Saurfang vs Sylvanas, after the cinematic!

[KrakHed]

No one involved seriously believes Saurfang will take over unopposed. The Alliance will continue their war effort, but this time they'll be fighting a divided Horde rather than one Anduin inexplicably believes the Alliance can't handle. Saurfang assists in this. This is textbook treason and it's considerably worse than Sylvanas disobeying an order of what sort of weapon to use.
@Minikin

I wish we could. I really do.

The Alliance will be fighting a divided Horde either way, even if Saurfang isn't involved. The writing is on the wall in that regard, considering that Baine is one of the main characters this expansion. All Saurfang would do is ensure that the Orcs are quick to turn against and oust Sylvanas from Orgrimmar, potentially minimizing the fallout.

[Super Dickmann]

The Alliance will be fighting a divided Horde either way, even if Saurfang isn't involved. The writing is on the wall in that regard, considering that Baine is one of the main characters this expansion. All Saurfang would do is ensure that the Orcs are quick to turn against and oust Sylvanas from Orgrimmar, potentially minimizing the fallout.

Baine is a sadsack who'll never initiate anything on his own. One only needs to look at how much resistance the Horde has put up against Sylvanas up to now to know how likely it is resistance would form without outside support and a good figurehead. The 180 turnaround of the orcs at least will be funny to see given how the last time he yelled at them to not do something Sylvanas told them to went and the fun they've been having in Brennadam and Anglepoint.

[ThatsOurEric]

No one involved seriously believes Saurfang will take over unopposed. The Alliance will continue their war effort, but this time they'll be fighting a divided Horde rather than one Anduin inexplicably believes the Alliance can't handle. Saurfang assists in this. This is textbook treason and it's considerably worse than Sylvanas disobeying an order of what sort of weapon to use.
@Minikin

If anything, I'd imagine that a Horde without Sylv opens up peace talks, which is what Anduin legitimately wants, not the Horde
enslaved, dismantled, OR killed. Saurfang doesn't want a pointless war, he's already been through too many of those, and unlike
with most of the current Horde, he actually knows what its like to fight a "bad" war and then when its over, to bear the scars from
it.

In order to save them from it, he'd rather get rid of her now. Considering how he already threatened Garrosh if he went down
the wrong path (would've fought him if not for Garrosh's Klaxxi bodyguards) it makes sense for him to be against her completely.

Keep in mind had it been a normal invasion of Teledrassil where they didn't blindly kill civilians, he probably would not be
where he is now. That burning must remind him of the events when the Horde attacked the Dranei. Same kind of unmerited,
unjustified carnage. And he has to relive that "shame" again, only with a new generation who now have their Dranei Temple
massacre to live through, which is the last thing he'd ever want.

[Zulkhan]

I play Horde and my impression is clearly that they are building up Saurfang to be a hero and Sylvanas to be a villain, because of Sylvanas' display of sheer evil that everybody saw at Teldrassil

That Teldrassil was an atrocity is unquestionable, but it doesn't change the fact that said atrocity was engineered to particularly offend Saurfang specifically, because of his experiences, because he went through something like that before, which makes perfect sense how it served as the effective breaking point for him while we haven't seen anything coming close to that in other Horde members. Because if Sylvanas' "sheer evil" displayed should have served as some incredible turning point for her path to universal villany then the reaction would have been instantaneous but it wasn't, in fact anyone barely seems to care.

The burning of Teldrassil may have succeeded in showing the extents Sylvanas was willing to reach to win the war and how severe her moral bankruptcy is but it did absolutely anything to set her villainous path straight, simply because there was no development, progression and escalation from that. On the contrary, we simply saw the escalation of the faction war and the aggressiveness of the Alliance's military campaign. Suddenly remembering now that Teldrassil was indeed an awful affair and build a supposed rebellious front over that it's terribly anti-climatic.

and the fact that Saurfang gets story development through mid-expansion cinematics

The issue is indeed that it's all about Saurfang. It's fine to develop your hero (even though Saurfang's development looks more like an involution) but a rebellion isn't an one-man affair, there is a consensus to build, characters showed to hold the same greviances as Saurfang and proving that Sylvanas' reign is indeed becoming a shaky affair. So far we have only Baine, who just moans and get offended, while a plethora of relevant Horde characters have their heads fully occupied by the current faction war, one that just got escalated by the Alliance rather than Sylvanas.

I would have believed Sylvanas was just going to continue to be a grey character as she always was as she became Warchief, if it wasn't for Teldrassil.

