Greymane is honestly useless. Him lecturing the player character as we saved Azeroth from multiple existential threats while he was off sulking is ridiculous.He can be mad all he wants, but the player characters have very little to "answer for" in the sense that we have pushed away Sargeras, N'zoth, and The Jailer in the same time period he's been whining about us and contributing essentially nothing to defending the world from destruction.At the very least, he should probably thank us for saving Anduin considering their relationship.Honestly felt it was bad enough that Jaina disappeared during Legion, but Genn is so much worse than that.
Tension is good. We need characters who will look at peaceful Tauren and Pandaren through slitted eyes, accusing them of not abandoning their peoples nor causes soon enough. That doesn't mean I want another Faction War, but I certainly encourage the discourse. It reflects on the players. Like, pretend that the Alliance didn't burn down the homes of the Vulpera and all their livliehood or put orc infants in internment camps. Everyone in this game has been slighted by everyone else in some capacity or another. The Anduins of the world see it on both sides and work to encourage empathy and compassion. The Greymanes of the world will always be haunted by their traumas and never hold themselves accountable for their trespasses. And that's a good thing. We need variation, we need stubborn people, we need kind people. We need olive branches and dismissals. I really hope the PTR is a hint at what's to come in 10.0. An expansion that focuses on the cultures of the Alliance and Horde, just as Legion did the classes. Let the war be over for good, but don't forget the losses each side suffered.
Any good story needs conflict. Which, in 90% of stories means someone's the bad guy. Doesn't mean one side has to be the bad guy, that's the secondary storyline: how do the characters around the bad guy respond to the "bad" that gets thrown. I have mains on both sides of WoW, my first character (who is now out of mothballs and being levelled again) is Horde. The mains I've had since Wrath have been Alliance, but I play the Horde at least a few times to see both sides of the arguments. It took me until Judgement to bring up the Horde character again, my main Alliance is a Night Elf and I've been pissed as hell since Sylvanas had the tree burned.I LIKE Sylvanas, as a baddie, she's been done well. She's interesting, there's a lot of flaws in there to keep her interesting. And I didn't think that this punishment was a cop-out at all, we'll not be seeing her again for a long time., there's a lot of souls to go find (and baddies for her to kill off). I've got artwork with her. I also read the book this week, it's good and explains a lot. I've not forgiven her, but at least I understand some of the "why". Genn is a ticking timebomb. He never bothered to find out what happened the day Liam died, that's covered in the book. Understanding isn't forgiveness, but at least he would know the remorse was there. I think he's going to be a problem in the future, without her to focus his anger on, he's liable to blow up over any minor thing. He also doesn't have his "adopted son" there to worry over, Anduin is going to go try to deal with the dandy case of PTSD the Jailer caused. He may be helping Sylvanas with the souls, he, above anyone else, knows what happened with the Jailer. In his stead, Turalyon is spoiling for a fight. I don't know how that's going to go on, but it's going to be interesting. And his actions may not be good news for Alleria. Or their son. If all the talk is right, our next expac with be the Dragonflight and we will have new things to carry this new-found (again) cooperation between the Horde and Alliance. All I ask is that they not make Wrathion the big baddy in this one. I like him. I hope he's back (there are rumors) and I would love to see Flynn and Shaw, Tessa, Tailiea, and Callia. I would love to see us have homes/houses, get more use out of the Class Halls. There's a long list of things I could want. But the most important is a good story. (and maybe a return to the high-end cut scenes we got with "Old Soldier")
Being Alliance mostly, I am fairly fond of Genn Greymayne. But I can't help but feel he might be toward the end of his character arc.One, he is old.Two, he is contentious and polarizing, and not diplomatic. Makes him useful in dramatic stories, but it also sets him up for death in battle at some point.Three, like Sylvanas, he often has poor judgment, although there's always a reason that his emotions are clouding it.Four, Anduin isn't going to need him forever, so unless they do something new with him...it might be time to pass on his mantle.
I hate how they focused so heavily on what Sylvanas did to the Night Elves. Yeah i get that she killed a bunch and burned their home, but you also have to remember that the night elves have a relatively small population on account of living forever up until recently, Teldrassil probably had like 20,000-30,000 people in it. Overall way more Humans and Orcs died because her actions and the 4th war which was her fault, on top of that way way more human and orc villages and towns would have been destroyed. Another thing is Lordaeron, when it was Under city it was still possible to recapture and rebuild, but now its totally uninhabitable, kinda like that big ass tree.
I'll be honest as a Horde main I didn't like Syvannas ever, but as a character she was well written character, always in the "morally grey" category. But that was until Legion hit, and all through Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands her character arc went down very bad to the point where she was just horrible crappy cringe villain and mistreatment other major lore characters. I do sympathize with Genn on her killing his son, but you keep forgetting that the Horde and Alliance were at war and the only time they do a "armistice" is when a "big bad" is around and they have to team up. War his a horrible disgusting thing, that is sometimes necessary unfortunately and an ugly reminder in how things get. Neither side signed a treaty on terms of war it considered a "war crime" unless its something that both sides agreed to or something crazy out of left field and sadly their is usually always causalities. Given its frowned upon on both sides to kill innocents and the use of biological weapons like what the forsaken had used, hence the internal faction conflict and the those that didn't support their leaders actions often, get sent people to get rid of the traitors including the "players". But anything goes in war, it don't matter half the time until the dust settles and everything is over with, and usually the victor is usually decides what is a "war crime" is by their own definition and the terms. Both sides have caused war crimes, whether intentionally or not, by our real life standards or at least in the western world. This is also coming from someone that plays both sides, because I like both of them for their own aesthetics and lore. Also being as objective as possible from a story and lore point of view.
Look at all these Horde posters with bad takes on Genn.One of the few characters that acts believably after the Horde blighted his homeland, killed his son, and then went for round two in his people's adopted home in Teldrassil. A Horde that has time and time again proven itself to be untrustworthy and willing to stab the Alliance the minute it's back is turned or it's advantageous to do so. If Genn was obsessed with revenge he would've been right there with Tyrande to chase after Sylvanas - instead, he stayed behind, the calm head that helped lead the Alliance after Anduin and Jaina were abducted and Tyrande left. His first thought upon coming to the Shadowlands was to see if Anduin was fine. He doesn't go out of his way to get into it with the Horde there, Lorthemar is the one to initiate the dialogue with a smarmy comment about the Alliance being able to heal, like Lorthemar wasn't also helping the Horde and fighting in Lordaeron to defend Sylvanas a few months (in universe) earlier. The only time he gets on edge is when the Horde player or Lor'themar saunter up and are like "well are you good now Genn? We cool after we did all of that stuff to you?"Genn is probably one of the Alliance characters who's actually decently written, and doesn't just get amnesia as soon as the next expansion logo flashes on screen. Jaina and Tyrande are both doing alright, and hopefully we see good things out of the Alliance expedition members (Danath/Turalyon/Alleria) in the coming expansions.