WoW: Is Varian Right?

[Darth Yan]

Its like what Mini said; the Horde actually doesn't trust the Foresaken at all, they just grudgingly let them in because they need allies. Also, to be fair, when they found out about Putress and Varimathras they quickly assembled the army, attacked the undercity, and took Varimathras down hard. They would have dealt with Putress if Varian hadn't killed him first

[starfury]

Blood Elves: Angry emo teenagers. Their like of the Forsaken aside(because of Slyvannus) they had their ray of sunshine and it was at best "ooops, sorry for stealing M'Uru, won't happen again." And yes, I've beaten Sunwell.

Didn't many people say the blood elves are kind of toned down version of the Dark elves of warhammer, complete with arrogance that looks down on even other elves, Since the general Vibe I got of the Blood Elves are fairly similar to that of the Druchii of Warhammer, but not to quite the same extent obviously.

[Yogi]

The problem is, after the end of WCIII, there was very little reason for the humans and orcs to be fighting. As more and more things start to threaten everyone, from demons to undead to Things That Should Not Be, they need to cook up more and more contrived reasons that the two should stay enemies, while not making one side look like the bad guy. Hence Varian and Garrosh being hotheaded combatents, the Wrathgate inciedent giving just enough deniability to the Horde, while making it suspicious enough to justify the Alliance deciding to go on the attack. Also, don't forget The Broken Front, where the Orcs are clearly the aggressor, no "it was just a splinter faction" BS here.

Really, Thrall just needs to control his allies more if he really wants peace.

[White Haven]

What I really don't get about Thrall's whole 'Heritage pride, yo' trip is the emphasis on the Violent Psychopath half of the Orcish heritage. Pre-Shadow Council, the Orcs were on the whole pretty cool people, being in-tune with nature and spirits and such, probably wearing their hair long, passing around dried, rolled-up Swiftthistle, that sort of thing. And then after the demon-worshiping little tits in the Council had their way with them, they were aggressive maniacs. So...with a choice between 'Before we were used as a weapon by demons' and 'After our society had been fucked over to make us a demon-weapon,' why pick the post-demon-fucking one as the image to mold the new Horde around? It's not even their own heritage, it's one written by traitors in the pay of and/or enslaved by demons. Where's the incentive to emulate that?

[Ghost Rider]

What I really don't get about Thrall's whole 'Heritage pride, yo' trip is the emphasis on the Violent Psychopath half of the Orcish heritage. Pre-Shadow Council, the Orcs were on the whole pretty cool people, being in-tune with nature and spirits and such, probably wearing their hair long, passing around dried, rolled-up Swiftthistle, that sort of thing. And then after the demon-worshiping little tits in the Council had their way with them, they were aggressive maniacs. So...with a choice between 'Before we were used as a weapon by demons' and 'After our society had been fucked over to make us a demon-weapon,' why pick the post-demon-fucking one as the image to mold the new Horde around? It's not even their own heritage, it's one written by traitors in the pay of and/or enslaved by demons. Where's the incentive to emulate that?

Indeed. You'd think with the Orcs in Outland who weren't fucked over, that Thrall might've emulated them more instead of being "Me...ur...not so smart? *Growl*!!!". All in all, Blizzard needs to do more because they are not making the sides look conflicting with good and evil in both but making them look one's not quite as retarded as the other being blind.

[Edward Yee]

Strange thing about the article? I promptly decided to create an Alliance DK JUST from reading the article.

I do agree with whoever said that Varian Wrynn is actually acting very rationally... when starting with the premises that he's accepted.

