should pandaren be changed to an alliance race

[sillag]

im aware this wont happen because blizzard would not want to force players to race/faction change their characters. but were here on the lore forum so lets discuss it from a lore point of view. i also say all of this from the perspective of a horde main.

anyway to begin we can recall how the pandaren met the horde and alliance: an alliance airship with horde prisoners crashed into the turtle island and they had to work together to fix it. the alliance panda i think her name is aya wanted to wait around and figure out what to do but ji firepaw decided to blow the thing up and then they all had to quickly heal it.

i think they probably intended that to seem like both philosophies had a part to play but to me it came off more like ji was right because at least when he did something it worked out eventually. you have the horde and alliance healing it together so its not like one faction definitively did more to help. but i can see why at that point ji and some other pandaren would want to join the horde.

now lets consider everything the horde did after that:

discovered pandaria and set out to conquer it ("paint this new continent red")
began to racially purge the horde of all non-orc races including the pandaren who had joined them
picked up the heart of a creepy dead old god and dunked it into the extremely sacred vale lakes, corrupting them and destroying a rly nice looking neutral zone
imprisoned and tortured ji firepaw to the brink of death whereupon he was rescued by the combined alliance/horde rebellion force, most specifically the alliance panda monk girl

now do we think that after all of that ji firepaw thinks he made a good decision. does he feel that his life was not ruined by joining the horde. apparently he doesnt like them enough to show up for the dinner cutscene at the end of legion. and he hangs out all the time in legion in the monk hall with the alliance panda who presumably is having a great time because she wasnt conscripted into a war against her ancient homeland and then tortured by the person she swore allegiance to.

beyond that its becoming increasingly clear that even the horde pandas have basically nothing in common with the current horde's values. sylvanas's horde likes conquering people, enslaving val'kyr, creating weapons of mass destruction, and destroying cities. these are not congruent with the values we saw the pandaren express in the past. the tauren have a blood oath or w/e but the pandaren basically showed up because they thought it sounded more exciting than the alliance and history has proven they made a mistake

if you ask me it would be neat to have this happen even if no one actually cares about pandaren. it would give the alliance one of those fist pump moments or something to see their way of life chosen over the hordes. and it would make the horde re-examine themselves and how far they have fallen from what they were supposed to be. none of them care about ji firepaw not even baine he is having a great time at that dinner table where everyone else is either clearly disillusioned or outright plotting to start the next world war.

idk im just saying take some risks and spice up the lore blizzard when have we ever even seen someone switch factions.

[Techno-Druid]

Garrosh never appeared to want to ethnically cleanse the pandaren. He wasn't even aware of their presence when Nazgrel informed him of the location of the Alliance ships.

Pandaren really don't fit into being either a purely Alliance or Horde race. They have morals more akin to the Alliance, but culturally they're shamanistic and worship elementals and wild gods more akin to the orcs and tauren.

[Hisholyness]

just get rid of them all

[Ealyssa]

Pandaren if anYthing would be an horde race. Cause all the cool kids choose to be horde these days. Just like the nightborn or high mountain. Horde is more cultrualy diverse and inclusive. Tauren culture alone fits pandaren way better than anything the alliance offers, especially the (enlighted) dictature of the high king.

[Cyanu]

pandaren are still a neutral race only two smaller factions joined the alliance and the horde, the majority still live in pandaria and take no sides

the only odd part of their horde membership was that it happened under Garrosh but Varian was little more than a 'hawk' too so...

imo they don't really fit any faction

[sillag]

Garrosh never appeared to want to ethnically cleanse the pandaren. He wasn't even aware of their presence when Nazgrel informed him of the location of the Alliance ships.

sorry but this doesnt work. garrosh explicitly says he wants them to conquer the entire continent he doesnt care who is there. it doesnt matter that he "wasnt aware" there were people living there because this is azeroth and its pretty safe to assume if theres a continent theres probably sentient beings and nations living there.

[Magnagarde]

just get rid of them all

^ this

If there was a way around the already created pandaren characters, I'm pretty sure Blizzard would remove them from the playable race options.

[Darktbs]

Considering the way the final pandaren quest describes the two factions.

I can't imagine Pandaren choosing the Horde.

[Techno-Druid]

^ this

If there was a way around the already created pandaren characters, I'm pretty sure Blizzard would remove them from the playable race options.

