What do you think the future of the Forsaken will be under Calia Menethil? [Spoilers]

[Combatbutler]

They wanted to give her a Sysiphean task but also make it something positive but predictably didn't think it through the implications on anyone except the main characters. Warcraft in a nutshell.

It is always fascinating how little blizz writers think things through, it takes a few minutes of contemplating about the whole ordeal to come to such a conclusion, it is not like they literally made a zone meant for such souls to atone for their sins. Nope can't have that, or you know actually have the guts to kill her.

[Super Dickmann]

It is always fascinating how little blizz writers think things through, it takes a few minutes of contemplating about the whole ordeal to come to such a conclusion, it is not like they literally made a zone meant for such souls to atone for their sins. Nope can't have that, or you know actually have the guts to kill her.

It's a solipsistic kind of bad writing, where the fates of the masses matter only in so far as they affected named characters. In BFA, sure cooking those night elves was bad, but we don't really focus on them at any stage, the refugees and so forth, we only focus on how it makes Sadfang, one of the perpetrators feel. In SL, the same happens, except this time with Tyrande and Sylvanas - it doesn't really matter whether the Kaldorei can go on as a functioning state, what matters is that Tyrande doesn't let the elimination of most of her race's civilian population make her mad and that Sylvanas has a poetic way to repent. You can see lesser examples in Camp Meme, Dalaran and the Forsaken we kill to free Baine. The narrative is morally apathetic to those we off to get us there, what matter is how they make Jaina and Baine feel.

Incidentally, no one feels for q*illboar, gn*lls or other subhuman species and so under this moral frame their conquest and extermination is at worst a neutral act.

[Varodoc]

Not really, bitch goes to perpetual community service in hell and there's no court procedure to begin with. There's no attempt to mimic any kind of legal process with her or anyone else's afterlife decision. The one time the game has tried to incorporate a court procedure is with Garrosh and it was a circus.

VanCleef is defeated, no one cares about his reasoning.
Staghelm is defeated, no one cares about his reasoning.
Benedictus is defeated, no one cares about his reasoning.

Garrosh is defeated? Let's not kill him, we must put him on trial and understand why he went evil!
Sylvanas is defeated? Let's not kill her, we must put her on trial and understand why she went evil!

Please. Don't tell me that the Horde villains don't get obvious favouritism and double-standards compared to the Alliance ones. With Alliance villains, you just kill them and are done with it. Horde villains are never killed at the end of their raid fight and instead have to be "spared" for whatever reason.

[Combatbutler]

It's a solipsistic kind of bad writing, where the fates of the masses matter only in so far as they affected named characters. In BFA, sure cooking those night elves was bad, but we don't really focus on them at any stage, the refugees and so forth, we only focus on how it makes Sadfang, one of the perpetrators feel. In SL, the same happens, except this time with Tyrande and Sylvanas - it doesn't really matter whether the Kaldorei can go on as a functioning state, what matters is that Tyrande doesn't let the elimination of most of her race's civilian population make her mad and that Sylvanas has a poetic way to repent. You can see lesser examples in Camp Meme, Dalaran and the Forsaken we kill to free Baine. The narrative is morally apathetic to those we off to get us there, what matter is how they make Jaina and Baine feel.

Incidentally, no one feels for q*illboar, gn*lls or other subhuman species and so under this moral frame their conquest and extermination is at worst a neutral act.

Precisely, it wouldn't be so bad, if blizz didn't focus on a genuine moral lesson. After all pretty much every character in every story in every franchise is a hypocrite on some level and their moral compass can be used to explore them more, the problem begins the moment morality is used as a foundation, despite the fact the moral system of the universe is far to flimsy to hold up to any kind of scrutiny.

[Super Dickmann]

VanCleef is defeated, no one cares about his reasoning.
Staghelm is defeated, no one cares about his reasoning.
Benedictus is defeated, no one cares about his reasoning.

Garrosh is defeated? Let's not kill him, we must put him on trial and understand why he went evil!
Sylvanas is defeated? Let's not kill her, we must put her on trial and understand why she went evil!

