Why do I need to support the Horde rebuilding Tirisfal as an Alliance player?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

By using such a term as "racism" for this matter, which is as loaded a word as ever there was one in the human language, you were clearly putting the Horde in the position of victims of unjust actions by someone that is definately wrong. It is not racism, it is the Horde getting their just desserts for all the evil shit it has done. Varian was their victim for big parts of his life and now he gets to make them pay for it

I mean rather you think it’s a “loaded” word or not or rather it’s justified or not by Varian being a victim that doesn’t change that by definition Varian’s views on the orcs are racist.

Varian did not have these informations so he went with the most likely scenario which from his experience was that the Horde was behind it all.

No actually Varian never says the horde was behind it all he agrees to work with them because he thinks they weren’t behind the wrath gate and only changes his toon when he sees what the forsaken actually do with human body's and uses that to justify his further hate of the orcs.

Secondly, flase flag operations there were, yes. But the Undercity was not one of those. Everything Varian saw there happened with Sylvanas' consent and because he never cared to check on the Scourge he invited into his Horde, they happened with Thrall's consent.

yes every thing that happens there was done with Sylvanas consent, but Varian doesn’t actually know what was happening there. All he sees is body’s and parts of body’s with no other context, he never actually finds out that thu were experimenting in the living he doesn’t look into where the body’s came from nor does he do any other investigating which would lead to things like the forsaken keeping old parts around for repairs.

Also, Purtress might have coloured things in his own ideas, but the Wrathgate was technically following exactly Sylvanas instructions, even if she did not specifically order it. She said to use any and all chances to deploy the Blight against Arthas, no matter what the situation was, no matter who was in range of the attack. That is what Putress did. That he took great delight in murderin the Living and then started a coup is a different and almost unrelated thing

while this is true it has no baring as no one knows this but sylvanas.

I am not saying that Varian didn't want revenge and that it coloured his actions to a point, what I am saying is that despite this he was completely right and Jaina was not

I completely agree that Varian was right in pretty much every thing he did I don’t fault him for any of it.

The only issue I take is people making excuses when in reality it all just came down to him having a racist streak pre Mop and wanting revenge. While he might have been on the money for wanting the horde gone it wasn’t actually for any thing they were doing currently it was his grudges that lead him.

[Raisei]

The forsaken had done nothing to be untrusted prior to the wrath gate and Said forsaken betray and leave the horde, keeping traitors in check isn’t something either faction does as you know they aren’t aware that they are traitors until something goes down.

Uhm... yes, nothing. Apart from murdering a huge band of Alliance soldiers for the great crime of being commanded by Garithos (whom they hated) and kidnapping farmers in Hillsbrad to be used in the Blight experiments. Innocent angels, all of them.

Seriously, have you even read the material?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Yeah not buying it. What pushed him over the edge was Undercity's bowels and all the... decorations and items he witnessed. You know. He was about 70/30 in favor of just beheading the Putress and fucking off to brood but after cutting through UC his post-Lich "fuck its just rebranded Scourge" PTSD flared up and he went ballistic..

I don’t think Varian has any Scourge PTSD I’m pretty sure he was rather uninvolved with any of it pre wrath.

But if we wanted to assume he does have such feeling then his actions after UC don’t make any sense as he leaves the forsaken almost completely alone afterwords focusing all of his major strikes on the orcs after saying he wanted to wipe out the “green skinned aberrations”.

UC might rightfully be what made him tip over the “kill them all” ledge but he was always focused on his hatred of the orcs and every thing else came second to him.

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"Tell me you don't know the lore without telling me you don't know the lore."

The Forsaken have been suspicious since Vanilla. And the blight has been in the game since Warcraft 3.

The forsaken do nothing outside the line of horde rules until Wrath you can say being zombies is suspicious but as far as the horde goes they were on the up and up which is why the blood elfs join after the forsaken vouch for them.

