Do you think that the Defias Brotherhood's actions against Stormwind were justified?

[DatToffer]

Ok so, you either trolling, not reading what i said, or have understanding issues, because the simple fact you say the orcish clans got unique cultures in wod means you did not read the part when i said they stole culture from other races...also your point make not much sense, the bleeding colors were green/orange, they are in green jungle, but they are all brown...so i have no idea in which way the originale colours would not fit the "existing envrionnement"

I mean, you really want we talk about the "existing environments" of Draenor? Ok lets talk about it, in Draenor in war2/3 (since we dont see the orcish world in war1, there is a clear desciption of it as being a Fungal world, with NO TREES, the waters were green and all kind of flore was of fungal origins, mushroom mostly and was how it was describbed before it got destroyed, but in TBC we lost completly this aspect and it became no logner a unique fungal world but some regular world with tree and only one zone with mushrooms...so nope you dont know the "existing environments" it seems.

But i want to also point out is that even in the elements they added in WoD they managed to not make sense with their own things (see my point in the shaterred hands) and thats just an achievement.

I think everything you mentioned in your list of clans retcons really is not that big a deal and maybe you should just chill.

Like you mention that Chronicle is 90% WoD information. Sure, but they still chose to illustrate Blackhand with his movie version and not the WoD version. Shattered Hands have white skins but are we even sure it's their natural skin ? It's not even among the playable customization.

And do your descriptions of the orcish clans from War1/2 apply to their precorruption or postcorruption cultures ? Because the wod culture is supposedly precorruption. And coming back to the Shadowmoon, it makes sense for the orcs to start burning their dead once they became a nomadic band of bloodthirsty invaders, but if the Shadowmoon clan had been sedentary before that, then the burial grounds also make sense.

As for the mostly fungal Draenor, yeah I too remember the mushroom forest of Hellfire Peninsula. I also know how Blizzard likes zones to have a wide variety of environments with proper identity. Also, perhaps having the orc world full of mushrooms would have made them dangerously close to the orcs of another popular setting ?

Also about the "cultural" aspect of the clans, i can also mention that it makes no sense for an army like the Iron Horde to have only one clan with guns, jetpacks, canons, etc and not equipping other clans with the same weaponery as you still have Bleeding Hollow and Warsong running around half naked and using stick...you will be like "but culture!!!" and i will say that it dont matter if you can have a more efficient weapon you take it!

This is just classic fantasy nitpicking, we all know the only reason for that is visual identity and conforming to an archetype. Or else everyone would have gnome and goblin weaponry.

[Ameonna]

The problem with the Defias literally started because Varian was not an absolute monarch and was easily outplayed by Lady Katrana Prestor and her corrupted nobles...

Your rhetoric about the Defias being rebels that try to topple the Evil Empire is touching and sentimental, but disproven by reality. The Defias had at least one ally in the Royal court, Katrana Prestor, who was literally the most important noble at the time and was secretly pulling the strings behind Anduin/Bolvar.

You can't accuse the Stormwind Monarchy of being corrupted while simultaneously praising the Defias for rising up against it, because the Defias were allied with the very source of corruption inside the Monarchy (Lady Prestor).

I wanted to mention it, that it is kind of a no brainer, because yes, the Defias of classic (its why i mostly talk about the Cata version of it) are by definition evil because they are manipulated by Onyxia, so its like a no brainer here. It started as a rebelious group but ended up being evil.

And thanks for your compliment about my rhetoric it touches me =)

You and others here are proven wrong by the Story, because you keep having this headcanon that everyone in Westfall loved the Defias and they all agreed like buddies to rise up against the Monarchy, while in reality the Defias and their sympathizers were probably outnumbered by the King's forces, at least in Cataclysm (People's Militia + Stormwind Army + Sentinel Hill).

I did not say such a thing, i just said that if the Defias were able to act it means that there was a bunch of people that were not happy, and that if Varian was this good as a ruler then no one would revolt or at least he would be able to prevent it to run rempant, but you are right on this that the revolt was ended fast. But this dont fix the homless persons problem still.

