World Of Warcraft

Honestly, the whole serve in the shadows to protect the Horde thing fits Vol'jin very well, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was Azeroth who grabbed him. The only sticking point there is that I would be surprised if she had that much agency right now given everything that's going on.

I'm not very surprised, since I considered how much bullshit the titans can pull just when they're just barely freed from Sargeras' control.

I don't know if it was Azeroth specifically, but that's definitely the right line of thinking. Eyir's dialogue indicated that whatever power transformed Vol'jin is so far beyond the scope of usual mortal affairs that the leadership of the Horde barely registers. There aren't that many beings in that category, and Azeroth is definitely one of them.

But just for the heck of it, I'll throw in a wildcard: The August Celestials did it. Vol'jin did spend some time on Pandaria (his weapon is even from there), I could also see the August Celestials wanting to throw a monkey wrench in Sylvanas's plans.

Probably way off base there, but I think this is a question where all options need to be explored.

To me, it seems that who did this depends on the answer to one question: Did whoever whispered to Vol'jin want Vol'jin to become a loa, for Sylvanas to become Warchief, or both?

Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 23rd 2018 at 10:20:44 AM

Eyir at least thinks that whatever being or force transformed Vol'jin into a Loa is not the same one that advised him to appoint Sylvanas. It's unclear what that actually means even if she's right, but it's not a huge leap to assume that we are dealing with two beings with contrary motives

Cruel, cruel spoiler. Why didn't Sylvanas just cut the middle-man an sit on the Frozen Throne herself? I like that she is doing things, even unquestionably bad ones, but not as the leader of the Horde.

What really rubs me the wrong way is how Blizz is making us, the players, directly complicit in her blatant villainy without even a word of protest, hesitation or remorse. Hell, even Nathanos was more hesitant about the War of Thorns than we were!

As someone who mains a Blood Elf Pally, I'm more than a little offput. Is this how Horde players felt when Mists made us cartoonishly evil?

Do remember that the War of Thorns, in and of itself, was never the issue as much as the Burning of Teldrassil. The war itself can be, and was, justified as a preemptive strike, and the Horde in general was mostly fine with that.

I'm not seeing the significance, as the link simple goes to an item.

Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 23rd 2018 at 2:59:41 AM

The thing is, while the Horde, the Orcs and Forsaken especially, were made far more villainous in Cata and up to the Divine Bell heist in Mists, their evil was so cartoonishly over the top and hammy that it was actually endearing. And once Garrosh went completely off the deep end during and after the Divine Bell Heist, pretty much everyone in the Horde recognized he was a madman who needed to be dealt with before he destroyed both sides.

There's none of that campy, cartoony quirk in BfA. There's nothing funny about killing thousands of innocent civilians and forcing a dying woman to watch purely as an act of spite against said dying woman then presumably raising said woman as a mindless Dark Ranger. There's nothing funny about massacring tens of guards and nearly burning Stormwind to the ground in order to free the man who nearly doomed the world to Lei Shen and then goes on to nearly doom it again to G'huun. There's nothing funny about orchestrating a blood civil war between the pirates of Tirigrade Sounds so you can mop up the remains.

The Horde's villainy in BfA's story content so far has just been unpleasant compared to Cataclysm and early Mists.

Oh, there's the significance...

I feel I should point out that the worst of the Horde's "unpleasantness" has been limited to Sylvanas. Freeing Talanji and Zul was a legitimate wartime move, given Sylvanas was aiming for securing the aid of Zandalar's navy. I don't think you can hold Zul's role regarding G'huun against her, though, since there was no way of knowing about G'huun until after arriving on Zandalar.

As Fighteer has pointed out numerous times, the player has not had a direct role in any of this.

Random thought: Could Helya be the whisperer? We know she had something going on with Sylvanas in Legion. Presumably that deal is moot since Helya was killed but I've read there are hints on the Island Expeditions that she's still alive and plotting.

Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 23rd 2018 at 3:19:38 AM

Hell, I actually left out how the Horde, aside from all that other nasty shit I mentioned, also manipulated the Highmountain Tauren and Nightborn to turn on their former allies and saviors, or how formerly noble and/or neutral characters like Lillian Voss and Rexxar are now happily taking part in the Horde's war crimes with their justifications for turning on the Alliance being ridiculously hypocritical (Voss ignoring the Desolate Council, Rexxar ignoring the literal millions the Horde killed in the Burning)

There is no love lost between the Nightborne and Night Elves. Tirande burned all those doors down herself. Rexxar has apparently found an affinity with the hunters of Highmountain, where they go he goes with a LOT of obviously cut content.

Voss however is getting her own story arc and exploration of what changes inside your mind when you go undead. She was basically blackballed into joining the Horde by the racists in the Alliance who refused to allow her to return home, and we are learning more on the inhibitions undeath causes.

