seem to me that whenever the ‘big bad’ of the current xpac is taken down, everything the Horde did prior to that is forgotten. What war crimes has the Alliance committed? Again I acknowledge that I could be wrong and I don’t know everything, but to me it always seems like the Alliance. If you’re talking about Camp Taurajo, that was when a mutinying unit of soldiers decided to kill civilians and burn the camp, something that Alliance High Command did NOT tell them to do. Later on, the Alliance authorities send the player in to arrest the mutineers or kill them if they don’t comply, but even Baine Bloodhoof himself admitted that Camp Taurajo was a valid target for the Alliance, although Baine is also a crap character and is a simp for Anduin, so do with his statement what you will… If you’re talking about the post-Second War internment camps, the only alternative was to kill the entire orc race. It was a lose-lose situation for everybody: the Alliance even lost a few members like Stromgarde and Quel’thalas who didn’t want their citizens to pay increased taxes to maintain the camps.

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Blizzard, in particular their writers, have little to no real passion for the faction outside of this vague concept of “Medieval human knights” with a few token non-humans in the background. This has been a thing since WoW’s inception. Even then, humans don’t have any meaningful lore those days themselves. The only Alliance aspect they ever had any passion for was specific Alliance characters, and even then mostly Human ones. Non-human ones like Tyrande get screentime only to play the faction dunce or be a victim to the Horde, or have their character assassinated to move the faction story forward. They straight up admitted they found the Alliance “boring” to write for in MoP. All the Alliance’s problems are Blizzard’s self-inflicted lack of interest.

The Horde for better or worse, have always been Blizzard’s real passion. The Alliance for most of its existence existed to be schooled on and humiliated to show how “metal” the Horde is. If the Horde was the Harlem Globetrotters, the Alliance is the Washington Generals. Even supposedly Alliance specific characters like Varian Wrynn stole a lot the Horde’s themes and spotlight.

That is why they went so far out of there way to forever “break down” this big, diverse, multicultural organization that was all big on equality for all (think Knights of the Round Table) into just being a Human empire with vassal races. Nations who have no real chance of leading and are encouraged to throw away their culture for the human way of thinking. That is why Blizzard over the years has quietly snuffed out any form of internal conflict the members may have had. The Alliance of old is basically dead. It’s why they are intentionally vague with big lore changes like High King and it’s real power or lack of, or how it’s even claimed. It wasn’t even supposed to be inherited (because that goes against one of the main themes of the faction) until Blizzard decided we needed more Anduin in our lives, and refused to explain it. They want the Alliance to be a dumb, vacant-eyed buffoon for the Horde to wack with a stick to start another war.

And it worked to an extent after a huge dose of testosterone. People got over Varian showing up out of the blue, pulling moves out of the Dictator’s Handbook to reshape the faction around him and his now Imperial throne because of his overt masculinity around an now-neutered Alliance. People stood with Anduin after he showed signs of being “manly” as well. And when members like Moria, Tyrande, Jaina, and even Genn to an extent stepped out of line or had a legitimate issue in a story, many fans gladly shout down their grievances and suggested they get back in line and bow to “their king.” Also funny that most of the characters who don’t shut up and follow blindly tend to be women.

Internally, the Alliance suffers badly from the clear favoritism human characters and to an extent, Stormwind has. Human Exceptionalism, also known as Human Potential™ in the setting, has some pretty nasty racist connotations to it like white man’s burden or mighty whitey. Too often in a Alliance story only humans or a human character can do some key thing. And other Alliance poor, impotent faction races will be used as stepping stones to put said human characters on a platform above the rest. Varian, Jaina, and Anduin are prime examples of Alliance characters Blizzard loves, and in the usual poor storytelling form, get screentime and cool power moments at the expense of other Alliance factions or characters.

It’s ironic that the Horde is far better at respecting it’s members and their cultures, they’ve even had non-orc Warchiefs! Meanwhile being a white human, usually male (the ladies might go crazy!, can’t have that!) seems to be a key requirement for any real lead role in the Alliance. There’s a real glass ceiling in the Grand Alliance that never existed in the Horde of WoW outside of one warchief.

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Their worst offences are usually in areas where Alliance exclusive players won’t even see them (though not always).

  • They wiped out a Tauren tribe to establish Bael Modan.

  • They sent Night Elves to sabotage the Blood Elven sanctums (primary sources of energy) under the guise of sending a Dwarven envoy.

  • The Dwarves killed young Trolls in Dun Morogh (literally called “Frostmane Troll Whelp”).

  • They sunk a neutral Goblin vessel in Cata because of a bizarre “no witnesses” policy on taking Thrall.

  • The treatment of Orc prisoners at Honor’s Stand.

  • Used manipulation to trick the local Pandaren into creating a war base, utilizing child labor and not giving breaks (admittedly, both sides did this).

