[Speculation][Spoilers] Before the Storm

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Anyways, I think the BTS great! The scenario is quite intriguing (and tearjerking). We get to see Anduin being competent enough to consult his fellow leaders, touring the nations, and sticking to his dream even in the face of adversity. Exploration of what it's like to be a Forsaken, some action intra-faction turmoil with the Council, Genn gets development, Nathanos isn't a complete jerk anymore, and the field event is fantastic. I'd love to see a cutscene, ingame quest, or a machinima based off of it. Only real downside is that it reinforces Sylvanas as a Stalin-esque dictator with zero redeeming qualities, and makes the rest of the Horde look bad by association.

I'm indifferent to the light-resurrection, as the Light's supernatural abilities have always been a given. I'm more worried about how they're continuing to twist the Light into yet another "is actually morally greeeey and isn't as good as it seems!" ordeal.

[Mehrunes]

"I cant ask stormwind to go to war because the warchief of the horde chose to execute individuals she will now paint as traitors"
"She's won, she elimated the opposition, killed the rightful heir to lorderaeron and did it all while looking like a noble leader for not attacking the alliance and starting a war"

Both lines he says right after the usuper part, and after his lines on how she did so well
it all screams and says in so many context clues he is talking about what she did as an amazing publicity stunt that makes her look well "Noble leader" when in reality she gunned down her civilians who even thought for a moment about living free lives with their families...

So you are capable of spotting the chronology of his sentences. How comes you're still ignoring that, i.e. the context of his description of the situation (in the same post you once again talk about context no less) then? Because him talking about how Sylvanas will paint things that aren't Calia's status as a would-be usurper only after he called her a would-be usurper clearly point out it's not a part of that later point. Which shits all over your narrative about that line.

Yet here is the thing.
1. if it is a coup that still doesent make it right to kill them all

Yeah, defecting to the person performing a coup is usually met with hugs, flowers and kittens.

3. sylvanas herself even says she thinks anduin had nothing t odo with it and it was just calia thinking in the heat of the moment.

Which changes what in regards of Calia? Which was, you know, the topic?

Calia is not the reason it all happened, the undead were starting to leave before many of them even knew it was calia.

And Sylvanas attacked only after she heard about Calia being there, not after realizing the Forsaken are defecting.

How is that a coup? how is her freeing slaves any good reason for sylvanas to do it? how is what sylvanas did AT ALL justified because "but muh slaves"

This is still fanfiction.

Also again, sylvanas literally fucking says "I know anduin had nothign to do with this"

Which changes absolutely nothing, so why would you feel the need to bring it up again?

slave
slāv/
nounhistorical
noun: slave; plural noun: slaves

1.
a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.


That [I]is[I] what Sylvanas is doing and how she feels, so....

Except for the part where it isn't.

Destroying Stormwind would be a few times harder, though. More powerful army and longer distance from the nearest Horde's base - which means they would have been detected way before they even come close to their destination. On the other hand, compared to any Alliance's capital, Astranaar and Teldrassil was much closer to Ogrimmar. The only thing Teldrassil had, which was more powerful than any individual Human's asset, was Malfurion, who wasn't doing too badly to buy time until he got an axe to the back.

Well, WoW is kinda lacking in solid fleet detection technology. And the casus of Zul doesn't exactly paint Stormwind's defensiveness in good light.

Freeing slaves is not a coup.
she attempted to free slaves, not usurp sylvanas

Stop spreading fake bullshit. Especially since you're wrong even in the scope of your fake bullshit, because Calia outright said she wants to rule Forsaken. When she was talking about Forsaken in general, not those at the gathering. Which would be an usurpation of Sylvanas' power.

They are literally being told they dont have free will, they are being controlled, and they are killed if they try to escape
that is the fucking definition of a slave

And, pray tell, when exactly are they told that? And they were killed after they tried to defect to a usurper and the enemy faction.

anduin rules the alliance, does that mean he has them bound and gagged while forcing them to build weapons of mass destruction?

no, you keep bringing up moot points and horrid attempts to twist what is being said, i think i might finally have to put you on ignore old friend.

