The problem with alliance bias.

[Super Dickmann]

I'd hope you think better of me than trying for some cheap "gotcha" by now. My point was that the Horde was artificially imposed on the Orcs and lessened them. They went from different tribes with different customs and so on into Warchief Legion Puppet and his Mindless Minions.

Alright, got time for a proper response now since there's a lot to cover. It's mostly because I think you're a solid poster why that kind of gotcha is a bit blase (though I do it too).

From an out of story perspective, the orcs, the Horde and the Warchief have been inseparable for all moments besides the backstory, so before I go into the story itself it helps to recall that they're a product and the martial society run by a chieftain is what they've been from the beginning, there's a lot of investment into it, regardless of its broader implications - while I'll defend pretty much every aspect of the orcs going forward in-setting, they are obviously not a society to aspire to but what they are is emblematic for a certain sort of experience - to change it may be better for the inhabitants in some kind of longform narrative, but much like Night Elf society would be improved if they adopted indoor plumbing it'd detract from the associations that make them appealing to the fanbase. What's good for the group in story and what's enjoyable for the audience are very different things. BFA is a peak example of this - in-story Anduin making everyone shake hands and love each other is better for everyone, but out of story it's a miserable slog that leaves everyone on every faction unsatisfied. With that disclaimer, onto the actual substantive points:

I won't go through every iteration of the title, but it completely robbed the orcs of any identity beyond "Me orc, me smash what Warchief say smash", absolutely no better than "I'm a disciple of Saint Anduin with no mind of my own". Under that system, the orc is nothing but a tool for the Warchief, not even an individual. Through most of WoW's life time, you didn't roll a Warsong, or Bleeding Hollow, or anything but Generic Orc. The culture of strong orcs leading isn't enhanced in the Horde, it's grossly exaggerated almost to the point of parody. We're told the orcs are all strong and proud, incredibly resistant to any form of servitude, yet they accept having their identities and agency completely stripped from them for whatever Warchief ShitForBrains says today?

What separates the Blood Oath and the general orcish loyalty to the chieftain, which exists across all clans and is based around his fitness to lead, and people becoming Anduin adherents who mouth platitudes about love and peace is that one is an in-story element and the other is an out of story contrivance. The orcs are compelled in story on the basis of cultural practice to be loyal to their kin and to their leader and to only challenge him if they themselves would be more fit, but they also have other cultural values, spiritualism, communal spirit etc. that clash with it. Because of this you can have a character like Nazgrim who's split between the obligation placed upon him by the Oath and his own values and ultimately goes down with the ship because he prioritizes one value over another. The extremely hamhanded but conceptually fine story with Geya'rah is the same - loyalty to a successful leader is the highest virtue and her revelation involves tempering that with placing a social contract like expectation on the leader to care for the group interest. This is not a story you can ever tell with Anduin or Baine or whoever because their allegiance to the leader is not an in-story value that they have to weight agains their own values but is an element imposed upon them as a writing shorthand. Orcs follow the Warchief because of the Blood Oath and they can also choose to oppose the Warchief because of other traits, but Anduinists can never oppose Anduin because the reason they follow him in the unquestioning fashion they do is a Doylist element.

The Horde is a recent aberration in Orc history, when for the majority of the race's existence they were tribes. Sure, they united to take down threats, but that doesn't lead to "Hey, let's throw everything away to become a hivemind!" Had they naturally become a Horde like entity of their own choosing, where they still had individual and clan voices, I wouldn't have a word to say.

The Horde as a union of clans predated the Legion, but as I alluded to earlier, the Warchief isn't a cultural alien element to the orcs. It is identical to the preexisting relationship between the orcs and their chieftain, where the chieftain is the most capable in whatever the given clan places the most value in - fighting, obviously, but in the case of the Shadowmoon also things like spiritual guidance and with the Bleeding Hollow there's a prophetic and even hereditary element attached. Gul'dan specifically set it up because having the Shadow Council running things openly would be rejected by the orcs even when they were doped up. What gets rid of Blackhand also isn't a coup but existing cultural practices that he feels bound to - Mak'gora predates the Warchief system and it's that which Orgrim uses to unseat him, relying on extant orcish cultural norms to co-opt Gul'dan's subversion. This follows through in the other things Gul'dan can't get over - his physical weakness and sneakiness isn't appreciated by the orcs and the orcish veneration of the dead is a taboo that he is scared of breaking, hence why he opts for human bodies when it comes to the Death Knights. Far from orcish norms being trampled by the Legion, even when the orcs are at their lowest point they're still such a major element that the Legion's proxy has his system taken out from under him due to them and then has his actions tied up as a result. Hence Orgrim.

Since you mention Ogrim, I KNOW we'll disagree on him. Oh poor little me, forced to follow Blackhand instead of challenging him. Oh poor little me, forced to genocide the neighbors instead of stopping the Horde twisting the orcs. Oh poor little me, I'm warchief and forced to continue the bloody rampage. Oh poor little me, I'm vision questing to understand why the Azeroth natives hate us while my people are locked up.

Given the described ethos appears to be influenced by bushido, this is a massive failure. In bushido, what matters is acting with absolute commitment. If you die trying, it's every bit as respected as success. Orgrim simply goes along with everything, only once really standing up by challenging Blackhand, then immediately subsiding back into "I'm a victim of circumstances, there's nothing I can do to achieve what I think is right".

We won't agree on this, but it gives me an excuse to talk about orcs which for all of people's bitching and Sadfang cinematics have become peripheral to both discussion in the fandom and the story itself.

