Why Is The War In BFA Called "The 4th War" And Not "The Fifth War"

[Matthias]

Maybe you lore heads can explain this to me but....

Aren't the First War and the Second War...technically the same war? The Second War starts right after the Alliance regroups after the fall of Stormwind....seems like the same conflict to me though.

[Skytotem]

Because Blizzard Can't Count

[Headayke]

I believe it has to due with the size of these conflicts, and as I recall it was pretty well established that The Horde under Garrosh's Rule never fully engaged in outright War against the Alliance. Races for resources, skirmishes over territory and political subterfuge was being done by both sides and it involved mostly The Horde and Alliance involved in conflict against one another but every few years(patches or expansions even) a greater conflict would unravel until it was believed that with Garrosh's atrocities behind everyone that relations between Horde and Alliance was going to improve, which is why both factions once again put those differences aside to fight back The Legion on The Broken Shore.

Sylvannas seemingly abandoning The Alliance and leaving Varian to Die was the cornerstone for setting up the Fourth War, if this misinterpretation had not of happened the tension between Horde and Alliance wouldn't have escalated to the point where Sylvannas couldn't be trusted by even her own faction. That distrust and those tensions built up by giving Sylvannas enough power and seizing full control of the Azerite that led to the Burning of Teldrassil, the event that completely kicked off The Fourth war because her deliberate intentions where as Garrosh was corrupt by a old god into absolute madness that was seen by all. Everyone tried to ignore Sylvannas for who she was and even her coronation as Warchief was tenuous but she was trusted and valued until she betrayed everyone, including her own people and sympathizers. Garrosh was shown as naive as soon as we met him in Nagrand.

[Aucald]

Maybe you lore heads can explain this to me but....

Aren't the First War and the Second War...technically the same war? The Second War starts right after the Alliance regroups after the fall of Stormwind....seems like the same conflict to me though.

Technically, yes. The First War was entirely between the Orcish Horde and the Humans of Stormwind, whereas the Second War expanded the conflict to include Dwarves, Gnomes, Elves, Trolls, Ogres, and Goblins. It also expanded the region of the conflict to Lordaeron, basically the entirety of the Eastern Kingdoms. You could say the same thing of WW1 and WW2, if you wanted; in that WW1's conclusion led inexorably to what would become WW2.

[Garymorilix]

Even that is rather confusing because all this "Muh Azerite" pretty quickly took a backseat.
Azerite was the catalyst, but major Battles such as the War of Thorns, Siege of Lordaeron and Battle of Dazar'alor had nothing to do with Azerite.

Not to mention, no one within the game even refers to it as such, that name stems from some description in a Blizzard museum.

Have you not done a single WQ in the game or what?

[valky94]

iirc garrosh never openly started a war by attacking an enemy capital (not counting theramore as a capital), it was mostly skirmishes in a few zones, like ashenvale, stonetalon, twilight highlands...

BfA had full out war in ashenvale, darkshore, arathi, lordaeron, zandalar, kul tiras...

and sylvanas was supported by more horde population nearing the end of the war, including racial leaders like gallywix and geya'rah, while garrosh was supported only by orcs (and the blackfuse company he paid)

[Garymorilix]

iirc garrosh never openly started a war by attacking an enemy capital (not counting theramore as a capital), it was mostly skirmishes in a few zones, like ashenvale, stonetalon, twilight highlands...

BfA had full out war in ashenvale, darkshore, arathi, lordaeron, zandalar...

and sylvanas was supported by more horde population nearing the end of the war, including racial leaders like gallywix and geya'rah, while garrosh was supported only by orcs (and the blackfuse company he paid)

Well, that is because Varian did that before him in WotLK.

I don't know why so many people think Garrosh started the conflict in Cata...

[Kralljin]

Have you not done a single WQ in the game or what?

Please tell where they literally call it "Blood war", because the term refers to the War between Horde and Alliance.

[Sagenod]

The writers either kinda forgot about Garrosh, thought it would make Sylvanas look cooler if the got a numbered war or wanted to make a commentary on how subjective and inconsistent the naming of world wars can be (the first, second and third war are not actually the first world wars or the biggest wars or the most globald wars - they are just the ones that were really important to the people who named them (Storwindians) just like WWI and II are mostly named that, because the Europeans thought they were important.
Garrosh's war mostly happened in Pandaria and Kalimdor - not where Stormwind is - so it doesnt count as a real war.


I would bet my raptor that its not that last reason, though. Its probably the Sylvanas thing.

Uhh... Both WWI and WWII were fought around the world and many people other than Europeans were greatly affected by it.

As for the topic, as people have already stated the Blizzard writing staff is incompetent. They clearly no longer care about the consistency of the story and are probably writing what they are told to write because all media nowadays has to go through multiple filters to make sure they don't get cancelled.