The blight in WC3 and the forsaken blight are not the same thing.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blight_(plague)

Blight is the term for the physical corruption of the land by the presence of the Lich King's undead plague. The plague affects all it touches, sterilizing the land, warping its natural inhabitants into bloodthirsty mutants, and twisting the local flora into disgusting mockeries of proper plants. The Eastern Plaguelands (most specifically Plaguewood) and the Dead Scar that runs through Quel'Thalas are perhaps the most startling examples of the long term effects of the blight.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/New_Plague

The Royal Apothecary Society, the alchemical experts of the Forsaken, worked on various ways to use various parts from creatures living in their sphere of control as well as agriculture grown in the Tirisfal Glades, Silverpine Forest, and the Hillsbrad Foothills to create powerful toxins

[VladlTutushkin]

I don’t think Varian has any Scourge PTSD I’m pretty sure he was rather uninvolved with any of it pre wrath.

But if we wanted to assume he does have such feeling then his actions after UC don’t make any sense as he leaves the forsaken almost completely alone afterwords focusing all of his major strikes on the orcs after saying he wanted to wipe out the “green skinned aberrations”.

UC might rightfully be what made him tip over the “kill them all” ledge but he was always focused on his hatred of the orcs and every thing else came second to him.

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The forsaken do nothing outside the line of horde rules until Wrath you can say being zombies is suspicious but as far as the horde goes they were on the up and up which is why the blood elfs join after the forsaken vouch for them.

The blight in WC3 and the forsaken blight are not the same thing.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blight_(plague)

Actually i disagree on him focusing on orcs. Yeah he was fighting them, but it was also his decision to begin first real push into Lordaeron by Alliance, and all things considered he paid a LOT of attention to fighting Forsaken. Thats why Sylvanas saving him was supposed to be such a strong "scene piece" in Legion cinematic. He pushed a ton of Alliance firepower to dislodge forsaken from Eastern Kingdoms.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Uhm... yes, nothing. Apart from murdering a huge band of Alliance soldiers for the great crime of being commanded by Garithos (whom they hated) and kidnapping farmers in Hillsbrad to be used in the Blight experiments. Innocent angels, all of them.

Seriously, have you even read the material?

Assuming the horde knew about Garithos why would they count killing alliance commanders as something that made the forsaken untrustworthy? They we’re doing the same thing in WC3.

Same with capturing members of the alliance the rest of the horde was doing the same thing that’s kinda a key part of Varian’s lore.

[Kithelle]

I have no idea what is going on in the minds of Blizzards story writes, I really do not.
It was just one expansion ago that we fought to destroy UC, now we help the forsaken to restore Lordaeron despite nothing has changed in the meantime?

I will not even start with all the other problems the alliance story ONCE AGAIN has and that only seems to be getting worse every single patch, but the whole PREMISE of this questline is so dumb, I ONCE AGAIN can't believe somebody approved it to be released.

Yup...instead of reclaiming Gilneas which the Forsaken plague bombed, we're helping them rebuild Lordaeron, which the Forsaken plague bombed. Even when the Alliance are victors they still lose.

[Skildar]

As an alliance player, are you suppose to view the cinematic with Voss and Calia after you're done with the scenario? Because I saw both characters move to the throne room and then nothing happened and both disappeared.

Did it bug for me or is this solely for horde players?

[Feanoro]

Uhm... yes, nothing. Apart from murdering a huge band of Alliance soldiers for the great crime of being commanded by Garithos (whom they hated) and kidnapping farmers in Hillsbrad to be used in the Blight experiments. Innocent angels, all of them.

Seriously, have you even read the material?

With as many people bringing this up, he's clearly at this point deliberately ignoring/avoiding these facts to push his "Nope, Varian was just racist" narrative.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Actually i disagree on him focusing on orcs. Yeah he was fighting them, but it was also his decision to begin first real push into Lordaeron by Alliance, and all things considered he paid a LOT of attention to fighting Forsaken. Thats why Sylvanas saving him was supposed to be such a strong "scene piece" in Legion cinematic. He pushed a ton of Alliance firepower to dislodge forsaken from Eastern Kingdoms.

I’m not sure by any scale you could say he paid a lot of attention to the forsaken.

His first actions of the war before the shattering even happens is to push into the barrens, he doesn’t make any moons into the Northern EK until after the shattering, He builds/repairs/man’s fortifications in Kalimdor, he never builds any thing in the EK ignoring stormguard which would be a perfect staging ground and doesn’t even takes back South shore. Every single race alliance race fights in Kalimdor, he only sends some night elfs and dwarfs to support the Worgen who were already in silverpine.

