Horde Striving Not To Be Warmongering = Horde Dead?

[Darththeo]

Of course not, but your argument doesnt hold any weight.

The moment you say "He would have had time between in-game events to stand up to Sylvanas" you're theorizing that between in-game events he WASN'T doing anything so important as to not stand up to Sylvanas.

I can make the exact opposite theory, and say that he likely wouldn't have had time to stand up to Sylvanas, theorizing that between in-game eventsbetween in-game events he WAS doing something so important as to not stand up to Sylvanas.

Neither holds any weight, which is why I'm saying your logic is completelty flawed, the moment Blizzard establishes he had time to rebel, he did.

What could be possibly more important than standing up to a character that you feel is jeopardizing the life of your people? Taxes? Food harvests?

[mickybrighteyes]

The only time that happened was in his short story for Cataclysm.

Could have sworn there was more than just that one story... but I might be remembering datamined cut content.

[Grenzstein]

We lost multiple leaders. Alliance lost nothing ov value since CHARACTERS are the main driving point of a CHARACTER driven narrative and story.

Horde losses here: Saurfang, Sylvanas, Nathanos and Rastakhan. Leaderwise we are on our last legs now. Combine that with the previous losses(Vol'jin, Cairne, Varimathras etc.) and you see why the stability of the Horde structure is close to imploding on itself.

Sylvanas and Nathanos betrayed the Horde, they were no losses. Saurfang gave his life to reunite the Horde and Rastakhan was not part of the Horde leadership. Besides, we've got our true warchief (Thrall) back and he will be in the council, and probably will lead the Orcs.

The Horde lost nothing with the Fourth War. In fact, it'll be much stronger than before with a renewed leadership and Ashenvale.

[tromage2]

true warchief (Thrall) back

Not sure what Thrall you saw in BfA, but an Orc crying in a corner that he cant handle the presure to be warchief and is a failure is not my warchief or a fit for Orcish leadership.

[Kyphael]

Sylvanas and Nathanos betrayed the Horde, they were no losses. Saurfang gave his life to reunite the Horde and Rastakhan was not part of the Horde leadership. Besides, we've got our true warchief (Thrall) back and he will be in the council, and probably will lead the Orcs.

The Horde lost nothing with the Fourth War. In fact, it'll be much stronger than before with a renewed leadership and Ashenvale.

Apparently it'll lose Gallywix, the only character I care about. Sylvanas and Nathanos were trash. But I agree, I'm excited to see where this new Horde will go.

- - - Updated - - -

Not sure what Thrall you saw in BfA, but an Orc crying in a corner that he cant handle the presure to be warchief and is a failure is not my warchief or a fit for Orcish leadership.

The bar's extremely low. When Garrosh was flipping out, wailing on Thrall saying "IT'S YOUR FAULT I FAILED, YOU SET ME UP FOR IT," he wasn't exactly exerting strength and confidence.

[Super Dickmann]

The bar's extremely low. When Garrosh was flipping out, wailing on Thrall saying "IT'S YOUR FAULT I FAILED, YOU SET ME UP FOR IT," he wasn't exactly exerting strength and confidence.

I mean, he was right. Thrall was a dickless failure who put his people in a desert out of racial guilt while solving the problems of everyone but them. His biggest achievements were all in WC3, before he actually had to run the state.

[Kyphael]

I mean, he was right. Thrall was a dickless failure who put his people in a desert out of racial guilt while solving the problems of everyone but them.

We've been down this road before. Orgrimmar isn't a landlocked, barren desert, they just use that excuse to incite hostilities whenever they need a reason to create content involving Alliance vs. Horde. It's literally a coastal city and full of portals from which mages can port in goods, not to mention zeppelins that can carry food and water from Thunder Bluff. It's not anymore barren than Outland was before they fled.

[mickybrighteyes]

Sylvanas and Nathanos betrayed the Horde, they were no losses. Saurfang gave his life to reunite the Horde and Rastakhan was not part of the Horde leadership. Besides, we've got our true warchief (Thrall) back and he will be in the council, and probably will lead the Orcs.