[Coconut]

Because Blizzard's current writers are that flippant about lore. The funny thing is, they kind of screwed themselves out of giving a reasonable explanation for it. They can't retcon which conflict was called the Third War because Zekhan mentions it to Saurfang as something that happened in a relatively distant past, and they can't claim that Wrath to BFA was one continuous war because if it was, people who fought in Wrath, Cata, MoP and even Ashran and Legion would be able to call themselves "Veterans of the Fourth War" as well, and the achievement is clearly for the BFA campaign only (this is ignoring the fact that the end of SoO was presented as a very clear end to hostilities at that time). But bless you @Aucald for struggling to make sense out of this one.

[Deferionus]

Because how to count to ten.

"1, 2, 3, 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10." - Bill Gates

[Feanoro]

Well, that is because Varian did that before him in WotLK.

I don't know why so many people think Garrosh started the conflict in Cata...

I don't know why so many people think Varian's declaration was unprovoked. People viewed the end of the Deathbringer Saurfang fight as a tentative peace between factions, and Varian backed off. Open warfare began with Garrosh.

Because how to count to ten.

"1, 2, 3, 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10." - Bill Gates

"Business tactics for 500 please?" "What is marketing?"

[Aucald]

Because Blizzard's current writers are that flippant about lore. The funny thing is, they kind of screwed themselves out of giving a reasonable explanation for it. They can't retcon which conflict was called the Third War because Zekhan mentions it to Saurfang as something that happened in a relatively distant past, and they can't claim that Wrath to BFA was one continuous war because if it was, people who fought in Wrath, Cata, MoP and even Ashran and Legion would be able to call themselves "Veterans of the Fourth War" as well, and the achievement is clearly for the BFA campaign only (this is ignoring the fact that the end of SoO was presented as a very clear end to hostilities at that time). But bless you @Aucald for struggling to make sense out of this one.

I don't really understand the necessity of trying to hang this around the neck of the writers, myself. It's not a question of not knowing how numbers work, it's more one of branding - which has been true of pretty much all ways in real life. It's the reason we didn't call the Vietnam War (which involved 19+ countries or organizations) WW3. I can see why a demarcation was made, myself - the close of the Blood War (the war that was fought in the majority of BfA) led to a radical reorganization of the Horde's leadership and the abolishing of the position of Warchief of the Horde, which is a pretty significant shake-up of Azeroth's superpowers. Just like the Third War wasn't a single conflict (e.g. the sacking of Lordaeron, the sacking of Quel'Thalas, the invasion of Kalimdor, the conflict in Ashenvale, and finally the unified Alliance/Horde/Kaldorei forces vs. the Burning Legion at Hyjal), the Fourth War similarly is a summation of many conflicts that finally led to a formal armistice and a change in Horde governance.

There's a lot you can put at the feet of the writers - this just isn't one of them, I feel.

[Powerogue]

It's probably weighing the end of the Cataclysm-MOP war arc as a ceasefire. Whatever the details, it's supposed to punctuate that this is finally over.

edit: Aucald put it way better than I did.

[Coconut]

I don't really understand the necessity of trying to hang this around the neck of the writers, myself. It's not a question of not knowing how numbers work, it's more one of branding - which has been true of pretty much all ways in real life. It's the reason we didn't call the Vietnam War (which involved 19+ countries or organizations) WW3. I can see why a demarcation was made, myself - the close of the Blood War (the war that was fought in the majority of BfA) led to a radical reorganization of the Horde's leadership and the abolishing of the position of Warchief of the Horde, which is a pretty significant shake-up of Azeroth's superpowers. Just like the Third War wasn't a single conflict (e.g. the sacking of Lordaeron, the sacking of Quel'Thalas, the invasion of Kalimdor, the conflict in Ashenvale, and finally the unified Alliance/Horde/Kaldorei forces vs. the Burning Legion at Hyjal), the Fourth War similarly is a summation of many conflicts that finally led to a formal armistice and a change in Horde governance.

There's a lot you can put at the feet of the writers - this just isn't one of them, I feel.

And I think you're happy to find excuses for them because you enjoy the creative process of filling in the blanks too much. Unfortunately, creative as they may be, your explanations cannot be canon until Blizzard uses them themselves, and - just like most world building in fiction - they're not as fun for other fans to engage with as they are for you to construct.

From my perspective, even though Blizzard omitted to do it, it would have been logical to define the Wrath - MoP conflict in some way after Garrosh's defeat. Varian allowed Vol'jin to become Warchief and hostilities ended at that point. The Horde did restructure itself to a great degree. The two factions held a trial together against Garrosh. When the Iron Horde invaded, the Alliance and Vol'jin's Horde fought side by side. There was a clash in Ashran, but we don't know exactly how serious it was, because it was kind of removed from the story of that expansion, and Varian never brought it up in spite of his SoO threat. In fact, Varian was very optimistic about Alliance-Horde relationships before the attack on the Broken Shore. Genn attacking Sylvanas in Stormheim is seen as somewhat of a big deal, and even then, the conflict between Horde and Alliance remains at a minimum - Horde players work with Tyrande, Malfurion and Maiev, they defend the Exodar, etc. The factions are purportedly at peace during the Human-Forsaken meeting. When Sylvanas and Saurfang discuss attacking Teldrassil, it very much feels like the start of a new conflict.