By any real metric the focus was on Kalimdor with not even really half the resources that were spent on taking down the orcs spent on the forsaken.

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With as many people bringing this up, he's clearly at this point deliberately ignoring/avoiding these facts to push his "Nope, Varian was just racist" narrative.

I’m ignoring the facts that the forsaken killing alliance commanders and capturing alliance members should make the horde not trust them even though the horde(-forsaken) we’re also killing alliance commanders and capturing alliance members?

[draugril]

The people who complain the most about the lore are the ones who know enough about it to have questions, but don't delve deeply enough into it to find out the whys and whatfors but instead just stop and complain that it doesn't make sense.

You’re not wrong. My chief complaint for years has been that the current narrative has important eats relegated to books. I want to know more about the game’s story, but I don’t want to look externally for it.

This was fine early on, when they detailed stuff like the Second War and the War of the Ancients. They weren’t necessary to understand the current story.

[Feanoro]

I’m ignoring the facts that the forsaken killing alliance commanders and capturing alliance members should make the horde not trust them even though the horde(-forsaken) we’re also killing alliance commanders and capturing alliance members?

Nice dodge attempt, yet again. You're ignoring the Forsaken from vanilla onwards kidnapping Alliance civilians for experiments, torture, and Blight testing while claiming the Horde did nothing during that time. The question wasn't about Horde trust, the question was about the Horde provoking the Alliance, which you claim there were few or no provocations.

[Combatbulter]

You’re not wrong. My chief complaint for years has been that the current narrative has important eats relegated to books. I want to know more about the game’s story, but I don’t want to look externally for it.

This was fine early on, when they detailed stuff like the Second War and the War of the Ancients. They weren’t necessary to understand the current story.

It is not about where it is written, the problem is far more fundamental, blizz just doesn't care for consistency.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Nice dodge attempt, yet again. You're ignoring the Forsaken from vanilla onwards kidnapping Alliance civilians for experiments, torture, and Blight testing while claiming the Horde did nothing during that time. ,

I've addressed this a few times actually.

Yes this is nothing serious as far as Warcraft goes as the alliance also has policy’s on the books to kill forsaken on sight to “free” them and would also capture “kidnap” horde members found in there land. The only thing the horde was doing that the alliance wasn’t was having arena fights, which technically wasn’t legal in the horde.

And yes the horde is responsible for kidnapping members of the alliance but that’s also irrelevant as the alliance did the same thing when horde members were in there lands and had polices on the books to kill certain meme era on sight which is the equivalent of what the forsaken did as no one actually knows about any of the experimenting just that human were found dead in undercity. Both factions capturing and killing the other members isn’t what actually lead to the war it was just business as usual post WC3.

yes every thing that happens there was done with Sylvanas consent, but Varian doesn’t actually know what was happening there. All he sees is body’s and parts of body’s with no other context, he never actually finds out that thu were experimenting in the living he doesn’t look into where the body’s came from nor does he do any other investigating which would lead to things like the forsaken keeping old parts around for repairs.

The question wasn't about Horde trust the question was about the Horde provoking the Alliance, which you claim there were few or no provocations.

and the question was about horde trust in this case you can check your self by reading the reply chain, but ill do it for you.

The Forsaken are members of the Horde. The Horde leader should keep them in check if they can't be trusted.

The forsaken had done nothing to be untrusted prior to the wrath gate and Said forsaken betray and leave the horde, keeping traitors in check isn’t something either faction does as you know they aren’t aware that they are traitors until something goes down.

Uhm... yes, nothing. Apart from murdering a huge band of Alliance soldiers for the great crime of being commanded by Garithos (whom they hated) and kidnapping farmers in Hillsbrad to be used in the Blight experiments. Innocent angels, all of them.

Seriously, have you even read the material?

[Feanoro]

I've addressed this a few times actually.

Trying to handwave it as "the Horde is responsible, but not really, therefore it doesn't count towards Varian declaring war" is not addressing it.

and the question was about horde trust in this case you can check your self by reading the reply chain, but ill do it for you.

