Poll: Do most Alliance and Horde players like Saurfang?

Be advised that this is a public poll: other users can see the choice(s) you selected.

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  1. #61
    How can it be that the majority of Alliance players like Saurfang?

    Alliance fanboys, you realize he orchestrated the War of Thorns (carnage) right?
    Expansion Storylines ranking:

    Legion > Cataclysm > MoP > BfA up to 8.2.5 > Wrath > TBC > WoD > Dragonflight > BfA 8.3 > Shadowlands

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by Mehrunes View Post
    Damn, never thought I'd see the day where Super Dickmann is outed as an Alliance partisan /s
    I've been accused of a lot of things over the years on the forums but this was a new one. Now that I've been found out though, praise Anduin, Garithos did nothing wrong.

    Quote Originally Posted by Powerogue View Post
    I'll actually strongly defend those scenes. For one, the alliance needed a significant role in the story as well. Even with all of this we still had the memes of "The war between the horde and the horde is ramping up...and the alliance is there too." It gave Anduin a hopeful, impactful yet questionable decision that did in fact have long lasting consequences. He took a risky gamble that ultimately paved the way to ending the war, but the night elves are not so eager to hold hands and sing kumbaya, as we've seen the consequences both shape the night elves more towards savagery and independence (welcome IMO even if they were punching bags for a bit to get there).

    I wanted more alliance conflict to help balance out the Horde conflict, and we've gotten it. My favorite part to date being in Shadows Rising. Most of my investment in SL's story going forward is due to these actions of Sylvanas, Anduin, and Tyrande in BFA and where they're headed. We wouldn't be here without Anduin freeing Saurfang.
    For all my issues with the cinematic, chiefly Saurfang's abhorrent characterization and its consequences, you've hit on the sole one I don't mind. Anduin freeing Saurfang is in keeping with his character and his naive optimism and positivity. That's fine. What's not fine is that the narrative treats this as a completely positive thing that he's not contested on at any point. As we've gone over several times no one in the Alliance, not even the night elves, who are the direct victims of Saurfang's actions, contest either the freeing of Saurfang or the war goal of 'healing' the Horde. There is no intra-Alliance conflict. Even the one in Shadows Rising, which brushes against this more than the game ever did ultimately has the night elves only go after Sylvanas, disregarding the things we objectively know - that Saurfang devised the plan and helmed it, that primarily Kalimdor Horde troops enacted it and then were also involved in the Darkshore occupation and that orcish and troll shamans helped further burn the tree. Saurfang's culpability in this is obvious, yet no one has an issue in-story with Anduin eulogizing a guy who's in large part responsible for this.

    This is all disregarding the fact that the entire issue is a false premise. Involving the Alliance in this is as simple as having them act as anything but a hivemind of perfect goodies and actually pursuing their post-Stormheim war goals of reclaiming Lordaeron and thus striking first, or the natural reaction of anyone post-Teldrassil, that being total war.
    Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.

    Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by Aresk View Post
    You're talking about patch 8.1.5 content, ignoring that in 8.1.0, Sylvanas attempts to assassinate Saurfang, and Saurfang and Zekhan kill Lyana. While Baine did kill dark rangers and officers on the ship (he let the sailors go, which seems very...counter-intuitive for a secret mission), he wasn't the first one to kill members of the Horde. Sides were drawn before Baine's mission, with Sylvanas (sometimes through Nathanos) happy to let her champion murder Horde loyalists to maintain a ruse (even when maintaining that ruse allows Baine, Saurfang, Jaina, Thrall, and Shaw to escape the Underhold).
    For the life of me I can't understand why people use this as a gotcha, on two fronts. For one, Sylvanas flat out tells you on the hand in for the loyalist quest that she sent Lyana to arrest Saurfang for treason that we not only see proof of during the quests themselves, but we know on an out of story level is entirely correct. Saurfang is indeed a traitor, he was indeed freed by the Alliance king for the purposes of toppling the Horde leadership and he confessed to purposefully sparing Anduin because he hoped that this would result in Sylvanas's defeat, even when this was contingent on the Horde soldiers losing and dying. Ergo, the accusation is correct. Further, Sylvanas isn't even lying - if you do the intended story, Lyana does indeed show up with Deathguard and loudly announce the intent to arrest Saurfang, rather than killing him without informing him as trained assassins would. It's he who strikes first, refusing to be taken in.