You accused me of having a "narrowed view", then say this... Following your logic, Terenas Menethil, a ruler who was beloved by the people (like Varian) and went down to history as one of the wisest kings, was not a good ruler because the peasants revolted once in Tyr's Hand...

Actually i can blame King Terenas for the Scourge, because its because he made people paye for the entrainement camps to his people which led to an economical disaster, famine, and its why lot of people wanted to join the Culte of the Damned...as much as i like Terenas (he was the only one to actually care about the Perenolde), this one is on him at least a bit.

You claim he was a "bad" ruler but Blizzard clearly disagrees with you.

Blizzard said many things, they said for example that Sylvanas was morally grey or that the Jailer had an interesting story, so cba what Blizzard agree on with me or not since they cant even keep track of their own stories

[Le Conceptuel]

-snip-

This is all quite a bit and the sheer length of your response makes it difficult to dissect on individual points, so I will give a quick and simple response to your claim in its entirety—I think you're confusing inconsistency with poor worldbuilding. Both are elements of bad writing, but in spite of the elements you imagine to be lifted from other, preexisting races and the fact that much of the lore is inconsistent with prior lore, the changes are generally for the better in terms of making each clan more unique and interesting with only relatively minor collateral damage vis-à-vis older lore. Ultimately, I was solely complimenting the development of the clans in Warlords of Draenor per se, not as a microcosm of Orcish lore, and was saying that this ought to be the standard to which future cultural developments are held alongside Kul Tiras.

As a matter of personal opinion, I frankly would accept inconsistencies with prior lore as a necessary sacrifice for more and better cultural worldbuilding insofar as those changes are not too gratuitous. Changes like Saurfang's inconsistent skin color and long hair (the latter is also dubious, given that this lore only comes from a single artifact and it's never strictly stated whether or not the Blackrock are required to keep their heads shaved or if the head-shaving is only part of the coming of age ritual itself and they can eventually regrow their hair, with the majority simply choosing not to) would be the sort that are acceptable, even if they would be a little awkward and glaring, because it would be better for the lore as a macrocosm—in short, these are ultimately-acceptable changes that aren't of the same breed as, say, the Bald Man and his ridiculous implications for and weighty alterations of the lore.

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I mean, you really want we talk about the "existing environments" of Draenor? Ok lets talk about it, in Draenor in war2/3 (since we dont see the orcish world in war1, there is a clear desciption of it as being a Fungal world, with NO TREES, the waters were green and all kind of flore was of fungal origins, mushroom mostly and was how it was describbed before it got destroyed, but in TBC we lost completly this aspect and it became no logner a unique fungal world but some regular world with tree and only one zone with mushrooms...so nope you dont know the "existing environments" it seems.

Although that is an inconsistency, the retcon of Draenor's environment was made prior to the changes to the clans' cultures in WoD. This is not a failing of WoD's worldbuilding, but rather a correction to bring the rest of the lore in line with retcons that were already made in TBC. Given that Outland had been out for some time by that point and Warcrafts I and II have always been fodder for retcons, I don't think this is a major problem.

Also about the "cultural" aspect of the clans, i can also mention that it makes no sense for an army like the Iron Horde to have only one clan with guns, jetpacks, canons, etc and not equipping other clans with the same weaponery as you still have Bleeding Hollow and Warsong running around half naked and using stick...you will be like "but culture!!!"

That was actually owing to Hellscream's time travel—the Blackrock, insofar as it seems to be in the main timeline, only ever seemed to have had the advantage of widespread steelworking and working foundries over the other clans, not ridiculously advanced technology of any sort.

[Ameonna]

I think everything you mentioned in your list of clans retcons really is not that big a deal and maybe you should just chill.

Bascually what you say is "Its not great, but i like it so its fine" But its not because you like it, that it is good, because its not =p

Like you mention that Chronicle is 90% WoD information. Sure, but they still chose to illustrate Blackhand with his movie version and not the WoD version. Shattered Hands have white skins but are we even sure it's their natural skin ? It's not even among the playable customization.

