Spoiler I can't believe it. Tyrande did something.

[FelPlague]

In such a crucial moment too. Imagine if Sylvanas just fucking shanked her there and then. Welp, there goes that plan... thanks Elune!

true, pretty sure all her weapons were knocked away though.

[Xilurm]

so i was quite pleased to see Legion and BFA presentations, Wardens, sentinels in battle, hey looked tougher, also was lovely to see their civilization, and the Highborne, moonguard and Nightborne accurately representing their level of advancement, expertise and power in magic

I love how they gave them the classic armour in BFA during that one battle event in Zandalar. Really surprising from Blizzard and it was one of the few times I was glad to be a Night Elf fan...

- - - Updated - - -

true, pretty sure all her weapons were knocked away though.

You know what that reminded me of though? The Viper vs the Mountain fight in GoT. That episode left me scarred, so everytime I see a character that I don't want to die, go close quarters with the bad guy, I'm shitting myself.

[Nerovar]

I don't get why people always display the Battle of Undercity as an example of "Alliance favouritism". The entire premise of that siege is set up to make the Horde look as good as possible while giving the Alliance only a victory on paper. It was obvious that the Alliance had to win this one after Teldrassil. The fact that they get "outschemed" by Sylvanas on every occasion to a point where they almost require divine intervention to not lose half of their faction leaders whereas the Horde completely ravaged Ashenvale, Darkshore and of course Teldrassil without any redeeming moments for the Alliance speaks volumes.
Is it inconsequential storytelling? Yeah. Is it evidence of "Alliance bias"? Lol no.

[cirdanx]

She wasn't fast or powerful enough to actually harm Tyrande in any way.

Not really. That's your own opinion... and if that's true, then Sylvanas is even more stupid. Who wouldn't finish his opponent when they had a chance?

She was in panic and couldn't do anything untill she saw that the Elune's power was waning.

And yes, she was in fact in panic and couldn't do anything for that moment.

You have not proven anything nor have you any facts because the cinematic contradicts the little fantasy story you have in your head.

That level of fanfiction is ridiculous, there is no possible way of a discussion. You only see what you want to see and even admitted as much when saying you are trying to make sense of it...because it didn´t make one to begin with.

Oh and yes, Sylvanas IS acting stupid, because that´s how Blizzard wrote her.

Suit yourself with your head cannon.

[korijenkins]

It's funny how characters are genuinely surprised every time by Sylvanas' obvious tricks.

They've elevated her to the point of making other characters outright worse and objectively bad.

The moment they made her warchief they broke the logical storyline so much that it was basically unrecoverable without turning her into a grand scheming cartoon villain.

Despite what the dumb writers might say, they definitely had not planned to have her simping for the Jailer all the way back in Legion. I'd even go a step further and say they only made that the plan when the entire fanbase balked at how poorly she ran the Horde during BFA.

Her decision to burn the tree, just as an example, was clearly played as a rash action/emotional outburst because a Night Elf was mean to her. After basically everyone pointed out the laughably stupid idea that it was, THAT was when they decided to make her a Jailed tool.

"Oh no, we aren't incompetent writers! She was just TRYING to fuck everything up, see?"

And now to add icing to the cake, there isn't a fucking shred of doubt in my mind they'll go to lengths to redeem her character. It's going to be really fun when she magically becomes Xel'Naga and one shots the Jailer at the end of the expansion before flying off.

[Combatbutler]

Trying to sell a win? If it wasn't for the fact that Sylvanas is waifu and needed for the story she'd be dead...you and I both know they wont kill Sylvanas or the white knights will howl in rage.

Yes trying to sell a win, they wanted to make this look as this cool Tyrande moment, in reality it is just another slap in her face.

Tyrande is just downright braindamaged in this fight, though the screecher isn't much better as usual

Throws away her weapons
Turns her back to Sylvanas
Tries to strangle an Undead

[cirdanx]

They've elevated her to the point of making other characters outright worse and objectively bad.

Yes they certainly did that, and with it they also made her look like an idiot. It´s the thing that bothers me the most. They didn´t just ruin her, they ruined other leaders too. As well as the Forsaken faction as a whole imo.

The moment they made her warchief they broke the logical storyline so much that it was basically unrecoverable without turning her into a grand scheming cartoon villain.

