Saurfang vs Sylvanas, after the cinematic!

[sam86]

You're making a giant leap between "insubordinate" and "traitor."

in·sub·or·di·nate
defiant of authority; disobedient to orders.

trai·tor
a person who betrays a friend, country, principle, etc.

The problem is Sylvanas has yet to betray the Horde while you can factually claim that Saurfang is a deserter.

she literally say she is trying to keep the horde alive, after less than 5 min of nuking the horde with plague and then raise their corpses as skeletons
Even the Lich King cared for his troops more than her, yes seriously the Lich King showed more care for his sentient followers than her
If Sarufang betrayed the horde, Sylvanas didn't even give a f8ck about the horde ever any day, and joined the horde with treachery and manipulation, with quests (that were removed sadly later) showing how she was planning something with Grimtotem in first place
In case u forgot, Baine is why Forsaken joined the horde after persuade Thrall, and he did that only under constant pursuing from Grimtotem, who lorewise are horde, even if for gameplay purpose they were hostile to us

[Zora-Prime]

In case u forgot, Baine is why Forsaken joined the horde after persuade Thrall, and he did that only under constant pursuing from Grimtotem, who lorewise are horde, even if for gameplay purpose they were hostile to us

You mean Cairne, not Baine.
Baine is nothing and does nothing.

[s3ge]

she literally say she is trying to keep the horde alive, after less than 5 min of nuking the horde with plague and then raise their corpses as skeletons
Even the Lich King cared for his troops more than her, yes seriously the Lich King showed more care for his sentient followers than her
If Sarufang betrayed the horde, Sylvanas didn't even give a f8ck about the horde ever any day, and joined the horde with treachery and manipulation, with quests (that were removed sadly later) showing how she was planning something with Grimtotem in first place
In case u forgot, Baine is why Forsaken joined the horde after persuade Thrall, and he did that only under constant pursuing from Grimtotem, who lorewise are horde, even if for gameplay purpose they were hostile to us

What people like you chose to ignore is the fact that the use of the blight is what saved the Horde from total defeat, the Alliance was about to storm the gate and end the conflict right then and there. Not even Saurfang himself, when confronted with this decision, could come up with an alternative which is, admittedly, not surprising since he had no intention of winning the battle in the first place.

No, then he would be a traitor in the personal sense - in X person's opinion he's a traitor. If he's never called on it, and the authority that charged him is overthrown (by him), and no one else with suitable authority can charge him, then he won't be a traitor. You or I might think he's a traitor, but that's really the extent of it. From a purely external standpoint (e.g. people debating about a story) all we can really have are our opinions. Treason is a charge, an accusation that is (hopefully) buttressed by facts and figures - just like justice it is not an immutable or tangible object in objective reality.

Seems like you have gone beyond moral relativism and jumped into existential relativism.

Sargeras was never convicted of treason, therefore he wasn't a traitor. He did, in fact, never betray the Pantheon, ever. At least not until we beat Argus, reality changed that day!

“How can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real."

[Dravec]

Saurfang admits it straight out of "A Good War" that it was his fault - FACT



No amount of mental gymnastics and whitewashing will get you out of that.




Try watching the actual cinematic the thread is about before making yourself look like such a fool. Anduin literally asks Saurfang "Why did you spare my life?" - FACT




Again you would really save yourself the embarassment if you actually paid attention to the established events in game - Saurfang gave himself up by throwing himself into a suicidal last stand to die "honourably" against the Alliance, a fight we now know he could have won but spared their leader. Then later, he outright refuses to return to the Horde despite it losing lives left, right, and centre in the middle of a war. That is textbook desertion - FACT.




And for a third time you embarass yourself by evidently not watching the source material - Anduin opens the cell door, tells Saurfang that he cannot stop Sylvanas alone, and Saurfang then leaves. So let's see, on the one hand he refuses help from his own faction when he had the chance, but as soon as the enemy presents with the opportunity he jumps at the chance and suddenly changes his mind. That is collaboration with the enemy - FACT.




When you gotta draw on the support of two of the most amoral and immoral entities in the known Warcraft universe as some kind credibility for your argument, you've already lost.

