Sometimes, I feel like Blizzard hired Vince Russo to be head writer..
Sometimes, I feel like Blizzard hired Vince Russo to be head writer..
Ah yes, clearly betterment of both factions meant war and Anduin definitely didn't have a bunch of ideas for how to establish peace when he touched Azerite and he definitely didn't explicitly point out there was a treaty in effect in Arathi. They were definitely at war, please believe me and ignore every single character talking about not starting war or starting war, or avoiding war or how wars shouldn't be started or should be prepared for so they can be started, they were totally at war before Ashenvale trust me, I swear.
Except that the Scarlet Crusade were not Alliance, same as the Argent Crusade (which totally accepts undead as long as they're anti scourge). Oh and the founders of the Crusade were, in fact, racist towards all non-humans.
Besides that, Sylvanas had once been part of the Alliance, she wasn't present during the "racist Garithos" debacle that made her former people suffer, yet she was the one who slew him. And after that? Nothing. Instead it had been her, since vanilla, who sought to increase the land of the Forsaken despite knowing that if they die, they're dead.
How about instead of pulling from a stacked deck, we talk about the most salient point of this distinction: Anduin. If the Horde truly wanted peace, then a High King Anduin is probably the best path they could ask for to start the process. Anduin would be more than willing to let bygones be bygones, after all - he is perhaps the most naive, all-loving, and all-forgiving leader figure the Alliance has ever had. Sylvanas actually had to talk around Anduin to sell her case for war to Saurfang, after all - relying on focusing on Genn to such an extent that she posits Genn could somehow force Anduin's hand (which we know from "Before the Storm" is a mistaken notion). Anduin would've done almost anything for peace - up to and including proposing madness like the Gathering in the hopes of extending a tenuous olive branch to Sylvanas' own people.
So yes, I don't think the Alliance was a threat to the Horde prior to Teldrassil, Stormheim notwithstanding. Stormheim was the unilateral act of a desperate and angry man - emboldened by the loss of Varian at the Broken Shore on top of a chain of insults he had borne at the hands of Sylvanas specifically. And even Genn was starting to change his tune by the time "Before the Storm" had closed out. Peace was possible, and then Sylvanas closed the book on it with utter finality.
"We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Blizzard specifically said there are similarities and parallels to Garrosh. And how would there not be. The underlying reasons for the war are different, but the strategy is the same and just because two tyrants have different ideologies, they are still tyrants and follow the same behavioural patterns. If you look at the short story 'The Scroll' the prophesied future for the Horde conquering the world is still very much the same, and how could it not be. If you want to conquer Stormwind, no matter for which reason, be that orc supremacy or making the world undead, you have to have a strategy and that strategy includes getting rid of the Nightelves and Teldrassil on Kalimdor first. Teldrassil burning before Stormwind is conquered is already a prophecy, which kind of means it is a probable chain of events.
We are all pawns in a bigger game and until we (or rather the people making the actual decisions in the game) learn, we are going to follow the same patterns again and again.
I think what Blizzard wanted to say with 'not Garrosh' is more that Sylvanas won't make the same mistakes and her plans work better. Which makes me hope that we actually get a Stormwind raid and she brings about at least some semblance of 'evil won this time' without making the world as a whole explode.
"Okay, Sylvanas van der Linde. " ahaha
Maybe she is planning to raid SW, and then when the city surrenders she kills everyone anyway.
Blizzard: And here it is! Teldrassil burning! With Sylvanas right in front of it, all alone!
Fans: That looks like Sylvanas destroying a Capital City.
Blizzard: Ah ah ah, you don't know that! You don't know the context! Who knows what's happening? Wait to find out!
Fans: Okay fine.
Blizzard: Alright, so here's this little war going on between the Horde and Night Elves...
Fans: Okay, so it sounds like Sylvanas is going to destroy the tree.
Blizzard: Just wait!
Fans: Fine...
Blizzard: Haha! Look at that! Sylvanas burned down the tree! Aren't you surprised?!
Fans: Are you high right now? We literally called this months ago.
Blizzard: Hahahaha! We did such a great job!
"And don't forget about the Val'kyr. They won't believe in my death if they don't see all my Val'kyr dying. This is indeed great sacrifice but it is required to accomplish out plans. Don't fail me. For the Horde!"
