Why are so many Alliance factions open to the Horde?

[Lieutenant Commander]

Khadgar is not a fool. He knows people in the Horde and know not all Horde are "evil maniacs". Also, notice how he removed the Kirin Tor from the conflict completely, in BfA, instead of just being a "neutral zone".

Maybe if he acted against Sylvanas the veil between reality and Shadowlands could still be intact. That's pretty foolish in hindsight.

[The Butt Witch]

Because Blizzard is too incompetent / unwilling to write a TRUE faction conflict. Instead you just get the blue Alliance and the red Alliance.

[Ielenia]

The Horde raided the homeland of the Night Elves and Malfurion himself was nearly killed by a Horde general. That should be enough for him to kick out every Tauren and Troll druid.

It's not. Not even close.

Because it wasn't a Horde druid almost killing Malfurion. Because the war wasn't being spear-headed by Horde druids. If memory serves, too, I don't think I've seen a single Horde druid (that wasn't a PC) in the Horde army marching through Ashenvale and Darkshore.

Also: if you were the owner of a company, would you really fire all Chinese people in your employee list if the Chinese government did something really bad and abhorrent? Regardless of their stance regarding their country's government's actions?

[Moonrage]

I would say a few things:
1. Not all of them are necessarily Alliance factions, but are biased to defend their homelands.

All the ones I mentioned were Alliance factions, except the Wardens and the Cenarion Circle.

2. Several were founded or were developed with both Horde and Alliance races, so it doesn't make sense to be exclusive.

- The Kirin Tor was founded by humans.
- The Argent Dawn was founded by the survivors of the Knights of the Silver Hand (also humans).
- The Knights of the Silver Hand was also founded by humans. They were founded after the First War and were an Alliance faction up until Legion.
- The Cenarion Circle was founded by the Night Elves 10 000 years ago.
- The Wardens were also founded by the Night Elves.

None of these factions were created by the Horde.

3. The Wardens don't care about factions. They will kill whoever they have to secure their target.

Fair enough, still doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Maiev to trust literally everyone. She didn't even trust the Highborne in Stormrage.

4. The Cenarion Circle and Kirin Tor were no more betrayed by the Horde than they were by the Alliance when NEs or humans went rogue.

The Kirin Tor was very clearly betrayed by the Horde in MoP. The Horde attacked the homeland of the Night Elves and nearly killed the leader of the CC. I'd classify that as betrayal.

[Ielenia]

Maybe if he acted against Sylvanas the veil between reality and Shadowlands could still be intact. That's pretty foolish in hindsight.

"Hindsight is 20/20"

He didn't know Sylvanas' true goal.

[Lieutenant Commander]

"Hindsight is 20/20"

He didn't know Sylvanas' true goal.

He didn't know someone who enslaves people for all eternity, uses biological weapons and leads scourge 2.0 is evil? Then he's even bigger fool.

[The Butt Witch]

It's not. Not even close.

Because it wasn't a Horde druid almost killing Malfurion. Because the war wasn't being spear-headed by Horde druids. If memory serves, too, I don't think I've seen a single Horde druid (that wasn't a PC) in the Horde army marching through Ashenvale and Darkshore.

Also: if you were the owner of a company, would you really fire all Chinese people in your employee list if the Chinese government did something really bad and abhorrent? Regardless of their stance regarding their country's government's actions?

Yes, if 99% of my Chinese employees obeyed the Chinese government when it told them to burn down the factory.

And let's face it, whenever a Horde warmonger becomes Warchief, there is no resistance from the Horde UNTIL the Horde itself starts suffering. Garrosh "did nothing wrong" until he pretty much declared that only orcs belong in the Horde, and all other races are just freeloaders. Silvanas "did nothing wrong" until she said she doesn't care about the Horde, and that their purpose is only to serve her.

The Horde doesn't give a shit until it affects them. A Warchief could burn Azeroth and the Horde would be strong behind him as long as he doesn't offend them somehow.

So no, just because there a few honorable individuals in the Horde, and whole lot ready to serve the Warchief no matter what he does as long as it doesn't hurt them, doesn't mean the Horde is honorable.

[Super Dickmann]

Why? Because it's easier to write. Maintaining counterpart organisations means distinguishing them, like the Explorer's League and Reliquary and building two casts of characters instead of just one, with characterization not overlapping. Meanwhile, faction or race-specific story beats have even less return on investment as they require a more specific cast. Blizzard aim to have their cake and eat it too by watering down these groups or creating proxies for them, and then making them neutral. This results in the race that originally had this concept, say the Knights of the Silver Hand, falling out of focus in favor of a group like the Argent Crusade, which is more racially inclusive, more bland and has a figleaf explanation for including other races.