Please. Don't tell me that the Horde villains don't get obvious favouritism and double-standards compared to the Alliance ones. With Alliance villains, you just kill them and are done with it. Horde villains are never killed at the end of their raid fight and instead have to be "spared" for whatever reason.

VanCleef

Alliance villain

Loving every laugh. Bait, I know, but it goes to show how much of the bottom of the barrel you have to scrape even for a meme post, as compared to the Horde mowing down its WC2 cast, some twice in Kargath's case with no trial and raiding not one but two Warchiefs.

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Precisely, it wouldn't be so bad, if blizz didn't focus on a genuine moral lesson. After all pretty much every character in every story in every franchise is a hypocrite on some level and their moral compass can be used to explore them more, the problem begins the moment morality is used as a foundation, despite the fact the moral system of the universe is far to flimsy to hold up to any kind of scrutiny.

The slapdash morality in a setting that doesn't permit it, with a gameplay loop based around violence and killing and in a story that applies it completely selectively is where an already shit idea meets even worse execution. The main consequence is an entire setting worth of characters who act as if they were transposed from the writer's office in terms of ideas and act with preternatural awareness of the lesson the script is trying to tell them. My favorite will always be Kul Tiras learning to be kind to the Horde after losing their historic hero to them and having their homeland raided by them apropo of nothing after twenty years because their rulers are aware that the end goal of the expansion they're in is the Unifaction. Closely followed by Garrosh being branded as a maddened warmonger in ToW by the eunuchs of the Horde leadership for prosecuting a war against a military position in the process of waging a war against them for the past two years because they've read the script and are aware that Jaina's actually a nice girl. The few times Blizzard let characters act as they should based on their values and their in-setting situation and knowledge are manna from heaven.

[Combatbutler]

My favorite will always be Kul Tiras learning to be kind to the Horde after losing their historic hero to them and having their homeland raided by them apropo of nothing after twenty years because their rulers are aware that the end goal of the expansion they're in is the Unifaction. Closely followed by Garrosh being branded as a maddened warmonger in ToW by the eunuchs of the Horde leadership for prosecuting a war against a military position in the process of waging a war against them for the past two years because they've read the script and are aware that Jaina's actually a nice girl. The few times Blizzard let characters act as they should based on their values and their in-setting situation and knowledge are manna from heaven.

Kul'tiras was a really bad trip, and the way blizz got rid of the sentiment, by personifying legitimate grievances in the ashvane character, which you literally drive from the nation, doesn't help at all.

Man warcraft humans are just the worst.

[Varodoc]

Loving every laugh. Bait, I know, but it goes to show how much of the bottom of the barrel you have to scrape even for a meme post, as compared to the Horde mowing down its WC2 cast, some twice in Kargath's case with no trial and raiding not one but two Warchiefs.

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The slapdash morality in a setting that doesn't permit it, with a gameplay loop based around violence and killing and in a story that applies it completely selectively is where an already shit idea meets even worse execution. The main consequence is an entire setting worth of characters who act as if they were transposed from the writer's office in terms of ideas and act with preternatural awareness of the lesson the script is trying to tell them. My favorite will always be Kul Tiras learning to be kind to the Horde after losing their historic hero to them and having their homeland raided by them apropo of nothing after twenty years because their rulers are aware that the end goal of the expansion they're in is the Unifaction. Closely followed by Garrosh being branded as a maddened warmonger in ToW by the eunuchs of the Horde leadership for prosecuting a war against a military position in the process of waging a war against them for the past two years because they've read the script and are aware that Jaina's actually a nice girl. The few times Blizzard let characters act as they should based on their values and their in-setting situation and knowledge are manna from heaven.

Yeah, you laugh because you have no argument.

Answer what I asked, why did VanCleef, Benedictus, and Staghelm die without anyone ever even being preoccupied of a trial, while Garrosh and Sylvanas couldn't simply be murdered in cold blood?

[Aresk]

Yeah, you laugh because you have no argument.

