When Will The Alt Mag'har Realize That Lightforged And Lightbound Are Not The Same?

[Verdugo]

The conflict between Anduin and Tyrande may well be the seed of an Alliance-centered civil war of sorts - we'll have to see, though.

You wont see shit. Tyrande will either be convinced that seeking punishment on faction that almost destroyed her people is evil or she will become a raid boss.

Blizzard is already pushing her replacement, Shandris, with how she loves human dicks and fawns over Anduin. Perfect Night Elf leader for Golden-written Alliance.

[Aucald]

You wont see shit. Tyrande will either be convinced that seeking punishment on faction that almost destroyed her people is evil or she will become a raid boss.

Blizzard is already pushing her replacement, Shandris, with how she loves human dicks and fawns over Anduin. Perfect Night Elf leader for Golden-written Alliance.

Sounds defeatist to me - I mean you *could* be right (barring the florid invective), but you could also be completely wrong. You also seem to have a bit of a fixation on Golden - you know she doesn't unilaterally dictate the story or anything? She's a senior writer, sure; but there are plenty of others and she is also constrained by the primary developers and producers.

[Beet]

I mean frankly, the should be the same.

The Lightforged at this point are such low effort palette swaps people basically forget they exist because they have essentially the same outlook as normal draenei and are lead by a human.

Hell gameplaywise they're arguably a downgrade.

Haha that’s so true. This was like the most pointless of the allied races next to the High Mountain. I mean shit we had other Tauren sub races that actually looked different but instead they went with moose antler ones. It’s a shame.

[Tripzzz]

For Forsaken it's generally been better handled - since leadership aside, they're more physically decrepit and their general mindset has been affected by death in a set of fairly consistent ways. That being a general reduction in positive and increase in negative emotions, callousness etc. It's also been depicted the most times in the most variable of fashions. Be it that dude who doesn't remember why he keeps his wedding ring, the wife of a fallen Knight who's love for him has turned to apathy in undeath, the general moral bankruptcy of the Forsaken or the Cata mindset shift. Seeing the positives of undeath, like functional immortality and their specific take on Lordaerong patriotism then as compared to the version now shows you that having a positive self-image of your existence as a zombie isn't exactly healthy for those around you and that the positives of undeath one might find don't really gel with others. I'd still liked them to have done more with it, especially given the implications of things like the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow in the RPG where they go all out on the transhumanism but, for what it's worth, it's better handled than the others. It helps that undead are aberrant, since they don't go into the Shadowlands.

Reactions to the Forsaken were also rational for a fair amount of time - the Alliance policy was to destroy them as an empathetic measure, and the Warchiefs acted to target and control them when they had the chance. Compare and contrast how nobody on any faction gives one bit of a fuck that void elves are locked to cosmic entropy that tells them to kill their families and loved ones 24/7. Or Varian endorsing warlocks. These things are meant to be treated iffily and to be bleak and for the Alliance, the more typically righteous faction defending the status quo of their kingdoms, to be opposed to them. The Forsaken suffered when there was no follow-up to their Cataclysm expansionism and when the Alliance had few chances to get proper pushback. Lightforged have been handicapped from Day 1 by letting a demon kill their leader and being able to oppose the Light and void elves create plot chasms in the illogic of their existence and everyone's reaction to them.

All that is still very weak. Undead are stated to desire exterminating life and eating the flesh of the living to ward off pain yet that is rarely touched upon to my knowledge. The undead wish to exterminate all life, but not the Forsaken. The Forsaken are heavily watered down so they can be playable "heroes" in a faction mostly composed of the living. The Tauren and other races who should hate them like BEs and Zandalari basically have no problems with them either.