In order to tie Garrosh's war to Sylvanas's, you would have to assume that the former was never defined in any way during this entire two expansion time period of relative peace. I think that is reductionist, flippant, and relying way too much on hindsight logic. If anything, the war with the Iron Horde and the war with the Legion should have gotten their own names/numbers, since they were fairly distinctive, massive conflicts (even with Gul'dan sort of bridging them together). It would make more sense to claim that the numbers are only for Horde vs Alliance wars, therefore making Garrosh's war the third, but the Old Soldier cinematic makes that somewhat dubious, since it would have been too recent for Zekhan's father to tell him stories about it, and Saurfang wasn't much of a figure in it, unless we're talking specifically of the airship battle above Icecrown.

[Aucald]

And I think you're happy to find excuses for them because you enjoy the creative process of filling in the blanks too much. Unfortunately, creative as they may be, your explanations cannot be canon until Blizzard uses them themselves, and - just like most world building in fiction - they're not as fun for other fans to engage with as they are for you to construct.

Well, I can't really deny that - it's always been my preference to use creative speculation and educated guesswork to fill in the gaps where canon doesn't apply or hasn't been established as opposed to shellacking the writers for grievances real or imagined. I personally think people are far too quick to jump on the proverbial hate-train as opposed to just sitting down and thinking about things for a bit, but that's just my position on matters.

As for fan engagement it tends to vary, really. A lot of people are fully onboard with imagination and creative speculation, as these forums demonstrate pretty clearly across a wide variety of topics (from Elven history to the faction conflict).

From my perspective, even though Blizzard omitted to do it, it would have been logical to define the Wrath - MoP conflict in some way after Garrosh's defeat. Varian allowed Vol'jin to become Warchief and hostilities ended at that point. The Horde did restructure itself to a great degree. The two factions held a trial together against Garrosh. When the Iron Horde invaded, the Alliance and Vol'jin's Horde fought side by side. There was a clash in Ashran, but we don't know exactly how serious it was, because it was kind of removed from the story of that expansion, and Varian never brought it up in spite of his SoO threat. In fact, Varian was very optimistic about Alliance-Horde relationships before the attack on the Broken Shore. Genn attacking Sylvanas in Stormheim is seen as somewhat of a big deal, and even then, the conflict between Horde and Alliance remains at a minimum - Horde players work with Tyrande, Malfurion and Maiev, they defend the Exodar, etc. The factions are purportedly at peace during the Human-Forsaken meeting. When Sylvanas and Saurfang discuss attacking Teldrassil, it very much feels like the start of a new conflict.

In order to tie Garrosh's war to Sylvanas's, you would have to assume that the former was never defined in any way during this entire two expansion time period of relative peace. I think that is reductionist, flippant, and relying way too much on hindsight logic. If anything, the war with the Iron Horde and the war with the Legion should have gotten their own names/numbers, since they were fairly distinctive, massive conflicts (even with Gul'dan sort of bridging them together). It would make more sense to claim that the numbers are only for Horde vs Alliance wars, therefore making Garrosh's war the third, but the Old Soldier cinematic makes that somewhat dubious, since it would have been too recent for Zekhan's father to tell him stories about it, and Saurfang wasn't much of a figure in it, unless we're talking specifically of the airship battle above Icecrown.

I see MoP more as a resumption fo the status quo, myself. Garrosh basically broke the Horde into two uneven factions and was defeated and deposed, and as essentially a third party was tried and ultimately convicted (by Thrall) for his numerous crimes. But the line of leadership for the Horde was essentially unchanged, with Vol'jin assuming the mantle of Warchief just like Garrosh did from Thrall, only the reasons for the change were different. Genn attacking Sylvanas kind of flew under the radar in the face of the even greater conflict of the Legion War Azeroth was threatened by - it was definitely a thing, but barely registers as a conflict relative to what it was surrounded by (a full invasion of the world by the Legion led by Sargeras himself).

Garrosh's war is tied to Sylvanas' by dint that the Horde/Alliance conflict never got resolved - as Sylvanas herself uses as her basis for war in the opening cinematic and directly to Saurfang in A Good War. BfA was quite literally heralded by the developers as a decisive end to the greater conflict, after which the faction conflict was said to be "put to bed" as an active narrative in WoW. Saurfang has been a major Horde hero since all the way back to the conflict in Silithus, during which he led the Might of Kalimdor to victory against C'Thun and the Qiraji. Hekazi (Zekhan's father) could be referring to that conflict when he was regaling a young Zappy-Boy about Saurfang's legendary status.

