I might be presumptuous with this (and correct me if I’m wrong) but is the rationalization about Yrel’s stuff in the story maybe just a way to preserve the fantasy you like, and not because you care to defend the actions in the story themselves?
I kinda got a vibe from it similar to how some horde posters would try to come up with justifications for BFA because what they really wanted was to feel like they weren’t railroaded into personally being a bad guy, instead of dusting their hands of it and saying “I don’t like this plot.”
While I think some of my points stand (not all Mag’har are innocent victims, the Draenei are the Orcs former victims and there’s still a lot of unknowns to the situation), you are right that preserving the fantasy I like in some form is part of it.
I even said here that I’m not on board with the AU Draenei “join or die” policy; the talk of genocide is something I’m leery of given how much we don’t know about the situation. Especially when certain fans are all “there’s a lot we don’t know about the Void, let’s give it a chance” while always assuming the worst where the Light is concerned.
You seem to miss the point of the situation. The Lightbound aren’t pulling their stuff on the Mag’har because of what the Iron Horde did to them. They do it because the Naaru told them to do it. If the victims aren’t holding this past against the Orcs you should not either. Alright. Pep talk done. Have fun.
I think you and I interpreted what he said there differently. The BfA narrative catches up with the timeline and shows that the conflict doesn’t just go away - it came back within 30 years. That’s not a retcon - that fits with the BfA story.
edit / tl;dr: IMO the wording suitable for “they were at peace but then…” would be something like “a new conflict is brewing”. The approach “it did not go away” to me implies a continuation of something (and there is only 1 something we actually witnessed afaia). But english is not my native language so I could misinterpret the thing.
Depends on how you see it. I personally do not really like the inhuman conclusion to the WoD story, but it happened, so, what can be done about it. The dev team wanted to move to another story, and could not deliver neither the closure nor continuation to the themes left hanging from WoD.
Then the question is, how does the later events flow from what we saw in WoD. To me, the answer I see is “it does not”. So, even the odd “Draenor is free” was thrown away when it’s convenient. And now instead of “they suddenly are in peace and all grudges left out” we get this “conflict did not go away”.
To that seems like a retcon. Yrel promised to help against the Legion. She did not. Orcs did not. Khadgar and those who were there (like Admiral Taylor) never bothered to reach out to them to fight against such dangerous enemy as the Burning Legion supposed to be. None of those things were explored / addressed.
So, to me the whole situation is “now you should feel that those are your enemies, because look how they literally through draenei in meatgrinders” -> “now they are totally in peace” -> “oops, actually they are not”.
If you see the info from the interview as fitting into the narrative - sure, go for it. To me it cheapens already messed up narrative and devalues the thing. It’s like with Night Watch to me. I spent some time helping Darkshire while Stormwind and it’s leaders did not bother to help, and left the regular people alone against supernatural enemies. And my reward is “they’re evil, go kill them”. Maybe expecting similar treatment is too early, but that rubs me the wrong way on several levels:
game never bothering to point out from the PoV of draenei that actions of Iron Horde, let’s say, require some questions before “Draenor is free”.
there is a precedent of the dev team that likes plot twist to go “oh, you liked that character? Go kill it now!” narrative.
taking the side that suffered greatly and turning them into a villain material. That shift did not feel right with Sylvanas (with all the “Wrath gate was part of the plan”, etc.), that did not feel right to me with the Night Watch, not with potential of telling a story with “Tyrande is wrong. Again. Because that is what represents the night elves since the days of WotA” or a potential “yeah, now go kill those who you was helping too, cause they’re evul”.
Will it happen? Idk. It did before. I am not aware of much people who enjoyed such treatment of the parties involved. I see no improvement on the narrative side that would allow me to say “yeah, they will totally nail it better than with turning Sylvanas into what she became”.
No … that’s how you’re taking it. No one said the AU Mag’har are good, only that what the AU Lightbound are doing is bad. And you’re weird habit of “making excuses” why what they’re doing is not bad, changes depending on which group we’re referring to. ATM, no matter how much you may want to “sins of the race” Geya’rah, her perspective on events is at least reinforced by the only window into the Lightbound ideology we have. The Sermon of the High Exarch. Which sites neither the once members of Iron Horde (which Yrel at least made peace with at the end of WoD) as a motive for their crusade. Nor the death of the planet.
Your excuse that “its fine because the Draenei are the victims of the Iron Horde” also doesn’t hold up under pressure. When … the Draenei and Mag’har were apparently at peace for several decades before the crusade; Yrel refers to even Grom as a friend by their final conflict; that the Lightbound’s crusade extends far beyond just ex-Iron Horde members; and the fact that 2 of 3 leaders of the Mag’har that we know of where Frostwolves (prior to Geya’rah, who is a Frostwolf herself). Who cannot in any way be blamed for the sins of the Iron Horde. Complain all you want about how they came to peace, it did happen.