On Orgrim himself, most of the traits you pin on him aren't actually there. Orgrim isn't the one to get sad about having to wage war, Durotan is, nor does Orgrim bemoan that he has to do fighting. He doesn't bemoan his lack of action earlier - borne out of ingrained loyalty to his chieftain and ultimately solved by an orcish custom as noted because it lead to a war or the natives died. He does because it's left the orcs as nothing but a conquering army - their home is gone and their shamanism is the one custom that is ended by the Legion. He can't go back to Draenor and he can't bring his army of kill-happy grunts to plowshares, but what he can do is make sure the war is waged for their sake and not for the sake of the Legion. Consideration for whether the humans like it or not isn't something that causes him angst or that he laments doing it - he likes fighting, he also likes what he's fighting for - reintroducing shamanism, setting up a state on Azeroth and essentially everything that Thrall goes onto do, except Orgrim's version would have been on bigger territory and from what we gather more a riff on what the Blackrocks already had going than on human systems. Unlike Blackhand Orgrim is also an actual political actor - he wants the territory, he doesn't want to kill every human, he wouldn't particular care if he had to do it, mind, but he's perfectly willing to share land and cooperate with trolls and goblins. You're simultaneously giving him too little and too much credit - he did follow his values, just a bit late and he fought to the end to see them through, ultimately passing them to Thrall, but his dream was never of peaceful coexistence and it's only in his later life that he ever regretted the methods he used, hence his embrace of Thrall. Thrall had a clean slate and an untainted populace to work with without Orgrim's cultural baggage or circumstances, but their goals were the same.

This ties into the other topic which is worth its own topic. There's an easy misconception to be made between the orcs serving the Legion or Sylvanas and Orgrim and Garrosh. They're all assholes who want to take over the world after all and re: the Alliance it's not like any of these guys (except Garrosh) is any more concerned with any rules of engagement. This comes mostly because while it's extremely consistent and a fairly interesting portrayal it's also not very sympathetic from the modern perspective. What follows is a longer diatribe, but skip the following paragraph and go to the last one for the tl;dr:

Strength, both physical and of will comes from their origin as clans that varied between scavengers in caves beneath the massively more powerful Gorian Empire and the fact that everything on Draenor is able to kill them. This pushes two of their values - the communal spirit, hence loyalty to the clan and to the Chieftain, but also that everyone should be able to pull their own weight. The non-Frostwolf clans threw unfit children off the edge and Gul'dan got exiled because if you weren't able to pull your weight you'd be bringing others down and in societies that were, outside the Blackrock pretty rudimentary, that means individual ability, both natural and honed through practice. The lowest thing is being weak or unable to contribute and to do it for someone other than your community, as that's what being a slave is. Where the orcs differ from most fantasy takes on this trope is that they too are slavers and they do it for the exact same reason - on top of that, civilians pre-their arrival to Azeroth aren't really a thing. Any orc must be able to pull their weight and fight after all, so groups of people who can't do this aren't a core category worthy of protection or key to sustaining a society, but dead weight. This comes through mostly in how peons are treated, with only Thrall giving them any credit and with how the only clan to respect artisanal performance and value it in a leader is the Blackrock, incidentally also the most industrious clan and the most powerful one in every timeline on account of this. Battle prowess is good because you need to be able to do it to survive. Clan loyalty and spiritualism is good because it brings you together with others and capable people together are the only way to make it on Draenor. The orcs keeping up slavery thus isn't some kind of 'lol lore' situation but a natural extrapolation of this - to reduce someone to a slave is the lowest state you can reduce them to, far lower than death, which can be either glorious (in battle vs a stronger enemy for the good of your clan) or necessary (if of old age or frail,to remove weakness from your clan). Enslaving an enemy means you don't consider them worthy on any level.

The briefest version though is the most selfish one - one is done for the benefit of the orcs, the other is done for the benefit of someone else. The orcish values of martial prowess, glory in battle, community benefit etc. are present in one and absent in the other. One is under their control, the other isn't. Fel is a poison that whether you want it or not destroys all around you and can't coexist with a stable existence and that turns even the weakest, most useless person into a deadly threat like how we see emaciated warlocks ice fully grown ogre warriors. You can't 'really' control it or reduce its side gigs and for the orcs, as consisting of former slaves who were fairly low on their world's food chain, mastery over something and personal prowess are major virtues. A big bomb isn't going to kill your enemy less dead and something like the Heart of Y'shaarj isn't going to corrupt people any less, but the way it does so and even its production is something that's dependant on your power. This is not a nice distinction, it doesn't make the orcs better people to us as viewers, but it's a throughline that's present in every incarnation and gels completely with their origins and trajectory as a race.

We could also go over how "army and vestigial state" is absolutely absurd given the logistics involved, but Lord knows Blizzard hasn't the faintest clue how a military actually works.

Leaving this for last since it's the one there's least to say about it - it's a fairly obvious riff on the pop-culture version of the Mongol Horde. From the name down to the visual aesthetic, just replace horses with wolves and Genghis Khan with people of better moral character, lower bodycount and far fewer kids.

[epLe]

the racials werent a factor in vanila because people didnt start vanila with min maxing from day 1...

Most of the guild I played with since day 1 chose their race based on on minmaxing racials, i.e gnome casters for the int bonus.

The simplicity of vanilla, made everyone who played it min-max just as people do today, there was no other alternative.
Players had a natural view on upgrades and progression inherited from earlier games, and less sense of self imposed entitlement.

[Beloren]

the racials werent a factor in vanila because people didnt start vanila with min maxing from day 1,and by the time the meta was clear,it was MUCH harder to just swap factions back then,lvling early vanila was much harder than it was in later patches,no transfers etc

It didn't take long before min-maxing was a thing, this happened well well well well well well before the horde over took the alliance. Racials were never and have never been the main factor, they hep, but have not been the biggest thing.

Many can successfully argue that the alliance has the racial advantage, or at least a very slight one overall, since the buff in WoD, if racials played so big a factor .. the impact would be greater.

the problem is the alliance is just boring and not appealing.. it is not the horde's fault, the developers are the one that have made this so.