Don't get me wrong, Teldrassil was indeed a shameful affair and mostly because of how it was handled. It should have logically been used as a pivotal turning point, if they seriously intend to pull a Garrosh from Sylvanas, and not as the literal opening event of the expansion, after which we just "went to war" and forgot about it.

He was dethroned because he turned Xenophobic and racist. Which is against what the Horde stands for.

Either way, Garrosh said no to the Blight, he was Warchief, and Sylv still used it. It's like her supports don't know the old, "pot calling the kettle black?"

Ah so you meant that using of the Blight, I thought you were trying to make a point over her recent use.

Still, the comparison remains awful. Sylvanas' "treason" there was weak sauce, since it was mere disagreement over which kind of warfare to adopt against the enemy; supposedly collaborating with the Alliance's High King to dethrone the Horde's Warchief is a far greaver deal.

[KrakHed]

Baine is a sadsack who'll never initiate anything on his own. One only needs to look at how much resistance the Horde has put up against Sylvanas up to now to know how likely it is resistance would form without outside support and a good figurehead.

I'm no roleplayer on these forums. I know the puppets are naught but puppets, and so their strings are visible.

The writing hasn't been good, but it's still there and legible. From Elf, from Forsaken, from Orc, from Troll, discomfort has been expressed. You might think the trigger for it was stupid. That's fine, but it's happening. The pacing is bad, but it's happening.

[Minikin]

Don't worry Golden will save him, win the war and make you feel like you lost it, so please leave your toxic masculinity ant the door and leave Anduin alone, ok?

schrodinger's warfront

you get to win. but you actually lost. but you dont really lose. because you won. but you dont actually lose. because you really won.

[Super Dickmann]

I'm no roleplayer on these forums. I know the puppets are naught but puppets, and so their strings are visible.

The writing hasn't been good, but it's still there and legible. From Elf, from Forsaken, from Orc, from Troll, discomfort has been expressed. You might think the trigger for it was stupid. That's fine, but it's happening. The pacing is bad, but it's happening.

That's true, but in the same sense we'll never know what they would have done without Saurfang as the Alliance proxy nudging things along, since that's not the story they wrote. At the moment, they're doing fuck all. Maybe next patch they'll graduate from grumbling about things we've been doing for ten years in private to grumbling about it in public. By 8.2 we can graduate to Baine sending Sylvanas a strongly worded letter.
@ThatsOurEric

Saurfang subscribed to the initial war goals. Given the Horde's complete non-reaction to what's been going on and the fact that Saurfang himself sold these war goals to them, we can assume they believe them as well in large part, up until the inevitable 180 turnaround where they decide they were honorable all along and genocide is really a bit of a faux pas. Currently, Saurfang still represents no one. This is even demonstrated in how we can still say no to him and stick with Sylvanas. The breaking point for the majority of the Horde has yet to arrive.

Saurfang knows fuck all more about waging a bad war than most of the Horde, of which the Forsaken have been waging a war just like this one for 15 years and all the other races have been through Garrosh. None of them decided to quit and go traitor except Saurfang. Saurfang is no redeemer of the Horde. He has no faith in the Horde to speak of. Given a chance between a challenge to Sylvanas, an ability to work from the inside against her like Vol'jin did with Garrosh until his assassination or being a henchman for the human king, he went for the last one. Not only has he been involved in virtually all of the activities he now decries, but his actions have had a directly negative effect on the Horde war effort, including those Malfurion will go on to kill and losing the opportunity to kill the Alliance leader.

[KrakHed]

The issue is indeed that it's all about Saurfang. It's fine to develop your hero (even though Saurfang's development looks more like an involution) but a rebellion isn't an one-man affair, there is a consensus to build, characters showed to hold the same greviances as Saurfang and proving that Sylvanas' reign is indeed becoming a shaky affair. So far we have only Baine, who just moans and get offended, while a plethora of relevant Horde characters have their heads fully occupied by the current faction war, one that just got escalated by the Alliance rather than Sylvanas.

I don't know. Talanji is more worried about the Zandalari's honor than how brilliant Sylvanas's revenge plan for Rastakhan is. I think Baine would have a lot more support than you'd think.

[Deleted]

@H1gh Contra5t has it. It was in one of the previous threads.

Indeed I do. As of the last Vote two days ago the current results are:

Sylvanas - 81
Saurfang - 39

An even more emphatic margin than it was a few days ago. May your heart be warmed by this once again lol

[ThatsOurEric]

Still, the comparison remains awful. Sylvanas' "treason" there was weak sauce, since it was mere disagreement over which kind of warfare to adopt against the enemy; supposedly collaborating with the Alliance's High King to dethrone the Horde's Warchief is a far greaver deal.

