Varian Wynn has a misconception. Yeah, so what? Every player with a Horde symbol on his or shirt would tell you the same thing. But this misconception is particularly interesting.
What is it about?
It’s about the Undercity.
Say what you want about King Varian Wynn. This isn’t a judgement of his character… more or less just criticism regarding something he said, and more specifically the sheer amount of players one runs across who didn’t pause to consider what Varian said.
So what was this line? Let’s set the scene… Go back to when WotLK was new… to the Wrathgate.
As an Alliance player, you storm the Undercity with King Wynn. Together, you defeat Grand Apothecary Putress. Then, with Putress dead at your feet, King Wynn yells:
“Look around you, brothers and sisters. Open your eyes! Look at what they have done to our kingdom!”
This line is fine in and of itself. It works with Wynn’s character. He’s going to feel that way. Players, however, should know it makes little sense.
“Look at what they have done to our kingdom!”
…”our kingdom”?
When did Lordaeron belong to the people of Stormwind? Or to the Alliance as a whole? It never belonged to the dwarves or the high elves or any of the other human kingdoms.
Lordaeron… belongs to the people of Lordaeron.
And who are these people?
They’re the former Scarlet Crusade/Onslaught.
They’re a portion of the Argent Dawn/Crusade.
They’re a small number of exiles in Stormwind.
And finally… they’re also the Forsaken.
Consider that. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Forsaken are the people of Lordaeron. The liberated undead tend to be treated by NPC’s and players alike as if they appeared out of the thin air.
The Forsaken, like the Blood Elves, are a former Alliance faction who have joined the Horde.
The Forsaken are the people of Lordaeron… still living in Lordaeron.
So with respect to King Varian Wynn, whether we like it or not, it’s the people of Lordaeron’s city and they can do with it what they want. The only parties who have a right to complain either don’t exist anymore (Scarlet Onslaught), don’t care (Argent Crusade), or are a minuscule minority (exiles) compared to the liberated undead.
Consider that the next time you’re in a lore forum or witness an RP’er prattling on about “taking back the Undercity”! It was already taken back from Arthas by the people who originally lived there.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I believe what is meant by Wynn’s comments is that Lordaeron was a Human kingdom, so in that sense it was his people’s kingdom, the humans kingdom. It has now fallen into the hands of the Horde who he sees as less than human, including the Forsaken who have defiled Lordaeron.
*cough* It’s ruled by a Blood Elf.
And Wrynn, though vastly improved from those days, is a racist.
He probably sees little difference between the Forsaken and the Scourge (maybe the Scourge just have better networking), and even if he sees them as Lordaeranians, they’re traitors to the human and Alliance cause.
But yes… if a human is going to “take something back” I’d start with a place like Andorhol or Stratholme
I’ve always felt that Undercity rightfully belonged to the Humans even knowing that it’s original owners still inhabit it. It’s more a concept of what the city once stood for, what the “L” once stood for that I belive dicatates ownership for the land.
However saying that If the logic is applied to the whole world then the Bloodelves and Forsaken have nothing of their own as it would all go back to the High Elves and Humans.
Well, technically, Lordaeron was once an Alliance city. It was the sister-city of Stormwind, and Lordaeron was the actual Human capital. The plague came through and turned the inhabitants to Scourge, who then liberated themselves and are the current Undead Forsaken. The king at the time escaped and named Stormwind the new Human capital, and several hundred humans escaped along with him, untouched by the plague. The Undead Forsaken then joined the Horde for many reasons, one of which being that they felt completely betrayed by the king and the Humans for leaving them behind to be consumed by the Scourge.
Ooh, as an addition, that’s why the Forsaken felt no remorse and did not care that they killed Humans at Wrathgate. They also killed many Horde, but even though they are on the same faction as the Horde, it was necessary for them to get their revenge on the Scourge.
two things directed at the comments not the article:
Actually Slyvannis is a banshee BUT in life she was a HIGH Elf not a BLOOD Elf. She died before Keal decided they would go by Blood Elves instead of High Elves.
WC3:
Sylvannis died during the Siege of Quel’Thalas during the third war.
TFT:
When Keal got word of the destruction of his homeland he renounced the name of HIGH Elf and from that point on they would be named BLOOD Elves before being sent to death by an alliance officer. He explains it in the sentinels campaign at an event that was retconned to make Blood Elves and Night Elves enemies for the sake of WoW.
This got some how skewed *cough*sloppy retconning*cough* suddenly in WoW where before ALL High Elves were Blood Elves to the ones that follow Keal became blood elves and Keal was turned into a douche bag who has set backs.
The Forsaken didn’t kill anyone at the wrath gate. Putress and Varimathras did a coup d’état and took over the Undercity almost killing Sylvannis then attacked everyone at the wrathgate. It weakened Arthas but everyone forgot that like they forgot that Mal’Ganis is alive and was off to his homeworld to prepair to take vengence on Arthas AND the player and how we’d never defeat him without his help.
Blizz kinda dropped the ball with Arthas’ Death IMO.
Oh and I’m not saying cause it wasn’t an act of the Forsaken that they didn’t care that Humans died, they probably didn’t care that horde died too. They don’t have much care for any race but their own, they are using the horde as a means to an end to get thier revenge that Sylvannis just takes some ret-tard paladin’s word on.
You can see this through out WoW and the Forsaken’s opening movie.
Re: Kael — I don’t see how it is necessarily a retcon when one guy announces the name of his race has now changed and other groups of that race who weren’t there at the time don’t identify with the change later.
Re: Wrathgate — I’m not 100% convinced Sylvannis didn’t sanction the Wrathgate move on some level. Or at least know what Putress and Varimathras were planning and let it happen to see what they would accomplish before feigning ignorance and plausible deniability when it wasn’t a raging success. Sylvannis is a stone-cold bitch, after all, and probably wouldn’t have any issues deploying that new superplague to further her own ends in the future, with or without Horde sanction.
Re: Mal’Ganis — The fact Mal’Ganis himself says we’ll never defeat Arthas without his help doesn’t mean Blizzard dropped the ball, it just means Mal’Ganis had an overinflated sense of his own importance. A Dreadlord with an egotistical streak. This is my shocked face.
Don’t forget the Lordaeron people of Theramore who are a part of the Alliance. There are an equal amounts of living Lordaeron people with in the Alliance as there is dead people in the Horde and no matter what Jaina says some of those people wish to reclaim their homeland. To hell with the Forsaken. Even if Lordaeron did belong to them no one is going to sit around while they perform barbaric experiments on humans. Evil is evil and it must be purged.
ok one thing blood elfs are high elfs or highborn and blood elfs (if you read lore) were fist to settle Lordaeron but moved away because they thought that so,o thing evil slept in that land