Alliance interestingly was the centre of the story in Wc1-3. The horde, though the powerful faction, and taking equal green time, yet, it was focusing on alliance being attacked and alliance responding. This was where all the depth and detail was, even though the alliance pretty much got their butts kicked in Wc1 and 2, But it was from their perspective it was written, and they were the ones we could all empathise with, if you were American or European it sorta felt like it was your home towns and nation being invaded by some foreign monstrous entity.

This is why alliance was so popular, this had to change.

So yes, there is horde bias, but it's justified horde bias. the alliance had the RTS, the horde has the MMORPG, it's the only way it can keep up with the alliance.

[deenman]

It didn't take long before min-maxing was a thing, this happened well well well well well well before the horde over took the alliance. Racials were never and have never been the main factor, they hep, but have not been the biggest thing.

Many can successfully argue that the alliance has the racial advantage, or at least a very slight one overall, since the buff in WoD, if racials played so big a factor .. the impact would be greater.

the problem is the alliance is just boring and not appealing.. it is not the horde's fault, the developers are the one that have made this so.


Alliance interestingly was the centre of the story in Wc1-3. The horde, though the powerful faction, and taking equal green time, yet, it was focusing on alliance being attacked and alliance responding. This was where all the depth and detail was, even though the alliance pretty much got their butts kicked in Wc1 and 2, But it was from their perspective it was written, and they were the ones we could all empathise with, if you were American or European it sorta felt like it was your home towns and nation being invaded by some foreign monstrous entity.

This is why alliance was so popular, this had to change.

So yes, there is horde bias, but it's justified horde bias. the alliance had the RTS, the horde has the MMORPG, it's the only way it can keep up with the alliance.

Wile the horde races def are more interesting,i cant help but dislike them for transmog,male humans just cant be beat,and since they massacred the male undead model both animation wise and glitchy model with sholders,its been a big nono,i miss the old undead so much

[Beloren]

This leaves me thinking several things.
He confirms that the idea of ​​burning Teldrazzil was bad on all sides. Now we are going to have to focus on the kaldorei for yet another expansion. What must have been a break after Legion. Now it has to go on for at least 4 expansions and that's assuming they achieve something in the fourth.

That aside from something they forget about the Horde is that they have the best races.
Blood elves, you know, those who have their own campaign vs something we invent at the time, at least with a good story.
Goblings you already know those characters that are from W2 vs A race invented at the time.
Not to mention having an allied race to Dranei of light instead of tavidos or having the elven priests of shadow (which is a pathetic race everywhere). The Kaldore were left without an allied race because humans have 2.

Now more to the side of fanaticism ---
Legion is supposed to be the expansion of the Kaldorei but. Kaldorei don't really gain anything here. Tyrande and Malfurion make them look ridiculous.
Maiev is missing a lot of his lore and it shows that we have to assume that several things happened off camera (But at least they are logical things.)
And he seems to dodge over and over again all the important Pj relationships of the Kaldorei.
As they say Suromar is the hometown of almost every major NPC and no one cares.
The Wardena cannot interact with them. They are a part of history but they have no history of their own.

Then it comes to mind that. Is it no longer held by the night elves for giving it to the Horde? Because it does have symbols of the moon and they are violet elves. But it has no more connection than that. So it is basically the opposite of what the kaldorei are.
Although I understand the point there is no connection between Kaldorei and the void elves.

But blizzard behave very similarly when it comes to horde assets too, they are poor at following up, they are poor at showing or exploring the impact and aftermath of their big events, they just plain right ignore and skip to the next.

You may have noticed it a lot more profoundly in the night elves because you care for them, but they are not alone here, neither are they the first time this has happened, in fact, it happens all the time. They just s kip to the next crazy story.

And by now people should realise that enough decisions are not made by lore. Nightborne is one of them, just accept it, it doesn't matter if they are the kaldorei birth place/city, Zin'Azshari would likely have gone horde if it was pristine - decisions like what race goes where are sometimes made for non lore reasons, like what is better for gameplay, or population balance, or will please the community more.

Nightborne are an odd case, because they could have split them across the two factions. To date @ravenmoon's observation that they could have had Nightfallen nightborne healed into their night elven forms and join the alliance, and have the more powerful elite Elisande loyalists, including Elisande who survived our fight to help us use the Nightwell against Guld'an actually keep the Nightborne appearance because they are denied the Arcan'dor fruit as punishments for their role , would have actually satisfied both factions, horde would still have playable Nightborne only, as they'd have the models, and what I prefer is that the Nightborne group that are denied the fruit are the more powerful/skilled group - whiles the rest would turn back to Night elves, given the alliance a part in the Suramar storyline without getting the allied race.

That would have been neat... the fact this didn't happen is indication that YOU and people like Raven care much more about this sort of stuff than blizzard.

The decision was made not based on lore, and that's that, gotta accept it. It is not a wrong or bad decision either. They don't have to do everything according to the lore trend, they can do something different for other reasons and simply write the lore that makes it so in game. If that's what they want to do, they're the ones that have the right to do it. It also means they have to live with whatever community issues such decisions cause.

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Wile the horde races def are more interesting,i cant help but dislike them for transmog,male humans just cant be beat,and since they massacred the male undead model both animation wise and glitchy model with sholders,its been a big nono,i miss the old undead so much

Yeh.. appearance and model wise, they are too unique, , and not the popular trend.. This is why for a game that requires a choice of two very different factions, you have to have attractive things on both, not just attractive in terms of plot or interest, but in terms of appearance too, visuals play a huge role. This is why it was necessary for blood elves to go horde. if it wasn't blood elves, it would have been humans, or another very nice looking human like race.

And it worked, the results show it, the alliance deficit was totally removed. I know some people argue, now they're no longer relevant to the horde, blizzard shoudl rethink the elves in favour of the alliance.