[Kuja]

What I really don't get about Thrall's whole 'Heritage pride, yo' trip is the emphasis on the Violent Psychopath half of the Orcish heritage. Pre-Shadow Council, the Orcs were on the whole pretty cool people, being in-tune with nature and spirits and such, probably wearing their hair long, passing around dried, rolled-up Swiftthistle, that sort of thing. And then after the demon-worshiping little tits in the Council had their way with them, they were aggressive maniacs. So...with a choice between 'Before we were used as a weapon by demons' and 'After our society had been fucked over to make us a demon-weapon,' why pick the post-demon-fucking one as the image to mold the new Horde around? It's not even their own heritage, it's one written by traitors in the pay of and/or enslaved by demons. Where's the incentive to emulate that?

I blame Thrall's idolization of Grom Hellscream.

Hellscream was one of the first truly free orcs Thrall ever met, who had drive and charisma and it was instantly clear he made a lasting impression. On top of that, Thrall met him at his best: he was largely free of daemonic influence and while he made noises about how bad it was, Thrall wasn't treated to a first-hand view of it until long, long afterwards. And even then Thrall got a front-row seat to see Grom kill a pit lord with it, which may have lessened the impact of just how bad Grom was in.

Orgrim Doomhammer added onto that idolization, and his death pretty much cemented Thrall's hero-worship, and he built on from there.

The simple fact is, Thrall has never, ever seen the orcs at their truly worst. I don't think he truly understands how his own species is viewed by outsiders - raping, murdering, genocidal freaks. So he builds up this martial image because he believes it will lift his peoples' spirits the way Orgrim and Grom lifted his and really jsut does not recognize his own naivete.

[Kuja]

The better solution would have been the nuanced approach presented by WCIII, assigning the Night Elves to the New Horde as allies--not members--to help work with the shamanistic new Orcs and the inarguably good Tauren to restore a land blasted by demonfire and war. On the other side, the Humans would ally with their once-kinsmen, the Forsaken, and together seek a way to regain the dignity and honor that was lost back when the Wars made them as vicious as their demon-blooded foes, a corruption of the soul of their own creation and now symbolized by Arthas. The Forsaken, mistrusted and barely hanging onto their fragment of a kingdom, would in many ways lay the pattern for a tale of regained humanity both literally and figuratively.

The problem that would have created is that it would have isolated the two factions: all of the Alliance strongholds (short of Theramore) would have been in the eastern kingdoms and the Horde would have been entirely based in Kalimdor. That doesn't create enough conflict, content-wise. The factions really need to be in-your-face and constantly brushing shoulders to create the kind of atmosphere Blizzard wanted. (Heck, where would the battlegrounds have been?)

Then when the new races come, the Humans get the Blood Elves back,

I'll deal with this point below.

and the Horde extends a hand to the Pandaren like in the WCIII expansion,

Unfortunately, from what the rumours back before BC said, China snubbed that possibility, so Blizzard's hands were tied.

Can you imagine if, in the lead-up to the release of Burning Crusade, they had given the Horde the Draenei ('lost blue guys from space' is pretty close to 'lost green guys from another dimension', after all) and gave the Alliance the Blood Elves? While it would be a little difficult to swallow, it would have actually added some shades of grey and made the Alliance less 'we are the good guys, check it out' and the Horde less 'terrible decision makers as a matter of policy'.

Difficult to swallow? It would be a complete and total retraction of everything that was in WCIII. More than anyone else in the Warcraft universe, the draenei hate the orcs. Even prior to the massive retcons introduced in BC, one of the big overriding themes to the draenei was that racial hatred. I don't think you could possibly write the draenei into the Horde with a straight face.

As to the blood elves, Blizzard spent an entire game and expansion driving them away from the Alliance, and even besides thematic concerns, again it comes back to faction isolation. Bring them into the Alliance (along with the Forsaken as Cov suggested) and the eastern kingdoms would feel like they completely belonged to the Alliance, while Kalimdor would almost totally be Horde-dominated. That just doesn't promote the atmosphere of tension and conflict Blizzard wanted.

[Kuja]

By the way, just for sake of clarity: I would love for the Horde/Alliance conflict to be more "shades of grey". The fact that it's so far removed from an even-handed morality I blame on Blizzard and their utter inability to plan thematics and story more than a step or two ahead and instead throw massive retcons at stuff to deal with it (something that makes me grind my teeth every time they do it).

