When Patch 5.4 drops, will Taran Zhu be able to resist a nigh overwhelming desire to say I TOLD YOU SO!!!! to some of the other factions in Pandaria?
On the one hand, I feel like I’ve already been spoiled more than I wanted to be about what’s coming in Patch 5.4. Even without reading posts that warn HERE THERE BE SPOILERS, the header images on various WoW Insider posts, newsbutton images at Wowhead, and post titles that I’ve seen in other blogs’ newsfeeds have spoiled some of the major environment changes.
On the other hand, knowing at least a little bit about what’s coming, as betrayed and sorrowful as it makes me feel, gives me time to run around screencapping the location that is going to be dramatically changed. I collected screenshots of the southern beaches of Krasarang Wilds in their pristine state shortly before Patch 5.1 dropped. I wish, now, that I’d paid just a little more attention to the news from the Patch 5.3 PTR, because I don’t have any screenshots of what the area that is now the Big Blossom Excavation site used to look like.
On a somewhat related note, as I rode past a couple of the yaungol fire-camps that now dot Kun-Lai Summit, I thought about the blatant hypocrisy of the Horde, as represented by General Nazgrim. Nazgrim pretends to help the pandaren, agreeing that the yaungol, who have been disposessed and want new and better lands to provide for their people, should be pushed back — when Hellscream and his Kor’kron want to do exactly the same thing to the very same lands. Why is it wrong for the yaungol to take Kun-Lai Summit from the pandaren, but not wrong for the orcs to take all of Pandaria from the pandaren? Playing through the storylines of the Horde invasion of Pandaria has made me feel rather uncomfortable about my own country’s history of colonization and Manifest Destiny….
Garrosh is indeed racist, which enables many mental gymnastics that might otherwise seem wrong. Sometimes I think there’s a bit of a general “eff you too” in it, considering that orcs were kept in prison camps by the Alliance.
I personally think that the dynamics have a lot to do with power too. (You can also argue that the colonization of the Americas had a lot to do with imbalanced power in weaponry, armor and diseases, for example, in addition to outright racism.)
The Shado-pan can do pretty much diddly-squat without the team of intrepid adventurers represented by player characters. The quests at the fallback and at Winter’s Blossom in KunLai (at the very least) make it clear they’re struggling to keep up with the demand for active fighters on multiple fronts – they just don’t have the pandapower to do a damn thing about Horde or Alliance in Pandaria. Pandaria has no clear ruler who could unite the provinces/zones in common defense, and the Shado-pan have had their own leadership issues with Taran-zhu getting possessed by the Sha.
If I’m looking at Varian Wrynn vs. Garrosh in who’s going to try to take full advantage of that power vacuum, I’m going to put my money on Garrosh being more aggressive. If you’re weak, you do not belong in his Horde. If you do not belong in his Horde, you are crushed beneath it. Yaungol, Pandaren, troll, goblin, blood elf, Alliance …
He wants his version/vision of the Horde to prosper, regardless of whether it comes at the expense of others. If they lose the fight, then their loss was deserved – they were weak.
Lots of great points here, Prinnie!
I’ve wondered a bit about the relationship between the Shado-Pan, the Golden Lotus, and the August Celestials. While the Shado-Pan in general are mostly focused on the Sha and threats from beyond the Wall, there’s that Shado-Pan unit and dailies at the Setting Sun Garrison in the Vale. It seems to me like the Golden Lotus are the intersection of a Venn diagram between the Shado-Pan and the August Celestials — a sort of sub-sect of the Shado-Pan that have been hand-picked by the August Celestials for the special task of guarding the Vale. And the Shado-Pan and the Golden Lotus *definitely* need our help. Of the August Celestials, only Serpent and Ox really seem to need our help, per se, against the threats now facing Pandaria; Tiger and Crane seem to be more about helping us answer the Big Question posed by the expansion as a whole: “What is worth fighting *for*?”
Pandaria has had this really rather amazing genial state of “central leadership? we don’t need no stinkin’ central leadership!” ever since the Sundering. It’s certainly one of the things that has allowed the Horde and the Alliance to sway the various villages to their cause, and it would definitely look “weak” to Garrosh’s “only the strong deserve to survive” mentality.
Still, I look at what little I know of what’s coming in Patch 5.4 and feel like Garrosh’s actions have caused us to horribly betray the trust placed in us by the pandaren and especially and specifically the Golden Lotus.
It makes me wish I didn’t have to play Horde to play Tauren.