[Spoiler] How Sylvanas deals with dissent

[Super Dickmann]

I never said she was illegimate, just that the Warchief is elected only by the previous Warchief, which makes the system insanely vunerable.

And she is dictator. A sinlge ruler, even if elected by the masses is a dictator. The ancient Greek elected a dictator for a few years at a time.

Oh, yeah, I agree with you that she is a dictator. What I'm getting at is more that she isn't especially oppressive in the role. She mostly lets the races do whatever provided they aid with the war effort. To compare Garrosh was more committed to keeping the Horde to a particular ideology and structure. Sylvanas has only punished like two people in her capacity of Warchief.

[Super Dickmann]

So I was mostly on a break from actual wow and only came back last week so this was my first Darkshore warfront as Horde.

The Forsaken BLIGHT the forest.

The entire reason Garrosh fought a war in Ashenvale, the reason Saurfang agreed to attack the region, is that the orcs really need the resources. And the Forsaken just casually use scorched earth tactics and destroy them. I really wonder how the rest of the Horde feels about that.

Darkshore sucks ass resource-wise and you have goblins going full deforestation on it as well. They also have all of Ashenvale. Given that you have trolls using night elves there for target practice, Mag'har capturing beasts and orcs storming night elf lines alongside skellies I doubt they really give too much of a shit.

[TheVaryag]

She don't even look good. Ever since someone cried "Why Is her belly showing durr hurr" well I dunno, why is Alleria's belly showing? ELVEN FASHION OR SOMETHING I DUNNO... still like the stupidest thing to change just because she's so popular, you know that If Rexxar rose to such popularity as Sylvanas they'd have armor over his nips else It'd be too "Suggestive"

So weird coming from a company that laughed In the face of the people who said Tracer's Butt pose In Overwatch was suggestive, only to replace It with a more suggestive one, THAT is the blizzard we knew and love. And not anymore...

[MatthiasVonTzeskagrad]

By the way, this war was not made for resources, at this point we can't even be sure if we wage it for the azerite that blatantly failed to become the definitive weapon.
Also, one thing that keeps bugging me every once in a while... we see night Elves constantly spreading nature, growing trees and shit like that all the time... why don't Tauren druids just keep growing trees in the places Horde deforests? I see why Troll druids would'nt, because that's not a loa business, but Tauren?

[Theoris]

She don't even look good. Ever since someone cried "Why Is her belly showing durr hurr" well I dunno, why is Alleria's belly showing? ELVEN FASHION OR SOMETHING I DUNNO... still like the stupidest thing to change just because she's so popular, you know that If Rexxar rose to such popularity as Sylvanas they'd have armor over his nips else It'd be too "Suggestive"

So weird coming from a company that laughed In the face of the people who said Tracer's Butt pose In Overwatch was suggestive, only to replace It with a more suggestive one, THAT is the blizzard we knew and love. And not anymore...

None of this really has anything to do with what is being discussed in this thread, but alright.

[steelballfc]

So I was mostly on a break from actual wow and only came back last week so this was my first Darkshore warfront as Horde.

The Forsaken BLIGHT the forest.

The entire reason Garrosh fought a war in Ashenvale, the reason Saurfang agreed to attack the region, is that the orcs really need the resources. And the Forsaken just casually use scorched earth tactics and destroy them. I really wonder how the rest of the Horde feels about that.

i mean Sylv burned the tree
the "resource" plot is no longer there.

[Feanoro]

By the way, this war was not made for resources, at this point we can't even be sure if we wage it for the azerite that blatantly failed to become the definitive weapon.
Also, one thing that keeps bugging me every once in a while... we see night Elves constantly spreading nature, growing trees and shit like that all the time... why don't Tauren druids just keep growing trees in the places Horde deforests? I see why Troll druids would'nt, because that's not a loa business, but Tauren?

Tauren love of nature went out the window back in Classic when they sponsored Scourge Lite for Horde membership.

[Combatbutler]

Tauren love of nature went out the window back in Classic when they sponsored Scourge Lite for Horde membership.

There is a distinct difference between the scourge and the forsaken, the former is almost entirely mindless the latter is not, the forsaken have always been worse.

[MatthiasVonTzeskagrad]

Well, don't do it willingly out of love for nature, then. Simply have someone forcing those dumb Tauren into making trees grow. Free quick growth trees, free wood. But well, nobody said the "noble savages" (and while we're at it, the Forsaken, the Alliance and literally anybody at this point) were intelligent.