[Coconut]

Well, I can't really deny that - it's always been my preference to use creative speculation and educated guesswork to fill in the gaps where canon doesn't apply or hasn't been established as opposed to shellacking the writers for grievances real or imagined. I personally think people are far too quick to jump on the proverbial hate-train as opposed to just sitting down and thinking about things for a bit, but that's just my position on matters.

As for fan engagement it tends to vary, really. A lot of people are fully onboard with imagination and creative speculation, as these forums demonstrate pretty clearly across a wide variety of topics (from Elven history to the faction conflict).

I like doing that too... when I can trust the writing. I used to theorize on the ASoIaF forums (still do every now and then). I was discussing BSG with friends, discussing Breaking Bad, etc. But Warcraft's lore is simply too inconsistent to speculate about. I enjoy the aesthetics and I can immerse myself in many of the minor quest lines, but I can't take the overarching lore seriously anymore. I think I would be offending my own intellect if I was. Why would I engage with it in good faith only to be "proven wrong" through retcons and bullshit?

I mean, I remember in our Watsonian vs Doylist discussion that you were all too happy to see continuity in Sylvanas being a villain. Meanwhile, I look back at Vol'jin's death cinematic, which was supposed to sell us on the idea of Sylvanas becoming Warchief, and I see continuity being broken even in this key moment of the story. Back then, Vol'jin's words were "Da spirits have granted me clarity. A vision. Dey wisper a name. Many will not unda'stand," etc. Now that this was all "revealed" to have been a manipulation, Blizzard shifted from plural, "spirits", implying a consensus among multiple entities, to a single whisper, and the vision, the clarity and the implication of some sort of understanding all vanished into thin air... The entire moment was retroactively redefined.

In Legion, I was invested in the idea that Sylvanas would do something good for the Horde, and that Vol'jin's final decision would be given some meaning, seeing how he was my favorite Horde character and they had killed him off before he got the chance to do anything of importance. The prospect of Sylvanas being villain batted seemed silly to me. Now, if the story was solid, like A Song of Ice and Fire, I would have been glad to accept that my expectations were wrong. But how can I accept an outcome I don't like when it is blatant that the continuity doesn't make sense? That at best they changed their plans mid way and didn't bother to tie things together neatly, and at worst they were trying to manipulate player reactions with no care for continuity (in Legion, Horde players had to be on board with Sylvanas, now we have to be on board with killing her, so the lore is changed accordingly). Why in the world would I jump through hoops to gaslight myself into believing that the story makes sense, when these people can't even be bothered to count to five? xD I'd rather point and laugh, thank you very much.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hateful, I don't want Afrasiabi, Danuser and Golden to be fired (although if I could do their job from here, I would replace them in an instant for a measly Romanian salary, and I guarantee I would do a much better job than them, as I'm sure many mmo-champion posters would). I think they would be capable of writing something decent if they applied and humbled themselves. But they'll never do that if we never criticize them, if we don't point out that we see the cracks, so they should focus more on making sure they aren't there. Nobody wins if we fluff everything into making sense ourselves. All that does is to enable bad writing.

I see MoP more as a resumption fo the status quo, myself. Garrosh basically broke the Horde into two uneven factions and was defeated and deposed, and as essentially a third party was tried and ultimately convicted (by Thrall) for his numerous crimes. But the line of leadership for the Horde was essentially unchanged, with Vol'jin assuming the mantle of Warchief just like Garrosh did from Thrall, only the reasons for the change were different. Genn attacking Sylvanas kind of flew under the radar in the face of the even greater conflict of the Legion War Azeroth was threatened by - it was definitely a thing, but barely registers as a conflict relative to what it was surrounded by (a full invasion of the world by the Legion led by Sargeras himself).

Garrosh's Horde was a War Machine fueled by Orc supremacy. If anything, the Iron Horde invasion was a continuation of his war.
Vol'jin redefined the current Horde as Family, a group of misfits holding each other afloat. The Horde changed massively in MoP, arguably returning to its Warcraft III roots. Maybe this change wasn't represented perfectly, but one can never tell the difference between Watsonian limitations and Doylist limitations, and I choose to blame the writers. So far, they haven't shown me any reason to trust them.

I certainly didn't see any exploration of the socio-political implication of the position of Warchief and of how it was perceived by the Horde population anywhere beyond MoP, when it was made kind of clear that it was mainly the Orcs who were loyal beyond reason to whoever held the title. If anyone trusted Sylvanas in BFA, it looked like they were trusting a strong leader in uncertain times rather than blindly being loyal to her title. If anything, the reason given by Thalyssra for joining the Horde contradicts the comparison to an authoritarian state, and she was never seen lamenting her mistake. What's more, there was never much of a difference between a Warchief and a King in therms of power over their subjects, both are autocratic positions strongly dependent on the character of the holder, with the position of Warchief being weaker at that time both because of the Mak'gora tradition and the fact that a successful revolution against a tyrannical Warchief was fresh in the public psyche. We've never seen a human king abusing their power in WoW, nor have we seen one being successfully deposed...