YOUR argument seems to begin and end at “Draenei Good/Every Indigenous Race on Draenor Bad”. And as a note, the Orcish people spent about 200+ years in relative peace with the Draenei before they were manipulated by an outside force. Plus, if you’re sighting “savagery of Orcish culture” as a justification for why Yrel’s crusade is OK … then one should point out that the Orcs in either timeline can’t hold a candle to the damage the “civilized” (not savage) Eradar culture has caused. With the majority of their people willingly joining the Legion, through promises of power and knowledge. They weren’t tricked like Orcs.
The victims in this case are Orcs that attacked these Draenei imperialists to wipe them out before people from an Alternate timeline showed up and put it a stop to it.
And those Orcs not among the Iron Horde … and those races not apart of the Horde at all … and those cultures simply guilty of causing disunity. But remember the Draenei can not be held accountable for the majority of their people they resisted and fought against; but it is absolutely acceptable to hold accountable the Orcish people (notable the Frostwolves, who’s leaders comprise 3/4ths of the Mag’har leadership that we know of) that resisted and fought back against the majority of their people’s actions. If the motive is reprisal for the Iron Horde (30 years late) the Draenei are literally punishing the Orc equivelent of themselves too. Purely on the basis of race. Just throwing that out there…
And side-note, while I know this will fall on deaf ears, but like it or not with the motive given to AU Grom to even attack the AU Draenei in the first place … there is no evidence of an attempted genocide. And in the one instance we see the Iron Horde Horde even using slaves, there are just as many Orc rebels enslaved as Draenei. The goal (based on that only motive in Hellscream) was to keep them suppressed enough that they would not interfere with the invasion of Azeroth. Which is probably the major factor of WHY the Draenei weren’t already wiped out before the portal was open. This is still horrific what the Iron Horde did, but lets not conflate the MU and AU too much here.
You’re literally defending a group advocating for “join or die.” You have to understand that stance might be a little bit controversial. Pretty much every example of this type of behavior is widely condemned. Any positives you attribute to a group with “join or die” is both seen as a justifying that policy and as a consequence (and rationalizing) of that policy. It’s offensive in the real world. It’s akin to arguing that gang violence in the Soviet Union was low, so “join the communist party or die” was maybe not a great idea, but did have some positives. Well, yes, but the reason gang violence was low was because of an authoritarian state that suppressed free will and killed dissenters. You can’t separate the two.
Within Warcraft it’s also compounded by the fact that, from the Horde perspective, it has been retconned numerous times to have the groups that are Alliance and/or Alliance-adjacent no longer aggressive or starting conflicts, but rather the bastions of moral integrity and purity (e.g. the moral white to the Horde as morally black) who respond to the evilness that is the Horde. It’s actually gotten pretty terrible.
Velen did not harbor ill-will to the main universe Orcs because he knew said Orcs were deceived by a Draenei who had joined the Burning Legion. It’s not really a reach for alternate universe Draenei to do so as well. Likewise, the alternate universe Orcs were misled and deceived by a xenophobic monster who had the ability to show them the future (something they had no experience with prior) and claim the Draenei were a threat to their existence. While WoD was a mess for a number of reasons, I’m not sure that accepting some level of “diminished culpability” is really that far-fetched.
You may think it’s terrible writing and a retcon, but I would argue the whole retcon of having Orcs become warmongers without demon blood is also terrible writing, therefore negating everything else. Retconning Sylvanas to have been working as a minion of WoW Satan for a decade is a terrible writing retcon.
Yrel went so far as to befriend Grom. Peace happened. The Light Mother then had them spread their influence via “join or die.” It wasn’t due to the actions of the Iron Horde.
I don’t/won’t dispute this fact. I’m not sure “retcon” is the proper term for it (partly because Legion did expand our interactions with the naaru) but it is definitely a very different portrayal. The writers decided they want to explore the cosmological narrative and then decided the cosmological forces should not be perceived as morally good or bad, rather that they had a role to play and were subject to that. I don’t know if it’s for the best or not, partly because it is still pretty weakly done.
While Algalon mentions killing trillions, we don’t bat an eye because he’s fighting the Void (and the Void has always been the bad guys). It’s difficult to side with Death (as it is portrayed as the antagonist of this entire expansion) whereas Life has consistently been portrayed as “on our side.” And the Burning Legion was the primary antagonist for … well, up until Legion. Trying to portray the Light as having some shades of gray seems like a lost cause, but we’ll see. Maybe the Void Lords will come to our rescue somewhere (very unlikely) or Death will turn out to be the good guy (ha, that’s super unlikely) or Illidan will free Sargeras and the Burning Legion will be our only hope (wow, the most unlikeliest ever).
I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong in stating there was a better way of phrasing it. I would say however that interpreting his response as inconsistent with the story (and retconning it) seems unlikely, just because his phrasing doesn’t definitively seem like a retcon. It seems like he’s just reiterating the story and saying we’ll see more about it. I wouldn’t rule out learning more involving retconning though. Pretty much every story lately seems to retcon a previous story.