Care to explain what you mean with they broke the logical storyline? I think Voljin dying was stupid (so was Varians death). I don´t think it hurts though, to have a Warchief that for once knows how to fight a war, so that made sense to me during Legion. I would have, however made sure she was stepping down/being forced out of that position later on. Which could have been an interesting story in itself.

Despite what the dumb writers might say, they definitely had not planned to have her simping for the Jailer all the way back in Legion. I'd even go a step further and say they only made that the plan when the entire fanbase balked at how poorly she ran the Horde during BFA.

Absolutely correct, they never did that. When Ion said that in an interview he was so lying out of his ass, it was ridiculous. Especially going back until WotlK. Everything that came before contradicts this scenario.

Her decision to burn the tree, just as an example, was clearly played as a rash action/emotional outburst because a Night Elf was mean to her. After basically everyone pointed out the laughably stupid idea that it was, THAT was when they decided to make her a Jailed tool.

"Oh no, we aren't incompetent writers! She was just TRYING to fuck everything up, see?"

True.
There was a twitter post from Metzen I think were he seems to be genuinely surprised by her burning the tree. I personally think that they changed the story line after he left. This would explain the whole mess and why nothing makes sense.

And now to add icing to the cake, there isn't a fucking shred of doubt in my mind they'll go to lengths to redeem her character. It's going to be really fun when she magically becomes Xel'Naga and one shots the Jailer at the end of the expansion before flying off.

I would not be surprised if they pull a Kerrigan…i hope not...but it´s a solid possibility.

[Super Dickmann]

I don't get why people always display the Battle of Undercity as an example of "Alliance favouritism". The entire premise of that siege is set up to make the Horde look as good as possible while giving the Alliance only a victory on paper. It was obvious that the Alliance had to win this one after Teldrassil. The fact that they get "outschemed" by Sylvanas on every occasion to a point where they almost require divine intervention to not lose half of their faction leaders whereas the Horde completely ravaged Ashenvale, Darkshore and of course Teldrassil without any redeeming moments for the Alliance speaks volumes.
Is it inconsequential storytelling? Yeah. Is it evidence of "Alliance bias"? Lol no.

The entire invasion of Kalimdor from the Horde perspective in the novella is premised on Sylvanas and Sadfang contriving a whole scheme just so they can ensure they're facing only what're basically militia forces and at a seven to one advantage at that with the element of surprise. Despite this, Malf still almost shuts down the whole offensive single-handed and the attack stalls out twice, to be corrected only by Saurfang and Nathanos relying on local supporters to sneak a force past the main night elf defensive line.

Now that has its own problems in the sense that the idea that the entire Horde barely able to beat up a portion of the night elves after stacking the deck as much as possible really makes the entire rest of the story questionable at best, but a middleground between A Good War's portrayal of the conflict and Elegy's pity party would've gone a long way to reduce many of the complaints. That and having the in-game implementation and the cutscene reflect even one of these versions instead of neither.

It is not presented in any sense as a Horde curbstomp. Lordaeron is arguably more slanted in favor of the Horde despite it being built on the basis of the twin retardation that is Sylvanas having zero defenses on the coastline to speak of, allowing the entire army to land uncontested and besiege the city, and the Alliance somehow not preparing for the Blight. That and the total absence of any story to commemorate what should be a major moment for the Forsaken and living Lordaeronians alike is another topic entirely though.

[melzas]

or you can let people voice their criticisms of the writing and story

no one is asking for the story to "go their way", we want a better written story that makes sense. We are free to voice our opinions, so you can go elsewhere if you can't handle that

And by "makes sense" you mean "go the way i want it to go" which is pathetic. And I can spin your crappy argument and also say "you can go elswhere if you can't handle my opinion that you are a whiner who can't appreciate a story in mmorpg for what it is".

[Jackstraw]

the total absence of any story to commemorate what should be a major moment for the Forsaken and living Lordaeronians alike is another topic entirely though.

I always felt like an alien when, in the understandable mourning of Teldrassil, such a momentous event like Lordaeron being carpet blanket to the point of tendrils of gas extending to the razed ruins of Brill, went basically under radio silence and nothing can be discussed about the now triple plight of the Forsaken, who are basically deployed full force from Orgrimmar as soon as the Darkshore campaign starts since it's assumed that much like rats all the race needs is some sewers or a battlement.
Hell, not even a line from Calia who now is the spokesperson for whatever good Lordaeron still has to spin.

