Morally Grey? ARE YOU KIDDING ME.[Spoilers]

[Resentless]

I don't mind a war-minded warchief, Garrosh prior to MoP was pretty great IMO. I dislike a warchief who had a plan, and because a rando elf started talking shit completely 180s her plan just to upset the elf. If Sylv's plan from the start was to raze the tree that would have been fine with me, it was a strategic position, and the Alliance's major seat of power in northern Kalimdor, this is just poorly written.

I mean, I agree, I'm super surprised that she just burns the tree, but I read on another forum that it's something to do with the fact that the elf made her realise that since malfurion got away, the tree cannot stand or it will be a symbol of hope. The symbol Sylvanas never got when arthas invaded, and now she will have to do the same to the alliance to protect her people (and herself of course). Idk. It's still basically evil but I can see it being within her character and in her strategy.

[kaelix1]

I don't get it, how come Sylvannas is considered morally grey, yet Arthas is pretty much considered a monster by the community, at this point, there is no difference between them from their motive to their action, would Sylvanna fanbois have the same oppinion if she had a dick?

[Yvaelle]

alliance sucks at pvp try doing random bg's you lose so much.

IIRC, Alliance wins AV, IOC, Kotmogu, and EOTS more than Horde. I agree it feels lopsided, but it's not as extreme as you suggest.

[Trassk]

My question is, why the fuck did Saurfang just stand by and let this happen? An entire city worth of non-combatants and he just watches as Sylvanas puts them to the torch. Saurfang suffered from serious guilt and nightmares for a very, very long time about doing the same thing before and after the events of WC1. Why is he suddenly okay with it? What the fuck?

because the writers just don't give a shit or give the players nothing. Think about the overview of this moment, this is only done purely as a setup for faction war, there is no agency in it, there is no question to Sylvanas' actions from anyone around her, when logic and reason would have people like Saurfang naturally do that.
But they didn't, because the writers don't want the player having agency, they think the fandom has a one track mind and will follow whatever is dished out to them.

This here sits as a shining example of just how detached the warcraft writing team are from the playerbase, anyone with common sense would have stood up and said 'hey, maybe we should have some horde characters question or be disgusted by this when it happens', But no, they don't.

What this does is detach the playerbase from the story even more, and makes them regret getting invested in it.

[Varitok]

From what, seeing a faction I like being under command of some shitty mary sue that the lead writer is masturbating to?

Anduin has always been a peace lover, from his first days in Pandaria and have built his character since. Not everyone has to commit atrocities to get their point across, its like you want all characters to be half evil just to play the Morally Grey game.

[Asdfywea]

I think this means the Alliance actually have to go in and completely destroy the Horde now. The Horde produced an evil leader in Garrosh once, it was dealt with, and fences were mended. But now its happened TWICE. You can't continue to defeat an enemy, only to allow them to rebuild and follow yet another villain to attack you. The Alliance has to destroy the entire horde infrastructure and never allow it to come back. They have to tear down Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and Silvermoon. If they don't, the story just doesn't make sense because that is how it would actually play out.

Heym yeah, we don't want to have a game anymore, and we don't want more money either, lets finish the game with the alliance wipping out the horde...
please, read out loud what you write before posting

[Verdugo]

Anduin has always been a peace lover, from his first days in Pandaria and have built his character since. Not everyone has to commit atrocities to get their point across, its like you want all characters to be half evil just to play the Morally Grey game.

No, I just want that piece of Human Potential shit as far away from Horde as possible.

[Trassk]

I don't get it, how come Sylvannas is considered morally grey, yet Arthas is pretty much considered a monster by the community, at this point, there is no difference between them from their motive to their action, would Sylvanna fanbois have the same oppinion if she had a dick?

their sheep. their told by manipulative writers what to think about the character rather then even questioning it. The same thing happened with garrosh.

[Koochulu]

Don't forget all that taunting and back and forth she's had with Genn. It's not like this is all coming out of nowhere.

[Kathranis]

My biggest question now for Blizz? Will Horde players ever get opportunities to play their toons as NOT evil? Will they have opportunities for resistance? Or for nuance in how they fulfill the quests? Or does being Horde mean your character has to support this behavior?

Look, we've seen how Blizzard handles this time after time now.

They're never going to let Horde players just embrace being an outright evil bad guy, but they sure as hell don't have the capability to write a morally gray story, so they'll have you swing back and forth between two extremes.

They'll tell you the Horde is noble, honorable, loyal. Then they'll make your Warchief order you to do ignoble and dishonorable things. Then they'll make you question and ultimately discard your loyalty to the Warchief. Then you'll kill the Warchief and they'll replace her with a new character.


I mean, if you want a twist, your best bet at this point is going to be if they pull another Illidan / Xe'ra. Players didn't like the whitewashing of Illidan or the foreshadowing of him becoming a Lightforged hero, so they backpedaled and kept him as an antihero with a last minute twist.

If they're going to do a Sylvanas redemption story, it'll either be a last minute decision to sacrifice herself or some "I was planning this all along! Teldrassil was corrupted!" BS, because Blizzard can't into subtlety, and it'll ring hollow because nothing she's doing right now feels justified or justifiable.

[Zeek Daniels]

WAR craft. Say it with me. WAR....craft

He reasoning is just. Horde need a ruthless leader...too pussified by Thrall and Vol'jin. Garrosh was their one time getting it right, it's about time we get back to Good vs Evil.

I joined horde to be evil.

Horde dont need a ruthless leader. They need a smart leader. Whats the point of always going to war. I mean just think about it realistically. If your always at war that means your always killing your own people. I dont know how many people on azeroth have died since vanilla but they cant keep going on like this. I mean its fake so they can but it looks stupid when one faction has a leader that wants peace and negotiations and another whos leader is so paranoid that she kills her own people for wanting to live with their human families and she attacks Teldrassil because she thinks the alliance are going to use the azerite to create weapons she wont be able to stop, and she burns teldrassil because someone taunted her.

