Was thinking about the difference between Garrosh and Sylvanas and why I can understand saying the rebellion against Garrosh was traitorous but not Sylvanas.
To me it comes down to Garrosh was unambiguously doing everything for the Horde. While it was heavily aggressive to villainous with the bombing of Theramore, it still was done for the Horde. If the Trolls and Tauren in particular had stayed loyal he wouldn’t have harmed them. They might’ve not been first rate citizens like Orcs but they weren’t in any danger.
Sylvanas on the other hand is very, very likely not actually loyal to the Horde. There’s been quite a bit of foreshadowing in that regard, i.e. mentioned about how Elune and other forces were fighting her, and now how the rest of the Horde and Alliance think she’s up to something that will destroy the Horde itself. And the Vol’jin questline doesn’t inspire confidence in her either.
I just don’t see how one can be a traitor to a usurper to the throne. She may not have put herself there but if she’s going to destroy the Horde in some form anyways, how can anyone be loyal to her when she only puts up a facade of being the representative of the Horde?
Tl;dr, both are villains but Garrosh did it legitimately for the Horde. Sylvanas very, very likely is not.
Saurfang didn’t just betray Sylvanas though, he betrays the entire Horde. He let the Alliance win knowing it would kill more Horde members, he chooses to sit in the Stormwind jail rather than escape with the Horde including Talanji, he murders members of the Forsaken including Dark Rangers, he kills who knows how many Horde members underneath Orgrimmar including an Orc.
Baine also murdered several members of the Forsaken in cold blood as well.
It would be one thing if they had come out against Sylvanas publicly to try and garner public support naturally, but they refused to do that.
Garrosh betrayed everyone else first, it wasn’t a real rebellion because he had already formed a new “true” Horde. You can’t rebel against the Horde’s warchief if they no longer consider themselves your warchief.
This is a blatant lie. He already knew about the plan to blow up the Undercity. He protected the bomb makers as they set up. He knew Sylvanas intended to act as bait by herself.
That was a back-up strategy, he could have killed Anduin on the field of battle and didn’t. The Horde would have won that entire battle without Jaina, hence the backup plan.
Garrosh tried to assassinate a racial leader - Voljin - who was still serving him. Attempting to kill racial leaders who still serve the Horde is decidedly bad for the Horde. And that led to a rebellion that the majority of the Horde supported.
When Saurfang quit, Sylvanas let Saurfang leave, and offered Baine the same choice. She only made moves to hurt them after they openly betrayed her and worked with the Alliance.
So that is malarkey.
That is not the case, either. He never had the whole Horde in his concerns. He wanted to use Forsaken as meat shields to protect his Orcs - which Sylvanas interceded in. His concern was the Orcs alone, and the other races were to serve the Orcs. That is not for the Horde.
That is a lot of stuff that Saurfang most likely is unaware of. So it is not fueling his rebellion. His rebellion is not based in any of that. You are attempting to establish third party narrative as a motivation for his rebellion when he is not even aware of such things.
She was legitimately placed there by the time honored succession practices of the Horde. They were manipulated - but the process was legitimate. Warchief Voljin named her Warchief as he died. That is in the purview of the Warchief.
She is in no way a usurper.
Garrosh committed his acts for his race alone at the cost of the other races in the Horde. He was for the Orcs at the price of the Horde.
As far as Sylvanas, most of the people of every Horde race still support her, despite their racial leaders. Which shows she represents the totality of the Horde more so than Garrosh.
As a weird tangent … you do understand the ultimatum that Sylvanas gave Saurfang at UC don’t you? She essentially told him to either fall in line, and follow her without question … or get out of HER Horde (which, ideologically she is LITERALLY treating and turning into the Forsaken). I’m uncertain exactly why people assume that ultimatum would magically vanish if he were to return with us from the Stockades? Or would that expectation STILL be there when he returned?