I can't say if this is good or bad.. leave it to blizz.

[geco]

you may have noticed it a lot more profoundly in the night elves because you care for them, but they are not alone here, neither are they the first itme this has happened, in fact, it happens all the time. They just s kip to the next crazy story.

I know it doesn't look like it but I'm a Horde player. Or he will do it years ago.
The current Tradition is so bad that I just stopped caring about the Horde that's how bad it is.

I like Maiev more than the kaldorei and since the current story has Maiev and Maiev 2 (Tyrande Night War) I am curious. But surely with how bad they are, it will stop me from caring in an expansion.

[Mehrunes]

Or perhaps the Horde should stop trying to conquer the planet and/or wipe out all sentient life every time when nothing else is around to kill. Food for thought. Or perhaps the Horde should have been wiped out three times over by now if not for the game mechanics protecting it from the consequences of it's actions. Food for thought.

Move those goalposts some more. That will totally hide the fact - that you yourself brought up - that no matter how hard the Horde retaliates in WoW's story they do so only after the Alliance starts messing with them first. So it's funny how on one hand you preach about consequences, yet on the other want complete impunity for the Alliance's own warmongering.

And speaking of consequences, given how the Alliance only ever survived a war against the Horde because the Horde imploded and in most cases had to outright run to one side of the Horde's internal squabble to team up (with extremely convoluted stories leading to those teamups), it's quaint that you think WoW with consequences would have resulted in the Horde getting wiped out.

Oh and btw. love how you excuse murdering civilians as a response to attacking military ships of a known mass murderer. Not that I expected you to have a rational opinion on any matter concerning the Horde, of course.

Point out where I excused it. Oh, right, it's nothing more than yet another meaningless straw-man of yours, because you immediately ran out of actual arguments. So spare me your flimsy projection about me being irrational.

As I pointed out above. It might have been only one agent, but the decision of Aethas to lie about it meant that Jaina could only assume that all Sunreavers were part of the conspiracy and could not be trusted. If he had done his duty and made the right call to help Jaina then all of the Purge could have been avoided. But he didn't care about the people that might die if Garrosh got the bell, he only cared about himself and the Blood Elves and that ironically lead to the Purge.

Leave out the part about how he "only cared about the Blood Elves" because he was threatened with the fate of all non-Sunreaver Blood Elves some more. Maybe that will amount to an excuse of the Purge if you wish it hard enough. And no, Jaina could not only assume that all Sunreavers were part of the conspiracy. The reason for collective punishment is not an excuse for it and she was simply jumping to conclusions. Then again, the whole culpability of Sunreavers at all was not supported by the evidence she had at hand.

It would be a diplomatic incident yes, but as I have pointed out several times: Sylvanas doesn't get to play that card. You don't do what she did and then cry foul when someone holds you responsible for it. That the Horde made her Warchief despite all this shows only how deeply flawed that faction is, it doesn't make anything Genn did a crime.

Sylvanas gets to play any card that a nation leader gets to play because international politics is not kindergarten no matter how hard you wish it to be due to either convenience for your argument or sheer misunderstanding of the topic. Especially since when out of her transgressions in question one was already covered by the factions burying the hatchet at end of the previous faction war and the other was sheer delusion by Genn about muh betrayal at the Broken Shore. And Horde's internal matters does not excuse Genn one iota. Let alone the notion that the Horde is "deeply flawed". He's not the judge, jury and executioner of the "deeply flawed", as no authority appointed him as such. Ergo, his attack most certainly fell under a crime against peace.

How does that make it better? Genn at least got scolded, Sylvanas transgressions are just ignored, because we know very well how Garrosh deals with insubordination and we can't let something bad happen to our only important Horde character with sex appeal, can we?

Who said anything about it being better? I pointed out how it's different. And how, consequently, your comparison there falls apart. Also, Sylvanas got scolded in Silverpine, so I guess things are equal in this department ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes, but that still doesn't give Anduin the authority to inflict punishment on a king from another regency. They are allies, not master and slave. Anduin gave an order that Genn interpreted liberally, Anduin can be angry about that and could remove Genn from command of troops specifically from Stormwind, but if he overplays his hand then Genn can take his gilnean forces and leave. He is only under Anduins command because he chooses to be, that is how an Alliance works.

How does authority over people given under his command give him the authority to inflict punishment on those very same people if they violate his commands? Is this a serious question? Yes, Genn chose to be under Anduin's command in that instance. The hell does that change? Choosing to be under Anduin's command put him under Anduin's authority. That's kinda a part of the choice he made there.

Unfortunately the situation did not allow for a lengthy vote on the proceedings. The Sunreavers with Aethas have actively supported the delivery of a WMD to a known madman. They could not be allowed to use Dalaran resources anymore after that and Jaina could not know how many of them were traitors. Her call was rushed and fueled by her own loss and anger, but with the information she had and with Aethas not being cooperative she had to act and sort the politics out later.

And what mysterious reason made it so that the situation did not a lengthy vote (never mind that all Council voting proceedings we've seen were short)? Other than it being convenient to your whitewashing of Jaina's cleansing, that is. The Bell was already stolen and smuggled. It wasn't exactly going to magically unsteal itself had Jaina not violated Dalaran's law in response.

Given how part of the Purge consisted of Jaina locking Dalaran down and preventing Sunreavers from leaving despite wanting them gone, she could have easily done that part. With the caveat that instead of doing so to facilitate her cleansing escapades she should have done so to perform a proper investigation to find the people responsible. And then proceed with things in the manner appropriate for how Dalaran works, i.e. with the assent of the Council. Somehow when it was discovered that Kel'Thuzad betrayed the Kirin Tor Antonidas still managed to find the time to bring two other Council members with him to confront him about it instead of going apeshit on Kel'thuzad himself, using only non-Kirin Tor forces for help.

