"You are about to cross a terrible threshold, Krom'gar. May the Earth Mother have mercy on your soul."
Moral Event Horizon in World of Warcraft.— High Chieftain Cliffwalker, on Krom'gar's bombing of Thal'darah Grove.
- Arthas crossed the line long ago and continues to get more evil over time. Though where and when is a toss-up between the usage of Mercenaries to burn his own ships and the subsequent betrayal of said mercenaries to ensure his men continue to fight Mal'Ganis, the death of his father, the merging with Ner'zhul, or when he killed Ner'zhul and banishes his good half to remain in control of the Lich King. Some also view his Culling of Stratholme as one, through it is very debatable to what extent was it justified, what alternatives he had and whether he resorted to such an extreme measure too quickly or easily.
- Unfortunately, while the massacre is this from a lore viewpoint, gameplay-wise it is entirely possible to complete the Culling mission without harming a single living/uninfected person. (All villagers become zombies a few seconds after their homes are destroyed. In fact, if one is trying to manage multiple areas, it is arguably easier to wait for them to turn, as the peasants are neutral and require direct orders to attack while the zombies will be automatically engaged by your troops.)
- Varimathras and his faction of the Forsaken triggered this trope when they betrayed both the Horde and Alliance at the Wrathgate, killing thousands of soldiers on both sides (although one of the more notable Alliance casualties turned up later) and reigniting the Horde vs. Alliance war. Sylvanas is well over the horizon from the start, employing the players to capture human farmers and chain them to be brought to mushroom plague camps where they'll be worked to death, tortured and experimented on. Forsaken or not, Horde or not, this is an early game sign that the Forsaken are definitely not a gray morality faction. If that's not depressing enough, then the Undercity doctors who keep a human woman, mutilated and blinded, and her brain parts removed to make a perfect slave. The doctor explains her torture and preparation in calm terms as she mindlessly toils in Undercity, the human slaves and prisoners of Undercity who are also literal fodder for the Forsaken, calmly passed by other Horde characters. Afterwards, ANY atrocity in-game feels less depressing.
- One particular group of Naga damn well crossed it in The Blasted Lands during Cataclysm. They betrayed and enslaved the entire Murloc population in the zone, even the babies. Hate Murlocs or not, that is just God damn depressing.
- In Uldum, a friend of Harrison Jones is working to build a traveling circus and asks you to capture a few pygmies (gnome-like humanoids who, while not intelligent, are quite sentient). So, yeah. A "good guy" just asked you to be his personal slave driver. If you were not the player, you would be the villain.
- Made even worse that a scripted event following the quest has two of the pygmies killed in a very throwaway manner. "We will take care of them very well" indeed...
- Malygos crossed the Moral Event Horizon in a few ways (kidnapping, torturing and brainwashing Keristraza, and forcing mages to work for him under threat of their families being killed), but the realization that he's redirecting leylines to power his dragonflight (which places all of Azeroth in danger of Arcane emanating cracks in the earth causing mass deaths and Arcane madness as seen by what happened in Winterfin Village, Lothalor Woodlands and Indu'le Village) is what causes Alextrasza to reluctantly call for his death.
- Deathwing crossed the Moral Event Horizon by betraying the other dragonflights and using the Demon Soul's power to kill off most of the Blue Dragonflight, and now planning Azeroth's destruction. The Red Dragonflight considers the Black Dragonflight beyond redemption in Cataclysm.
- Dar'Khan letting Arthas in to have his people get slaughtered.
- The entire story arc surrounding Keristrasza was designed to make the players hate Malygos enough to kill him. Or at least was supposed to.
- In the Horde's eyes, for the Alliance there's the dwarves of Bael'dun massacring Stonespire village in cold blood to steal their land after rejecting diplomacy, then sending troops to firebomb Camp Taurajo. You don't feel bad when they get blown up by their own cannon.
- For Garrosh's Horde, there's detonating a mana bomb on Theramore, almost completely annihilating the city and the Alliance Forces fighting there, are early signs of their descent down the slippery slope.
- Garrosh has in fact passed the MEH in-universe with a growing faction of the Horde (led by Vol'jin) starting a revolution to overthrow him. The act that kicks off the final push to overthrow him is him unearthing the heart of the Old God Y'Shaarj and putting it into the lifegiving Pools of Power. As a result, the sacred Vale of Eternal Blossoms is destroyed, the defenders are killed and/or sentenced to eternal torment reliving their failure, and Garrosh now has a weaponized Old God at his disposal that he intends to use to conquer the world — you can see a vision of Stormwind destroyed and all his enemies impaled on spikes.
