And the factions are back to full-scale war.
Now, there's little misinterpreting the Siege of Undercity - we see Anduin leading the Alliance army with Genn Greymane at his side, while Sylvanas and Saurfang defend the city. We know how this battle will end - the Horde puts up a good fight, but the Alliance ultimately comes out victorious, though perhaps it is a Pyrrhic victory, as the Undercity is left in such disarray that it won't serve as much of an Alliance stronghold, much as the flaming tree of Teldrassil probably won't be really active Horde territory.
From the Alliance perspective, this is fully justified: turnabout is fair play, and while they've always wanted to re-take Lordaeron, now there is no diplomatic or tactical justification not to.
Following the Siege of Orgrimmar, Varian offered peace - sure, this was partially dictated by game mechanics, as you can't have either side "lose" and expansion while the other wins, and you need to keep areas around for people to call home (though apparently if it ain't Stormwind or Orgrimmar, it ain't sacred.) But through Warlords of Draenor (aside from the practically non-canon Ashran) and Legion, where Alliance/Horde conflict was more of a personal feud between Sylvanas and Genn, the factions were mostly cooperating. On my Paladin main, I personally saw the consolidation of the Hand of Argus, the Blood Knights, the Sunwalkers, and the Argent Crusade into the unified Knights of the Silver Hand. The class orders were all about seeing past faction lines, not only to face a greater threat, but also to embrace shared values (the only one that really worries me is the Knights of the Ebon Blade, who seem to be falling under the sway of the Lich King once again and have done some seriously messed up things.) Hell, Lady Liadrin is always there to lead a charge of Blood Knights against whomever I am fighting (which is especially weird when I'm doing a PvP world quest.) Lorewise, we've forged strong friendships across faction lines, which makes a fall back into war feel so hurtful to those of us who really liked to see WoW moving past Alliance versus Horde.
And I'll confess that I'm still mostly on the "tired of this faction conflict stuff" side of things - though I can see how it's a logical next step after facing down WoW's big bad in Legion, and I'm also super excited that both factions are going to have entirely different leveling experiences in Battle (are we calling it Battle or BFA? I've been hearing the former.)
But obviously there's something else going on. I don't think we're going to get a Siege of "Insert Capital City Here" raid like in Mists, and I don't think Sylvanas, Genn, or Jaina is going to be the expansion's final boss. If the final boss is not Azshara (they seemed to suggest she'd be either the first true tier's boss, or maybe the mid-tier) then I'm still putting a fair amount of fictional money I won't be paying anyone on N'zoth as being the main threat here.
And I think there's a clear gambit for the big bad to kick the expansion off:
The art we see of Teldrassil before and after it burns shows some interesting figures. They're all backlit, so we only get silhouettes. The first, before it burns, shows what appears to be Sylvanas in the center next to potentially Nathanos and Saurfang, with a pincushioned female elf (who doesn't seem quite dead) waiting nearby.
The next shot shows (presumably) Sylvanas in front of a wildly burning Teldrassil, with only what looks like the same wounded elf lying on her side, watching the fire.
The implication seems to be that the Horde attacked Teldrassil and burned it down. But what if that's not what happens?
Sylvanas is not a sentimental person (though maybe moreso than she likes to think,) and she certainly has no qualms about killing people from the Alliance. But given her nearly identical position in those two pictures, what if she never gets a chance to attack Teldrassil?
What if it's not the Horde that does it? What if it's a set-up?
We know from the preview chapter of the new novel that Sylvanas is looking forward to an attack on Stormwind, but let's imagine the following sequence of events: Horde spies discover that the Alliance is preparing for massive attack from Teldrassil - that they're going to sweep in and destroy Orgrimmar. Sylvanas has to put her attack on Stormwind on hold to protect her flank, but as they fight their way up through northern Kalimdor, they find resistance to be surprisingly light - it's not the full Alliance military, just the usual Night Elf forces. The Horde chalks it up to their superior military might, as they are wont to do. But when they reach Lor'danel, having swept through the Night Elf resistance easily, Sylvanas confronts a figure (the wounded elf,) who announces that Sylvanas has fallen into her trap, and as the Horde army watches from across the water, the enormous tree bursts into flames.
There is no way that the Alliance doesn't interpret this the way we have - that the Horde, in an act of savagery (and the Horde is known for its acts of savagery, especially with a person as cruel as Sylvanas Windrunner leading it,) has massacred innocent people, not content to simply conquer, but to exterminate. The story is accepted at face value by the Alliance - it's just Theramore all over again.
And if Sylvanas wants to protest, what is she going to say? Her troops were seen slashing and burning their way up through Kalimdor and her army was last seen just across the water from Teldrassil, so who else could have done such a thing?
And now, anyone who wanted to keep the forces of Azeroth divided, distracted, and fighting each other has a massive war raging across the globe. And with her armies concentrated near Teldrassil, she has to rush to defend Lordaeron, barely having any time to prepare her defenses, which allows the Alliance to get right up to her walls with what appears to be great ease.
The Burning of Teldrassil is incredibly suspect. Narratively, I just don't think that the Horde is the one that does it. But that's what the Alliance believes, and that's all that is needed to start the war.
So who is behind it?
Well, I don't think that the mystery elf (assuming she's part of that evil faction) is Alleria, given that she's going to be the racial leader for the Void Elves. But in a way, it doesn't totally matter who it is, because it's probably someone working for N'zoth.
Why N'zoth?
Well, this is where I stretch a little and really go into tin-foil hat territory: N'zoth is famously the weakest of the Old Gods, but what he lacks in magical power and strength of arms, he makes up in being utterly insidiously clever. Consider, for example, that the Emerald Nightmare was created by Yogg-Saron. But it was N'zoth who managed to usurp control of it, infecting it with Ilgynoth and most likely securing Xavius as his servant. And the defeat of the Nightmare may have ended that plot, but according to Xal'atath (which, yeah, I know we maybe shouldn't trust,) ending the Nightmare probably just woke up N'zoth. As she states elsewhere, N'zoth had a knack for turning his defeats into failures. Maybe he was never the weakest of the Old Gods, but he allowed his fellows to believe that he was.
With a wounded Azeroth, N'zoth is the last Old God standing, and this is a prime opportunity to try to make the final push to corrupt the Final Titan. But something C'thun and Yogg-Saron learned the hard way was that the heroes of Azeroth are really good at killing basically anything that threatens the world soul. Even the Legion falls before our might. But you know who we can never defeat? Each other. The Alliance and Horde clash with one another, but it's an unending mirror match that can never be resolved. Wrathion lamented this, hoping to see one faction conquer and then incorporate the other.
The conflict between the factions is filled with hatred and grief, and it's clearly not good for individuals. But in an odd way, the two sides act as sparring partners with one another. The constant conflict between them forces them to become stronger. And we have proven time and again that once a true threat to the world emerges, we tend to set aside that fight in order to deal with it. So N'zoth's gambit is a bit of a gamble - he's got to try to do his work before we figure out what is going on.
Given the nature of WoW as a game, I don't think he's going to succeed. And now he's going to be facing two battle-hardened factions coming at him from both sides.
(That's my take on the arc of the expansion. We'll see how accurate it is.)
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