But fundamentally, its themes are unchanged - knightly fantasy, reclaiming Lordaeron as it used to be, stemming from the ashes of the Second War-era Alliance, maintaining a chivalric code and following the Light are all things that are much more key'd to one specific faction than another. Putting an orc in a knight outfit doesn't make it an orc story. What it does do is dilute that fantasy and limit the amount of stories you can tell - once you put the orc in the paladin outfit and have him talk about the Light you can no longer tell stories based around say, the history of orcish internment, or the culture clash between the two, nor can you really make it about Lordaeron any more, since Lordaeron is tangential at best to what are now most of the component races. What is Lordaeron to the inexplicable yet ever present gnomes, orcs, tauren and night elves in the Argent Crusade? Fuck all. So what you're left with is shallower. Surface-level inclusivity and lesser workload at the expense of depth and expanded story opportunities.

Since the Alliance has more such organisations and have more standard fantasy heroic archetypes that lend themselves towards such storytelling, it's easier to turn their organisations generic to achieve this aim or to make spinoffs. This is to the detriment of both factions - the Alliance lose things that are closely keyed to their fantasies - such as a city of human mages, a union of paladins or the entire druidic element of the Night Elves, resulting in ridiculous and incoherent things like the Cenarion Circle doing nothing while the Horde is torching forests. In turn, the Horde, by being included in these organisations on a purely surface level while following the Alliance's cast do not get to enjoy their own themes and stories, but instead are forced to play with the bargain bin version of Alliance stories based around characters they neither have existing investment in nor matter to them. And the more you do it, the easier it is to do it, which in turn perpetuates the problem. Every neutral organisation that either is or is based on a faction/race inclusive thing makes the original thing it was spun out from either irrelevant or leagues more bland while denying the other group the screentime and its relevant storylines. That's how we ended up with the Forsaken and blood elves' role regarding Arthas being taken over by the Ebon Blade, which are a more inclusive but far less defined version of both in terms of grievances, the Argent Crusade sitting on their asses while the Forsaken were expanding or the orcs having no role to speak of in the expansion about their biggest bad in favor of following historically Alliance characters in a historically Alliance city within organisations that were either historically or thematically Alliance.

[plz delete account]

So what's the deal with making factions that were originally Alliance affiliated neutral? It's honestly insulting to Alliance players that iconic alliance factions are now open to the Horde. Examples of these factions include:

- The Kirin Tor. I know that they've always had strong ties with Silvermoon but it was originally a human kingdom. And we all know how the Horde betrayed them back in MoP.

- Argent Dawn (now Argent Crusade).

- Knights of the Silver Hand. Originally a human organisation of Paladins, now Paladins of every race are allowed in (including Blood Elves and Tauren).

- Cenarion Circle and Cenarion Expedition. I know this is technically a Night Elf organisation, but anyway. This one makes the least sense of them all. Not even Night Elf women were allowed in when it was first founded. Now every idiot that can grow a pumpkin gets a membership. It makes even less sense after the War of Thorns. Malfurion is the leader of the CC, why hasn't he kicked out all the Tauren and Trolls yet?

- The Wardens. Led by quite possible the most xenophobic Night Elf out there, yet they have no trouble working together with the Horde. Eventually bites them in the ass when Nathanos kills Sira and raises her as a forsaken.

I mean, we aren't exactly Gabathos or Galintos or whatever. Human names sound all the same to me.

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Also love how Dickmann and I have our own laws of the internet stated in different spots.

[Moonrage]

Khadgar is not a fool. He knows people in the Horde and know not all Horde are "evil maniacs". Also, notice how he removed the Kirin Tor from the conflict completely, in BfA, instead of just being a "neutral zone".

Aren't they all evil maniacs though? It's proven now that all it takes is one axe-crazy Warchief to get the Orcs into war mode. And all other Horde races just blindly follow them.

Women weren't allowed "ten thousand years later". I'm pretty sure that's a retcon, not a "recent development". The acceptance of the Tauren into the Cenarion Circle are also another retcon and not something recent. And why should the Cenarion Circle kick out Horde races? That'd be like saying my company should fire all (for example) Chinese people from their employee list, because the Chinese government did something bad, regardless if the chinese employees agree or not with their country's government's decisions.

There were literally no female Druids in Warcraft 3, and neither were there during the War of the Satyr, which was when it was founded.

And why shouldn't the Cenarion Circle kick out Horde races? Chances are likely that Sylvanas has sent Druid spies to infiltrate the Cenarion Circle. Why take the risk?