Answer what I asked, why did VanCleef, Benedictus, and Staghelm die without anyone ever even being preoccupied of a trial, while Garrosh and Sylvanas couldn't simply be murdered in cold blood?

From a Doylist or a Watsonian perspective? From a Doylist perspective, Garrosh and Sylvanas didn't die for the same reason that Gelbin and Jaina didn't; they're major racial leaders. VanCleef and Benedictus are dungeon bosses, and Staghelm is a penultimate (not even ultimate) raid boss. Yes, they have stories that have spanned expansions, but so have Horde characters like Nazgrim or Zaela, who are similarly dispatched without trial.

From a Watsonian perspective, the former aren't killed in cold blood. They're killed in combat. Sylvanas, for her part, was unconscious from having her soul restored; executing her at that part would have been in cold blood. Garrosh would've been killed in battle had Varian not stepped in to again say that the Horde can't have nice things (i.e., killing Garrosh). Garrosh would've died in battle had Varian not intervened and required the various harmed parties to agree what to do with him, so that's more an issue of the Alliance interfering than the Horde being benefited.

[cparle87]

Well, sort of need to see what she actually does. There is some hope for some reasonable direction that is not that of a fodder for cracked leader with dubious aims. But she'd probably will need to grow some spine and not always fluffy and nice leadership character, besides being special snowflake undead.

But all in all Horde could use a reprieve from murderhobo leaders and grow some relatable ones of its own, there is a shot at that here.

Problem with that last line is that with this playerbase you're either a murderhobo or a sellout traitor to the Horde. Look at Baine. There's actually a poster who has taken the name of a lore character in the game and spent the last 10 years vilifying him for accepting Taurajo for a valid target, then exiling rebellious tauren who wanted to attack the Alliance while bigger problems were taking place. He's got thousands of posts.

[VladlTutushkin]

everything less than a lynch againt the shit menethil would be a shitfest.
thats all



rotfl, literally stormwind just genocided murlocs because they fleed from a naga or crabby monsters invasion and settled in the lake.
and made a recipe out of them.

What, not thrilled to open a new page in forsaken’s history? Not excited for all the “forgiveness and renewal”? How so?

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They wanted to give her a Sysiphean task but also make it something positive but predictably didn't think it through the implications on anyone except the main characters. Warcraft in a nutshell.

@VladlTutushkin

Meh, Sylvanas is about on par with Vashj and Illidan and the latter got a calm gig in Maldraxxus despite working for not one but two forces trying to kill everyone in the Legion and the Old Gods. Her community service is only a bad call in as much as Blizzard don't even think about anyone who isn't a named character in the Bland Gang so what's an appropriate end point for her gets turned with the magic of poor implications into more people being processed by hell robots so that she can get a longer job.

About on par when your celestial judge of souls is someone who fell for Nigerian prince scams a patch ago really.

You can argue about Illidan but Vashj is DEAD. If Sylvanas was dead and so bound to Shadowlands then i wouldnt have any issues with her doing whatever there.

[Eapoe]

Extinction. Sylvanas’ Val’kyr are the ones who were able to raise them. Without them, there are no Forsaken to raise.
Even if Calia was able to start raising them with the help of the Naaru, it’s more than likely they would be raised as light bound undead, which would still mean the end of the Forsaken as they are now.

[Ersula]

VanCleef is defeated, no one cares about his reasoning.
Staghelm is defeated, no one cares about his reasoning.
Benedictus is defeated, no one cares about his reasoning.

Lol with the exception of Benedictus who is a gd doom cultist, those guys were never even in the Alliance.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Lol with the exception of Benedictus who is a gd doom cultist, those guys were never even in the Alliance.

If you knew the lore, you would not have posted this.

[Mehrunes]

All i can say to your downright lawyeristic levels of term-juggling, headcanon mixing with canon, assumptions, some terminology cover and strategic use of strawman…

Why would you say anything to a bunch of meaningless buzzwords you inserted here to weasel out of an argument that you know you're bound to lose because you can't stay consistent or inform yourself about the lore you're trying to discuss? Makes little sense to me.