    But even that is beside the point, because if they were going to just kill him and were simply extremely stupid about it, killing a traitorous element who means to topple the leadership on behalf of a foreign power is about as morally complex as a game of Pong. There is no reading of the situation where their activity would be wrong or unreasonable. Certainly Saurfang's killcount eclipses that of the people arresting him by several orders of magnitude, cleaved draenei and human children, natch.
    Last edited by Super Dickmann; 2021-04-15 at 08:10 PM.
    Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.

    Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.

  4. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by Powerogue View Post
    I still applaud them for the incredibly ballsy story. They went out of their way to get the playerbase invested in it with overwhelming success. But just because people are invested doesn't mean they'll like how it plays out.
    They were so invested in Saurfang's story that Blizzard had to make a play-pretend option of siding with Sylvanas at the last second.


    Quote Originally Posted by Powerogue View Post
    I'll actually strongly defend those scenes.
    This is my surprised face.


    Quote Originally Posted by Gorsameth View Post
    Yes but Saurfang already went through that struggle with Garrosh.
    Its the Wotlk Borean Tundra

    And in SoO as Horde you find Saurfang in the passage to the insects having gone to put those words into action.

    There is no question if Saurfang would rise up against a Warchief that aims to take the Horde back to the old days of genocide. He already gave us the answer and put those words into action before.
    You left out the part where he sat on his ass in Borean Tundra for whooping three years of Garrosh doing the very thing Saurfang was totally not going to let him do and then only arrived at the last second. At which point not only did he not deliver on his words, he didn't even achieve anything of note against Garrosh's forces before getting out of commission.
    Last edited by Mehrunes; 2021-04-15 at 08:42 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kangodo View Post
    Does the CIA pay you for your bullshit or are you just bootlicking in your free time?
    Quote Originally Posted by Mirishka View Post
    I'm quite tired of people who dislike something/disagree with something while attacking/insulting anyone that disagrees. Its as if at some point, people forgot how opinions work.

  5. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by Mehrunes View Post
    They were so invested in Saurfang's story that Blizzard had to make a play-pretend option of siding with Sylvanas at the last second.
    I still think that all the night war is what they had to pay the alliance for Saurofog's bad writing and how false his "redemption".

  6. #66
    Kinda ambivalent towards him. I liked him because he did not stand there and told people that all he did was just and right but he lived and owned up to what he did for the horde. In that regard he is a very good character.
    Still feels that he was pushed very suddenly very hard by blizz just to kill him off.

  7. #67
    BFA faction war story was a mess, the reason is that it was never a faction war story but rather blizz setting up sylv as a villian masked as a faction war. They did the same with garrosh dragging the horde through the mud to set up the next xpacs villian.

    In the end every horde victory gets undermined and everything becomes pointless.

    If they wanted a real faction war story they would have done battle for lordaeron before teldrassil. That was already set up and waiting to happen, sylv using lordaeron as justification for teldrassil would have kept the story more ambiguous. Was sylv justified in this case? morally no but strategically yes. In this situation she comes of as cold and calculating, pre-empting an alliance invasion and subverting it while pivoting towards kalimdor. What we got instead was a complete mess where she starts a war, destroys 2 capitals for zero gain while sparking a war in nobodies interest.

    The fact saurfang went along with her plans was the nail in his coffin. This wasnt the start of his story, he was a veteran of the first and second wars, he suffered through the humiliation of his protégé fucking everything up and his in character decision would have been to stop sylvanas before any of that shit happened.

    Remember we had just dealt with garrosh, saurfang already dealt with the fel horde, garroshes iron horde and when faced with an upstart ready to take the horde down THE EXACT SAME PATH we JUST got out of, he should have nipped it in the bud right then and there. His entire arc during BFA was pointless, he should have done makgora on day 1 before teldrassil and end the war before it began.

