Discussion Characters / WarcraftTheAlliance

Maybe we could do a mix of both ideas. It'd look a bit like this:

• Human Kingdoms
  • Stormwind
  • Lordaeron
  • Gilneas
  • Other
• Old Allies
  • Ironforge
  • Gnomeregan
  • Quel'thalas (High Elves)
• New Allies
  • Darnassus
  • Exodar
  • Tushui

What do you think?

I actually like it. It's basically the same idea as the second, but sorta grouped together. I think I'll be going with that for now, but will wait a bit before I get started.

Might use Old Members/New Members instead of Old Allies/New Allies instead when I do split the page.

Commencing the splitting.

Shouldn't the Alliance be given its own "Other (non-playable races)" page to put the broken, frost dwarves, high elves, and jinyu (among others) in, like the Horde one has?

Yes, absolutely.

Sure, they can have that page, but it's most likely only the Jinyu that'll be covered there, but if we get more NPC races joining, it's convenient. High Elves already have their own page, Broken are covered under the Exodar, while the leader of the Frost Dwarves (Muradin) is on the Ironforge page.

Perhaps "Other (non-playable races & other allies)" would be a more appropriate name for it. That way we'd have a place to put High elves, half elves, Jinyu, Furbolg, and other non-playable Alliance members/allies that aren't major enough for their own folder and only speciously fit elsewhere, like High elves (which seems unwarranted to me, I don't think any non-playable race should get their own dedicated folder on the A/H pages).

I had forgotten about furbolg. If we have any notable furbolg and jinyu characters, we might have a page.

The thing about the high elves having their own page is due to the major role they played in the Alliance in the second and third games (World Of Warcraft is not the only Warcraft game afterall). There are also still high elves in the Alliance, even if they're a non-playable race, so their current page takes into account both their pre-Horde membership and the exiles still in the Alliance.

No objections here.

I say we just don't add Anti-Hero to his character entry, too big of a debate about what kind of Anti-Hero he would be.

How is he a nominal hero?

He's racist, that's a flaw, he's not the ideal hero, he's a flawed hero, that's exactly what Anti Hero is meant to mean.

someone had to take the flank defense, and his bias made him pick the elves instead of say, some of his own men, but in the end, he comes back to destroy the flanking undead force, but Kael'thas decided his pride was more important than obeying orders.

He's not a hero at all. He's a racist, genocidal prick who knowingly sends the (then not even part of the Horde) Blood Elves on suicide missions, then frames them for crimes they didn't commit in order to trick Dalaran into literally committing genocide on them.

He deserved what Sylvanas gave him.

Racist yes, genocdial? no. Blood elves on suicide missions? Someone had to do it. Frames them? No they chose the naga.

Lets not forget he's literally the only hope left for lordaeron at that point, he was fighting a war against overwhelming odds and yet somehow got into lordaeron and through it, if it wasn't for deux ex detheroc, he would have won capital city.

Nominal Hero is a hero without altruistic motivation. Is he this?

I just say scrap the Anti-Hero entry under his character entirely.

Here's my arguement for why he's an Unscrupulous Hero

• These are the darkest possible while having fundamentally good intentions: Liberating Lordaeron from the Scourge is good.
• This character may have undergone something incredibly traumatic that made them beyond cynical: The Second War, and what the Elves did.
• An Unscrupulous Hero is an antihero who lacks the moral character of an Ideal Hero, but is A Lighter Shade of Grey than the antagonists: Compare him to Kael'Thas, a Narcisstic Racist asshole who trades everything away for more Mana, Slyvannas, who....well, to list all of her evil traits would be to paste her entire character here, let alone the Demons, Maiev just pushed her troops to death going after Illidan, Illidan Himself is a mana-hungry monster who tries to justify himself but only does things as a way to get more power or get the girl (Tyrande). Compared to this bunch, he's far better.
• Despite this, these heroes share one overriding heroic trait: unlike a Nominal Hero, they are heroes in the true sense of the word: when they have to take a stand on one side or another, they choose to fight for good for a morally positive reason, and aren't just helping the heroes for selfish reasons: He's there to liberate Lordaeron, again.
• In terms of sympathy, personality, etc., these characters can vary widely. For some, their admirable motivation may be their only good trait: Yes, he's divisive, and he does have good Traits, including his motivation, as well as honoring his word unlike a Certain backstabbing elf.