Also, Malfurion not only manages to completely stop the Horde invasion, but let's not forget: the point of the War of Thorns, aside from expunging the Alliance from having any chance of controlling Kalimdor and the Azerite, is specifically to kill Malfurion Stormrage. A feat that's simply not possible until a number of chances pile up against an unkillable, unflinching nature demigod.

And by "makes sense" you mean "go the way i want it to go" which is pathetic. And I can spin your crappy argument and also say "you can go elswhere if you can't handle my opinion that you are a whiner who can't appreciate a story in mmorpg for what it is".

If the story is nonsensical and has no consistence with even itself, then the story has to be criticized. This cutscene is overall good, but there are things in the current narrative directions that make the previous iterations of lore and story look like amazing masterpieces, and those were not written by professionals like now.

Looks like passion for one's own creation makes all the difference in terms of quality. Who would have known.

[Mehrunes]

Getting hit and getting entangled are two different things.
And yes, she was in fact in panic and couldn't do anything for that moment.

They're not when the reason Tyrande got entangled is because she got hit with Sylvanas' spell (and when both achieve sweet nothing). You're engaging in special pleading right now. And yes, gritting teeth for a split second because you're being choked is a sure sign of panic. However could I have missed that.

Okay. But still that makes her stupid, because she could've feed much more souls to the maw. She eventually screamed "Horde is nothing", which is making her even more stupid. She had a whole army that could help her bring even more people to the afterlife, but then she decided to go emotional and lose that opportunity. (inb4 "she fed maw with enough souls" - lmao)

Yes, it does make her stupid. I haven't argued against that part. As I pointed out earlier in the thread even her accepting the duel was stupid because she accepted it to make Saurfang suffer, yet the duel wasn't actually necessary to achieve that because she could have made him suffer by capturing him in battle (that the Alliance was unlikely to win by their own commentary) and torturing him for eternity instead. But Alliance surviving because Sylvanas got hit with plot-induced stupidity doesn't constitute proof of her being weak, which is your main argument here. It kinda indicates the opposite, if anything.

Why are you trying to put words in my mouth? If that's how you're actually discussing then I already see why some people despise you on this forum(I received 3 private messaged that I shouldn't even discuss about anything with you and I am not even joking). I just "moved from one thing to another" to prove that your point of view isn't changing that much for my arguments, it's making them more complicated, while in fact my points still stands. And the argument "Blizzard wanted them to live", is just as sensible are "Blizzard just wanted Sylvanas to live, so they decided they will erase Elune's power before Tyrande destroy her".

I'm trying to put words in your mouth so hard that you admitted you added a second explanation in the very next sentence. Do you even know what the phrase means? Or are you just blindly parroting something you saw on the forum hoping it would stick? To make sure you won't try to bend over backwards about this again, I'll just quote you.

In the cinematic if Genn didn't actually say anything then he could have a clear opening on the Dark Ranger. He got what he wanted and she didn't. She just gripped her bow more tighly in anger, because she knew she couldn't do anything. She didn't even try to finish him off, and Genn was just like "see you later", leaving her and her loser attitude.

She wasn't able to kill him or was too stupid(don't tell me that she didn't want to have a war with Alliance ) and decided to stay there like a loser she is and grip a bow tightly, while Greymane just casualy walked away.

Would you look at that, the "or was too stupid" part is nowhere to be seen in your initial post. Damn, those words I put in your mouth.

So given how your accusations here turned to be a bunch of BS, making you the dishonest person here, spare me your personal attack and remarks about how some people that are too cowardly to reply to me themselves support your opinion of me. It doesn't mean much right after you had to make some BS about me "putting words in your mouth" up.

And I'm aware that you're not the only person on this forum that hides behind baseless accusations like "you're putting words in my mouth by quoting me verbatim because that somehow makes sense" when they ran out of arguments. That fanfiction peddlers with no argumentative skill whatsoever despise me for exposing their fanfiction for what it is with numerous quotes from the game and books despise me to the point that they have to latch to someone else's posts in a feeble attempt to score a sad gotcha like @Feanoro did yesterday or that they spread shit about me behind my back in copium circlejerk only makes me laugh.

