Is the attack on teldrassil really that unjustified?

[Leodric]

No. Their whole existence wasn't about War and Killing People. Again: The first 6 years of their lives in Lordaeron involved fending off the Scourge and the Scarlet Crusaders but they didn't seek out violence and try to destroy the Scarlets. And even when they had the Blight, which kills people -suuuuuper- efficiently and gets used in Gilneas when Sylvanas is forced to act by Garrosh, they -still- don't use the Blight against the Scarlet Crusade.

The war against Teldrassil is the -first- war that the Forsaken have started. Ever. Stop trying to portray them as warmongers and shit when they -don't- do it within the narrative. "Sylvanas is gladly using it for more than that". Like deploying it in Darkshore and Ashenvale, right? EVEN IN THE WAR SHE STARTED she only uses the Blight in LORDAERON. She doesn't move loads of the shit and hose down the forest to kill the trees and break up the Wisp Wall, either.

And we're back to "Abomination". Meaning "Inspiring of Hate or Disgust". So Life hates them and therefore they deserve to die. No. That's not how morality works.

I did not call you pig ignorant any more than I called you circular. I was clearly referring to the statement you'd made.

And yeah. It sucks that they don't show more of the societies, or more of their depth. But here's the thing: Verisimilitude. Unless we're shown something different from our world we're meant to assume that those things are the same, or very similar. A King is a male ruler unless the setting shows us otherwise, like the Xanth novels which have female Kings. Barring being shown that the Forsaken are some wildly dysfunctional society, we should presume that they're not that.

But they use the Blight against other Humans, no idea why they didn't use it against the Scarlet Crusade, but I am sure there is another reason besides them being benevolent towards the SC and being goodies for only wanting to use the Blight against the Scourge. Maybe Sylvanas didn't use the Blight on against the NEs because of other reasons than being benevolent? I can imagine it very difficult to transport, especially considering the Orcs/Tauren hating it as much, or maybe because she knew azerite would be enough to fuck up Teldrassil, we don't know yet,. It sounds logistical very difficult to me though in such a short time.

They deserve to die because Undeads are considered an abomination, being one is a worse than death itself and the Forsaken have not shown any remorse in putting that curse on other beings whenever they had the chance in doing so (perfectly shown in the ambition of Sylvanas). Verisimilitude is all fine and cool, but thinking that the Forsaken are anything else than a dyfunctional society is also kinda far-fetched, being a curse and all that.

We can start flinging shit at eachothers opinions about certain stuff, and calling someones opinion pig-ignorant is definitly a good way starting that. It's also my last comment about that, if you don't get why it's hypocritical not wanting to be personaly attacked but calling others opinions pig-ignorant, then so be it, especially when I never claimed that my definition or anything is the absolute truth.

[Steampunkette]

@Steampunkette

1. It's also provably correct. The removal of all undead factions would significantly improve the lives of everyone else in the setting, should they just vanish. Logistically, not so much, since it'd cost huge casualties.

If the Scourge didn't exist, the Orcs would still be a slave-race, or trying to rebel. The Trolls would've been killed by the Murlocs since the Orcs couldn't have helped them. And the world would be a vastly different place. But there's nothing to "Prove" it would be a better one.

And even if you meant "Wipe them all out, right now" you're -still- wrong. Because all those Forsaken would be dead. Their creations, ideas, designs, everything would be gone. Every possible contribution they could make to the world would be gone. Again, not "Provably" better. Just different.

It would also suck for the Forsaken, whom are a part of the world.

2 and 3. This is pure sophistry. We can call it soul magic or necromancy, but ultimately you are binding the soul and flesh within an imperfect shell and imprisoning it therein. So long as she was interred in the Ur'zul, Uuna could not move on and you later had to go on an extensive series of tasks to bail her out and let her go to heaven. Her state afterwards is that she needs to be bailed out from the Shadowlands she defaults to. Undead default to the Shadowlands as well. If you raise someone as a zombie, you're defaulting them to hell unless interference takes place.

2 is discussing your points, and pointing out that they're blatantly contradictory. That you believe they would be tortured forever and yet happier makes no sense.

3 is not Sophistry. That's Semantics. You're saying that they're Undead. I said they were demons. Then I went and proved it, according to the game world itself. Whatever the -developers- call it, Uuna was put into what you think of as "Hell" because of no fault of her own.

4. "She says she wants to wait and go back to her folks later, this must mean it's all a ruse." There's reaching and then there's nonsense like this. The quest is clearly meant to be about you saving Uuna from a terrible fate in the Shadowlands. There's all of zero indications in the quest that the Light there isn't legit or that there's a negative effect to being raised by the Light. Brindenbrad is assumed to have gone to heaven. The RPG is non-canon, so don't cite it. Chronicle, which supersedes it is quite clear on the afterlife - the Shadowlands is the default unless one of the other cosmic powers claims you.

I didn't say "That means it's a ruse" I said your understanding of the Afterlife is -intentionally- flawed by authorial intent. And I didn't cite the canon of the RPG, I cited that -even- the RPG lacked Canon on the Afterlife because the Authors intend for us to not know. I said it -could- be a ruse. We've got no way of knowing the truth. Now there is evidence, there, in the Chronicles (And specifically from Odyn's Story) that Shadowlands is the Default everyone goes to, baseline, unless someone or something can save them from it. But there's nothing in it about going to the the Light being "Better" in any meaningful way. In fact the phrase "We are all One in the Light" kind of indicates it might be a bit Borg-like.

5. I already provided multiple examples. The Forsaken are a personality cult devoted to the worship of a murderer and war criminal that's fucked over every place she's come into contact with. In the absence of this cult figure, their leadership becomes suicidal and try to fill the void while wishing they died. All the while, they're involved in virtually all kinds of abhorrent behaviour you can list.

Your examples have been "Here are some terrible people that live in the Forsaken Society!" not "Here is what the society is" There's a difference. And yeah, they've got a cult of personality around their literal Savior from the Scourge. Wooo...