"The undead are former mortals who have died and become trapped between life and death. These tragic beings derive power from the necromantic energies that pervade the universe. Most undead are driven by vengeance and hatred to destroy the one thing that they can never have again: life." - Chronicle Vol. 1


Now this desire to consume living flesh could have been an explanation for why some greater undead appear more life-like after gaining more necromantic energy, kinda like vampires, draining life to add it to their own. Except this is shown nowhere and contradicts what we know. The standard zombies and ghouls also consume flesh and blood but still appear rotten and decrepit, while we never see Dark rangers or Death knights(greater undead) consuming flesh and drinking blood. Eating the flesh of the living is a huge part of zombie troupes and the forsaken fall flat on that aspect. The San'layn in BFA did a rather good job at showing this.

This problem still continues in Shadowlands where the ruler of the shadowlands(and thus the strongest wielder of necromantic magic) looks like a blue human with pointy ears and tattoos. Nothing about the Jailers design screams "Master of Death". Kel'thuzad fits that role better visually.

I agree the pushback for the Void elves has been way too minor. Only the blood elves really care and some priests in SW cathedral. That one void elf in island expeditions also shows the possible insanity that is associated with void magic but it's still not enough. But it does remind me of the Argent dawn who were for the most part OK with zombies roaming the land. Nathanos' nephew seems to be an outlier since he was off on his own killing undead and was subsequently killed because he had no back up from the other argents and as a result was used as fuel in a dark ritual.

[cparle87]

Why are we talking about Main Universe orcs in a thread about the Mag'har response to the Lightforged versus the Lightbound?

Because the draenei's crimes against the MU orcs predate anything any orcs have done back to any draenei.

[Tripzzz]

Technically, being a Death Knight does have some corrupting aspects. It creates a literal need to cause suffering to innocents. Then again that hasn't been even mentioned in more than a decade, so at this point Death Knights are essentially "the living, but with glowing blue eyes".




Agreed. I was really surprised in Cata to see Val'kyr out of all things becoming Forsaken's biggest new addition of undead that broke free after Arthas' death. The Forsaken developing stronger ties with (now rather aimless) Ebon Blade (or even other Death Knights) seemed much more plausible. Obviously San'layn also were also a logical choice given their connection to Sylvanas extending back to when they were alive.

True. This also bothers me in terms of Jailers design. He looks like a blue human. Nothing about his design gives off the feeling of "God of Death". You know blizzard is going to make the strongest Void lord look like this.



And yeah, the Forsaken should have recruited Liches, DKs, San'layn, Frostwyrms and Nerubians. Should also see more raising of undead beasts like plaguehounds. That would make the Forsaken less one note and not so dependent on blight.

[cparle87]

If Grommash holds the orcs culpable for their choices, I'm going to side with the one who lived the experience and can attest to his motivations, personally.

And I'm not on anything. I'm linking canon text provided by an ancient on Draenor that claims the Legion burned the forests centuries before the events of TBC, long before the corruption of the orcs. I've found no evidence that the text was stated to be a mistake. Just because you dislike the fact that the Legion knew of Draenor's existence doesn't suddenly invalidate it. Considering the release of TBC is when they did the whole Draenei retcon, reevaluating when the Legion found Draenor (Kil'jaeden had found it thirty years before Talgrath discovered it before TBC, and he had dismissed the Draenei as uncorruptible).

Your claim was that the Legion knew of Draenor because the Draenei landed there. Even if the quest is completely wrong and even if the Draenei hadn't landed there, then the Burning Legion would've still had the location a few decades after Talgath told Kil'jaeden. The Draenei only changed Kil'jaeden's interest in the planet; it wouldn't have changed the Burning Legion going to the world in the long run.

As far as the actual topic of the thread, I still maintain that the naaru are terrifying creatures that feed off the souls of the dead and regularly fall to void, sowing disaster anywhere they go; I wouldn't blame the Mag'har (or anyone) for being incredibly suspicious of beings willingly giving themselves over to their influence.

You talk about retcons in the same argument where you're trying to argue a retconned quest text as your evidence. Newer information has shown that, yes, that quest is totally wrong. The only reason Draenor drew the Legion's attention is because Talgath found the draenei there.

As for the naaru, yes, they're totally terrifying. I'm totally on board with Illidan nuking Xe'ra.

