You're putting a pretty one-sided spin on things. The Horde is a completely different culture from the humans. It's entirely fine to not agree with them, but when you try to argue that they're corrupt just because of the way their culture is, you need to take a step back and cool off. The Horde is a group that believes in power. It's not absurd for a culture like that to indulge in blood sport and slaves, and while you or I may find it morally reprehesible, calling them corrupt for it is purely subjective.

Many negative things you point out in the Horde can be countered with a lot of positive thing (talking about the main body of the Horde, since that seems to be what you're talking abotu as well. Orcs, Trolls, Tauren). Firm belief in honor, respec for strong opponenets and the wise, a strong connection with nature, etc.

Indeed, this is a very good point. The Alliance is made up of entirely independent kingdoms which merely happen to be allied (hence the "Alliance"). In fact this is very well demonstrated in the book Beyond the Dark Portal, where the various kings are discussing what to do with the traitor Perenolde. They feared that any attempt to oust him would be seen as an attempt to annex his territories, which they had no right to do. Similarly, the king of Stormwind has no claim to the territories of Lordaeron, and I think he knows it, otherwise he'd have done something about it a lot sooner.

Variann Wrynn's best friend was a prodigal paladin called Arthas Menethil. Guilty by association? Or is nuance possible on the Alliance side of things?

That being said, hierarchy does not work the same in the Horde and Alliance. The different clans of the Orcs for example are closer to the different kingdoms the humans used to have then to the current chain of command of the Alliance.

Could Watcher Tyr be buried under Light's Hope Chapel? It fits with Tyr's Hand being nearby and Tyr being the Light/Order Watcher.

With the modern day Horde they are all united under one banner with Thrall as the Warchief of all. I've never heard of a particular clan in the Horde, not even Hellscream's not answering directly to Thrall and/or following his orders. This extends over to all of the factions within the Horde, Blood Elves/Forsaken included, it's understood that Thrall is the overall leader of the entire Horde and his final word dictates all 5 factions below him, yes this includes Sylvanas who cannot make a move without the backing of the Orcs and the numbers they bring. The Horde in general is one gigantic faction of convince, you start with just the Orcs, they included the Island Trolls from the Echo Islands, then they included the nomadic Tauren, then the outcast Forsaken, followed by the broken Blood Elves of Silvermoon. Each faction kind of needs the other, and it just so happens each of them bring a lot to the table, which makes them frighteningly powerful as a whole.

The Alliance is a bit different, it's quite obvious that Varian and King Magni talk and speak to each other as equals, one does not hold a higher weight then the other. I imagine that the same can be said of Tyrande and the Night Elves, they don't answer to Magni or Varian, they're the oldest race in the Alliance. The Gnomes aren't really a nation, they have no nation, they don't even have a monarchy, they've always been a minor race, but similar to Horde factions they bring a lot to the table in terms of technology. Valen and the Draenei also do not answer to anyone. From my understanding the Alliance was formed due to the Humans in general, they're the diplomatic types and they keep the whole thing from falling apart and also coordinate with the other factions, which is odd considering until recently Stormwind was ruled by a Black Dragon for all intents and purposes.

Underneath Light's Hope are the bodies of 1,000 champions of the light who had fallen in the past, they were moved there after Arthas killed Terenas to prevent the Lich King from raising them for his army, this was explained in Ashbringer #4

Did it occur to anyone that we probably won't see Warcraft IV until say 2015? :P

Well. Especially the bolded part just seems what seems to be, on the current position of the lore storyline, something that is merely a myth and not really living among the Horde anymore. Especially in the comic it is pointed out that the 'common' Orcs and Trolls don't really care much about that at all. They just care about having their own satisfactory life, no matter if that means having to buy a slave they can abuse or having to use methods which are far from honorable. I've only to point out the rogue trainer in the middle of Orgrimmar that is dreaming about stabbing Thrall in the back.

It only seem to be a handful of figures and minor factions within the Horde that still strive for a noble and peace-loving society. As soon as those key figures or factions are gone, the traditional members of the Horde will be nothing but a warlike bunch of savages again. And from what I understood on rather recent lore talks with Metzen, this is also the direction he wants to steer the Horde to.

It also explains why they brought Hellscream Jr. on the scene. You can bet that 'soon' he'll be the new Warchief and will find more support among the Horde than Thrall ever got.

And this is something Varian understands and wants to combat before it's too late. He already pointed out multiple times that Thrall is losing control over his people, simply because it's true. And when that happens there won't be anymore 'uneasy treaties' between the Horde and the Alliance, but only pure hostility.