It really isn't. Sylvanas absolutely planned on using the Blight on everyone, her allies included. Putress beat her to it,
and you can't honestly believe she never planned to. Keep in mind that Garrosh had explicitly stated for her to cease
all uses of the Blight. She *STILL* used it against the Worgen, and when one of Garrosh's generals asked, some other
Forsaken stated that it was a "diluted" version, and that she would **NOT** create that "kill all" Blight without
permission.

Which as we knew, she still did. Behind all their backs, and it showed.

You can't paint Saurfang as a worse traitor when she was literally sitting on a WMD and even used it against
the Horde's wishes. The Blight is especially dishonorable, and had there been no creation of it, maybe the
Wrath Gate would've ended differently?

[Addict]

schrodinger's warfront

you get to win. but you actually lost. but you dont really lose. because you won. but you dont actually lose. because you really won.

*Scribbles a up-vote icon on a piece of paper and glues it to the screen*

yeah, that'll do.

[Friendlyimmolation]

It really isn't. Sylvanas absolutely planned on using the Blight on everyone, her allies included. Putress beat her to it,
and you can't honestly believe she never planned to. Keep in mind that Garrosh had explicitly stated for her to cease
all uses of the Blight. She *STILL* used it against the Worgen, and when one of Garrosh's generals asked, some other
Forsaken stated that it was a "diluted" version, and that she would **NOT** create that "kill all" Blight without
permission.

Which as we knew, she still did. Behind all their backs, and it showed.

You can't paint Saurfang as a worse traitor when she was literally sitting on a WMD and even used it against
the Horde's wishes. The Blight is especially dishonorable, and had there been no creation of it, maybe the
Wrath Gate would've ended differently?

It amazes me people still say this, lol.

right next to the blight is dishonorable, why is it people who spew this argument act as if Horde only beats people to death with their fists, if the blight is dishonorable, then so is anything outside of one to one combat.

[Verdugo]

The Blight is especially dishonorable,

Will you explain why? And can you compare it to some other forms of mass killing employed by both factions?

[ello]

I play Horde and my impression is clearly that they are building up Saurfang to be a hero and Sylvanas to be a villain

Oh definitely. I think it's clear Blizzard is trying to push people away from Sylvanas and toward Saurfang. People are resisting because

1) It's a rehash, and we have no interest in a rehash.

and/or

2) The idea of Anduin and Saurfang working together to install an Alliance-approved Warchief and "fixing" the Horde is just too unpalatable for some people.

[mickybrighteyes]

It really isn't. Sylvanas absolutely planned on using the Blight on everyone, her allies included.

Citation needed

Putress beat her to it,
and you can't honestly believe she never planned to.

doesn't matter, plan was never brought into the plot to be made known to the audience. Might as well call out Jaina for her crimes against the horde that didn't happen... but are obvious as fuck considering she shows up with enough fire power to blow a hole through lordaeron into the undercity on her own.. with no awareness of events,,,,

Keep in mind that Garrosh had explicitly stated for her to cease
all uses of the Blight. She *STILL* used it against the Worgen, and when one of Garrosh's generals asked, some other
Forsaken stated that it was a "diluted" version, and that she would **NOT** create that "kill all" Blight without
permission.

and garrosh showed himself to be an upstanding warchief with the entire horde in mind... ordering footsoldiers into pointless ground fights because they were supposed to be shock troops

You can't paint Saurfang as a worse traitor when she was literally sitting on a WMD and even used it against
the Horde's wishes. The Blight is especially dishonorable, and had there been no creation of it, maybe the
Wrath Gate would've ended differently?

Saurfang is looking to be an individual who is going to be quite embedded into alliance actions in the coming story. Deliberately ignoring orders, doing as he pleases and acting against horde interests WITH the alliance in a time of war. I think that is quite a bit bigger deal than simply using the weapon you're told not to when you're still accomplishing the stated objective.

Will you explain why? And can you compare it to some other forms of mass killing employed by both factions?

it's a pointless argument. one might argue it's dishonorable because you can't 'fight' it and once it's employed those in the affected area can only retreat. Others will argue it's destructive to the land, rendering it unusable for normal activity for a long period of time.