- Lei Shen crossed it in "The Pandaren Problem," where he made speaking the Pandaren tongue a crime punishable by death and destroyed many Pandaren works of art, resulting in the death of countless innocent people and the loss of a great amount of Pandaren culture, as the Pandaren language essentially died.
- In Legion, Darion Mograine feels he and the Knights of the Ebon Blade have crossed the Moral Event Horizon when they launch a raid against their Argent Crusade/Silver Hand allies at Lights Hope Chapel, killing many of the defenders in an ultimately failed attempt to resurrect Tirion Fordring as a Death Knight to use against the Burning Legion. While the reasons for this may be understandable (as Tirion would likely be an extremely powerful asset against the Legion), this does not erase the fact they betrayed and murdered many of their closest allies and planned to force undeath upon the man who freed them from the The Lich King's control.
- Odyn is a great guy in Stormheim! Boisterous, cheerful, always ready for a good scrap and out to prevent that evil Helya from stealing the souls of anyone who could ascend to his Golden Halls and serve alongside him in glorious combat! Odyn is also responsible for Helya's current condition — when he decided he needed an army of the best warriors to ever live, he declared that he would require servants who could gather warriors' souls as they died; these servants would become the val'kyr. The catch, which he stated up front? A state of permanent, agonizing undeath. He was both surprised and infuriated when no one volunteered for this, and his response was to forcibly transform Helya into the first val'kyr before going through with his plan anyway!note This one action is responsible for massive amounts of suffering — not least Arthas and Sylvanas getting their hands on a few val'kyr — and the reason he chose to gather an army of the valorous? "Only Titan creations are capable of protecting Azeroth." He was the (original) Prime Designate of Azeroth note and when the other Titanforged agreed that the soon-to-be Aspects deserved to be empowered into guardians of Azeroth, he refused because they weren't Titan-made and he didn't approve, and as Prime Designate, he should be obeyed without question. The Sha of Pride would have had a field day with him...
- While Grand Magistrix Elisande claims that she made her bargain with the Burning Legion for the sake of her people's survival, she crosses it by ordering a massacre of her own people in the Waning Crescent, and allowing the Legion to take the prisoners to Felsoul Hold to absorb their souls into their machinery. These atrocities result in some of her subordinates defecting to the resistance.
- Sylvanas reached her horizon in "Before the Storm" by having her forces murder all members of the Desolate Council who were still on the field when she sounded the retreat. She saw their hope of reuniting with the living as infectious and would undermine and eventually overthrow her rule of the Forsaken. She only trusted those Forsaken who were rejected by their loved ones like she had been, and takes the extra step to murder Calia Menethil personally to prevent her from claiming Lordaeron as her birthright. It was at this point that Anduin Wrynn finally decided that she would never change and is truly lost. If this wasn't her point of no return, then it was in "Warbringers: Sylvanas", when she gave the order to burn Teldrassil, which at the time only housed unarmed civilians, presumably just to spite a dying Night Elf who claimed she couldn't kill hope.
- And even before that, if you played the Worgen beginning questline on the Alliance side, you would never forgive Sylvanas for staging an unprovoked invasion of Gilneas and willfully using Blight against Gilnean citizens, and being ultimately responsible for Liam Greymane's death. It's the event that sparked Genn Greymane's eternal hatred of the Forsaken, and the Horde in general.
- The "Safe Haven" provides another candidate for those who might still feel there was something redeemable to the Banshee Queen. She had sent two Undead assassins to Outland to murder Thrall, who at this point wanted nothing more than to live out his days caring for his family away from the Horde or any other conflict. Saurfang specifies that he was following them to find Thrall, solidifying him as the target.
- And if there were still debates about the mentioned above, the last part of Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands downright cement it. She started a war between Alliance and Horde to expand her powers, as she had previously made a pact with the Jailer, an evil death entity, in which she would get stronger for every single individual killed. And after the war reaches its end, Sylvanas abandons the Horde, but not before declaring that everyone, even those that stood loyal to her, meant nothing to her, and goes to destroy the Lich King's Helm of Domination, causing a rift between Azeroth and the Shadowlands and thus upsetting the cosmic balance between life and death. Suffice to say, Sylvanas has clearly reached the point where she is clearly beyond redemption, as even her own sisters came to see her as a monster, and has more than surpassed Garrosh in terms of villainy and reached the levels of the likes of Gul'dan.
- Lady Waycrest crossed this line long before she turned to witchcraft. She hired assassins to kill her daughter Lucille's lover on their wedding day, simply because she didn't like the idea of having a mere merchant for a son-in-law.