Especially Jaina will have to re-think where her loyalties lie. But I'm all too convinced that if Thrall gets out of the picture, that Theramore will be the first target of Horde hostility anyway.

While reading the last couple of pages, I cant help but feel that many people still view the two factions in wow like they are reading a Tolkien book; The Alliance are the forces of good uniting together against the evil horde of monsters. The fact that the 4 races that compromised "good" humanoids in Tolkiens books are almost the same you had in vanilla wow, and the 4 races that compromised the "evil bloodthirsty horde" seem to complement this just exacerbates the situation.

These factions are not black and white, and the horde are not inherently evil and the alliance arent inherently good like most want to believe. Both sides in the conflict are doing what they believe right. To say that the horde are evil and that Varian Wrynn has seen the dark and gruesome side of the horde because they support slavery and hold arena combat in high regard makes them monsters is more than slightly shortsighted. Looking back on human history itself can show you this isnt so. It seems to me that the horde has a feel to trying to build its own identity and civilization from nothing.

To me, at least by the end of TBC, it seems that horde and alliance are trying to come to some kind of amicable coexistence. They dont love each other, but at the very least it seems that they are trying to come to terms with each other. People also tend to blame Thrall and Sylvanas for the actions of the Royal Apothecary Society, saying that both should have been aware of their impending betrayal or that these were somehow involved. This isnt the case however, and shouldnt be blamed upon them. Very recently, the whole of the RAS were saviors to both the alliance and horde, with them being the engineers to the ending of the scourge plague.

You know it's a shame we don't know the details of what happened when Orgrim Doomhammer killed Blackhand(What was his first name, geez) and took over the Horde. Would Hellscream have to kill Thrall to take over the Horde or just defeat him in single combat? Thrall's leadership is as complete as it can be in my opinion, even if they disagree or squabble with him, they ultimately all answer to him, and his word is law(Similar to how Hellscream's word is law in Northrend atm, scary Orcs!) In the novel Old Hatreds Thrall killed an Orc who tried to incite open war with Theramore, and Thrall acknowledges that many of his people disagree with his way of thinking and leadership, BUT they still follow his word to the letter.

Well that just goes back to what kind of person Thrall is in general. He cares, my point was that none of the 5 factions in the Horde can make a move without his say so. If you look back at the second Scourge invasion for instance you could see Hellscream and Sylvanas lobbying for an assault on Northrend, and trying to convince Thrall to send the Horde's armies. You know Hellscream wouldn't have defied him....well maybe he would have, but NORMAL Orcs who don't want to take over the Horde wouldn't defy him. :P Sylvanas also came off as requesting that it be done, as opposed to just moving her Forsaken out there without him, or telling him "This is what I'm doing, VENGEANCE RAWR, are you on board?"

I can't recall him ever having a first name, Blackhand the Destroyer seems to be his 'full' name.


While I partially agree with you on Thrall. I do think that a great part of his 'political' power comes from the fact that they believe he is right. While Sylvanas does request it, instead of just going, she knows he would treat her the same. If she was hellbent on going, not just for herself but for all Forsaken, he would and could not stop her. She knows this. She needs him, and believes in his decisions.

This is a strange duality. Thrall position of Leader of the New Horde is built upon trust and mutual interests, while his position as Warchief of the Orcs is built on personal strength. Cairne, Sylvanas and Shamanistic/Druidic factions respect his wisdom, the Blood Elves, Trolls and the Ebon Blade have sworn allegiance to survive and the Orcs accept and fear his strength, while quite a few don't agree with him. If the Horde is breaking down as people seem to read in Metzen's comments (which I don't, yet), this duality will be the breaking point. Thrall is torn apart by the humanity and the bloodlust within him and within the Greater Horde.

For some reason, the discussion of Horde breaking apart reminds me of claims that Sylvanass goes rogue and attacks Horde and Alliance alike.

The argument against both is that Blizzard can't do something that affects lots of Horde players.

Unless Blizzard makes World of Warcraft II or Warcraft IV I'm fairly sure there's no way it can happen.

Mmm, I dunno. I can see them eventually bringing in a way to choose between one faction or the other, as an Aldor/Scryer type thing. So some Orcs would join the Alliance, some Humans the Horde etc., all for their own purposes.

They have already moved away from Aldor/Scryer type choices with Wrath. Introducing such a choice where Orcs can join Alliance and Humans the Horde, is game changing (and anything game changing can be game destroying too).

