Who started the war,which lead to Garrosh's downfall?

[Felixon]

One of the keypoints,which lead to the war was the Wrathgate. Alliance thought,that Horde had betrayed them and Varian declared the war. Afterwards,we see skirmishes in Grizzly Hills, both battleships fire at each other in the Icecrown, there's a fight amongst the champions of the Alliance and Horde during the trial of crusade. There's also an Horde raid which attacks the Alliance group battling the undead and leads to disaster.

Afterwards,before the Cataclysm,the Alliance launches an attack against the Honor's Stand and conquers it. Only during the Cataclysm Garrosh launches an attack on Ashenvale. It's unclear when, Sylvanas conquers the Hillsbrad Foothills and turns the Southshore into ruins. During the Cataclysm,she attacks Gilneas.

The question is - who started the war? Did this war start because of an misunderstanding (like the Broken Shore,when Alliance presumed,that Horde betrayed them)?

[Felixon]

The Forsaken started the War at the Wrathgate. If during the Cold War a rogue US general decided to nuke Russians, would we be discussing if the US started the war? Because Kubrick has as covered on that.

Well,back then it was stated,that it was Putress,who betrayed Sylvanas and it was all behind her back. In BfA,there were sources,which mentioned,that she could've known about this attack all along.

[Super Dickmann]

The war started because of Varian's reaction to what he saw in the Undercity, and his experience in the slave pits under Rehgar. He was under no illusion that Sylvanas or Thrall directly did the Wrathgate and pinned it on Putress. But he did view it as them having enabled Putress and the experiments he saw going on that were just repurposed rather than started by Varimathras affirmed this to him. The slaver who owned him and put him in gladiatorial fights was a top advisor for Thrall after all and this was proof to Varian that Thrall was negligent to the point of harm and it was time for war. So he declared it, then got ported out. From then on, there's a state of war, hence the PvP objectives in Grizzly Hills, Icecrown and the gunship battle. The peace summit at Theramore failed. Honor's Stand, like you mention, preceded the Cataclysm and was initiated by the Alliance. The only things to happen in Ashenvale before the Shattering were false flags by the Twilight's Hammer.

The counterargument here is that Garrosh was going to start the war even if none of this was the case. This is true. War was inevitable even if Varian and the Alliance hadn't started it first because of Thrall's poor leadership choices, placing the orcs in a desert out of racial guilt where they were suffering from a lack of food and resources. They were not self-sufficient because of their inhospitable territory and were reliant on two things - imports from the night elves and an Alliance that was too passive to take advantage of this. By the time of Wrath, Varian was in charge and the Alliance was active again and with the false flag, imports were cut. This along with the Shattering exacerbated the existing orcish deprivation and discontent and per Garrosh's leadership story are what motivated his war. For the orcs to last, they needed more resources and Garrosh was rightly willing to go to war to ensure they had it.

tl;dr Varian started the war in Wrath, no peace effort got anywhere, Alliance hit first before the Cataclysm, Garrosh would have started it anyway though because of what the orcs needed. Thrall's shit leadership is at fault either way, since it's the motivator for both Varian and Garrosh.

P.S: If the Wrathgate retcon is true, then the above still applies, since nobody knew that Sylvanas was a mouthbreathing retard bombing her own side for no reason when she can aim the catapults at Arthas, they've shown the ability to do so and the power to kill him and it was the sole reason for her existence whereas killing the Horde and Alliance didn't gain her anything. Since it was not a factor in anyone's decision-making, it has no bearing on the grounds for the war.

[Felixon]

Which is funny because we kept Sylvanas informed on the development of the Plague throughout vanilla and her revenge on Arthas was the single most important thing for her yet she could not manage to keep track of it at the most crucial moment. I guess she was too busy cutting herself and listening to My Chemical Romance?

Heck I'd say for Varian the war started even earlier, when the Horde would kidnap any random Alliance member they found around and had them fight to the death. We cannot all be big boys like Thrall and turn the other cheek.

She was so edgy,that even her short story was called "Edge of the Night". Actually,it was Sylvanas all along,who started both of these wars to destroy the Horde and the Alliance both and to ensure the undead rule over the Azeroth.

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The war started because of Varian's reaction to what he saw in the Undercity, and his experience in the slave pits under Rehgar. He was under no illusion that Sylvanas or Thrall directly did the Wrathgate and pinned it on Putress. But he did view it as them having enabled Putress and the experiments he saw going on that were just repurposed rather than started by Varimathras affirmed this to him. The slaver who owned him and put him in gladiatorial fights was a top advisor for Thrall after all and this was proof to Varian that Thrall was negligent to the point of harm and it was time for war. So he declared it, then got ported out. From then on, there's a state of war, hence the PvP objectives in Grizzly Hills, Icecrown and the gunship battle. The peace summit at Theramore failed. Honor's Stand, like you mention, preceded the Cataclysm and was initiated by the Alliance. The only things to happen in Ashenvale before the Shattering were false flags by the Twilight's Hammer.