Anyway, I'm not sure how your "not goalpost movement" that "I put in your mouth" makes your initial point still stand. Because it's just what I said in reply to the previous paragraph: the notion that Alliance characters survive fights with Sylvanas because she suffered from plot-induced stupidity (which in this case isn't even consistent with her character, because like I said Sylvanas usually lashes out when someone fucks her over and pisses her off) does not support your initial premise of Sylvanas being too weak to kill someone like Genn (who wasn't even in his Worgen form anymore), it disproves it.

Finally, your comparison to this cinematic makes no sense. We have no idea whatsoever about what Elune wants, because we've never even met her. There's like a dozen suggested reasons for what she did in this very thread and they just as well may all be wrong. But in regards to the Stormheim cinematic there is no ambiguous goddess working in mysterious ways.

There's only an old, limping man with his back to Sylvanas. And that's just the cinematic. From the quest text after it we know Genn had to be hauled out by others because he was poisoned. So it was actually an old, limping and poisoned man that had to be rescued by others. Sylvanas had a motive, opportunity and the ability to kill him. Yet she did nothing until those others appeared. There was no reason for her not to have killed him in that time and doing so would have been in character for her. Yet she didn't. Which makes it textbook plot contrivance.

I was just answering for your useless argument(or whatever that was supposed to be?) about "that powerful Malfurion getting almost killed with an axe", same thing happened with Sylvanas, she received even smaller piece of metal that actually killer her, lol.

Putting aside how Saurfang's axe has never been stated to be magical while Godfrey uses magical bullets as shown in his fight. And yes, the argument pointing out how your comparison to Dragon Ball is baseless is indeed useless, you got me here. Either that or the point flew 50 parsecs over your head. Whichever it could be...

I am not forcing anything. I am just saying that things in the game and books can be slighty different but that doesn't mean the rest isn't canon. You're the one who's wrong here. It's' just obvious that some things are explained in books and others are explained in the game. The things that happened in the game are just as canon as the things that were happening in the books. It's impossible to present the whole war/fight in a few pages or in a few minutes of the game. They're not contradicting with each other. Things that wasn't explained in the novel were presented in the game and things that weren't in the game were presented in the novel.
It's like saying "Why there are 100 NPCs in the whole Orgrimmar while there are thousands of them in the real scale? "
You expect them to have the same scale in the game as in the book? Are you for real? Get a grip.

Yes, you're totally not forcing anything by trying to explain the difference in events with a remark how there could have been a time gap between the two. A time gap that doesn't exist, because both versions show what happened immediately prior to Saurfang making sweet love to Malfurion's posterior with the business end of an axe. And yes, I'm totally the one who's wrong here. That's why I'm the one who has to pretend that two different versions of the same event are actually the same. Oh, wait, no. My bad. That would be you.

Kinda why you're trying to hide behind general statements about how things happening in the game are just as canon as the things that were happening in the books and that neither presented the whole war. You'd have a point if you talked about something like an attack on a specific village that was only shown by one. But that's not the case here. Here we have a specific situation and general statements are meaningless here. Especially in case where both did show the event in question. And, lo and behold, they have shown it differently.

What makes it even funnier is that earlier on you wholeheartedly agreed with a post by Darth-Piekus (which works wonders for your credibility on issues of lore, given how they are an A-grade fanfiction peddler that routinely sticks to their point even when outright quotations from the lore disprove it). Including the part where they said that their take on Malfurion vs Sylvanas is based on going by what we clearly see happening and not "shoulda,woulda,coulda and if theories".

And you agreed with that (I mean, why wouldn't you, their take on that fight is exactly the same as yours). Yet here you are, merrily ignoring that the latest lore on the issue contradicts the game and doesn't show what you want it to show, excusing the discrepancies with "The scene that happened in the game shoulda,woulda,coulda be the scene that happened a few seconds before Saurfang threw his axe (even though they happen at the same time)". Consistent, this is not.

And your remark about Orgrimmar and its scale is pretty much just pointless rambling, completely disjointed from the point at hand. There's no issue of game scale vs lore scale at play here. There is actually one more character involved in that scene in the game than in lore, thanks to the player, making this glorious tangent blow back right in your face. Congrats.

Meanwhile in the real world the issue at play here is that the game and story events take place at the exact same time, i.e. immediately before Saurfang's peak moment of honor and yet they show completely different things, which makes them irreconcilable. And you simply can't handle that fact. That's why you bring up completely irrelevant nonsense like the amount of NPCs in Orgrimmar in order to deflect from it.