6. Inane examples. Gilnean civilians did fuck all to the Forsaken, but they were still gassed, stitched up or sent as slaves to the mines. Hillsbrad had them planted and then had their heads bashed in and the only reason the Forsaken intervened was because he took the will of other Forsaken, not out of moral considerations about human experimentation. Southshore = gassed, Silverpine = slaughtered and raised. Every living community in their proximity has suffered as a result of their presence and they've contributed nothing positive in its place.

Edge of Night. In it, Sylvanas is shown what happens when she -doesn't- lead the assault on Gilneas under Garrosh. He uses her people as shock troops and body shields 'til the Forsaken Military is spent, and then the Alliance crushes Lordaeron, with the Forsaken Civilians throwing themselves into Bonfires rather than get taken by the Alliance Military. That is why she used the Blight, to save her people from that fate.

If she was just some mass murdering fucknugget, she WOULD have used the Blight on the Scarlet Crusade in Vanilla, Burning Crusade at the latest. She didn't even use it on them in Cataclysm. She felt like she -had- to deploy the Blight to keep her people from getting wiped out in Gilneas.

The only reason Sylvanas attacks Silverpine and Gilneas is that she has to under Garrosh. Because if she doesn't, he'll kill her and do it himself, forcing her troops to the front and getting them all wiped out. Hillsbrad was supposed to be a strike on the Barracks, but the Blight Tanks exploded and fucked up the whole area. So... Y'know.

The first 6 years, the Forsaken didn't harm the cities or people around them. Then they were -forced- to do so. And after that? They stopped. Mists. WoD. Legion. No big Forsaken Offensives to wipe out of the people. And in BFA they specifically try to -capture- Teldrassil to keep the Alliance from having easy access to a powerful weapon.

7-8. That's why the story is interesting. There are other means and it's another reason why Stormheim is a morally grey story. We don't know what she intended for Eyir to do, but we do know that the val'kyr can raise Forsaken who are injured or die by accident, that's why the Desolate Council ask for their final death - otherwise they'd be raised indefinitely. Even then, that leaves a static population without murder or grave robbing, hence why Sylvanas does these things.

Absolutely! There's a lot of interest, there.

9. More inane comparisons. We know Kul Tirans weren't aware of the extent of what Daelin did or the details of the situation and they worship him because he's a hero against a force that at the time of the Second War, when they last encountered it, it was objectively evil. Even then, Daelin's actions are laughable when compared to what Sylvanas did and basically amount to waging a conventional war against an initially unaware foe.

Daelin went into war with the intent to commit Genocide on the Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren. GENOCIDE. So far, Sylvanas hasn't done that. She went into the war of the Cataclysm with the intent of following Garrosh's orders and securing Gilneas. And the war of BFA with the -express- intent of taking Teldrassil.

Sylvanas went into a war and deployed Mustard Gas against military targets while the civilians were evacuated. And when civilians -were- killed, she raised them into undeath and gave them the choice of whether they wanted to join her, go off on their own, or go back to the grave... I dunno about you, but I'd rather have that choice than just get killed in a war and be dead.

10. Alonsus Faol and Odyn's raised don't count, as they along with Calia have all the negative qualities I listed lifted as a result of their exposure to the Light. We know this from that same CDev, which says that the Light and the alignment of the soul and body help the undead feel and act as the living.

Alonsus Faol lost his beard and his body fat. His bones stick out of his body and he's still rotted. Still. Point made that you're not going to consider them examples. Point I'm trying to make is: Being Undead doesn't make you a complete monster. The only Forsaken we're really shown in detail are those whose praxis is relevant to the story. And they're almost invariably violent because the story itself is violent.

But there's shittons of vendors and trainers and bankers and shit who do nothing wrong, and while we're not given the struggle of pathos for them, assuming that they are similarly evil to the ones whose praxis and pathos we're shown is unstable logical footing at best...

Throughout all of this you engage in evasion and deflection to evade the central point - the undead and the living are primordially opposed and by word of god, the undead are inferior and incapable of the base qualities that the living can. Undeath is treated as a terrible condition that's worse than death because it observably is, it's miserable for the sufferers and miserable for those around him. This can be alleviated if they're raised by the Light, in the same way a demon like Lothraxion can have his own naturally evil state changed by removing the fel and imbuing him with the Light. That however doesn't change that undeath by itself is negative and those affected by it are sufferers of a magical condition, not a race.

As noted previously, race is a loose term. Jewish people, for example, are culture, ethnicity, and religion. Some separate, some combining two or all three. But to those who hold racism toward Jewish people, there is no distinction between the three or their possible combinations.

Though I would like to point out that we've been talking about the FORSAKEN which aren't just people who suffer a specific condition, but live in a specific society and have their own culture, by Word of God, which has the cornerstone of Forsaken society.

- - - Updated - - -

But they use the Blight against other Humans, no idea why they didn't use it against the Scarlet Crusade, but I am sure there is another reason besides them being benevolent towards the SC and being goodies for only wanting to use the Blight against the Scourge. Maybe Sylvanas didn't use the Blight on against the NEs because of other reasons than being benevolent? I can imagine it very difficult to transport, especially considering the Orcs/Tauren hating it as much, or maybe because she knew azerite would be enough to fuck up Teldrassil, we don't know yet,. It sounds logistical very difficult to me though in such a short time.

The only reason Sylvanas uses the Blight in Gilneas and Southshore is because she felt she had to do so in order to keep her people from being wiped out. As she'd seen in the vision during the events of Edge of Night. I'm not suggesting she didn't use it against the Scarlet Crusaders out of "Benevolence". I'm suggesting she didn't use it 'cause she doesn't -want- to use it to kill people, but she's -willing- to do so.

And she doesn't use it in Ashenvale or Darkshore or Teldrassil because she's waging a war of Conquest. Not genocide. She's trying to take over, not murder everyone. If her goal was murdering everyone? Blight all over.