Danuser's claim that this hot nonsense was ever a theme of the expansion either reflects on how bad they are at communicating their ideas or (more likely) is pure, unmitigated bullshit (Baineshit?), which I will not endorse under any circumstance. I don't believe that Danuser inserted himself in the game as Nathanos, but I do have a very bad opinion about him for making that empty claim.

Edit: We all know they didn't do away with the position of Warchief because the in-game characters became enlightened and chose to have a social reform. They did away with it because it had become a meme in the player community, and a fifth Warchief would have never been taken seriously, especially with Baine, Lor'themar or looping back to Thrall being the only options. The Doylist circumstances already make the decision pretty much mandatory, so good'ol Watson can sock it.

Expect Thrall (or his female alternate) to be reinstated an expansion or two into the future, once the desire to make fun of this dies down and opportunity for another bout of Warcraft III nostalgia baiting arises. The Horde won't want to do it, but sadly they will be forced to choose a Warchief when the Alliance starts another war...

[Aucald]

I like doing that too... when I can trust the writing. I used to theorize on the ASoIaF forums (still do every now and then). I was discussing BSG with friends, discussing Breaking Bad, etc. But Warcraft's lore is simply too inconsistent to speculate about. I enjoy the aesthetics and I can immerse myself in many of the minor quest lines, but I can't take the overarching lore seriously anymore. I think I would be offending my own intellect if I was. Why would I engage with it in good faith only to be "proven wrong" through retcons and bullshit?

To each their own, I suppose. I've never considered WoW lore super serious or super cohesive in and of itself, which actually makes speculation more fun for me - though YMMV, of course. I don't take retcons or being "proven wrong" super seriously, either; if I happen to be wrong about a particular chain of speculation then so be it. The fun is in imagining the possibilities and seeing how the story actually evolves. If you take it seriously, though, well I can certainly see how it might be upsetting or annoying.

I mean, I remember in our Watsonian vs Doylist discussion that you were all too happy to see continuity in Sylvanas being a villain. Meanwhile, I look back at Vol'jin's death cinematic, which was supposed to sell us on the idea of Sylvanas becoming Warchief, and I see continuity being broken even in this key moment of the story. Back then, Vol'jin's words were "Da spirits have granted me clarity. A vision. Dey wisper a name. Many will not unda'stand," etc. Now that this was all "revealed" to have been a manipulation, Blizzard shifted from plural, "spirits", implying a consensus among multiple entities, to a single whisper, and the vision, the clarity and the implication of some sort of understanding all vanished into thin air... The entire moment was retroactively redefined.

Well, we disagree on that score pretty foundationally, if I recall. I don't really see Vol'jin's promotion of Sylvanas as any kind of retcon in light of what we've discovered in Shadowlands, though; as I assume that it wasn't just a single voice Vol'jin was hearing but more or less Mueh'zala (and possibly the Jailer) acting as a multitude of voices. Vol'jin was also pretty out of it by that point as well, both due to being influenced by Mueh'zala and dying of Fel poisoning - so that his thinking and understanding might be muddled isn't hard to see either. As with most things, it really boils down to whether you're actively looking for flaws or giving the narrative the benefit of the doubt. In this instance, for me, suspension of disbelief isn't really that heavy.

In Legion, I was invested in the idea that Sylvanas would do something good for the Horde, and that Vol'jin's final decision would be given some meaning, seeing how he was my favorite Horde character and they had killed him off before he got the chance to do anything of importance. The prospect of Sylvanas being villain batted seemed silly to me. Now, if the story was solid, like A Song of Ice and Fire, I would have been glad to accept that my expectations were wrong. But how can I accept an outcome I don't like when it is blatant that the continuity doesn't make sense? That at best they changed their plans mid way and didn't bother to tie things together neatly, and at worst they were trying to manipulate player reactions with no care for continuity (in Legion, Horde players had to be on board with Sylvanas, now we have to be on board with killing her, so the lore is changed accordingly). Why in the world would I jump through hoops to gaslight myself into believing that the story makes sense, when these people can't even be bothered to count to five? xD I'd rather point and laugh, thank you very much.