[Kralljin]

Tauren love of nature went out the window back in Classic when they sponsored Scourge Lite for Horde membership.

It just shows that naivity is seemingly a part of Tauren culture, considering they believed the Forsaken were interested in redemption and sought to restore their live.
Fact is, even Thrall had serious doubts about it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Jesus christ when will they stop with those stupid ingame cutscenes where any interaction is represented by some intern fiddling with random animations. They look fucking awful.

I, for one, quite like ingame cutscenes with stock animations. It's immersive to see events taking place within the actual game world, where a wide variety of things could happen within a split second. It keeps me on the edge of my seat. The camera blocking during this cutscene was really good, particularly of note being the overhead shot with the guards closing in on Baine and the blocking of the leaders in a circle around Baine. It reinforced the idea that all eyes were on him, making his actions seem much more impactful. That said, they do need a wider variety of talk animations and lip synching.

They actually alluded to GoT in one of their interviews early on in BfA.

They probably noticed that a lot of people like Game of Thrones and wanted to emulate that. Unfortunately, much like other instances, Blizzard completely misread why people like it. They're now channeling what Martin has deteriorated into by writing stories at a snail's pace, and killing off characters right and left because it worked earlier.

People liked old GoT, though? I don't think a lot of people liked S7 all that much, which is when the writers really started pushing the trend of killing off characters they didn't know what to do with (Littlefinger, the Tarly's, the Dornish and what was left of the Tyrell's). I mean, you're not gonna tell me that people actually like the Dorne plot, right? Also, keep in mind that Martin isn't really writing for the show at this point, which is probably why it went downhill so much. The only thing the showrunners were told was how it would end, AFAIK. Just to be clear, I know this trend started before S7, I just feel like they wanted to wrap up as many storylines as possible in S7, which they did by just killing off all characters involved in said storylines.

So if this is what Blizzard is taking away rom GoT, they kinda lost the plot. What's next, a Dark Souls game where all they focus on is making a hard game while ignoring the things that actually made the game good? Ugh...

I think what you've noticed is a symptom of the actual problem: Blizzard's stories no longer have the "heart" they used to.

The Horde wasn't "fantasy kingdom B in a political war with fantasy kingdom A"; Thrall's Horde was a band of outcasts, monsters treated as "other" by the more civilized races who found refuge in each other. They were haunted by a history of having forsaken their honor and their livelihoods to become bloodthirsty warmongers. They seek to reclaim that honor and their livelihoods, whilst being haunted by the repercussions of their actions, having earned the enmity of the Alliance. At its heart, the Horde was a redemption story about monsters who can be better, a story that culminated in the Siege of Orgrimmar when they overthrew a monster who emulated the warmongers they tried to escape. Similarly, the Alliance story had heart: it was an anti revenge story about the survivors of fallen kingdoms struggling to preserve the chivalry of their great kingdoms. The Alliance has suffered immense tragedy at the hands of the Horde. They have every reason to believe that the Horde are monsters and to embark on a mission to eradicate them. Their story was about overcoming their hatred and learning to recognize the Horde not as monsters, but as people, climaxing in SoO with the Alliance wiping the slate clean and accepting the Horde as it was. This transitioned cleanly into Warlords, with the theme that if both of them put aside their differences and worked together as one, there would be nothing they could not overcome.

... Except Blizzard decided to go back to the well and revive the iconic faction war to sell their expansion, nullifying the consequences of the Horde leaders affirming Vol'jin's Old Horde spirit and Varian completing his character arc to affirm the Alliance as men of righteousness, contriving a scenario in which - after having fought side by side with each other against extra terrestrial threats for years - everyone becomes stupid and stops talking to each other or thinking so that the war can erupt again. It's even more irritating when Blizzard completely sucked the nuance out of the war by making Sylvanas warchief to appease her fanboys and to make her Ms. Evil dictator. The war was nuanced when the Horde was fighting for its survival and the Alliance (as exemplified with Varian) had to question whether or not their pursuit against the Horde was morally right, and the Horde had to struggle with what it was. With Sylvanas as Warchief, the gets shafted in the story department as the Alliance doesn't have to question itself anymore because there is absolutely no moral ambiguity as to what the Horde has done under Sylvanas, the Horde gets shafted as they have to retread the exact same plotline that was done years ago but this time its executed poorly, but I've already gone to great lengths on that. BFA isn't a story with greater themes to contemplate or character arcs to follow it's just plot #203 about fantasy ruler A scheming how to backstab fantasy ruler B to gain more power. It's utterly disinteresting.