  • Firing on retreating Orcs in the water in the Jade Forest.

  • They had squads sent to kill neutral Vulpera in BfA (The npc names were changed on the PTR, originally Purge Squads; to my knowledge the only change was that they were renamed to 7th Legion troops.).

  • They pushed a siege through both commercial areas (port and market) in Dazar’alor, killing all standing in their way.

There’s likely more, but that’s what I could remember/find at the moment. Some of the more questionable ones happen whenever Blizz feels like they need to justify why the Horde even cares about fighting the Alliance.

One of the main reasons that I’m glad the faction war’s finally over; they couldn’t figure out a reason for war that didn’t amount to either side just being randomly evil, and it got annoying very quickly.

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One reason the Alliance can be described as “boring” could be the nature of its playerbase.

Have you seen the way they reacted to Teldrassil? My god, you would think an asteroid tore the Earth in two, with half being pulled into the sun, the way the Alliance fans reacted to something bad happening.

Blizzard probably knows people who Main Alliance largely want a time tested, vanilla, “boring” aesthetic.

The Horde meanwhile gets all sorts of chaotic nonsense, with no mercy from the Devs. Any idea they have, they just lay it on the Horde.

The Alliance is still responsible and still to blame. Those soldiers are only there because they were brought there by the Alliance. They were armed by the Alliance.

That is one reason the Alliance can be seen as boring - if they ever do anything close to morally gray, it gets blamed on rogue elements. It is never emblematic of the Alliance or their goals. It is just bad actors, so the Faction can remain pristine.

Like in Stormheim. Anduin specifically tells Genn and Rodgers to avoid a fight. That is the official command from the High King. But when he is out of ear shot, Genn is like: “that dead lady is double dead!” The Alliance command was broken, and Genn received a rebuke. But everyone knows the attack at Stormheim was not what the High King commanded - it was rogue/mutinous portions of the military.

Compare that to the Horde. The Warchief muttering “Burn it” and then screaming “BURN IT!” is a direct command from the leader that paints the whole Faction, and cannot be excused as a rogue element.

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That type of fan was purposefully fostered and encouraged and by Blizzard in Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria when they went heavy with the white-washing; stamping out any dissenting stories and themes to turn the faction into a unoffending doormat. It helps that the faction has humans, and most people lap up human exceptionalism no matter how tasteless and offense it can get. They wanted the Alliance to be boring and uninteresting, the fact that some people’s liked that drivel was a bonus.

The Alliance was never meant to have its own big story that drove the plot. That has always been the Horde’s prerogative, for better or worse. Both equally suck in their own ways.

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I am guilty of that. But I think there is another factor to it. It is not always about exceptionalism. I would almost describe it as Human Banality.

When I played more video games in my youth, I liked playing Humans instead of other races, because it feels like an extension of what I am - a Human in a strange world. Not because of Human exceptionalism, but almost because of human banality. Being your everyday Human among Dwarves, and Elves, and Draenei, and Mechagnomes.

Blizzard seems hesitant to stray from the Human focused themes of the Alliance, probably because it would disturb what many folks enjoyed about the Alliance prior to WoW, in the RTS. Say what you will about the Alliance, has at least been pretty consistent.

The Horde has not had as consistent a portrayal as the Alliance, even in the RTS. They went from evil in WC 1, to maybe half evil in WC 2, to sort of good in WC3 and vanilla, to evil under Garrosh, to good under Voljin, to evil under Sylvanas, to good under the council… with political intrigue and secret poisonings along the way.

The way the Night Elves and the Forsaken joined their respective Factions speaks to that issue. The Night Elves had a warmer integration, and entered the fold. The Forsaken had a discordant entrance, where Sylvanas had to plead her case after the Alliance rejected them - and the Tauren had to convince Thrall.

When we transition into World of Warcraft from the RTS, there is a noticeable and tense expansion of the Horde. While the Night Elves are simply accepted and folded into the current Alliance and its themes.

Blizzard has used more flexibility with their portrayal of the Horde, as you noted. Through the life of WoW, the Horde has had different races and genders hold power - but the Alliance has been ruled by a male of one race.

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I’ve said this plenty of times before.

Blizzard does not care about the Alliance as a faction. They like specific human characters, Anduin, Jaina ect, and have an unhealthy obsession with night elves, but as a whole, the Alliance is simply there to support those few characters they do like and little more. Outside of that, they very clearly find the Alliance boring, the only things they can ever think of to make them even somewhat interesting involves racism and that stopped being a cool thing to advertise. Any other option is apparently too boring for the.

And to be quite honest, after seeing how they treated the faction they do like to write for, I’d rather they just hate them both and not write for either anymore.