They deserve to die because Undeads are considered an abomination, being one is a worse than death itself and the Forsaken have not shown any remorse in putting that curse on other beings whenever they had the chance in doing so (perfectly shown in the ambition of Sylvanas). Verisimilitude is all fine and cool, but thinking that the Forsaken are anything else than a dyfunctional society is also kinda far-fetched, being a curse and all that.

And we're back to "They deserve to die because they're hated'. That's not a moral principle, it's a motivation to kill people. As to spreading the curse: Sylvanas has been shown what awaits after death. And believes that it's everyone's fate, not just her own. It's why she wants to "Save" Vereesa from death in the War Crimes novel. If everyone who dies goes to that terrible place, and gets torn apart by soul-eaters for eternity: Isn't Undeath preferable?

There's a reason she's stopped calling it a curse.

We can start flinging shit at eachothers opinions about certain stuff, and calling someones opinion pig-ignorant is definitly a good way starting that. It's also my last comment about that, if you don't get why it's hypocritical not wanting to be personaly attacked but calling others opinions pig-ignorant, then so be it, especially when I never claimed that my definition or anything is the absolute truth.

'Kay.

[Fetus Rex]

There is no such thing as 'unjustified attack'. It be called war of conquest and is as legit as defensive war. If your people are going to benefit from something you gonna get it for them no matter the cost enemies will suffer.

[Feanoro]

If the Scourge didn't exist, the Orcs would still be a slave-race, or trying to rebel. The Trolls would've been killed by the Murlocs since the Orcs couldn't have helped them.

Pure speculation, along with reaching hard enough that you should seek medical attention. "All the millions who were tortured, slain, and forced to be weapons against their will were a GOOD thing!" Just friggin' wow.

Their creations, ideas, designs, everything would be gone. Every possible contribution they could make to the world would be gone. Again, not "Provably" better.

Yeah, we'd have lost out on the blight, techniques for creating slaves via lobotomy, and all the lives they cost that you refuse to acknowledge. Definitely not better.

In fact the phrase "We are all One in the Light" kind of indicates it might be a bit Borg-like.

Couldn't possibly mean brotherhood/sisterhood. Nope it means slavery. Somehow. Let's all be undead and ignore years of canon statements about how it's miserable.

If she was just some mass murdering fucknugget, she WOULD have used the Blight on the Scarlet Crusade in Vanilla, Burning Crusade at the latest. She didn't even use it on them in Cataclysm. She felt like she -had- to deploy the Blight to keep her people from getting wiped out in Gilneas.

The blight was still in experimental stages until Wrath. After Wrathgate, when the rest of the Horde FINALLY started keeping an eye on the Forsaken, she played nice and pretended she had nothing to do with it. We also know flat out she only cares about her people as a means to keep her ass out of hell, so don't act like the blight was a benevolent effort to save her poor people.

Hillsbrad was supposed to be a strike on the Barracks, but the Blight Tanks exploded and fucked up the whole area. So... Y'know.

"Whoopsie, the WMD we brought here went off by accident, so it doesn't count!"

And after that? They stopped. Mists. WoD. Legion. No big Forsaken Offensives to wipe out of the people.

It's almost like post Wrathgate the rest of the Horde was keeping them in check! Nah, it's because they're misunderstood cuddly benevolent folks who only want to pick flowers!

Daelin went into war with the intent to commit Genocide on the Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren.

Daelin went to war against literal invading aliens who slaughtered their way up an entire continent and were barely stopped from wiping out several civilizations. They escaped the mercy of the camps, and for all anyone not sitting at a computer watching this knew, they were regrouping and gaining their strength back to start the slaughter back up. Thrall and pals didn't exactly negotiate their way out. Since keeping them locked up didn't work, they had showed exactly no signs of willingness to talk, and the Orcs restarting slaughter wasn't acceptable, that only left one method. You do understand the concept "kill or be killed"?

And the war of BFA with the -express- intent of taking Teldrassil.

"Hey, all the other times I blighted things, I couldn't use them. I'll hold off so I can make use of Teldrassil's resources." Not terribly hard to figure this out.

I dunno about you, but I'd rather have that choice than just get killed in a war and be dead.

Sure, since you ignore everything canon about undeath being miserable and VERY clearly identify with them. Look, wanting to play evil characters in a video game doesn't make you a bad person. It's ok, you don't need to construct this elaborate alternate reality where the Forsaken want to plant gardens and take long walks on the beach.

assuming that they are similarly evil to the ones whose praxis and pathos we're shown is unstable logical footing at best...

"I was just in a support role to the people who created and used WMDs! I was just following orders!"

'Kay.

"It's 'kay when I use personal attacks, but not when anyone else does it!"

[Tripzzz]

If she was just some mass murdering fucknugget, she WOULD have used the Blight on the Scarlet Crusade in Vanilla, Burning Crusade at the latest. She didn't even use it on them in Cataclysm. She felt like she -had- to deploy the Blight to keep her people from getting wiped out in Gilneas.

Wrong. Slyvanus didn't use the blight on the scarlet crusade because she is retarded. She tasked Varimathras with dealing with the scarlet crusade as he is the one who sent horde players there in vanilla. And since Varimathras was never loyal to Slyvanus ( he faked killing Balnazzar, who becomes the hidden leader of the scarlet crusade) the blight is never used because it would probably end the scarlet crusade problem very quickly. She just never connected the dots.

Also chronicle 1 establishes most undead are driven by vengeance to destroy the one thing they can never have, life. They also hunger for the flesh of the living, as confirmed by Baron Ashbury and the Forsaken racial ability.

[Steampunkette]

Wrong. Slyvanus didn't use the blight on the scarlet crusade because she is retarded. She tasked Varimathras with dealing with the scarlet crusade as he is the one who sent horde players there in vanilla. And since Varimathras was never loyal to Slyvanus ( he faked killing Balnazzar, who becomes the hidden leader of the scarlet crusade) the blight is never used because it would probably end the scarlet crusade problem very quickly. She just never connected the dots.