I think the fact that your expectations got dashed effected you a lot more than you admit, just based on your words and tone here. You had a similar reaction to Sylvanas' perceived heel-face turn (which, in my view, was pretty heavily foreshadowed all along) that I did to Thrall's out of the blue and out of character to promote Garrosh to Warchief against the advice of both Garrosh himself and *all* his other advisors and friends. While I didn't really have any expectations of what Thrall should other wise do, per se; I still found the narrative body swerve to be exquisitely stupid and designed solely to inject "artificial" drama into the narrative by dint of amping up the smoldering faction conflict. But that's kind of the name of the game when it comes to dramatic storytelling, and if people made logical or rational decisions all the time then you wouldn't have dramatic stories or narrative arcs. There is a degree to which all drama kind of requires dumb decisions to be made - absent people acting without thinking, or on incomplete information, you wouldn't really have any fuel for the engine of drama.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hateful, I don't want Afrasiabi, Danuser and Golden to be fired (although if I could do their job from here, I would replace them in an instant for a measly Romanian salary, and I guarantee I would do a much better job than them, as I'm sure many mmo-champion posters would). I think they would be capable of writing something decent if they applied and humbled themselves. But they'll never do that if we never criticize them, if we don't point out that we see the cracks, so they should focus more on making sure they aren't there. Nobody wins if we fluff everything into making sense ourselves. All that does is to enable bad writing.

Eh, they're not going to do that if we criticize them, either - not to put too fine a point on it, but our criticism or lack thereof doesn't really matter. Writing by committee is terrible to begin with, so I actually prefer they not listen to me and write the story they want to tell. We'll judge it either way. I highly doubt any of the above are perusing our various and contradictory lines of speculation - especially since by the time we start speculating on new info the next arc of the story is already being brainstormed.

Garrosh's Horde was a War Machine fueled by Orc supremacy. If anything, the Iron Horde invasion was a continuation of his war.
Vol'jin redefined the current Horde as Family, a group of misfits holding each other afloat. The Horde changed massively in MoP, arguably returning to its Warcraft III roots. Maybe this change wasn't represented perfectly, but one can never tell the difference between Watsonian limitations and Doylist limitations, and I choose to blame the writers. So far, they haven't shown me any reason to trust them.

Vol'jin didn't really *redefine* the Horde in his tenure as Warchief, as his take on the "Horde as family" was basically how he saw Thrall's Horde before Garrosh became Warchief - his goal was to return the Horde to what it was during Thrall's regime, pretty much. I would also argue that Garrosh's Horde actually hearkens back to Blackhand and Orgrim, back to the Old Horde of WC2, far from the Horde of Thrall in WC3. Saurfang, as a mouthpiece of the writers himself back in 8.2.5, basically says the same. In that vein, I would say my take on this is closer to the one meant by the writers.

I certainly didn't see any exploration of the socio-political implication of the position of Warchief and of how it was perceived by the Horde population anywhere beyond MoP, when it was made kind of clear that it was mainly the Orcs who were loyal beyond reason to whoever held the title. If anyone trusted Sylvanas in BFA, it looked like they were trusting a strong leader in uncertain times rather than blindly being loyal to her title. If anything, the reason given by Thalyssra for joining the Horde contradicts the comparison to an authoritarian state, and she was never seen lamenting her mistake. What's more, there was never much of a difference between a Warchief and a King in therms of power over their subjects, both are autocratic positions strongly dependent on the character of the holder, with the position of Warchief being weaker at that time both because of the Mak'gora tradition and the fact that a successful revolution against a tyrannical Warchief was fresh in the public psyche. We've never seen a human king abusing their power in WoW, nor have we seen one being successfully deposed...

We never see Thalyssra lamenting her decision, but we do see it from Valtrois - and it's not too big a reach to infer that Thalyssra and Valtrois probably feel similarly about things given their relative closeness. Sylvanas played her masquerade exceedingly well, though; leveraging the Horde's twin fear and hatred of the Alliance masterfully to maneuver both loyalty and complicity from her subjects.

Danuser's claim that this hot nonsense was ever a theme of the expansion either reflects on how bad they are at communicating their ideas or (more likely) is pure, unmitigated bullshit (Baineshit?), which I will not endorse under any circumstance. I don't believe that Danuser inserted himself in the game as Nathanos, but I do have a very bad opinion about him for making that empty claim.

It was a dumb claim to make, I agree - although I think it more likely Danuser simply misspoke than any intentional attempt to deceive. Danuser already has an established penchant for putting his feet in his mouth, and this is probably more of the same. I think the community's need for a hate-totem like Danuser or Golden is misplaced, though; and it hearkens back to the same raw deal that Ghostcrawler got when he was the de facto "face" of WoW's developers.

Edit: We all know they didn't do away with the position of Warchief because the in-game characters became enlightened and chose to have a social reform. They did away with it because it had become a meme in the player community, and a fifth Warchief would have never been taken seriously, especially with Baine, Lor'themar or looping back to Thrall being the only options. The Doylist circumstances already make the decision pretty much mandatory, so good'ol Watson can sock it.

It's also a good way to close the book on the stories of WC1 through WC3, truly redefining the Horde as a completely new organization with an entirely new leadership structure. Hearkening back to Saurfang's assertion that the Horde is an unbroken tradition inheriting the evils of the Old Horde, you can now no longer make that claim. The New Horde is truly new, a more democratic leadership without a central point of authority, which as you yourself admit above was always one of the Horde's main problems. Put a bad leader on the proverbial throne as the sole point of authority and you've got the makings of war without end.