This discussion was about your claim that Varian started war based only on "racism" rather than Horde provocations.

I get it, you're trying to move goalposts because you don't have a leg to stand on. It's ok to enjoy playing villains. It doesn't make you a bad person.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Trying to handwave it as "the Horde is responsible, but not really, therefore it doesn't count towards Varian declaring war" is not addressing it.

No the horde is fully responsible there is no "not really" in there. The thing is that from an Alliance/Varian point of view they were doing the exact same thing from classic-Wrath as no one actually knows about the experimenting other then Sylvanas.

I mean mabye you could say Varian is just a hypocrite and he think's the alliance capturing and slaying horde is fine but not the other way round but I wouldn't.

This discussion was about your claim that Varian started war based only on "racism" rather than Horde provocations.

I get it, you're trying to move goalposts because you don't have a leg to stand on. It's ok to enjoy playing villains. It doesn't make you a bad person.

I don't think you know what moving goalpost means. some one said that the horde should watch the forsaken if they are untrustworthy, I pointed out that the horde didn't see them as untrustworthy until wrath, some one else said they were untrustworthy for doing the same thing the rest of the horde was doing.

at no point does my initial statement of "Varian blame's the orcs for every thing" move, this is a totally unrelated side tangent because some one brought up the rest of the horde not trusting the Forsaken.

[Mehrunes]

And absolutely none of that was in response to Horde provocations, no sir. Nothing like oh say years of Horde routinely kidnapping, enslaving, and murdering Alliance civilians, experimenting on them, putting them in arenas. No indeed, that would take time away from their nature hikes, basket weaving, and flower arranging.

Except we do know the motives behind Alliance's attacks on the Horde during Thrall's reign and would you look at that, time and time again it was imperialism or Dwarves just waltzing in to Horde territory to dig for Titan junk.

Garrosh told night elves that he wouldnt punish horde troops if it turns out that they were the ones who massacred the druids. Pretty aggressive attitude even if he was just posturing.

Yeah, no, this is made up. The attack on the Druids was the second one, which Garrosh denied altogether saying that if he was to attack the Alliance he'd announce it loud and clear instead of skulking about. So him saying that he wouldn't punish Horde troops if it turned out they were the ones who made the attack he denied being the fault of the Horde makes no sense. He also had no exchanges with the Night Elves about that attack to begin with. The only time Garrosh is involved in a later recap about the attack it's during his internal monologue when he ponders on Cairne's challenge.

When/where does this take place? I remember garrosh telling Carine that he didn’t care and wouldn’t do any thing along with wishing he was the one who did it but I can’t actually remember any instances of garrosh talking to any night elfs.

On fanfiction.net. On a side note, it's funny that for all the harping on the events of The Shattering and the attempts to pin them on the Horde from the usual Alliance headcanon peddlers, the only actual violation of the factions' treaty in that time period (confirmed to be a violation even by a pro-peace Horde member like Cairne) was when an Alliance ship entered Horde waters.

Or maybe when he told that to Cairne, which is the same shit, so it does not excuse him. For all his talk of "they left me no choice but to start a huge war" he never really was into solving it peacefully. Well, good thing he rotted in Hell for that.

Not what he said to Cairne either.

Not sure why people who don't read quest text bother to comment on forums about what happens during quests.

It is very clear that Calia knows you're an Alliance player (proven by the fact that she tells Genn so). And in exchange for the help she agrees to withdraw Forsaken troops out of Gilneas. Genn had expected some success but he's surprised by the massive victory he gained. Most people think the result of this questline is a victory for both sides, but the Alliance won HARD.

1. we installed an Alliance character in a Horde council
2. we earned goodwill with the Forsaken
3. we got an agreement to move Forsaken out of Gilneas
4. the blight is gone so which is good in general (threat is removed from the area that the Alliance wants to have)

This is inaccurate. The whole point of the Desolate Council is that no one person makes the decision. So Calia simply couldn't hand over Gilneas on her own. What she actually said is that it's the first thing she'll propose in Council's meetings.