Try to live by an example then. Because your bit about Anduin, other than not making any sense, is a moot point of galactic proportions.

AGAIN
Anduin is not directly calling her a usuper, he is saying that sylvanas wil lable her that to get better onlook from the horde, HE LITERALLY SAYS IT IN THE NEXT SENTENCE "SHE WILL CALL THEM TRAITORS SO THAT TO THE HORDE SHE WILL LOOK LIKE A NOBLE LEADER"
Its really making me upset at how much you cherry pick and ignore.

@Friendlyimmolation is cherrypicking and ignoring? When you outright explained why your narrative is a twisted and contorted mess? Yes, he indeed says in the next line that Sylvanas will present the dead Forsaken a certain way to the rest of the Horde. Yet, he talked about Calia being a would-be usurper before talking about what Sylvanas will present things as. In a sentence that doesn't even mention the Horde, presenting things as something else, Sylvanas labeling anything or how things appear. He simply flat out calls Calia a would-be usurper. Which is rather direct. The end, because chronology of events is not something you can just randomly cherry pick and ignore. You got one thing right though. They way you're so shamelessly bending over backwards here AGAIN is rather upsetting to witness.

forsaken are absolutely slaves after before the storm. if you get killed for contemplating leaving sylvanas might as well fit them all with bomb collars.

Defecting to Alliance and a usurper. Contemplating leaving. Spot the difference.

Calia wants her people to be free, she wants to rule her people and make sure they are not enslaved under sylvanas like they currently are. she does not say "I WANT LOREDERAN AND TO ENSLAVE YOU ALL" she states that she wants to rule her people again.

Which, you know, requires usurpation given how they are currently ruled by Sylvanas.

YES, GOD FUCKING YES SHE IS GOING TO She wants to allow those who wish to be free be free, she is not going to go to lorderan and do the same thing, and you cant go "your making up stuff" then literally make up stuff in your second sentence, how do you know she is going to go usurp lorderan?

You just admitted she wants to usurp Sylvanas' position as leader of the Forsaken a goddamn sentence ago.

except they arnt?

One person dying does not suddenly destroy the whole council...

But she didn't kill just one person. You should have linked the definition of "one" instead.

Killing non-combatant defectors kinda hurts the Forsaken narrative of "free will" doesn't it?

Why would it? They defected to an enemy faction. Where they could have easily become combatants.

The Forsaken have always been free to do whatever Sylvanas wants them to do, and only what Sylvanas wants them to do.

The other Horde races will also soon be enjoying the gift of 'free will' thanks to the benevolent Sylvanas.

Yeah, no. The Forsaken have always been free to do whatever isn't against the Forsaken. Defecting to the enemy faction is against the Forsaken. Other than that Sylvanas didn't give a shit about Forsaken defecting, there are plenty of Forsaken in neutral factions and some openly talk about having left the Forsaken.

Oh no, there are def slaves, Sylvanas killed those who were caught in the confusion but were still loyal to her and who never wanted to side with the Alliance and Calia. shes is a psychopath, even Nathanos was concerned with her, you know a guy who pretty much agreed and supported Sylvans in every decision she had made so far.

Great comprehension of slavery right there. And for all the brilliant Alliance posters that bring up Nathanos I've seen not a single mention of the part where he accepted Sylvanas' reasoning when she explained those that delayed cannot be trusted about their motives for returning, which makes them a security threat. How quaint.

How are they not slaves? Sylvans killed those who never wanted to defect to Calia and the Alliance they were just caught in the confusion but still sided with Sylvanas, and she butchered them.

Because killing people has nothing to do with slavery?

Even freaking Nathanos didn't agree with her, when you have a person who 99% of the time agress with everything you do but not this time, that should tell you something.

Except he book explicitly said he accepted her words after she explained herself.

Right of conquest? There was no right of conquest. Also no, not really, if suddenly a group of people ran into the white house and took it over we wouldent just suddenly go. "Alright I guess your leader now"

I guess Civil War in the Plaguelands didn't happen then.

