Leader of the Alliance - why Anduin automatically?

[tikcol]

Blizzard is enticing different kinds of people to play their game. Horde is for SJWs and alliance is for conservatives. I rest my case.

[Deleted]

the humans are the masters of the alliance

Why?

Because they formed it? Ok, then I want our Blue warchief to be one that commanded and actually met the night elves first, Jaina Proudmoore. Would you be ok with that?

Draenei - Outsiders, low pop numbers

Dwarves - the most legit option to challenge for leadership since they've got their people together. (except for the fact they have a council of 3, whoops)

Gnomes - low pop, distracted by problems at home and technology

Night Elves - unless they have a miraculous resurgence, definitely on the downswing of their civilization (which is a shadow of their former power)

Worgen - low pop numbers, at the mercy of Night Elves and Humans for a place to live for the most part (also, they really are humans when you think about it)

Pandaren - majority are neutral, so low pop in Alliance

Humans - While they have definitely took some hits to their kingdoms in the past, they are the upcoming race. They have the numbers to back it up. They have the whole, "jack of all trades, master of none" thing going for them.

While Anduin would be well advised to take plenty of help from the more experience leaders, he's the obvious choice. He leads the power bloc of the Alliance after all. Humans, which are very closely aligned with Gnomes and Dwarves militarily, are the dominant force of the Alliance. (and, barring some calamity, will continue to be since they have very good birth rates)

Dwarves - have a council of 3, true. So... what? In the end, this is a military position, choose the best army commander. I vote Muradin.

Night elves - you mean, miraculous like, for example, orcs get every other expansion? I mean, They got here in Warcraft 1 and 2, slaughtered eachother, got slaughtered, put in internment camps, they fought they way out, some more got slaughtered, sailed west, some ships were lost, some more were slaughtered by the naga, arrived west, some more slaughtered by centaurs, night elves, undead, Legion, then they slaughtered eachother, got slaughtered by demons again. At long last, established Orgrimmar! Got slaughtered by raiding parties of Daelin, then Classic WoW is relatively calm except for some skirmishes. Main force into Outland Horde side. Got slaughtered there, but got a few lost brown orcs. Main force into Northrend, got slauthered there (just in comparison, Stormwind alone lost 50k people in Northrend, I wonder how many orcs lost?). Garrosh got in power, fighting in Ashenvale, disaster as Varian slaughtered an army with the help of worgen and night elves, eventually they won, only to be slaughtered by the player character. Went to pandaria, main force... slaughter. Civil war, they slaughtered eachother. Vol'jin got to power. By now orcs should be on the brink of extinction. Yet until Legion, they were the main force of the Horde.
How do I know night elves were few to begin with? In the end, we don't know population numbers. They held the entire Northern kalimdor. They could have been 200k or 2 billion. All we know is that they held Northern Kalimdor, and yes, they lost a lot, but if we add up, not nearly as much as humans and orcs did.

Humans - oh, we reached them. let's see. We're talking about the kingdom of Stormwind. In Warcraft 1 got sacked. Orcs pillaged and burned and killed everyone they found. Ok, then, later on, Defias uprising surprise! Onyxia lead terrible policies, in Classic WoW except Elwynn, other zones under Stormwind control were having huge problems, problems had started creeping into Elwynn. Orcs killing people in Redridge, undead and whatever in Duskwood, Defias in Westfall... and that's it. That's all Stormwind had. They were a dying kingdom, but Blizzard made them better.
They died in the Blasted Lands fighting to secure the Dark portal. Then, 50k of them died in Northrend. Yet in Cataclysm there were so many of them that there wasn't enough food and Defias rose again (and most likely many died of hunger). 1/6 of Stormwind, the capital of humans, wiped by Deathwing, that means that 1/6 of the population of the most populous city, dead instantly.
But hey, humans aren't just Stormwind. There was also Theramore and Stromgarde and... Southshore! Yea! Southshore wiped off the map. Theramore wiped off the map. Stomgarde just a few left fighting in a ditch. Rest wiped and turned into forsaken. Nethergarde wiped off the map. Darkshire betrayed by town watchers loyal to the Legion and its population killed except a handful (rogue story in Legion).
What other human kingdoms are there... let's see... Gilneas... but they're mostly worgen. Dalaran, neutral. Alterac, gone. Lordaeron, forsaken. Kul Tiras? Unknown status. That's it.
And yet humans are the most populous? They are only populous because Blizzard keeps popping them into existance. By numbers, they're doing quite bad.

aWell as is nothing was really made official... outside of the future we saw in the online-comic (he might still prove himself to explain it).

