Why can't the Horde be Dark AND Not Evil?

[Skytotem]

Hey, I agree with your idea, but the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow that you quote and I assume is supposed to be an example, kinda shoot you in your foot : it IS about being evil. Just "pragmatic evil" instead of "insane evil", but certainly NOT "dark but not evil", so, well...

I'm just putting the bar on the floor, it's up to Blizz not to dig the hole deeper.

[Mehrunes]

I'm just putting the bar on the floor, it's up to Blizz not to dig the hole deeper.

Kinda too late for that. They dug the hole so deep they can no longer see the bar. And they did it so long ago that by now it became nothing more than a myth to them.

[Mehrunes]

On the original Dark but not Evil concept.

Dark but not evil is essentially the anti-hero type. What defines a dark but not evil function is that their darkness is squarely target at the greater evil. If you are dark and use whatever makes you dark against innocents or even morally gray actors that essentially makes you evil.
For the Horde to be Dark but not Evil AND be at war with the Alliance, the Alliance would have to be unequivocally evil, which will just not happen. This is where MUH HONOR crowd comes in; you can be dark against greater evils but you'd have to practice restraint against certain parties.

And the unhinged faction called Alliance is not one of those factions where you should practice restraint. Showing restraint towards Alliance only results in Alliance attacking the Horde out of nowhere again over completely retarded reasons, probably using another apocalyptic event as an opportunity like the cowards they are. Pointlessly costing Horde lives and making things easier for the apocalyptic threat. With the High King washing his hands off of it because he's nothing more than a hypocrite when it comes to his constant blabbering about peace. Alliance willingly put itself in the position where the only valid manner of treating it is attempting to extinguish it for good.

And no, the enemy doesn't have to be evil for your actions against them not to be evil either. An enemy that's utterly irrational and unpredictable in its aggression is enough. And Alliance is precisely that. Dealing with that irrational threat by any means necessary isn't any more evil than using such means against a pack of rabid wolves.

[Soon-TM]

And the unhinged faction called Alliance is not one of those factions where you should practice restraint. Showing restraint towards Alliance only results in Alliance attacking the Horde out of nowhere again over completely retarded reasons, probably using another apocalyptic event as an opportunity like the cowards they are.

Agreed. Horde showing restraint back in Thrall's reign only emboldened the Alliance, to the point that the Chin King openly declared war by the time of Varimathras' coup. Thing is, Allies got their asses kicked so badly that Blizzard had to hit Garrosh with the Stupid Evil™ bat in order to give the Alliance a sort of (cringey and hamfisted as all !@#&) "fistpump moment" in MoP.

Therefore, the next time Alliance hit was a sneak attack, i.e. Stormheim, which was a clear casus belli by every international law ever.

[Mehrunes]

Agreed. Horde showing restraint back in Thrall's reign only emboldened the Alliance, to the point that the Chin King openly declared war by the time of Varimathras' coup. Thing is, Allies got their asses kicked so badly that Blizzard had to hit Garrosh with the Stupid Evil™ bat in order to give the Alliance a sort of (cringey and hamfisted as all !@#&) "fistpump moment" in MoP.

Therefore, the next time Alliance hit was a sneak attack, i.e. Stormheim, which was a clear casus belli by every international law ever.

Well, in case of Thrall's reign calling what he did just him showing restraint is underselling things. Thrall's reign is full blown appeasement in practice. Outright ignoring Alliance incursions in Mulgore, Barrens, sort of in Durotar (while Kul Tiras left the Alliance in the meantime, the Kul Tiran marines stranded in Durotar had no way of knowing that and still considered themselves Alliance, as seen by their in-game attitude towards Alliance players) and even in Alterac Valley where his own clan was targeted.

Trying to bend over to the Alliance in the Theramore peace summits even though the Alliance was completely unseasonable in its demands. Admonishing Garrosh for his views even after Varian declared the war. Admonishing Garrosh some more in the amaze split Thrall questline when the Horde was still in an a war Alliance started and even though Garrosh was put in a Warchief position by Thrall himself, knowing full well what his stances were and despite being advised against that by everyone, including Garrosh.

Thrall's reign was a disaster. Which is one of the many reasons why the current rebellion sucks so much. Because it treats Thrall's reign as some golden standard that the Horde should go back to, just because Thrall is Metzen's pet character and as such is automatically flawless regardless of how Blizzard actually wrote him.

The same thing applies to Alliance, where the gap between how Blizzard wants players to view Alliance, i.e. paragon of all that is good and how they actually write it is larger than the Mariana Trench. The Stormheim attack is a perfect example of that in practice in regards to Alliance. Completely brushed under the carpet by the narrative despite it being an open act of war and despite Anduin doing nothing to punish the guilty (who also broke his orders on top of that) to alleviate the situation. And then we are expected to view Anduin as a paragon of peace and all that's good in the world.

