Elegy and A Good War Fully Released

[NED funded]

Finally finished reading both elegy and a good war.

On A good war, yeah the reasoning to burning the tree is still not that sound to me. Even if Malfurion surviving revitalizes the night elves, keeping the entire city hostage would be a far more devastating blow than trying to send the message that war is going to be expensive and cutting the ties of the alliance from Kalimdor, freeing them to go for Undercity and possibly Silvermoon. Aside from that it was a really good short story. I loved the build up tension from the spies, having Saurfang instead of Sylvanas lead the initial war effort (which solves the issue of gathering support for the war effort) and finally have everything fall apart due to the same principles that kept Saurfang going.

On Elegy, what I can say uuff. RIP Delaryn . Also fuck Tyrande.

[ls-]

Meh, smh at all these people saying that there's a peace and the Horde has no reason to wage war against the Alliance. Prob play the Alliance as well.

There's never been a true peace between the two factions. It's true that there's multiple ways to resolve the AvH conflict, but they're viable only for the Alliance because the Alliance has the upper hand in the whole ordeal. The Horde is both politically and militarily weaker than the Alliance due to endless wars, infighting, etc, so any peaceful negotiations would end in a huge loss for the Horde. At least now.

The Horde needs resources, esp orcs need them, Thrall chose to settle in a desert for retarded reasons, one of which was atonement for the crimes of the old Horde, in a place w/ virtually no resources, anything that Durotar had to offer was used up to build and rebuild Orgrimmar. Sure they lived in deserts on Draenor, but there they were the dominant species, if/when they needed anything, they just went and took it. On Azeroth, however, orcs' need for provision, wood, fertile soil and so on is the reason behind their conflict w/ Nelves who occupy Azshara and Ashenvale. Do you honestly believe that the Alliance, Nelves in particular, would voluntarily give those two zones to the Horde if those asked them kindly? When it comes to forests and nature Nelves listen to no one.

Other Horde races have issues/grudges as well. The Horde is devastated. But the Alliance is not, the Alliance is actually a prosperous union, at the very least it's in a much better spot than the Horde, so it can pick and chose. The Alliance has multiple viable options, but the Horde has only two: A) a shitty option, be at Anduin's mercy and get nothing, so they'll eventually wither away; B) a slightly less shitty option, wage a war against the Alliance to try to bring it down to the Horde's level or, preferably, below it, so if/when negotiations start both factions are at least on the same level.

And lastly, just like IRL, wars create jobs, allow to gather/secure needed resources, etc. All the things the Horde needs.

But, sure, the Horde def doesn't need any of that, after all Hordies can just drop dead :P

[Ashelin]

Finished reading "A Good War", still have to read Elegy.

So it's confirmed that her decision to burn Teldrassil was an angry reaction to what the NE said to her. It literally ran counter to the entire point of their campaign and guaranteed that instead of ending the war, it would be as large and terrible as the eventual one she seemed so afraid of. She escalated from a Cold War to a full-on scorch the earth world war. She can try and blame it on Saurfang, but she made the decision to burn the tree instead of occupying Darnassus.

Yeah, this is all on Sylvanas.

Read Elegy, it only gets worse. Because Anduin kills Saurfang's reasoning for the Horde who disagree with Sylvanas continuing to fight. He wants to bring Sylvanas to justice, that's his goal. It's not THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF WAR ON THE HORDE. Like Saurfang said.

So not only did the horde start the war, escalate to genocide, they have no legitimate reason to defend their insane warchief. The members of the Horde who are not monsters, look like weak willed cowards. So much for Honor.

[Venziir]

"Practically every other member of the organization belonged to an easily recognizable Alliance race, which meant that eighty percent of the time, they had to remain unseen. The other twenty percent of the time, they had to rely on magic or truly superb disguises. Obviously, their opportunities for going undercover were limited."

It's literally explained why the can have spies why, if you read the book properly. Also, the races of the Alliance are together through choice, not necessity, it's fight and die together - you're really so surprised they are nice to eachother. And humans are barely featured in either book and yet you bang on about the supposed obsession with humans that literally does not exist.

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Which is incredible seeing as the Alliance has never formally divided or turned on itself, why would Sylvanas think Genn would just be like "fuck this I'm out" if Anduin chose to help the Night Elves?

The Alliance crumbled to dust after the Second War, because Gilneas and Stromgarde withdrew their support along with Quel'thalas. And let's not forget the time Alterac betrayed the Alliance either.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Finally finished reading both elegy and a good war.