  8. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by Super Dickmann View Post
    For the life of me I can't understand why people use this as a gotcha, on two fronts. For one, Sylvanas flat out tells you on the hand in for the loyalist quest that she sent Lyana to arrest Saurfang for treason that we not only see proof of during the quests themselves, but we know on an out of story level is entirely correct. Saurfang is indeed a traitor, he was indeed freed by the Alliance king for the purposes of toppling the Horde leadership and he confessed to purposefully sparing Anduin because he hoped that this would result in Sylvanas's defeat, even when this was contingent on the Horde soldiers losing and dying. Ergo, the accusation is correct. Further, Sylvanas isn't even lying - if you do the intended story, Lyana does indeed show up with Deathguard and loudly announce the intent to arrest Saurfang, rather than killing him without informing him as trained assassins would. It's he who strikes first, refusing to be taken in.

    But even that is beside the point, because if they were going to just kill him and were simply extremely stupid about it, killing a traitorous element who means to topple the leadership on behalf of a foreign power is about as morally complex as a game of Pong. There is no reading of the situation where their activity would be wrong or unreasonable. Certainly Saurfang's killcount eclipses that of the people arresting him by several orders of magnitude, cleaved draenei and human children, natch.
    (bold emphasis mine)

    I feel like you misinterpreted the entire point of my post. Regardless of whether Lyana does or does not have orders to kill Saurfang--and taking Sylvanas at her word during BfA seems a hazardous practice at best--Saurfang and Zekhan participate in Horde-on-Horde violence before Baine did, refuting the claim that Baine is the one who initiated Horde violence from the rebellion, as proposed by @mickybrighteyes. Regardless of whether Zekhan or Lyana are the ones striking first, we know both from the questline and the ensuing death of Lyana that sides are drawn well in advance of the events on the Swift Vengeance.

    Out of curiosity, with regards to Saurfang's treason, what evidence are we witnessing on the quests themselves (assuming you're discussing the 8.1.0 quests leading up to the confrontation with Lyara)? IIRC, Sylvanas simply mentions the surrender at Lordaeron causing some to view him as a traitor, and all we know during the questline is that Saurfang escaped after Stormwind officials routed people out of his way; Lyana herself says it may or may not be a coincidence. There's no evidence that I remember seeing at the time that he was complicit with Shaw's actions or seeking to destroy Sylvanas, unless Sylvanas' powers somehow extend into the Stockades' cells, making her aware of the conversation between Anduin and Saurfang. Am I forgetting something? If not, it's akin to Jaina's blaming Aethas for being complicit in the Divine Bell's theft just because he and his agents were standing at the other end of a portal outside Darnassus, even though we know that this accusation is later shown to be correct.

    While I don't refute that Saurfang's behavior is treasonous or that Sylvanas has the authority to order his execution, be that at the hands of Forsaken assassins or otherwise, my point that Horde-on-Horde violence started during 8.1.0 stands.

  9. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by Powerogue View Post
    I'm not sure where all the hate came from, everything they built on was building on his most significant character defining moments from WotLK. Maybe it's that he was doing too little fighting, too much lamenting? It was compelling, but didn't make him much of a badass, the emphasis was on how that was how he was such a pillar of the Horde and now he's wondering if all he did was lie to himself all these years about that this Horde would be different and one worth fighting for. It was an expansion about finding hope in utter hopelessness.

    He was clearly the character Horde players were supposed to most sympathize with, being in a similar position of despair at the state of the faction after Teldrassil, but between the stunning amount of actual real life sociopaths, people who prefer to RP sociopaths, and otherwise, it didn't mesh with everybody.

    I still applaud them for the incredibly ballsy story. They went out of their way to get the playerbase invested in it with overwhelming success. But just because people are invested doesn't mean they'll like how it plays out.
    In an expansion sold on Red vs Blue, the faction war to end all faction wars, where there is no backing down all chips on the table... That was the selling point of BfA. Lines were drawn and there was no going back.