Also … lets not kid ourselves here. If Sylvanas really DID plan on pushing Baine to release Derek (by torturing Proudmoore in an ABSURDLY public way), in order to use Baine’s rep to get her sleeper agent behind enemy lines … she absolutely set up her own Forsaken to die to sell that charade. IF she really was OK with Baine being rescued … again she sacrificed more of her Forsaken to die to sell that it She did this AGAIN with her sacrificing of troops at Naz’jatar.
Honestly … it sort of shocks me just how often people are just SUPER willing to forgive Horde leaders that deliberately butcher their own people en’mass for personal objectives; as long as there is some butchering of the Blue Team as well.
She told him Horde lives were worth saving at any cost, he disagreed and wanted the Horde to die honorably. That’s the only disagreement. Other than that it’s quite a stretch to blame Sylvanas for Baine’s actions. Having Baine be more motivated by Derek than Teldrassil is simply, truly bad writing.
When did saurfang work for the alliance? Her rangers were hunting him ever since she heard he got out of the stockades. Before he made any moves. Unless I’m mistaken.
Yeah … you don’t get subtext do you? Sylvanas is a MASSIVE control freak, who literally spent half a page in her shortstory pondering what would happen should she deny Saurfang either his Honor, or his Horde? She failed to deny him his Honor with Malf, so she denied him his Horde at UC. As for the Derek plan … if she did not intend for Baine to release Derek it was the single most atrocious plan I’ve ever seen; and the ONLY thing it would have amounted to is further escalating tensions between the Alliance and Horde (which IS what Sylvie seems to be prioritizing).
God … I truly cannot wait till she betrays the hell out of us. The very fact that Sylvanas “Harbering no true loyalties to the Horde, in an Alliance of Convenience with the Primitive Races of the Horde” and Gallywix “Enslaving his own people on TWO exploding volcanoes for just a tiny chance for personal profit” have become our most REPRESENTATIVE leaders is so screwed up. Apparently, being a Horde leader ONLY means … exploiting the faction for personal gain; treating your own people like expendable storm troopers; and being contrarian to the blue team…
Its very weird when you see Forsaken players trying to RP a reason why they follow Sylvannas as they are the only WoW Race that actually should not except any dictatorial lead, Sylvannas actually makes more sense as specifically an Orc Warchief than she does as the Forsaken leader. But i guess people make up weird connections with there head cannon, someone once asked me why a death knight would “betray” Sylvannas and i was like… your not serious.
but i guess DKs are undead and Sylvannas is undead so of course there partners
Can I ask WHAT his outcome would have been HAD he left with us? What would his reception have been in a Sylvanas Horde? What exactly could Saurfang have done in that situation? I assume … fall in line, kill Alliance like a good boy, wait for her to eventually betray the Horde in some catastrophic way like the rest of us? Oh, and do so while Sylvie puts a bullet in the head of what remains of the WC3 Horde Fantasy (which I’m certain would make so many Sylvie fans happy, considering many of them seem to like her more than the Horde as a Faction; the Forsaken as a Race; and even (most of the time) their own PC Racial Lore).
Do you think Saurfang, Baine and Thrall making buddy buddy with Jaina after Jaina just killed who knows how many Horde soldiers is in keeping with the WC3 Horde fantasy? If that’s what you’re looking for, then the way Blizzard has written the Saurfang rebellion is far from what you want. In your opinion does Saurfang hold no responsibility for the situation the Horde finds itself in whatsoever, everything is just Sylvanas’s super secret evil plan?
Also, times change. Warcraft can either move in a Saturday Morning Cartoon direction, in which case Saurfang did nothing wrong and Anduin can lead the Horde from now on. Or Warcraft can develop interesting, character-driven plot lines in which case characters like Sylvanas need to exist, and characters like Saurfang, Baine and Anduin need flaws.
Vol’jin, now there’s a character that knew how to stage a rebellion while being true to the Horde.
