The big bad of the expansion: N'Zoth VS The Horde

[Accendor]

You have almost zero chance of survival in a world ruled by N'Zoth. Either you'd be killed by the legions of Faceless and K'thir, or you'd be driven insane and warped into K'thir yourself in which you could say you "survived" but you would no longer be you, so it would be a rather pointless form of survival. If I were a member of the Alliance in the fantasy context of WoW, I'd probably prefer to die cleanly at the hands of an otherwise normal enemy as opposed to torture, death, and/or possible eternal corruption at the hands of the Black Empire and N'Zoth. YMMV, of course.

What makes you think the Horde is a normal enemy that would not torture you or warp you into something different to torture you for all eternity (ud)?

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Yeah, that was done by the Alliance. Jaina should've died too imho

You realize that he could just have surrendered, right?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

First expansion where I felt like I was playing for the bad guys. Even in MoP, the writers constructed a convincing narrative that the Horde wasn't wasn't what Garrosh envisioned. Everyone opposed Garrosh from day 1. His followers carried out his agenda, not the Horde itself.

The Horde army literally stood there and helped Sylvanas commit mass genocide against their allies, who they had stood side by side to fight against the Iron Horde (who are an extension of the old Horde that Thrall's Horde has been trying to shake off since WC3, the incarnation that we had just worked together to overthrow in MoP!). Sylvanas goes around committing acts of evil and literally no one does a thing. At most, Saurfang and Baine go "hm..." and then take ages to actually do anything.

I felt like I was a mass murderer.

This isn't the honorable Horde I signed up to play as.

Suevanas' evil Horde is far, far more memorable than Boring Evil Cthulu #2831.

All of the villains in this expansion were terrible. Suevanas was far and away the worst of them all, and I dread her continuing to hog the limelight for the third expansion in a row in Shadowlands. The cherry on top will be when they pull an Illidan and say "no no no, she was the hero all along who sacrificed herself to save us from the true ultimate threat we were blind too!". You know they're going to do it.

[Aucald]

What makes you think the Horde is a normal enemy that would not torture you or warp you into something different to torture you for all eternity (ud)?

Sylvanas might, that's true; but the Horde's general position of Necromancy remains unchanged - and even as Warchief, Sylvanas was very careful about turning the undead away from the eyes of the Orc, Troll, Tauren, and other non-Forsaken members of the Horde (e.g. Darkshore). Her plans for Stormwind never came to pass, and likely never could have under ordinary circumstances - not without losing the backing of the majority of the Horde's people. For the scope of the conflict she raised very few new Forsaken - Amalia Stone, Thomas Zelling (actually requesting to be turned to be saved from a death by illness), Marshal Valentine, Derek Proudmoore, Sira Moonwarden, Delaryn Summermoon, and a handful of Night Elven Dark Rangers. For the number of Alliance dead at the hands of the Horde in the Blood War conflict, this is pretty low - generally only key personnel meant to give the Horde a tactical advantage.

[Accendor]

Sylvanas might, that's true; but the Horde's general position of Necromancy remains unchanged - and even as Warchief, Sylvanas was very careful about turning the undead away from the eyes of the Orc, Troll, Tauren, and other non-Forsaken members of the Horde (e.g. Darkshore). Her plans for Stormwind never came to pass, and likely never could have under ordinary circumstances - not without losing the backing of the majority of the Horde's people. For the scope of the conflict she raised very few new Forsaken - Amalia Stone, Thomas Zelling (actually requesting to be turned to be saved from a death by illness), Marshal Valentine, Derek Proudmoore, Sira Moonwarden, Delaryn Summermoon, and a handful of Night Elven Dark Rangers. For the number of Alliance dead at the hands of the Horde in the Blood War conflict, this is pretty low - generally only key personnel meant to give the Horde a tactical advantage.

I might be wrong here, but she raised hundreds, if not thousands of UD at the Battle for Undercity and the majority of the horde did not care about that (at least it was not shown). There were one or two scenes where somebody mentioned that she blighted her own troops, but not mention of the "raise as mindless scourge" stuff. So I am pretty sure the horde of today is fine with that.

[Aucald]

I might be wrong here, but she raised hundreds, if not thousands of UD at the Battle for Undercity and the majority of the horde did not care about that (at least it was not shown). There were one or two scenes where somebody mentioned that she blighted her own troops, but not mention of the "raise as mindless scourge" stuff. So I am pretty sure the horde of today is fine with that.