Besides; thus far in Legion neither the Horde nor the Alliance are doing anything as a whole. All we saw thus far were individual races doing their skirmishes.
So nothing really implies whether Anduin was made the High-King or whether Sylvanas was well accepted as warchief.


Which of the alliance forces cannot say the same about themselves?
- Dwarves were part of the alliance who lost so much in WC2 and WC3 as well
- Gnomes literally lost their city with most the population to gas
- Nightelves were rather few to start with, lost their immortality and a lot of their army in Hyall
- Draenei lost their friggin planet and there's only a spaceship full of them left
- Pandaren... well we all know they aren't that much into warfare and we basically only host a small part of their numbers in our factions

Really? Dwarves lost much in WC2 and 3?
In Warcraft 2 they sealed themselves in Ironforge, so not so many casualties since Ironforge was never penetrated. The Wildhammer got saved. Dark Iron were not part of battle.
In Warcraft 3 the undead plague never reached them. The Legion didn't reach them since they went for Kalimdor after Lordaeron. They sent an expedition to Northrend and one to help Garithos, both lost, but that's it.
No major losses in Classic.
No major losses in BC.
They participated in Northrend, clearly they lost quite a few.
In Cataclysm Wildhammer and Dark Irons joined them. Huge boost in numbers.
No major losses in WoD.
No major losses in Legion.

As for night elves, how few were there? 5k? 1 million? 237 billions? No clue. I have not seen Blizzard tell us they're few, and if they did, I'm sure they didn't tell us HOW few.
Also, even if they lost their immortality, it doesn't mean they get insta-death if they're over an age. Malfurion and Tyrande are over 10k, for example. It just means that they'll start to age and in a few hundreads, or maybe even thousands of years, they'll die. And they can get diseases.

Anyways who implied that the leader of the alliance is anduin ?
I mean even for King Varian with all his might and respect among the rest of the alliance leaders and only Gen and Jaina started jumping up and down after his death.
And Anduin only wanted to listen to what the people of Stormwind were thinking about him as well as his advisors (gen and velen). Not particularly interested for the rest of the alliance anyways. So endpoint is Alliance never had someone like a Warchief that is leading the horde. And no one ever appointed Anduin one. He is only the new King of Stormwind the biggest remaining human kingdom with what burden this title may carry.

We're talking because on the Legion site anduin is listed as High King.
there are a few links in the previous pages to the site.

Rest of races are few, I agree.

[Deleted]

Every race had loses but Humans had the most. And Night Elves losing their immortality doesn't mean that they are weak. They can live for thousands of years. And their loss at Hyjal is far less than Humans and Orcs.

Correction; they could live for 1000s of years, but not any longer.
Their immortality never gave them immunity to anything else than aging or sicknesses.
I mean; they did experience losses in combat prior to the world-tree blowing up... heck even their demigods could be killed in violent ways.
Noone said they were weak; it's just that the play-field is now more even.

[Friendlyimmolation]

Correction; they could live for 1000s of years, but not any longer.
Their immortality never gave them immunity to anything else than aging or sicknesses.
I mean; they did experience losses in combat prior to the world-tree blowing up... heck even their demigods could be killed in violent ways.
Noone said they were weak; it's just that the play-field is now more even.

Night elf life span is now apparently in line with the Blood elves, both of who can live for thousands of years.

[KSM899]

What about the night elfs? you forgot them

[Deleted]

I don't think that the title high king implicates anything more than the title highlord. Currently I believe there are only 2 active kings among alliance and tbf only human/worgen and dorve states are "kingdoms". In that case and since dorves don't have an active king but a council and since the biggest human kingdom is Stormwind wouldn't it make sense for the active Stormwind king to bear the title "high king" ?
Forgive me if I am missing something here but I defo couldn't imagine nelfs, dranei or gnomes bearing the title "king" or "high king" and since they picked this thingie they better have the stormwind king bear it.
When Anduin ultimately leaves to spend time with Turalion training as paladin fighting of the remaining demons , I reckon Genn will be left to watch over the matters of Stormwind and represent human kingdoms for major alliance undertakings

[Koryn123]

Humans - While they have definitely took some hits to their kingdoms in the past, they are the upcoming race. They have the numbers to back it up. They have the whole, "jack of all trades, master of none" thing going for them.

Lol. Not anymore.