[ArmorPierce]

Instead of introducing the blood elves they could have had the high elves rebuilding at quel'thalas and kept blood elves with illidain. As far as I recall, There are more high elves than there are gnomes in the world so that wouldn't been much of a stretch. Also they could have reduced the numbers of high elves that went with blood elves from 90% to about 50%. Didn't the night elves work with the horde at the end of warcraft 3 reign of chaos ? don't make sense for them to go over to the alliance when they didn't even have much interaction with them at all.

[Steve]

Um, aside from the alliance to fight at Mt. Hyjal, the main interaction between the Orcs and Kaldorei was, oh, the Warsong invasion of Ashenvale to commence widespread logging operations, culminating in Orcish troops drinking demon's blood to gain the power to kill the druid demigod Cenarius.

The only way the Night Elves forgive the invasion of their territory and the murdering of a beloved demigod is if the Horde immediately withdraws from Ashenvale. But they didn't; Thrall stayed there and has let the Warsong continue to cut down the ancient forest. Under those conditions, do you really think the Nelves are going to be that friendly to the Horde?

OOC, I imagine the decision was to give each faction a central continent with one race per faction being on the opposite continent (the Forsaken for the Horde, the Night Elves for the Alliance), so the lore was written to accomodate this.

[ArmorPierce]

Um, aside from the alliance to fight at Mt. Hyjal, the main interaction between the Orcs and Kaldorei was, oh, the Warsong invasion of Ashenvale to commence widespread logging operations, culminating in Orcish troops drinking demon's blood to gain the power to kill the druid demigod Cenarius.

The only way the Night Elves forgive the invasion of their territory and the murdering of a beloved demigod is if the Horde immediately withdraws from Ashenvale. But they didn't; Thrall stayed there and has let the Warsong continue to cut down the ancient forest. Under those conditions, do you really think the Nelves are going to be that friendly to the Horde?

OOC, I imagine the decision was to give each faction a central continent with one race per faction being on the opposite continent (the Forsaken for the Horde, the Night Elves for the Alliance), so the lore was written to accomodate this.

They could have decided not to have the lore dictate that the horde stayed and cut down their tree's? Is it a lot harder for it to believe that there was a truce after they allied to fight together than it is to believe that the horde would ally with the undead or that the blood elves would want to ally with the horde? The game lore pre-wow stated that there was a truce.

[Steve]

I just said that they directed the story in a direction to give them what they wanted: an Alliance race in Kalimdor and a Horde race in the Eastern Kingdoms. Had they wanted the Night Elves allied with the Horde they probably would have had the Warsong withdrawn.

[Crown]

I was really annoyed that Sylvanas got off without any repurcussions. As noted, as a Horde player you know that the Forsaken intend to wipe out *all* life. But for obvious gameplay reasons, the net effect of the Wrathgate was absolutely dick.

Well, not to sound like a Forsaken apologist (UD Warlock here), but while Sylvanas was well and truly culpable in developing the plague, I think given the fact that she was deposed in Undercity after Wrathgate, it's pretty clear that she hadn't set up a C3 system in it's use and implementation.

Indeed. You'd think with the Orcs in Outland who weren't fucked over, that Thrall might've emulated them more instead of being "Me...ur...not so smart? *Growl*!!!".

There is actually a pretty awesome (lore wise) quest chain in Nagrand whereby after jumping through many hoops and doing a Heroic, you end up bringing Thrall to Garadar to meet with the Grandmother of the tribe and to learn and pay respect to her ... and to lift the spirits of one, certain, Mr Garrosh Hellscream.

Quite a nice quest really.

Honestly though; I think there will be a reckoning among the Horde ... can't wait.

[Ghost Rider]

Indeed. You'd think with the Orcs in Outland who weren't fucked over, that Thrall might've emulated them more instead of being "Me...ur...not so smart? *Growl*!!!".