Well, firstly they are white with red eyes, (even if red eyes means they drunk demon blood but duuuuh) but why they are not a customization is simple, the skins for the mag'har were in the files for orcs as "npc only" options since wod, (because orcs npc in wod are just labelled as regular orcs in files just using npc only skin colors) but the shaterred hands orcs use a specific models with a missing hands, thus they are not in the same files as the regular orcs, when they did the Mag'har allied race they just copy pasted the skin colors of the regular orcs which were npc only and done its why you dont have the shaterred skin colors because they are in a different files. Now do that skin color is natrual or not? Its never explained if it is or not, but if you want to know why they have such skin colors? Because blizzard want the orcs to look like metal band (most likely Kiss) if you look at the hair cuts warlords have they do look like metal bands =p (blizzard said about it)

And do your descriptions of the orcish clans from War1/2 apply to their precorruption or postcorruption cultures ? Because the wod culture is supposedly precorruption. And coming back to the Shadowmoon, it makes sense for the orcs to start burning their dead once they became a nomadic band of bloodthirsty invaders, but if the Shadowmoon clan had been sedentary before that, then the burial grounds also make sense.

The descriptions i take are 1 before WoD (in term of release dates) so from war1/2/3, the novels Rise of the Horde, Leader of the Rebellions, and 2 the orcish clans, culturally did not change before and after they drink the blood, shadowmoon kept doing same rites, the nomadic orcs were nomadics before they drunk the blood, etc etc so your whole arguement dosent work since they were the same they did not change their culture before and after corruption. What the corruptions did was to emplify their bad sides, so for example, the Laughing Skulls who are described as traitors and mischievious clan before they got corrupted, got even more so after they got corrupted, same with the Bonechewers who were canibals before getting corrupted etc...and btw the infos which says that the Shadowmoon shamans are the ones which are the main shaman clans and the who put the model of rites for the burning of bodies of the deads that is followed by ALL CLANS this whole thing is from Rise of the Horde novel which take place before corruption of the orcs and it is clearly said that all clans do theses rites (except Bonechewers who eat their deads).

As for the mostly fungal Draenor, yeah I too remember the mushroom forest of Hellfire Peninsula. I also know how Blizzard likes zones to have a wide variety of environments with proper identity. Also, perhaps having the orc world full of mushrooms would have made them dangerously close to the orcs of another popular setting ?

Well, i am not against them putting a bit of trees, however they could have pout a majority if zones with mushroom, the fact you think that if they had only pout mushrooms as trees in majority of zones would make it "boring" means that you did not watch enought how mushrooms can look like, you have as much veriaties of mushrooms as you have for trees, you can varry sizes and other things to make them look different, just like you would with trees. You should check on google a picture of all variaties of mushrooms.

This is all quite a bit and the sheer length of your response makes it difficult to dissect on individual points, so I will give a quick and simple response to your claim in its entirety—I think you're confusing inconsistency with poor worldbuilding. Both are elements of bad writing, but in spite of the elements you imagine to be lifted from other, preexisting races and the fact that much of the lore is inconsistent with prior lore, the changes are generally for the better in terms of making each clan more unique and interesting with only relatively minor collateral damage vis-à-vis older lore. Ultimately, I was solely complimenting the development of the clans in Warlords of Draenor per se, not as a microcosm of Orcish lore, and was saying that this ought to be the standard to which future cultural developments are held alongside Kul Tiras.

As a matter of personal opinion, I frankly would accept inconsistencies with prior lore as a necessary sacrifice for more and better cultural worldbuilding insofar as those changes are not too gratuitous. Changes like Saurfang's inconsistent skin color and long hair (the latter is also dubious, given that this lore only comes from a single artifact and it's never strictly stated whether or not the Blackrock are required to keep their heads shaved or if the head-shaving is only part of the coming of age ritual itself and they can eventually regrow their hair, with the majority simply choosing not to) would be the sort that are acceptable, even if they would be a little awkward and glaring, because it would be better for the lore as a macrocosm—in short, these are ultimately-acceptable changes that aren't of the same breed as, say, the Bald Man and his ridiculous implications for and weighty alterations of the lore.