The Horde lost nothing with the Fourth War. In fact, it'll be much stronger than before with a renewed leadership and Ashenvale.

Saurfang was also a main reason the rift was allowed to get as bad as it did in the first place. But everyone forgets his part in events except when he started standing up.. er... slinking away to hide.

What happened was this, they took a series of minor issues that most of the horde does not give two shits about... made them the major focus for why some parties suddenly rebelled and everyone forgot that Stormwind is still the major super power apparently allowing everyone else to have peace on Stormwind's terms. Now we can go Kumbaya around the funeral pyre and completely forget that Saurfang turned out to be a better version of what was planned for Derek cause he actually DID fracture the horde and managed to oust half the leadership.

[Mehrunes]

Could have sworn there was more than just that one story... but I might be remembering datamined cut content.

Could be. I don't remember the specifics but I've seen some other posters mention that Baine had some cut content in Cata that made him look surprisingly not like an Alliance doormat. I think it had something to do with the defense of the Great Gate. A speech or something.

[Super Dickmann]

We've been down this road before. Orgrimmar isn't a landlocked, barren desert, they just use that excuse to incite hostilities whenever they need a reason to create content involving Alliance vs. Horde. It's literally a coastal city and full of portals from which mages can port in goods, not to mention zeppelins that can carry food and water from Thunder Bluff. It's not anymore barren than Outland was before they fled.

They're the writers, they can decide what it is and that's what they settled on since Vanilla first brought up the Warsong-Night Elf resource issue. And what they decided on was that it was a shithole that he put them in out of racial guilt. Sure, they could probably terraform it now that they have blood elves or import food if the tauren ever stepped further than being hunter-gatherers, but they didn't.

Outland is a poor example since the only place that's habitable properly is Nagrand and even that gets you lectured to by Saurfang if you try to build a hut there.

[Syegfryed]

Sylvanas and Nathanos betrayed the Horde, they were no losses. Saurfang gave his life to reunite the Horde and Rastakhan was not part of the Horde leadership. Besides, we've got our true warchief (Thrall) back and he will be in the council, and probably will lead the Orcs.

The Horde lost nothing with the Fourth War. In fact, it'll be much stronger than before with a renewed leadership and Ashenvale.

they literally lost a lost, thy betraying still is a loss and they are again with a race with no leader

Horde is being buttfucked losing characters since vanila with no other to take their places.

I mean, he was right. Thrall was a dickless failure who put his people in a desert out of racial guilt while solving the problems of everyone but them. His biggest achievements were all in WC3, before he actually had to run the state.

i wonder why the fuck they went into that route of "to pay past sins" bullshit, before thrall said durotan remember the orc world, even when he only heard stories about, and on the Rexxar campaign the place look like nice without much problem, since it was a no-one land

[Mehrunes]

We've been down this road before. Orgrimmar isn't a landlocked, barren desert, they just use that excuse to incite hostilities whenever they need a reason to create content involving Alliance vs. Horde. It's literally a coastal city and full of portals from which mages can port in goods, not to mention zeppelins that can carry food and water from Thunder Bluff. It's not anymore barren than Outland was before they fled.

Except it's not a story some other mean Orcs tell themselves to sleep well at night. It's something Thrall himself admitted. Because he was raised by humans and as such cares more about them than his own people like the Alliance appeaser he has been since Vanilla. In-lore portals are a much harder issue than they are in game and aren't exactly used for mass transit. Given Occuleth's comments in Dazar'alor, it's unlikely Horde cities even have permanent portals. Tauren don't exactly produce much food and even Mulgore had frequent water issues. And it being a coastal city won't amount to much when the closest other significant Horde region with access to the sea and that produces some food is Quel'Thalas.

[Kyphael]

They're the writers, they can decide what it is and that's what they settled on since Vanilla first brought up the Warsong-Night Elf resource issue. And what they decided on was that it was a shithole that he put them in out of racial guilt. Sure, they could probably terraform it now that they have blood elves or import food if the tauren ever stepped further than being hunter-gatherers, but they didn't.