    Then we get this a*hole throwing in the towel, before we even got through prepatch, with 3 vastly different depictions of the events at Teldrassil. Him sparing Malfurion is still very questionable, but it's framed like he hesitates and right then Tyrande arrives... sure. But in regards to the burning he ends up agreeing with Sylvanas that at that point it's way too late to back down and with Malfurion still in the equation taking it is basically impossible. At battle for undercity his standing up to Sylvanas and all is believable for him, but he made the conscious choice to abandon the Horde, in the Stockades. That's where it all breaks down conceptually into a series of ill concieved contrivances seemingly designed to rub everyone involved the wrong way.

  10. #70
    Saurfang is alright. The BFA story was not alright. Shame on those writers.

  11. #71
    Over 9000! Kithelle's Avatar
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    I don't know...he is alright. Don't hate him but he isn't exactly my favorite character

  12. #72
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    Blizz ruined one of the last of the characters I loved. He should have died fighting the Legion or anything other than what they did to him in BFA.

  13. #73
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    Main Horde player, I liked the Saurfang character up through WotLK. Legion was rather ehhh but not too terrible. BfA was straight-up character assassination.

    As far as I'm concerned, I like to head-canon that Varok Saurfang was killed by some top-notch demon in one of the battles of Legion and replaced by an intentionally ineffectual demonic actor.
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  14. #74
    I'm Horde, I dislike Saurfang.

    For the record I hate Sylvanas and Baine too.
    Twas brillig

  15. #75
    Don't like him

  16. #76
    Quote Originally Posted by Aresk View Post
    I feel like you misinterpreted the entire point of my post. Regardless of whether Lyana does or does not have orders to kill Saurfang--and taking Sylvanas at her word during BfA seems a hazardous practice at best--Saurfang and Zekhan participate in Horde-on-Horde violence before Baine did, refuting the claim that Baine is the one who initiated Horde violence from the rebellion, as proposed by @mickybrighteyes. Regardless of whether Zekhan or Lyana are the ones striking first, we know both from the questline and the ensuing death of Lyana that sides are drawn well in advance of the events on the Swift Vengeance.

    Out of curiosity, with regards to Saurfang's treason, what evidence are we witnessing on the quests themselves (assuming you're discussing the 8.1.0 quests leading up to the confrontation with Lyara)? IIRC, Sylvanas simply mentions the surrender at Lordaeron causing some to view him as a traitor, and all we know during the questline is that Saurfang escaped after Stormwind officials routed people out of his way; Lyana herself says it may or may not be a coincidence. There's no evidence that I remember seeing at the time that he was complicit with Shaw's actions or seeking to destroy Sylvanas, unless Sylvanas' powers somehow extend into the Stockades' cells, making her aware of the conversation between Anduin and Saurfang. Am I forgetting something? If not, it's akin to Jaina's blaming Aethas for being complicit in the Divine Bell's theft just because he and his agents were standing at the other end of a portal outside Darnassus, even though we know that this accusation is later shown to be correct.

    While I don't refute that Saurfang's behavior is treasonous or that Sylvanas has the authority to order his execution, be that at the hands of Forsaken assassins or otherwise, my point that Horde-on-Horde violence started during 8.1.0 stands.
    It's why in my post I specifically mention that you don't have to take Sylvanas at her word - what she describes is exactly what you see happen in the rebel version. You see the Dark Rangers openly walk up to a hut where they think there are no witnesses and ask him to come out so they can arrest him instead of say, torching his hut and feeding his body to the crocs. They could of course be extremely stupid and given the calibre of assassins that Sylvanas sends after Thrall and her own high IQ decisions throughout that expansions that's perfectly possible, but her claims and what we see entirely match up. They show up, tell him to hand himself in and that they're going to Orgrimmar and then he refuses and attacks them.

    During the quest itself we see firstly that there are SI:7 agents covering his tracks, that his vanishing from prison happened under the eyes of the Dark Rangers that are apparently watching over him and that Shaw paid people off to turn a blind eye and allow him to pass on. Whether Saurfang was actively complicit with this (as we objectively know for a fact him to be from the cinematic), he is plainly freed as a foreign asset meant to cause conflict within the Horde by SI:7. Could it be without his knowledge to the characters? Sure, but he never explains himself, either to those arresting him or even to the Player Character when the player joins him. The rebel PC is unaware of Saurfang working together with the human king and being freed deliberately at that point in the story and indeed is never told even as he canonically continues to participate in the war effort because of this. Saurfang doesn't rebuff the correct accusations and those after him, as you mention, don't even say 'wow, he's guilty, better kill him' but instead go through a rigamarole of an arrest despite outnumbering and outgunning him as well as having the element of surprise.