1. A fact my ass. You can watch Warbringers again if you think that shit was his fault.

2. Saurfang not killing Anduin in one blow = sparing. Must of missed the part where Genn fought off Saurfang right after. Killing Anduin would of been worse for the Horde, as he is the only one in the Alliance that doesn’t want to eradicate the Horde.

3. What the fuck do you mean a fight he could have won? Against the 4 Alliance leaders? Saurfang was never going to win that fight. Unless you mean Malfurion in which case lol Sylvanas should of done it since it was her idea in the first place.

4. That’s not fucking collaboration you moron. Anduin leaving his cell door open and letting him escape isn’t collaborating. Saurfang has zero connections with the Alliance on the PTR beyond having the same end goals.

F A C T.

Also convenient of you to ignore Sylvanas committing actual treason several times.

[Evilfish]

1. A fact my ass. You can watch Warbringers again if you think that shit was his fault.

2. Saurfang not killing Anduin in one blow = sparing. Must of missed the part where Genn fought off Saurfang right after. Killing Anduin would of been worse for the Horde, as he is the only one in the Alliance that doesn’t want to eradicate the Horde.

3. What the fuck do you mean a fight he could have won? Against the 4 Alliance leaders? Saurfang was never going to win that fight. Unless you mean Malfurion in which case lol Sylvanas should of done it since it was her idea in the first place.

4. That’s not fucking collaboration you moron. Anduin leaving his cell door open and letting him escape isn’t collaborating. Saurfang has zero connections with the Alliance on the PTR beyond having the same end goals.

F A C T.

Also convenient of you to ignore Sylvanas committing actual treason several times.

2. Saurfang ADMITS he spared Anduin because he hoped he would take care of Sylvanas. Come on...

[crazyfool319]

This feels like spam at this point.

Roughly half of the Horde + most Alliance will support Saurfang, the other half of the Horde will support Sylvanas. I don't see this cinematic changing opinions either way, personally.

I think you are MASSIVELY overreaching with how many horde will support a character that is helping the other faction. They might not support Sylvanas, but they will take her over the traitor.

[lummiuster]

NEITHER

I am TIRED of needing the Alliance to be our moral compass. But I'm ALSO tired of being Baby-eating evil. (No, Sylvanas, burning down the tree of civilians to 'kill hope' was not pragmatic!)

Unsubbed and plan to stay that way.

It is a game. Just select one race and kill the other one.

[Deleted]

1. A fact my ass. You can watch Warbringers again if you think that shit was his fault.

2. Saurfang not killing Anduin in one blow = sparing. Must of missed the part where Genn fought off Saurfang right after. Killing Anduin would of been worse for the Horde, as he is the only one in the Alliance that doesn’t want to eradicate the Horde.

3. What the fuck do you mean a fight he could have won? Against the 4 Alliance leaders? Saurfang was never going to win that fight. Unless you mean Malfurion in which case lol Sylvanas should of done it since it was her idea in the first place.

4. That’s not fucking collaboration you moron. Anduin leaving his cell door open and letting him escape isn’t collaborating. Saurfang has zero connections with the Alliance on the PTR beyond having the same end goals.

F A C T.

Also convenient of you to ignore Sylvanas committing actual treason several times.

Ladies and gentlemen, your classic case of denial among the Saurfang fanbase - where opinion trumps established facts and written lore as long as you put your fingers in your ears and scream "La la la la la" loud enough. There truly is no hope for people like this. Don't be this like this guy, it's next-level embarassing...

[Rafoel]

If the story has an ounce of integrity left there will absolutely be some kind of civil war. The majority still back Sylvanas’ war. The only way it could end without blood is if she voluntarily gtfo.

So who's at fault here?

If Horde was democracy, Sylvanas would remain the leader. Majority still supports her, as you said.

What should a leader do when MINORITY demands him to go away? Just go away? I wonder what a leader from our world would do in such situation... actually, it sounds awfully familiar...