[ItsWhimsy]

Why can't the Horde be Dark AND Not Evil?

Blizzard doesn't have the writing skill to pull it off.

[Zulkhan]

Meh. "Dark but not Evil" sounds kind of edgy, it's basically what the Void Elves are. I mean, you can elaborate this bland concept into something legitimately complex and interesting but seriously speaking, you can't trust Blizzard with anything like that.

The real problem is not the Horde or the Alliance, it's BfA itself. BfA picked the defining "flaws" of each faction and have bloated them to a grotesque level. Rather than merely maintaining a few defining aspects they simply forced unrealistic extremes, to the point that Alliance and Horde now look like the faction equivalent of a Marvel hero and villain/anti-hero.

[Feanoro]

Agreed. Horde showing restraint back in Thrall's reign only emboldened the Alliance, to the point that the Chin King openly declared war by the time of Varimathras' coup. Thing is, Allies got their asses kicked so badly that Blizzard had to hit Garrosh with the Stupid Evil™ bat in order to give the Alliance a sort of (cringey and hamfisted as all !@#&) "fistpump moment" in MoP.

Therefore, the next time Alliance hit was a sneak attack, i.e. Stormheim, which was a clear casus belli by every international law ever.

Man, when did I stumble into the RP forum? Yeah, Varian declared war for no reason whatsoever on Thrall and the Flowerpickers. Right.

News flash, Thrall was such a weakling the Horde merrily did whatever it felt like and left him to take the blame.

[justandulas]

What about us horde who wanna play evil characters? Or ally for that matter?

We have no choice at all

[NihilSustinet]

I'm sure everyone's sick of talking about the Horde's morality problems by now but if Blizz has dragged us down this road we might as well go kicking and screaming.


Why is it that the Horde's 'dishonorable' bits like the Forsaken can't be written as being dark without being mustache twirlingly, genocidally, evil?

Blizz had a perfect setup for Forsaken to be themselves without being so messed up they felt like they grated with the rest of the Horde through the old Shadow cult but Blizz never did anything with them after Legion.



Would you have been interested in seeing this pop up amongst the Forsaken? Having Apothecaries treat orcs for diseases and vivisect old god minions instead of be all baby-burning evil like they've been in BFA?

the horde currently has a bad leader, but the horde itself is, and always has been, the good guy in the warcraft universe.

[Feanoro]

the horde currently has a bad leader, but the horde itself is, and always has been, the good guy in the warcraft universe.

Yes, as proven by the mountains of bodies they leave behind.

[Soon-TM]

Man, when did I stumble into the RP forum? Yeah, Varian declared war for no reason whatsoever on Thrall and the Flowerpickers. Right.

News flash, Thrall was such a weakling the Horde merrily did whatever it felt like and left him to take the blame.

Yep, Varian wanted to RP a human paladin, and got all of his allies' territories invaded (except Dwarves, who for some reason always seem to be able to dodge all kinds of !@#$ flying around in Azeroth).

As for the bolded part, it reminds me of a certain blond boi...

[Detritivores]

What about if we want to be evil? Where's OUR options?

Every single one of wow's competitors, INCLUDING EQ, has the option for 'evil' races, classes, or choices. WoW is 10 years behind on this.

I damn sure didn't roll zombie warlock to be a hero of anything

100k times this. I came here to play a zombie corpse-eating character. Implicit in that choice, I was ready to do some evil. Why the hell should every character/race in any game, never mind the biggest mmo-rpg of all time, presume to be entirely virtuous or else be a raid boss. This tells me that the people writing the story have no life experience or imagination and/or are 15 years old.

Edit: This is also the viewpoint of I think many Sylvanas fans, including myself. It's annoying that they gave her a mustache and made her twirl it, but she's still a compelling character, and I'd do evil things for her. This is imagination land, folks.

[VladlTutushkin]

Well, what about those who dont want to be part of said evil? Plus there is “evil” like using sneaky tactics and “dishonorable” blows and then there is evil like genocide. How do you propose to balance that out for players who didnt signed up for being a wannabe-exterminators?

[scubi666stacy]

Yep, Varian wanted to RP a human paladin, and got all of his allies' territories invaded (except Dwarves, who for some reason always seem to be able to dodge all kinds of !@#$ flying around in Azeroth).

As for the bolded part, it reminds me of a certain blond boi...

The mess happened with Theramore. I guess, on a meta level that Blizzard wanted the High King of the Alliance to become morally impeccable - thus, he had to stop the warmongering which he had shown in WotLK. So, they pulled of the Theramore storyline to turn Jaina into the warmonger, and to give Varian a route out of this role. As if having Greymane was not enough. He would have been perfect, but no, they had to ruin Jaina.

