Thread by @DaveofCanada

Saurfang: in context, a thread.

Considering people are talking about BfA again, I feel compelled to address what I felt was one of the worst delivered stories during BfA: The Saurfang cutscenes.

Let's put them in context.

Saurfang's always been a fan favorite character since his inception, from gnomish mind control cap memes in the launch build to him leading a joint-faction effort in Ahn'Quiraj, people tended to like him.

The Mortal Strike memes may have faded, but they're not forgotten.

But the moment that resonated was WOTLK, in which Saurfang stands up against Garrosh's aggressive suggestions and demonstrates a nuanced interpretation of a traumatized war veteran.

This was when a lot of people stopped being fans of the meme, and became fans of the character.

There wasn't as many character moments in World of Warcraft at the time, and WOTLK delivered a poignant one using a character who was spoken in the same breath as mid-2000s Chuck Norris memes.

It stood out, and remains a highlight to many.

So we've set the stage: Saurfang is a powerful, wise and respected soldier with trauma stemming from his experience and time in the Old Horde.

This is the foundation from which his BfA arc will springboard from.

Let's see how that plays out. We'll be going by release order.

It's an important reminder than the opening cutscene for BfA was drafted far in advance to the narrative we actually got, per interviews.

It paints a very different narrative than what would unfold, and I'd love to do a cinematic analysis but that isn't why I'm here.

The crux of the opening cinematic is that the Horde is being slaughtered, people are dying and the Horde defense is failing.

Sylvanas sees this, drops down and does her rallying cry. "For the Horde" speaks to Saurfang, who rallies and charges into conflict with the Horde banner

As the tide turns and Saurfang and Sylvanas leads their forces into battle, he strikes Anduin away and would've finished the job if not for Genn stepping in and stopping Saurfang.

We'll come back to this.

As the cutscene proceeds, Anduin rallies the Alliance and Saurfang cheers as they charge headlong into battle with one another.

The Horde vs the Alliance. The story we're promised. The story we're sold.

A strong starting point, can't wait to see how this plays out!

A Good War.

The narrative backbone of the War of Thorns, the initial start of the conflict. Still available on the website for reading, it's a frustrating read but important as it's the foundation for everything to come.

Saurfang is demonstrated in A Good War and someone who'd stand up to Sylvanas if she'd lead the Horde down the blood-soaked roads of war, but pretty words sway him into invading Teldrassil.

Sylvanas acknowledges she can't do this without him, as the Horde wouldn't listen to her

After pages of conflict and Teldrassil burns, he's disgusted in himself because he loved it up until the adrenaline faded, and he realizes he's still a monster.

Thus begins his suicidal ideation, a reoccurring bit throughout BfA and one which permeates things to come.

And rather than trying to fix his mistake or help people, his immediate thought is abandoning it all.

He wants to die, leaving a disaster for others to fix and pay for his flaws in judgement.

How does this lead to the opening BfA cinematic, where he defends the Horde?

Old Soldier.

Saurfang--realizing he actually wants to die rather than thinking about it--tries to commit suicide by walking into the Alliance camp unarmored, leaving the Horde to Sylvanas and Lordaeron's defense to those stationed there without him.

He doesn't see the point.

Until a young recruit hopeful reminds Saurfang that the Horde isn't *just* Sylvanas, it's everyone that's part of it.

Saurfang's suicidal ideation was making him blind to the reality that the Horde is more than just it's leadership, and it's Zappyboi who'd suffer from it.

And that's why despite their differences and the great atrocities commit by the Horde, Saurfang returns and leads a successful defense against the Alliance and fights not for Sylvanas, but the youth!

... is what I'd say if we actually got that story.

In-game event, abridged for relevance.

Saurfang runs around a lot during the Battle for Lordaeron, a bit everywhere.

Horde players witness him in the opening, helping the evacuation effort in the Undercity. There's blight containers everywhere, but he doesn't seem to notice.

Suddenly he runs to the rooftops of the Undercity, to dissuade the use of the Blight after the tide starts turning against the Horde.

This will come up again later.

After the massacre of the Alliance's forces, Jaina arrives and pushes you back into the city with her magic flying boat.

Characters start asking, "Where's Saurfang?"

It seems after the rooftop scene, he ran away somewhere else.

While the player and soldiers are killing each other throughout the city, the leaders are fighting the other factions and the Horde leadership express annoyance with Saurfang missing from the defense.

Where'd he run off to? What happened to the defense of the Horde?

Horde players find him again where he appears from under the Undercity, and despite having been there with the player two moments ago he didn't put two and two together.

So he let us fight while going to explore, and he talks about how dishonorable it is.

He excuses first genocide and blighting your own soldiers, but blighting the Alliance invading force? No, too far.

Does he stand up against Sylvanas? Does he try to appeal to other Horde leaders? Does he *do* anything?

No, he decides he'll stay behind to get killed. Again.

Despite having a cutscene to showcase that suicidal ideation wasn't productive and others would suffer the consequences, Saurfang immediately returns to it within minutes of the cutscene.

Spared only by the Alliance arresting him instead of killing him, starting BfA's plot.

Well, Lordaeron is a bit unusual overall but it's not the first time cutscenes and in-game doesn't really line-up.

If it was just this, I'd probably be *okay* with it but he seems to be the only one who speaks out against the entire concept of the war so he's just written out.

Before we go into Lost Honor, I'd like to tl;dr since Lost Honor is... problematic.