He wqs literally created to be her yes man and he said no, that tells a fucking lot.

The fact that you're deliberately ignoring the part where he accepted her explanation, in a thread you lambasted on how people are cherry-picking no less, does indeed tell a fucking lot. Particularly that your narrative has the consistency of jello and will bend in all ways as long as its convenient for your argument, without regard even for internal consistency or integrity.

Fenris isle

Ask a CDev Word of God clarifying that.

And oh look these forsaken who want to exercise their free will are killed! allmost like they dont have free will?

Yeah, because free will means tolerating everything. That's why Forsaken have no prisons or legal system. Oh, wait, they do and you're just wrong.

You cant tell people they have free will, then kill them when they want to use it, its like saying smoking weed is legal then shooting anyone who smokes weed. "So you are saying Weed is legal to smoke now?" Yes sir "Alright i guess i will smoke a joint now then" You are under arrest! "What but its legal!" yes it is but your under arrest! "Why!?" because you are, now get on the ground!

You can however tell people they have free will but make smoking weed illegal, then punish those who smoke weed nonetheless. And smoking will being illegal does not negate the concept of free will. Now replace smoking weed with defecting to an enemy faction and a usurper. So congrats on making a terrible comparison.

The thing is if one kingdom says "yes we allow it" and the other kingdom says nothing about it, we have to assume the other kingdom ALSO allows it

Why? This would be a baseless assumption. Let's roll with your brilliant example from above. If one nation legalizes smoking weed does it mean that all nations do? Nope, because different nations have different laws.

you cant just then say "well obviously in real life and in other fiction they dont, therefore lorderan does not" well in the this fiction it does for many other kingdoms ,so why not also this one?

"Many other kingdoms" *gives one example (because there IS only one example)* Brilliant.

also i guess you havent read the book where sylvanas says she wants to take stromwind and raise every corpse she kills there... Oh man all those alliance members killed by her.. totally would lal willingly join her... i am sure...

Her resurrecting them does not preclude them offering them the same choice as all other newly resurrected undead. You're once again engaging in fanfiction peddling because you're jumping to convenient conclusions and filling the gaps with whatever nonsense you fancy.

That qoute is very much out of date, specially since sylvanas has since proven she is very much willing to enslave undead, abominations, and the skeletons at SoU, aswell as what she intends to do in stormwind.

Point that willingness then. And abominations aren't enslaved. As for the skeletons at SoU, prove that they are neither mere constructs nor that they are subject to resurrection frenzy. What she intends to do in Stormwind doesn't mention slavery once. Whoopty doo, wrong on all counts.

No other kingdom? very few other kingdoms exist, or ever had the problem, but that even one exists, specially one as controlling as gilneas sorta proves it is very likely for Lord aswell...

It sorta does nothing of that nature.

Nor does it prove it cant, but speaking others can we have to assume it can too.

Except for the part where we shouldn't, because that's a baseless assumption.

The next thing, which also was only a tiny mention, but I think it might become important in the whole 'free will' thing. And it's Anduin talking about Sylvanas and why he thinks she's well and truly lost. It's not because she can't be changed anymore, but it's because she doesn't want to change at all. There's several things about that, that made me wonder. First of all, I think he's right and she doesn't want to change. But why doesn't she and in what way would he want her to change? I think, if she learns that parts of what she believes is true (for example about the inevitability to go to her 'hell' after dying), is not really true or inevitable, she might yet want to change. What I think she won't want is suddenly be 'enlightened' and ... I don't know a devoted follower of the Light. So if he expects something like Liadrin at Shattrath, he is surely right. Does anyone have the right to demand this of her, however?

If there is such a someone, it most certainly isn't Blanduin, even with his bone spider sense of morality. If anything, being lost in Blanduin's eyes is a mark of honor.