Also, with what information she had? Once again, Jaina had absolutely fuck all in terms of evidence incriminating the Sunreavers to begin with. All she had was a portal from Darnassus to Dalaran. That wasn't even created by a Sunreaver, as the Blood Elves on the Darnassian side were from the Reliquary. And, finally, given how Jaina betrayed Dalaran's first by violating its neutrality at Darnassus (which could have made it easier to smuggle stuff through Dalaran thanks to her absence), she should have recused herself from any proceedings against any other traitor due to being compromised in that department herself.

[Aresk]

you do realise Varian declared war in assault of undercity bcs of what Putress did, which started the war that stretched through cataclysm and pandaria and ended with Garrosh trial?

and without Stormheim attack Sylvanas would have realy hard time to get saurfang (and many other nameless) on board...

Oh, I'm well aware Varian's war declaration ran through MoP. But to say Varian started one war (rather than Putress) while saying Genn started the other war (rather than Sylvanas) is applying a double standard. Putress and Genn were both supplied for their attacks by their faction. Both went rogue and attacked the other faction. Either Genn and Putress started the wars (which is pretty ludicrous to say given that we're confirmed they're not at war after Genn's attack), or Sylvanas and Varian started the wars. You can't just assign all the blame to the one faction when the roles flip.

And let's be real, neither Genn nor Putress' attacks were the real motivating factor for either war. Varian was wanting to kill the orcs (@Super Dickmann; has some really great posts on that topic), while Sylvanas wanted to kill everyone. Genn/Putress were just convenient excuses. Genn's attack wasn't even sufficient to convince Saurfang of the war. It was Sylvanas' appeal to future generations that ultimately convinced him to attack Teldrassil.

While this is true it misses an important detail. Jaina did not know which or how many of the Sunreavers were responsible and they weren't inclined to help. Hence she expelled all of them. Aethas witnessed the whole thing and could have told Jaina or the Council, but instead, when asked he reacted with snide indignation and lies. That was what caused the full-on purge, killing his guards was quite rash, I agree, but the situation was dire, the Divine Bell was an extremely dangerous object that should have never fallen into the hands of a madman like Garrosh.

In the moment that Aethas decided that he'd rather keep his mouth shut then anger Garrosh he became just as responsible for the Purge as Jaina and Vereesa. He assumed he was still talking to the soft and nice Jaina Proudmoore that wanted peace, missing the changes she had gone through thanks to Garrosh, and figured her wrath would be easy to deal with. Turns out, he was wrong.

This decision by the Sunreaver leader meant that Jaina's only recourse was to expell all Sunreavers so they could not abuse Dalaran resources to help Garrosh anymore. The fact that this whole event ended bloody was a mixture of the Silver Covenant taking the chance to dispose of personal rivals and the Sunreavers fighting back, because they didn't really understand what was going on. Jaina herself only killed Aethas guards, rashly as I admited, and those that directly attacked her.

In the end the whole Purge was a chain of unfortunate decisions with Jaina, who had not even had time to work through the grief and trauma of her city being nuked and her friends killed, in the middle.
Garrosh pushed her too far and the only reason why Orgrimmar is still standing was that Kalec and Thrall managed to talk her down. Pushing her again had the expected result and this time there were no friendly faces to talk her down, instead she had Vereesa who egged her on so she could have her own revenge. It all comes down to Garrosh who is the real guilty party here. Jaina is responsible and she freely admits that, but none of it all would have happened if not for Garrosh's warmongering and bloodlust.

Aethas was given two sentences: "You have it all wrong, Jaina. I did nothing." before she declared they had to leave. He got one more sentence after that: "This is OUR city too, Proudmoore." While Aethas could have done more before we got to that point, he wasn't really given any opportunity to provide his side of the story. Heck, she kills the first of his guards after simply shouting his name. While it's reasonable to assume she knew a Sunreaver was responsible given the way mages in Warcraft seem to be able to track resonances of different spells and the like, she doesn't know which Sunreaver and she doesn't give any of them an opportunity to assist. She jumps from "a Sunreaver did something bad" to "all Sunreavers must be punished," and that is where the lines of ethnic or political suppression (depending on your view of the situation) are crossed.

I agree it was an unfortunate situation all around, but that doesn't change the fact that Jaina judged an entire group based on a few outliers.

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Also, with what information she had? Once again, Jaina had absolutely fuck all in terms of evidence incriminating the Sunreavers to begin with. All she had was a portal from Darnassus to Dalaran. That wasn't even created by a Sunreaver, as the Blood Elves on the Darnassian side were from the Reliquary. And, finally, given how Jaina betrayed Dalaran's first by violating its neutrality at Darnassus (which could have made it easier to smuggle stuff through Dalaran thanks to her absence), she should have recused herself from any proceedings against any other traitor due to being compromised in that department herself.

Didn't War Crimes specify that a Sunreaver agent opened the portal? My copy is packed up, so I can't confirm the full text: Wowpedia just mentions "A Sunreaver agent, acting on orders from Garrosh..." as citing their claim that the Sunreavers were responsible for the portal.

[Lolites]

Putress and Genn were both supplied for their attacks by their faction. Both went rogue and attacked the other faction.