On A good war, yeah the reasoning to burning the tree is still not that sound to me. Even if Malfurion surviving revitalizes the night elves, keeping the entire city hostage would be a far more devastating blow than trying to send the message that war is going to be expensive and cutting the ties of the alliance from Kalimdor, freeing them to go for Undercity and possibly Silvermoon. Aside from that it was a really good short story. I loved the build up tension from the spies, having Saurfang instead of Sylvanas lead the initial war effort (which solves the issue of gathering support for the war effort) and finally have everything fall apart due to the same principles that kept Saurfang going.

On Elegy, what I can say uuff. RIP Delaryn . Also fuck Tyrande.

IMO Sylvanas realizes that holding the tree would have been a temporary measure. Sooner or later the Alliance would have taken it back. To her, eventually it would reveal itself as nothing but a defeat. That's what Malfurion's escape and Delaryn's words made her understand -the Kaldorei would never stop fighting- and trying to hold the World Tree would have cause the horde to stretch out and bleed out.

A Temporary victory is just a delayed defeat for Sylvanas eyes, and she unequivocally wanted victory. It was a wild gambit, and she is playing with everyone's lives at this point, and upping the stakes at every turn. If at the end of the escalation she can come up on top, then she wins, not a victory, but everything.

She wanted to beat down the elves so the occupation would be sustainable, and Delaryn showed she had failed. Malfurion and Tyrande alive, it was only a matter of time. The occupation plan failed, it was pointless to try to enact it.

[Sylvinder]

Name and avatar checks out

And today is sunny day.

Well, Garrosh's main weakness was his exaggerated pride and arrogance, that's why he never cared to build any kind of consensus and rather preferred to surround himself with yes-men, none of them having a brain of note except Malkorok (who himself wasn't exactly a genius either).

Yeah, correct.

[Syegfryed]

Who would win: a bunch of night elf druids, beings of a proud and old race with the secrets of nature magic, who can turn themselves in mighty sabertooth tigers and giant eagles

or a crawling girl?

[nothingsjim]

Funny enough, instead of the major storyline, I very much enjoyed the minor characters and details of these two books.

Morka Bruggu - Orc breeds like rabbits confirmed, 8 children, seriously??
Chikkers and Captain - Awesome Goblin, and even more awesome crab
Renzik - Gambling while on duty, niiice.

[ls-]

Morka Bruggu - Orc breeds like rabbits confirmed, 8 children, seriously??

It's a known fact that orcs breed like rabbits and they're fully combat-ready at a very young age. You prob missed it o_O

[Felixon]

Horde fanservice is out again. Today,by making a night elven army to look like a bunch of incompetent fool - like with those 2 rogues - one takes out half of the Silverwind group and the other kills a bunch of druids only by throwing his shurikens. Great,rogues are so powerful! Also,the "brilliant" Horde strategy of outmaneuvring the kaldorei forces,some bunch of randoms swimming and blowing up the night elven ships etc. Amazing writing,Blizzard! I don't know why you hate the night elves so much,but it's not a secret,that you always have cherished the Horde. Before I read this, I thought that Saurfang is a fine orc,an example of what an orc should be. What I realized,is that he is just a tiny bit better than a rotting elven corpse leading the Horde,cause he didn't object nor the taking the Darnassus, nor the main goal - destroying the Stormwind only to prevent the possible attack from the Alliance. In the conclusion, this novel yet again proved an important truth - the Horde will always be an aggressor,who starts the war and attacks the others for no real reason.

[MrDaemon]

Sylvanas who want to wage war for the sheer fun of it.

She doesn't want to die so war is not very good for her. Thats why she wanted to strike crushing blow on alliance by killing malfurion.

I think Jaina might be the one who attacks horde and gives us reason to go all out on Alliance.

Sylvanas is most likely not dying but its quite possible she will step down as a warchief sooner or later.

[-aiko-]

Horde fanservice is out again..

Did you read Elegy? The Nightelves devastate the Horde in return, nearly turning the entire, impossible battle into a victory at one point. Saurfang himself notes how there are more Horde losses than Nightelf ones. The Nightelves and Malfurion put up a valiant, brave, and effective defense. They were simply taken by surprise and vastly outnumbered.

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I do think Jaina is going to do something horrible, yes. She's one of the warbringers, afterall, and I doubt Blizzard would allow the Nightelves to get so brutally massacred without giving the Alliance something in retaliation. Something that will make us question our own leaders just like the Horde are now.

[Harbour]

Lmao "100 years of peace isn't worthy if they will end up in war and annihilation".

Sylvanas is a retard with retard logic. Tell that to Horde kids that will live the life without suffering and experience no hatred from Alliance and towards the Alliance. This is very BIG "IF" here.

Also lmao in 10000 years none of the big races met the total annihlilation. Her reasoning is extremely flawed.