You say that it is not an issue to take stuff from other races? But it is, especially if you see how dark iron are not being developped much since...and i mean, its just a matter of having imagination, when you notice that Blackorkc clan in wod is just dark iron orcs, to me its lazy and lack of imiangination...but well i think the problem is that you think that they could not have done it better or have more imaginati

Although that is an inconsistency, the retcon of Draenor's environment was made prior to the changes to the clans' cultures in WoD. This is not a failing of WoD's worldbuilding, but rather a correction to bring the rest of the lore in line with retcons that were already made in TBC. Given that Outland had been out for some time by that point and Warcrafts I and II have always been fodder for retcons, I don't think this is a major problem.[/QUOTE]

On this i agree, the blame is to put on TBC who did not respect how Draenor was supposed to be, however, WoD did make a massive mistake, and that is where you see WoD was meant to be a big reference to TBC and not to war1/2 it is when you see that the wrodl of Draenor post destruction, is exactly the same lenght and size as Outland, one continent, zones liek Hellfire/Tanaan Jungle being exactly the same shaope and size, etc etc i remind that the world was supposed to have blown up, so its not possible it look such the same...and wod is to blame for this.

But i can also add that the best treatment of a human Kingdom imo was Kul Tiras in BFA, i can only hope for such a tratement for Alterac that i really really want to be back personnaly

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

Really? You think a band of terrorists, cut-throats, gangsters, and thieves is that powerful?

They wouldn't conquer anything lol, since they're terrorists, they'd just destroy each other after the Monarchy's toppled. Evil people never get along when they're no longer united by a common cause.

Even their "conquests" in Westfall depended solely and exclusively on their ally at court (notice the hypocrisy: these terrorists who want to topple the Royal court are also allied with one of the nobles) undermining Stormwind from within and sending its Army away from Westfall. And even in spite of this, the Defias still couldn't defeat the People's Militia, a large organization of Westfall farmers and civilians who were tired of the Defias' reign of terror.

Of course I can easily see it happening.

I think you are severely underestimating the power, influence, and connections a united army of scumbags, gangsters, cartels, etc could achieve.

You're right that at the moment the brotherhood can't conquer places. But that's because they don't have the funds, the men, and the bases to do so. But once they conquer Stormwind. They'll have the influence, the money, the people, the connection, and the base of operation to carry out their goal for a Eastern Kingdom Conquest. Think of capturing Stormwind as a means to spreadhead their operation. With the tram station, they can easily take over Ironforge next.

Edwin Vancleef would turn Stormwind into his personal sin city with Vanessa as his champion. He'll quickly form a huge ruthless army to rule over the city and beyond with a iron fist. I also have to say gangs, mobs, bandits, scumbags, muggers etc do in fact work together especially in fictional settings. That's why you'll always see a group of villains/supervillains sitting on a round table to plot against the world in many fictional shows/movies/games.

With that said other big shot cartels, mobs, pirates, thieves, kingpins, assassins would all go and join up with Edwin Vancleef in his city of sin. Edwin would form the High Table and just plot with the other big shots. A united army of scumbags, thugs, gangs etc would storm over all of the eastern kingdoms.

Neutral folks will join out of fear or be forced to join or die if they still refuses. Edwins army of scums will then secure their part of the continent and be ready for the later threats. They'll have Deathwing's head on a pike and destroyed scourge Necropolis. They'll only run into major trouble when Nzoth starts messing with their minds.

[Soon-TM]

But well thats the issue with wow and devs trying to tell you a story that want to be credible when the people are the bad guys and the Kings the monarchy the autocratic system are the good guys who are the rightful rulers...because remember kids, no system is better than the monarchic one when Kings have absolute powers! What a joke!

The funniest part is when devs tell you that an absolutist government, in this case a monarchy that has been leaning closer and closer to a military dictatorship as time goes by, is effectively perfect, because everyone who opposes it is portrayed as a negative IQ stupid evil moron.

[Arikara]

The Defias Brotherhood were nothing more than a band of terrorists.

Incidentally, this also describes your precious edgy elves. If you condemn one pack of traitorous terrorists, why not the other, much worse group of reality-threatening, government-backstabbing warcriminals?