Regardless, Sylvanas so far at no point showed that she wants to rule the Horde regardless of what Horde wants. On the contrary, it seems she would just back down when the Horde told her its enough. She never even desired Warchief position, she would be fine as leader of the Forsaken.

So far though its just a butthurt grandpa and spineless pacifist that have problems with everything. Saurfang "wants his Horde back" but can't find any support for this idea (maybe apart from Zekhan who idolizes him because of his father) so he goes down so low that he tries to find hope in the King of the enemy he fought against since he was young. My country has a history with such individuals who, when their "ideas" of how the country should be governed were rejected by majority, turned towards foreign powers for help and assistance. For me, such behaviour was and always will be absolutely disgusting.

[Jastall]

I don't think there's going to be a civil war at all. Saurfang isn't going to wind up needing to force the Horde to play nice.

The good people in the Horde are already there, even if Saurfang can't see them right now. Even if they're still buying into the war, for now. Talanji may be upset about her dad, but she's not going to forsaken her morals for it.

Not all revolutions are bloody.

I think the same way. Saurfang will gather what he needs; allies, evidence against her perhaps, and if Sylvanas is to be deposed it will be done rather quickly. Sylvanas's character aids this, as if her reign is seriously threatened she's far more likely to fold 'em and either negotiate or escape with her life than pull a Garrosh and imagine she can take on the entire world at once.

As you say, close to nobody supports Sylvanas herself. The most common sentiment is that they're stuck with her as they don't know who could confront or replace her as Warchief. If Saurfang comes with a solution (which could be himself or someone else, hi Thrall), that dilemma goes away and there's no real reason to support Sylvanas anymore, especially if she starts doing shit like wielding Knaifu.

[Aucald]

Seems like you have gone beyond moral relativism and jumped into existential relativism.

Sargeras was never convicted of treason, therefore he wasn't a traitor. He did, in fact, never betray the Pantheon, ever. At least not until we beat Argus, reality changed that day!

“How can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real."

Being a traitor is relative in every sense - moral, existential, and fundamental. To the Pantheon I am sure Sargeras was considered a traitor, and while they existed they were the authority by which he would be judged so. Their authority ended with their lives at Nihilam, when Sargeras destroyed them utterly and became the last of their number (at least until he began raising them from effective death to be his slaves) it no longer matters to them what he was. But relative to us, relative to most of existence, Sargeras was both the traitor of the Pantheon and of all life in the universe (given his stated goal of destroying all things).

But that's the thing, really - do you really want an accusation to be the sole arbiter of objective fact? Put yourself in the shoes of the victim: you do the noble thing, and turn against some evil force you previously served, you spin around and do what is right even if that means you betray an oath you had previously made. In so doing, you find that those who still believe in this evil force (out of greed, or malevolence, or ignorance) label you a base and vile traitor, they hunt you and hound you. But you *are* doing what is right, at least insofar as you know it - turning against this evil regime and trying to make it something better. And if you succeed in overturning this evil force, do you think it is fair to have people still hound you and hate you, even though they were wrong and you were truly right? Is that how you think it should be?

[ello]

I think you are MASSIVELY overreaching with how many horde will support a character that is helping the other faction. They might not support Sylvanas, but they will take her over the traitor.

Under normal circumstances, i would agree with you. If it was Sylvanas's pre-BfA characterization I'd probably agree with you. But this expansion has been unkind to Sylvanas. You can tell the writers are trying, and perhaps failing, to push people away from Sylvanas, as much as I hate it.

[s3ge]

Being a traitor is relative in every sense - moral, existential, and fundamental. To the Pantheon I am sure Sargeras was considered a traitor, and while they existed they were the authority by which he would be judged so. Their authority ended with their lives at Nihilam, when Sargeras destroyed them utterly and became the last of their number (at least until he began raising them from effective death to be his slaves) it no longer matters to them what he was. But relative to us, relative to most of existence, Sargeras was both the traitor of the Pantheon and of all life in the universe (given his stated goal of destroying all things).

