Warcraft: The True Natures of the Alliance and Horde

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Tyler F.M. Edwards

Warning: Rambling lore post ahead.

One of the things that’s been on my mind lately is what the real “souls” of Warcraft’s two iconic factions are. The Horde and the Alliance have gone through many different phases and iterations over the years, but what are the real core traits that define them?

I think it’s worth discussing because I feel there are a lot of people who don’t really grasp what the factions are supposed to be about. Partly, this is due to their own misunderstandings of the lore, but Blizzard also deserves a fair share of the blame. Some of their decisions have muddled the identities of the factions significantly.

I’ll say upfront that while I firmly believe my interpretations of the factions are correct (obviously), a lot of this is based on opinion and personal interpretations of events, and unlike my epic rant against the concept of “Horde bias,” most of my arguments here cannot be objectively verified within the lore.

I’ll be looking at both the good and bad sides of each faction, as I firmly believe neither is better than the other. They are both admirable and flawed in their own ways.

The Alliance

The good:

At their best, the Alliance embody the virtues of wisdom, justice, honour, and nobility. They are the archetypical knights in shining armor. They will seek out evil wherever it is found and vanquish it, but they will work just as hard to protect the innocent and uplift the righteous.

In D&D terms, the Alliance at its best is lawful good. Their society is founded on law and order. They are the embodiment of discipline. They are the Draenei and Night Elves, who have spent millennia training themselves with the sole purpose of defeating the Burning Legion. They are the humans, Gnomes, and Dwarves, unflinchingly loyal to their allies and ideals. They are the Tushui, who believe an ideal solution can always be found with enough patience, and they are the Gilneans, proud and uncompromising.

They pursue justice, but never vengeance. Theirs is the measured response, the firm but fair hand. They are determined in battle but merciful in victory.

This is another area where I feel those complaining about the ending to Siege of Orgrimmar may have missed the point. If you want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear da lamentation of deir women, you picked the wrong faction when you rolled Alliance.

The events of SoO are the best distillation of the Alliance’s nobility I can think of. They saw that Garrosh needed to be stopped, and they fought tooth and nail to bring him down, but they were also fair enough to see that not all in the Horde shared in his madness. Varian saw fit to spare those among the Horde who had proven themselves honourable.

This shows Varian’s growth as a leader. He has become a true paragon of the Alliance’s ideals. He put aside his personal hatred to see that justice was served. Because justice isn’t only about punishing the guilty; it’s about preserving the innocent, and the Alliance are Azeroth’s champions of justice.

The bad:

The downside of the Alliance’s ideals is that it often leads them to become conceited and hidebound. It’s a very short walk from “We are the most righteous” to “We are the only pure ones, and everyone else is beneath us.”

At its worst, the Alliance is the most narrow-minded, arrogant, and bigoted force on Azeroth. Intolerance is rampant throughout all of the Warcraft universe, but none have made it so core a part of their culture as have the Alliance.

The dark side of the Alliance is the casual racism of the humans and the xenophobia of the Night Elves. It’s the way the Draenei have spent so long looking at the big picture that they’ve all but lost the ability to feel compassion on the individual level. It’s the way the Tushui would rather do nothing at all than act rashly to address an injustice.

When I think of the Alliance at its worst, I think of the events of the Blood Elf campaign in the Frozen Throne.

In their hour of greatest need, the Blood Elves reached out to the Alliance for aid. They pledged themselves to help the Alliance retake Lordaeron and Dalaran. And how did the Alliance repay them?

By betraying them. The Alliance sent the Blood Elves on a suicide mission to drive the last nail into their coffin, and when the Blood Elves sought out help from Illidan Stormrage to avoid extinction, the Alliance branded them traitors and imprisoned them. To this day, the Alliance still calls them betrayers, when their only crime was choosing to live.

And why did the Alliance do this? Because they were Elves. No other reason. It was an act of blind, petty bigotry with no rational thought behind it.

The Horde

The good:

The Horde are a very diverse faction — to the point where it strains credibility at times — so it’s hard to condense them down to any one set of traits.

But if I had to define one ideal that brings all of the Horde races together, it would be freedom. Freedom from oppression, freedom from assault, freedom to live their lives as they see fit.

Most of the Horde races have been the victims of slavery or persecution in the past, and the majority of them are races that the greater world has deemed unworthy.

Somewhat understandably, much of the world views the Orcs as savage monsters. The Orcs keenly remember what it was like to be slaves to the Alliance, to have their freedom and dignity ripped away from them, and they never want to see that repeated.

The Darkspear Tribe are the very bottom rung of Troll society, an underclass loathed by all. The Tauren are viewed by the greater world as mindless beasts, few understanding that their culture is simple by choice rather than because of a lack of intellect. The Blood Elves were never very popular on account of their connections to the Highborne and overall arrogant attitude, and the circumstances of their split from the Alliance have given them a false but pervasive reputation as traitors. And as for the Forsaken, well, nobody likes zombies.