[geco]

Yes trying to sell a win, they wanted to make this look as this cool Tyrande moment, in reality it is just another slap in her face.

Tyrande is just downright braindamaged in this fight, though the screecher isn't much better as usual

Throws away her weapons
Turns her back to Sylvanas
Tries to strangle an Undead

Now we are going to use two of those things that are supposed to be weapons make it clear that you are not very smart. XD

[Mehrunes]

Considering you later have to turn off Tyrande because she's overcharging with moon juice it makes even less sense and they would've been served just as well by swapping it around. Instead of running out of power Tyrande'd begin glowing more, you can have light effects around Sylvanas to get across that she's being fried then Tyrande loses control and looses her grip and Sylvanas takes this time to fuck off while Ysera has to step in to put Tyrande in stasis.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. That makes things even more Blizzard.

On an entirely different note, the framing of the cinematic much like Terror of Darkshore before it is strange in that it goes entirely against the rest of the storyline which beats the drum that being angry about your people being genocided is bad. The line about the wrath being all Tyrande's own and how Tyrande is actually entirely composed through most of it and has the upper hand psychologically until the plot juice runs out flies completely in the face of the excruciatingly long preceding chapters that have gone on and on about how she's irrational and acting because of outside factors. It's probably why I like both because only in them is Tyrande allowed agency as regards to her grievances. Right after the cutscenes she's back to being beat over the head about how she should be more nice and we all know her story this patch terminates with her embracing Anduinism.

Maybe that's the explanation for the bizarre behavior of Elune, actually. Perhaps she wants to bridge together the cinematic portrayal of Tyrande and her story with that from the quests. I.e. she depowered Tyrande to teach her that vengeance is not the answer.

I don't get why people always display the Battle of Undercity as an example of "Alliance favouritism". The entire premise of that siege is set up to make the Horde look as good as possible while giving the Alliance only a victory on paper. It was obvious that the Alliance had to win this one after Teldrassil. The fact that they get "outschemed" by Sylvanas on every occasion to a point where they almost require divine intervention to not lose half of their faction leaders whereas the Horde completely ravaged Ashenvale, Darkshore and of course Teldrassil without any redeeming moments for the Alliance speaks volumes.
Is it inconsequential storytelling? Yeah. Is it evidence of "Alliance bias"? Lol no.

What do you mean by divine intervention? Sylvanas just resorted to gassing her city because she was scared shitless of Jaina. That she didn't even knew would enter the throne room with Anduin. And who wasn't even a part of the Alliance forces when Sylvanas started making the preparations thanks to being busy dragging ships from the bottom of the sea at the time. At least that's what some people here claim has happened. Pay no attention to the logical gaps pointed out above.

[Jackstraw]

Maybe that's the explanation for the bizarre behavior of Eluna, actually. Perhaps she wants to bridge together the cinematic portrayal of Tyrande and her story with that from the quests. I.e. she depowered Tyrande to teach her that vengeance is not the answer.

It's really sudden though. Tyrande supposedly went on a rampage in the Maw and Torghast while the power of the Night Warrior started to spill over, there has been no prior foreshadowing whatsoever. Tyrande went from full Night Warrior power and possibly the very apex of its embodiment to literally nothing in ten seconds.
One can't help but wonder why then Elune would proceed to give such a surge of power to match in speed and movement a flying banshee only for then retract it all and relying on the chance Ysera would shield Tyrande from Sylvanas.

I'd hope for Dickmann's to be the one it actually gets presented, but after the BfA prepatch I learned better than to expect common sense, as bitter as this statement might sound.

[Mehrunes]

It's really sudden though. Tyrande supposedly went on a rampage in the Maw and Torghast while the power of the Night Warrior started to spill over, there has been no prior foreshadowing whatsoever. Tyrande went from full Night Warrior power and possibly the very apex of its embodiment to literally nothing in ten seconds.
One can't help but wonder why then Elune would proceed to give such a surge of power to match in speed and movement a flying banshee only for then retract it all and relying on the chance Ysera would shield Tyrande from Sylvanas.

I'd hope for Dickmann's to be the one it actually gets presented, but after the BfA prepatch I learned better than to expect common sense, as bitter as this statement might sound.