If Calia was indeed an “usurper” who swayed “high ranking forsaken”. And if being a “Forsaken” means serving Sylvanas…

With Sylvanas now abdicated in all but written form, you know, abandoning the Horde and fleeing to the Shadowlands and then staying there to do civil service in the Maw…

That means Calia now is indeed a legitimate claimant to the “throne”.

Since she “clearly” can make Forsaken follow her, even high ranking ones, after meeting them for the first time no less.

Sylvanas is gone, so “forsaken” are just a term now, they have no one to follow.

And she also has backing of Lilian Voss, who became a part of Forsaken firmly in BfA.

See? Embrace your new Queen and be in awe! In awe of her might and beauty. Oh and wisdom too.

And what makes even less sense to me is that your little gotcha here revolves around you not understanding what "usurper" even means. Being a usurper (or a would-be usurper in Calia's case) - which by the way is what Anduin himself calls her in the book, so this is rather confusing choice of a part of my post to take issue with (then again you'd need to actually ever read it to know any of that) - says nothing about one being a legitimate claimant. Not only that, but usually it indicates the opposite. As per usual, unless you were indeed aiming for your own foot, this is yet another hit and miss.

We literally watch the scene from the perspective of one of those murdered forsaken, the loyalest loyalist to ever loyal, Velicinda, and yet this argument still goes on for no reason.

And as we see from the perspective of this loyalest loyalist to ever loyal, even she violated Sylvanas' orders in order to chit chat with Calia. And her being loyal says nothing about everyone else, let alone justify the claim that the loyalists were a majority.

Honestly even if the completely fictional (well, more fictional) scenario of every single one of them running for the Alliance happened, Sylvanas was threatened...how? That'd be like 5 or 6 civilians defecting. Maybe if Calia was still alive to direct them or encourage others to leave, which is why I never fault her for that part.

Sylvanas was not threatened whatsoever by the civilians she butchered any more than the civilians alive on Teldrassil. She was against what they represented. Hope.

Given how Calia died last, this remark doesn't make even chronological sense. The rest is the usual Alliance fanfiction peddler spiel desperately trying to portray the de facto leaders of Undercity in Sylvanas' absence as some ordinary civilians and their defection and subsequent ability to leak Undercity's secrets to the Horde's enemy as non-threatening, which does nothing but fall flat on its face for the hundredth time.

[Lolites]

I also don't remember the Alliance ever killing people for treason

true, they usualy leave it unpunished, like when genn and rogers attacked allies in legion AGAINST direct orders from alliance high king for example

Aside from the Purge of Dalaran, which was clearly, explicitly, and officially condemned by Alliance High King Varian Wrynn.

when did he do that?
afaik he just said "bad jaina!" and that was it, and even that was said in a room with him, Jaina and player (and maybe some guards)...

[Mehrunes]

It's funny how you Horde players have no problem relying on irl laws, when it suits you. But then, when it comes to Golden listing all of Garrosh's crimes, including genocide, you just roll your eyes, because "Azeroth is a fantasy world", "it shouldn't have Geneva Convention", "Horde did nothing wrong", "Crimes should be allowed on Azeroth"...

Or when the novel literally stated that Sylvanas committed genocide at Teldrassil, you just say "Ohhh but it's a fantasy world, Geneva Conventions don't exist, she did nothing unusual or wrong".

I guess referencing irl laws works only when it justifies the Horde, huh?

Obviously the fact that one is a general legal concept of "treason bad, harsh punishment warranted" as ancient as civilization and has been seen in Warcraft dozens of times across various races and the other is an extremely specific (and, lo and behold, wrongly used by Golden), extremely modern legal concept that came out of the left field as far as Warcraft is concerned (why didn't they make such charges against the Orcs before the internment, for example) has no bearing here, because nuance apparently died in a ditch.

Then there's the part where the charges of genocide Garrosh and his Horde revolved around the actions of the Old Horde, which means Golden's failure in comprehending the law goes as deep as the very basics of criminal culpability, or where the charge in regards to Teldrassil was shown as an opinion of a character

I also don't remember the Alliance ever killing people for treason. Aside from the Purge of Dalaran, which was clearly, explicitly, and officially condemned by Alliance High King Varian Wrynn.