Outland is a poor example since the only place that's habitable properly is Nagrand and even that gets you lectured to by Saurfang if you try to build a hut there.

They've had mages since Classic. You can port goods in from literally anywhere on the continent, or from Eastern Kingdoms. That level of shit writing is inexcusable to justify Garrosh's failures and vilify Thrall as some terrible leader. Especially considering under Thrall, the least amount of Orc lives were lost versus Garrosh who lined them up for an unwinnable civil war.

[Super Dickmann]

i wonder why the fuck they went into that route of "to pay past sins" bullshit, before thrall said durotan remember the orc world, even when he only heard stories about, and on the Rexxar campaign the place look like nice without much problem, since it was a no-one land

@Kyphael isn't wrong that they made it barren to create conflict. Why they made Thrall do it out of racial guilt? Presumably to imbue him with some flaws, though much as I prefer that version of Thrall and the one he evolved into compared to Anduin-tier perfect Thrall from WC3, it was still a bit forced, much like him allowing a slave ring to function or making Gallywix the goblin leader. They could've just as easily made it a point of his cultural unfamiliarity and tie it in with how Draenor was retconned to not, in fact, be 'The Red World' as it used to be back then.

Basically, that Thrall, with a largely Blackrock and Frostwolf group influencing him in terms of what Draenor was like while having a largely human understanding of how to maintain a stable society would settle his people into incompatible terrain that they didn't immediately know how to farm, so there'd be years of hardship before they got out of it. Then there'd be a working contrast between him taking the slow path but one that settles them on a sustainable course and Garrosh who'd prefer they not struggle now and act by force, especially with provocations by Alliance and their own allies living better but without moving them beyond their past as raiders.

Instead the conflict we got is that Thrall's basically flatly wrong, to the point where the narrative has to ignore those parts of Wrath and Cataclysm happened to even begin to spin him as a golden age.

They've had mages since Classic. You can port goods in from literally anywhere on the continent, or from Eastern Kingdoms. That level of shit writing is inexcusable to justify Garrosh's failures and vilify Thrall as some terrible leader. Especially considering under Thrall, the least amount of Orc lives were lost versus Garrosh who lined them up for an unwinnable civil war.

Portals are meant to be difficult and the only mages they had at the time were Forsaken with whom Thrall barely even interacted beyond their place in the Pool of Visions. The second you start thinking portals are easily applicable you unravel the entire setting because all logistical needs vanish. Was it done to make Thrall worse? Of course. Thrall needed it. Without changes to Thrall and the noblesavage monolith there is no conflict because the Horde had all its goals of WC3 resolved by the end of that game. It had no forward momentum to do anything.

Arguing about the lives lost is pointless because then we'd be accepting that the game uses retcons to engineer situations, but then tilt back into in-universe reasoning to argue competence instead. In-story, Thrall did in fact put the orcs in a desert to make them feel bad without dismantling any of the Old Horde institutions and venerating its heroes and Garrosh did get more orcs killed while trying to fix this as compared to gradual deaths by starvation and solving other people's problems to no benefit under Thrall. Out of story both this change to Thrall and Durotar, people reacting as they did to Garrosh and Thrall's existence and monolithic reflection upon the orcs as a whole are story conveniences.

[Kallisto]

The war is blamed on the horde because the horde started it. They didn’t care about what the alliance was doing and even went to meet with them when not at war in before the storm.

Not at war
Calling for ceasefire
Not a call for peace

These are in Anduins letter and since not at peace. Then we can cross out "Not call for peace" which leaves two options They already have a ceasefire so "Not at war." didn't need to be said. Or they are at war because calling for a ceasefire needs a war to be in place.