Blizzard clearly has no desire to retcon or 'forget' Pandaria.

In fact we will be seeing hozen and saurok next expansion on those uncharted islands based on screenshots at BlizzCon.

- - - Updated - - -

sorry but this doesnt work. garrosh explicitly says he wants them to conquer the entire continent he doesnt care who is there. it doesnt matter that he "wasnt aware" there were people living there because this is azeroth and its pretty safe to assume if theres a continent theres probably sentient beings and nations living there.

Conquest =\= Genocide

The fact that pandaren from Pandaria allied with the Horde shows that Garrosh's Horde had little intention of exterminating the pandaren.

[sillag]

Conquest =\= Genocide

The fact that pandaren from Pandaria allied with the Horde shows that Garrosh's Horde had little intention of exterminating the pandaren.

no one actually mentioned genocide. but garrosh still wanted to conquer that continent and we know from how he tried conquering other places that his methods were going to involve unprovoked violent subjugation.

also then he did try to enact several genocides all at once but that was later and the rebellion started then.

[Techno-Druid]

no one actually mentioned genocide. but garrosh still wanted to conquer that continent and we know from how he tried conquering other places that his methods were going to involve unprovoked violent subjugation.

also then he did try to enact several genocides all at once but that was later and the rebellion started then.

He really only committed genocide against the Darkspears. He did ruthlessly subjugate the magnataur though and create create qausi-segregated areas though.

I imagine in a scenario where the Horde did conquer Pandaria it would likely be turned into a puppet state. Maybe with some Garrosh-loyal pandaren touted as the new Emperor with kor'kron stationed in every province of the continent.

[mickybrighteyes]

no one actually mentioned genocide. but garrosh still wanted to conquer that continent and we know from how he tried conquering other places that his methods were going to involve unprovoked violent subjugation.

also then he did try to enact several genocides all at once but that was later and the rebellion started then.

at which point the horde was split into Garrosh's horde the revolutionaries.... one of these groups is effectively gone and the other utilized pandaren forces among its ranks.

[sillag]

at which point the horde was split into Garrosh's horde the revolutionaries.... one of these groups is effectively gone and the other utilized pandaren forces among its ranks.

thats true but it still reflects badly on the horde especially when we can see that now the horde is about to repeat the same mistakes. this all flies in the face of the pandaren emperors last words to us. the pandaren should leave the horde, and would if the lore took precedence over gameplay.

[mickybrighteyes]

thats true but it still reflects badly on the horde especially when we can see that now the horde is about to repeat the same mistakes. this all flies in the face of the pandaren emperors last words to us. the pandaren should leave the horde, and would if the lore took precedence over gameplay.

And what were his last words exactly? You seem to imply that they are onesided and are justification for pandaren presence still in game on one faction.

[Hisholyness]

[yetgdhfgh]

So the horde pandas should just turncoat and switch sides just cause Ji Firepaw still has the hawts for Aysa?

Also whatever happened to that plot thread? We all saw her carry him away from Org and there was pics of both of them in the monk class hall during the Legion Beta but nothing obviously came of it.

[Martymark]

Should Worgen be changed to an horde race? They are mean and ugly, just like the horde.

[Hctaz]

thats true but it still reflects badly on the horde especially when we can see that now the horde is about to repeat the same mistakes.

The horde isn't about to repeat the same mistakes. The horde is about to go to war against the alliance UNIFIED because fuck them.

[Syegfryed]

no one actually mentioned genocide. but garrosh still wanted to conquer that continent and we know from how he tried conquering other places that his methods were going to involve unprovoked violent subjugation.

also then he did try to enact several genocides all at once but that was later and the rebellion started then.

Alliance tried to conquer pandaria as well, is a new land full of resources, both factions seek that, don't be naive

Pandarens were always more a Horde Race, but like they said they didn't want do deny any faction the pandaren because the heroes appear in the RTs were almost always neutral.

[Techno-Druid]

The horde isn't about to repeat the same mistakes. The horde is about to go to war against the alliance UNIFIED because fuck them.

Man those epilogue cinematics bummed me out. The Horde one was great and I loved the conversation and contempt Baine and Saurfang had for Gallywix, but what the fuck was up with the Alliance one? It was just...lame.

They could have at least had Velen and a few of the major dwarves make an appearance or get a line of dialogue.