The whole bit about Tyrande rampaging through the Maw is strange in its own right, by the way. In the starting scenario of SL we meet Jaina, Thrall etc. and by that point they escaped the Jailer on multiple occasions only to be captured again and again. And, on top of that, the reason they escaped so often in the little time it took us to get there searching for them is because the Maw suffers from some tile dilation. Then, when the Jailer grew tired of that, he simply hauled them to Torghast.

Yet Tyrande merrily ran around the Maw on her own for an entire patch. So, in lore-time, probably months, as expansions generally cover one year. Before the Maw's time dilation. And somehow survived, despite it being literally Warcraft's hell. Where the only people running free before the super-duper special player got involved was Ve'nari, who cloaks the hell out of all her activities.

And yeah, I already wondered about that weirdness in Elune's behavior as well.

[Alanar]

I dunno, this is still pretty badass in Spanish, if not more badass. They seem to have good VAs.

Realy doesnt sound badass.. sorry.

[Mehrunes]

It is not presented in any sense as a Horde curbstomp. Lordaeron is arguably more slanted in favor of the Horde despite it being built on the basis of the twin retardation that is Sylvanas having zero defenses on the coastline to speak of, allowing the entire army to land uncontested and besiege the city, and the Alliance somehow not preparing for the Blight. That and the total absence of any story to commemorate what should be a major moment for the Forsaken and living Lordaeronians alike is another topic entirely though.

What makes it even better is that before Sylvanas jumped the shark, she was motivated by the desire to form a bulwark for herself and Forsaken. OK, she went team Jailer later on, but what did she do before that? She led a faction of people that do not eat, drink or sleep. AND she barely lifted a finger to help Garrosh's war out after she secured Lordaeron in 4.0. She should have turned her kingdom into a fortress. Yet the Tirisfal shoreline is still just a bunch of Murlock shacks.

[Jackstraw]

I don't get why people always display the Battle of Undercity as an example of "Alliance favouritism".

Is it inconsequential storytelling? Yeah. Is it evidence of "Alliance bias"? Lol no.

Let's quickly run over the points of the Battle of Lordaeron shall we?

The retaliatory strike moves its famed Third Fleet from (presumably) Stormwind all the way around the Eastern Kingdoms, makes landfall at the shores of Tirisfal Glades, the heart of the Forsaken, that for some reason have never been fortified or mined, and make a beeline for Brill. No amount of resistance is able to withstand the onslaught.

Siege towers appear from nowhere but are unable to breach the walls of Undercity.

There's the cinematic event where Sylvanas blows a siege tower. Anduin mass resuscitates basically the entirety of the Alliance fighting force after the Horde pushes back.

The Horde deploys the very first Azerite tank, a war machine powered by the resource that led to an entire Silithius arms race and basically to the War of Thorns.
It should have turned the tides of battle, but Anduin breaks it with one sword blow.
Anduin is a priest in plate armor and has never, at any point, shown a fraction of his father's combat prowess.

A blighting commando gets deployed from the Undercity and the Horde fallen reanimated.
The Blight, as vile a tactic as it was, should turn the tides of battle, but Jaina appears on a flying ship, freezes the Blight and with the cannons at her disposal blasts the walls of Undercity.
Jaina, in one fell swoop, demonstrates powers greater than an entire sieging army and equal to a sizable part of a dragonflight, the red one, who dispersed the Blight with red dragonflames at the Wrathgate.

The Alliance is able to break into the Undercity via the breach in the wall made by Jaina. Nathanos, Lor'themar and Baine corner the Alliance in the courtyards, outmaneuvering them and surrounding them with catapults manned (or cowed?) by none other than Baine.
This blitz should turn the tides of battle, but Alleria opens void portals from apparently nowhere, bringing in the courtyard spider tanks and a good chunk of reinforcements.
Apparently traveling through the void has no sensible effect on non trained individuals.

The Alliance mvps then march towards the throne room in a shot by shot parallel with Arthas' return. After a brief dialogue and making sure no escape is possible, Sylvanas turns into a banshee and flies away after Lordaeron and the entire Undercity gets blighted.
This should straight up end the battle and leave the Alliance without leaders, but Jaina shields them all with an arcane bubble and effortlessly teleports everyone out.