She raised the already dead as skeletal warriors, yes - not quite the same thing as twisting someone into Forsaken as skeletons aren't really free-willed undead as much as Necromantic constructs. The Horde also wasn't "fine with it" as it spurred Saurfang to abandon Sylvanas and did much to set up his later insurgency and coup, leading to Sylvanas' departure, Saurfang's own death, and the abolishing of the seat of Warchief entirely.

[Swnem]

TBC ---> No. Illidan was established as the final encounter of the expansion originally, but in the end it was Kil'jaeden because they had to make the expansion longer to keep people busy until Wrath.

Cataclysm ---> No. The showdown with Deathwing was not amazing, it was underwhelming given the amount of effort that went into developing this villain.

" That is like... your opinion man."

Fact is, they were. Big villain in the box, whole story leads up to the encounter. TBC just had an extra chapter that was not originally planned. But it can be seen as a side story.

[Raelbo]

I think this depends largely on your perspective.

From the Alliance perspective, certainly up until the battle of Daz'aralor the Horde appeared to be the big bad. But as the expansion has developed it has been revealed that while Sylvanas and her agenda were certainly a major threat, they've served well to obscure a far more sinister common threat.

From the Horde perspective, I never really got the feeling that the Alliance were the big bad. Make no mistake, from the Horde perspective there are very legitimate grievances with the Alliance, and thus a lot of what the Alliance viewed as attrocities were either hidden from most of the Horde (like the San Layn), or felt at least somewhat justified - even though they were extreme (eg Darkshore). Obviously as the war went on, it became apparent that a major issue for the Horde was the internal dispute. But, as with the Alliance, it has become pretty clear to the Horde that all these things have simply been distractions from the real threat.

From a more objective perspective: Early expansion, the War appeared to be the big bad, but later on it has been revealed that it's just a distraction from the real big bad.

[Varodoc]

" That is like... your opinion man."

Fact is, they were. Big villain in the box, whole story leads up to the encounter. TBC just had an extra chapter that was not originally planned. But it can be seen as a side story.

That's not my opinion though. Illidan was the main villain established in the TBC cinematic as well as its box, but he was not the final boss of the expansion in the end.

"Extra chapter", I mean, the extra chapter was literally more than half of the expansion and also contained the expansion's true final boss....

[LemonDemonGirl]

You realize that he could just have surrendered, right?

It's hard for a King to surrender when he has his Death God buddy (that can raise entire armies) walking around with him.

And if he really did surrender, they would've destroyed his city


I haven't played the Alliance version of Dazar'alor though

[allawyn]

First expansion where I felt like I was playing for the bad guys. Even in MoP, the writers constructed a convincing narrative that the Horde wasn't wasn't what Garrosh envisioned. Everyone opposed Garrosh from day 1. His followers carried out his agenda, not the Horde itself.

That was a big part of it. You practically opened MoP as part of the Garrosh opposition. Here you run around as Sylvanas' champion for half the expansion! (Then you get to join a rebellion not from the Horde, but one the Alliance created.) But the speeches by our own leaders saying the Horde stands for evil and is to blame for all the faction wars that made sure this is long term damage. The Horde is the evil faction now, Blizzard has made it more than clear.

[Varodoc]

That was a big part of it. You practically opened MoP as part of the Garrosh opposition.

What? You helped Garrosh destroy Theramore and went to Pandaria because he told you to conquer that entire continent. The player only joined the opposition in 5.3.

[allawyn]

What? You helped Garrosh destroy Theramore and went to Pandaria because he told you to conquer that entire continent. The player only joined the opposition in 5.3.

The PC didn't help the attack on Theramore (which is hardly an attack on civilians like Teldrasil was). The Horde has as much right in Pandaria and even then tensions with Voljin were already starting and the story-arc for the expansion was the growing rebellion in the Horde.

Conversely, BfA opened with a pointless slaughter of large numbers of civilians and the rebellion that did occur was started by the Alliance, not the Horde.

[Rhozul]

So, when I thought about the story of the new patch, I realized something: While the endboss of the expansion is N'Zoth, the impact of his arrival is pretty insignificant compared to the deeds of the horde shortly before and during the expansion.

Like, what did N'Zoth actually do?
- Invade Uldum, a zone nobody really cares about
- Invade the vale, basically the capital of the pandaren
- Capture the fleet of Kul Tiras, but kept all ships and crew members alive
That's literally all he did. And while #2 is actually relevant, his kill count (or the kc of his minions) during those events is very low, mostly because those areas are not very populated (Especially Uldum)

The horde on the other site
- Committed literal genocide and drove the night elves to the brink of extinction
- Burned down Towns and Villages in Kul Tiras
- Killed ten thousands in the regular war fights
- Lured the alliance fleet in the middle of the ocean into a trap, killing most of the soldiers
- Defiled and burned down Forests
- Destroyed a capital of the alliance
- blighted Lordaron Saddam Hussain Style (This isn't really an act against the Alliance considering we destroyed our own lands so you couldn't take them.)
- Raised the dead either as mindless puppets or as Slaves to fight the living
- Set fire to stormwind, however I think no casualty numbers are ever mentioned (Rhozul's note; this one never happened in BFA.)