Also chronicle 1 establishes most undead are driven by vengeance to destroy the one thing they can never have, life. They also hunger for the flesh of the living, as confirmed by Baron Ashbury and the Forsaken racial ability.

Even after Wrath she didn't use the Blight on the Scarlets.

And she didn't use the Blight in MoP. Or WoD. Or Legion. Fuck, Legion would've been a GREAT place to use Blight. "Demon Portals on the Broken Shore?" *SPLOOSH* "Let Gul'dan wade through -that- to get into the Tomb of Sargeras."

There's plenty of times she COULD use the Blight. She doesn't. 'Cause contrary to some people's belief, she doesn't throw blight at every problem or constantly try to start wars so she can raise the dead.

[Gramlen]

most

Never knew most meant all.

Most Worgen pre-Cata were hostile to any and all. Does that mean all Worgen need to die?

[Deleted]

Even after Wrath she didn't use the Blight on the Scarlets.

And she didn't use the Blight in MoP. Or WoD. Or Legion. Fuck, Legion would've been a GREAT place to use Blight. "Demon Portals on the Broken Shore?" *SPLOOSH* "Let Gul'dan wade through -that- to get into the Tomb of Sargeras."

There's plenty of times she COULD use the Blight. She doesn't. 'Cause contrary to some people's belief, she doesn't throw blight at every problem or constantly try to start wars so she can raise the dead.

She used the blight against the Alliance back in Legion. Which makes sense.

[Tripzzz]

Never knew most meant all.

Most Worgen pre-Cata were hostile to any and all. Does that mean all Worgen need to die?

No. But it means the fictional people who have to deal with them won't just run up to them and ask them for their name. Prejudice exists in the real world where we are all humans. Of course it will exist in a world where different races exist.

- - - Updated - - -

Even after Wrath she didn't use the Blight on the Scarlets.

And she didn't use the Blight in MoP. Or WoD. Or Legion. Fuck, Legion would've been a GREAT place to use Blight. "Demon Portals on the Broken Shore?" *SPLOOSH* "Let Gul'dan wade through -that- to get into the Tomb of Sargeras."

There's plenty of times she COULD use the Blight. She doesn't. 'Cause contrary to some people's belief, she doesn't throw blight at every problem or constantly try to start wars so she can raise the dead.

They didn't use it much after Wotlk because as Cata showed us, the Horde was increasingly alarmed at the use of the blight. The forsaken had to dial it back. Still, they did use blight on Greymane's forces in Stormheim. But yeah she never used it on the Legion itself. Probably because she was busy trying to enslave Eyir.

[Steampunkette]

She used the blight against the Alliance back in Legion. Which makes sense.

But only because Greymane attacked her. The Blight was cleaned up when the boats were destroyed by the Alliance, and then some of it was used against the Alliance that were still coming after her.

And now, in Lordaeron, she's using it defensively, again. One fallback after another where the Blight is used to push back the Alliance. And I don't -think- it's been used in Kul'tiras, so far? Haven't tried the Alliance and Horde War Campaigns. But I'm open to being corrected on that.

[Super Dickmann]

If the Scourge didn't exist, the Orcs would still be a slave-race, or trying to rebel. The Trolls would've been killed by the Murlocs since the Orcs couldn't have helped them. And the world would be a vastly different place. But there's nothing to "Prove" it would be a better one.

And even if you meant "Wipe them all out, right now" you're -still- wrong. Because all those Forsaken would be dead. Their creations, ideas, designs, everything would be gone. Every possible contribution they could make to the world would be gone. Again, not "Provably" better. Just different.

It would also suck for the Forsaken, whom are a part of the world.



2 is discussing your points, and pointing out that they're blatantly contradictory. That you believe they would be tortured forever and yet happier makes no sense.

3 is not Sophistry. That's Semantics. You're saying that they're Undead. I said they were demons. Then I went and proved it, according to the game world itself. Whatever the -developers- call it, Uuna was put into what you think of as "Hell" because of no fault of her own.



I didn't say "That means it's a ruse" I said your understanding of the Afterlife is -intentionally- flawed by authorial intent. And I didn't cite the canon of the RPG, I cited that -even- the RPG lacked Canon on the Afterlife because the Authors intend for us to not know. I said it -could- be a ruse. We've got no way of knowing the truth. Now there is evidence, there, in the Chronicles (And specifically from Odyn's Story) that Shadowlands is the Default everyone goes to, baseline, unless someone or something can save them from it. But there's nothing in it about going to the the Light being "Better" in any meaningful way. In fact the phrase "We are all One in the Light" kind of indicates it might be a bit Borg-like.



Your examples have been "Here are some terrible people that live in the Forsaken Society!" not "Here is what the society is" There's a difference. And yeah, they've got a cult of personality around their literal Savior from the Scourge. Wooo...



Edge of Night. In it, Sylvanas is shown what happens when she -doesn't- lead the assault on Gilneas under Garrosh. He uses her people as shock troops and body shields 'til the Forsaken Military is spent, and then the Alliance crushes Lordaeron, with the Forsaken Civilians throwing themselves into Bonfires rather than get taken by the Alliance Military. That is why she used the Blight, to save her people from that fate.

If she was just some mass murdering fucknugget, she WOULD have used the Blight on the Scarlet Crusade in Vanilla, Burning Crusade at the latest. She didn't even use it on them in Cataclysm. She felt like she -had- to deploy the Blight to keep her people from getting wiped out in Gilneas.

The only reason Sylvanas attacks Silverpine and Gilneas is that she has to under Garrosh. Because if she doesn't, he'll kill her and do it himself, forcing her troops to the front and getting them all wiped out. Hillsbrad was supposed to be a strike on the Barracks, but the Blight Tanks exploded and fucked up the whole area. So... Y'know.

The first 6 years, the Forsaken didn't harm the cities or people around them. Then they were -forced- to do so. And after that? They stopped. Mists. WoD. Legion. No big Forsaken Offensives to wipe out of the people. And in BFA they specifically try to -capture- Teldrassil to keep the Alliance from having easy access to a powerful weapon.



