Only Theramore Isle was attacked and destroyed. The Kingdom of Theramore as a whole was NOT wiped out. The Horde essentially bombed the Alliance's Pearl Harbor.
Camp Taurajo has numerous dead NPCs in it that are actually still burning in the quests you do there. So yeah, the Alliance said they could leave but they definitely didn't wait until they destroyed the village.
The draenei genocide was still happening but the Horde and Thrall had begun fighting AGAINST it. The felblood orcs were guilty of the genocide but the Horde was not.
Stormwind was temporarily displaced. They were able to fight back and retake their capital so I'm not sure I would consider that a genocide. If we're calling that a genocide then the Alliance is responsible for the genocide of the quel'dorei people when they refused to send aid to Silvermoon when Arthas attacked.
The Alliance has also been fighting to eradicate the Horde on both Kalimdor and the EK. Both the Horde and Alliance are guilty of that.
The Iron Horde absolutely did not join the Horde as a whole. The mag'har did join the Horde, but they are a branch of orcs from 30 years in the future on Draenor. The Iron Horde was dismantled and never actually joined the present day Horde.
Sylvanas' reasoning for lighting the tree on fire was to break the Alliance's hope. It didn't work but her goal wasn't to wipe out the entirety of the Kaldorei as a people. If that was her goal then she wouldn't have stopped there. She would have moved to all other Kaldorei cities and villages then burned them down too. I'm not excusing the burning of Teldrassil as it was a horrific action. I'm merely pointing out that the goal of it wasn't genocide.
These are post BFA races. Them being "freedom fighters" is perfectly relevant to the lore rn.
I remember when I joked about how blizzard writers aren't mature enough to stick to their guns when it comes to writing bad things, but this actually made me snort laugh because it's such a stupid pathetic attempt at re-writing in game history. Can't wait for some new player to go "I protect the living!!" then come across the quest where he gets to bash human heads in with a shovel.
That quest was, and is, great.
But it's a different time and if Blizzard is scared shitless of releasing quests like that, I don't blame them considering the awful social climate. They will just implement new Forsaken quests that are much more squeaky clean than that.
I mean in fairness the Forsaken have saved the living several times now in some pretty big ways in both the first and second Sourge invasion. Their break away from the Lich King was instrumental to the events that led to his war failing the first time, and then in Wrath of the Lich King's prepatch even some of the most evil among the Forsaken, the same royal apothecary society members behind the later Wrathgate event, created and freely gave away a cure to the new plague that had been unleashed to the Horde and the Alliance--I don't think it was even a risk to them, just the living. The wording is still too heroic when they should still be skeptical of the living because they hate undead for looking gross, but you can't deny that the Forsaken are heroic.
And yes that really did happen if you weren't playing back in BC, read the BC section: https://wow.gamepedia.com/Grand_Apothecary_Putress
The Forsaken may be the only race that has ever been solely responsible for preventing every living thing from dying, without the help of any other race, thanks to the second invasion.
Last edited by Firefall; 2020-04-23 at 02:38 AM.
The only eyebrow-raising one is the Forsaken. The description doesn't have to go on about them being a bunch of baby eating mad scientists until recently, but "work tirelessly to defend the living"? Like, c'mon now. Even at their best the Forsaken aren't and shouldn't be Draenei-tier saints.
Positioning the Horde as a faction valuing freedom is fine by me, to be honest. It's a better ideal than either being walking, talking honor memes or Fantasy Hitler's obedient little stromtroopers.
At their best those same evil mad scientist Forsaken (who are no longer part of the Forsaken since late Wrath) created a cure to the second Scourge plague and gave it away for free to the Horde and the Alliance at the end of Burning Crusade. They are evil, yes. But heroic.
The thread is not about genocide, or even the faction conflict. Return to the actual topic at hand as opposed to these derailing tangents.
"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