[Kyphael]

Except it's not a story some other mean Orcs tell themselves to sleep well at night. It's something Thrall himself admitted. Because he was raised by humans and as such cares more about them than his own people like the Alliance appeaser he has been since Vanilla. In-lore portals are a much harder issue than they are in game and aren't exactly used for mass transit. Given Occuleth's comments in Dazar'alor, it's unlikely Horde cities even have permanent portals. Tauren don't exactly produce much food and even Mulgore had frequent water issues. And it being a coastal city won't amount to much when the closest other significant Horde region with access to the sea and that produces some food is Quel'Thalas.

So you're saying what we see in-game doesn't translate to lore even though 90% of the lore is now told through the game? And Orcs are too stupid to fish even though they are shown fishing in-game? And mages can conjure up water? Or is that also just "game play?" That you try to defend that level of sloppy writing that runs into a wall of logic at every turn is like trying to defend Sylvanas as a great Warchief who always had the greatest intentions for the races of the Horde.

Oh, wait...

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Not at war
Calling for ceasefire
Not a call for peace

These are in Anduins letter and since not at peace. Then we can cross out "Not call for peace" which leaves two options They already have a ceasefire so "Not at war." didn't need to be said. Or they are at war because calling for a ceasefire needs a war to be in place.

blizzard might be messing up the terminology but both the alliance and the horde agree that they are not at war before the war of thorns and both agree that the war started there.

- - - Updated - - -

So you're saying what we see in-game doesn't translate to lore even though 90% of the lore is now told through the game? And Orcs are too stupid to fish even though they are shown fishing in-game? And mages can conjure up water? Or is that also just "game play?" That you try to defend that level of sloppy writing that runs into a wall of logic at every turn is like trying to defend Sylvanas as a great Warchief who always had the greatest intentions for the races of the Horde.

Oh, wait...

What we see in game absolutely doesn’t translate into lore it never has. Things in the lore are much more complicated then in game, the world is much bigger, magic is a lot more limited, event play out differently, ect.

[Kyphael]

Portals are meant to be difficult and the only mages they had at the time were Forsaken with whom Thrall barely even interacted beyond their place in the Pool of Visions.

Then that's a detriment on the usefulness of the Forsaken to the Horde when their mages can't even assist Orc with basic things like food and water, both of which the Forsaken could transport through maybe not by portals, but by zeppelins which Goblins have provided neutrally. If starvation was that much of a crisis in Orgrimmar, we should have seen it better presented other than grazing justifications to invade Night elf territory.

The second you start thinking portals are easily applicable you unravel the entire setting because all logistical needs vanish. Was it done to make Thrall worse? Of course. Thrall needed it. Without changes to Thrall and the noblesavage monolith there is no conflict because the Horde had all its goals of WC3 resolved by the end of that game. It had no forward momentum to do anything.

So Khadgar and Jaina conjure things up like portals and ships at a whim that are supported as real lore happenings, and a city or sanctum full of mages can't conjure up food or water, or a portal or two to transport goods?

Arguing about the lives lost is pointless because then we'd be accepting that the game uses retcons to engineer situations, but then tilt back into in-universe reasoning to argue competence instead. In-story, Thrall did in fact put the orcs in a desert to make them feel bad without dismantling any of the Old Horde institutions and venerating its heroes and Garrosh did get more orcs killed while trying to fix this as compared to gradual deaths by starvation and solving other people's problems to no benefit under Thrall. Out of story both this change to Thrall and Durotar, people reacting as they did to Garrosh and Thrall's existence and monolithic reflection upon the orcs as a whole are story conveniences.

I get that it's the story justification the writing team went with in order to paint Thrall as flawed and imperfect in order to provide conflict, especially when making Garrosh Warchief so he doesn't come off as a wholly evil dictator-type character with zero redeeming qualities, but somewhat sympathetic. If Thrall gets none of the blame, Garrosh's actions are irredeemable, but it's still terrible writing to swallow to paint Orgrimmar as a barren wasteland that required Orcs incurring on enemy territory for "resources" to justify hostilities and paint Thrall as an uncaring piece of shit is as hard a pill to swallow as it would be to convince you Baine isn't a traitor.