So in four different occasions the Alliance manages to get out in a pinch after the most absurd landfall in the history of the game whereas the War of Thorns went through great lengths to show the Horde's efforts to break through any and all Kaldorei line of defense, leaving unscathed and claiming moral superiority.

If it's not Alliance bias, it has to be a slight tilt of the narrative towards the blues at the very least. This much has to be agreed upon.

- - - Updated - - -

And yeah, I already wondered about that weirdness in Elune's behavior as well.

Yeah sorry, I'm having some issues of recalling all the directions this discussion is taking.
Which is a shame as this time the premise is at least honest, but the sprinkles of nonsense really show how the details are supremely important when going for such overarching narratives.

[Nerovar]

The entire invasion of Kalimdor from the Horde perspective in the novella is premised on Sylvanas and Sadfang contriving a whole scheme just so they can ensure they're facing only what're basically militia forces and at a seven to one advantage at that with the element of surprise. Despite this, Malf still almost shuts down the whole offensive single-handed and the attack stalls out twice, to be corrected only by Saurfang and Nathanos relying on local supporters to sneak a force past the main night elf defensive line.

Now that has its own problems in the sense that the idea that the entire Horde barely able to beat up a portion of the night elves after stacking the deck as much as possible really makes the entire rest of the story questionable at best, but a middleground between A Good War's portrayal of the conflict and Elegy's pity party would've gone a long way to reduce many of the complaints. That and having the in-game implementation and the cutscene reflect even one of these versions instead of neither.

It is not presented in any sense as a Horde curbstomp. Lordaeron is arguably more slanted in favor of the Horde despite it being built on the basis of the twin retardation that is Sylvanas having zero defenses on the coastline to speak of, allowing the entire army to land uncontested and besiege the city, and the Alliance somehow not preparing for the Blight. That and the total absence of any story to commemorate what should be a major moment for the Forsaken and living Lordaeronians alike is another topic entirely though.

I can't really judge how it's presented in the novelization but in game from Alliance PoV it seemed like a curbstomp with the biggest "victory" being a temporary wisp wall and Malfurion not dying (lol). Ashenvale (which was contested for years) gets mowed down, the parts of Darkshore that didn't get destroyed in Cata get blighted, Night Elf soldiers get raised as Horde goons and large parts of the Darnassian population go down in flames whereas Undercity got evacuated beforehand and the entire city gets turned into a trap which the Alliance spring with their usual gleeful idiocy. Also the Forsaken return to Tirisfal in the same expansion with the blight slowly receding already.

If it's not Alliance bias, it has to be a slight tilt of the narrative towards the blues at the very least. This much has to be agreed upon.

You're missing the point here. The Alliance was always going to win this battle because Blizzard can't let one faction be the clear winner while the other one gets burned/butchered/raised etc. The fact that the Horde practically outmaneuvered them at every step and almost won the battle on several occasions despite planning to blow up the city from the start is testament to how even when they have to lose because the game demands it, they still do it in the most graceful way possible, effectively winning every particular engagement only for the Alliance to achieve a last minute pyrrhic victory due to divine intervention. There are no displays of cruelty against civilians, no comparable shock to the morale and the only scorched earth in this scenario is self-inflicted and non-permanent (as I pointed out above).

[Jackstraw]

There are no displays of cruelty against civilians, no comparable shock to the morale and the only scorched earth in this scenario is self-inflicted and non-permanent (as I pointed out above).

This is strictly an user base issue. The Alliance cannot be presented as ill intentioned or violent, as seen in the knee jerk correction of the Vulpera Purge Squads: there's a vocal pushback any time a crime is blue tinted, and Blizzard has always went to great lengths to prevent such things to happen so that the Alliance could be framed culprit.

But anyway it's not just the Alliance winning the battle, it's how it's won. And let me be super clear: it's strictly due to writing contrivancies that we go back and forth on such a pile of nonsense, because a world tree should not have been burnt down to cinders by a couple shaman pimped catapults and of course the Alliance should not have been annihilated when fighting against the Horde and the Forsaken.

But there was just no stake and no consistency in the entire event, the Forsaken lost even more of their identity and will soon lose the last thing it made them the race they've been for more than a decade at the time of BfA, and the Horde will lose Arathi and any claim to Darkshore because these warfronts have been canonically won by the Alliance, who lost a capital city whose significance is akin or greater than Undercity, and nothing more.