I don't think the Alliance's lack of "moral greyness" is a flaw. I think that's a positive; the Alliance has strong morals and legitimately sympathetic, a team you can root for with no strings attached. The "moral greyness" of Warhammer, Battletech, Dune, and ASOIAF didn't make the characters and factions "better" or more nuanced; they simply made them unlikable, and led me to drop those stories.

Believe it or not, you can have a well written story involving two sides of genuinely honorable and heroic people going to war with each other. LoGH, Gundam, and Falcom's LoH are examples of that. Oh, and WoW through Wrath. I don't recall the Horde or Alliance being complete, immoral bastards during their war. Goody two shoes characters and factions can also be just as nuanced as "morally grey" characters and factions.

Your glorious crusade against writing actually human characters is still rather misguided. Especially since your own example discredits you. WotLK factions were genuinely honorable and heroic? Varian tried to capture Undercity because he learned the Horde lost control it and tried to use that opportunity. That's neither honorable nor heroic. When that failed he just declared war on them over nothing and was such a warmongering piece of shit another member of the Alliance had to teleport him the fuck away. He got played like a fiddle by the Twilight Hammer during Theramore peace talks and accused the Horde of conspiring to kill him because he saw Garona. After WotLK he once again got played like a fiddle by TH, this time in Ashenvale. And when Thrall told him he wanted to investigate the Ashenvale incident first rather than handing culpable Orcs to the Alliance (even though they were unkown due to there not being an investigation) he accused the Horde of ruining the peace talks. All the while Garrosh tried to imitate him, some Orcs attacked the Alliance army attacking the first gate to Icecrown and Forsaken Blight bombed the Alliance fleet that attacked them. The factions always had shades of gray. Because pure white paragons of good are unrealistic drivel.

[Deleted]

.....

If there is such a someone, it most certainly isn't Blanduin, even with his bone spider sense of morality. If anything, being lost in Blanduin's eyes is a mark of honor.



......

What you call his bone spider sense of morality, I call control of his free will by the light. I know that I may be very wrong with this and it may just as well be nothing, but regarding my view of how this whole scene was set up by Saa'ra and how Anduin could have 'ruined' the carefully planned key moment in this scheme, had he been able to act as he wanted, he was effectively hindered by pain and the Light not answering him at the most crucial moments.
And considering he put all his heart, a lot of work and thought into this plan and wanted it to succeed, and how bad it turned out in the end, I bet he will think about a lot of things very deeply if he ever really finds out. He has been made a pawn and he doesn't realize just how deep he is in this. But if Blizz really want to go anywhere with their Light and Void stuff, he will realize it at some point. And maybe then he will start thinking some more.

[Terongor]

That qoute is very much out of date, specially since sylvanas has since proven she is very much willing to enslave undead, abominations, and the skeletons at SoU, aswell as what she intends to do in stormwind.

No other kingdom? very few other kingdoms exist, or ever had the problem, but that even one exists, specially one as controlling as gilneas sorta proves it is very likely for Lord aswell...

Nor does it prove it cant, but speaking others can we have to assume it can too.

If we have two old rusty cars, broken down and abandoned for years. If suddenly one doesent work while the other we are not allowed to touch, its safe to assume it too wont work...

We don't 100% know if they still would be enslaved and still its canon until blizz states otherwise.

Well it still doesn't prove anything if Gilneas is controlling it could just prove that it wants to keep their succession more controlled towards to royal line. Gilneas being very controlling works both ways.

[Kallisto]

Keep in mind that Anduin's words, or Sylvanas' words, or literally any other character's, are NOT Blizzard's words, and have never been. A character can be wrong - we have seen many examples of it. If a character's word is always to be trusted as Blizzard view, then the Old Gods would have been "do not live, do not die" (they do), or C'Thun would have got into a mutual defeat against a Titan (it didn't), or Illidan would have been mad during TBC (he wasn't). Anduin's view of Calia isn't Word of God, it's just that, Anduin's opinion. Not to mention that what he said certainly can be interpreted (I'm not saying either interpretation must be 100% correct) differently. One interpretation is that he was consider Calia an would-be usurper, but another equally valid interpretation is that he was telling Genn what people will see Sylvanas' action as, not what they truly are.