OT: They were manipulated unjustly into their unfortunate situation. They were justified in seeking recompense, but not in the degree of action that they chose to take; they made common thugs of themselves to the detriment of innocents.

[Le Conceptuel]

You say that it is not an issue to take stuff from other races? But it is, especially if you see how dark iron are not being developped much since...and i mean, its just a matter of having imagination, when you notice that Blackorkc clan in wod is just dark iron orcs, to me its lazy and lack of imiangination...but well i think the problem is that you think that they could not have done it better or have more imaginati

I don't think the common theme of "fire-themed underground industrial civilization" really intrudes too severely on the identity of the Dark Iron Dwarves for want of a few key qualities—for one, the Dark Iron also have a subversive, individualistic monarchy in which most individuals are expected to work against one another (to such an extent that Dark Iron aren't expected to take food from other people, which I think is a good bit of cultural worldbuilding), whereas the Blackrock are a regimented, collectivist military dictatorship in which I doubt interpersonal rivalries and treachery are encouraged or institutionally-protected. Another example of distinction between the two factions is that the Dark Iron have talents of their own which the Blackrock lack—their traditions of masonry, brewing, and sorcery are absent in the Blackrock. Similarly, the overall Orcish spirit alters the character of the Blackrock Clan, leaving them with the typical hierarchies, behaviors, and customs usually expected of Orcs on top of their unique traits—much unlike the practical and grounded Dark Iron, the Blackrock put great emphasis on legends and legacies, and seem to elevate people more for great deeds (victory in battle, procuring Doomhammer, etc.) than practical accomplishments (such as political maneuvering or effective masonry).

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On this i agree, the blame is to put on TBC who did not respect how Draenor was supposed to be, however, WoD did make a massive mistake, and that is where you see WoD was meant to be a big reference to TBC and not to war1/2 it is when you see that the wrodl of Draenor post destruction, is exactly the same lenght and size as Outland, one continent, zones liek Hellfire/Tanaan Jungle being exactly the same shaope and size, etc etc i remind that the world was supposed to have blown up, so its not possible it look such the same...and wod is to blame for this.

Well, the issue is that the choice came down to maintaining consistency with the older work which had already seen many retroactive alterations to continuity, or to maintain consistency with the far more recent Burning Crusade expansion. Ultimately, the decision was made in favor of maintaining consistency with Burning Crusade. Although it is possible for some of those zones to change shape and scale in some capacity, it seems like it's sensible to have them maintain roughly the same outline. Furthermore, there have been substantial alterations—the maps of Draenor and of Outland do feature zones that have gone missing or have merged, or zones like Zangarmarsh, which have emerged as a result of substantial environmental alteration. Although there is some similarities in the overall silhouettes of the regions, both are distinct enough to be sensible. It is also worth noting that the same silhouette was roughly maintained by Warcraft II maps—although a few scales were changed (such as Hellfire Peninsula), the outline of what little we see actually lines up pretty well and is consistent with the alterations made to the geography of the main continents and Northrend in their respective introductions to World of Warcraft.

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The funniest part is when devs tell you that an absolutist government, in this case a monarchy that has been leaning closer and closer to a military dictatorship as time goes by, is effectively perfect, because everyone who opposes it is portrayed as a negative IQ stupid evil moron.

To be fair, a military dictatorship is actually a sensible evolution for a monarchy—usually, autocracies or constitutional monarchies succeed feudal monarchies, and a military dictatorship could ultimately coalesce with nascent absolutist tendencies to create a more modern, 1700s-esque autocracy rather than a typical feudal monarchy. This evolution is actually about right by most historical standards. In connection with your misuse of the word Absolutist, I should also specify that is wholly distinct from feudalism—Absolutism came about more in the Renaissance or Colonial eras and was the introduction of the modern personalistic dictatorship in place of the more convoluted feudal system. Whereas the feudal system effectively maintained a form of checks and balances over the despot through the church and the lower nobility, Absolutism elevated the despot to a position of absolute, unchecked power without any deference to lower nobles or anything of the sort. It's honestly arguable which one was better, but from a purely historical standard Absolutism is actually in the proper place to be introduced to Azeroth—in fact, it's overdue, and Azeroth should be shifting by this point, where cameras and submarines are widespread, to Enlightened Absolutism or liberal representative democracy.