There is actually a pretty awesome (lore wise) quest chain in Nagrand whereby after jumping through many hoops and doing a Heroic, you end up bringing Thrall to Garadar to meet with the Grandmother of the tribe and to learn and pay respect to her ... and to lift the spirits of one, certain, Mr Garrosh Hellscream.

Quite a nice quest really.

Honestly though; I think there will be a reckoning among the Horde ... can't wait.

Yeah, I did it...and it was awesome as a Horde quest. Personally I hope there's something before we face Arthas that has Thrall/Saurfang, buttraping Garrosh in single combat and tell him to get back in line. Anything to shut him up.

[Crown]

Indeed. You'd think with the Orcs in Outland who weren't fucked over, that Thrall might've emulated them more instead of being "Me...ur...not so smart? *Growl*!!!".

There is actually a pretty awesome (lore wise) quest chain in Nagrand whereby after jumping through many hoops and doing a Heroic, you end up bringing Thrall to Garadar to meet with the Grandmother of the tribe and to learn and pay respect to her ... and to lift the spirits of one, certain, Mr Garrosh Hellscream.

Quite a nice quest really.

Honestly though; I think there will be a reckoning among the Horde ... can't wait.

Yeah, I did it...and it was awesome as a Horde quest. Personally I hope there's something before we face Arthas that has Thrall/Saurfang, buttraping Garrosh in single combat and tell him to get back in line. Anything to shut him up.

It would most likely be Saurfang, the dude wields the Arcanite Reaper FFS!

Ghetto Edit :: FOR FUCKS SAKE! I just Rick Rolled myself on YouTube while looking for the Wrathgate cinematic!

[Ghost Rider]

It would most likely be Saurfang, the dude wields the Arcanite Reaper FFS!

Ghetto Edit :: FOR FUCKS SAKE! I just Rick Rolled myself on YouTube while looking for the Wrathgate cinematic!

Yeah, I'd actually prefer it to be Saurfang, if for nothing else the shit that went down in Wrathgate for him. I know what they want to do with Garrosh and Varian, but Garrosh is just looking like some fool. Blizzard needs some more...subtly with both Varian and Thrall in terms of animosity and what not but Garrosh comes off as something you just want to hit and be done with it.

[Steve]

To throw another piece in here, while doing research for a fiction idea I've recently partaken in, I found and read the quest descriptions and commentary for the Horde-side "Battle of Hillsbrad" chain. In which you, on behalf of the Forsaken, launch a series of unprovoked attacks on the people of Hillsbrad with the clear intent of driving humans out of the Hillsbrad Foothills entirely, culminating with the killing of Dwarves at Dun Garok.

Also, in Stonetalon Mountains, there's a quest on behalf of Troll Witch Doctor Jin'Zil, dwelling in the Troll outpost at the foot of the mountain path, where you gather reagents for him to use what he calls "forest magic" on three captive night elves. Said magic is a poison and kills them.

Partially excusable are a pair of quests in Ashenvale, to varying degrees. One involves killing Alliance Outrunners loitering too close to Splintertree Post and other Horde positions, a bloody but at least understandable operation since you're trying to prevent Alliance forces from getting potentially-valuable intelligence regarding the defenses of Splintertree. The other involves helping an Orc named Torek launch an attack on the Silverwing Outpost. At the very least the Silverwings are a branch of the Night Elf military devoted to expelling the Orcs, or at least the Warsong, from Ashenvale, and thus ordinary Horde members could be concerned that the Night Elves won't be very discriminatory in which Horde members they attack. On the other hand, this is pretty much also a case of an Orc wanting to kill perceived enemies just out of bloodlust.... wait, did I say bloodlust? Silly me, we all know that was only a symptom of the demonic taint. I should've said "the pleasure of battle".