Honestly 999/1000 I would agree with you on this (And do so on esentially everything you said here) but well I guess I should expand. It wasn't just Anduin, Genn, Sylvanas that thinks it but Calia as well with her "I thought I could rule them." (wording not exact) meaning even she knew she was being a Usurper. Which why I said that Blizz also likely considers it as such that she's usurping otherwise they basically wouldn't have everyone involved agreeing including the one doing the deed.

[Aucald]

Please stop quoting dictionary entries at one-another, and also refrain from using real-world politics to augment to detract from arguments as that is both distracting and besides the point. Any further behavior such as that beyond this point will be duly infracted.

[OIS]

The Orcs literally value women fighting alongside men and being equal, Thrall gets chewed out by his own mother for not bringing his wife with him to AU Draenor. The Orcs literally think not fighting alongside your wife or mate is cowardly. The Horde are as anti-sexist as you can get.

In Rise of the Horde, Blackhand didn't let his daughter drink the demon blood because she was a girl. Of course this can be an individual case and that book was written by Golden as well. I agree that line was ridiculous but I also felt like including this.

[Verdugo]

In Rise of the Horde, Blackhand didn't let his daughter drink the demon blood because she was a girl. Of course this can be an individual case and that book was written by Golden as well. I agree that line was ridiculous but I also felt like including this.

Oh my god THE SIGNS WERE THERE RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR EYES!

[OIS]

Oh my god THE SIGNS WERE THERE RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR EYES!

Of course, this whole issue didn't show up overnight. Rise of the Horde was at least a good book, this looks like it's going to be a shitshow.

[Arrashi]

Of course, this whole issue didn't show up overnight. Rise of the Horde was at least a good book, this looks like it's going to be a shitshow.

And rise of the horde was written in diffrent political climate. Now christie pulls out all big guns.

[MechaCThun]

Jesus fucking Christ, Golden is trying to be a worse writer than Knaak.

I believe this novel was written before Golden became a full fledged employee of Blizzard.

Even so, do you really think this is some elaborate fan fiction by an author and Blizzard read through and said, "Yep. We like this. We'll make this official."

Blizzard has their hands in the development of the story, events and dialogue in all of their novels. I am by no means defending Golden but I would invite you to consider that it is Blizzard's choice for the direction this story is going.

Also, I still fail to see the reasons why people dislike Knaak's writing. His stories - Warcraft novels specifically - do seem to be more animated while Golden's have more defined emotion and feels more grounded.

This based on personal experience having read "Night of the Dragon" and then "War Crimes"

[Qualia]

And Calia still doesn't need to take every single rock in Lordaeron to usurp Sylvanas' power. If she rules over her people that automatically outs Sylvanas. Because I doubt either of them wanted to co-rule.

I think this is where our opinions differ. If she didn't touch Sylvanas' seat of power - in other words, if Sylvanas is still queen of Lordaeron and leader of the Forsaken - should Calia's actions be counted as an attempt to usurp her? That wasn't a rhetorical question, by the way, I'm pondering about the issue. In my knowledge, you need to attempt to take someone's place or position of power to be called an usurper.

In this case, Calia, at least, didn't show any indication that she wanted to take over Lordaeron. She even told Elsie, when the later said that they live in Undercity, that she knows (if they defect) Anduin would shelter them. She didn't say anything about taking over Lordaeron's land for them, but more in the line of asking land from the Alliance instead. If Calia only attempted to recruit the Forsaken members from Sylvanas and create her own faction - "New Lordaeronian" for example, but Sylvanas remained the leader of the Forsaken (over any Forsaken member left) and control Lordaeron, it wouldn't make Calia an usurper in my view. Sylvanas would still be a leader / queen even if she is left with no subject, she still has all rights over Lordaeron (so until Calia challenge these roles, she wouldn't be an usurper to me). I assume it's not the case from your perspective, yes?