Putress was killed for it... Genn was told "bad dog"... that was kinda my point...
i never said Genn started war, i said he had broken armistice, and that it was used by Sylvanas as "bargaining chip" to lure Saurfang into the action...
btw, if Sylvanas decided to immediately retaliate for Stormheim she could and she would be well within her rights, as it definitely constituted an act of war, she would not even be agressor in that situation, but she decided not to due to legion invasion... GENOCIDAL MANIAC which she definitely is, shown more restraint than Genn, yet he is unpunished and still among leaders of alliance military

[geco]

Putress was killed for it... Genn was told "bad dog"... that was kinda my point...
i never said Genn started war, i said he had broken armistice, and that it was used by Sylvanas as "bargaining chip" to lure Saurfang into the action...
btw, if Sylvanas decided to immediately retaliate for Stormheim she could and she would be well within her rights, as it definitely constituted an act of war, she would not even be agressor in that situation, but she decided not to due to legion invasion... GENOCIDAL MANIAC which she definitely is, shown more restraint than Genn, yet he is unpunished and still among leaders of alliance military

The issue we have to think about (and that I just now realize)
it is not the same thing that they go out of their way to make the Alliance look like the good guys. So that's a story in favor of the alliance.

I mean if in real life it is important not to be the "good guy" but not so much in a story.
The alliance has like all those "titles" of power but in the end they are worth nothing.

[Varodoc]

"Alliance bias" when the Void Elves did literally NOTHING in the patch about the Old Gods and the Void, you're funny OP. Perhaps too funny.

[Mehrunes]

Didn't War Crimes specify that a Sunreaver agent opened the portal? My copy is packed up, so I can't confirm the full text: Wowpedia just mentions "A Sunreaver agent, acting on orders from Garrosh..." as citing their claim that the Sunreavers were responsible for the portal.

Nope. It only said that a Sunreaver agent helped bypass Jaina's wards and, in next sentence, helped steal it in general. Given how Fanlyr (who, again, was a member of the Reliquary) only buffed the player with some kind of stealth and then waited outside Darnassus it makes me wonder if it wasn't by any chance the player that was the "Sunreaver agent" in that exchange.

We were the only ones directly bypassing anything and personally stealing it. And the spell we cast to do so is called "Sunreavers' Portal-Charm". Aside from Fanlyr who acted as our portal guy (and likely gave us that Portal-Charm) the rest of the Horde forces involved engaged in a distraction attack and we didn't even personally see any of those. It's not like we got there through Dalaran in the first place either. We got a direct portal to Darnassus from the Horde base in Krasarang. With the NPC next to it being called Silvermoon Mage, not Sunreaver anything.

And re-reading the wowpedia on the bugged part of the quest about Aethas stumbling upon the theft in progress, it says that he was supposed to stumble upon the player and was then threatened by an Orc, with no mention of any other Blood Elves.

[Aresk]

Putress was killed for it... Genn was told "bad dog"... that was kinda my point...
i never said Genn started war, i said he had broken armistice, and that it was used by Sylvanas as "bargaining chip" to lure Saurfang into the action...
btw, if Sylvanas decided to immediately retaliate for Stormheim she could and she would be well within her rights, as it definitely constituted an act of war, she would not even be agressor in that situation, but she decided not to due to legion invasion... GENOCIDAL MANIAC which she definitely is, shown more restraint than Genn, yet he is unpunished and still among leaders of alliance military

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood the point you were making. Yeah, there's no question that Genn suffered no real repercussions while Putress died, though Putress also attacked the Horde while Genn didn't attack the Alliance. If Genn had rained fire down on Alliance troops as well, I would like to think that Anduin would've done more than reprimand him.

As for breaking armistice, do you have a source specifying it was breaking some kind of armistice? I really wish we got more details about that. Blizzard gives us tons of info about the terms of the agreement for the Gathering, but we receive nothing about the terms of the armistice after MoP (which was broken in WoD) or the terms of the operation on the Broken Shore. Presumably with their militaries so close, they entered into a new armistice after WoD (or recommitted to the MoP armistice), but we do not know if it only extended to the Broken Shore or beyond (whereas we definitively know the cease-fire in the Gathering was for one day). I'd love to have concrete details on exactly how severe Genn and Rogers' attacks were. Then again, they never set up what constitutes a war crime in the novel with the same title, so I don't have much hope we'll ever get those details.

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Nope. It only said that a Sunreaver agent helped bypass Jaina's wards and, in next sentence, helped steal it in general. Given how Fanlyr (who, again, was a member of the Reliquary) only buffed the player with some kind of stealth and then waited outside Darnassus it makes me wonder if it wasn't by any chance the player that was the "Sunreaver agent" in that exchange.

We were the only ones directly bypassing anything and personally stealing it. And the spell we cast to do so is called "Sunreavers' Portal-Charm. Aside from Fanlyr who acted as our portal guy (and likely gave us that Portal-Charm) the rest of the Horde forces involved engaged in a distraction attack and we didn't even personally see any of those. It's not like we got there through Dalaran in the first place either. We got a direct portal to Darnassus from the Horde base in Krasarang. With the NPC next to it being called Silvermoon Mage, not Sunreaver anything.

And re-reading the wowpedia on the bugged part of the quest about Aethas stumbling upon the theft in progress, it says that he was supposed to stumble upon the player and was then threatened by an Orc, with no mention of any other Blood Elves.

Thanks for the info! Yeah, it seemed a little suspect that the citation didn't give more details when it seems a very large plot point. I'd also really love to know the remaining four council members' positions on the event. We know they seemed to support the Alliance in the Isle of Thunder campaign, but I don't recall ever hearing anything about their thoughts on the Purge.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

It's hard to feel that the story is really biased in the Alliance's favor when the Horde is the faction that drives and causes the story to move the most and that they cause more damage and victims to the Alliance than the Scourge, the Burning Legion or the Old Gods in WoW with the destruction of Theramore and invasion of Night Elves' territories and burning of Teldrassil (which should have never happened to be honnest, unless it was the Burning Legion who burned it, instead of some catapults which shouldn't have even been able of landing a projectile on it).

Sure the Alliance is stronger than the Horde in terms of military power, demography, technology and ressources and its leaders aren't dying or turning villainous like many Horde leaders did but the lack of development of its leaders and political plays inside the faction, and the fact that the Alliance always retaliates against the Horde atrocities with far less severity that it should are really frustrating.