- - - Updated - - -
Anduin gets leaked.
Blizzard: There is some speculation about next HotS hero but there are some more releases before what you expect.
Players: So no Anduin?
Blizzard: Anduin is next HotS hero!
- - - Updated - - -
The bells are signal to the teacher that he can finish the siege.
It's so funny that everything you say here contradicts your post before. You can't call people shallow and stupid for not liking the same thing you do and then in the very next post claim that you are a grown adult with a critical mind.
Are you capable of providing even a single evidence to support your claim beside parroting: "real life laws don't apply to undead people" and "we don't see the entire story so wait till the end" ? If so, by all means do so. I'll be waiting.
As you may or may not be aware, in academic circles, experts do not have to entertain ideas unless they have sufficient basis in fact. Random ideas do not even have to be disproven. While I'm not an expert in creative writing or literary history, but let's use the same paradigm here for argument's sake. I did manage to read, watch, play and listen to quite many stories, and BfA's narrative is yet to show any impressive qualities. For me, anyway.
What on earth are you even talking about? What "stacked deck"? You want to talk about Anduin? You mean the very High King under whom the attack I talked about has happened? That Anduin? The one who did nothing about it even though he thinks Genn and Rogers outright broke his orders to commit their crimes against his supposedly beloved peace? That Anduin? The Anduin who's all talk about peace but no action, under whom Alliance attacks the Horde with complete impunity? If the Horde wanted peace then High King Anduin is the single most worthless path they could have ever asked for. "Stacked deck" indeed.
There's also the Anduin that, in order to dissuade Sylvanas from war, sent a bajillion spies to Orgrimmar and ordered them to make themselves known to Sylvanas and the Horde. I.e. he ordered a large group of Alliance to violate the sovereignty of Horde's borders, giving Sylvanas a casus belli in and on itself "in the name of peace". This Anduin is also a disaster from peace perspective.
And how many times does it need to be repeated in one thread that Anduin explicitly told Sylvanas that the Gathering is not an attempt at peace before it sticks?
Which one is it? Was it to make both of them look good or does it reflect badly on both?
No she wasn't. She volunteered to lead the expedition because Garrosh was acting like a retard and pointlessly throwing Forsaken into a chokepoint.
Hmmm...I think there may be a faction upheaval after this. Maybe instead of Alliance/Horde division, it will be Light/Dark?
"to make somebody do something that they do not want to do or make them do it sooner than they had intended" 5:20:30 https://youtu.be/_xr7DZ8rCig see not forced.
Are you implying War of Thorns is an ongoing storyline? Because that would be false. War of Thorns is also what Blizzard was referring to when they said the things @The Stormbringer was referring to. At least put some effort into your attempts at carrying Blizzard's water.
The metaphor was pretty clear - you were offering two choices without necessary context, when the answer was sort of neither. When Genn stormed off to Stormheim Varian was newly dead and Anduin newly crowned, it was a tumultuous time in which Anduin had yet to secure his own backing, much less that of his people. He certainly didn't order Genn to go off half-cocked, just the opposite really, and he chastises both Genn and Rogers in "Before the Storm" for their presumption. I'm not even claiming that Anduin has made no mistakes before the Blood War kicked off, merely that his tenure as High King of the Alliance is really the best the Horde could ask for if their minds were actually on peace.
Anduin didn't start moving against Sylvanas in this fashion until after her actions at the Gathering, which was pretty much a gauntlet thrown down. Not to say she wasn't without cause, either; but that pretty conclusively demonstrated her aim was singularly not peace (and we know that it wasn't from her monologues as well). Sylvanas didn't need a casus belli at all, really; her argument for war was made without any kind of reference to the Alliance's spy-network. War was always her objective, as we're shown from the very first chapters of "Before the Storm."
Also, Anduin himself belies those words with what he says about the Gathering to Calia and Alonsus. He didn't want Sylvanas to take it as a formal overture, probably knowing full well she'd respond negatively - but he still considered a soft overture nonetheless, a way to bridge the gap between the Forsaken and Humanity. Anduin's political framing aside it was still an attempt at peace.
"We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead