FYI to everyone who took Afrasiabia’s off-the-cuff comment as canon…
The events of Wrathgate correspond exactly in the actual real-event that is no longer available in-game that you would have had to experience in-person years ago as what is described in the novel. In other words the canon around Wrathgate never changed. Afrasiabi was and continues to be a clown.
Now that I think about this Godfrey’s absence is weird.
Because between him, Varimathras and Zoval Sylvanas just cannot stop trusting obviously scheming villains to save her life. Which indeed was the cost of trusting Lord Godfrey but the valkyr pop her back up.
In wow standards a potato stored at room temperature is a brilliant tactician.
The new plague was being tested on captive Tauren as early as Vanilla. And not in some Alliance-only story quest. In Horde territory (Tarren Mill? I’d have to get on Classic & scout).
Not just Horde, but Forsaken’s sponsors, who asked they be admitted to the Horde in hope they might be helped.
Forsaken - and, by extension, Sylvanas - have always had a broad "SURE we’re not monsters… ~wink, wink~ streak.
Actually Thrall did that after the Wrathgate.
His bitterness comes in a new light to me as the Sylvanas novel portrays the coup as him acting out of jealously.
For those who don’t know, when Varimathras attacks Sylvanas he outright stats that he shall herald the masters’ victory not her. She is very confused by this statement and I am bummed that she didn’t think to question Mal’Ganis about it.
The fact that he was trying to plant seeds of doubt and what not, makes me wonder if he just decided to say screw it and hoped that they failed.
Seems Zovaal only went after her “Because Destiny Says So” as TV Tropes puts it.
Denathrius is the only one who prepared for the possibility of losing despite thinking it was impossible.
Varimathras’s desperation to prove Zovaal’s vision wrong shows the same thing that happened involving Zul and his Apprentice. One wanted to prove his superior wrong only to be proven wrong himself then awhile after the superior was also proven wrong.
Only the Bleeding Hollow Ritual has any accuracy but it only shows you your own death not others even though you can show them possible deaths.
Garoosh ordered her to take Gilneas and he pretty much told her that taking Gilneas was her test of Loyalty to the Horde.
The Blight was needed for the battle not to become a Garithos-Style Extinction Grinder for the Forsaken. They could not win without it.
The Horde seems to have a pattern of justifying doing horrible things because it was the only way out of the corner they had painted themselves into.
They want their cake and to eat it, too.
Actually Garithos, I mean Garoosh had painted them into that corner. He despised and feared the Forsaken and Sylvannas and had deliberately pushed her into a position where the Forsaken would be ground against the Gilnean anvil.
Sylvannas refused to play the game his way and made her own rules instead.
The difference is that Kael’thas was sent to fight Scourge, where your only options are to fight or die. The Forsaken were not fighting the Scourge. They were fighting Gilneans, and later on the Alliance. They are not Scourge. They can be negotiated with. They can be persuaded. You can make deals with them.
Treating Sylvanas’ decisions here as rational requires assuming that the Alliance, and more specifically the Gilneans, are composed of unthinking irrational killers that forced Sylvanas into a “them or us” situation. Which it isn’t.
Sylvanas herself demonstrates this in Silverpine where she manages to get Crowley to pull his forces back by holding his daughter hostage. That’s as evil as the Blight, but it’s a tactic that would only work on people who can be negotiated with.
In the Horde, when the WarChief tells you that you fight. you fight. The position of WarChief was a hell of a lot more autocratic than the Alliance’s High King.
Sounds pretty craven if you ask me. “The Warchief told me to, and I’m more willing to kill a mountain of innocents than risk my own hide by defying him”
It’s pretty standard no matter what army you’re apart… You’re told to take that hill, you take that hill, you don’t stop and have tea time with the opposing army.
I dare you to tell me that it’s different with the American military.
The Horde is not and never has been a Democracy. The War Chief was an absolute ruler.
Sylvanas wasn’t some footsoldier, she was the leader of a military.
If you are ordered to commit a warcrime that is in fact an illegal order and you are legally bound to disobey it.
Not that it matters since this is a question of “what could Sylvanas have done differently” and you don’t seem to have any counterargument for the multitudes of other things she could have done.
No she wasn’t. The War Chief (hence the name) is the commander and chief of all Horde forces, including the Forsaken.
Again, time and time again, I ask when this question comes up. Illegal by what standards? There never has been a Geneva Convention to which either faction has signed up to. Both factions prosecute war wholesale without distinction between targets
And even if there were stuch standards I will point out by our real life example… the only nations that get prosecuted for war crimes are those that lose the war…
The American military. Any military really, if tasked to hold a city or a larger territory and they use that opportunity to commit horrible acts then they will be justifiably called out and shamed. Prison time, international condemnation, sanctions and maybe even declarations of war could be happening as a result.
If you want real world examples they can be provided. As brutal as our own world is, which dictates our own upbringing and our morals we don’t normalize intentional cruelty as a “by-product” of war.
Our ancestors went down that road unfortunately but today we try to be better. Or at least tell ourselves as much.
Drahliana have you checked out what’s going on in Europe recently
There was an issue in 2016 about American soldiers that were accused of war crimes in Afghanistan. I’m also old enough to remember My Lai and senile enough to probably mispell it.
The United States refused to let those soldiers be prosecuted as it did not and does not recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
What you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding with is that no one officially accepts that behavior as acceptable.
You see difference between you and the US government is that YOU believe this is justified because to the victors goes the spoils.
What the US government and I see this as immoral and travesty but The US government can’t let themselves be humiliated with a court battle. So they ignore, dodge, refuse to accept and run like cowards rather than face their crimes. Give it time. Maybe one day they will say sorry but long after everyone related has been dead for a long time.
For political reasons and greed they have to supply weapons to the saudis as they bomb and starve the Yemeni people for years while bemoaning the horrible things Russia does to the Ukranians.
That is the difference between you and I.
I don’t think any of this is justified. Only the insane… like Putin and his lackeys think this is justified. Because might makes right.