- The Mag'har either crossed it during their time as the Iron Horde, when they waged a campaign of genocide against the draenei who'd done nothing except have the audacity to dare exist on the same planet as them (and also attempted to wipe Stormwind off the map over on Azeroth), or after they joined the Horde to repay the Horde helping them flee Draenor, when the Mag'har decided that they were going to once again carry out genocide on the draenei of Azeroth (despite having nothing to do with the draenei of the alternate Draenor), with Geya'rah's exact words being, "There are draenei on this world? Not for long." and "The Alliance embraces the draenei and their Lightforged kin. That alone is reason to crush their cities to dust."
- Grom Hellscream appears to dive wholeheartedly into damnation when he persuades his entire clan to renew their blood pact with Mannoroth, a Pit Lord of the Burning Legion, but scrambles back to redemption at the last minute, giving his life to kill Mannoroth, thus freeing his clan from demonic servitude.
- And even then, it's debatable. Cairne Bloodhoof, prior to his death, overtly questions if Hellscream's sacrifice was enough to redeem him after all the atrocities he committed. Part of this potential white-washing might be a result of then-Warchief Thrall, who was generally well-loved by the orcs, being a Hero-Worshipper and former close friend of Grom's who was willing to overlook his mistakes on a personal level.
- Overlord Krom'gar crosses this at the end of the Stonetalon Mountains storyline for the Horde, detonating a bomb that destroys a school for training druids. High Chieftain Cliffwalker makes a reference to this (see the quote), and even Garrosh, who at this point had not yet crossed his own Moral Event Horizon but was still a questionably violent warchief, believes Krom'gar had gone too far, and punishes him by death.
- The Alliance is not without a war criminal or two. Sky Admiral Rogers, near the start of the Jade Forest storyline, has Horde troops gunned down while they try to swim to safety. This disgusts Rell Nightwind, a night elf SI:7 operative, so much that he begins to question the cause, and spawns sha that are manifestations of his doubt.
- Though it's hardly surprising given her Freudian Excuse. When the player mentions that she seems to have it out for the Horde, she replies that she was born and raised in Southshore (which was recently plagued by the Forsaken).
- Also of note is Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, who pushed the major factions back to the brink of war because he and his didn't get the memo that the Horde was trying to mend its ways. A great deal of blood was spilled because the Admiral found it impossible to believe that the extra-planar invaders had suddenly decided to reform. Though as with most Alliance "villains", it's debatable whether they cross a moral event horizon or had simply fought one too many demon-worshipping hell-orcs to see them as anything but mass-murdering monsters.
- Interestingly enough, events in Mists of Pandaria have led to Daelin getting a case of Vindicated by History when Garrosh destroys Theramore. Jaina overtly comes to believe her father was right and that she should have never trusted the orcs. Though she sort of calmed down when Kalec and Thrall bluntly tell her that she is literally acting just like Garrosh.
- Speaking of the Proudmoore bloodline, Jaina's been flirting with the Moral Event Horizon since Theramore was destroyed: Thrall and Kalec managed to talk her out of it, but not before she nearly killed Thrall and almost wiped out every living being in Durotar with a tidal wave. To put this into perspective, Kalec reasoned doing this would make her worse than Arthas because at least he was a Well-Intentioned Extremist when he purged Stratholme.
- And as of patch 5.1, some people have claimed she's finally gone over the edge with the Purge of Dalaran, where she discovers Blood Elf spies working for Garrosh have been using the city's portal system to smuggle supplies for the Horde war effort. Rather than just trying the criminals, she orders all of the Sunreavers to surrender themselves for imprisonment, and orders Veressa to execute anyone who resists. Opinion is mixed as to whether it was a severe overreaction and blaming people who didn't deserve it, or if it was justified and long-overdue karma for everything the blood elves have done to the Alliance since they left them.
- She definitively crosses it after Garrosh's defeat. During the Horde's deliberations on selecting a new Warchief, Jaina encourages Varian to have all of the present Horde leaders killed in order to preemptively defeat them, Thrall included.
- The novel "War Crimes" implies that she has pulled back from it, being temporarily insane post-Theramore. She even outright states that Garrosh should NOT be used to represent orcs in general since they have tried to amend for their misdeeds.
- Grand Marshall Garithos from Warcraft III is a bigoted asshole, and entirely unsympathetic character from the start. But his repeated attempts to kill the then loyal blood elves off in a multitude of ways teeters him over the edge when he finally finds a loaded excuse to kill them when they actually survived. When Kael'thas offers his own life in exchange for the lives of his people, Garithos turns him down as he admits to wanting all the Blood elves dead. Needless to say, you really don't feel bad for Garithos when his Enemy Mine with Sylvanas ultimately results in him being torn apart.