Expect Thrall (or his female alternate) to be reinstated an expansion or two into the future, once the desire to make fun of this dies down and opportunity for another bout of Warcraft III nostalgia baiting arises. The Horde won't want to do it, but sadly they will be forced to choose a Warchief when the Alliance starts another war...

I really doubt that will happen, especially if the Horde continues to accrue new allies in the form of Allied Races (something I actually do expect to continue to happen).

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I think it's because of scope; The Pandaria conflict was mostly restricted to that continent; in terms of escalation, each of the Great Wars has had a larger scope than the previous. First War was orcs and Humans in a part of Southern EK, Second War on most of the Northern half and some isles and Draenor, Third War both Kalimdor and EK and Draenor.

The pandaria conflict didn't reach as high stakes in terms of theaters as the Third War so that might be why it wasn't consider as a Fourth War -would have been if Garrosh hadn't been cut short- In contrast, while we really are seeing the blood war in some areas, it's clear that it was a global conflict that kept escalating.

Like overall, it's hard to disagree that the scope of the pandaria conflict and the blood war is different with the last one being far more global. Garrosh's reign felt cut short to reach that level, specially on how long the Horde as a whole followed him in contrast to Sylvanas.

[Coconut]

To each their own, I suppose. I've never considered WoW lore super serious or super cohesive in and of itself, which actually makes speculation more fun for me - though YMMV, of course. I don't take retcons or being "proven wrong" super seriously, either; if I happen to be wrong about a particular chain of speculation then so be it. The fun is in imagining the possibilities and seeing how the story actually evolves. If you take it seriously, though, well I can certainly see how it might be upsetting or annoying.

I expect some retcons too, particularly in relation to old lore, but not within e recent arc, particularly one set up as a mystery, where trying to guess what's happening behind the curtains and what the future holds is supposed to be part of the fun.

The problem with not caring about consistency is that the unavoidable conclusion is that pressure groups can just attach themselves to whatever outcomes they wish for and demand that Blizzard retcon stuff to make them happen. Basically the High Elf group times a hundred.

Well, we disagree on that score pretty foundationally, if I recall. I don't really see Vol'jin's promotion of Sylvanas as any kind of retcon in light of what we've discovered in Shadowlands, though; as I assume that it wasn't just a single voice Vol'jin was hearing but more or less Mueh'zala (and possibly the Jailer) acting as a multitude of voices. Vol'jin was also pretty out of it by that point as well, both due to being influenced by Mueh'zala and dying of Fel poisoning - so that his thinking and understanding might be muddled isn't hard to see either. As with most things, it really boils down to whether you're actively looking for flaws or giving the narrative the benefit of the doubt. In this instance, for me, suspension of disbelief isn't really that heavy.

We disagree indeed. I think muddling Vol'jin's mind is a cheap plot device. Not only because it cheapens the character (he is supposed to be a Shadow Hunter, speaking with spirits and loa is what he does, his class flavor, if you will), but because it raises the question why nobody doubted his ramblings - including himself. Particularly since they happened during a Legion invasion, when Dreadlords trying to manipulate things was a very real concern. It's a rolling ball of stupidity knocking down characters who are supposed to be wise. It's funny what you said about drama requiring people to be dumb... Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, said you never want your heroes or your villains to be dumb, because then you don't have any stakes anymore. I tend to agree with him.

And even if we accept that, the change from "they whisper" to "a whisper" still stands out. It goes back to the Vol'jin's quest chain BFA and is confirmed by Mueh'zala in the Shadowlands voice files as "one little whisper". You go back to your classic habit of constructing an explanation for it, which I already told you doesn't sit well with me. There is no functional need to make this change either, other than to streamline the reveal. It still raises the question "Who did Vol'jin think was whispering to him?", and it makes one wonder why he went in search of a single entity from the start. Perhaps the BFA chain would have played out better if he thought he knew the answer, but when he visited those spirits, they told him it wasn't them. As it is, it leaves other questions open - who removed his memories and why? Because Mueh'zala's plan was to torture him, and he didn't get him anyway. Come to think of it, Mueh'zala being Bwonsamdi's boss also doesn't jive with parts of the BFA quest chain.

I think the fact that your expectations got dashed effected you a lot more than you admit, just based on your words and tone here. You had a similar reaction to Sylvanas' perceived heel-face turn (which, in my view, was pretty heavily foreshadowed all along) that I did to Thrall's out of the blue and out of character to promote Garrosh to Warchief against the advice of both Garrosh himself and *all* his other advisors and friends. While I didn't really have any expectations of what Thrall should other wise do, per se; I still found the narrative body swerve to be exquisitely stupid and designed solely to inject "artificial" drama into the narrative by dint of amping up the smoldering faction conflict. But that's kind of the name of the game when it comes to dramatic storytelling, and if people made logical or rational decisions all the time then you wouldn't have dramatic stories or narrative arcs. There is a degree to which all drama kind of requires dumb decisions to be made - absent people acting without thinking, or on incomplete information, you wouldn't really have any fuel for the engine of drama.