- - - Updated - - -

WoD proved that orcs never needed mind-control, just an excuse.

You mean being told by credible sources that a technologically advanced race that had already literally nuked a race the orcs struggled with and build their capitol on their ruins was gearing up to do the same to them?

[Super Dickmann]

All that is still very weak. Undead are stated to desire exterminating life and eating the flesh of the living to ward off pain yet that is rarely touched upon to my knowledge. The undead wish to exterminate all life, but not the Forsaken. The Forsaken are heavily watered down so they can be playable "heroes" in a faction mostly composed of the living. The Tauren and other races who should hate them like BEs and Zandalari basically have no problems with them either.

"The undead are former mortals who have died and become trapped between life and death. These tragic beings derive power from the necromantic energies that pervade the universe. Most undead are driven by vengeance and hatred to destroy the one thing that they can never have again: life." - Chronicle Vol. 1

I see what you're getting at. It ties in with how inconsistently the Forsaken's zombie elements and needs are portrayed. It's there more than it is their elements are for void elves and Lightforged, but you still have a lot of interesting parts tossed in and then not touched upon all too much. Like how without maintenance they'll revert to form as zombies in the mindless state, how their memories get all screwed up like the dude with teh ring or the one who forgot how to speak languages, etc. And how it's unclear if Cannibalize is a physical need or just an extra.

Some things come through - namely how the lesser undead tend to be a lot more gung-ho than the higher ones and how their senses change depending on how forward you go, like how Nathanos starts out entirely detached from life, but being reduced to a more human-like state both has him feel guilty and restores things like touch and smell that he'd grown used to and didn't care about and how he recalls the ghoul experience. Ditto how the more damaged ones dislike the living by default. I don't mind it being toned down to a point, both because of gameplay needs and because it opens more storytelling opportunities but because how human they still are, if at all, given all the handicaps attached is a big deal. A small version of that is how the Wrath/Cata architecture, high camp Tim Burton stuff that it is, is one of the designs where the impracticality fits the race. Of course the 'inn' has no beds, they don't need to sleep.

Now this desire to consume living flesh could have been an explanation for why some greater undead appear more life-like after gaining more necromantic energy, kinda like vampires, draining life to add it to their own. Except this is shown nowhere and contradicts what we know. The standard zombies and ghouls also consume flesh and blood but still appear rotten and decrepit, while we never see Dark rangers or Death knights(greater undead) consuming flesh and drinking blood. Eating the flesh of the living is a huge part of zombie troupes and the forsaken fall flat on that aspect. The San'layn in BFA did a rather good job at showing this.

One element is fairly consistently portrayed, namely that the higher undead have fewer drawbacks than the lower ones. Death Knights have the suffering addiction that's only mentioned in dev statements and never comes up and while San'layn have that nosferatu vampire vibe that really should have been a more lasting addition to the Forsaken than an Alliance-only questline, it's unclear if they have to do it or if they do it because they're dicks. Dark Rangers are portrayed as statue-like bitter sadsacks that don't need to eat people, they're just empty, which is an angle at least, but really falls apart with some of the recent ones.

This problem still continues in Shadowlands where the ruler of the shadowlands(and thus the strongest wielder of necromantic magic) looks like a blue human with pointy ears and tattoos. Nothing about the Jailers design screams "Master of Death". Kel'thuzad fits that role better visually.

I agree the pushback for the Void elves has been way too minor. Only the blood elves really care and some priests in SW cathedral. That one void elf in island expeditions also shows the possible insanity that is associated with void magic but it's still not enough. But it does remind me of the Argent dawn who were for the most part OK with zombies roaming the land. Nathanos' nephew seems to be an outlier since he was off on his own killing undead and was subsequently killed because he had no back up from the other argents and as a result was used as fuel in a dark ritual.