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Yup here we are, the rightful monarchy that do nothing wrong as it if of rightfully here and by the will of the Holy Light, here we are....you really need me to expalin you why this is a dictatorship? But well thats the issue with wow and devs trying to tell you a story that want to be credible when the people are the bad guys and the Kings the monarchy the autocratic system are the good guys who are the rightful rulers...because remember kids, no system is better than the monarchic one when Kings have absolute powers! What a joke!.

This is kind of a typical fantasy trope in general. Although there are points to be raised against it, I don't think the writers are exactly trying to argue that feudalism is a good system—they're just maintaining consistency with the expectations of the genre. However, I do think it would be an interesting idea to show a shift to absolutism among the Human kingdoms as the Azeroth becomes increasingly colonial or industrial in character.

[Kithelle]

Were they justified? Yes

Did they go too far in the end? Yes

[Ameonna]

I don't think the common theme of "fire-themed underground industrial civilization" really intrudes too severely on the identity of the Dark Iron Dwarves for want of a few key qualities—for one, the Dark Iron also have a subversive, individualistic monarchy in which most individuals are expected to work against one another (to such an extent that Dark Iron aren't expected to take food from other people, which I think is a good bit of cultural worldbuilding), whereas the Blackrock are a regimented, collectivist military dictatorship in which I doubt interpersonal rivalries and treachery are encouraged or institutionally-protected. Another example of distinction between the two factions is that the Dark Iron have talents of their own which the Blackrock lack—their traditions of masonry, brewing, and sorcery are absent in the Blackrock. Similarly, the overall Orcish spirit alters the character of the Blackrock Clan, leaving them with the typical hierarchies, behaviors, and customs usually expected of Orcs on top of their unique traits—much unlike the practical and grounded Dark Iron, the Blackrock put great emphasis on legends and legacies, and seem to elevate people more for great deeds (victory in battle, procuring Doomhammer, etc.) than practical accomplishments (such as political maneuvering or effective masonry).

You forget a point, its not only because they are industrial and with big hammers and with red eyes and with dark skins that they are dark iron orcs, its also because you forget that in their Foundry, you have an elemental fire lord...and that elemental fire lord is called "Heart of the Mountain" now the heart of the mountain of you know lord of the rings was a thing related to dwarves and in vanilla as blackrock mountain was a biiiiig inspiration from both mount doom and the moria you do have a quest in blackrock deepth related to getting the heart of the mountain =p and i mean, you can say "ho but its logicial to have an elemental thing related with orcs they have shamans after all" but when you realize that with all of this they could not prevent themselves (the writters) to make a silly reference to Ragnaros well thats a bit a shame to me...

Also i would add that these were not needed, the "additions" made by WoD to the orcish clans, because when you read the list i made to these additions are either very little, or replacing older ones, like for example the shattered hands got only one addition from wod which was that they were from many clans (which as i said was dumb by the fact they all have same skin color which was also addition from wod) but if you take the Bleeding Hollows, they lost their war veterans side, replaced with the ritual shamanistic thing which is more related to the Shadowmoon, and the Blood berzerker thing was also more related to shattered hands, so its kinda like, by adding more they kinda walked on each others...and they did not really add if they removed older things, the Blackrock were the ones that got the most added to them because they are the most "basic" in the old lore, because the grunts are by definition blackrock clans, the Horde is Blackrock in its look/essence etc, the Blackrock were the "orcs" if you see what i mean.

But you say that the orcish clans were "poor" in term of identity but did wod really add this much? Thats what i want to point out, if you take the Thunderlords, their lore was that they hunt big creature to use as mounts and in wod its the same =p so their lore was poor and it stood the same...(if you had that the Warsong and the Dragonmaw also do this here it also walk on each others...)

To me it was more lazy idease than really good ones

[Ropeway]

They got screwed over hard and then screwed over other commonfolk hard in turn.

Fuck these guys.

[OwenBurton]

Incidentally, this also describes your precious edgy elves. If you condemn one pack of traitorous terrorists, why not the other, much worse group of reality-threatening, government-backstabbing warcriminals?