They also got this whole war in BfA completely wrong, this is why I ignore the whole "kanon" here for my characters. I only played the war compaign on each side for completion purposes, but to not engage in anything related above that. I also boycott warmode for this reason, among others (in my opinion, this is a completely wrong design of open world pvp, once again).

Anyway, the Horde was not advertised as the evil faction for a long time. It was just different from the Alliance. We had plenty of evil factions in the world (smaller ones and larger ones), and while A and H have not been friends, their animosities never got blown up to extremes. A cold war scenario would have been the best thing to continue. It would have left enough room for small conflicts via proxies (=new factions in new expansion areas, which either got associated with A or with H), but also room for cooperation in dire cases (like the return of the Scourge, or the Legion, or Deathwings madness or whatever).

Going from a Cold War scenario to some kind of twisted World War II (honestly, Teldrassil just screams Hiroshima / Nagasaki, but happens in the wrong sequence of events) just feels wrong on so many levels, especially after Legion.

[justandulas]

100k times this. I came here to play a zombie corpse-eating character. Implicit in that choice, I was ready to do some evil. Why the hell should every character/race in any game, never mind the biggest mmo-rpg of all time, presume to be entirely virtuous or else be a raid boss. This tells me that the people writing the story have no life experience or imagination and/or are 15 years old.

Edit: This is also the viewpoint of I think many Sylvanas fans, including myself. It's annoying that they gave her a mustache and made her twirl it, but she's still a compelling character, and I'd do evil things for her. This is imagination land, folks.

Same man. I rolled zombie warlock (evil wizard) to be my own sort of villain of Azeroth

Somehow Blizz doesn’t understand choices and that some people want to be the bad guys. Bfa script reads like a cancelled Saturday morning cartoon

Every single mmo has morality and good and evil... but wow who has every character an over the top heroic do gooder

I’m an evil wizard who enslaved demons and eats the corpses of my enemies.., but I’m the hero of Azeroth lol

Blizz is so bad at the whole good and evil thing that they forget that half the player base wants to be evil.

Every mmo with morality has overwhelming numbers of evil vs good

[Gurluas]

Can't we go back to the Vanilla-Wotlk Horde that was actually not dark OR evil but just different?
The Alliance was authoritarian and centralized, while the Horde was tribal and more like a group of different people sticking together to survive.

The Alliance became progressively more good and the Horde turned evil and I hated that.
I like when things were morally grey, both sides did fucked up things but neither was evil.

Remember how the Dwarves murdered Tauren tribes and despoiled their lands for artifacts?
The Alliance before Cata weren't saints.

If people want to be evil then they should have either added an evil faction or added player choice.
I quit being Horde in Cata because they suddenly became as bad as the Old Horde and my Orc Shaman just couldn't be part of it anymore.

I finally thought we'd get the true Horde back after MOP but nope, now it's even worse than the Garrosh one.

[VladlTutushkin]

Same man. I rolled zombie warlock (evil wizard) to be my own sort of villain of Azeroth

Somehow Blizz doesn’t understand choices and that some people want to be the bad guys. Bfa script reads like a cancelled Saturday morning cartoon

Every single mmo has morality and good and evil... but wow who has every character an over the top heroic do gooder

I’m an evil wizard who enslaved demons and eats the corpses of my enemies.., but I’m the hero of Azeroth lol

Blizz is so bad at the whole good and evil thing that they forget that half the player base wants to be evil.

Every mmo with morality has overwhelming numbers of evil vs good

If you wanted to be the villain in WoW then you missed the memo. Even Sylvanas will be off the hook not because she outplayed good guys. But because she will be whitewashed (hamfistedly) into being one.

[Mehrunes]

Meh. "Dark but not Evil" sounds kind of edgy, it's basically what the Void Elves are. I mean, you can elaborate this bland concept into something legitimately complex and interesting but seriously speaking, you can't trust Blizzard with anything like that.

The last two words are kinda redundant.

Man, when did I stumble into the RP forum? Yeah, Varian declared war for no reason whatsoever on Thrall and the Flowerpickers. Right.

Your remark about @Soon-TM engaging in RP would have something to stand on if you weren't yourself engaging in fanfiction about how they said Varian declared war for no reason. Alas, it is missing from the post you replied to.

[justandulas]

If you wanted to be the villain in WoW then you missed the memo. Even Sylvanas will be off the hook not because she outplayed good guys. But because she will be whitewashed (hamfistedly) into being one.

That’s just bad Saturday morning cartoon writing tho.

Being a villain has always been part of Warcraft until wow

Wc1-3 all have villainous playable factions

Why am I forever forced to be the hero of Azeroth when my zombie warlock would be something more akin to gul’dan?

In every mmorpg with good and evil as options; evil characters dwarf the count of good ones. See swtor. Or the morality choices in eso

Hell, even original 1999 Everquest has evil races

Wow is 20 years behind in this department