Absolutely! There's a lot of interest, there.



Daelin went into war with the intent to commit Genocide on the Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren. GENOCIDE. So far, Sylvanas hasn't done that. She went into the war of the Cataclysm with the intent of following Garrosh's orders and securing Gilneas. And the war of BFA with the -express- intent of taking Teldrassil.

Sylvanas went into a war and deployed Mustard Gas against military targets while the civilians were evacuated. And when civilians -were- killed, she raised them into undeath and gave them the choice of whether they wanted to join her, go off on their own, or go back to the grave... I dunno about you, but I'd rather have that choice than just get killed in a war and be dead.



Alonsus Faol lost his beard and his body fat. His bones stick out of his body and he's still rotted. Still. Point made that you're not going to consider them examples. Point I'm trying to make is: Being Undead doesn't make you a complete monster. The only Forsaken we're really shown in detail are those whose praxis is relevant to the story. And they're almost invariably violent because the story itself is violent.

But there's shittons of vendors and trainers and bankers and shit who do nothing wrong, and while we're not given the struggle of pathos for them, assuming that they are similarly evil to the ones whose praxis and pathos we're shown is unstable logical footing at best...



As noted previously, race is a loose term. Jewish people, for example, are culture, ethnicity, and religion. Some separate, some combining two or all three. But to those who hold racism toward Jewish people, there is no distinction between the three or their possible combinations.

Though I would like to point out that we've been talking about the FORSAKEN which aren't just people who suffer a specific condition, but live in a specific society and have their own culture, by Word of God, which has the cornerstone of Forsaken society.

1. The first part is just false. The orcs left before the Scourge started. Exodus of the Horde precedes the Scourge of Lordaeron. The Scourge and undead in general's nonexistence is a thought experiment because they were caused, not a natural phenomenon, but I think if everyone in Lordaeron, including those who would become Forsaken were alive and then allowed to die naturally they'd be happier for it.

2. The reason I call it sophistry is because it's muddying the waters with things perennial to the topic at hand. We know that the reason undead have these traits is because of their misaligned souls, Ur'zul fulfill these criteria up to a label. The same is applicable to both. As for contradictions, you misunderstand my points. The default, for Light-worshippers, is the Light, which as I'll later explain is presented as favourable and good. Undeath reverses this to re-defaulting to the Shadowlands. Raising someone damns them to the Shadowlands until some other force acts upon them. You inflict this on them before you can ascertain their consent if it's murder or graverobbing.

3. Your Borg-like assertion has no basis. Crusader Brindenbrad's fate to be embraced by A'dal in the Light is considered an unquestionable positive. The quest was written as a tribute to a passing away colleague of the developers and they wrote the best possible afterlife you could have in the setting for him. Uuna has the same experience, there's no reason to think she'd have any worse a time.

4. I've described the negative aspects of their society and why it doesn't work and causes the Desolate Council, which are, when you cut to the chase, a Forsaken suicide cult to form. That's not a sign of health. I'd be glad to see positive examples of their society, but no one has proferred any.

5. Your position here gets inconsistent. That Sylvanas was forced by Garrosh to lead the invasion doesn't make the invasion of Gilneas just or the means to lead it such. I agree with you on her having ample motive to act as she did, but that doesn't mean the heinous things she does during the invasion to innocents is in any way justifiable or less evil.

When it comes to the Scarlet Crusade, this is a bit of a disingenuous point. By the end of Vanilla, the Forsaken have won already, the Scarlet Crusade is a shadow of its former self, and the Blight isn't complete. In Wrath we see nothing of them in the old continent due to gameplay reasons, the Blight gets completed and in Cataclysm, they use it against all sorts of targets. Using it against Hillsbrad or Gilneas City is if anything leagues more evil than using it against the Scarlet Crusade which are composed of hostile enemy combatants rather than a primarily civilian population. The same applies to them being inactive in WoD or Mists - that was just a gameplay motivation. The Forsaken were the aggressor in Gilneas, Hillsbrad and Arathi.

I agree with you on Teldrassil as it regards Sylvanas pursuing a reasonable aim given her circumstances, so that's a bit moot either way. It's not Forsaken participating there anyway, so beside the point.

7. The Eyir dilemma is interesting and I'm hopeful for Sylvanas and the forsaken getting to do something legitimately positive when fighting the void, but that shouldn't bely what they've done before or why that conflict is interesting. The Eyir conflict and the morality thereof is interesting precisely because of the difficulty ensuring a continuity of the Forsaken as a group poses.

8-9. We work with what we have. We can't theorize on behaviour we don't see, we can only judge that which we do. We can assume they're peaceful, we can also assume they're cheering for what Sylvie does, who knows. I refer to cases we can verify, rather than those that are the object of theory alone. As for real life similes, I've already described why I find them very poor comparisons with fantasy tropes and race analogies. My argument is two-fold, that undeath is inferior to life and that the Forsaken are evil. I don't think that makes them or Sylvanas less compelling, more so maybe, but that's how it is.

[mickybrighteyes]

This entire point is a deflection. I am not arguing whether the in-story bias against undead is valid or not as that's irrelevant to the point I'm making. I am discussing whether with an omniscient out of setting view point the Forsaken are evil and undeath is inferior to being alive. The latter is demonstrably true, given the misalignment of souls.

I would argue that a method to effectively increase lifespan and productivity would not be inferior and this is more of your own bias looking at this 'misaligned soul' line that doesn't come up much. You go on and attribute evil on the whole bunch because of one thing that really doesn't inherently make one evil and your proof used lacks the evidence to back up your claim.

A shit simile. These are results of (magical) evolution, when it comes to Satyr and Felborne, those are demonstrably evil, further muddying the waters. The construct races became living as a result of corruption, but that corruption lacks a moral dimension. It doesn't inhibit them in any way except the physical, if anything it makes them more empathetic, etc, but that's conjecture.

