I thought so too but then Drahliana went on this weird “But America” tangent
Presumably because they had been reduced to using the “Just following orders” defense for Sylvanas but that’s literally called the Nuremberg defense for a reason
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The question is legality such a thing where there is not a shared body of law. Who gets to decide war crimes on the Alliance or Horde?
Besides of course who ever wins the last war?
This was never a question of legality it was a question of ethics and how Sylvanas failed to explore literally any solution to her predicament other than “warchief told me to my hands are tied”
Honestly I wouldn’t really consider that relevant to the invasion since the reason both for that argument and for it’s defeat aren’t because of the perpetration of a war of aggression (otherwise every German general, Admiral, etc. would have been imprisoned/executed).
As far as Sylvanas is concerned, the choice is either between invading a neutral country or losing the protection of the Horde (which would be more dangerous because Varian has more then enough reason to invade).
Garrosh doesn’t seem the type willing to try and negotiate with gilneas to surrender/give access to their ports.
What are the ethics of war? Who decides? You can’t hold Sylvannas against terms that you and Small refuse to define.
He does have a negotiation style.
That’s because you’re splitting hairs to defend Sylvanas for no apparent reason. In my opinion once you’re reduced to saying “Well hm what ARE morals anyway?” you’ve probably found yourself trying to defend something that’s pretty plainly untenable to defend.
Because you can’t actually defend Sylvanas’ actions from an ethical standpoint, you’ve instead resorted to attacking the very idea of ethics.
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This is a false binary. She could have entered negotiations with the Alliance, perhaps using the Argents or the Kirin Tor to mediate. She could have “followed” the order but deliberately stalled the campaign. She could have used her own leverage against Garrosh (like threatening to exit the war entirely) to force him to dial back his demands. She could have opted to abandon the Eastern Kingdoms entirely and move her people somewhere else away from all this.
Going into the problem from the very start assuming that there are only two solutions on either extreme end of the spectrum of possibility is a fallacy. It’s intellectually lazy at best and negligent to the point of evil at worst.
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So uh… this was pretty much the original lore, so this is kind of hilarious. They looped all the way back to what was always assumed for close to a decade. Ergo, the Blight was being developed, she knew about it, but the attack at the Wrathgate wasn’t her idea and was done after a coup against her by Varimathras. It was meant as a superweapon against the Scourge but Putress and his camp wanted to take out the factions and the Scourge.
In the context during which it was written, this was always the lore. Weird way to backtrack.
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She developed the plague intending to use it on the Scourge, which is why after the Wrathgate it’s been used exclusively on the living
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Yes we call that ‘Cataclysm is a lore black hole that wasn’t planned out properly and gave many people whiplash’.
The Alliance can clear out Naxxramas but is routed by mustard gas and 3 valkyr
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Not sure what your point is anymore, really. In the context it was written, the Blight was meant for the Scourge. Cataclysm is very divorced from what came before it, given it was meant to be a ‘WoW2’ in a sense.
A ton of the Horde’s direction, including that of the Forsaken, was met with ‘but y tho’ from a lot of fans.
Kind of the point of Sylvanas’ character honestly, she’s very given to seeing things very restrictively.
Likely not a choice she would contemplate considering Varian was an inch from declaring war at Undercity, she’d essentially be entering a negotiation from an incredibly weak position on the hope that he might decide not to attack them (which also doubles with her lack of belief in hope)
Stalling the campaign would mean just throwing her people into a meat grinder without end. There’s a very real cost in manpower to that kind of action.
Honestly, probably an action she could have thought of, but it does carry real danger in that Garrosh is brash and aggressive and may just decide to not play ball and attack her instead (which considering the Kor’kron in the undercity would be a bit of a problem)
The sheer logistical pressure of this makes this seem like the joke possibility.
I don’t really have a point other than to highlight how bad Cata was
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Weigh all those possibilities against what she actually chose to do, which was not only commit to the war but commit harder than even Garrosh intended her to. Which resulted in her losing a gunship, an entire Forsaken army plus its auxiliaries, and control of Silverpine all the way into Tirisfal.
And on top of that, moral atrocities that should be bad enough on their own, but they also had the impact of driving the Gilneans back into the Alliance, allowing the Alliance to now have two major fronts with which to pressure the Forsaken, a natural harbor in Western Lordaeron right on Sylvanas’ doorstep, and a vendetta that will probably never fully go away until the last Forsaken eventually meets its final end.
This was the option she chose. The viability of other options, especially looking back in retrospect, need to be weighed against this.
Looking back with hindsight on how bad things went doesn’t automatically mean another choice would have led to a better outcome. If anything Sylvanas’ situation was poisoned from the beginning because of the freedom (and endorsement) the RAS had to research as they saw fit.
Or I suppose another way of looking at it would be, they might not have been the correct decisions, but they fit to Sylvanas and the situation her prior decisions had left her in.
Which was what I was getting at when I said that justifying the use of the Blight because it was her only way out of her predicament ignores the fact that it’s a predicament that she got herself into of her own free will.
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Which is, in my opinion, beautifully understated character writing (assuming Blizzard was actually thinking in that direction).
Personally, I don’t know why the Forsaken battle strategy isn’t always just ‘gas it first then go in with masks to clear out the remainder’ and just cement them as an army of WWI-esque zombies. The Blight is just way too effective to be held back as often as the Forsaken do.
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It is that.
And a discussion of American military proceedures.
And whether war crimes count if they happen in Azeroth.
And whether NATO or Hamurabi someone wore it better.
And whether or not the Warchief position exists to absolve the guilt of everyone beneath it.
This discussion is a lot of things.