You can't compare real life to WoW. Night Elves are still especially xenophobic, probably even more after the burning of Teldrassil. Kicking out the Tauren and Trolls makes a lot of sense.

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It's not. Not even close.

Because it wasn't a Horde druid almost killing Malfurion. Because the war wasn't being spear-headed by Horde druids. If memory serves, too, I don't think I've seen a single Horde druid (that wasn't a PC) in the Horde army marching through Ashenvale and Darkshore.

Also: if you were the owner of a company, would you really fire all Chinese people in your employee list if the Chinese government did something really bad and abhorrent? Regardless of their stance regarding their country's government's actions?

@Buttwitch already answered this for me. Azeroth isn't real life, comparing it does not work.

[plz delete account]

Aren't they all evil maniacs though? It's proven now that all it takes is one axe-crazy Warchief to get the Orcs into war mode. And all other Horde races just blindly follow them.



There were literally no female Druids in Warcraft 3, and neither were there during the War of the Satyr, which was when it was founded.

And why shouldn't the Cenarion Circle kick out Horde races? Chances are likely that Sylvanas has sent Druid spies to infiltrate the Cenarion Circle. Why take the risk?

You can't compare real life to WoW. Night Elves are still especially xenophobic, probably even more after the burning of Teldrassil. Kicking out the Tauren and Trolls makes a lot of sense.

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@Buttwitch already answered this for me. Azeroth isn't real life, comparing it does not work.

"comparing to real life doesn't work" so what can we compare it to? My ass? Please explain this argument seeing as you've lost by using it.

[Moonrage]

"comparing to real life doesn't work" so what can we compare it to? My ass? Please explain this argument seeing as you've lost by using it.

Again @Buttwitch 's reply sums it up pretty well.

Yes, if 99% of my Chinese employees obeyed the Chinese government when it told them to burn down the factory.

And let's face it, whenever a Horde warmonger becomes Warchief, there is no resistance from the Horde UNTIL the Horde itself starts suffering. Garrosh "did nothing wrong" until he pretty much declared that only orcs belong in the Horde, and all other races are just freeloaders. Silvanas "did nothing wrong" until she said she doesn't care about the Horde, and that their purpose is only to serve her.

The Horde doesn't give a shit until it affects them. A Warchief could burn Azeroth and the Horde would be strong behind him as long as he doesn't offend them somehow.

So no, just because there a few honorable individuals in the Horde, and whole lot ready to serve the Warchief no matter what he does as long as it doesn't hurt them, doesn't mean the Horde is honorable.

[Rozz]

All the ones I mentioned were Alliance factions, except the Wardens and the Cenarion Circle

Were, but they no longer are. Also I said "not all", so that point didn't negate anything you stated.

- The Kirin Tor was founded by humans.
- The Argent Dawn was founded by the survivors of the Knights of the Silver Hand (also humans).
- The Knights of the Silver Hand was also founded by humans. They were founded after the First War and were an Alliance faction up until Legion.
- The Cenarion Circle was founded by the Night Elves 10 000 years ago.
- The Wardens were also founded by the Night Elves.

None of these factions were created by the Horde.

I never stated that they did. I said "founded or were developed with" which is still true. Several in their early history have had interaction with Horde races or exist thanks to those races in the first place (mostly elves and Tauren). Even now these factions still have a lot of contribution from them with the addition of trolls.

The Kirin Tor was very clearly betrayed by the Horde in MoP. The Horde attacked the homeland of the Night Elves and nearly killed the leader of the CC. I'd classify that as betrayal.

I'm not going to excuse what Garrosh did or play semantics, when my point is that this is an oversimplification that ignores why the these factions are still neutral today. Most of the BEs had the Horde had nothing to do with what occurred--which is why Jaina was able to set things aside for the siege in the first place. It was also why the Kirin Tor was able to just vote elves back in without much fuss. Sylvanas, Garrosh, and Thrall were a constant threat to Night Elves but it wouldn't make sense for them to lash out at Tauren and trolls for similar reasons.

Additionally I can't say the Horde betrayed them when they were never allied to the Warchief in any formal manner and the vast majority of Horde-Affiliated allies stayed loyal to them even now.

Edit: I think my point will get lost, but I'll state it clearly here. It's not that Alliance factions are open to the Horde, it's more so a transition of those factions back to where they were supposed to be. They never forgave Horde slaughter, but they did take in allies regardless of race. Taking in a tauren druid is not the same as embracing the Banshee.

The way the writers write off Horde faults is a different issue than how the neutral factions are recruiting. It's not like they're taking every murder hobo off the streets.