In comparison, he fits feel if not none of the Nominal Hero traits

In warcraft III, the personalities of the characters was different.

-kael'thas was a good guy in warcraft III. (Pragmatic Hero in the worst)

-In warcraft III, Illidan was a Anti-Villain or a Anti-Hero.

-In warcraft III, Sylvanas hadn't yet Jumping Offthe Slippery Slope.

-Maiev was a jerk, but at least she didn't attempt genocide against another races.

-Even Admiral Proudmoore who tried to kill all the orcs, it was more admirable than Garithos.

You forget that Kael'thas didn't actually become a "racist, narcissistic asshole" under after Garithos' attempt to wipe out his people drove him over the edge.

Actually, yes he was, as his inability to accept that "All out attack" didn't work anymore means doens't mean fail, since he had to hold out, wait for reinforcements (Garithos was coming, as we've seen), and as for racist, his reaction to Nathanos is proof of, as is his incredibly racist rant in "Arthas: Rise of the lich king", lets not forget he himself proved a typical elf, abandoning Dalaran, and thinking despite all this, he deserved the aid of the New Alliance.

So yes,

Illidan, while portrayed better in the game, as little more than a love-obsessed man, we learn more of his backstory, of his envy, of his mana addiction, and all else he was at fault for.

Despite that, she was still a perfect example of We Have Reserves, and overall a spiteful bitch and jackass, in comparison, Garithos came to the rescue of the Dwarves, and the Elves, despite his racism. (Look at how he came back for Kael'Thas, he didn't know about the Naga until he was already back, he was going to save kael'thas, who would have likely been doing a redux of Artha's last stand.

I do agree Proudmoore was a better person tho.

Not on screen, but lets not forget how many "Craven races" she and the rest exterminated.

We don't know why Garithos arrived after Kael's and Vashj's forces destroyed the base, just that he charges in with an army and arrests Kael'thas and his forces. Also Kael'thas didn't know Garithos was coming to the rescue, and Garithos DID order Kael'thas to attack a large undead base and then took away Kael'thas' (human and dwarf) reinforcements. It's implied this was to thin the numbers of the elves.

When Garithos rescued those Dwarves it was for pragmatic reasons only. To quote the game... Garithos; "Those brainless Dwarves are almost more trouble than they're worth. However we'll need them on the front lines..."

That "typical elf" remark is also racist. Apart from the fact that not all elves are the same, who says Kael'thas was at Dalaran or in a position to help? He might have been trying to help the survivors of Quel'thalas that had been decimated by Arthas and his army of undead earlier.

Garithos' backstory could be to make him a more developed character. Though it's possible that it could be Blizzard coming down with a case of Anthropocentrism, which they have been doing recently, just look at the Alliance's portrayal in Mists of Pandaria and the comparatively overbalanced human racial powers in the game.

Oh no, not taken in by the Character Shilling, as I feel he's not been written entirely consistently and the whole High King business should never have been thought up. But fact of the matter is that Varian was NEVER a villain, just a leader who saw what the Horde's done, called them out on it and went to war with not exactly the best timing. And I believe he WAS called out for his warlike ways.

Him not being a villain who's kicked the dog or passed the Moral Event Horizon means he's not a Karma Houdini. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero usually involves a hero who by stopping or interfering in a villain's plan, or any other seeming act of good, manages to make things worse.

Also, the war in Wrath ended prior to Cataclysm after the Lich King's death. And even during Wrath the Alliance and Horde begrudgingly met at the tournament and in the Alliance version of Icecrown Citadel, Varian lets Saurfang reclaim his son's body.