[Mehrunes]

Oh, I'm well aware Varian's war declaration ran through MoP. But to say Varian started one war (rather than Putress) while saying Genn started the other war (rather than Sylvanas) is applying a double standard. Putress and Genn were both supplied for their attacks by their faction. Both went rogue and attacked the other faction. Either Genn and Putress started the wars (which is pretty ludicrous to say given that we're confirmed they're not at war after Genn's attack), or Sylvanas and Varian started the wars. You can't just assign all the blame to the one faction when the roles flip.

And let's be real, neither Genn nor Putress' attacks were the real motivating factor for either war. Varian was wanting to kill the orcs (@Super Dickmann; has some really great posts on that topic), while Sylvanas wanted to kill everyone. Genn/Putress were just convenient excuses. Genn's attack wasn't even sufficient to convince Saurfang of the war. It was Sylvanas' appeal to future generations that ultimately convinced him to attack Teldrassil.

There is no double standard in what @Lolites has said. You're creating a false equivalence instead. Putress was an outright traitor to the Horde who defected to the Burning Legion. He wasn't a mere Horde rogue agent anymore than, for example, Fandral was a rogue Alliance agent when he attacked Thrall at Hyjal. Or Benedictus when he attacked Thrall at Wyrmrest. They were already people that defected to a third party. They did not represent the Alliance anymore. Just like Putress did not represent the Horde. As such he was incapable to start anything between the Alliance and the Horde. Which is not comparable to Genn who merely violated Anduin's orders but neither defected nor was removed from the faction. And speaking of his utter lack of punishment, the other point of contrast is that the Horde outright went to Undercity to execute Putress for his transgressions.

And that Putress was no longer a Horde member is something even Varian personally acknowledged. The news of the events in Undercity is what motivated him to go there right then and there. Because, as per his own words, the Horde lost Undercity and in his mind it created an opportunity for the Alliance to "retake it" (never mind that alliances do not have any land claim to territories of their members, let alone former members; meaning that there was nothing the Alliance could retake there). And the Horde couldn't have lost a city to itself.

Plus, as you yourself admitted, Varian did not declare war over Wrathgate regardless. It wasn't even mentioned directly in his declaration and the only mention of any Forsaken in his speech was a passing remark about Sylvanas being a witch. He declared war over Orcs. Because he hated the Orcs. And got triggered by hearing an Orc. Plus, like I already said, he only decided to even go there in the first place because he heard the news that the Horde lost Undercity to the Legion, giving him an opportunity to "re"take it. Which means that if not for that he probably wouldn't have gotten there, at least not so quickly (and since in that case the Horde would have killed Putress right after they killed Varimathras, he wouldn't have any reason to go to Undercity afterwards either way). That kinda shows how little he cared about Wrathgate directly.

Meanwhile, as I pointed out before, after Stormheim the factions were in open conflict. I kinda forgot to respond to your earlier reply on that topic so I'll do it here. Yes, in the letter Anduin specifically mentioned how he did not want to start a war. But he still proposed a ceasefire. And for there to be a ceasefire there first needs to be a "fire", i.e. open conflict, to be ceased. By requesting a ceasefire Anduin personally acknowledged the existence of that conflict. It may have not been a formal war, but it was still there.

Like I said, Blizzard wanted to have its cake and eat it too. Plus there's also the case of Golden making it very clear in Before the Storm that she was unwilling to make even the most rudimentary of research on the state of lore relevant to the events on the book, so there's a good chance she didn't even have a clear picture on the events of Legion.

Anyway, it wasn't just Stormheim. After Genn's attack the factions were at each others' throats. Not only are there PvP quests all over the Broken Isles, but the very reason why the campaign against Legion had to be spearheaded by Class Orders instead of the main factions was, as per Blizzcon commentary, the fact that the situation between them was so tense that they could no longer cooperate. And then there's the attack in Silithus later on (but still before War of Thorns). Which, as can be deducted from quests, was also started by the Alliance.

The whole thing with Sylvanas is just a redux of Garrosh, on whom Blizzard tried to pin the entirety of the previous war. Even though it began a year before he even became a Warchief. With a declaration of war by the Alliance. And was then restarted in Cata by the Alliance as well, as they broke the ceasefire that the factions had between WotLK and Cata first. And even the pre-declaration Wrath attack in Howling Fjord was still by the Alliance.

On a side note, the Borean Tundra thing you mentioned in that reply I mentioned was not about Horde-Alliance conflict though. The defectors were trying to escape the war against the Lich King, because by defecting to the Horde they'd be sent home.

[Ardenaso]

wait why was a Sunreaver granted access to Darnassus? they aren't Horde? if they aren't Horde why do they have to answer to Garrosh?

[Mehrunes]

As for breaking armistice, do you have a source specifying it was breaking some kind of armistice? I really wish we got more details about that. Blizzard gives us tons of info about the terms of the agreement for the Gathering, but we receive nothing about the terms of the armistice after MoP (which was broken in WoD) or the terms of the operation on the Broken Shore. Presumably with their militaries so close, they entered into a new armistice after WoD (or recommitted to the MoP armistice), but we do not know if it only extended to the Broken Shore or beyond (whereas we definitively know the cease-fire in the Gathering was for one day). I'd love to have concrete details on exactly how severe Genn and Rogers' attacks were. Then again, they never set up what constitutes a war crime in the novel with the same title, so I don't have much hope we'll ever get those details.

They were literally working together at the Broken Shore. With Varian even acting buddy buddy with Sylvanas, despite the fact he was previously distrustful of her in context of faction peace even after Garrosh's downfall. Regardless of whether it was a return to MoP deal (which, by the way, may have been violated by the events of Ashran, but the only confirmed casualty there was a guy with a sprained foot) or a new deal, it had to be there because that cooperation required some sort of a foundation.