The Horde is the big tent faction. They will accept anyone willing to fight with honour and respect the traditions of the other Horde races. They are not judgmental like the Alliance. They are willing to look past the surfaces and judge people based on the true natures of their characters.

The Horde have a reputation for being warlike, but I don’t believe this is true. Not entirely, at least. They are warriors, yes, and they would never back down from a challenge, but the true Horde — not the mockery that Garrosh applied the same term to — is not made up of warmongers.

It’s a shame Blizzard shortened the battle cry to just “lok’tar ogar.” The original was much more descriptive of the Horde’s true persona: “Blood for blood. Life for life. Lok’tar ogar!”

That’s the Horde’s true perspective on war. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. They don’t go seeking fights, but they will repay any injury tenfold. They have suffered too much and are too few in number to be able to tolerate abuse; they must crush their enemies utterly. But they will not do so without strong justification.

The Horde doesn’t start wars. They finish them.

The bad:

Most would say that the negative side of the Horde is that they are too violent and reckless, that they too often let their bloodlust consume them. This is a very reasonable perspective, and there are a lot of good arguments to back it up, but I’m actually going to disagree.

Firstly, I want to clarify something people often overlook. There has been more than one organization in Warcraft lore called “the Horde.” The Horde that initially invaded Azeroth is a separate entity from the one that exists today. That Horde was crushed and disbanded by the Alliance. The modern Horde was founded for entirely different reasons and with an entirely different set of ideals.

The modern continuation of the first Horde was the Dark Horde in Blackrock Spire, which was ultimately little than a gaggle of puppets for Deathwing.

So we have to look at what the mistakes of the modern Horde have been, and I’m inclined to say that dark side of the Horde is the same thing that makes in admirable: they’re the big tent.

The Horde has become too tolerant, too willing to forgive. They see the good in everyone, even when there’s no good to be seen. They look the other way in regards to the war crimes of the Forsaken. They were blind enough to believe Garrosh could actually be a good leader. They were willing to accept the worst elements of the previous Horde, the Blackrock and Dragonmaw Clans, back into the fold.

This may seem like a back-handed compliment to the Horde — “they’re too nice” — but trust me, it’s not. Being willing to forgive your friends ceases to be admirable trait when those friends are genocidal lunatics.

When the Forsaken showed their hand at the Wrath Gate, Thrall should have come down on Undercity with fire and fury and ended their threat once and for all. Countless innocents have died horribly and will continue to do so because of his willingness to trust. There is no excuse for that.

Gallywix was so ruthless he enslaved his own people, and yet he was allowed to continue on as trade prince. No one batted an eye over the Blood Elves enslaving and torturing a Naaru. The Warsong Clan went rogue before Garrosh even arrived from Outland, and no one’s ever tried to reign them in.

Even the most noble members of the Horde are guilty of aiding war criminals through their willingness to look the other way.

Some people just aren’t worthy of forgiveness. And the longer it takes the Horde to realize this, the more blood will stain their hands.

Admittedly, this may be more Thrall’s flaw than the flaw of the Horde as a whole, but the modern Horde is so much Thrall’s child that it’s almost impossible to separate the two.

Purple is my favourite colour:

Mostly, I wrote this post just because I enjoy musing about Warcraft lore, but I’d also like to illustrate that each faction has its own merits and flaws. There is no good faction and evil faction. They’re different perspectives, and each needs the other.

Azeroth needs both the Alliance and the Horde if it’s going to survive. They balance each other’s flaws. A world dominated by the Alliance would quickly turn be an oppressive, rigid place ruled by dogma and intolerance. A world ruled by the Horde… probably couldn’t exist. It would just devolve into a Wild West of disparate races and ideals that would be crushed like gnats the next time the Legion shows up. If Sylvanas didn’t murder everyone first.

Azeroth needs the wisdom and order of the Alliance, but it also needs the Horde’s passion and strength of spirit. They are very different ideals, but they compliment each other, and all of the greatest victories of good within Warcraft’s history have come as the result of the two working together.

So don’t hate the opposing faction, and don’t expect your faction to be all things to all people. They both have their purposes in creating a whole story, and we should embrace the balance between red and blue.

The Great Horde Bias Rant

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Tyler F.M. Edwards

Prepare yourselves: It’s epic nerd rant time, and what I’m about to say will be very controversial in some circles.

For a long time now, there’s been a recurring complaint among the Warcraft fanbase – or part of it, anyway. “Horde bias!” they cry, talking about how Blizzard is in love with the Horde and secretly conspiring to make life miserable for the Alliance.