You pay to access the game as is. That is the beginning and ends of your rights. The hot take that paying your sub entitles you to anything beyond that is just laughter worthy. Pure entitlement.

Nice save for the part where you tried to portray people using only the game as a source of lore with some false equivalence to Blizzard instructing students to use books for studying as if they ever gave such "instruction" in the game. And when I say nice I'm being facetious, because the most they do for book lore is give cameos like with the graveyard in Arathi. You only know it's about book lore if you already know about the book, not the other way around.

Come on. The Horde has brought all the hatred on itself and you know it. They are not innocent victims of a racist evil hooomann. Especially since Varian only declared war after he saw the Undercity and the various obscenities that had been happening there under Sylvanas' reign.

Which is why he went to Undercity in the first place in order to use Putress' betrayal as an opportunity to capture it and prevent the Horde from retaking one of their capital cities. He was totes legit devoted to peaceful coexistence with the Horde before his departure

And please stop peddling the trite "Oh, he only declared war because of what he saw in Undercity" narrative, when Varian's entire speech revolved around his hatred towards Orcs and the only reference to anything Forsaken in it was just him calling Sylvanas a witch. Especially since Varian had no way of knowing whether what he saw in Undercity was committed only after Putress took over or just general Forsaken activity and as I already mentioned, he explicitly admitted that he doesn't consider Putress to be Horde when he made the decision to attack him.

You realize that Sylvanas was happily executing her own completely unrelated plans and those are what Genn disturbed? It wasn't like she was in any way even trying to help the war effort against the Legion. Newest lore makes it clear that her whole deal with Helya and the Lantern were part of her Jailer Covenant quest line. She just used the Legion Invasion as a cover and she could very easily have turned Odyn against us which would have been a huge hit to the war effort.

So... it is quite rich to blame Genn for hindering the war effort because he prevented Sylvanas from hindering the war effort.

Uh-huh. Except for the part where she only took one ship with her for her own plans and left the remaining entirety of Horde forces to aid the player in acquiring the Aegis of Aggrammar that we needed to stop the Legion. And it's not the ship she took with her that got fucked by Genn.

Also, Odyn's entire contribution to the war effort was destroying a single Legion ship with a spear. And at the time Sylvanas was executing her plans Odyn was still locked in his mental asylum. That he escaped only because we freed him. Which we wouldn't have done if he turned against us...

Not that the idea that Sylvanas would have turned Odyn against us is completely has any basis in reality as Odyn quite clearly held no beef with the Horde and cheered both factions in slaughtering each other for VALOR equally. It's almost as if he was a deranged lunatic that went as far in his pursuit of VALOR that he even gave Skovald an extra opportunity to win the Aegis that went beyond the rules of his trials, risking the destruction of Azeroth in the process.

Plus, after this, Sylvanas is NOWHERE to be seen while the Legion rampaged. She could have died in that scene in Stormheim and it would have changed nothing. Powerhouse my ass. She was probably hiding in the Undercity since her immortality plan failed and she might have died in the Invasion.

Except it's been mentioned by none other than Baine that she led the Horde troops in defense of Horde territories and organized Orgrimmar's defenses.

First of all, Varian had no way of knowing this. Jaina only defended Thrall because they were friends and thus she was inclined to believe his side of the story. There was not the slightest proof that Sylvanas did not orchestrate the entire thing. Something she would have been absolutely capable of both from her ability as well as her moral compulsion.

Except Varian literally took that explanation at face value. The whole reason of him going to Undercity right then and there was him accepting that the Horde lost Undercity to defectors and he wanted to use it as an opportunity to capture the city for the Alliance before the Horde could retake it. So sorry to break it to you, but trying to use this as an argument as to why he totally declared the war because of the Forsaken simply does not work as you're trying to project onto Varian a position opposite to the one he actually took.

We only know now for sure, decades later, that there was in fact a coup and we only know because we get to see Sylvanas in that situation. Before this book, we only had Sylvanas word for it. Varian did not have these informations so he went with the most likely scenario which from his experience was that the Horde was behind it all.