So while we have Nzoth Whispering in our Minds, his actual impact is very, very low in comparison. To me personally this is the reason why the storyline or 8.3 feels not fulfilling, even tho I know Nzoth was in the background all along.

What is your opinion? Who is the real monster here?

So, when I thought about the story of the new patch, I realized something: While the endboss of the expansion is N'Zoth, the impact of his arrival is pretty insignificant compared to the deeds of the Alliance shortly before and during the expansion.

Like, what did N'Zoth actually do?
- Invade Uldum, a zone nobody really cares about
- Invade the vale, basically the capital of the pandaren
- Capture the fleet of Kul Tiras, but kept all ships and crew members alive
That's literally all he did. And while #2 is actually relevant, his kill count (or the kc of his minions) during those events is very low, mostly because those areas are not very populated (Especially Uldum)

The Alliance on the other side
- Imprisoned Princess Talanji and her advisers for no reason.
- Inflicted acts of terrorism (destroying their homes and throwing them in shackles) on the Vulpera simply because they agreed to caravan supplies for the Horde.
- Killed ten thousands in the regular war fights
- Utterly decimated the navy of a sovereign nation (the Zandalari) before they had ever made a formal alliance with the Horde.
- Launched a full-scale invasion of the Zandalari capital of Dazar'alor after luring away its army with full intent of holding it and its people hostage to drive a wedge between the Horde and the Zandalari (which, by the way, is the EXACT SAME REASON AND STRATEGY Sylvannas used to attacked Nodrassil).
- When that plan failed, they assassinated the Zandalari King.
- Never attempted diplomacy with anyone on Zandalar. (The Alliance Champion doesn't even interact with the Sethrek after getting what they want.)
- Attack an archaeological organization simply because they consist of Horde races (the Reliquary agents)
- Make a direct assassination attempt against Gallywix. (Biggest crime there is that you failed, IMO.)

So yeah, the Horde are the aggressors. But the Alliance's hands aren't clean at the end of this war either. But I suppose the winners always write the history books.

[Sondrelk]

I think this depends largely on your perspective.

From the Alliance perspective, certainly up until the battle of Daz'aralor the Horde appeared to be the big bad. But as the expansion has developed it has been revealed that while Sylvanas and her agenda were certainly a major threat, they've served well to obscure a far more sinister common threat.

From the Horde perspective, I never really got the feeling that the Alliance were the big bad. Make no mistake, from the Horde perspective there are very legitimate grievances with the Alliance, and thus a lot of what the Alliance viewed as attrocities were either hidden from most of the Horde (like the San Layn), or felt at least somewhat justified - even though they were extreme (eg Darkshore). Obviously as the war went on, it became apparent that a major issue for the Horde was the internal dispute. But, as with the Alliance, it has become pretty clear to the Horde that all these things have simply been distractions from the real threat.

From a more objective perspective: Early expansion, the War appeared to be the big bad, but later on it has been revealed that it's just a distraction from the real big bad.

The problem is that while it might sound like a good idea in theory, the truth is that crafting a good story takes more than just pulling the rug from under us.

BfA opened with Sylvanas convincing the Horde to attack and eventually burn Teldrassil, killing thousands in an unprecedented act of cruelty from one of the people supposed to be teh "good guys". Alliance then retaliates by attacking Lordaeron, but we the players realize that this did not have the intended effect because Sylvanas does not actually care about the ones we kill.

The story now has a good narrative hook.
Why is Sylvanas doing this? Why does the Horde accept it? Will they continue ot accept this? Will the Alliance finally give up on being the unshakeable moral paragons after having been betrayed by the Horde one too many times? And what does this mean for the multitude of cosmic threats that might want to take advantage of the situation? What about the sword in Silithus and the Azerite.

All of these questions and more need to somehow be answered in a satisfying way. And in an episodic adventure like WoW expansions is, where the expansion ends on a specific boss that final boss should ideally have something to do iwth all these questions.


The logical endpoint for all these questions is a final boss battle against Sylvanas. Though as i have mentioned before in other threads, fighting against sopmeone does not always mean the boss battle has to be against that exact person, just so long as what we are fighting is somehow directly related to the person in question.

