Can the Horde be redeemed?

[Powerogue]

Reflecting on everything that's happened so far, between the various cinematics, in-game events, and sillier things like my #MorallyGrey thread, lead me to dwell on one fundamental question: After everything that's happened, can the Horde be redeemed?

Because whatever happens, we know for sure we're not just going to have all our player characters executed and deleted from our character sheet. So whatever Blizzard's plans are, they're building all this towards something.

I'll post my own ideas once the thread gets going, but do you think the Horde can be redeemed? If so, how? Do you think it in fact shouldn't, and should rebrand itself as the proper Team Evil?

Anything can happen, as we're all well aware of by now that Blizzard's gloves are off, no punches are being pulled, and further extremely controversial, drastic, and community-shaking things may still be in the works before this all ends.

[Super Dickmann]

No. Or rather, no, but if yes, then only internally. External redemption is farcical.

To explain what I mean take a look at Jaina for example. She as a character is internally redeemed (by Blizzard's standards) by becoming an insufferable peacenik like her peers. She gets over her internal issues and is at peace with herself and can do what she does certainly. But her external perception doesn't change to those she's previously harmed - the Sunreavers, the Zandalari and the Horde in general. From a solely Horde perspective, barring a few people like Baine and soon another four or five in the Underhold rescue mission, Jaina is a dire threat to their lives. She is internally redeemed, but externally those she hurt don't buy it.

The same can be said of the Horde. Discounting the virtues of such a reorganisation at all, if it is to happen, then the Horde reforming be it as an organisation or as races to be less warlike or what have you can only be cheapened by the Alliance holding their hand their entire way. When you commit genocide and then by your majority support the leader who did it even well into when the war is being lost and the pansies around her join up, when this was after waging another total war not four years ago under suspiciously similar circumstances and the majority of your ranking soldiers happily involve themselves in all sorts of massacares and unrestrained warfare, your victim should not forgive you. Indeed, the Alliance should be doing everything in their power to prevent the Horde from doing so.

Suppose you're Johnny Average who saw all these terrible wars before and suffered them. For whom the war began when he saw tens of thousands of night elves occupying the streets of Stormwind for which Johnny Average paid for. The King sent Johnny Average and his pals from the farm to die and then when he finally had a chance to end the Horde who've been sucking out Johnny Average's soul or stitching him into an abomination, he instead declared that he wanted to 'heal' the Horde. He appointed one of the people who've been standing meekly by for the majority of the war effort as the new Horde leader and Johnny Average got to eat shit right before his money now went to restoring the people who've time after time in his life destroyed everything he had. But it's okay, the King tells him, some cow helped some lady Johnny Average never saw get her brother back as a zombie and then they all teamed up to rescue that cow from prison because literally no one in the Horde at large cared even about what to your average Alliance citizen is totally meaningless.

There should be riots. The Kul Tiran population and the entirety of the night elves should be livid. The Alliance would take its pound of flesh from the Horde and instead of a slap on the wrist, if noblesavagery in Kalimdor and Alliance-liteness in EK are to take root in the Horde, it'd be with difficulty, wrestling with being a de-facto failed state and dragging themselves up from the brink, mistrusted by the now sole superpower left over.

[Dagoth Ur]

Don't get me wrong, I understand what you meant, but it really grinds my gears how they're trying to force human perceived morality on the likes of the Horde. In its core essence, Horde's supposed to be a warrior culture.

As far as I'm concerned they don't have to redeem themselves to Alliance or to anyone else but themselves, partly because it'd also be impossible to swallow and beyond ridiculous after what they've done to Teldrassil. Let them decide what's okay and what's not, what's crossing the line and what not. If the honor is to become main cornerstone, at least let them solidify what the hell honor actually entails.

Whether Anduin, Jaina or the whole moral message brigade think Horde's redeemed, they shouldn't give a rats ass about. We can even end the war, but don't put us through another guilt trip because our buddy Anduin stayed the hand of angry peasants (who are mythical beings mind you) because he thought Horde can redeem itself.. and was right (surprise).

[ophion1990]

Probably not. In real life we can move past things after enough time passes, in WoW this can't realistically happen, unless we get a timeskip. The night elves by themselves have been in a fight with the Horde 3 times now, yet not even 2 decades have passed since they learned of their existence, not to mention that nigh elves are immortal, maybe, maybe not anymore, they live long, though.

As @Super Dickmann pointed out, we apparenty just have to look past this stuff right off the bat, though. Jaina goes from raid boss status to uneasy ally in a single patch. Even if I still hold out hope that they completely seperate the Horde/Alliance scenario for Baine in 8.2, she'll be an ally once 8.2 is done. Edit: though I guess from a lore PoV, the player isn't present in Orgrimmar and it might just be Thrall and Saurfang.