Varian condemned it so harshly Stormwind soldiers helped with the Purge.

So Yes, I am suggesting that the Alliance never punished treason with capital punishment.

I'm sure they dismantled Alterac in retribution for its treason with hugs and sunshine.

Daily reminder Anduin has no authority to punish Genn or any other Alliance head of state.

Except the High King has authority over forces of the member states of the Alliance given under his command. Which explicitly applies to Genn during the Stormheim expedition, as per the High King's own commentary. And also Genn's own commentary before the expedition launched, when he and Rogers talked about how he'll just disregard Anduin's orders. On top of that, Anduin did actually punish him and Rogers, it's just this punishment was so lenient it makes a slap on the wrist look like a lifetime in gulag by comparison. Also, a remainder that Varian also punished an Alliance head of state when the above criteria was not even met when he deposed (and initially planned to execute) Moira.

This is not headcanon, this is how Metzen defined the position. He made clear it wasn't supposed to be the Blue Warchief, only an elected supreme commander of the military forces that member states supplied to the Alliance.

Which, again, includes Genn in context of this particular event. Blame Genn for volunteering.

I've not seen the Metzen quote, but given the current team's proclivity to change things and act like they haven't changed anything (i.e.: gaslight us on the story), it's entirely possible.

In typical @Feanoro fashion that contains a hefty dose of misrepresentation. Because all that was said by Metzen was that the position of the High King is a military one, not about control, akin to that of the title of Supreme Allied Commander held by Lothar and that if Alliance member states don't want to commit forces, they don't have to. And, further elaborated by Ornyx (not Metzen), that the High King only has authority over those forces that were indeed committed to him.

That's all. Nowhere does it say that he can't punish the heads of an Alliance member state (by the way, the equivalence between the punishment of the head of state with the punishment of the state itself in Feanoro's post is already wonky) if those heads of state were included in the forces committed to him and, as such, given under his personal control. And that Genn was part of precisely such a force in Stormheim is indicated by both Genn (who talks with Rogers how they'll simply disregard Anduin's orders, which shows that they were bound by them) and Anduin himself (who thought to himself about how Genn violated said orders).

Also, looping back to the whole head of state/state equivalence, that equivalence doesn't work anyway, because the Alliance most certainly punished the entire state of Alterac. With outright destruction.

[ChairmanKaga]

Extinction. Sylvanas’ Val’kyr are the ones who were able to raise them. Without them, there are no Forsaken to raise.
Even if Calia was able to start raising them with the help of the Naaru, it’s more than likely they would be raised as light bound undead, which would still mean the end of the Forsaken as they are now.

I'm vaguely hoping the Alliance get some undead AR and Calia goes with them. Your Naaru raised undead could fit that bill.

[Mehrunes]

The Alliance of Lordaeron and the current Alliance are not the same factions. Moreover, the Tyr's Hand peasant massacre was perpetuated by the forces of Lordaeron and Garithos was a knight of Lordaeron. If anyone inherits these sins, it would likely be the Forsaken.

Metzen confirmed they are the same years ago. Also, why would the Forsaken inherit the acts of a Lordaeronians that remained non-undead even after the arrival of the Scourge like Garithos? Especially when they are the ones that killed him?

This was an exceptional circumstance in which Varian had been kidnapped, and both Anduin and Bolvar were being manipulated by Onyxia. It was a failure of the Stormwind nobility and ruling class, but isn't indicative of the Alliance being inherently bad or committing a crime.

Varian was kidnapped years after the initial brutalization of the Stonemasons. And he was the one who cracked down on them so hard they were forced to flee to the countryside and form the Defias Brotherhood.

There was no genocide. The did invade part of the Stonespire's land and did force them off it to setup the excavation site Bael Modan, using violence when they resisted; however, there was no wholesale, calculated slaughter. It would be fair to call it an unjustified invasion of their lands, but genocide is several steps too far.