    Mind, Saurfang and Baine don't communicate or team up until later andt here's no indication Baine knows about Saurfang's activities so when he decides he's going to club a ship's inhabitants to death so he can free Jaina's brother (and because he's too lazy to twist the bars), so you can really call either patch the starting point of intra-Horde violence breaking out.

    P.S: As a side note and not actually part of the argument above because this isn't canon, but just speculating on one of the most painfully inconsistent characters in the game who's motivation changed over the course of the expansion, personally I don't think Sylvanas would have let no-name goons be the ones to kill Saurfang. She would want him brought back to Orgrimmar, be it to put on show or to torture. She takes his betrayal very personally, from how hurt she sounds when speaking to him away from the crowd in the Mak'gora to then keeping his soul along as a trinket to even accepting the Mak'gora in the first place.
    Last edited by Super Dickmann; 2021-04-16 at 05:39 AM.
    Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.

    Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.

  17. #77
    Quote Originally Posted by Aresk View Post
    You're talking about patch 8.1.5 content, ignoring that in 8.1.0, Sylvanas attempts to assassinate Saurfang, and Saurfang and Zekhan kill Lyana. While Baine did kill dark rangers and officers on the ship (he let the sailors go, which seems very...counter-intuitive for a secret mission), he wasn't the first one to kill members of the Horde. Sides were drawn before Baine's mission, with Sylvanas (sometimes through Nathanos) happy to let her champion murder Horde loyalists to maintain a ruse (even when maintaining that ruse allows Baine, Saurfang, Jaina, Thrall, and Shaw to escape the Underhold).
    Saurfang at that point had already sabotaged a major military action, fled his post, willingly allowed for his capture and by all accounts was ALLOWED to run free. His loyalty should have been entirely questioned from all angles no matter HOW you want to look at it.

    Baine on the other hand BROKE onto a ship, eventually stole it and KILLED sailors on it. You want to argue he let the rank and file go and only killed officers still indicates Baine killing horde personnel. This is different in my book from seeking out a likely hostile VIP with unclear motives that HAS shown hostility to the horde and it's interests (i.e. Saurfang).... Or what are we supposed to see a VIP who's just allowed to walk out with no resistance? The Proudmoore boy was vetted more than Saurfang for comparison sake.

    edit:
    note that when horde does the quest to track down Saurfang we find that SI:7 doesn't even understand what happened exactly and there was no mention of casualties. One doesn't just slip out of the stockades, as established with the Talanji questline. Saurfang appears to have been released by someone high up in the Alliance Command.... and the story just railroads you as either accepting him back whole sale or siding with Sylvanas comepletely. There's no "is HE the bomb!?" moment despite that basically being how the story goes on with how Saurfang loosed by the Boy King rallies an army against his nation

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by JavelinJoe View Post
    Yeah and that's understandable, I understand what people are saying. But a generals job is to follow the leaders instructions, if you set up for war and prepare for a fight, then suddenly the leader orders all the men to go exterminate a bunch of people, that's not your fault nor your intention. Ultimately he defected over it, I think that's really the important part here, not what sylvanas did.
    except we were already multiple kill orders deep by the time Saurfang finally decides enough and even THEN he wasn't jumping ship. Astranaar was Saurfang's work, Darkshore was Saurfang's work... technically we might not even have had the torching of Teldrassil as an order if Saurfang stuck to the original plan but that's something we can't know because events happened and we all just focus on what happened after Malfurion escaped.
    Last edited by mickybrighteyes; 2021-04-16 at 03:32 PM.