[Friendlyimmolation]

I believe this novel was written before Golden became a full fledged employee of Blizzard.

Even so, do you really think this is some elaborate fan fiction by an author and Blizzard read through and said, "Yep. We like this. We'll make this official."

Blizzard has their hands in the development of the story, events and dialogue in all of their novels. I am by no means defending Golden but I would invite you to consider that it is Blizzard's choice for the direction this story is going.

Also, I still fail to see the reasons why people dislike Knaak's writing. His stories - Warcraft novels specifically - do seem to be more animated while Golden's have more defined emotion and feels more grounded.

This based on personal experience having read "Night of the Dragon" and then "War Crimes"

Knaak has better world building, but his characters are awful, and he forces the world to bend around them, such as rhonin needing an elf wife and needing to be the best at all magic he did for most of his books.

Golden's world building is pretty awful, and she does ridiculous things like try to say the game scale is the actual scale of wow (if I remember that correctly) but her character interactions are (Usually) better.

[Verdugo]

I think this is where our opinions differ. If she didn't touch Sylvanas' seat of power - in other words, if Sylvanas is still queen of Lordaeron and leader of the Forsaken - should Calia's actions be counted as an attempt to usurp her? That wasn't a rhetorical question, by the way, I'm pondering about the issue. In my knowledge, you need to attempt to take someone's place or position of power to be called an usurper.

In this case, Calia, at least, didn't show any indication that she wanted to take over Lordaeron. She even told Elsie, when the later said that they live in Undercity, that she knows (if they defect) Anduin would shelter them. She didn't say anything about taking over Lordaeron's land for them, but more in the line of asking land from the Alliance instead. If Calia only attempted to recruit the Forsaken members from Sylvanas and create her own faction - "New Lordaeronian" for example, but Sylvanas remained the leader of the Forsaken (over any Forsaken member left) and control Lordaeron, it wouldn't make Calia an usurper in my view. Sylvanas would still be a leader / queen even if she is left with no subject, she still has all rights over Lordaeron (so until Calia challenge these roles, she wouldn't be an usurper to me). I assume it's not the case from your perspective, yes?

And you honestly think it would end at that point?

[Qualia]

And you honestly think it would end at that point?

There isn't any indication that it wouldn't. It might, or it might not - both have equally chance to be correct as there isn't any solid indication that either is 100% correct. Calia, at least, hasn't shown any indication of wanting to take back Lordaeron and trusted Anduin to provide them shelter right before she was killed. One can assume the worst, and she'd be an usurper in the future. Another can assume the best, and she wouldn't be anything but a kind soul trying to help the defectors of the Forsaken to have a place to be with their beloved one. My original point when I first addressed this matter was that there wasn't enough evidence beyond reasonable doubt to confirm that she is an usurper, so it's not right to call her one from the reader's perspective (since we know what happened, what she thought and what she said - unlike for example, Sylvanas, who didn't know what Calia thought or spoke; it would be understandable that she viewed Calia as an usurper). Innocent until proven guilty, and all that. Calia can be seen as an usurper doesn't automatically make her one.

[OIS]

And rise of the horde was written in diffrent political climate. Now christie pulls out all big guns.

What a depressing state of affairs.

[Arrashi]

What a depressing state of affairs.

Wanna bet that in full book, someone (see anduin) will utter phase "X lives matter" ? Probably "Forsaken lives matter" because he already shown how sorry he was.

[steelballfc]

Knaak has better world building, but his characters are awful, and he forces the world to bend around them, such as rhonin needing an elf wife and needing to be the best at all magic he did for most of his books.

Golden's world building is pretty awful, and she does ridiculous things like try to say the game scale is the actual scale of wow (if I remember that correctly) but her character interactions are (Usually) better.

yes if the world is already built and char's are already established, then you can count on golden to progress the story.

[OIS]

yes if the world is already built and char's are already established, then you can count on golden to progress the story.

She's quite progressive alright.

[Arrashi]

yes if the world is already built and char's are already established, then you can count on golden to progress the story.

More like turn it politically correct.