While genocide is indeed too far, according to Gann the Dwarves did destroy the entire tribe living there, with him being the last member.

What happened at Taurajo wasn't a massacre. In Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War, retcons the events a bit, so the events described in-game aren't the current canon. General Hawthorne, and the Alliance forces, were given false information that the Tauren were planning on attacking Northwatch Keep, which prompted them to attack Taurajo, which was known to be a military target. During the invasion, it was found that the Taurajo had a larger civilian presence than they believed, so they left holes in their lines to allow civilians to evacuate (i.e.: effectively a humanitarian corridor). Baine even outright states that Taurajo was a legitimate military target, acknowledging that Hawthorne had not ordered civilians to be killed, and banishes the Tauren who sought vengeance from Thunder Bluff.

You left out the part where Hawthorne was an incompetent idiot that couldn't do any intel gathering about the geopolitics of the region and he funneled those Tauren to the territory of Quillboars that hated them and, consequently, slaughtered them while they were fleeing from Taurajo. Also, Baine is such an Alliance asset the game eventually gave him an Alliance tag at the end of the last war and he'd excuse his human masters even if they impaled every orphan in Orgrimmar in front of him.

The Blood Elves had joined the Horde at this point, so actions against them by the Alliance is fair game. Perhaps the one thing that's a bit suspect are the actions of Prospector Anvilward, who abuses his role as an ambassador to Silvermoon to assist in the undermining of the Blood Elves, but that's not really on the same level as most things you would list as a war crime (or as explicitly evil, anyhow).

The Blood Elves join the Horde only after the events of the Ghostline questline. Also, the Alliance outright invaded and occupied several areas of Thalassian territory and their sabotage was actually the least offending part of the whole thing.

It's arguable whether this is justified. At this point, the Horde had already used a powerful magical weapon, the Mana Bomb, on Theramore, and now it was found that they had abused Dalaran to move another powerful magical artifact, the Divine Bell, into the Horde's possession. What's more is that Aethas allowed it to happen, albeit under threat of reprisals from Garrosh but also knowing that Jaina would retaliate (i.e.: he hedged his bets that Jaina's wrath would be less than Garrosh's). But what makes it worse is that he then increased tensions between the Alliance and Horde by hiding his compliance in the abuse of Dalaran, making the Sunreavers and Lor'themar to believe Jaina to be solely responsible for the purge (i.e.: his withholding information removes a lot of context for all parties, and could have even stopped the purge before it began).

The one that "abused Dalaran" there was Jaina. She aided the Night Elves first, by personally capturing, wounding or killing Horde soldiers with her traps (unknown what they specifically did), even though by her own standards in Tides of War asking the Kirin Tor to aid Theramore was tantamount to asking them to break their neutrality, even though all they did was ward it with magic and did not directly take part in hostilities. She turned Dalaran into Alliance's co-belligerent and a valid target of war.

Then there's the part where she had no authority whatsoever to perform the Purge by herself anyway, as Dalaran is ruled by the Council of Six and not just its leader. With the leader having no additional powers compared to the rest of the Council (not even a tie-breaker vote) and only acting as a representation to outside parties. Which is why the only actual Kirin Tor member who engaged in the Purge was Jaina and the rest of the forces were Stormwind soldiers (further showing that Jaina already cooperated with the Alliance) and Vereesa's private militia that has no official legal standing in Dalaran.

I'm unsure what you mean by biological terrorism, or why you would even bring that up as the Forsaken regularly use plague bombs and other biological and chemical agents in war. Regarding the use of tossing Horde ambassadors into the Void, yeah, it's a horrible way to die. The Horde probably shouldn't have started a war that no one wanted and proceeded to burn thousands of people to death.

The actions of the Horde don't negate Alliance's own crimes though.

Sure, the SI:7 probably shouldn't have ordered their deaths, but it doesn't really rise to the same level of crime that we would expect to see in countering the Horde's actions. A more relevant example would be when an Alliance Naval Commander ordered the sinking of Goblin ships to ensure there were "no witnesses" to their attempt to abduct Thrall.