Right. Because we didn't see Putress teaming up with Legion, Sylvanas joining the Horde's attempt to retake the city and Putress' forces trying to kill her just as much as they tried to kill other Horde members present. Those demons summoned themselves and Putress was just pranking her I guess. Likewise we didn't have the omniscient narrator of the post-Cata Forsaken intro explicitly stating that the Forsaken were indeed betrayed by Putress a mere expansion later.

Secondly, flase flag operations there were, yes. But the Undercity was not one of those. Everything Varian saw there happened with Sylvanas' consent and because he never cared to check on the Scourge he invited into his Horde, they happened with Thrall's consent.

Funny how "Varian had no way of knowing this" magically stops applying when it's convenient for your argument, even though out of the two events in question this is where it actually applies.

No actually Varian never says the horde was behind it all he agrees to work with them because he thinks they weren’t behind the wrath gate and only changes his toon when he sees what the forsaken actually do with human body's and uses that to justify his further hate of the orcs.

While you're generally correct when it comes to the whole thing, this one's wrong. While Varian accepted the explanation given by the Horde to the point the idea of Horde losing Undercity is what drove his decision to go there, he wasn't cooperating with the Horde. His whole plan was to use this as an opportunity to conquer the city, which would have clearly screwed the Horde over. And he was surprised when he heard Thrall shouting Lok'tar Ogar, because he didn't expect the Horde to react this quickly.

Uhm... yes, nothing. Apart from murdering a huge band of Alliance soldiers for the great crime of being commanded by Garithos (whom they hated) and kidnapping farmers in Hillsbrad to be used in the Blight experiments. Innocent angels, all of them.

Seriously, have you even read the material?

Given how there are no known survivors of Sylvanas killing Garithos' men, they are kinda neither here nor there when it comes to an in-universe perspective on whether she could have been trusted or not. Neither the Horde nor Alliance knew about it, so it couldn't have factored into their decision-making there.

Ditto for the Hillsbrad farmers. While on Horde side players of other races could participate in some of those tests, there's no evidence of word of that ever reaching anyone important in Orgrimmar. Then there's the part that this whole thing was just a part of an ongoing border clash that was started before the start of WoW and where there's no confirmed aggressor. So even if there was such evidence, there'd be very little reason for the Horde to use that as a reason to distrust the Forsaken.

And when it comes to the Alliance, Varian had no way of knowing whether the test subjects he saw in Undercity were Hillsbrad farmers or Scarlet Crusade members or even artificial humans Putress pulled out of his ass. Unless you want to tell me that the king of Stormwind personally knows every farmer from a different human kingdom half a world away but it's highly implausible. Especially since he didn't say anything about them being Alliance victims. And even then we loop back to the part where Varian had no way of knowing whether those test subjects were subjected to tests before or after Putress' coup either.

Oh, right, I almost forgot. "Varian had no way of knowing it" only applies when it can vindicate him (or even when it can't because it contradicts his own already-expressed outlook). My bad.

Actually i disagree on him focusing on orcs. Yeah he was fighting them, but it was also his decision to begin first real push into Lordaeron by Alliance, and all things considered he paid a LOT of attention to fighting Forsaken. Thats why Sylvanas saving him was supposed to be such a strong "scene piece" in Legion cinematic. He pushed a ton of Alliance firepower to dislodge forsaken from Eastern Kingdoms.

Him focusing on Orcs in his declaration of war (which is what @Lorgar Aurelian was actually talking about) and him focusing on the Forsaken during a war are two completely different things. Not that he focused on them in the war anyway. He sent most of his forces to the Kalimdor front to alleviate the pressure on Ashenvale. In two Forsaken zones the Alliance forces fighting them are locals and in one of the remaining two the forces sent by Varian "I'm totally focusing on the Forsaken" Wrynn were peasant conscripts from Westfall. Such focus.

With as many people bringing this up, he's clearly at this point deliberately ignoring/avoiding these facts to push his "Nope, Varian was just racist" narrative.

Oh, so you do have a source for Varian knowing about this for that to have factored into his decision-making? Weird, you didn't the bajillion times you were the one to push that narrative only to present a whole lot of nothing when you got pressed on that. That must have been one long treasure hunt for that source since it took you years. An adventure of a lifetime, even.