Saurfang led the War of Thorns, regrets his enjoyment of it and wants to die. Zappyboi shows up and sways him otherwise, and Saurfang joins the defense to save the lives of people like him.

Saurfang proceeds to largely protest defense measures in-game before trying to get himself killed again.

If it wasn't for Lost Honor, you'd expect his disapproval of Blight and conflict to be about the conduct of war but, then we've got the next cutscene...

Lost Honor.

This is when I checked out completely from the Horde storyline, a cutscene which Anduin walks up to Saurfang and convinces him to stand up against Sylvanas.

Is it because of Anduin convincing Saurfang? Is it because of Saurfang moping? Is it because it's MOP 2? No.

It's because this dialogue completely recontextualizes the cinematic and the Lordaeron battle.

Saurfang was hoping the Lordaeron defense failed, he was hoping that the Alliance would win.

Was his protests about lack of honor or because Sylvanas was winning? Did he care?

What about Zappyboi and the others who Saurfang want to protect, their death be the cost he'd pay to remove Sylvanas?

I guess his rallying cry in the opening cinematic was fake, and he didn't care about "For the Horde"? Did he want to die because he knew Alliance would fail?

What's framed as Genn stepping in and defending Anduin is recontextualized to "spared u, was hoping you'd stop sylv :(" and it stands out like a sore thumb.

Saurfang's character is so thoroughly destroyed by this moment for me that I can't help but view everything negatively.

The Horde leadership saying nothing during genocide in BfA was awful. Being forced to commit genocide was horrendous.

Old Soldier gave hope that the story would show the Horde is worth fighting for.

Except he went off and tried to die, and was angry the Alliance didn't win.

To the Horde player, this is effectively confirming the Horde you're fighting for *isn't* worth fighting for. The entire premise of the expansion, serving no meaning. What does it serve?

Hype someone up about rebellion? The entire crux of the rebellion is Anduin's doing.

During Mists of Pandaria, Vol'jin starts his rebellion against the Warchief completely independent from the Alliance at great risk.

He pulls connections in his friends and allies within the Horde to join his side. He accepts Alliance aid begrudgingly.

Vol'jin is fighting *for the Horde itself* and shows great leadership. Saurfang has to be told by a twink that he's a good guy and that maybe he should do something.

Every patch, people lean closer to Vol'jin's ideals and talk about rebellion but buying time.

BfA Saurfang's rebellion he stand by and does absolutely nothing about it, and the Horde leadership does absolutely nothing in turn.

You'd get no expectation that people *hate* Sylvanas as Warchief until the plot demands it. It seems everyone is perfectly content with genocide.

Safe Haven.

I won't spend much time on this, since most of the issues with this cutscene come up in Reckoning, which is the last cutscene.

It's *fine*? But I'm not sure what the purpose of this scene is meant to be, aside from being a Thrall hype moment.

The fact that the main crux of BfA's emotional moments and quest payoffs is entirely relegated to the YouTube channel is really bizarre, and it makes Thrall suddenly reappearing in-game feel strange.

The NPCs act like you've seen the cutscene and know about it.

I didn't bring it up until this moment, but the same happens with Old Soldier.

Zappyboi appears in-game out of thin air, knows more than he should and you're expected to recognize him as the cutscene character despite never mentioned in-game once.

Likely a victim of meme relevance, Zappyboi could've been the heart of BfA if we'd seen the toll the war was taken on him and others like him who'd started off so optimistic.

But the story wasn't planned for people to cling to him, so he was made relevant after the fact.

Reckoning.

The grand finale. The huge hype moment that everyone was waiting for. The payoff to an arc that was entirely relegated to YouTube.

How did they culminate Saurfang's grand story?

What should've happened sooner in the storyline without the backing of Anduin, Saurfang finally returns to Orgrimmar and challenges Sylvanas for leadership.

He decides he'll fight for *his* Horde rather than getting people killed and hoping Anduin would do it for him.

Except the cutscene establishes that Saurfang can't win, that he's signing up for his death. That the Mak'gora will end badly for him.

"We don't get to hide" he echoes, words introduced to bring Thrall back to the Horde.

But what does that mean in this context? I don't know.

Not to get ahead of myself, the entire plan hinges on Sylvanas getting a bit upset and spelling it out for everyone to hear.

The quests leading to here has established that the Alliance and the rebellion has no chance to win against the army that Sylvanas commands.

If Sylvanas doesn't spell out the plan and convince everyone to defect from her agenda, then Saurfang is doing exactly what he did twice in Lordaeron: dying and trying to leave the mess for others to clean up.

Except there is none, Sylvanas would just kill them all.

The Horde was embroiled into a giant war that--according to canon--decimated both Horde and Alliance soldiers until barely anything remained, and Sylvanas was close to being able to wipe out remnants of both with just the Forsaken per post-Shadowlands reveals.

And yet we're expected to feel *inspired* by Saurfang finally deciding to step-in and do something long after everyone is dead, and his solution is being killed and letting Thrall deal with the fallout--whether it's leading the remnants vs Sylvanas or a fixing post-war world?

Saurfang finally gets what he wanted all along. He dies, and doesn't have to deal with the consequences of his actions. Everyone else does.

It just so happens that it worked out because everyone defected from Sylvanas calling them mean words.

And just to culiminate that I don't see anything worthwhile in the Saurfang cutscenes aside from high production costs.

They're gorgeous, but they're largely also responsible for my utter hatred of BfA as a narrative for the Horde and how it sabotaged every Horde character.