I'd say that for the same reasons, GoT after season 1 is just as banal. Season 1 was about a man saddled stretched between what was right and what was "pragmatic", trying to hang on to his morals even in the crushing face of reality. I wanted to see what Ned was choose to do. After season 1, GoT pretty much became plot #202 about fantasy ruler A scheming how to backstab fantasy ruler B to gain more power. It's utterly disinteresting. That said, the production values - particularly in the set and costume design and the battle choreography - are high enough that I will at least watch each episode once for the novelty of it.

WoW could use more GoT.

Players have this notion that every story needs to "lead somewhere". Yet in real life it doesn't happen. A promising young prince that has potential to restore the kingdom to glory can fall ill and die before his father. A king can spend decades building alliance to stand up against eternal foe, but when the final battle comes it turns out the enemy is still too strong and they lose. A bold plan to assasinate the old leader is prepared by brightest minds in court, yet they underestimate him and get executed for treason - he continues to rule until his natural death.

GoT showed us that when stories don't always lead somewhere, it makes the MAIN story more interesting. When you don't know who "main" character is, all characters seem significant.

That's not an engaging story I can get invested in and for years and want to return to, like in MoP. That is a plot with a one time gimmick that loses its interest once you know the plot twist. I've no interest in rewatching GoT after season 2 for anything other than the spectacle set pieces like Blackwater Bay. Robb's story has no greater underlying theme, just a gimmick plot twist oh, you did X so now your dead. The end. I will continue to come back to Ned's story though, as he stood fast even in the face of the inevietble. That's admirable.

This is great, only because I can imagine the edge lord sylvanas fans squirming now realising there is no redemption for their precious waifu.

Getting nervous right? Remember how they made the last raid into unique bosses per faction? Seeing the horde itself take her down without the alliance interference could be so delicious

This is great, only because I can imagine the edge lord sylvanas fans squirming now realising there is no redemption for their precious waifu.

Getting nervous right? Remember how they made the last raid into unique bosses per faction? Seeing the horde itself take her down without the alliance interference could be so delicious

Unfortunately, Blizzard set up Gilnean players to expect that a major arc in their story will climax with the defeat of Sylvanas. The entire Worgen storyline is framed by Sylvanas having invaded and desecrated their kingdom and having butchered their people. Literally every major character in the Worgen storyline is either a Gilnean who was a victim of Sylvanas, a traitor who joined Sylvanas, or a Forsaken who serves Sylvanas. Their faction leader's entire storyline is framed around the loss of his son to and his desire for vengeance against Sylvanas. Blizzard has been building up this storyline for almost a decade, and then they threw the Night Elves into the pot. The entire premise of the expansion is framed by Sylvanas having committed mass genocide against one of Azeroth's most ancient and venerable races, and together the Worgen and Night Elves make up a huge portion of the Alliance playerbase. Blizzard has set up the Alliance players to expect that the storylines of two of their most popular races will climax with Sylvanas' defeat. There is no way for the Night Elves and the Worgen to miss out on her downfall without the people who have been following Blizzard's own storyline to feel cheated. Disappointing anti-climaxes do not retain fans. That said, I doubt she'll be defeated in a raid tier like a supposed SoO 2.0.

its a sad day when baine is the only one of the entire horde leadership with the guts to say a word to sylvanas and her band of nameless mooks. tbh with this the horde is basically dead to me. look at all these cowards falling in line and then only daring to mutter about maybe rebelling once the scary lady is out of earshot again.

anyway its not like its a surprise at this point. but does anyone remember back when we found out about the mag'har recruitment quest and people were speculating that thrall was the one who set their recruitment into motion and they were going to come put some real honor back into sylvanas's evil horde once they saw all the evil she was getting up to

those were the days.

There are two problems: the first is a problem that has plagued WoW since Vanilla, where there are more characters that should be involved in the story than Blizzard can competently write for at a time. Blizzard doesn't want to invest the time and effort to update each major player everytime something happens in Azeroth, so we are limited to a narrow view of only a handful of characters involved while everyone else remains in stasis until Blizzard decides to use them. The second is that Blizzard writes their plot at the expense of their characters, even if it means twisting their characters to perform OOC actions to progress the plot. In this cutscene alone, there are FOURTEEN Horde leaders present in the scene, each with their own obligations to their own people with their own unique needs and their own distinct worldview and history. Ji Firepaw should be standing up with Baine, having been a victim of yet another dictator's draconian regime. Rokahn looked up to Vol'jin, who stood up against the dictator for far less. Etrigg knows how this story turns out all too way, having been there first hand only a few years ago. Thalyssra's story was about overthrowing another dictator only the year before and so on. If Blizzard placed their characters before the plot, then they wouldn't be able to execute this scene as Sylvanas would've been shut down on the spot by literally half immediately and they'd have the support of the other half. Ji would speak up. Rokahn would speak up. Etrigg would speak up. Thalyssra would speak up. Rexxar would speak up. They'd be supported by literally every other Horde leader except for maybe Gallywix, and it'd be in his best interest as well to ensure that there is a functioning, surviving Horde for him to milk at the end of the day.