  18. #78
    Quote Originally Posted by Super Dickmann View Post
    It's why in my post I specifically mention that you don't have to take Sylvanas at her word - what she describes is exactly what you see happen in the rebel version. You see the Dark Rangers openly walk up to a hut where they think there are no witnesses and ask him to come out so they can arrest him instead of say, torching his hut and feeding his body to the crocs. They could of course be extremely stupid and given the calibre of assassins that Sylvanas sends after Thrall and her own high IQ decisions throughout that expansions that's perfectly possible, but her claims and what we see entirely match up. They show up, tell him to hand himself in and that they're going to Orgrimmar and then he refuses and attacks them.

    During the quest itself we see firstly that there are SI:7 agents covering his tracks, that his vanishing from prison happened under the eyes of the Dark Rangers that are apparently watching over him and that Shaw paid people off to turn a blind eye and allow him to pass on. Whether Saurfang was actively complicit with this (as we objectively know for a fact him to be from the cinematic), he is plainly freed as a foreign asset meant to cause conflict within the Horde by SI:7. Could it be without his knowledge to the characters? Sure, but he never explains himself, either to those arresting him or even to the Player Character when the player joins him. The rebel PC is unaware of Saurfang working together with the human king and being freed deliberately at that point in the story and indeed is never told even as he canonically continues to participate in the war effort because of this. Saurfang doesn't rebuff the correct accusations and those after him, as you mention, don't even say 'wow, he's guilty, better kill him' but instead go through a rigamarole of an arrest despite outnumbering and outgunning him as well as having the element of surprise.

    Mind, Saurfang and Baine don't communicate or team up until later andt here's no indication Baine knows about Saurfang's activities so when he decides he's going to club a ship's inhabitants to death so he can free Jaina's brother (and because he's too lazy to twist the bars), so you can really call either patch the starting point of intra-Horde violence breaking out.

    P.S: As a side note and not actually part of the argument above because this isn't canon, but just speculating on one of the most painfully inconsistent characters in the game who's motivation changed over the course of the expansion, personally I don't think Sylvanas would have let no-name goons be the ones to kill Saurfang. She would want him brought back to Orgrimmar, be it to put on show or to torture. She takes his betrayal very personally, from how hurt she sounds when speaking to him away from the crowd in the Mak'gora to then keeping his soul along as a trinket to even accepting the Mak'gora in the first place.
    Ah, I see what you're saying now. It does seem odd to me that Zekhan identifies these dark rangers as assassins intent on killing Saurfang if there was zero evidence of that, though he could be an unreliable witness, and ultimately we do not know what would have happened had Saurfang gone peacefully with the rangers, but I do agree that up until Zekhan and Saurfang violently resist the rangers, their actions are consistent with an "arrest him if he cooperates and kill him if he doesn't" order.

    However, given that later Sylvanas targets Thrall with assassins (assuming Saurfang is to be believed, and I think him a bit beyond the capabilities of pulling off such a deception to goad Thrall into joining the rebellion), it also seems consistent that the dark rangers were there to assassinate Saurfang, with plans to stab him in the back as soon as he was in their custody. An orc wary of enemies (being deep inside of Alliance territory through most of his escape) may be harder to catch by surprise than convince to give himself over. Narratively I like your version better, with Sylvanas wanting to bring him back to Orgrimmar to make an example of him, but given the signaling in the quest chain (and throughout BfA), I feel like the authors' intentions were that Zekhan was telling the truth, however he came by that information. Regardless, I appreciate the scrutiny that you give the events leading up to the confrontation with Lyana.

    Quote Originally Posted by mickybrighteyes View Post
    Saurfang at that point had already sabotaged a major military action, fled his post, willingly allowed for his capture and by all accounts was ALLOWED to run free. His loyalty should have been entirely questioned from all angles no matter HOW you want to look at it.