I’m tired of it. If you look at the facts, there’s little or no evidence that Blizzard has shown any special favouritism to the Horde. All these complaints of Horde bias serve no purpose but to make Alliance fans look bad, and they show a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of the art of storytelling.

The Alliance’s strong foundation:

Here’s something a lot of people ignore when talking about Horde favouritism: The few times where there has actually been a measurable imbalance in the gameplay, it’s almost always favoured the Alliance.

In the early days of World of Warcraft, it was simply better to be Alliance. They had far more content, and arguably far better content. No one in their right mind would ever claim it was more fun to level through the Barrens than through Duskwood.

“Guys, anyone know where Mankrik’s wife is?”

Or you could look up the attunement chain for Onyxia’s Lair. The Alliance’s version was vastly superior in both story and gameplay to the hideous grind the Horde got stuck with.

A lot of people also argue that the Alliance’s base in Alterac Valley was – and still is – much easier to defend than its Horde equivalent.

Then there’s the fact that the majority of tie-in media for Warcraft has centered on the Alliance. Books tend to have a lot more depth than the in-game story, so that’s a big mark in the Alliance’s favour.

The upcoming Warcraft movie’s original script was also stated to be heavily focused on the Alliance. It was Duncan Jones that convinced Blizzard to give the Horde a bigger role.

The expansions:

I’ll freely grant that many of the expansions to WoW have favoured one faction over another, but it’s not as one-sided as some like to claim.

Burning Crusade was definitely a Horde expansion. Outland is the home of the Orcs and the Promised Land of the Blood Elves, so it only makes sense that it would focus on the Horde.

Wrath of the Lich King, on the other hand, was the Alliance’s story through and through. Every major story arc in that expansion put the Alliance front and center.

The war against the Lich King was led by Tirion Fordring and Darion Mograine, both former knights of Lordaeron. I’ve heard it argued that since they were neutral, they no longer count as Alliance, but they were certainly far closer to the Alliance than they ever were to the Horde. They fought to avenge Lordaeron, and in the case of the Argent Crusade, they were essentially a continuation of the Knights of the Silver Hand – an Alliance military organization that had fought the Horde in the past.

There’s also the fact that the Lich King’s Horde connections were completely ignored. I’m hard-pressed to remember any mention that the original Lich King was an Orc. Everything was about Arthas, even though he formed only fifty percent of the Lich King.

Then there was the storyline around Ulduar. The main character of this arc was Brann Bronzebeard, an Alliance hero. We got major insights into the origins of the Dwarves and the Gnomes, while learning nothing about the history of any Horde races despite there being plenty of opportunity to do so.

The Vrykul also provided insight into the backstory of humanity in the Warcraft universe, so that’s again an Alliance-centric story.

Finally, there’s the Nexus War storyline, which focused on Dalaran – an Alliance city. Yes, they may have chosen to accept the Horde’s assistance in battling a greater threat, but they’re still an Alliance city. All of the NPCs belong to Alliance’s races, its leaders are Alliance war heroes, the Horde’s representation is confined to one small corner of the city, and recent events clearly illustrate where Dalaran’s loyalties lie when forced to pick a side.

It is true that there were some good Horde storylines in Wrath: The Forsaken’s perfection of the New Plague and subsequent civil war, the introduction of the Taunka, Garrosh’s rise.

But it’s also true that all these storylines were essentially over by the time the player hit level 74, while the Alliance’s storylines continued through to the end.

My point here is not that Blizzard really favours the Alliance, but that they’ve been given their fair shake.

That brings us to Cataclysm, universally hailed as the epitome of Horde bias.

Yes, Thrall was the main character, but he’d left the Horde at the time. I’d be willing to accept that he still counted as a Horde character, but if you wish to put forward that argument, you can’t deny that Dalaran, Tirion, et al. were Alliance. There’s also the bizarre and utterly baseless belief that Thrall was rammed down our throats much more than any character had been in the past, but that’s a rant for another time.

The other complaints about Cataclysm are that the Alliance was always losing, and the Horde was always winning.

Neither is true.

The Alliance defeated the Horde numerous times throughout Cataclysm. They won in Ashenvale, and the only reason the Horde wasn’t driven from the forest completely was because they made a pact with a Demon. The Night Elves curbstomped the Trolls in Darkshore. Stormwind conquered Stonard in the Swamp of Sorrows — the oldest surviving Orcish settlement on Azeroth.

The forces from Theramore succeeded in conquering a good chunk of the Southern Barrens and razing Camp Taurajo — a strike at the very heart of Horde territory. The only reason the Siege of Orgrimmar didn’t happen then and there is that the Cataclysm split the Barrens and cut off the Alliance’s line of advance.