So, in summation.... yeah. Varian's not declaring a war out of bigotry and hate. He's simply recognizing that a war - and an existential one for so many people - already exists between the Horde and the Alliance. And if peace is to be gained, the Horde has to man up to the activities of its own people, start punishing them for crimes against the Alliance, and offer concessions at the negotiating table.

[Crown]

So, in summation.... yeah. Varian's not declaring a war out of bigotry and hate. He's simply recognizing that a war - and an existential one for so many people - already exists between the Horde and the Alliance. And if peace is to be gained, the Horde has to man up to the activities of its own people, start punishing them for crimes against the Alliance, and offer concessions at the negotiating table.

Sorry I come from a PvP realm, a war has existed since the first time you step outside of The Barrens zone - so to me the last statement reads like a bit of the obvious. And to be perfectly honest there are anti-Horde quests in Ashenvale for the Alliance.

*HOWEVER*, when you enter Outlands it becomes more of a case of the enemy of my enemy is my competitor, and your quests are more focused towards; hurting the Legion and sabotaging the Alliance/Horde (the Hellfire zone quests on the cannons/catapults), and sort of continues that way into Northrend up until the Grizzly Hills (and of course Wintersgrasp), where it becomes a PvP realm mentality again; if it's red, it's dead!

[Steve]

Sorry I come from a PvP realm, a war has existed since the first time you step outside of The Barrens zone - so to me the last statement reads like a bit of the obvious. And to be perfectly honest there are anti-Horde quests in Ashenvale for the Alliance.

Yeah, the "kick Warsong ass" quests and the quests dealing with the Forsaken poisoning a barrow den of druids. To be honest, though, the Warsong are the invading despoilers of the Night Elf ancestral homeland and the Forsaken are a collection of Dr. Mengele wannabes who want to eradicate all life on Azeroth, so I don't have that many qualms about blazing a path of death and destruction through their ranks.

Ah, and you play on a PvP realm? I haven't played since July of '08, when I did play I played on an RP realm, Cenarion Circle. I have to confess that I don't have a high opinion of PvPers.

[Lord Revan]

well my main problem with Varian isn't the war itself (as said it's been more or less a "cold" war for the whole WoW and the alliance (no pun intended) in Battle of Hyjal was out of nessesity not friendship)), but that Varian has made clear will he make peace only after every horde member is dead! There's no middle ground for him when you combine that with current situation (war with the Scourge, a faction to which every casualty from the enemy is a potential recruit), though Hellscream junior is just as bad if not worse.

so my problem is that Varian is that he's too much anti-Horde and not enough pro-alliance (yes those aren't the same thing).

[Broomstick]

So what you're saying is that Varian doesn't want peace with the enemy, he wants to commit genocide.

[Steve]

Um, when was this said of his attitude? His attitude as it seems to me is "Orcs are consistently untrustworthy and the Horde is attacking my people, no more! We have to fight back!".

If anyone's intent on committing genocide, it's Sylvanas.

Sure, if Varian were a being of perfect logic he might react better, but when you consider that all he's ever seen from the Orcs has been savagery and treachery it's not hard to imagine he's not willing to trust them and is ready to fight (and in certain moments this has been augmented by the adrenaline rush of recent combat, like during the attack on the second summit in WoW #18).

That said, it doesn't surprise me that the writers at Blizzard might be getting hamfisted with Varian, trying to make him the anti-Thrall in more ways than one. Metzen is apparently in love with his own New Horde characters and if so will undoubtedly want to cast Varian in a negative light by making him seem irrational and violently bigoted (thus providing a negative comparison with Thrall and Jaina), as opposed to others who might be more willing to, say, make Thrall seem borderline incompetent or incapable of controlling his own people or Jaina as having grown detached and aloof from the rest of Humanity or refusing to recognize where the Alliance has real grievances with Horde conduct.