The counterargument here is that Garrosh was going to start the war even if none of this was the case. This is true. War was inevitable even if Varian and the Alliance hadn't started it first because of Thrall's poor leadership choices, placing the orcs in a desert out of racial guilt where they were suffering from a lack of food and resources. They were not self-sufficient because of their inhospitable territory and were reliant on two things - imports from the night elves and an Alliance that was too passive to take advantage of this. By the time of Wrath, Varian was in charge and the Alliance was active again and with the false flag, imports were cut. This along with the Shattering exacerbated the existing orcish deprivation and discontent and per Garrosh's leadership story are what motivated his war. For the orcs to last, they needed more resources and Garrosh was rightly willing to go to war to ensure they had it.

tl;dr Varian started the war in Wrath, no peace effort got anywhere, Alliance hit first before the Cataclysm, Garrosh would have started it anyway though because of what the orcs needed. Thrall's shit leadership is at fault either way, since it's the motivator for both Varian and Garrosh.

P.S: If the Wrathgate retcon is true, then the above still applies, since nobody knew that Sylvanas was a mouthbreathing retard bombing her own side for no reason when she can aim the catapults at Arthas, they've shown the ability to do so and the power to kill him and it was the sole reason for her existence whereas killing the Horde and Alliance didn't gain her anything. Since it was not a factor in anyone's decision-making, it has no bearing on the grounds for the war.

Still wonder when did Sylvanas attack Hillsbrad - before or in the start of Cataclysm - the same time Garrosh attacked Ashenvale.

[Super Dickmann]

Still wonder when did Sylvanas attack Hillsbrad - before or in the start of Cataclysm - the same time Garrosh attacked Ashenvale.

She was already fighting the people living there in Vanilla. The Forsaken by themselves were a casus belli that, like @Nymrohd says, were a reason for the Alliance to go to war at any time. It's just that it took until the Battle for UC for Varian and the other soldiers to see what kind of shit was going on there that Thrall was allowing and Sylvanas was ordering.

[Airwaves]

Before they retconned Hellscream. The Night Elves forced the Orcs into a war for survival. When Thrall left the horde to Hellscream org had burnt down and the orcs were starving to death. Hellscream did the right thing and tried to trade with the Night Elves since they had resources. The Night Elves been stuck up twats refused. So Hellscream was left with no choice but to take Ashenvale for farm land or watch his people wither and die.

Now that was pretty good writing. But no they have to change it so he was always the evil one. Because apparently every part of wow lore needs to be as generic as possible now.

[Syegfryed]

Varian clearly declared open and total war

[Felixon]

This is probably the most important thing. The one to blame for everyone is Thrall. He pretty much mandated that the Horde would need to go at war by the idiocy of forcing them to settle in Dutorar as penance (instead of e.g. heading south to Feralas); the alternative was and is starvation. He also mandated that the Alliance would eventually seek war with the Horde by including the Forsaken in the Horde and by not making any effort to stamp out practices in the Horde that made it look to every human that the orcs who sacked Stormwind were still around, no changes.

Officially, Varian declared war first. Practically speaking, the war never ended. The only one who could have done that was Thrall and he made it certain through his inadequacy that would never happen.

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She was attacking Hillsbrad throughout vanilla tbh.

She did,yet I think she never attacked the Southshore - were the farmers living there members of the Alliance?

[Super Dickmann]

And rightfully he did. What would you do if you had a punitive excursion in a hostile nation and found they tortured and experimented on your people all over the place, ask for peace and offer them trade incentives?

"Exile the soldiers, friends and family of the torture victims. They're preventing peace."

[Felixon]

"Exile the soldiers, friends and family of the torture victims. They're preventing peace."

This actually made me laugh.

[steelballfc]

The Night Elves did nothing of the sort. They have no duty to trade with people who constantly attack him. It was Thrall's choice to settle his people in a desert. Blame Thrall.
I mean this is the view point that the British were perfectly OK to attack China cause it would not sell them tea, I guess Garrosh should have tried to get Night Elves hooked on blow first.

right now i'm blaming Thrall for a lot of things

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"Exile the soldiers, friends and family of the torture victims. They're preventing peace."

good lord what have we done

[Felixon]

Varian clearly declared open and total war

Not that something would've changed if he wouldn't. But formally - he was the one,who drew the first blood then.