But that's the thing, really - do you really want an accusation to be the sole arbiter of objective fact? Put yourself in the shoes of the victim: you do the noble thing, and turn against some evil force you previously served, you spin around and do what is right even if that means you betray an oath you had previously made. In so doing, you find that those who still believe in this evil force (out of greed, or malevolence, or ignorance) label you a base and vile traitor, they hunt you and hound you. But you *are* doing what is right, at least insofar as you know it - turning against this evil regime and trying to make it something better. And if you succeed in overturning this evil force, do you think it is fair to have people still hound you and hate you, even though they were wrong and you were truly right? Is that how you think it should be?

I'm not saying the state of being a traitor isn't to some degree relative. My point is that bringing up this utterly obvious and inherently meaningless argument does not get you anywhere - unless you want to deflect from the real issue at hand.

Mao's "Great Leap Forward" killed tens of millions of people. He certainly thought he was doing the right thing but others disagreed, that is why he had to fight for his power and was seen as a traitor by his opponents. Today he is hailed as a hero.

Where does me pointing these facts out get us? Absolutely nowhere, unless, of course, you want to derail this discussion into oblivion.


Let me explain why Saurfang is objectively a traitor, not to Sylvanas, but to the very ideal of the Horde he pretends to uphold.

He is absolutely on board with the war itself, he personally organizes the attack, trains troops and leads them into battle. These people, one of which is Baine, trust Saurfang to do the right thing. When he spares Malfurion he betrays everyone who followed him into battle, everyone who died during the campaign on his orders. He then gets another chance to stop the war by challenging Sylvanas directly.

Almost the same thing happens in Undercity. He could do something about his grievances and the situation in general but instead tries to kill himself and has to be reminded that there are other people in the Horde. He does not approve of the use of the blight but can't come up with any alternative, or any arguments against it really. At this point he has already decided that he wants Sylvanas dead but does not kill her. Instead, he wants the Alliance to kill her for him thereby, once again, betraying the troops and friends he led into a fight that he very much wanted to lose to begin with.

He finally gets another chance to confront Sylvanas but simply can not think of any argument against her reasoning. He wants her dead, because she is bad. Why the writers intentionally chose to portray him like this is beyond me, but, since it is Golden, we can assume that she wanted the Horde and everyone in it to look as bad as possible.

Leading troops into a battle he wants to lose and intentionally failing the objective of his own war campaign makes Saurfang objectively a traitor to those troops and, by extension, a hero for the Alliance.

[Aucald]

I'm not saying the state of being a traitor isn't to some degree relative. My point is that bringing up this utterly obvious and inherently meaningless argument does not get you anywhere - unless you want to deflect from the real issue at hand.

Mao's "Great Leap Forward" killed tens of millions of people. He certainly thought he was doing the right thing but others disagreed, that is why he had to fight for his power and was seen as a traitor by his opponents. Today he is hailed as a hero.

Where does me pointing these facts out get us? Absolutely nowhere, unless, of course, you want to derail this discussion into oblivion.


Let me explain why Saurfang is objectively a traitor, not to Sylvanas, but to the very ideal of the Horde he pretends to uphold.

He is absolutely on board with the war itself, he personally organizes the attack, trains troops and leads them into battle. These people, one of which is Baine, trust Saurfang to do the right thing. When he spares Malfurion he betrays everyone who followed him into battle, everyone who died during the campaign on his orders. He then gets another chance to stop the war by challenging Sylvanas directly.

Almost the same thing happens in Undercity. He could do something about his grievances and the situation in general but instead tries to kill himself and has to be reminded that there are other people in the Horde. He does not approve of the use of the blight but can't come up with any alternative, or any arguments against it really. At this point he has already decided that he wants Sylvanas dead but does not kill her. Instead, he wants the Alliance to kill her for him thereby, once again, betraying the troops and friends he led into a fight that he very much wanted to lose to begin with.

He finally gets another chance to confront Sylvanas but simply can not think of any argument against her reasoning. He wants her dead, because she is bad. Why the writers intentionally chose to portray him like this is beyond me, but, since it is Golden, we can assume that she wanted the Horde and everyone in it to look as bad as possible.

Leading troops into a battle he wants to lose and intentionally failing the objective of his own war campaign makes Saurfang objectively a traitor to those troops and, by extension, a hero for the Alliance.