What I see from the average simple-minded wow player is characters having flaws = bad writing. I think some of these people need to go back to watching Care Bears. They'll enjoy that much more.

Flaws ≠ good writing.

It's no secret that I despise the post-modern mantra that plagues criticisms on character writing, that "characters must have flaws or they're mary sues/uninteresting", that "black and white morality is bad writing", and that "good guys are boring". I can't disagree with this sentiment more, and it doesn't help that the echo chamber that is mainstream media has not only perpetuated this ideology, but made it louder than ever. I find so-called "flawed characters" like Commander Shepard and Geralt of Rivia to be among the most uninteresting and repulsive protagonists I've ever seen, cheating on their lovers and touting that they must kick a few puppies for the greater good. That's not nuanced. That's not thought provoking. That's not compelling. That's flat out despicable and makes them look weak willed. Their "flaws" are superficial attributes at best. Tropes and cliches are not bad; they are tools. It is how a trope is used that will determine whether the character is good or not. There is a such thing as a compelling selfish character; Edward Elric and Saitama for example.

The only way the Horde can ever be redeemed somewhat is if they arrest Sylvanas and her boytoy Nathanos on trial.

I'd be on board for this if we actually got a full, uninterrupted trial depicted INGAME, not in a book and not used as a vehicle to justify the next expansion's outlandish premise.

Then they have to abolish the utterly corrupt Warchief system they have now. The Alliance gets a lot of flak for having a High King, however, that High King is chosen by all the leaders of the factions in the Alliance. The Warchief can name their own successor. Nothing vulnerable or corrupt about that! Except, it has failed twice now and the second time was due to outside manipulation.

At the end of the day, both the Warchief and the High King are the top dogs who command their respective factions, the difference being that the High Kings have held themselves accountable to their people and actively consult their fellow leaders. Meanwhile, we haven't seen any Warchief consult his peers since Thrall. Garrosh and Sylvanas actively pushed away their fellow leaders and Vol'jin died before we saw him (but we all know he would've). It's strange, because the Horde is ostensibly a big, informal family, but we haven't really seen the Warchief interact with his fellow leaders in a friendly manner, while Anduin does so with his.

[Super Dickmann]

I'll start out by saying that your premise about morally white characters being somehow compelling as such is something I disagree with completely, so I'm likely wasting my time, but your reading of SoO is so horrifically off-base I have to reply. There's nothing compelling about characters that don't have to struggle with anything, who never doubt whether they should do it and who lose nothing at the end of this. Any story or narrative is ultimately about struggle and without struggle it has no meaning. Seeking a protagonist-centered solution and attributing morally white traits to characters that are intentionally or unintentionally more complicated is also why your assumption as to what A Song of Ice and Fire's story is about is equally as off-base. It was never about Ned, and this is evident in how his story is told as well. Nor is the presence of struggle in A Song of Ice and Fire, a very dark setting, evidence of it not ultimately having positive themes.

The Horde wasn't "fantasy kingdom B in a political war with fantasy kingdom A"; Thrall's Horde was a band of outcasts, monsters treated as "other" by the more civilized races who found refuge in each other. They were haunted by a history of having forsaken their honor and their livelihoods to become bloodthirsty warmongers. They seek to reclaim that honor and their livelihoods, whilst being haunted by the repercussions of their actions, having earned the enmity of the Alliance. At its heart, the Horde was a redemption story about monsters who can be better, a story that culminated in the Siege of Orgrimmar when they overthrew a monster who emulated the warmongers they tried to escape.

Thrall's Horde were not outcasts, nor were they united by each other. A full half of the faction at the time of Cataclysm were there purely as convenience and the story made this blindingly clear for the Forsaken, Blood Elves and Goblins, much as it stated in direct terms throughout Wrath, Shattering and the following novel that it was ultimately a failed organisation. That Thrall had driven his people into the ground because of his policy of racial guilt and while they respected his service to them in bringing them together, they did not agree with his view on penance, nor were their basic needs met. Hence the war in Cataclysm.