You're hard pressed to find anyone better than a human at anything a human can do. Blood elves are constantly shoved into the mud so humans can seem better at magic. First, Jaina pops into the Violet Citadel during the Purge and fires off slow frostbolts, killing all of Aethas archmage bodyguards (elves, who'd lived hundreds or thousands of years, whose magical skill was specifically geared in the area of magical defensive combat), without one of them doing anything except stand there in a combat animation (maybe not even that, I don't remember) before dying.

Second, the Horde commander in Draenor needs their arcane sanctum connected to ley lines. They must have tons of blood elf magi in their own base who could do the job and be a very safe option, right? Apparently not, and they went to Khadgar instead. A Kirin Tor mage, when just a few months before in terms of lore time, the Kirin Tor proved it didn't give a damn about the Horde and would willingly murder them all given the first opportunity maybe not in the Purge, but definitely on the Isle of Thunder. So they trusted the Kirin Tor to do it, when they could likely have sabotaged it and caused unbelievably devastating damage to the Horde. Maybe the player could trust Khadgar if they knew him better than we see in-game where he's just a guy who calls you hero, but there's no way they could be sure that he didn't have anyone among his group who were like Jaina, rabid Horde-hating Alliance sympathizers. They were officially Alliance, after all. The blood knight content that Blizzard made a big deal about at Blizzcon was cut, so the Blood Knights were kind of just there, with no real development. Oh, but you KNOW they couldn't POSSIBLY have gotten by without that content that shows a blood elf going mad with lust for power and screwing everyone over with their recklessness and having to be put down, right? RIGHT??? WE HAVEN'T SEEN ENOUGH EVIDENCE THAT BLOOD ELVES ARE UNTRUSTWORTHY WITH MAGIC WHILE HUMANS ARE, RIGHT???????!!!!

And obviously, there's the whole thing were Aethas and the Sunreavers just can't get enough abuse from the Kirin Tor and bend over backwards to serve their human masters, rather than be respected magi in Quel'thalas where their contributions to society will be recognized and appreciated.


And apart from magic, there's tactics too.

In the Warcraft comic, Varian and Broll make a quick stop at Warsong Gulch, where the night elves are like "oh noes, we r doomed" and Varian takes one look at their map and suddenly has the best strategy ever, despite him never having fought in a war before. Him, a human, knowing more about Ashenvale than a night elf that had lived there as a military commander likely for at least hundreds of years, but more likely thousands, perhaps even since the War of the Ancients, who should logically know Ashenvale like the back of her hand, and thus know a better strategy. But nope. Varian is the best tactician in all of Azeroth, and soundly destroys the Horde in Warsong Gulch. He popped in, saw the map, was like "btw i know a better strategy" and before they even carried out the fight, proving its results, everyone was already marveling at his brilliance and sucking him off about it.

And of course, we all know about how Tyrande was reduced to being a complete moron in terms of tactics so that the all-knowing 30-year old Varian could be the smart one who saves the day in MoP.


And apparently armor too. Rather than having all the races wear armor suited to them and their fighting styles, it's much easier to have human blacksmiths mass-produce stuff to fit the other races. But, if you think about it, it's actually really appropriate for Blizzard to dress them all up as humans, because they're all humans, and if not, then they're human sidekicks, and if not, then they don't exist in the eyes of Blizzard's lore team.

@4:56

[Zulkhan]

Yes the Horde deals in facts and realism that's why Sylvanas is Warchief. Because of facts and realism and not because invisible spirits said so and because Kosak thinks if he makes her warchief she'll suddenly become real and have sex with him.

A vision offering glimpes of the future has definitely more merit than feelings based on, well, nothing. Anduin was such a fitting choice that he has to literally learn how to rule a faction not in time of war but in time of literal apocalypse. Great stuff. Sylvanas is not really that better when it comes to lead people of different backgrounds but at least she knows her shit when it comes to military matters, which is not that awful of a thing during the time of literal apocalypse.

I loved the Kosak bit. That was very lore related.

[Arrashi]

I loved the Kosak bit. That was very lore related.

What if sylvanas actually wants to become real but the only thing keeping her away is barrier of salt ?

[Zulkhan]

What if sylvanas actually wants to become real but the only thing keeping her away is barrier of salt ?

That's sad. All the hatred and bitterness are preventing Sylvanas to join our realm and cleanse the world of all those bad feelings with dozens of rainbow-blight bombs.

[Fawnix]

High King is just a simple way for Blizzard to tell the story of the Alliance side without involving every leader from every nation to make a single decision.