[StationaryHawk]

Their respective leaders are generally more interested in the goal their order was created to achieve than the on-and-off faction war. If you're unwilling to accept any sort of comparisons, you'll just have to accept that this is how they were written.

And in any case, of those that you listed, only the Kirin Tor has really experienced a betrayal from their Horde members, and even that's debatable.

[matrix123mko]

Because outside from faction conflict expansions the Horde is utterly irrelevant for the story and Blizzard can't even be bothered to use or create proper factions for them.

That is why i have to constantly follow fucking Brann Bronzebeard from the Explorers League around with my Horde characters, instead of following Highwatcher Tae'thelan Bloodwatcher from the Reliquary. Or why i have to follow Khadgar through WoD as a Horde character, instead of some Horde mage/warlock/shaman whatever doing his job. As, again, Blizzard can't even be arsed to build up a proper Horde mage like Rommath for example.

Basically this. Blizzard could have developed Blood Knights more(and keep them Blood Knights, instead of making them normal paladins) and let Argent Dawn work with Alliance. Explorers' League could be replaced by Reliquiary. Even in Legion, Horde could have used Tempest Keep for their own space program.

[Evaddon]

Because some don't want War and want to work towards common goals, and have a mutual understanding on how to pursue them together...common ground bridges multiple gaps in societies dysfunction, same as the real world

[matrix123mko]

Yeah I'm sure the Cenarion Circle and Kirin Tor are glad they accepted members of the Horde into their ranks. Especially after they were both betrayed by the Horde.

When did the Horde betray any of them?

[Moonrage]

Their respective leaders are generally more interested in the goal their order was created to achieve than the on-and-off faction war. If you're unwilling to accept any sort of comparisons, you'll just have to accept that this is how they were written.

And in any case, of those that you listed, only the Kirin Tor has really experienced a betrayal from their Horde members, and even that's debatable.

Because these comparisons don't make any sense. If you want to have an answer, then yes, I would fire all my Chinese employees if their government told them to burn down my factory, knowing that they'd likely obey.

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When did the Horde betray any of them?

The Horde betrayed Dalaran back in MoP, remember the whole Purge of Dalaran scenario? The Horde also raided and destroyed the homeland of the leader of the Cenarion Circle.

[baskev]

So what's the deal with making factions that were originally Alliance affiliated neutral? It's honestly insulting to Alliance players that iconic alliance factions are now open to the Horde. Examples of these factions include:

- The Kirin Tor. I know that they've always had strong ties with Silvermoon but it was originally a human kingdom. And we all know how the Horde betrayed them back in MoP.

- Argent Dawn (now Argent Crusade).

- Knights of the Silver Hand. Originally a human organisation of Paladins, now Paladins of every race are allowed in (including Blood Elves and Tauren).

- Cenarion Circle and Cenarion Expedition. I know this is technically a Night Elf organisation, but anyway. This one makes the least sense of them all. Not even Night Elf women were allowed in when it was first founded. Now every idiot that can grow a pumpkin gets a membership. It makes even less sense after the War of Thorns. Malfurion is the leader of the CC, why hasn't he kicked out all the Tauren and Trolls yet?

- The Wardens. Led by quite possible the most xenophobic Night Elf out there, yet they have no trouble working together with the Horde. Eventually bites them in the ass when Nathanos kills Sira and raises her as a forsaken.

Some of them where not really pro alliance. But mostly made up out of alliance races. ( for instance highmountain also have a long druid connection).

But yeah some of the factions are weird. But hey...we got lightforged and void elf death knights...so seen weirder things.

But lets go by your list.

- kirin tor: where also horde friends. Blood elves also made up a good part of their ranks. And yes after the betrayl in mop they should be less welcome. But people will jaina this or that. But yeah. but not like 100%

- argent dawn: nope...while they are from the start a alliance only faction. A lot of paladins in other species should make them perfect cross faction. but because of the whole forsaken , sillyanus thing they should be more alliance.

- again faction members from both factions there....but yeah you are right. cenarion had a great intrest in teldrassil. Malfurion is their boss. And the horde with their undead and goblin "nature friendly" behavior should be cause enough to kick the horde out.

- wardens. I think they made them a bit more cross faction to piss us of. Same reason why we do not get high elves ( or even excist according to blizz, even though they are named high elves ingame). But horde gets night elf dark rangers....


So to some it up in a bit less text: If they do not horde will cry. And we can not have horde be sad.

[Moonrage]

Because some don't want War and want to work towards common goals, and have a mutual understanding on how to pursue them together...common ground bridges multiple gaps in societies dysfunction, same as the real world

Yet the Horde has proven time and time again to be untrustworthy.