The Jailor's design being just a buff dude with a small head is bad. That he gives entirely generic lines gets even more galling. I maintain that the dude shouldn't speak. He's impossibly old and has been doing that for ages - he should neither know nor care about the people he's up against, since to him, whether happy or sad, good or bad, when they die they'll go to the Maw and their only worthwhile aspect - their energy, will be his to use anyway. His trailer appearance at least had more interesting proportions, but being just a glowy, angry dude completely ditches that. The Maldraxxus people have a bit more of that going, like the queen that's made out of sludge or that morbidly obese abomination looking motherfucker, but the Big Bad of the expansion being such a nonentity from what we've seen of him thus far doesn't bode well.

And yeah, those void elves in the Island Expeditions are the only ones who ever show that they have any kind of struggle or effect from being tied to cosmic entropy, despair, etc. The Argent Crusade being okay with the Forsaken you can kind of sort of buy if you really squint for political reasons. The Brotherhood of Light, who're the Scarlets without the being controlled by demons and inexplicably retconned dislike of dwarves and elves not taking up a holy war, with Crusaders defecting to join up is much worse, especially since it'd make for a cool story for both factions. While I like a lot of the Cataclysm Forsaken fare, you barely fight any paladins out there purging the filth, which was a huge part of the appeal of fighting the Scarlets. I guess you can say some of that happened off-screen with Nathanos' nephew and the like, but it's vague and only referenced three expansions later. And with Calia's addition it looks like that aspect would be swept under the rug entirely.

[Feanoro]

Because the draenei's crimes against the MU orcs predate anything any orcs have done back to any draenei.

Is this an actual serious post? Imagine using the Draenei victim blaming meme unironically.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Because the draenei's crimes against the MU orcs predate anything any orcs have done back to any draenei.

What crimes exactly are these?

[Hablion]

Wasnt it KJ (a Drenai) that tricked the orcs into being hostile with the drenai on Draenor. People say you cannot judge all of a race based on the acts of the few but blame everything the orcs have ever done as monsters. Also on AU Draenor wasnt what Yrel doing more like Join or die? I guess the Borg in Star Trek were good people too.

[Super Dickmann]

The draenei could've left a post-it note on the Genedar. "Sup, an endless army of spacefaring demons are coming after us. Don't listen to red people pretending to be your family " If you're wanted by an impossibly more powerful enemy who has so far destroyed every inhabited place you've been to and is on a blood feud to destroy you and everyone who's ever seen you it'd be nice to tell the guy you're bunking with. Preferably before the ballistic missiles starts flying or a man in a trenchcoat passes your flatmate a tenner and a line of coke if he kills you. Your flatmate might even disbelieve that you are preparing to kill him as well if you had any kind of relationship whatsoever past occupying roughly the same space.

[Maxilian]

the Scourge was a really intense form of necromancy. Necromancy was banned by the Kirin Tor long before the Scourge was a thing. Unless I'm mistaken, Kel'thuzad was the reason it was banned. What the void elves are doing is a form of testing the waters. They're seeing what magic is and isn't bad in the eyes of the Alliance then will escalate from there.

I do understand that Necromancy was banned by the Kirin Tor a long time ago, but i don't think that would make the whole thing "Evil magic" is just questionable, it depends a lot on how its used.

[Feanoro]

The draenei could've left a post-it note on the Genedar. "Sup, an endless army of spacefaring demons are coming after us. Don't listen to red people pretending to be your family " If you're wanted by an impossibly more powerful enemy who has so far destroyed every inhabited place you've been to and is on a blood feud to destroy you and everyone who's ever seen you it'd be nice to tell the guy you're bunking with. Preferably before the ballistic missiles starts flying or a man in a trenchcoat passes your flatmate a tenner and a line of coke if he kills you. Your flatmate might even disbelieve that you are preparing to kill him as well if you had any kind of relationship whatsoever past occupying roughly the same space.

The Draenei approached the orcs and tried to tell them the Genedar was their crashed ship. The orcs immediately invited them to high tea to discuss the matter, and made sure to show proper hospitality to the refugees with housewarming gifts like fruit baskets.