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This is true.
The “ALLIANCE” itself has no identity.
Its just there used as a mechanism to defend itself against either an evil force whether its the Horde or Legion or Old gods.

The actual interesting thing about Alliance its individual races that have their own stories and background.
Problem is Blizzard couldn’t tell a tale for each individual so they had to choose 3 or 4 main characters each major expansion and everyone else just nods along and follows.
Until their individuality is allowed to breath a sigh in one or two quests here or there.
What is worse is that some writers like Golden are so bad at world building that this writing style also ends up happening in a book.

The Horde on the other hand is the exact opposite.
Only maybe one or two races have actual deep lore to pull from and half of it is from Alliance lore anyway.
The only thing interesting about them is that they are in a faction called the Horde.
So when you write about the Horde. Its about THE HORDE.
Thats why chants like FOR THE HORDE actually means something.
Nobody besides Blizzard chants for the alliance. Its sad.

Anyway what is the Alliance?
At least vanilla when I first started playing and I had hopes and dreams in my eyes?

This:

Warhammer fantasy do their writing so much better (not end times) Karl does take center stage but everyone still has their individuality.
Thats whats missing from the current Alliance.

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The night elves didn’t have a integration into the Alliance. They suddenly were just a part of the Alliance out the gate of WoW. To this day there is no canon reasoning and story about how and why the Night Elves joined the Alliance.

It also doesn’t help that the Night Elves of WoW are defanged and white-washed in in comparison to Warcraft 3 night elves. Meanwhile the Forsaken got an entire section in the Chronicles (RIP) explaining how and why, and Blizzard is currently forcing some good old Menethil white-washing and “reinterpretation” ( it’s a player-agency lobotomy really) of their very identity.

I fully expect the Night elves part to “finally” be addressed in a heritage armor quest after they finish sweeping the Teldrassil holocaust under the rug and pretending the gaffe happened in non-game media. I fully expect it to be three parts pretentious, and one part white man’s burden explaining that not being a doormat is antithetical to being a part of the Alliance, and to kneel to their glorious Wrynn overlords before telling the player to go grow some more pumpkins because a good less-than belongs in the fields. Blizzard’s take on the Gilneas questline and their refusal to fix it is a solid precedent that only their bland, boring flavor of humans matter to them.

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Personally speaking its just sheer frustration at this point.
It keeps happening and we can’t do anything about it.

Remember when Genn attacked Sylvanas?
What happened? She brought his little plane down IMMEDIATELY.
Then she did WoT and Teldrassil.
Its like, after win and another win. So there is something to be happy about that you got to punch back.

For Alliance they Draaaaaaaaag it out. They use it for marketing to pull people in, they dont give any resolution because they need to keep people playing and in the end they kill off Nathanos that nobody cares about at this point.
Then they start teasing us for Sylvanas for an entire expansion and just keep rage bating and blue balling until the finale.
Now the last bit left is Alliance - Horde relations they have to tease.

Will they get along?
Will they make up?
Horde feels sorry. Alliance feels sad.
What happens next? Pay us a 1 year subscription for the next 4 years to find out!!!

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They put it in chronicles.
Mistrust and concern for the Horde was the reason.
If it makes you happy they were reluctant.

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Not really. There is a throwaway sentence open to interpretation in Chronicles media that completely ignored the hostility between the NE and Alliance. On top of that, Chronicles was explictly retconned as not-canon. Meanwhile the Forsaken got an entire page and notable in game story after said retcon.

I know you’re a big Alliance fan Smallioz, are your standards really that low that you’re content with absent-minded tablescraps you found in a smoking dumpster in the narrative back-alley?

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To be fair, it was not.

Is it 100% the lore bible and everything inside will never be touched on again? No.

But it is still canon, and so far that’s about the best reasoning we’re likely going to get because it really doesn’t matter anymore.

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It was not made noncanon, they just said its from another entity’s perspectice so if they need to rewrite a background (shadowlands) they could.

Its the only thing we have and we will ever get. And its canon.
Being actually satisfied is not even a question, its unrealistic

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Ya’ll do realize that Blizzard admitted that they didn’t address it in Chronicles on Twitter? Our own Zerde called them out on it.

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Really? I could have sworn I read it in Chronicles vol 2. Unless I’m misrembering books with tweets now. Hunting now.

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Trying to find the tweet now. Don’t know if it got nuked during the Blizzard harassment and lawsuit shockwaves.

EDIT: Zerde did you nuke your twitter? Also answer my Discord DMs!

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Ok read through the relevant parts of Chronicles Vol 3 because of course and it makes zero mention of how the current Alliance actually forms. The only line that would come close was the aforementioned “night elves don’t trust the Horde” line, but beyond that nothing.

So there we go.

The formation of the in game Alliance is so boring that they didn’t even cover it in Chronicle and we’re still going off old or newish tweets to explain things.

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