Nice dodge attempt, yet again. You're ignoring the Forsaken from vanilla onwards kidnapping Alliance civilians for experiments, torture, and Blight testing while claiming the Horde did nothing during that time. The question wasn't about Horde trust, the question was about the Horde provoking the Alliance, which you claim there were few or no provocations.

Actually, the tangent in question was about Horde oversight over the Forsaken or lack thereof. Try to follow the context.

[Alvito]

We had BfA which told the story of the Horde being irredeemable evil and supporting Sylvanas until the very last moment, when SHE ditched THEM (except a very few who rebelled before that, but only after Baine was taken prisoner by her and only because of that, not because of the atrocities she ordered).
Then we had SL where the Horde/Alliance story was not touched at all and instead focused on Sylvanas and how to humiliate the Alliance again and again.

I understand there is no WAR currently (for whatever reason, that too makes no sense), but there is a huge leap between "let's not kill each other anymore on sight" and "let us help you rebuild your fortresses that you used in the last war against us."

A bit over the top with irredeemable evil nonsense. She burned down a tree so what, it was such a non issue Elune herself let it happen.

[VladlTutushkin]

--- snip ---

Elune didnt “let it happen”, re-read lore.

Also its not about the tree its about genocide.

[cparle87]

You’re not wrong. My chief complaint for years has been that the current narrative has important eats relegated to books. I want to know more about the game’s story, but I don’t want to look externally for it.

This was fine early on, when they detailed stuff like the Second War and the War of the Ancients. They weren’t necessary to understand the current story.

I've personally never read any of the books. While I'm sure there's flavor and details I'm missing from doing so the broad strokes of the story can be found online. Who did what, why they did it, how they did it, and how that segues into the ingame storylines can be gleaned simply from reading either the character page or the book page on wowpedia. There's another thread going on right now where people are literally raging at the idea that there's supplemental material. Completely ignoring the aforementioned bit that you can get the lion's share of it for free online. It's not like Blizzard is holding the story hostage behind a paywall like they're implying.

For instance after the Jailer was revealed we all thought that Sylvanas had joined him right away and everything she did from Cata onward (plaguing Southshore, invading Arathi and Gilneas, etc) were advancing the Jailer's plan. The recent novel reveals that she rejected the Jailer but he left her with hints of future events that would "convince" her he knew what he was doing. Of course one of his servants, Mueh'zala, was responsible for setting up one of those signs so he cheated, but yeah. Now knowing that she didn't join him until after Legion began means earlier actions, like the ones above and her actions in SoO and Garrosh's trial, need to be re-evaluated.

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Elune didnt “let it happen”, re-read lore.

Also its not about the tree its about genocide.

She did let it happen. She deliberately didn't save the night elves cause she didn't know the Arbiter was broken and thought they'd be sent to Ardenweald where she knew her sister needed help. It's a common thing in fiction that everyone, even gods, can make mistakes. The problem is when gods make mistakes the consequences are proportionally larger.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

While you're generally correct when it comes to the whole thing, this one's wrong. While Varian accepted the explanation given by the Horde to the point the idea of Horde losing Undercity is what drove his decision to go there, he wasn't cooperating with the Horde. His whole plan was to use this as an opportunity to conquer the city, which would have clearly screwed the Horde over. And he was surprised when he heard Thrall shouting Lok'tar Ogar, because he didn't expect the Horde to react this quickly.

You are totally right Varian was going on a whole tirade (about orcs) obviously using UC to justify the war when he's interrupted by thrall

King Varian Wrynn says: What say you now, Putress?
King Varian Wrynn says: Look around you, brothers and sisters. Open your eyes! Look at what they have done to our kingdom!
King Varian Wrynn says: How much longer will we allow these savages free reign in our world?
King Varian Wrynn says: I have seen the Horde's world. I have been inside their cities. Inside their minds...
King Varian Wrynn says: I know what evil lies in the hearts of orcs.
Thrall yells [Orcish]: Mog Osh'kazil gul'rok il mog Ro'th zaga maza TOV'OSH (The Undercity belongs to the Horde once more! LOK'TAR!)
King Varian Wrynn says: THRALL! HERE?
King Varian Wrynn says: ONWARD! We end this now!