Oh wait, no. The orcs reacted like they always do, go apeshit murder happy. The Draenei, unable to flee Draenor (the victim blaming meme always conveniently forgets this), decided to simply settle quietly and leave the orcs alone. If the orcs refused to believe them about the crashed ship, why on earth would those simpletons believe (if they could even understand) about a terrible space army?

[cparle87]

Is this an actual serious post? Imagine using the Draenei victim blaming meme unironically.

You're being pursued by an intergalactic army who annihilate entire worlds for sport. Settling on a world you know has intelligent life is the epitome of stupidity. What do they call it in real life? Reckless endangerment homicide?

- - - Updated - - -

What crimes exactly are these?

See above. Every bad thing that has happened to orcs happened because the most wanted race in the world chose to settle there.

Dickman above put it well.

[Thage]

Because the draenei's crimes against the MU orcs predate anything any orcs have done back to any draenei.

Okay, except that main-universe happenings have nothing to do with the AU. Kairoz specifically picked a timeline where the divergence point was long before the draenei arrived to Draenor, as evidenced by the lore discrepancies between the AU Clans and the clans as presented in Rise of the Horde, which specifically covers the MU orcs from the same time period.

Also, it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to blame the draenei for the Burning Legion corrupting the orcs, especially when the orcs happily partook of their own free will. Is an abuse victim to blame, then, for his abusive ex stalking him and manipulating his new roommate into attempting murder? That is the literal logic you're applying to the draenei and their 'crimes' against the orcs.

The Burning Legion, until 6.3, had no real strong foothold on Draenor because the AU orcs turned down Gul'dan's offer, and yet they merrily engaged in genocide. And yes, what the Iron Horde did was textbook genocide, a deliberate, concerted attempt to wipe an entire species and culture off the map. Without the Burning Legion manipulating them into it, the Mag'har have nobody to blame but themselves. Doubly so when they go right back to it the second they arrive on Azeroth, despite just hours before calling foul on the draenei giving them a taste of their own medicine. That level of myopia strips them of any moral high ground--you don't get to nearly genocide a people and then cry foul when they turn out to be better than you at it after you made no efforts to atone and make things right. The Mag'har happily swan-dived headfirst into the same grave they dug for themselves twice before they realized maybe they're the problem in the cycle of 'do shitty thing, victims come back and rip our spines out through our sphincters' they kept perpetuating.

- - - Updated - - -

You're being pursued by an intergalactic army who annihilate entire worlds for sport. Settling on a world you know has intelligent life is the epitome of stupidity. What do they call it in real life? Reckless endangerment homicide?

In real life, you are not responsible if an abusive stalker hunts you down and bribes your roommate into attempting homicide. The stalker is held responsible for conspiracy and stalking, and the roommate is held responsible for accepting payment to attempt homicide.

[Super Dickmann]

The Draenei approached the orcs and tried to tell them the Genedar was their crashed ship. The orcs immediately invited them to high tea to discuss the matter, and made sure to show proper hospitality to the refugees with housewarming gifts like fruit baskets.

Oh wait, no. The orcs reacted like they always do, go apeshit murder happy. The Draenei, unable to flee Draenor (the victim blaming meme always conveniently forgets this), decided to simply settle quietly and leave the orcs alone. If the orcs refused to believe them about the crashed ship, why on earth would those simpletons believe (if they could even understand) about a terrible space army?

The Draenei were leagues more advanced than anyone else except arguably the arakkoa and their solar laser. The pre-Horde, pre-Legion orcs posed no threat to them. Even afterwards, they had to use both the red mists and the Dark Star to beat them. They bodied the previous prime power - the Gorians, with ease, in their only encounter. They traded in minor ways with the orcs, but there's no indication they ever fought and if they did, the draenei would win. The draenei not only didn't tell the orcs about the Genedar, they were aware that a void naaru was in there and drawing the spirits in, but still didn't do anything. It's not like they couldn't contact them, it's mentioned that some orcs even saw the draenei as divine, per Chronicle Vol 2, they chose not to because they figured it might cause more harm than good. It was a reasonable take if they didn't intend to cohabit, and if Velen intended to use the land and bail, but they they set up permanent habitations and didn't keep themselves battle ready despite having a track record that should see them safe. This despite knowing every other time they settled on a world the Legion found and destroyed it and its inhabitants. Future sight or not, that takes Velen's pattern recognition. The draenei's inaction didn't just screw the orcs, they were ultimately responsible for going to war, even with the poor information and false pretext, it screwed over the draenei.