I thought the comic, at least, did a decent enough job at all this. Varian was skeptical of the summit's chances but wanted to give peace a chance, Thrall is walking a tightrope with the extremely aggressive Garrosh Hellscream rallying the support of those who want to seize whatever they want with force while Garrosh seems to consider Thrall as, if you'll pardon the use of the term, in thrall to the Humans. Jaina's simply trying to keep lines of communication open and to ride out the storm. And, of course, there's the Twilight's Hammer looking to (and succeeding in) destroying any hope of Alliance-Horde peace, as it permits them to continue operating in the margins with everyone's attention turned.

[Civil War Man]

Um, when was this said of his attitude? His attitude as it seems to me is "Orcs are consistently untrustworthy and the Horde is attacking my people, no more! We have to fight back!".

I was away for too long. My absence cost us the lives of some of our greatest heroes. Trash like you and this evil witch were allowed to roam free -- unchecked.

The time has come to make things right. To disband your treacherous kingdom of murderers and thieves. Putress was the first strike. Many more will come.

I've waited a long time for this, Thrall. For every time I was thrown into one of your damned arenas... for every time I killed a green-skinned aberration like you... I could only think of one thing.

What our world could be without you and your twisted Horde... It ends now, Warchief.

He doesn't come right out and say, "I want to kill everyone in the Horde," but he does strike me as being genocidal.

I do not doubt that he would want the Forsaken and the Orcs permanently wiped off the map. If you consider post-Horde options, there are only a few options. Join the Alliance, Exile off-world, return of the Internment camps, and extermination. Joining the Alliance is immediately out, since there's no way in Hell that Varian would allow them, and probably 99.9% of Forsaken and Orcs wouldn't want to join their former enemy anyway. Varian's the type that would not be content with having his enemies exiled, since that would leave the possibility of re-invasion open, and most Horde would resist exile since they are also Azeroth natives. The original internment camps gave rise to Thrall to begin with, so I cannot see Varian being content with those, either. So that leave extermination.

As for the Trolls, Tauren, and Blood Elves, I don't know. I suppose it's possible that, if Varian actually succeeded in destroying the Horde, that he would allow them into the Alliance on equal footing, since they technically were not involved in the razing of Stormwind or the Wrath Gate, but I seriously doubt that. After all, if they sided with those "green-skinned aberrations", they are obviously just as bad. So I'd say Varian's attitudes towards the rest of the Horde are second-class citizens at best, extermination at worst.

[Crossroads Inc.]

You know, Things would be so much easier if Thrall simply cast out the bloody Foresakan, Weather he joined with the alliance and destroy them or simply wash his hands of them and say "Not my buddies anymore" Kicking the Foresakan out would solve so many problems. If you think about it, even before the first Expansion the Foresaken where one of the largest groups pissing off everyone else. if you go down the list of the Horde, virtually every race, left to themselves, would live relatively peacefully with the Alliance, even if they didn't like them.

The Trolls (at least those allied with the Horde) are so small in number, that all they want is to hang on to what they have, as far as I know they have no hunger for expansion other then reclaiming areas they used to already own such as Zul'Gurub and Zul'Amon.

The Taurens are basically Peacniks who have no fight with anyone outside "The Venture Company" and Centaurs, and no one really likes Centaurs in WoW. In the course of the game, I cant think of a single quest where the Tauren where actively attacking someone on the alliance side.

The Blood Elves are basically pissed of at everyone, but haven't really displayed any sign of outward aggression against the alliance. If you follow the "history" of Wow, Kae'thas is dead and the Sunwell has been "cleansed" and largely back under Blood Elf control. the really don't have too much to cry about anymore aside from taking back their lands from the Scourge, which again no one really cares about.

Aside from the Forsaken, the Orcs, largely due to Gorrash, are the ones causing most of the trouble. All Thrall needs to do is kick Gorrash ass back to Dranor till he learns to chill abit and the Horde and Alliance can largely ignore one another and live in relative peace.

Not that that would ever HAPPEN, just say Thrall really should kick the Foresakan out of the horde.