But all Horde was doing at the time was dig in Silithus. There was nothing to counter yet. And the fact that the Alliance attacked there before the the invasion of Ashenvale makes the idea that the Horde started the war suspect. I know that technically it's said in one quest at the end of the war, but Blizzard has a penchant for writing the Alliance engage in acts of war against the Horde and then brushing it under the carpet. Case in point Before the Storm, which reiterated multiple times that the factions needed a ceasefire even for something as benign as the Gathering (i.e. 1. a peaceful meeting of 2. civilians on 3. neutral ground) to happen. With the author also then going out of her way to cover who broke said ceasefire first when shit hit the fan. And the requirement of a ceasefire indicates the existence of an already ongoing open conflict (i.e. the metaphorical "fire") that needed to be temporarily ceased.

Lets not forget the moral lesson of letting these souls in the maw suffer for longer, so that the screecher can clean it up, instead of the Kyrian fed ex service that chugged them down there, despite knowing shit was broken, doesn't get them out as fast as possible, such a clean moral decision.

Well, she does have Anduin helping her and he will probably save all souls in the Maw in an instant with the power of his holy bones. Then again he jumped there on his own volition only after the fact and as such that wasn't a factor in the decision-making of the brainlets who decided on Sylvanas' punishment.

Problem with that last line is that with this playerbase you're either a murderhobo or a sellout traitor to the Horde. Look at Baine. There's actually a poster who has taken the name of a lore character in the game and spent the last 10 years vilifying him for accepting Taurajo for a valid target, then exiling rebellious tauren who wanted to attack the Alliance while bigger problems were taking place. He's got thousands of posts.

You mean the Baine that has openly betrayed the Horde on multiple occasions, crawled to the Alliance instead of any other Horde member when he needed help to retake Thunder Bluff, maintained private correspondence with the leader of the Alliance even when the factions were in state of open conflict (and sent one last letter even after receiving explicit orders from his sovereign to stop that) and, to follow up on your example, not only punished Horde members for military actions against a faction the Horde was at war with at the time, but also gave them the same punishment that he gave the Grimtotem clan that openly rebelled against him?

[Aresk]

true, they usualy leave it unpunished, like when genn and rogers attacked allies in legion AGAINST direct orders from alliance high king for example



when did he do that?
afaik he just said "bad jaina!" and that was it, and even that was said in a room with him, Jaina and player (and maybe some guards)...

Genn and Rogers attacked in accordance with the letter but not the spirit of Anduin's orders. They were authorized to engage the Horde forces if it was deemed necessary. Even in Anduin's inner monologue, his thoughts regarded their action as "taking a recent assignment much further than he had ordered." Not disobeying orders. And even then, their actions were still motivated by Alliance interests. It would be hard to convict them of treason for their actions, and they were rebuked for what they did.

As for Jaina's purge, that was conducted independently of the Alliance leadership. She was acting as a member of the Kirin Tor against other members of the Kirin Tor, so other than having Alliance fighters supporting her, it's not really a decision by Alliance leadership. She even blatantly went against Varian's orders earlier in the questline when he asked her to evict the Sunreavers from Dalaran because of their Horde ties. While obviously Jaina and the Silver Covenant have Alliance ties and the Sunreavers have Horde ties, the actual matter was a Dalaran internal affair with external support on both sides.

[Feanoro]

Genn and Rogers attacked in accordance with the letter but not the spirit of Anduin's orders. They were authorized to engage the Horde forces if it was deemed necessary. Even in Anduin's inner monologue, his thoughts regarded their action as "taking a recent assignment much further than he had ordered." Not disobeying orders. And even then, their actions were still motivated by Alliance interests. It would be hard to convict them of treason for their actions, and they were rebuked for what they did.

It's hard for Hordies to understand the idea of anything besides an absolute dictator who rules by whims, so they can't quite grasp how an alliance does not grant Anduin sovereignty over member states. Add in a healthy dose of "does enjoying the evil faction make me a bad person?" and they have to frantically scrabble at straws trying to find some way for Alliance to be just as bad.