Cairne has not been involved prominently in anything till now. I agree though that Cairne is not irrelevent.

Cairne could have easily been tied in to some Taunka story. This appears to be one of the few things that Blizzard did better in TBC than WotLK - the introduction to the Mag'har was done much more convincingly than the introduction to the Taunka, where it's just kinda like "hey we met some snow cows, go do some quests for them." There could've easily been a broader story about the Taunka / Tauren, their connections, etc.

Yea Blizzard really dropped the ball with the Taunka and the storyline with them and I'd imagine it was one of those things affected by time constraints. I was looking forward to learning about the lore and whatnot about the Taunka but all we got was some tauren break off race that joins the Horde after being saved. I still think Blizzard could of done better by just not having Icemist be a mob camp and instead just made it a bit larger and used it as the Hordes 'Dalaran' while the Alliance got Dalaran itself or just at least made Icemist a Horde town.

I really am still hoping they give some more reasons for Varian to dislike the Horde in the upcoming comic issues. Varian was in the arena stuff for a whole 2 weeks (not a long time as you say) and wasn't even part of the main Horde body so how could he have got any idea of how things are in the Horde. His entire family was not killed by the Horde either. Garona was more or less brain washed after Medivh when she murdered his father and his wife was killed by the Defias and his mother was not alive when the Horde attacked Stormwind. I have the feeling Garona is going to successfully try to assassinate him while under Cho'galls control and he will blame the Horde for that.

Varian is far from labled as a super hero and is actually labled as the anti-Thrall. Thrall saw through Taretha that humans could be kind and that made him not totally hate humans (after being used as a gladiator slave for 20 years for the sole purpose of helping Blackmoore take Lordaeron over) while Varian was a gladiator slave by a single orc who let him free (after only 2 weeks of being a slave) and saw a 'evil' side of the Horde.

Frankly I feel Blizzard is better off killing off Thrall, his noble savage act apart from being extremely cliche, is backing Blizzard into a corner.

Metzen intends to make sure Thrall has a son or daughter before he's killed off, or at least that's what he's been saying for the longest. He also wrote off Jaina/Thrall gossip because he wanted to keep Thrall's bloodline "pure" though it's supposedly something he's aware of, their relationship, the comic hints at it so freakin strongly.

Issue 17: It's an historic day as Thrall arrives in Theramore to attend an important summit. But when natural enemies like Horde and Alliance converge, there's sure to be bloodshed. And in the shadows, Garona plans on making matters worse for the Horde!

Issue 18: Garona brings Twilight’s Hammer down on the peace summit at Theramore, further setting back relations between the Horde and the Alliance. But all is not as it seems as mysterious outside forces continue to hatch a plan of disruption. Could someone possibly be secretly aligned with the Scourge?

Issue 19: King Varian Wrynn and his son Prince Anduin finally return to Stormwind and celebrate the defeat of Onyxia. Meanwhile, Garona is interrogated by Jaina and Aegwynn, but at what cost?

So yes, she fails, and the summit is a mess. Though I'm rather interested in who's working with the Scourge in issue 18(HELLSCREAM?!) :P Pure joking speculation on my part.

My guess is someone from the Alliance side, Horde already had its share of betrayal with Putress.

Edit: It could also be Deathwing. It would make sense, with Deathwing's corrpution by an Old God working with Arthas to defeat us.

Just a lore-related heads-up, Tokyopop is making the first two volumes of the Legends manga series available in their site for a limited time, on a chapter-per-day basis.

But dear god, Warcraft manga is awful.

I liked Trag's story since he was in the Sunwell Trilogy, and his journey to the Lich King will ultimately tie into 3.3 & Icecrown...or at least it better or I'd be pretty annoyed at his pointless journey.

The other stuff just seems to be random 1-shot short stories about random characters that live in Azeroth.

I did however enjoy 2 stories in Volume 1 & 2, the Dwarf Blacksmith's story, and the Orc Shaman who saved the Draenei child.

I don't think their egos would ever allow such a union or alliance.

My first reaction to the WoWInsider post about this was "What, more dragons from Richard Knaak?" I read the first sample -- Trag seems interesting -- but I'd rather not have to sit about one inch away from the screen in order to read the words. I assume changing the resolution will fix that easily, though.

The forsaken are about as inherently evil as you can get with a faction. There really isn't a good spin that can be put on a lot of the quests that the forsaken do, they're bitter and take sadistic pleasure in torturing/killing the living.

The rest of the horde is more of a chaotic neutral alignment. The forsaken really don't fit, they should have been a 3rd faction altogether.