As to the Felborne and Satyr, I wouldn't say 'demonstrably evil', I'd say they were always against us. Now granted we really don't look much into Satyr beyond knowing they were night elves who took legion power and changed and it seems they are largely ignored in much of the story except for Emerald Dream and Xavius related content. But you want to argue that because they are what they turned into vs already existing as evil beforehand is going to be a hard sell. the fel elves we saw in TBC were the ones who likely felt all their way of life was in danger after seeing the nation fall with no allies to help and those that did trying to execute them. The felborne we see in Legion were also in a similar boat living under the assumption that much of the world was gone and that only the legion was left. But if you want to hold them in higher regard than some who didn't choose their position and who are shown existing in their corner of the world because you have that 'misaligned soul' line.. . I wonder, how do you feel about the Ren'dorei who stumbled through the void and are losing their minds and forms are altered?

This entire point about a sample size is also a deflection. We know from authorial word that hasn't been contradicted thus far that undead have multiple limitations that prevent them from doing good in the same fashion a mortal might and bring them to evil behaviour.

no... you saying it's a deflection is a deflection because you don't like it. If your trying to set up the argument for the act of turning someone makes them evil you're literally looking at a number less than 10 (or maybe less than the number of Valkyr Sylvanas has left) that would showcase their life before and after turning... and of those you're still looking at stories that involve war and death of loved ones that could also be determined to have factored into any personality change. Sample size kind of is the reason that lets a blanket statement fly IF you can prove it. as it stands there are more humans ingame depicted as horrible people than everyone else... but that's a side effect of the in game stated population being retardedly huge relative to everyone else and including multiple fallen kingdoms that turned to crime or dabbled in things beyond their means.

Scourge = evil.
Not-living = evil.
Forsaken = evil.
Helarjar = evil.

These are the cases of pure undeath we've seen. As factions, they've all been evil.

sadly you fail to prove anything with this assertion other than your own bias. Sure the scourge are evil. they were the mindless followers of a guy who decided to try and kill the world. Not living.... not exactly since this category isn't exactly concise in what it covers, some ghosts are sentient and act with their own goals in mind without harming others, I would also wonder how other incorporeal entites with existences beyond the 'normal' would factor in such as elementals who are immortal outside their plane of existence (similar to demons). Forsaken... you have yet to state a point that is a factual point for proving undead are evil... best one I can site is it's the opposite of 'live' which spelled backwards is 'evil'. as for the Helarjar... all the vrykul are pretty against non-vrykul or weak things so I can't really comment on them as evil.... They fight shit to prove dominance and go to their idea of heaven if they win... or go to Helya if they fail. so are the stormborn constructs any better with their murder hobo style?

[Steampunkette]

1. The first part is just false. The orcs left before the Scourge started. Exodus of the Horde precedes the Scourge of Lordaeron. The Scourge and undead in general's nonexistence is a thought experiment because they were caused, not a natural phenomenon, but I think if everyone in Lordaeron, including those who would become Forsaken were alive and then allowed to die naturally they'd be happier for it.

The Forces of Lordaeron being busy with the Scourge is why the Horde Exodus was able to occur. Terenas's nobles had him torn between the north and the south with their "Talk of Undead" so he split his forces. If he hadn't...

2. The reason I call it sophistry is because it's muddying the waters with things perennial to the topic at hand. We know that the reason undead have these traits is because of their misaligned souls, Ur'zul fulfill these criteria up to a label. The same is applicable to both. As for contradictions, you misunderstand my points. The default, for Light-worshippers, is the Light, which as I'll later explain is presented as favourable and good. Undeath reverses this to re-defaulting to the Shadowlands. Raising someone damns them to the Shadowlands until some other force acts upon them. You inflict this on them before you can ascertain their consent if it's murder or graverobbing.

Ahhh... You mean "If the Forsaken were never raised" they'd be happier. I misunderstood it as "If we killed them all". I get it, now.

3. Your Borg-like assertion has no basis. Crusader Brindenbrad's fate to be embraced by A'dal in the Light is considered an unquestionable positive. The quest was written as a tribute to a passing away colleague of the developers and they wrote the best possible afterlife you could have in the setting for him. Uuna has the same experience, there's no reason to think she'd have any worse a time.

I dunno... we're having the "Morally Grey" expansion where the Lightforged Draenei are shown to be murderous zealots when they're not busy fighting demons... It seems to me like the Light is lying to us... Also there's no guarantee that being a "Light Worshipper" is all it takes to get the Light to bring you to it post-mortem. Maybe you've got to have X amount of Faith or wield the Light itself to Y degree. There's lots and lots of questions about the Light to be asked, yet.

And as much as it might undercut the memorial of Bridenbrad, I do kind of expect to see the Light be self-serving and at times malevolent. I'm expecting it's afterlife to be fairly ... well... not good...

4. I've described the negative aspects of their society and why it doesn't work and causes the Desolate Council, which are, when you cut to the chase, a Forsaken suicide cult to form. That's not a sign of health. I'd be glad to see positive examples of their society, but no one has proferred any.

None of the Desolate Council Members are suicidal. (Well, I mean... they defected which was pretty damned suicidal!) They just don't want to live forever by any means necessary. They want to live out their remaining years, and die without feeling like extending their lives further is going to harm others. Less "Suicide Cult" more "Old People Signing Living Wills"

5. Your position here gets inconsistent. That Sylvanas was forced by Garrosh to lead the invasion doesn't make the invasion of Gilneas just or the means to lead it such. I agree with you on her having ample motive to act as she did, but that doesn't mean the heinous things she does during the invasion to innocents is in any way justifiable or less evil.

Oh, god, no. I'm not saying what she did wasn't evil! She took part in a war of aggression and killed a whole hell of a lot of people. She deployed chemical weapons and left the enemy military gagging on their own tongues as they collapsed into the dirt. I'm only pointing out that she didn't want to do it. She was pushed into it. And that the reason she used chemical weapons was to save lives, not because she wanted to inflict shittons of casualties on the enemy. Evil Actions, Good Motivations, Tempered Applications.

