Deathwing may have caused the Cataclysm, but the leaders of the Horde have been quick to take advantage of the chaos.
The lands north of the Thandol Span now almost entirely belong to the Forsaken. The Alliance have been expelled from Azshara and the Stonetalon Mountains. Only in the Southern Barrens are the Horde losing any ground.
Is the war between the Alliance and the Horde close to an end, with a Horde victory? Are Sylvanas and Garrosh close to conquering the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor between them?
What, if anything, can stop the Horde warmachine?
Before I get into this topic, I first must state two things: 1) I am not a lore buff and 2) I am generally terribad with politics. Most of my arguments presented in this post are based off of what little I know/have heard, and what common sense tells me to be true. If I get facts wrong somewhere in here, by all means feel free to debate me and/or point me in the direction of a source or two that will help me in my Azerothian political education.
With that said I can how begin to debate the question presented to us: Are the Horde taking over Azeroth?
While they are indeed gaining some footholds in Azeroth, I don't think we (as in the Alliance) are in imminent danger of the Horde "taking over the world." There is always give and take of ground in contested areas. The two sides continually struggle over a territory to grant their side better resources or better positioning that helps them in their strategy of war against their opponent. Give and take of footholds will happen.
It just so happens that currently the Horde may have a bit of an edge over the Alliance. They have a new, more aggressive warchief at the helm. Sylvanas now has the Valkyr in her arsenal and is raising more new Forsaken at any chance she gets. The Horde recently also brought the rather crafty and almost sinister Goblins into their ranks.
What major changes have the Alliance received lately? They got the Worgen to join their team, who have a furry situation of their own with trying to deal with the Forsaken. Nothing else of note really comes to mind for me. Varian seems like a bit of a badass, but from what little story I've gleamed from him, he's not really stirring up a whole lot of...anything really...like Garrosh is for the Horde.
So currently the Horde have the bodies that enable them to make that push into the territories that the Alliance have been holding onto for so long. But - oh yes folks, there is a 'but' in here - while the Horde are able to currently push back the Alliance and gain new territories, they're having some pretty severe issues within.
- Many of the new Forsaken being risen are being done so against their will. They're not too happy about it.
- Some of the members of the Horde are somewhat horrified at the slaughter that happened in Ashenvale.
- Garrosh doesn't care for anyone it seems. Likewise Sylvanas doesn't seem to care for Garrosh, Vol'jin certainly isn't impressed by him, I'm sure Baine isn't a huge fan, and who knows what the Blood Elves think currently. A leader without the respect/trust/aid of his officers...problematic.
Thar be a great rift in the ranks, mateys.
While the Horde may be able to advance into the Alliance territories now, I don't think over all we'll see the Horde being able to hold it as a team for very long. Horde politics right now seem like they're shattering, or at the very least under a ton of pressure and are about to split apart at the seams. I touched on this topic last week, talking about the inner issues of each of the races, and how greatly the politics of the Horde have shifted in such a small amount of time. There may still be a lot of things going on internally that we're simply not aware of yet. I may have been mostly speaking about the moral values of the general Horde membership in that post, but I think that the moral differences will definitely play into whether or not the Horde is able to stick together as an alliance, and whether or not they will be able to claim these newly gained territories in the name of the Horde itself.
TL;DR version!
No, I do not believe that Garrosh and the Horde will take over the world and make Princess Leia slaves out of the ladies of the Alliance any time soon. They'll probably will however take over a few more areas before ultimately crumbling under the asshole/I'm-better-than-all-of-you leadership of Garrosh. Just a hunch. We shall see if I'm right or not by the next expansion or two.