[Tirilka]

snip

Well said. There's no reason to forgive the Horde at all, when they have been encouraging asinine wars by their warchiefs all the time, ESPEICALLY when the Alliance allowed them to keep their conquests from Cataclysm for no reason after Siege of Orgrimmar.
Though rescuing Baine makes some sense - it allows their stupid and overdue revolution to take hold.

Probably not. In real life we can move past things after enough time passes, in WoW this can't realistically happen, unless we get a timeskip. The night elves by themselves have been in a fight with the Horde 3 times now, yet not even 2 decades have passed since they learned of their existence, not to mention that nigh elves are immortal, maybe, maybe not anymore, they live long, though.

As Super Dickmann pointed out, we apparenty just have to look past this stuff right off the bat, though. Jaina goes from raid boss status to uneasy ally in a single patch. Even if I still hold out hope that they completely seperate the Horde/Alliance scenario for Baine in 8.2, she'll be an ally once 8.2 is done.

Remember, there's still a surprise plot-twist awaiting in 8.3 that will 'completely shatter the hope of any peace talks' and open a new warfront, the biggest battle since the Second War *yawn*

[Super Dickmann]

Don't get me wrong, I understand what you meant, but it really grinds my gears how they're trying to force human perceived morality on the likes of the Horde. In its core essence, Horde's supposed to be a warrior culture.

Oh, I agree completely. But 'redemption' here is code for transformation into human clones for the non-tribal races and into Baine clone for the tribal races. It should not happen in general. If it is to happen though, the only way it'd be remotely palatable is if it was a long, painful process that drove a lot of internal conflict in the Alliance and actually addressed the consequences that all this got through.

[Hellspawn]

They should be redeemed like Germany at the end/after WW2

[Mehrunes]

The Horde doesn't need to redeem itself. At best some members need to redeem themselves for their treason, but most of the traitors like Baine and Saurfang are way beyond that at this point. Redeem itself in the eyes of Alliance, as it's what Blizzard would understand by Horde's redemption? Fuck no. Alliance isn't the Horde's overlord or even a partner. No one in the Horde should give a shit whether or not they get a redemption seal of approval from Genn or Tyrande.

Blizzard should take a note from SW:TOR here. Even light side Sith aren't buddy buddy with the Jedi or using the same morality as them. The light side Sith oppose the aspects of Sith culture they find to be undesirable from the perspective of the Sith Empire. Like the constant infighting that's pretty much institutional or stratified society. They oppose them because they make the Empire lose wars in the long term. Not because it makes the Jedi sad. And when they cooperate with the Republic, they do it with things by threatening them with death. Because they are a different culture and light side Sith are not even remotely the same as light side Jedi. Which works pretty much how @Dagoth Ur said things are supposed to work.

But Blizzard can't comprehend that. For them "the heart of the Horde" like Baine or Saurfang have to be human sycophants that outright seek Anduin's guidance on how to fix the Horde in order to be WoW's version of "light side". Which makes zero sense whatsoever.

Well said. There's no reason to forgive the Horde at all, when they have been encouraging asinine wars by their warchiefs all the time, ESPEICALLY when the Alliance allowed them to keep their conquests from Cataclysm for no reason after Siege of Orgrimmar.
Though rescuing Baine makes some sense - it allows their stupid and overdue revolution to take hold.

The Alliance allowed the Horde to keep its conquest because Alliance was:
1. the aggressor
2. losing the war spectacularly before the Horde started to in-fight and they had to team up with Lol'jin to survive against Garrosh.

Alliance wasn't in position to demand anything.

[InTheEnd]

The Alliance allowed the Horde to keep its conquest because Alliance was:
1. the aggressor
2. losing the war spectacularly before the Horde started to in-fight and they had to team up with Lol'jin to survive against Garrosh.

Alliance wasn't in position to demand anything.

The Horde has always been the aggressor in 90% of conflicts they've been involved in.

[Varodoc]

The Horde failed to uphold honor as Garrosh did, thus they have to redeem themselves. It's that simple.

[kappalol]

There is nothing to redeem from. Just a few people like Baine and Saurfang. They betrayed Horde for some kind of personal subjective honor not thinking about the Horde as a whole and plotting with the enemy.

What is Honor anyway?

If we take orcs. Honor is changing depending on what clan you are. And what is honorable for one don't have to be for another.
Thrall is honorable, Garrosh was honorable. Everyone is honorable in his own way. Because Honor is subjective.