The Alliance may not have won in Gilneas, but they didn’t exactly lose, either. Despite being initially outnumbered and outgunned, they forced the Forsaken into a costly and humiliating quagmire war that is still raging.

Yes, the Horde won a lot. Maybe more than the Alliance. But this wasn’t a lore decision. It was to correct the original imbalance that existed in leveling content. All the Horde’s gains did was bring them even with the Alliance.

Meanwhile, the Alliance was constantly being presented as noble heroes who could no wrong, while the Horde suddenly devolved into their pre-Warcraft III Saturday morning cartoon villain status. There’s a reason why I switched to focusing on the Alliance in Cataclysm.

Mists of Pandaria:

Now we come to the present day, where Horde bias cries are as loud as ever. I’ll grant that the Alliance got the shaft in Battlefield: Barrens, but otherwise, this was a very well-balanced expansion for both factions. Neither was shown as being perfectly good or perfectly bad, and each side got some great story moments.

I could go through all the examples, but I think it’s more worth talking about Siege of Orgrimmar and how it sums up the absurdity of this whole debate. Because as soon as it was announced, people were complaining that SoO was the latest example of Horde favouritism.

Yes, the Alliance invading the Horde capitol, smashing its military, and killing its leader is yet another example that Blizzard hates the Alliance.

I just can’t take this “Horde bias” talk seriously when people make arguments like this. There are even now plenty of people complaining that the Alliance never got its promised “fist pump moment.”

What part of ransacking the enemy capitol doesn’t qualify as a “fist pump moment”?

Honestly, what more could Blizzard have possibly done? Destroyed Orgrimmar and left the Horde without its main hub city? Spend weeks redoing all the quests and game mechanics associated with it? Removed the Horde from Ashenvale or another leveling zone, once again ensuring the world favours the Alliance?

All things like that would do is punish the players. And I don’t remember having a say in whether Garrosh would become warchief, so that’s nothing but petty.

I’m really starting to think that most of the people complaining about Horde bias would not be satisfied by anything short of the complete removal of the Horde from the game.

Not that there weren’t missed opportunities for Alliance story. I’m pissed we never got that “Trials of the High King” questline. It sounded awesome. But the same is true for the Horde. There was massive build-up of both Saurfang and Sylvanas’s enmity for Garrosh, but they were all but ignored in the final climax of the story. Garrosh murdered Baine’s father, but Baine never got to play a major role in the warchief’s downfall.

The same is true of the game’s past history. The Alliance has some very legitimate cause for complaint that some of its races and leaders have been ignored — Tyrande comes to mind — but so do the Horde. Hell, Gallywix is the only racial leader who isn’t actually in the game. Lor’themar was the poster child for ignored characters up until recently. It took until MoP for Blizzard to even figure out how many eyes he has and get him a voice actor that can pronounce “Quel’thalas” correctly.

Warlords of Draenor:

Of course, there is one more part to this story. For once, I am inclined to agree that the Alliance has a right to complain about being ignored when it comes to Warlords of Draenor. I really can’t see them getting a lot of interesting story out of WoD, and if they do, it’ll just be more Draenei stuff.

But then again, it’s not looking too good for the Horde, either. There seems little or no opportunity for development of any Horde races other than the Orcs, who have already had plenty of time in the sun. I’m a big fan of Orcs, and even I’m not thrilled with an entire expansion of the Orcy McOrc Show, with Special Guest Star Orcs.

There’s also the fact that all of the Horde’s iconic heroes are being brought back from the dead to be loot pinatas. It’s hard to imagine an outcome for WoD that doesn’t crap all over the Horde’s history and past heroes. And it’s yet another thing to add fuel to the arguments that Orcs really are evil after all, as all of the iconic chieftains are being presented as villains even without Demonic corruption.

It’s not so much that WoD is looking bad for Alliance lore as it is that WoD is looking bad for lore period.

And this brings me to my final point.

Stories aren’t fair:

There is no Horde story and Alliance story. There’s just the story. Sometimes, it will favour one faction. Sometimes, the other. Perfect balance will never be achieved, nor should it be.

Can you imagine how boring the lore would be if each faction experienced joy and suffering in exactly the same proportion? There’s nothing Blizzard could do that would suck the fun out of the story worse than that.

Stories aren’t fair. Sometimes, your favourite characters have bad things happen to them. Sometimes, the characters you hate triumph. That’s the nature of story-telling. The essence of drama is conflict, and you can’t have conflict without a little injustice.

Everyone would enjoy themselves a lot more if they just stopped getting so invested in the fates of fictional factions. Stop counting up each victory and defeat, looking for any perceived slight to your chosen team. Just enjoy the story for what it is.

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Tag Archives: Warcraft

Warcraft: The True Natures of the Alliance and Horde

The Great Horde Bias Rant

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