- - - Updated - - -

What we see in game absolutely doesn’t translate into lore it never has. Things in the lore are much more complicated then in game, the world is much bigger, magic is a lot more limited, event play out differently, ect.

Yet in canon cinematics still feature Khadgar and Jaina executing amazing feats comparable to in-game possibilities, and 90% of the lore is told through in-game events.

[Super Dickmann]

Then that's a detriment on the usefulness of the Forsaken to the Horde when their mages can't even assist Orc with basic things like food and water, both of which the Forsaken could transport through maybe not by portals, but by zeppelins which Goblins have provided neutrally. If starvation was that much of a crisis in Orgrimmar, we should have seen it better presented other than grazing justifications to invade Night elf territory.

Then it's fortunate that the Forsaken's mages were never the reason they were recruited. They were there so that the Horde could have a presence in the Eastern Kingdoms. Easy transit between Kalimdor and EK past the zeppelins which presumably take a lot longer in-story than they do in-game would take its toll on other plot points like the Kalimdor Horde mostly turning a blind eye to the fucked up things the Forsaken were doing since day 1. But past just lacking food and game and having no history of agriculture, the orcs also needed the wood from night elf territory to develop because Durotar didn't have that either.

So Khadgar and Jaina conjure things up like portals and ships at a whim that are supported as real lore happenings, and a city or sanctum full of mages can't conjure up food or water, or a portal or two to transport goods?

Khadgar and later-day Jaina are both extremely powerful mages. Outside of Helcular, the Forsaken don't have many named mages. But I do get where you're going with this and I don't actually disagree. Portals being ubiquitous break every element of the story the moment you think about it for more than a nanosecond. Consider just the portals in 8.2 for example. Why do Bob and Jaina just sit around and team up with their existing forces instead of leaving and spreading word? Why does Azshara's anti-portal charm vanish yet it's still treated as them being 'trapped' afterwards? If Jaina can just teleport to the Underhold, why didn't she just do it ages ago and cap Sylvanas in the head? Etc, etc. In as far as portals aren't just gameplay shorthand and are available, the entire plot falls apart.

I get that it's the story justification the writing team went with in order to paint Thrall as flawed and imperfect in order to provide conflict, especially when making Garrosh Warchief so he doesn't come off as a wholly evil dictator-type character with zero redeeming qualities, but somewhat sympathetic. If Thrall gets none of the blame, Garrosh's actions are irredeemable, but it's still terrible writing to swallow to paint Orgrimmar as a barren wasteland that required Orcs incurring on enemy territory for "resources" to justify hostilities and paint Thrall as an uncaring piece of shit is as hard a pill to swallow as it would be to convince you Baine isn't a traitor.

I think it's more akin to having every orc align with Thrall upon his takeover following up on a backstory of corruption by demons that didn't exist in any prior version. Yet everyone, me included, would argue that the post-WC3 retcon orcs have much more narrative space than what came before. In that sense, while it's fairly hamhanded, the retcons pertaining to Thrall in Wrath and Cata aim for the same thing - to take him off a pedestal that, were he to remain on, he'd mean that the orcs have nowhere really to go and nothing to struggle with that isn't a wholly outside element. Making him out of touch with the general attitudes of his people and introducing a resource shortage that, if we just look at Durotar and how crappy it is, can easily be bought, does this. Does it contradict WC3? Yes. As WC3 contradicted WC1 and 2. But both of those retcons produce more stories and more conflict than they remove and between a hitherto nobody supplanting the entire prior orcish cast, the clan structure vanishing except for two and everyone agreeing with this new guy and a land shown to be barren actually being barren, I know which of the two is easier to swallow from a view of pure consistency, notwithstanding which is the better retcon.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Yet in canon cinematics still feature Khadgar and Jaina executing amazing feats comparable to in-game possibilities, and 90% of the lore is told through in-game events.

look at things like old solider compared to the ingame cinematic's the ingame ones are toned down to the extreme. 90% of the lore might be told in game but the lore has never worked like what we see in game look at any of the novels to see that.