The purpose of this aside isn't to derail an argument, but rather to make one - an argument whose purpose stands in opposition to your central thesis, that Saurfang is *objectively* a traitor. If you want want to make the claim that Saurfang is a traitor to the very ideal of the Horde I would say you are wrong. If you want to claim that he was inactive, and that his inactivity hurt the Horde then I would say you are right. Making a mistake and causing harm to the organization you cherish is not tantamount to betraying or being a traitor to it, though - it's just an error in judgment, and one he is now attempting to rectify.

Saurfang was on board to enact the war he understood it to be - to take Teldrassil captive and hold it against and its territories against the Alliance, to use it as a stalking-horse in an attempt to force the Alliance down, and in so doing to bleed their will to fight away and ensure the Horde's dominance (which would usher about a lasting peace for the Horde). When Sylvanas turned the tables on Saurfang at Darkshore by committing an atrocity against Teldrassil the war that Saurfang fought for disappeared, as did his zeal for fighting it. Lordaeron was not Saurfang's choice of battleground, as Sylvanas herself says in "A Good War" Lordaeron was an inevitability due to her actions at Teldrassil, she knew the Alliance was going to come for her and her homeland. Saurfang was present at Lordaeron initially to kill himself - to go out in a final blaze of glory against the enemy of the Horde in a half-crazed attempt to somehow redeem himself. Zekhan shows him another way, and convinces him to live another day to possibly help make things right once more. His subsequent assault on Anduin's forces and his imprisonment in the Stockades were part of that chain of reasoning (e.g. the hope that the Alliance under Anduin could do what he could not and stop Sylvanas).

That Saurfang has made errors in judgement is not a debatable fact, in my opinion - he misjudged Sylvanas for one, and then he compounded that error by not acting when he could have. But do those errors in judgement make him a traitor to the Horde, or worse, an explicit enemy of the Horde (especially the ideal of the Horde, and not specifically Sylvanas' regime within the Horde)? I would say "no, they don't." Saurfang wants to save the Horde that he understands, the one he wants to return to, before atrocities like Teldrassil and Lordaeron.

[sam86]

What people like you chose to ignore is the fact that the use of the blight is what saved the Horde from total defeat

then either u don't know horde principles or u choose to ignore them
-horde should (i know vol'jin didn't do that) prefer to die than to run away, Lok'tar Ogar, blizz sh8t on that and made vol'jin order retreat, and even consider that a 'good' horde move (wtf?)
-horde should prefer defeat than to fight dishonorable, for a horde it is better that alliance win than we ever use plague, or a mana bomb, or any cheap tactics like that "Blood and Honor", yeah irl that would be stupid and cause our extinction (like vikings), but this isn't rl, i can fantasize about being honorable savage because if i die, my orc hunter will get rezzed again at a spirit healer
seriously why we have fantasy genre if we going to tie it with rl problems ?

[FuxieDK]

The funny thing is,by reading the posts on forums,you might actually think,that there're actually more supporters of Sylvanas than Saurfang. The good thing is,that you can't make conclusions based on the vocal minority that Sylvanas's trusted army is, who will support any new idiotic idea she comes up with. The funny thing is,that many of those fierce Alliance haters are people,who spend most of their time in the trade chat,arguing with the others with the warmode off.

The funny thng is, that post-cinematic, Saurfang still have ANY support..

I would have imagined he was shunned by now.

[Felixon]

[Citation Needed] for all of that.

Are you actually pretending to be some kind of lawyer or what? Citation for what? My own observations?

[Wildberry]

Are you actually pretending to be some kind of lawyer or what? Citation for what? My own observations?

Hey if you want to write forum fanfiction, have at it.

[Tarba]

Let's all remember how Saurfang did not warn Anduin in Lordaeron that he was going right into a plague trap.
-Why did you spare my life?
-I wanted you to die in Sylvanas's trap five meters ahead.

[Felixon]

Hey if you want to write forum fanfiction, have at it.

Says a demagogue,who thinks,that the events are canon,only if he agrees with them and who can't stand his favourite characters criticism.