Not wanting to argue against you, just saying that her being able to destroy the enemy would actually be seen as a positive result, while the issue was how it was narrated to be negative for all from all angles.
That’s the problem–even when I’m looking at it through partisan glasses, it doesn’t feel like a victory. It just feels like more guilt.
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After Teldrassil it can only be a: “you are bad and you should feel bad!”
I mean not that the alliance and especially NE players feel any better…
Or to say it in Lady Moonberrys words: "This [BFA] made everone sad. "
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But there is actually quite a lot of interesting narrative mining you can do with “Holy Boy Always Right” Anduin at the helm of the Alliance. The trick is to not have the universe bend to justify Anduin’s actions.
Anduin releasing Saurfang and ignoring his dad’s promise to end the Horde should they forsake honor could easily have consequences right now. The mercy of the Alliance could easily worsen fractures between all of the races and the humans. If Anduin presides over a huge mess because he prioritizes a shot at peace over the needs of the other members of the Alliance, that is an interesting story, especially since Anduin will have to choose between compromising his beliefs and damaging the Alliance as a political faction or sticking to his principles when they may not pay off.
We’ve begun to see consequences for Anduin’s actions and attitudes with the night elves walking off. I hope to see more when it’s revealed that he secretly released a critical prisoner of war and, more importantly, one of the architects of the Fourth War.
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I think the two factions’ component races have become so intertwined that it’s difficult to envision anyone “walking off.” Shandris remains with the Alliance forces after Tyrande gets her Tyrande in, and is still Alliance-friendly (she has different intro quest text for Hordies) with no real recrimination in her Shadowlands quests.
It’s something I wish the Blizzard writers would touch on sometimes: that these two factions haven’t become alliances of nations, but rather nations in their own right. They aren’t perfect melting pots, but there is real friendship and occasionally brotherhood among the different races. Hell, there might be half-human half-kaldorei children for all we know. Sylvanas’ own arms-bearer gives her the sideeye when she suggests the Horde is nothing. Think about what she did for her people, and yet this concept of “Hordeness” means so much to them that they’ll leave her behind if they have to.
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It’s alliance bias plain and simple. Blizzard is favoring the alliance and through these storys it really show. Screw the alliance. I hope their fans step on lego.
The lengths they will go to not write the Alliance as anything but a central theme.
Alliance should have had internal conflict the entire time with the Horde being more external. Maybe later on play with the narrative but there should never have been complete unity from the beginning with Kalimdor/EK culture clashes. Also I want worgen to have issues being a monster race in the traditional fantasy faction but that would require the writers to recognize their potential as more than Genn’s backup dancers.
Internal conflict is fine, but a majority of the fandom thinks conflict means a civil war.
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Here is the issue with Alliance politics, it has always been more of backhanded deals, subtle actions and generally something that happens in the background. Not something that is conducive to an MMO format.
As an example, during Wolfheart the tensions between the various races were always palpable. Gelbin and the Dark Iron were about to come to blows due a minor misunderstanding, Brann rigged the dice roles so the dark irons were in the middle of the Bronzbeard/Wildhammer when entering Darnnasus. Not to mention Varian’s triad against Genn.
Because fighting among yourself while a crazed Horde is attacking and massacring people is general a bad idea. The Alliance for me, has always been at its best when it is united against a common foe. Sure we can have some disruption but ultimately the end will be the Alliance will be better off and more united then ever when all is said and done.
Considering they do at least plan an expansion ahead, yes it is clear this was planned. How it pay off is the big question. As a rule, don’t expect major events to have payoff during their respective expansion. I mean Jaina literally AWOL for all of Legion before suddenly being thrust into the spotlight again. Tyrande looks like she will do the same thing.
Turalyon has had more experience fighting wars, not governing in the wake of one. More to the point, Turalyon is honestly pretty out of date in his understanding of how Azeroth has changed in the past 30 years, or the cultural nature of the Horde and it’s allies.
Anduin isn’t exactly getting of scott free. He is enjoying the hospitality of the Jailer and by all indications will have been for quite a while by the time we get him out. I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a few expansions for him to fully recover from it.
They did say back before BfA that the Alliance would be faced with getting vengeance for the past or seeking to build a better future. This stuff kind of fits that. That said, it wouldn’t be surprising if player response has lead to it evolving into its current form.
However, I think Alliance fans might find that monkey paw back firing on them. Getting internal conflict like the Horde might end up getting the Alliance getting something of a similar villain batting and really that is never fun. It usually ends with you having to kill some of your own characters.
And that monkey paw curls its finger.
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I would adore this for memes alone.
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Sylvanas wasn’t alone.
She didn’t called for winds to enrage the flames
She didn’t fire the catapults and lighting them on fire
She wasn’t the one rallying up civillians in Astranaar killing them
She wasn’t the one raising NEs and Sira and Delaryn
She wasn’t the one bligthing Darkshore
She wasn’t the one doing atrocities in dakrshore afterwards.
She wan’t alone.
And NONE of the horde stepped away from is after Teldrassil they continued with their atriocities in Brennadan.
The Horde is as guilty as she is.
And she didn’t blaim clais but “Her kin”.
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Sylvanas kept the horde leaders from knowing about the attack on Teldrassil which is why I always find the idea the horde are still to blame annoying since it was only forces from Saurfang, Nathanos and Sylvanas. Tauren units at Darkshore are weird as Sylvanas didn’t want to involve them.
Technically the horde haven’t really known Teldrassil was destroyed.
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NOone knew about it?! How could she manage to mobilize the entire horde army? Did they think they were just hiking in Ashenvale?
Are you kidding me?
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They were gathered to march on Silithus. Just before heading south, Saurfang informed them they would be marching north, to Teldrassil.
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Blizzard does cosmology stuff pretty well but has no understanding of nuanced politics from a historic or grounded level. It is one of their weaknesses that makes me feel more and more separated from the world building over time.
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Honestly at this point its really hard to know what is the story direction of the Alliance is going… and with the new lore unearth with the Dreadlords infiltrating everything…
Blizzard has a sure way to turn any bad story, bad development character or like the Jaina being a dreadlord rumor direction in to: “Oh it was a Dread Lord all along. So all that bad character or bad story development is was a Nathrezim fault” lol
A nice lore insidious scape goat if you ask me… it makes me wonder if the Dread Lords have broken the 4th wall and have infiltrated Blizzard all the same!
Blizzard ex machina …
But on the other hand: We’re in such a bad state with th elore and history of things that a clean cut in knitting all lose strings togather and have all of the stupidity be a dread lords scheme, does to me look more appealing than have these lose ends still flying around, never addressed and contradicting themselves even.
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Have some on the alliance side grown so rabid and inclined toward violence that they view being a “peacemonger” as a bad thing?
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Now we’re just tired ob being the usefull idiots who get murdered, punched genocided over and over again and at the end have to forgive and forget everything with no consequences just to be abused again.
This is why peacemongering is viewd badly, because it is allways in the context of this.
So Alliance players now seem to rather not have peace and at least can retaliate.
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