    Baine on the other hand BROKE onto a ship, eventually stole it and KILLED sailors on it. You want to argue he let the rank and file go and only killed officers still indicates Baine killing horde personnel. This is different in my book from seeking out a likely hostile VIP with unclear motives that HAS shown hostility to the horde and it's interests (i.e. Saurfang).... Or what are we supposed to see a VIP who's just allowed to walk out with no resistance? The Proudmoore boy was vetted more than Saurfang for comparison sake.

    edit:
    note that when horde does the quest to track down Saurfang we find that SI:7 doesn't even understand what happened exactly and there was no mention of casualties. One doesn't just slip out of the stockades, as established with the Talanji questline. Saurfang appears to have been released by someone high up in the Alliance Command.... and the story just railroads you as either accepting him back whole sale or siding with Sylvanas comepletely. There's no "is HE the bomb!?" moment despite that basically being how the story goes on with how Saurfang loosed by the Boy King rallies an army against his nation
    Oh, I never wanted to present Baine as not killing Horde members, and I believe that his incarceration is more than justified. I struggle to understand why Sylvanas didn't execute him and then tasked her loyalist with helping him escape the Underhold, killing her own forces (other than Blizzard trying to shoehorn in a loyalist path at the last minute without cutting content for them). However, I think in his mind, the lines were drawn when Sylvanas opted not to give a recently raised undead a choice, something that Agatha presents all new undead characters with as part of the very first Forsaken quest. This seems very much like Sylvanas turning on a Forsaken (or at least potential Forsaken), and that justification is, I believe, what drove him to viewing Sylvanas' loyalists (those who stuck with her to the end of the fight on the Swift Vengeance) as no longer members of the Horde, akin to those who stuck beside Garrosh during Siege. Obviously this was at a very different point in the rebellion than Siege was, and politically, those were definitely members of the Horde that he killed. But even if you dismiss Saurfang as no longer a Horde member after siding with Anduin and view the loyalist path as canon (removing the PC as a revolutionary), we still have Zekhan acting as Horde against Horde before Baine does. Personally I'd be very interested to know what Zekhan did between killing Lyana and the Battle for Orgrimmar, but I doubt we'll be getting any information about that at this point.

    On the topic of the Saurfang/Zekhan dialogue options, it really seems to me that the writers figured people would look at what Sylvanas did to Teldrassil, say that there's no way they could support her, and side with Saurfang. I don't think they anticipated people being fine with Sylvanas destroying an Alliance city or viewing Sylvanas' motivations regarding Teldrassil separately from her motivations regarding Saurfang. This really shows in the way the Loyalist plotline plays out (as I mentioned above with the Loyalist helping Baine escape), and I really would've liked to see them handle the choice surrounding Saurfang better.

  19. #79
    The Lightbringer Littleraven's Avatar
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    Honestly no real opinion of him either way. I started to like him more around BfA but before then I just knew Horde players liked him. If I remember correctly he started off as kind of a meme character. He was like the commander or whatever during the AQ event and was known to have a crazy cleave or something. I might be misremembering some of that lol.

    But yeah he was never a character that spoke to me but I also didn't play Horde at all until like MoP and even then I still hardly play Horde.

  20. #80
    Quote Originally Posted by Aresk View Post

    Oh, I never wanted to present Baine as not killing Horde members, and I believe that his incarceration is more than justified. I struggle to understand why Sylvanas didn't execute him and then tasked her loyalist with helping him escape the Underhold, killing her own forces (other than Blizzard trying to shoehorn in a loyalist path at the last minute without cutting content for them). However, I think in his mind, the lines were drawn when Sylvanas opted not to give a recently raised undead a choice, something that Agatha presents all new undead characters with as part of the very first Forsaken quest. This seems very much like Sylvanas turning on a Forsaken (or at least potential Forsaken), and that justification is, I believe, what drove him to viewing Sylvanas' loyalists (those who stuck with her to the end of the fight on the Swift Vengeance) as no longer members of the Horde, akin to those who stuck beside Garrosh during Siege. Obviously this was at a very different point in the rebellion than Siege was, and politically, those were definitely members of the Horde that he killed. But even if you dismiss Saurfang as no longer a Horde member after siding with Anduin and view the loyalist path as canon (removing the PC as a revolutionary), we still have Zekhan acting as Horde against Horde before Baine does. Personally I'd be very interested to know what Zekhan did between killing Lyana and the Battle for Orgrimmar, but I doubt we'll be getting any information about that at this point.
    Had to look up what you meant about Lyana and Zekhan. forgot that part is dependant on your choices. You either show up with Lyana and fight Saurfang or you show up with Zekhan and fight Lyana?

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