Horde should not be honorable in a way alliance is. There would be no point in factions then.

If your moral compass is blue and want to be good etc go play alliance. If you want to do be semi-good and make shit done. be Horde. I would like to have the third faction with the morality of Knight of the ebon blade. Do what you want and don't give a single fuck what others think. (DK class hall campaign) This thing makes an interesting story for me.

[Arrashi]

Press "F" to honor, to redeem yourself.

Im pretty sure that with baine and honorfang honoring so hard as they do, horde is already redeemed.

[Dagoth Ur]

Oh, I agree completely. But 'redemption' here is code for transformation into human clones for the non-tribal races and into Baine clone for the tribal races. It should not happen in general. If it is to happen though, the only way it'd be remotely palatable is if it was a long, painful process that drove a lot of internal conflict in the Alliance and actually addressed the consequences that all this got through.

It's funny though, because from meta perspective it's actually Horde's culture which is more compatible with the setting itself and actual game mechanics.
But writers insist to pretend like it's Horde which is somehow incompatible and constantly needs to change and we're supposed to abhor whenever it strikes at Alliance.

[Danuel]

I fix title for you:
Can acti-bliz writers be redeemed?

[Artelia]

Question is what Horde? Now there are two Horde sides --> Loyalist and Rebels. Even if one side lose we have people who don't even want redemption.

Loyalist want crush Alliance and their children with their trees. Rebels maybe want redemption but not in hands of Alliance as far i know.

So....maybe there is better question. It's redemption really needed?

[Super Dickmann]

It's funny though, because from meta perspective it's actually Horde's culture which is more compatible with the setting itself and actual game mechanics.
But writers insist to pretend like it's Horde which is somehow incompatible and constantly needs to change and we're supposed to abhor whenever it strikes at Alliance.

To this day I don't think I've seen a company with such a habit of having their games' stories fight their own premise. By all accounts the problem is that the Alliance is too peaceful, not that the Horde was too bad pre-BFA. But instead they just keep cramming peace in despite PvP being forever. If we're spared the Unifaction at the end of this, then this entire exercise will have been a colossal waste of everyone's time.

[Aeula]

A better question would be ‘does the Horde want redemption in the eyes of the Alliance?’

The answer should be no, but Blizzard is already trying to push it to a yes.

Quite frankly the Alliance should never forgive the Horde and the Horde shouldn’t be interested in their forgiveness. But with Alliance puppets like Saurfang and Baine taking over they’ll be reduced to the Red Alliance by the expansions end and both factions will have to deal with it.

[Itisamuh]

The Horde doesn't need to redeem itself. At best some members need to redeem themselves for their treason, but most of the traitors like Baine and Saurfang are way beyond that at this point. Redeem itself in the eyes of Alliance, as it's what Blizzard would understand by Horde's redemption? Fuck no. Alliance isn't the Horde's overlord or even a partner. No one in the Horde should give a shit whether or not they get a redemption seal of approval from Genn or Tyrande.

Blizzard should take a note from SW:TOR here. Even light side Sith aren't buddy buddy with the Jedi or using the same morality as them. The light side Sith oppose the aspects of Sith culture they find to be undesirable from the perspective of the Sith Empire. Like the constant infighting that's pretty much institutional or stratified society. They oppose them because they make the Empire lose wars in the long term. Not because it makes the Jedi sad. And when they cooperate with the Republic, they do it with things by threatening them with death. Because they are a different culture and light side Sith are not even remotely the same as light side Jedi. Which works pretty much how @Dagoth Ur said things are supposed to work.

But Blizzard can't comprehend that. For them "the heart of the Horde" like Baine or Saurfang have to be human sycophants that outright seek Anduin's guidance on how to fix the Horde in order to be WoW's version of "light side". Which makes zero sense whatsoever.




The Alliance allowed the Horde to keep its conquest because Alliance was:
1. the aggressor
2. losing the war spectacularly before the Horde started to in-fight and they had to team up with Lol'jin to survive against Garrosh.

Alliance wasn't in position to demand anything.

This deserves to be quoted. Well said.

[Specialka]

Well, horde as a whole can't be redemeed. Some individual can, but Horde as an entity can't. It should be wiped out completely for its crimes. Its Warchief trialed and that's it.

And the Alliance always had more firepower than the Horde but never used it fully because muh Honor.

[Mnemicmustdie]

They need to give Alliance more bite people can use the excuse they are the hero / good guy faction but Horde itself was built around peace and love , its time for Genn and Tyrande to start slapping these pickles back to their mud huts