That her motivation wasn't "I HATE THE LIVING AND AM GOING TO RAZE GILNEAS AND THEN RAISE GILNEAS!" That she even seems reticent to use the Blight in general. That it's not an example of her being some warmonger trying to get as many corpses together as she can from the various wars she started.

When it comes to the Scarlet Crusade, this is a bit of a disingenuous point. By the end of Vanilla, the Forsaken have won already, the Scarlet Crusade is a shadow of its former self, and the Blight isn't complete. In Wrath we see nothing of them in the old continent due to gameplay reasons, the Blight gets completed and in Cataclysm, they use it against all sorts of targets. Using it against Hillsbrad or Gilneas City is if anything leagues more evil than using it against the Scarlet Crusade which are composed of hostile enemy combatants rather than a primarily civilian population. The same applies to them being inactive in WoD or Mists - that was just a gameplay motivation. The Forsaken were the aggressor in Gilneas, Hillsbrad and Arathi.

Sylvanas didn't use the Blight against civilian populations. She used it against the Gilnean Military after she and her front lines had moved into the city proper and taken the church. It was used against the Military after the Civvies had been evacuated. Meanwhile in Southshore it was supposed to be sprayed into the Barracks, but the tanks exploded and plagued the whole town... it was an accident that caused the civvies to be exposed.

The Scarlet Crusade may be a "Shadow of it's Former Self" in Cataclysm, but it's still a danger. They're still kidnapping and torturing and murdering her civilians. They're still a thorn in her side and they're still all Humans. Which means that if they're blighted and dead, she could raise them as new Forsaken. More soldiers for her army. More Arrows in her Quiver...

But she doesn't. The Scarlet Crusade is a salient point because they're RIGHT THERE and could be blighted and raised if Sylvanas is truly the evil warmongering Lich Queen that people are portraying her as.

As to it being "Gameplay Reasons" she wasn't active in Mists or WoD: That's a terrible argument. (And one you basically chop down, yourself, at the end of your post)

My point in mentioning the quiescence of the Forsaken during those expansions was to highlight that they're not going around being warmongering pricks and killing everyone they can. Whether it was "Gameplay Reasons" or not, they still didn't commit a shitload of crimes during those expansions and we don't get to go "But they would've if the story had focused on them!" as evidence of their wrongdoing.

I agree with you on Teldrassil as it regards Sylvanas pursuing a reasonable aim given her circumstances, so that's a bit moot either way. It's not Forsaken participating there anyway, so beside the point.

Fair enough.

7. The Eyir dilemma is interesting and I'm hopeful for Sylvanas and the forsaken getting to do something legitimately positive when fighting the void, but that shouldn't bely what they've done before or why that conflict is interesting. The Eyir conflict and the morality thereof is interesting precisely because of the difficulty ensuring a continuity of the Forsaken as a group poses.

Right? I'm also super interested in hearing Sylvanas's thoughts about what the hell she was going to do with Eyir, there. The forsaken society is built on Free Will but she was enslaving Eyir... how does that work? It would've been great to hear that she intended to use the Lantern to enslave Eyir long enough to get her out of Odyn's control, then free her, completely... Or Sylvanas being a total hypocrite about enslaving her because "The ends justify the means" or something. But Christie didn't give us any insight on that in her novel, even though we had to have Anduin ask her about Varian and a couple of full pages about Baine and his writing letters to the Boy King...

8-9. We work with what we have. We can't theorize on behaviour we don't see, we can only judge that which we do. We can assume they're peaceful, we can also assume they're cheering for what Sylvie does, who knows. I refer to cases we can verify, rather than those that are the object of theory alone. As for real life similes, I've already described why I find them very poor comparisons with fantasy tropes and race analogies. My argument is two-fold, that undeath is inferior to life and that the Forsaken are evil. I don't think that makes them or Sylvanas less compelling, more so maybe, but that's how it is.

How about we discard everything else, and get to the core of your two fold argument.

The Forsaken are Evil: Do you mean as a species/race/whateverterm or as a Political Group?

Undeath is Inferior to Life: In what ways is it inferior?

[Super Dickmann]

@mickybrighteyes

The reason I call these points deflections is because they're based on things irrelevant to the point I'm making. Immortality as a selling point for undeath would be all well and good, for those few who'd take eternal life in exchange for all the defects described, but there are many more preferable alternatives, including the Light and Arcane, that do the same with less snazz. You can call the source not cited often, but it remains canon. If you want to prove me wrong, provide sources of your own.

The rest of your post veers into self-parody. We can provide excuses for as long as we like for the conduct of the Felbloods and Satyr, but all of the former and all of the latter except one are evil and their fel nature is a large reason for it. Satyr are explicitly aberrations where evil is both caused by the fel and so inherent to their state that the one satyr who had second thoughts and changed his ways stopped being one right after he redeemed himself, because to be good and to be a satyr is impossible. Choice here, even irrespective of all of those parties having chosen fel and thus corruption, is immaterial. Choice lacks moral weight on its own. Whether I kill someone because I wished to or because I had an uncontrolled bout of rage I should still be confined for the benefit of everyone else. The void elves are a great demonstration of this. Alleria doesn't choose to corrupt the Sunwell, but by nature that's her effect on it by proximity, so efforts must be taken for her to be kept as far away from it because the alternative is damaging the source of life for everyone else in that land.

The end point is where we get to self-parody. I'd tell you about why the Scourge are bad, but let's save both of us some time and just google literally any area they're in or quest they're involved in. For the Forsaken, refer to my conversation with Steampunkette. For the undead, refer to the sources I've cited already - Chronicle and CDev, which cite the inherent inferiority of the undead, as does the narrative treatment of it every single time it's brought up. If you find contrary sources, provide them, but else we're engaging in could bes and speculation, wasting both our time.