I will admit I don’t read all of the threads in here but I haven’t seen a lot of “let’s give the Void a chance” commentary. Regardless, I think the biggest problem most folks have is simply that you listing “join or die” as bad, but listing all the positives of them ends up neglecting the fact that you can’t get the positives without the negative. You’re justifying “join or die” by saying “there’s no backstabbing.” Join or die leads to no backstabbing; the evil you disagree with is the main cause of the good you see and you’re actually saying that the bad isn’t so bad (which is pretty repulsive).
Possibly. I could misuse the term in some way. What I mean is that the story we saw in the mag’har scenario is not something that I could look at and say “yeah, I can totally see the event of WoD leading in that direction”.
The guy that led them, Grom, was still the Warchief my guy.
And when has decades of peaceful coexistence ever stopped a horde from waking up one morning and removing the peaceful neighbors that they fought side by side with from the map?
Theramore and Teldrassil are proof of that I would say.
Just saying if Yrel was worried the Orcs would unit to kill all her people again nothing would have stopped them.
So its understandable why she wouldn’t trust them. The appearance of Xera and the army of light in her timeline changed things.
And yet she referred to him as an old friend by the time of their final conflict. And beyond Grom himself, both AU Draka and AU Durotan were the other leaders we were aware of. In fact, AU Durotan was (as far as we know) killed by the Lightbound; and AU Draka was leading the only other Mag’har holdouts in Nagrand. But, I get it, “Sins of the Race”. The Frostwolves blood (and all those who did not join the Iron Horde) means they need to be held accountable for the crimes of their people they resisted and fought against; while the Draenei (by pure virtue of their blood) can never be held accountable for the crimes of the majority of THEIR people that they resisted and fought against. Good to know. GoodRace/BadRace and all that.
All I’ll say is … Tolkein would be deeply ashamed of that messaging.
Its the direction that Blizzard has taken the story.
All I can do is interpret what Blizzard tells.
Maybe Yrel was not thinking 10 years ahead but hundreds. She has Velen’s gift, maybe Grom was alright and so was Durotan but what about their children? Or they children’s children?
What if Yrel foresaw her people being threatened with extinction again?
Her plan to avert it and continue the coexistence is everyone converts to the light.
Maybe to a light worshipping race this seems like a perfectly good plan and some Orcs are just to ignorant to see it.
Thats the problem with Blizzard stories they leave too many factors unsaid and just rush to the conclusion. And when it isn’t convenient anymore they change it.
I wouldnt be surprised tons of what we saw in the Maghar recruitment would be retconned when it becomes relevant again.
So the same exact type of lie/vision that compelled the Orcish people into attacking them (in both AU and MU) is OK because its the Draenei doing it? Because they are a Light Worshipping race instead of a Spirit Worshipping one? Got it!
And he was about as worthless as possibly could be half the time.
Also, the reason that Velen is so trusted was not because he received those visions, but because of the wisdom he had to interpret them when he got them. And he himself has NEVER held it against the Orcs for what they did on MU Draenor, because he understands more than anyone what evil his people brought to that world. Yrel, in contrast, was handed the ability, but anyone who could have instructed her died. She was given the keys to the car, with no training on how to drive it. Which means, she absolutely would be prone to misinterpretations of her visions. As well as being left open to being exploited through them.
By say … a Prime Naaru like Xe’ra … which by the sounds of it the Light Mother is.
EDIT: And again, her crusade is targetting EVERY culture and race on Draenor. Not just the Orcs. My god, that isn’t guess-work, its actively what we see both in game AND is what is suggested as the goal in her own damned sermon. Even Botani and Saberon escape with the AU Mag’har.
LOL! Well that would be a way to go I suppose if that’s her goal.
Regardless, as a note. People wanted to know how Yrel could do something like what she did with the Lightbound (if we’re not sugar-coating them)? Well, I just stated the answer. She is Billy Batson without the Wisdom of Solomon part of his powers. She was given the Keys to the Car, forced to drive it out of necessity, but was given absolutely no instruction on how to drive. By BOTH AU Velen and MU Maraad. Which means she is receiving visions like Velen, but has none of the training necessary to properly interpret either the validity or messaging within them. You throw a Prime Naaru into the mix (with their own fanatic agenda), and THAT is how you end up with a Lightbound crusade!
Its Yrel having to fumble her own way through something she absolutely needed guidance through … completely on her own. Because without that guidance, she is absolutely up to misinterpreting her visions … or just being outright exploited through them. Which I’d wager IS the case.
Apparently the British Empire, known for colonizing, attempting to colonize, or existing in neocolonial relations with The Entire World, means they were not racist because they violently oppressed (or tried to) everyone equally.
Quite a breathtaking take this fine Saturday morning.