In WoD for example the logical final boss was Grommash, he is the character whom all the plot relevant questions hinged on. He made the fateful choice in both timelines, he is the leader of the group we are fighting, and defeating him and proving his ideology wrong is a valid thematic end to that story.
In WoD however there was a cutscene in the middle where Grommash was defeated by Gul'dan who went on to essentially overturn the choice Grommash made, meaning that defeating Grommash at the end was now meaningless, because Gul'dan had superseded his position as narrative endgame and leader of the group we were fighting. It also made sense from a narrative perspective how Grommash tried to stop the orcs from drinking the demon blood but failed.
We do not end up fighting Gul'dan as a final boss directly, but Archimonde is a fitting substitute as Gul'dan directly summons him, and his defeat also means the defeat of Gul'dan.


N'zoth has none of these things with Sylvanas. He isnt directly linked to the questions posed at the beginning of the expansion. He isnt the leader of the group that instigated it. He isnt even thematically relevant at all to the theme of faction war.
All the signs were pointing to Sylvanas as the final boss. Preferrably in something like the Defence of Stormwind, where we would defeat her and her devoted followers, leading to all the problems posed at the beginning having a clear endpoint.
Instead Sylvanas disappears, leaving most of that story unresolved. We get a cutscene where the Horde is suddenly good again with no good reason given for why they won't just spin on their heels again, and for a final boss we got N'zoth, who again, has nothing to do with faction war. And was more or less the final antagonist of the expansions B-plot. In the same way that Deathwing was teased in WotLK, but it still would be disingenous ot have Arthas disappear before the last patch and for the final raid to instead be Deathwing.

[Varodoc]

The PC didn't help the attack on Theramore (which is hardly an attack on civilians like Teldrasil was). The Horde has as much right in Pandaria and even then tensions with Voljin were already starting and the story-arc for the expansion was the growing rebellion in the Horde.

Conversely, BfA opened with a pointless slaughter of large numbers of civilians and the rebellion that did occur was started by the Alliance, not the Horde.

There is an entire scenario in which you break out the blood elf who designed the Mana Bomb after slaughtering your way through the streets of Theramore. The Horde had no right to Pandaria, Garrosh was a psycopath who wanted it painted red immediately.

[Swnem]

That's not my opinion though. Illidan was the main villain established in the TBC cinematic as well as its box, but he was not the final boss of the expansion in the end.

"Extra chapter", I mean, the extra chapter was literally more than half of the expansion and also contained the expansion's true final boss....

As i said, he was. The whole narrative of the expansion led to that moment. All of the zones involved the impact of his rulership, the main quest that spanned patches led to him and the rebellion against him (Akama/Maiev/A'dal), he even appeared in the Netherwing storyline. Have you even played TBC? That is where they got the idea from. They started doing it with Illidan and continued with Arthas. Back then they wanted to have more focus on the baddies of the expansion.
The isle of quel'danas and the sunwell were not originally planned and were done to tide us over till wrath came out (Not unlike Ruby sanctum). They were a separate story not directly connected to outland. They just went " it was just a setback", here is Kael'thas again, a daily island and a new raid. If you played you would know these things.

And that is all for this conversation. This sub forum is way too vile for me. I probably thought this was on general. I don't want to hang out here.

[Varodoc]

As i said, he was. The whole narrative of the expansion led to that moment. All of the zones involved the impact of his rulership, the main quest that spanned patches led to him and the rebellion against him (Akama/Maiev/A'dal), he even appeared in the Netherwing storyline. Have you even played TBC? That is where they got the idea from. They started doing it with Illidan and continued with Arthas. Back then they wanted to have more focus on the baddies of the expansion.
The isle of quel'danas and the sunwell were not originally planned and were done to tide us over till wrath came out (Not unlike Ruby sanctum). They were a separate story not directly connected to outland. They just went " it was just a setback", here is Kael'thas again, a daily island and a new raid. If you played you would know these things.

And that is all for this conversation. This sub forum is way too vile for me. I probably thought this was on general. I don't want to hang out here.

Uhm, No, that is not true at all. The Legion has a big foothold in Outland, almost all zones have Legion presence in one way or another. The expansion literally opens with the Legion coming through the Dark Portal. Kael'thas Sunstrider was a Legion puppet and one of the main bosses as well as antagonist of the questing experience. Kil'jaeden is the actual final boss of the expansion and he is the one who orchestrated the War in Outland in the first place by having the Dark Portal opened.

And again patches 2.2 and 2.3 are literally half of TBC. Calling them "extra chapter" is objectively false.

Finally, I never denied Illidan was established as the main villain of the expansion. I am not blind, I can see that he is on the cover art. I am not deaf, I can hear him talking in the TBC trailer. That doesn't change the fact that he didn't end up being the final boss nor the final villain of the expansion.