And given how both sides commented how they may come to blows because of the events of the Broken Shore, it's rather safe to assume that had Alliance not fucked up the intelligence gathering prior to the battle they'd have continued on that trajectory. Since we know for a fact that Alliance's bullshit about muh Broken Shore betrayal was indeed bullshit, they had no actual justification there. And since the Legion's spaceship that suddenly ported in at the end of the battle and forced the Horde to retreat were actually visible down from Alliance's position, the Alliance didn't even have an excuse. Genn jumped to conclusions and ignored everything else because they confirmed his bias and suited his agenda.

[Aresk]

They were literally working together at the Broken Shore. With Varian even acting buddy buddy with Sylvanas, despite the fact he was previously distrustful of her in context of faction peace even after Garrosh's downfall. Regardless of whether it was a return to MoP deal (which, by the way, may have been violated by the events of Ashran, but the only confirmed casualty there was a guy with a sprained foot) or a new deal, it had to be there because that cooperation required some sort of a foundation.

And given how both sides commented how they may come to blows because of the events of the Broken Shore, it's rather safe to assume that had Alliance not fucked up the intelligence gathering prior to the battle they'd have continued on that trajectory. Since we know for a fact that Alliance's bullshit about muh Broken Shore betrayal was indeed bullshit, they had no actual justification there. And since the Legion's spaceship that suddenly ported in at the end of the battle and forced the Horde to retreat were actually visible down from Alliance's position, the Alliance didn't even have an excuse. Genn jumped to conclusions and ignored everything else because they confirmed his bias and suited his agenda.

And I've acknowledged that they likely had an armistice at the Broken Shore, but we do not know the scope of it. I've seen several fan claims of Genn breaking an armistice in Stormheim, but I've never seen any evidence that he broke one within the canon. I don't personally have a stake in whether he did or not; I was hoping someone would have a source that specified he did to clarify the matter unquestioningly. We know things were tense between the factions before Stormheim (hence the creation of the Order Halls before any of the leveling zone quests), and we know that Stormheim exists in a nebulous timeline with other leveling zones, including Alliance executing Forsaken prisoners in Azsuna. We know that Genn and Rogers attacked without warning. But, to my knowledge, no one within the context of the game--Anduin, Sylvanas, Genn, or otherwise--has said that their attack violated an armistice, and the fact that Anduin would give them orders to engage the Horde if they deemed it necessary suggests to me that no armistice was in play (or that Anduin was willing to violate one if he thought it was necessary, which I would personally like in his character development but have a hard time believing is the case given how he rules in BfA).

[Jackstraw]

And I've acknowledged that they likely had an armistice at the Broken Shore, but we do not know the scope of it. I've seen several fan claims of Genn breaking an armistice in Stormheim, but I've never seen any evidence that he broke one within the canon. I don't personally have a stake in whether he did or not; I was hoping someone would have a source that specified he did to clarify the matter unquestioningly. We know things were tense between the factions before Stormheim (hence the creation of the Order Halls before any of the leveling zone quests), and we know that Stormheim exists in a nebulous timeline with other leveling zones, including Alliance executing Forsaken prisoners in Azsuna. We know that Genn and Rogers attacked without warning. But, to my knowledge, no one within the context of the game--Anduin, Sylvanas, Genn, or otherwise--has said that their attack violated an armistice, and the fact that Anduin would give them orders to engage the Horde if they deemed it necessary suggests to me that no armistice was in play (or that Anduin was willing to violate one if he thought it was necessary, which I would personally like in his character development but have a hard time believing is the case given how he rules in BfA).

See here is the deal: the Legion invasion is probably the highest common threat ever since Cataclysm at that point, where Deathwing actively messed with the balance of Azeroth and caused a possible end of the world to the point Aspects involved themselves directly.

Come Legion and the homefront and the payoff is clear, it's been clear ever since. The Legion return shaped the history of Azeroth as we know it, so it stands to reason that in front of such a threat the two super powers should work together - as they do with Varian and Sylvanas in the intro cinematic.

The armistice exists to prevent annihilation.

Genn breaks it on his own accord, costing the Alliance a precious resource in the Broken Shore campaign (and an historic one at that given the prominence of the Skyfire), and let's not forget that at the stage the invasion is when the Stormheim bombing happens Azeroth is losing badly. Even assuming that everything happens at the same time so Genn has some foresight on Sylvanas' plans in regards of the Val'kyr, Ysera died, Azsuna became another front, Highmountain stands but is still threatened by the Hammer of Khaz'goroth and Skovald has the Halls of Valor on hold given Odyn is still prisoner.

So it's not just a matter of breaking the armistice, it's a really stupid move overall. Genn is shooting yourself in the foot just to get some petty revenge and acting on assumptions.

And the whole Shaw is a Dreadlord angle could have been played off better, there could be a line or an emissary acknowledging the fact, some semblance of peace being rebuilt so that the Legion can be tackled.
But no, nothing. Just that line Anduin said about not following his orders.

Which by the way is sillier yet: Anduin went rogue after his father died. It's only after recovering Shalamayne that he goes full Manduin (and even then...) finding purpose and resolve. So to me it just doesn't add up who gave what order exactly.

All things considered, Sylvanas was more than right in A Good War to call out the Alliance, and the speech about calling peace when suiting Anduin too.
A shame that the Blue Man had to take over. Or maybe it's for the best after all, that sudden of a U-Turn would have soured me to no end.

[Feanoro]

Genn is shooting yourself in the foot just to get some petty revenge and acting on assumptions.

You heard it here folks, avenging the deaths of your son and subjects and the destruction/blighting of your homelands is just "petty revenge". Genn should just comfort his people with Anduin style platitudes, I guess.

Was it the best time for that move? No of course not. Was it wrong? No.