One of my biggest criticisms of WoW is that it makes a lot of what happened in Warcraft III irrelevant. The lore in WoW does have some cool things, like the appearance of some of the heroes from Beyond the Dark Portal and such, but other than that, a lot of the way WoW is set up doesn’t make sense.
The Sentinels
One of the things that I really didn’t like about WoW was the fact that they split the world up into Horde vs. Alliance again. The reason for this is that it simplifies the complex relationships between different factions too much. We’ll start with the nelfs.
The Night Elves are not part of the original Alliance. The original Alliance began at the beginning of Warcraft II, when the seven Human nations, the Dwarves, the Gnomes, and the High Elves decided to fight against the Horde. By the time Warcraft III started, one of the Human kingdoms had been destroyed, two others had left, and the Elves also left. And after Warcraft III, the Elves and three nations were destroyed. Not including the Night Elves, the Alliance was left with Azeroth, Kul Tiras, and Ironforge.
When we first meet the Night Elves, they are hostile towards both the Alliance and the Horde. Yes, the Alliance and the Horde band together to fight against the Night Elves for a bit. So, in fact, the Night Elves and the Alliance are not best friends forever. Even when the Night Elves warm up to the Alliance, it’s not the actual Alliance, but Jaina’s little force that she brought to Kalimdor, acting on its own, separate from the Alliance.
So if the Night Elves’ only contact with the Alliance was Jaina, how did they end up as a part of the Alliance?
Jaina and Theramore Isle
Other than the Night Elves, the only other way to get to Kalimdor is by going to Theramore Isle, where Jaina Proudmoore’s force has made its home. The question here is, why is Theramore a part of the Alliance?
In the bonus campaign in The Frozen Throne, we see that relations between Theramore and Orgrimmar are friendly. By the end of it, we discover that Kul Tiras has sent its fleet over to chase down the Orcs. The battle ends with Thrall and Jaina’s forces beating down on Kul Tiras’ military and killing Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, Jaina’s father and ruler of Kul Tiras.
Jaina’s forces had killed the one of the founders of the Alliance and was an ally of the Horde. Why is she still a part of the Alliance?
The New Horde
The best part of Warcraft III is easily the journey that the Orcs make in cleansing their demonic taint. Thrall does this and returns the Horde to its shamanistic traditions. If there’s anything that we can take away from Warcraft III, it’s that the Orcs are not the villains in this story.
One major problem of Horde vs. Alliance is that it polarizes the world into what people may confuse as good and evil. Anyone who’s played through any of the previous games would know that the Horde are now anything but evil and that the Alliance is not the epitome of good. And yet, we have people now who think that Alliance = good and Horde = evil.
A different problem with the new Horde are the inclusion of the Forsaken and the Blood Elves.
Like the Night Elves, the Forsaken have had no contact whatsoever with the new Horde. All the events that led to the creation of the Forsaken happened in Lordaeron, away from the founding of Durotar in Kalimdor. And even then, the Forsaken are made up of the Undead people of Lordaeron and Quel’Thalas. These people have only known the Horde as the engine of destruction that swept through their lands.
The new Horde is supposed to be free of demonic influence. The Orcs were once a people who were addicted to Mannoroth’s blood, and Grom Hellscream was able to end that curse. So what are the Blood Elves, a people addicted to demonic magic, doing in the Horde? They certainly aren’t trying to stop their addiction; they’re looking for a way to find Kael’thas and Illidan, who promised to feed them all the demonic magic they could get.
The Draenei
In the Warcraft II manual, we learn that the reason that the Orcs came to Azeroth was that they ran out of things to kill. They’d conquered the world of Draenor and killed every single one of the Draenei. The Draenei were weak and got owned quite easily.
Now, in The Burning Crusade, we learn that the Draenei are actually Eredar who escaped from Sargeras. We also learn that the Draenei are totally awesome and are architects of flying fortresses and glowing cities. Oh yeah, and not all the Draenei died.
Just how did the Draenei get destroyed by the Orcs if they were actually Eredar? You do know who else is an Eredar, yes? Archimonde the Defiler and Kil’jaeden the Deceiver are two of the more well known Eredar. Archimonde was the one who almost destroyed the World Tree, Nordrassil, and Kil’jaeden is the one that scares the crap out of Illidan. You’re telling me that the Orcs were able to destroy most of the Eredar on Draenor?