[allawyn]

There is an entire scenario in which you break out the blood elf who designed the Mana Bomb

You don't learn about the mana bomb until after you free him.

after slaughtering your way through the streets of Theramore. The Horde had no right to Pandaria, Garrosh was a psycopath who wanted it painted red immediately.

If you want to understand what Horde players when through, MoP was very different than BfA. If you want a flame war over some "only the Alliance players POV is right" meme, have it with someone else. It was already overdone by the time BfA made it not matter anymore.

[Grazrug]

It's hard for a King to surrender when he has his Death God buddy (that can raise entire armies) walking around with him.

And if he really did surrender, they would've destroyed his city


I haven't played the Alliance version of Dazar'alor though

Rastakhan was smart. He new as long as the Horde PC and Talanji are around, the kingdom would live on. Strong. So there was no point in surrender for real.

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There is an entire scenario in which you break out the blood elf who designed the Mana Bomb after slaughtering your way through the streets of Theramore. The Horde had no right to Pandaria, Garrosh was a psycopath who wanted it painted red immediately.

Neither does the Alliance. Continental Pandaren remaind neutral the whole time. Nice try but your bait won't work.

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So, when I thought about the story of the new patch, I realized something: While the endboss of the expansion is N'Zoth, the impact of his arrival is pretty insignificant compared to the deeds of the Alliance shortly before and during the expansion.

Like, what did N'Zoth actually do?
- Invade Uldum, a zone nobody really cares about
- Invade the vale, basically the capital of the pandaren
- Capture the fleet of Kul Tiras, but kept all ships and crew members alive
That's literally all he did. And while #2 is actually relevant, his kill count (or the kc of his minions) during those events is very low, mostly because those areas are not very populated (Especially Uldum)

The Alliance on the other side
- Imprisoned Princess Talanji and her advisers for no reason.
- Inflicted acts of terrorism (destroying their homes and throwing them in shackles) on the Vulpera simply because they agreed to caravan supplies for the Horde.
- Killed ten thousands in the regular war fights
- Utterly decimated the navy of a sovereign nation (the Zandalari) before they had ever made a formal alliance with the Horde.
- Launched a full-scale invasion of the Zandalari capital of Dazar'alor after luring away its army with full intent of holding it and its people hostage to drive a wedge between the Horde and the Zandalari (which, by the way, is the EXACT SAME REASON AND STRATEGY Sylvannas used to attacked Nodrassil).
- When that plan failed, they assassinated the Zandalari King.
- Never attempted diplomacy with anyone on Zandalar. (The Alliance Champion doesn't even interact with the Sethrek after getting what they want.)
- Attack an archaeological organization simply because they consist of Horde races (the Reliquary agents)
- Make a direct assassination attempt against Gallywix. (Biggest crime there is that you failed, IMO.)

So yeah, the Horde are the aggressors. But the Alliance's hands aren't clean at the end of this war either. But I suppose the winners always write the history books.

Pretty much this. Good points.

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" That is like... your opinion man."

Fact is, they were. Big villain in the box, whole story leads up to the encounter. TBC just had an extra chapter that was not originally planned. But it can be seen as a side story.

Illidan and Deathwing felt more epic than both, N'zoth or SoO, combined.

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What makes you think the Horde is a normal enemy that would not torture you or warp you into something different to torture you for all eternity (ud)?

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You realize that he could just have surrendered, right?

Why should anyone surrender at hold gunpoint? After an aggressive invasion? Especially to all the races that are responsible for 90% of the troll race as an entire people? Night Elves, Dwarfs and humans. Rastakhan made the right call. He knew the horde army, PC, and Talanji would come eventually. Now Zandalar is still standing. Unoccupied. Not conquered.

[Varodoc]

You don't learn about the mana bomb until after you free him.



If you want to understand what Horde players when through, MoP was very different than BfA. If you want a flame war over some "only the Alliance players POV is right" meme, have it with someone else. It was already overdone by the time BfA made it not matter anymore.

And after you learn about the Mana Bomb you remain loyal to Garrosh.

I don't care what Horde players feel, that's not what we're discussing. It is a fact that Horde PLAYER CHARACTER was a Garrosh loyalist at the beginning of MoP and even in 5.1 (where you literally fight side by side with Garrosh).

Finally, the Alliance never tried to conquer Pandaria in the first place, that's why I didn't bother mentioning them. Whereas the Horde goes to Pandaria because Garrosh seeks to conquer it, the Alliance goes to Pandaria to rescue Anduin Wrynn. No imperialist purpose drives them to go to Pandaria.