[Katie45]

Did you read Elegy? The Nightelves devastate the Horde in return, nearly turning the entire, impossible battle into a victory at one point. Saurfang himself notes how there are more Horde losses than Nightelf ones. The Nightelves and Malfurion put up a valiant, brave, and effective defense. They were simply taken by surprise and vastly outnumbered.

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I do think Jaina is going to do something horrible, yes. She's one of the warbringers, afterall, and I doubt Blizzard would allow the Nightelves to get so brutally massacred without giving the Alliance something in retaliation. Something that will make us question our own leaders just like the Horde are now.

It doesnt matter tho, the alliance is Completely justified I feel the only way they can make the alliance question its own actions is to completely delete a horde race.

[Mentaldemise]

At this point can we please just have Warcraft 4, for fucks sake blizzard let us atleast salvage some of this before you completely obliterate whatever lore remains.

[-aiko-]

It doesnt matter tho, the alliance is Completely justified I feel the only way they can make the alliance question its own actions is to completely delete a horde race.

The fact you and many others feel this way means Blizzard has been successful, and Ion's "morally gray" comment was true. This will be an interesting expansion and I've gone from cautious to optimistic (story-wise, anyway).

[Teramelle]

She doesn't want to die so war is not very good for her. Thats why she wanted to strike crushing blow on alliance by killing malfurion.

Just for the record, I was being hyperbolic. But if war isn't very good for her, she's really making some awful decisions as of late. Obviously, the whole point is that she misjudged the Alliance's response to the whole genocide thing, but it's pretty surprising that she managed to, given that the current result (i.e. the Alliance uniting, stronger than ever) is the most logical conclusion.

I think Jaina might be the one who attacks horde and gives us reason to go all out on Alliance.

Sure, it's possible... but don't you see that anything the Alliance does will always be considered retaliation? The Horde committed an unspeakably evil act, so the Alliance will generally be considered justified in any of their attacks going forward. When one side has committed genocide, and slaughtered innocents on such a vast and horrific scale, any losses they suffer from then on will just feel like punishment for their crimes, not an unprovoked atrocity like the Teldrassil scenario was. Not that killing a lot of Horde civilians would even things out—an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and all that—but should Jaina or anyone else launch an attack, the Alliance players will simply feel that justice is being served, whereas (non-Sylvanas sympathising) Horde players will just be like "yeah, actually, we kinda deserved this."

No matter what the Alliance does to the Horde from here on in, what the Alliance players feel right now can never be replicated for the opposing side.

Sylvanas is most likely not dying but its quite possible she will step down as a warchief sooner or later.

At this point, she's undeniably evil. Unless something happens to her to change her personality pretty much completely, it'd just anger people if she doesn't end up dead by the end of things. Both in-universe, and out of it.

[Trbn]

I like how lore team and golden keep writing themselves into a corner of pandaria 2.0

and I still don't understand how this writing can be approved by any director or whoever is responsible for story in their management

p.s. you never plan the war around "we attack they run or turn on themselves" and pretending that saurfang will think this is a good idea just marks how bad his character is, or how bad someone who's writing him is

[-aiko-]

Sure, it's possible... but don't you see that anything the Alliance does will always be considered retaliation? The Horde committed an unspeakably evil act, so the Alliance will generally be considered justified in any of their attacks going forward..

Not necessarily. If Jaina were to somehow level all of Silvermoon, citizens and all, devastating the already waning populace of sin'dorei, Horde players would lose their shit and many Alliance players (myself included) would openly oppose it. One atrocity does not justify another.

Although, I do admit the mischievous side of me would enjoy the hypocrisy. The Horde players who joke and meme about the Nightelves would be the first to call this out as an unspeakably evil act because it's their side this time.

[Teramelle]

Not necessarily. If Jaina were to somehow level all of Silvermoon, citizens and all, devastating the already waning populace of sin'dorei, Horde players would lose their shit and many Alliance players (myself included) would openly oppose it. One atrocity does not justify another.

Of course, but I also don't quite see the majority of the Alliance being complicit in such an act like the Horde was with Teldrassil. Based solely on Elegy, it's clear that they're angry after everything that happened, and they do want justice, but they're not bloodthirsty. Then again, who knows where Blizzard might take things. I suppose, in the context of the novella, they're still in a state of shock.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see where they take it. I admit, I would be thoroughly disappointed if any of the Alliance leaders allowed an atrocity on that scale to happen, though. Despite what some people would like us to believe, it's not actually out of character for Sylvanas (or... the Horde, in general) to wage war with pretty extreme tactics, but it would be for any of the major Alliance leaders, excluding Jaina.