I don’t want a rebellion, but I’m sick of waiting around for Sylvie’s “True Objectives” to be revealed. She’s a selfish nihilist who has an absurdly long history of using others as mere tools for personal motivations; then discarding them when they cease to be of use towards those goals (or those goals are complete). The idea that stapling a Warchief title she didn’t even want onto her name would magically change that character … is downright absurd to me. She’s been this way since WC3 and has only gotten worse in this department since then.
The very fact that Sylvie’s personal motives for this War are STILL a mystery strongly suggests those motives are NOT in the benefit of the Horde. The very fact that Blizz just went out of its way to reinforce the idea that she STILL has the loyalty of the people (so much so even Lor’themar is afraid his people wont follow his decision to back Thrall) only serves to increase the odds that she’s Ogmot’s Laughing Shepherd. The fact that we STILL do not know the nature of her deal with Heyla … with Blizz clearly not forgetting about it … is also particularly damning.
She’s going to betray the Horde; it really is just a matter of time.
I can not stop you from asking rhetorical questions or presenting hypotheticals. However, those are beyond objective observation and open to anyone’s assumptions.
What I can say is what Saurfang actually did.
He admitted to sparing Anduin at Lordaeron so Anduin would defeat Sylvanas. That happened before Sylvanas allowed him to walk away, and before he abandoned the Horde.
Afterwards, he refused to leave the Stockades with the Horde break out party. Saurfang only left after Anduin told him that he could not win alone (and that may have been one of the boy king’s lies). Saurfang only left the Stockades at the behest and in concert with the Alliance High King.
And then we have the Dark Rangers who saw traces of his journey. The Dark Rangers left their mission ambiguous. They say to stay out of it. They say their mission is to bring him back. One could say they were ordered to kill him - but that is mere supposition. What we do know is Saurfang spills Horde blood soon after being directed by the Alliance High King.
Your problem is you’re assuming that reporting to the Warchief was his only choice.
At the end of the day nothing you can possibly imagine is worst than willingly staying in Stormwind to be taught what honor is by a human and pouring his poor heart out to a teenage boy.
He could have left and followed some random undead rogues that just so happen to be looking for Thrall while using his super d duper hunter skills…
I personally like the idea of him linking up with the Drek and Frostwolves if he had left instead of deciding to live in Stormwind.
He knew that they weren’t there for him and he would have no place in the Horde, nor did be want one.
They were hunting HIM! Their orders were to kill him. He was never going to be allowed to live.
That’s crap. He was never going to survive if he came willingly. She a threat to Sylvanas and wanted him eliminated. That was obvious. It’s why the Dark Ranger left us behind. Sylvanas didn’t want that information getting out.
TBH … at this point I could give a crap if Saurfang is working with Anduin. I do NOT define the Horde predominantly by it NOT being the Blue Team; and Sylvie has consistently proven herself more dangerous to the Horde than Anduin (despite her Warchief Title). Banking on Anduin doing an EVIL 180 when he’s shown no indication of even hinting thats a possibility is not enough of a hypothetical to make me ignore that.
Sylvanas in no way represents the WC3 Horde I fell in love with (the themes, not the races). In fact, from all indications she threatens to thoroughly kill it, in order to push what I consider one of the WORST Story Threads in this game (the Faction Conflict). I don’t care about being ANTI-Anduin if it means the Horde gets turned into a PC race ideologically I deliberately did not choose to play (sorry Forsaken, I find you interesting … but your Racial Fantasy under Sylvie leadership cannot continue coming at the expense of EVERY OTHER Horde Racial fantasy in this game).
That is complete supposition - which you are free to make - but dont pretend your supposition is canon truth when it was left ambiguous by Blizzard.
The Dark Rangers have been more honest with their intentions than Saurfang. If it comes to who do you trust… I will take a loyal Dark Ranger over a false traitor. They said they were there to collect him.
You know i wonder in the whole lost honor thing was just an excuse to get the alliance at least one cgi otherwise it would just be horde cgi featuring horde chatacters only as if the alliance is just a tool used to tell the hordes story.