Well, it's been a pretty hotly debated topic since at least Legion, people got invested.

And it is a frustrating time to be Horde on these forums, with all the gloating and people getting morally outraged if we even tried to enjoy our story. It's ironic how lore-wise the Horde committed its darkest deeds in BFA, but as a Horde fan I feel like we were abused and we are still being bullied. Somehow this is supposed to be ok because some Horde NPCs burned Teldrassil and killed some other NPCs. Meanwhile, we are not supposed to be upset about losing Sylvanas, Nathanos and the Forsaken identity, but rather happily kill the former and cheer for the latter. It's just daft when it comes to fandom engagement.

And the worst part is the gloating is unearned. It's like Legion asked us "How much is 1+1?", I say "2", the class dunce says "3", and then BFA came and said "Sorry, the question was actually 1+2, the second person got it right".

Eh, they're not going to do that if we criticize them, either - not to put too fine a point on it, but our criticism or lack thereof doesn't really matter. Writing by committee is terrible to begin with, so I actually prefer they not listen to me and write the story they want to tell. We'll judge it either way. I highly doubt any of the above are perusing our various and contradictory lines of speculation - especially since by the time we start speculating on new info the next arc of the story is already being brainstormed.

Then we can only judge them at the end of Shadowlands, or whenever the missing puzzle pieces fall into place (not that people speculate too much about those). But how much can we allow ourselves to be dragged along through a non-committal story with no answers?

Vol'jin didn't really *redefine* the Horde in his tenure as Warchief, as his take on the "Horde as family" was basically how he saw Thrall's Horde before Garrosh became Warchief - his goal was to return the Horde to what it was during Thrall's regime, pretty much. I would also argue that Garrosh's Horde actually hearkens back to Blackhand and Orgrim, back to the Old Horde of WC2, far from the Horde of Thrall in WC3. Saurfang, as a mouthpiece of the writers himself back in 8.2.5, basically says the same. In that vein, I would say my take on this is closer to the one meant by the writers.

That all comes from hindsight though - which is the same as saying retcon. I certainly wasn't expecting the Horde to deviate from that line so hard and so fast without a more quantifiable reason.

It was a dumb claim to make, I agree - although I think it more likely Danuser simply misspoke than any intentional attempt to deceive. Danuser already has an established penchant for putting his feet in his mouth, and this is probably more of the same. I think the community's need for a hate-totem like Danuser or Golden is misplaced, though; and it hearkens back to the same raw deal that Ghostcrawler got when he was the de facto "face" of WoW's developers.

I won't claim to know who is responsible for this story, and even if I knew, like I said, I believe they can do better... But this was one of the most poorly handles arcs in World of Warcraft history, especially relative to how much weight was put on the story. I mean, TBC failed to explain a lot of things, but the lore was minimal back then. Cata was pretty crap, but it was sort of a transition between the narrative-light TBC and Wrath and the more complex MoP, and they did a lot of work on old zone quest revamps. WoD felt like it skipped a bit, but that's because it did. BFA had narrative threads set up from Legion, it had lots of voice acting, popular characters, high stakes, a highly dramatic conflict, access to high quality cinematics, promises of a GoT-like moral greyness, and a writing team basically given free rein.

I can't even fathom what went wrong. I mean, the pacing alone... As Horde players, we've been out of the war since 8.2.5, and Nathanos still gives most of our world quests. Doing Heroic Darkshore doesn't make any sense, while Alliance can imagine they're clearing out Forsaken rebels.

It's also a good way to close the book on the stories of WC1 through WC3, truly redefining the Horde as a completely new organization with an entirely new leadership structure. Hearkening back to Saurfang's assertion that the Horde is an unbroken tradition inheriting the evils of the Old Horde, you can now no longer make that claim. The New Horde is truly new, a more democratic leadership without a central point of authority, which as you yourself admit above was always one of the Horde's main problems. Put a bad leader on the proverbial throne as the sole point of authority and you've got the makings of war without end.

I'm not sure it will stick, it's too complex and too bland at the same time. Like you said above, the game needs conflict to drive its story forward, and this council ain't gonna provide it. And WoW always bets on brand recognition. The concept of Warchief is iconic, cool and nostalgic. It gets people to fist pump, unless you turn it into a joke. Will this New Horde be as appealing without one? The "bad leader on the throne", like I said, is a false problem, because it can just as easily apply to a King.

I really doubt that will happen, especially if the Horde continues to accrue new allies in the form of Allied Races (something I actually do expect to continue to happen).

I doubt we'll get that many more allied races. It can get old. I'm hoping for another set by the end of BFA, but beyond that I wouldn't bet on it.