As for how the orcs would react to knowing there was a powerful enemy on another world and they should gear up to fight it based on nice-sounding hear say, Warlords shows they'd be more than up for it and when that world's draenei did end up going on a holy crusade, it's implied heavily that a bunch of orcs joined willingly.

@Thage

If every other place up to this point has been destroyed and you go to another guy's home, name it after yourself and try to set up for long form existence that has had a 100% failure rate up to this point while making no attempt to prepare yourself, you might not be a criminal, but you are criminally retarded.

[Aresk]

You talk about retcons in the same argument where you're trying to argue a retconned quest text as your evidence. Newer information has shown that, yes, that quest is totally wrong. The only reason Draenor drew the Legion's attention is because Talgath found the draenei there.

When was this retconned, and by what? I tried to find anything in Chronicle Vol 2 that would clarify this, and it confirms that the Legion hadn't touched Draenor before the Draenei crashed, which would put the burning of the forest 200-174 years before the dark portal opened (based on the "centuries" being plural and BC happening 26 years after the Dark Portal opened). That puts this around the time of the Dark Star, which obviously has no reference about any of this. I'd love to write-it off as some crazy Ancient driven mad with rage not knowing the passage of time anymore, but as far as I know, there's still a window where the Legion could've burned down a forest without contradicting any other lore. It just seems really weird that it wasn't mentioned anywhere else, but that isn't sufficient to say that it didn't happen unless more evidence can be found to contradict it, IMO.

[Thage]

@Thage

If every other place up to this point has been destroyed and you go to another guy's home, name it after yourself and try to set up a home while making no attempt to prepare yourself, you might not be a criminal, but you are criminally retarded.

I'm a little rusty on more recent laws passed, but so far as I'm aware being terminally stupid doesn't justify attempted homicide. It makes you an awful judge of character and prone to exceptionally poor decisions, but that defense wouldn't hold up and it would just make the perpetrators look even worse. "Hey, look, i know this dude paid me to ice my roomie because they have beef from way back, but in my defense roomie is a serious fucking idiot who deserved it because he got me caught up in all this," is the fastest possible defense I can think of to guarantee maximum sentencing.

[Combatbutler]

The Draenei approached the orcs and tried to tell them the Genedar was their crashed ship. The orcs immediately invited them to high tea to discuss the matter, and made sure to show proper hospitality to the refugees with housewarming gifts like fruit baskets.

Oh wait, no. The orcs reacted like they always do, go apeshit murder happy. The Draenei, unable to flee Draenor (the victim blaming meme always conveniently forgets this), decided to simply settle quietly and leave the orcs alone. If the orcs refused to believe them about the crashed ship, why on earth would those simpletons believe (if they could even understand) about a terrible space army?

The draenei carry a good chunk of blame here, because they did nothing of note on Draenor, the reason the Genedar became such a holy site, is because the they did not talk with any native race about it, like the relatively advanced arrakkoa for example and left it for centuries unattended, over time the orcs slowly saw it as a holy, due to their ancestors being drawn to the naaru inside it.

In essence inaction is also an action, the Draenei are downright pathetic ,if you look at it with the smallest of critical thought , they were stuck on that rock and did not prepare for the inevitable legion invasion in any meaningful manner, instead they build their sprawling cities, filled to the brim with non combatants and had such a shitty military primitives with sticks and stones were able to beat the ever living crap out of them.

If you know a space army, with the goal of eradicating all life in the universe is hot on your heels and you decide to lounge around instead of preparing for its arrival you deserve to have the ever living shit beaten out of you, due to sheer stupidity.