OT: They were manipulated unjustly into their unfortunate situation. They were justified in seeking recompense, but not in the degree of action that they chose to take; they made common thugs of themselves to the detriment of innocents.

Perhaps, but again, they likely genuinely felt that they had no other realistic recourse though. Not saying it's morally justifiable, but you'd be surprised how many impoverished men and women even today would turn to crime and gang violence in some neighborhoods in order to feed their starving, broken families. In their minds, why should they try to uphold or defend a system that has failed them and their loved ones time and time and time again, without fail? It is a really messy and complicated situation all around.

That even touches delicately on one of the major modern debates about America's modern criminal justice system.

My point is, I wish there were some clearer kind of resolution to the Defias conflict, it was actually one of the most relatable flesh-and-blood storylines in Warcraft's history. Because I think in their world as in ours, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it in the end.

And from what we know of Turalyon's close relations with the nobles, I wonder if that is also the point for a future story. I mean, Turalyon himself was a Lordaeron noble who was then sponsored by their establishment clergy...he might care for the ordinary people somewhat, but can he truly understand them? He was never one of them, after all, and afterwards fought a distant space war for a thousand long years, further distancing himself from humanity.

Although there are points to be raised against it, I don't think the writers are exactly trying to argue that feudalism is a good system—they're just maintaining consistency with the expectations of the genre. However, I do think it would be an interesting idea to show a shift to absolutism among the Human kingdoms as the Azeroth becomes increasingly colonial or industrial in character.

They did try to do something on human colonialism with that Kul Tiras story, about Gilneans, being foreign settlers, trying to take over lands which belonged to the indigenous Drust. Although I think they also made it so that the Drust were still the "greater evil", so I'm not sure what they were trying to convey there. Perhaps that not everything is so black-and-white in these kinds of complex issues?

[Le Conceptuel]

They did try to do something on human colonialism with that Kul Tiras story, about Gilneans, being foreign settlers, trying to take over lands which belonged to the indigenous Drust. Although I think they also made it so that the Drust were still the "greater evil", so I'm not sure what they were trying to convey there. Perhaps that not everything is so black-and-white in these kinds of complex issues?

I don't think they were trying to convey anything. You're dramatically overestimating the depth and profundity of Blizzard writing. They wanted Evil Raaagh Barbarians for us to kill, so they invented some Evil Raaagh Barbarians and witches for us to kill.

Anyway, I think it's pretty plainly communicated that the Drust attacked first. The Thornspeakers and the other traditionalists who opposed Gorak Tul, who himself is generally seemingly portrayed as a tyrant and villain, sided with the Human settlers. It wasn't a genocide or anything as far as I can tell, though the remaining Drust did eventually seemingly die out or breed themselves entirely into the Kul Tiran population as a matter of happenstance rather than any kind of malicious intent on the part of the Kul Tirans.

[Reinhart11]

I think it was natural for the Defias to see the average people as enemies, as these people supported the king and nobles against the stone masons and used their works without pay. If the average population in Stormwind had sided with the Stonemasons and gone on a massive strike, the king and nobles would be forced to the negotiating table, unless they outright enslave and force their population to work.

So from the viewpoint from of the Stonemasons i can see why in their eyes the average Stormwind population would be considered enemies.

Was that smart or righteous? Of course not.

The world would be very boring though, if it only consists of pure good and pure evil races/factions. There is so much inbetween.

Its really a shame that Blizzard introduced the Uncrown the way they did. The Defias and Vanessa seem to just be boring underlings of the Uncrown. I think the Uncrown should be a lose network of independant crime syndicates, that only come together in times of world ending crisis, but outside of that should be competing and hostile towards eachother.

Vanessa could have developed the Defias in interesting ways, learning from her and her fathers failures, looking for different ways to get what they are owed.

[naeblis495]

Hell yeah they were. This dudes were bled dry for years and the nobles refused to pay them for hard labor. They had all the reasons to revolt and start their own shit.

The alliance need more of those kind of people that actually act for their own safety and interrests instead of turning the other cheek until their are on the brink on extinction.