Shes stupid and shes going to get her faction destroyed for no reason. Even Sourfang is an idiot. He thinks hes attacking so the horde can endure. Endure what? We just wiped the buring legion, what more do you need to endure.

World of Warcraft doesnt need to be about Alliance vs Horde right now or ever again. They have been through enough planet wrecking shit from the Lich King, to Death Wing to the Old gods to the Burning legion. And yet after all that one of the faction leaders just cant stop fighting. For what? No one in the alliance cares about attacking the horde except those with vendettas. Which are Jaina and Greymayne. Everyone else is chill.

[Magnagarde]

We'll see how she ends up going, but one thing I'm sure of is she won't be an end boss.

Same.

I honestly prefer a Horde that is out for annihilation of those it sees as enemies, rather than being forced into a morally grey spectrum all the time. This is one thing I missed from Warcraft 3 and that's storytelling to the point. I never hid that I think that Sylvanas is a villain and that the Forsaken should never have been part of the Horde, but a separate faction of their own, but damn, she's partially bringing back the feeling of that W2 Horde and I love that. I can't believe that I seem to be among a very small minority that thinks that she did right. Not morally right, but for herself and the war that is to come.

[Deleted]

I mean, it kind of looks that way, but she clearly had intended to burn out the whole time. There were loaded catapults ready to go. I think the timing was just because of said comment

(Groans Forever)

Its not even fucking hard to write a grey conflict, most conflicts are, but nah fuck that reasonable motivations and differences between two groups leading to war! making one side unspeakable evil seems easier.

[Kailith]

I'm just trying to figure out why my main would still want to follow her... he's a tauren druid. She's fucking up the balance of nature a LOT, hell she's always been fucking it up since she gained her freedom and started to raise the dead. I don't rp, but just really pulls me out of the story.

[Stormspellz]

perfecting writing from the people who brought us magic star destroys getting killed by swords.

/s

[Florena]

because the writers just don't give a shit or give the players nothing. Think about the overview of this moment, this is only done purely as a setup for faction war, there is no agency in it, there is no question to Sylvanas' actions from anyone around her, when logic and reason would have people like Saurfang naturally do that.
But they didn't, because the writers don't want the player having agency, they think the fandom has a one track mind and will follow whatever is dished out to them.

This here sits as a shining example of just how detached the warcraft writing team are from the playerbase, anyone with common sense would have stood up and said 'hey, maybe we should have some horde characters question or be disgusted by this when it happens', But no, they don't.

What this does is detach the playerbase from the story even more, and makes them regret getting invested in it.

I can only imagine that blizzard's thought process was something like this.

"We want to do a faction war story so we have to up the stakes. We need a big spectacle. Hey what if we burn Teldrassil that will make a cool visual. Oh but we can't just make a third party bad guy do it because we want this to be a faction war. Let's just make Sylvanas do it and sort out the mess later. We can imply that Anduin only attacks the Undercity to prove he's wearing big boy pants too even though it's perfectly justified at this point."

There are so many things they could have done that would have left this setup...if not good, at least salvageable. Now, Sylvanas is too far gone for me. If they "redeem" Sylvanas I'm done with Warcraft lore.

Rather than make an interesting story to lead into the faction war where both sides have a point they took the lazy option.

RIP relatable and interesting Horde
WC 3 to WotLK.

[Thrive]

How and in what god damn plain of existence is Sylvanas morally grey, They just straight up made Sylv the epitome of Lich King and Garrosh combined, there was no shades anywhere, what the hell blizzard.

And once again the Horde is a victim of Blizzard's inability to write or even create a halfway decent character. I am getting really fucking tired of this.

- - - Updated - - -

their sheep. their told by manipulative writers what to think about the character rather then even questioning it. The same thing happened with garrosh.

To be fair, Arthas was pretty morally gray up until his total conversion. I wouldn't have considered him totally lost until he killed Muradin.

[Deleted]

I mean, it kind of looks that way, but she clearly had intended to burn out the whole time. There were loaded catapults ready to go. I think the timing was just because of said comment

(Groans Forever)

Its not even fucking hard to write a grey conflict, most conflicts are, but nah fuck that, writing reasonable motivations and differences between two groups leading to war is effort. Let just make one side unspeakable evil, that seems easier.

[Razaron]

Bring back fucking Thrall already. Sick of tyrant leaders.

[Kathranis]

I don't get it, how come Sylvannas is considered morally grey, yet Arthas is pretty much considered a monster by the community, at this point, there is no difference between them from their motive to their action, would Sylvanna fanbois have the same oppinion if she had a dick?

She isn't considered morally gray by the community. Blizzard has been telling us that she's morally gray and it's become a meme at this point because what they're actually showing us is pitch fucking black.

We're left to assume either that Blizzard has some twist up their sleeve to justify her actions, or they are incapable of writing a morally gray character and that they'll just send her down the same road as Garrosh and have us kill her, or the same road as Illidan and pull a last minute redemption / whitewashing out of their asses.

People who like Sylvanas or the Horde were clinging to a hope that they would give her actions some justification that makes it possible for players to support and back her, or have the blame not even fall on her at all.

It seems that those hopes were misplaced, because there's pretty much no coming back from this. Horde or Alliance, fan of Sylvanas or not, the murder of hundreds of innocents for seemingly no good reason is just a bridge too far.

I mean, they didn't even give her a good reason to burn Teldrassil. She just does it on a whim to spite a random nobody commander she'd never met before.