________________________________
@Steampunkette

1. You're getting the order here wrong. Both Lord of the Clans, where Thrall liberates the internment camps and Exodus of the Horde, where he raids the Harbor, frees Grom and departs to Kalimdor, precede the Scourge of Lordaeron. Even in the Scourge of Lordaeron, the undead aren't even treated as a serious threat until the mid-poit and you spend the beginning going after orcs, showing that's where the kingdom has its material on. Without the Scourge, Thrall would've still been able to do the same.

2. On the topic of the Light, while I also think we'll have a Light antagonist soon, what we've seen of the cosmic Light vs. say, more mundane variants of fanatics like the Adherents or the Scarlet Crusade is that they really do practice as they preach and they do make people 'better', in the sense that they're happier, more empathetic, helpful, etc. The issue comes in the fact that it's completely uninterested in your choice in this. If you stray from the path, you're wrong and whether you're corrected willingly or otherwise, what counts is that you ultimately become good or you're no longer there. I don't believe it's selfish, rather it's excessively selfless when taken to its logical conclusion. So I don't think we have any material yet that'd intervene with the happy afterlife we've been presented. This, like the undead's value no longer being a total negative if it ends up they're necessary to fight the void are things that're mostly speculation.

3. Good motivations and the attack on Gilneas don't really mix. Remember that Sylvanas has no real compunction about any act she takes on the moral field when it comes to those that aren't the Forsaken, it's purely practical concerns and the needs of her people. She's at best apathetic of them to the point where she will take the most amoral action possible if it speeds things along and saves the lives of her own and at earliest Silverpine and at latest Stormheim genuinely hostile towards them. There's not much to be read in making abominations or using blight, nor in the indiscriminate attacks that preceded these things. They're all understandable and logical given her interests, those of the Horde and the Forsaken, but they're evil all the same.

The reason I dismiss the Scarlet Crusade is because of narrative focus. The points about her moral fortitude you're trying to prove don't apply, because she does all the things described to parties less guilty than the Crusade, i.e the humans of Silverpine she raises into her service, Southshore, which is at the very least indirect intent, given how spraying chemical weapons in a civilian area is likely to result in casualties and the entirety of the goings on at the Hillsbrad labs with Warden Stillwater. I refer to you again to the responses raised in each of these cases. For the Silverpine raising of civilians, nothing. For Southshore, some grumbling over misaimed weapons, zero regard for the casualties. For the Sludge Fields, disgust at Stillwater for robbing Forsaken of free will, complete apathy at everything else. They didn't do what you claim to the Crusade, but they do it to others on far more specious grounds and have zero regrets over it or even discussion over the morality of it. Sylvanas doesn't need to be doing this to a specific group for the Forsaken to be evil, doing it at all is evil, even more so if it has so wide a reach as it ends up having.

On the last part. I'll toss the bits about Eyir and the like for another thread, but I would recommend checking out the bits with the Tidesage in BFA if you haven't already. The war campaign handles necromancy with much more nuance than Cataclysm and addresses much of what I've said. My positions are two:
1. That the Forsaken as a political faction are evil, more so than any other playable race. Discussing their nature is moot, since they're just undead humans.
2. That any undead are inferior to the living based on the CDev and Chronicle statements already gone over, the treatment of undeath in the story as a horrible curse to which death is preferable and their reduced capacities on both the emotional and physical level and their inability to cohabit with other races without massive changes to their state (Be it having Eyir on call or the Light).

[Grythletubs]

Ignores all the bad shit the Alliance is doing. The state of the Alliance. The Alliance has professional victimhood raised to artform.

The alliance are the victims the vast majority of the time though.

[Broken Fox]

The Alliance were treacherous little bitches in Stormheim during the goddamn APOCALYPSE when the two were supposedly allies, if course the Horde are right in attacking first after the Legion’s been dealt with and Azerite has emerged. The Alliance would undoubtedly use it against them eventually. Sylvanas just fired first.

Too slow hoes!!

[Theodarzna]

Man, people will go to the mat to defend their sexy edgy corpse waifu.

[mysticx]

The Alliance were treacherous little bitches in Stormheim during the goddamn APOCALYPSE when the two were supposedly allies, if course the Horde are right in attacking first after the Legion’s been dealt with and Azerite has emerged. The Alliance would undoubtedly use it against them eventually. Sylvanas just fired first.

While i agree with the latter part (In a war between two big factions, having the edge in weapons development and the resulting deterrent effect are really big advantages to have, look at the cold war period for examples), but the reason the Alliance (Or rather, a fringe element of it, Greymane and Rogers hardly represent the entire Alliance, sadly) went after Sylvanas during "The goddamn APOCALYPSE", is because Sylvanas pranced off in the middle of the gdA to seek out a "Get out of Hell free"-card for herself, which was hardly a selfless (Or in the face of invasion, prudent) action in the first place.

[Broken Fox]

Man, people will go to the mat to defend their sexy edgy corpse waifu.

Y’all really need to think of new insults

- - - Updated - - -

While i agree with the latter part (In a war between two big factions, having the edge in weapons development and the resulting deterrent effect are really big advantages to have, look at the cold war period for examples), but the reason the Alliance (Or rather, a fringe element of it, Greymane and Rogers hardly represent the entire Alliance, sadly) went after Sylvanas during "The goddamn APOCALYPSE", is because Sylvanas pranced off in the middle of the gdA to seek out a "Get out of Hell free"-card for herself, which was hardly a selfless (Or in the face of invasion, prudent) action in the first place.

Never said she wasn’t an asshole

[Verdugo]

While i agree with the latter part (In a war between two big factions, having the edge in weapons development and the resulting deterrent effect are really big advantages to have, look at the cold war period for examples), but the reason the Alliance (Or rather, a fringe element of it, Greymane and Rogers hardly represent the entire Alliance, sadly) went after Sylvanas during "The goddamn APOCALYPSE", is because Sylvanas pranced off in the middle of the gdA to seek out a "Get out of Hell free"-card for herself, which was hardly a selfless (Or in the face of invasion, prudent) action in the first place.

Thing is, they didnt know that. They went after her only because she was there and at best they had a hunch based on a damaged journal.