The Horde has never been based around escaping warmongers. The Horde in the First and Second Wars did have significant internal struggles, but none of them were about whether to prosecute war or not, it was the reasons for war. Thrall himself was appointed by someone who's goal was continent-wide war, and appointed one who did the same. The very nature of the Horde is as a warmongering organisation, because it's a vestigial state serving a centralized military apparatus. Garrosh appeared internally, he was not an outside factor preventing the Horde from being what it was, what the Horde was wasn't working, hence his warm reception by the orcs and his motive, which was the basic racial interest of his people.

Similarly, the Alliance story had heart: it was an anti revenge story about the survivors of fallen kingdoms struggling to preserve the chivalry of their great kingdoms. The Alliance has suffered immense tragedy at the hands of the Horde. They have every reason to believe that the Horde are monsters and to embark on a mission to eradicate them. Their story was about overcoming their hatred and learning to recognize the Horde not as monsters, but as people, climaxing in SoO with the Alliance wiping the slate clean and accepting the Horde as it was. This transitioned cleanly into Warlords, with the theme that if both of them put aside their differences and worked together as one, there would be nothing they could not overcome.

The Alliance was not based around accepting the Horde as it was, accepting Thrall's Horde was its default in Vanilla and TBC. Then it was the warmongering party in Wrath, and it ultimately followed a war where they pushed a candidate that backed the status quo that they were content with. No one in the Mists story Alliance-side learned a goddamn thing, because we already knew Varian was against truly defeating the Horde since Tides of War and Jaina is opposed from start to finish, while Anduin is already an implacable moral paragon.

Mists, much like this shambles, is an entirely pointless story that exists only to solve problems it had created. Garrosh did not require overthrowing, the Horde did not need to learn some half-assed lesson it had already allegedly learned ten years ago, the Alliance did not need to learn peace and forgiveness. These things are either conclusions that run counter to the foundational purpose of the gameplay and therefore doomed to be axed, as was proven to be the case with their release of BFA, or conclusions that only stem because of their poor storytelling decision and their desire to turn a more morally complicated narrative, as were the faction conflicts prior to Mists, into a grade school morality play, damaging the prior material to service nothing. Warlords wasn't the Alliance and Horde working together except in the very first scene, following which they go to separate corners of the world and proceed to help neutral factions slaughter the entire pre-WC3 Horde cast. All the while, as has been the habit of the game since Mists, all unnecessary baggage is thrown out of the window until we remember it again in time for BFA. BFA is Mists without the grounding of Cataclysm, and thus both better and worse. Better, because the writers don't have to throw a complicated conflict out of the window to attempt to make it about good and evil, worse, because they still manage to make the entire cast execrable or boring.

[Quaade]

At the end of the day, both the Warchief and the High King are the top dogs who command their respective factions, the difference being that the High Kings have held themselves accountable to their people and actively consult their fellow leaders. Meanwhile, we haven't seen any Warchief consult his peers since Thrall. Garrosh and Sylvanas actively pushed away their fellow leaders and Vol'jin died before we saw him (but we all know he would've). It's strange because the Horde is ostensibly a big, informal family, but we haven't really seen the Warchief interact with his fellow leaders in a friendly manner, while Anduin does so with his.

That's how it is in a centralized system where the means of instant communication is limited. Nothing wrong with that as it allows for some efficiency. Major decisions are made by the one on top and the day to day decisions are made by those on the ground.

The Warchief system is essentially flawed. It's a leftover from the days of the old Horde that was Orcs only. It worked for Thrall since he had various ties to the different factions that make up the current Horde. The new Warchiefs lacks that history and those relations and often has an antagonistic relationship with each other due to their personal philosophies.

So you end up with a supreme leader that only has, at most, the support of a majority of the other faction leaders. There's no consensus to them taking the post and without their explicit backing they have no ties to them and their position is weaker as rebellion against their rule is a possibility when they become unpopular enough.

It's a mess of a system in its current incarnation.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, yeah, I agree with you that she is a dictator. What I'm getting at is more that she isn't especially oppressive in the role. She mostly lets the races do whatever provided they aid with the war effort. To compare Garrosh was more committed to keeping the Horde to a particular ideology and structure. Sylvanas has only punished like two people in her capacity of Warchief.

As long as they end up doing what she wants. Which is seeing the Alliance as a bigger threat than her.