[Syegfryed]

And rightfully he did. What would you do if you had a punitive excursion in a hostile nation and found they tortured and experimented on your people all over the place, ask for peace and offer them trade incentives?

So, obviously the right path was invade kalindor, attack durotar and the barrens and not actually deal with the problem mentioned attacking the undeads, focusing the war on sylvanus or dunno retaking lordaeron as his bound demands since lorderon help to rebuild stormwind.

[Super Dickmann]

Is Baine the new Sylvanas (by that I mean the black hole were Lore discussions end on)?

They're one and the same. Baine is the Ying to her Yang. Also, this is already a covert Sylvanas thread.

[steelballfc]

Well, definitely. There is also misunderstanding on Broken Isles when Horde retreats as well. But people being people, they will have to make it to be that one side is responsible.

i though we killed that discussion

[steelballfc]

Mind you, even that is an imperfect analogy.
Baine has not been personally victimized by the Alliance; he has by the Horde (Garrosh killed his dad and the Horde did nothing for Magatha).
Varian lost his father to orcs, was an exile to his own kingdom, was then later kidnapped and forced to fight for his life in an orc arena, lost his good friend and son's surrogate father to the Forsaken plague. Varian has every reason, personally, to hate the Horde. And much of the Alliance shares those reasons. The same is true for most of the races of the Horde (the orcs were enslaved, the Blood Elves had Garithos, the trolls were fucked by everyone on the planet) except for the Tauren who never had any interaction of note with the Alliance up until Cata and the Forsaken whose interaction with the Alliance was murdering an allied general in cold blood and then being surprised that they would not accept your envoys.

i thought the forsaken and tauren are BFF

[Super Dickmann]

Mind you, even that is an imperfect analogy.
Baine has not been personally victimized by the Alliance; he has by the Horde (Garrosh killed his dad and the Horde did nothing for Magatha).
Varian lost his father to orcs, was an exile to his own kingdom, was then later kidnapped and forced to fight for his life in an orc arena, lost his good friend and son's surrogate father to the Forsaken plague. Varian has every reason, personally, to hate the Horde. And much of the Alliance shares those reasons. The same is true for most of the races of the Horde (the orcs were enslaved, the Blood Elves had Garithos, the trolls were fucked by everyone on the planet) except for the Tauren who never had any interaction of note with the Alliance up until Cata and the Forsaken whose interaction with the Alliance was murdering an allied general in cold blood and then being surprised that they would not accept your envoys.

To be fair to the Forsaken, pretty much everyone in Lordaeron in Vanilla was trying to kill them. They were just killing them back harder. This was before the only ones opposing the undead and the living coexisting were meme characters.

@Syegfryed

Varian had just as much of a beef with the orcs as he did the Forsaken, more so since he was enslaved by one of Thrall's advisors. That and the Alliance could easily extrapolate that the Kalimdor Horde was turning a blind eye to the Forsaken for reasons of expedience, since that's what was happening.

[Felixon]

Mind you, even that is an imperfect analogy.
Baine has not been personally victimized by the Alliance; he has by the Horde (Garrosh killed his dad and the Horde did nothing for Magatha).
Varian lost his father to orcs, was an exile to his own kingdom, was then later kidnapped and forced to fight for his life in an orc arena, lost his good friend and son's surrogate father to the Forsaken plague. Varian has every reason, personally, to hate the Horde. And much of the Alliance shares those reasons. The same is true for most of the races of the Horde (the orcs were enslaved, the Blood Elves had Garithos, the trolls were fucked by everyone on the planet) except for the Tauren who never had any interaction of note with the Alliance up until Cata and the Forsaken whose interaction with the Alliance was murdering an allied general in cold blood and then being surprised that they would not accept your envoys.

Well,Garithos was not a member of the current Alliance - he was a member of the Alliance of Lordaeron and then remains of it. With the defeat of his army,the Alliance of Lordaeron ceased to exist. In a long shot - every race (except pandaren and the allied race additions) has a reason to hate at least one opposite factions race.

[steelballfc]

They're one and the same. Baine is the Ying to her Yang. Also, this is already a covert Sylvanas thread.

this is troubling thought

[Felixon]

Strategically, attacking the Barrens makes more sense. The orcs constantly harassed his night elf allies who kept calling on the Alliance for help; by attacking the Barrens and holding ground there, he'd be able to take down Orgrimmar faster. Once Orgrimmar is down, he can retake Lordaeron at his leisure. Meanwhile if he moved to Lordaeron first, there are so many ways he could get pinned by a Horde force there.

Yet,it was Sylvanas's plan in BfA - to conquer the Kalimdor with a look on Stormwind.