Those with some sense would probably look more to the reasons for the confrontation for any indication of honor instead of the choice of weapon

[Zulkhan]

I don't know. Talanji is more worried about the Zandalari's honor than how brilliant Sylvanas's revenge plan for Rastakhan is. I think Baine would have a lot more support than you'd think.

Baine can't have support because to have support you'd have to plan something to begin with, which is something Baine does not intend to do. Once again, it's someone else making the decisive move and that one is Saurfang this time.

Talanji has her worries but mostly claimed that no matter the circumstances, Sylvanas is leader of the Horde and she wants to support that rule over a just path. Of course, we can speculate that Sylvanas' reign is going to become a void-fucked mess and make the choice easy for everyone but that isn't clearly forseeable right now (even though it's legit speculation nonetheless). So far, Talanji's and Saurfang's stances (I wittingly ignore Baine because I doubt he'll even matter) have nearly nothing in common right now.

It really isn't. Sylvanas absolutely planned on using the Blight on everyone, her allies included. Putress beat her to it,
and you can't honestly believe she never planned to. Keep in mind that Garrosh had explicitly stated for her to cease
all uses of the Blight. She *STILL* used it against the Worgen, and when one of Garrosh's generals asked, some other
Forsaken stated that it was a "diluted" version, and that she would **NOT** create that "kill all" Blight without
permission.

Which as we knew, she still did. Behind all their backs, and it showed.

You can't paint Saurfang as a worse traitor when she was literally sitting on a WMD and even used it against
the Horde's wishes. The Blight is especially dishonorable, and had there been no creation of it, maybe the
Wrath Gate would've ended differently?

You're trying to justify a literal equation with a lot of headcanon. "You can't honestly believe she never planned to" isn't proof for something that effectively never happened, since the only time the Blight was openly used over everyone and in a literal treacherous manner is when an actual traitor (to Sylvanas included) did it. Garrosh banned it because he didn't trust the Forsaken after the Wrath Gate incident, a partially reasonable stance that became not-so-reasonable after he planned to use the Forsaken against Gilneas and expected them to succeed by literally nerfing their military potential, which is probably why Garrosh eventually backpedalled and accepted the production of the "diluted" Blight (which was simply too weak and needed more potency if it had to be useful at all).

Did Sylvanas disobey Garrosh's orders? Yes, to an extent, considered how Garrosh partially backpedalled from his own initial orders, eventually. But considered the circumstances on which Garrosh forced Sylvanas and the Forsaken and that the target of such "dishonorable" weapon (because the weapons later used by Garrosh himself were oh-so-honorable for certain) was none other but Garrosh's targeted enemy of his campaign, the "treachery" in question is, again, weak sauce.

[FuxieDK]

This thread existed before, but lets see where the Horde stands after the cinematic!

Personally, I lost the respect for Saurfang. Even though I dont agree with Sylvanas, as Horde player I would still stand with Sylvanas, with faction!

Shoot it boys!

Uncertain before the cinematic...
Sylvanas after the cinematic.

[ThatsOurEric]

It amazes me people still say this, lol.

It amazes me some people don't see it, lol.

Will you explain why? And can you compare it to some other forms of mass killing employed by both factions?

The Blight isn't just some kind of "Kill Undead" weapon. It kills everything, and for all intents and purposes,
The Horde has never (barring Garrosh) used WMD's against their enemies, let alone (again, barring Garrosh)
attacking civilian populations. There's no "honor" in attacking civies, since obviously, they can't defend themselves.
The basic Horde philosophy (mostly from the Orcs, Tauren, and Trolls) is that they would rather fight on a battlefield
in glory than using a WMD that would kill both sides, permanently destroy the environment beyond repair, and ever
attack helpless civilians.

Goblins and Undead are less inclined, but again, Tauren, Darkspear, and most certainly Orcs would be 100% against it.
I can see Blood Elves being divided on it. Some are more honorable, some are more "whatever it takes." I imagine the
Allied Races would also be against it. I can't imagine the Highmountain, Mag'har, Zandalari, or Nightborne being for it.

IIRC, only 2 WMD's have been used, both by Horde leaders. Garrosh's Mana Bomb, and Sylvanas' Blight. Do you think
Vol'jin or Thrall would authorized either one to be used?

[zlygork]

I voted "saurfang" because he is the one headed towards ending this sad excuse for a war, but he is such a hypocrite. He was enjoying the fuck out of that war until the tree burned, like it was honorable beforehand

[Budong]

schrodinger's warfront

you get to win. but you actually lost. but you dont really lose. because you won. but you dont actually lose. because you really won.

1 million internets to you sir. Well done, bravo!