The war in Cataclysm was a new war that was started over what happened in Ashenvale, and Stormwind and Theramore forces moved into the Barrens to counter Garrosh's aggressive desire to claim Ashenvale for his own (Who shot first exactly is debated, because most sources point to Garrosh, while a questgiver in Barrens said the Alliance did). Then we also have the Forsaken's invasion of Gilneas and the utter depravity that is Hillsbrad to add to it.

Thank you for explaining, and nice to know you weren't sucked in by the Character Shilling. Those are good points, and while I don't care for the retcons, I know Varian was never a villain and he had some good moments. So he was called out on his warlike ways, I'm not as familiar with Warcraft lore as I thought.

I dislike the whole High King business as well; I think it was to rule out Tyrande as overall military commander since she would be a better choice, having thousands of years more experience at war than Varian and before the retcon had a better handle on her hothead tendencies. Blizzard really dropped the ball with Tyrande, she has so much potential.

For some reason, Blizzard seems to be leaning towards portraying the Horde as evil. It wouldn't be so bad but the Alliance isn't pure either. Maybe I'm just saying the Alliance needs more Kick the Dog moments to balance it out or people need to be reminded that the Alliance are not pure. What are your thoughts on all of the above?

While I wouldn't pick Tyrande for the Alliance front figure, they really did tear her down pretty badly and pushed Varian further than they should've. Front figure's fine. Being the God Emperor of the Alliance? Not so much.

The Alliance isn't pure I can agree with, but forcing it in under entries where it doesn't belong is another thing entirely. I do personally feel there's plenty of Alliance characters of grey or black morality to pick from, though in the case of the latter they're usually made irrelevant, they die or they leave the faction AND die, which is admittedly a problem.

To amend my earlier argument, Varian did make a mistake. He reignited war between the Alliance and the Horde due to Putress and the rogue Forsaken's actions at Wrathgate, even though they betrayed the Horde as well. The rogue Forsaken faction were serving Varimatharas, Sylvanas' former Dreadlord lieutenant who betrayed her, starting with Wrathgate. They point out to Varian that the actions were not planned or endorsed by the Horde but he disregarded that. In closing, Thrall was trying to make piece, Varian saw one renegade FORMER horde group betray them and decided the whole Horde wasn't trustworthy. That was problem I was referring to.

An issue I do see: Why does all the gameplay/NPC stuff matter? Took a Level in Badass does not depend upon why someone becomes a badass.

Even if we were to count game mechanics, she started out as a beyond-max-level NPC in classic World Of Warcraft in a non-max-level zone, meaning that the jump to the newer max level isn't near as notable as Gamon's, who went from a joke NPC to helping take on a raid boss. Add in that the World Of Warcraft era Shandris has supposedly always been this competent, there's no actual level in badass taken. Otherwise we'd have to list the trope on every single faction boss who jumps up to a newer level.

@ Septimus Heap: If it were up to me, it wouldn't matter. Way I see it, Took a Level in Badass is a trope about, in short, weak characters suddenly becoming a lot stronger, kicking a lot more ass, etc. Shandris Feathermoon fits that definition for reasons I've already given. It doesn't matter if it's a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation, if it's gameplay-only, if it isn't as notable as other examples, or if the trope should apply to other characters too. If an example fits the trope, it fits.

Fact is, however, that the trope has already been removed twice because of these reasons. I don't think they're valid, but I also can't just keep adding the trope back to the page without risking an edit war. So here we are.

Fact is she was a beyond-max-level NPC back in vanilla in a non-max-level zone and has never been considered lore-wise weak in any way at that point in time. Her jump in levels in Cataclysm is purely gameplay mechanics. And I still maintain it doesn't count because of that.

Admiral Taylor should be a fine addition to the Stormwind folder, but I don't agree with the image. The same cutscene should have a fitting one more focused on his face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5VMkA2sXfQ Pause at 0:28.

It's the best I can think of.

No the Serpent's Heart cutscene should have a good one of Taylor, just not the first image proposed.