Edited by Memers on Sep 23rd 2018 at 2:44:32 AM

That doesn't change the fact that the Alliance is a huge reason why the Nightborne and the Highmountain are even still alive.

Even if you take Thalyssera's quite frankly ridiculously short sighted grudge against Tyrande into account, the fact that both would so readily turn on the Alliance is...not very well written.

They didn’t like each other much then Tirande starts being racist, them bridges are burned quickly.

Is it canon that the alliance helped Highmountain? Baine was supposed to be the one who was driving the rescue campaign before it was cut for some reason, despite him STILL having the lines recorded for that when clicked on. No alliance town or NPC steps foot in the zone aside from the pvp towers.

Edited by Memers on Sep 23rd 2018 at 2:55:14 AM

Well, to be fair, I wasn't trying to say that the Horde did nothing for the Hightmountain. Heroes from both sides saved them from certain doom, and it just feels weird that they would so readily side with one even if it meant turning on the other.

I don't see where there's any manipulation involved.

The Nightborne, as mentioned already, were looking to pick a side and took the one more sympathetic to them, the Horde. Thalyssra also notes the Horde peoples' generally strong individuality, something her people need to find as well.

The Highmountain were approached because Baine befriended them and they were already looking to establish stronger bonds. The bonds led to allying with the Horde.

The Mag'har were initially being called upon to pay a debt owed, now they're on Azeroth and have sworn themselves to the Horde to make a place for themselves, which had kind of always been the Horde's thing.

Further, the same logic you're using could be used on the Alliance and the Lightforged Draenei, if not the Void Elves.

You say manipulate, but there's never been any actual deception or trickery involved in getting any Allied Races involved with their factions. Every Allied Races leaders joined up of their own will.

Hell, the one place there is deception is Baine and the Highmountain keeping Ebonhorn's secret.

Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 23rd 2018 at 4:22:29 AM

The war effort was spearheaded by Order Halls and combined Elven forces in Suramar's case. Alliance and Horde were more into fighting over towers at that point.

Ah. See, I'm still plugging away at Vanilla, so all I know of Legion comes from wowpedia, wowhead and This Very Wiki at the moment.

Edited by SomeNewGuy on Sep 23rd 2018 at 4:40:03 AM

Tyrande wasn't being racist. For one, the nightborne are night elves, albeit physiologically changed. For another, they're not an oppressed group within Kaldorei society, or one that's become a target of Kaldorei colonization attempts.

What she is is conscious of the fact that these are the last Highborne in the world that remained unchanged by the migration to the Eastern Kingdoms, or the Cataclysm. They're a bubble with a view to ten thousand years ago, to the class of night elf that nearly doomed the world because of the vanity of their Queen.

So Tyrande says what a responsible leader would: "we don't trust you, because many of you were our oppressors ten thousand years ago. So while we're here, we're keeping an eye on you to make sure we're not replacing one mad mage for another."

And considering the Nightborne were apparently a-ok with their new allies lighting Teldrassil on fire and effectively attempting genocide on the Night Elven population, I can't say I blame her.

That's really, really overselling how bad it is. "Massacring guards" is something we do all the time, against every faction. Stormwind was never in any danger of being burnt to the ground, Zul just lit a few buildings in fire knowing that Jaina would rather put out the fires than keep pursuing them. Zul wasn't nearly as bad before BFA, sure he was an enemy of Horde/Alliance/Pandaria but not a world-ending threat. And after the many tribes, clans, empires, mercenaries, cults, cartels, packs, armies and other groups we've slaughtered, I honestly don't see how starting a war between pirates is bad.

Meanwhile, Cataclysm and Mists included a concentration camp where prisoners were subjected to horrific experiments, the blight being used on multiple towns, peaceful druid students being nuked, the Purge of Dalaran, the sack of Taurajo, and the end of Theramore.

To the leader of a resistance group trying to fight both the Legion and their own former leadership who allied with the demons.

"Tone-deaf" would be an understatement, honestly.

To quote a good friend.

"The enemy of my enemy can still be a piece of shit."

Yeah, Tyrande being an aeons old wise leader and "embodiment of everything that is good on Azeroth" like Illidan called her (not sure about the exact formulation) is pretty much an Informed Attribute.

Edited by Kiefen on Sep 24th 2018 at 11:47:34 AM

Well it's in character for Tyrande to be an awful diplomat.

"High priestess, strange green creatures are cutting down trees in Ashenvale! They're not doing anything else, Cenarius is still alive and they don't even know we exist, should we talk to them?"

"No, let's just kill them all without warning, that'll teach them not to have ghosts that somehow extract wood from a tree without cutting it!"

Not to forget:

"One of our Keepers somehow sired children with an earth elemental and their children are genociding our long time allies and neighbors. Let's do: Nothing"