I realize this is all probably going to waste, but the entire Argent Tournament is actually extremely logical in it’s execution.
Imagine you are Tirion Fordring. You’ve drummed up a mighty army of soldiers, are equipped with the best equipment your limited coffers can buy, and have thousands of willing volunteers from both the Horde and the Alliance.
You land on Northrend, and immediately begin the final war against the Scourge. You hear word that the alliance and horde both put together an extremely large and well equipped army, marched on Icecrown, and failed dismally.
You grit your teeth, and make your own push into Icecrown. You establish a base, losing hundreds and hundreds of your loyal warriors to get there.You turn to mercenaries, heroes and adventurers of both the horde and alliance, more than willing to lend aid to your cause for some gold or just the chance to do something right.
You fight and you fight, smashing asunder the defenses of Icecrown Citadel, until finally you draw within sight of Arthas’ throne.
You look onto the fortress of your nemesis, the graves of your friends behind you. You set your teeth, and make the call for the final attack.
But… wait… where the crap did those adventurers you were relying on go? They were here just a minute ago… What in damnation happened here?
Rhonin sends you a message. He seems rather embarrassed, seems there’s some Old God named Frog So Long or something stirring up trouble.
Well, isn’t that just fantastic. Easily half the strength of your army left you to go dick around in Storm Peaks of all places!
You try to get them to come back.
Come save the world! The apocalypse is nigh if you do not act!
Yeah, yeah, they say. Like we haven’t heard that before.
So what do you do?
Well…
You bribe them.
You tell your advisers you want to build a tournament. A large tournament to summon all the powerful adventurers worldwide to come to your assistance. You realize you won’t be able to convince most of them to just help out of a sense of duty, so you want to offer shinies, lots of shinies.
Your advisers tell you that Crystalsong Forest is the perfect location. It’s pretty, secluded, heavily protected thanks to the presence of Dalaran, and there are ready supplies of lumber and stone.
No, you say, a cunning plan already formulated.
We’re building it in Icecrown.
Ablublahwuhbluhwhaaaa? Says your adviser.
—-
Tirion Fordring is a smart man. He knows he can’t beat Arthas without all the help he can get. He’s facing an enemy that outnumbers his forces by 18746985651986 to one. He can’t depend on either the alliance or the horde to help him, as both sides are far too busy dorking around in Wintergrasp, fighting for the chance to wear purple pants.
So how does he get these ridiculously powerful adventurers to help him? Simple. If they want purple pants, let them have purple pants!
Sure, he lets his advisers dress it up any way they like, blah blah morale, blah blah a way to unite the horde and alliance, but we all know the real reason. It’s simply a way for Fordring to entice the mightiest soldiers Azeroth has to come fight the bad guys.
Sure, one can preach about serving the light and doing what’s right, but when you want the job done, you need to open your coffers.
One thing you can’t argue with: it’s been successful. I mean, look at Tamarind. At first: “Yeah, I hate this instance”. Now? “Ok yeah I ran it for the epics D:”
You say Blizzard dropped the ball, I say Fordring is smarter than us.
To quote directly:
Something about uniting the Horde and the Alliance blah blah and doing something to, like, blah blah, morale, blah blah, concentrated strike force against the Lich King, blah, blah … oh look an epic.
How many people would do the Argent Tournament stuff to be friendlier to the other faction? How many would do it to be cheered up a little? How many would do it because it’s “the right thing”?
Now how many people would do it for the guarantee of grabbing loot?
The whole “oh look an epic” thing is exactly what Fordring had in mind.
As for jousting… well…
Anyone who thinks jousting would be useful against the Lich King himself is completely bonkers.
But you know what jousting is useful for?
Fighting the armies of the Lich King.
Have you ever tried fighting a Boneguard Commander on foot? It ain’t easy, is it?
Much easier to hit them on horseback for 45k in ONE SHOT, isn’t it?
What about all those infantry skeletons? Tried fighting them on foot? Isn’t it easier to just ride over them, one shotting dozens of them at a time?
That is the purpose of jousting.
And lastly…
Why build the tournament in Icecrown in the first place?
Imagine you’re Arthas. Your hated enemies have set up shop in your own freaking yard. And then they prance about on ponies, holding parties and getting drunk. And to top it off, all of your best efforts to destroy them turn into dailies your hated enemies farm for cash.
Come to think of it, Tirion is kind of a total dick, isn’t he? I mean, really, mocking the Lich King?! You go, Tirion!
I have been following your blog for well over a year now and that was by far the most entertaining and clever thing you ever wrote.
10/10
oh yes, A F’N 10!
[...] rep grinding (Aug 12, 2009) [...]
I lol’d so hard, man.
You win. Again.
Interesting points! I’m still skeptical to the whole thing, but it IS a slap in Arthas’ face to have it all right there in his back yard, so to speak…
I do think Tirion is too smart to ignore the threat of an Old God, he’d know that has to be taken care of… Arthas’ hasnt poked his head out since the Wrathgate, and he WAS hurt by the Forsaken’s plague stuff, remember.
So Tirion would be using this to start and consolidate forces in Icecrown as Yogg’s threat is taken care of, and to hand-pick the force to go in and take care of Arthas once and for all. He’d want the best precision strike team to go in and cut off the snake’s head, so to speak.
But this whole idea of watching those who fail’s bodies stack up in a gladitorial-style entertainment thing just strikes me as wrong for a paladin… and I’m rather surprised Thrall and Varian put up with it, since they are both out of a enslaved gladitorial background. Granted, no one is forced into this, but still… it just strikes me as wrong…
So while I concede you do have some good ideas there, I’m not won over.
I will follow Tirion through the gates of hell if it gets me new pants!!!
Funny thing about jousting…once upon a time, there was this type of unit on a battlefield called “cavalry” and they were greatly feared. For, as yet, the common soldier had not yet invented that anti-cavalry weapon known as the Long, Sharp Pointy Stick (remember, some men are longer than others and yer muther’s been tellin stories aboot me again) and so cavalry reigned supreme as the most terrifying and effective unit to hit the battlefield since sliced bread (don’t be fooled, sliced bread is deadlier than zombie pirate ninjas…WITH FANGS!)
Those cavalry rider, though, they had to practice somehow…had to figure out SOME way to teach the younger lads how to run down a “squad” of farmers armed with little more than pitchforks and shovels (you know, without actually running down peasants, the peasantry gets uppity when you do that.) Thus they invented “the joust.”
Mmmmm…cavalry…
You just totally restored my faith in Tirion Fordring. The Tournament is still total bollocks, of course, but I can always point to this post to justify my slavish fanboy devotion to Tirion from now on!
Bravo, sir. The whole thing was ridiculous to me before, but you’ve managed to legitimize it, at least a bit, in my eyes.
You should probably read http://needmorerage.blogspot.com/2009/08/is-big-pile-of-horse-poop.html if you haven’t, though. Would probably give you a laugh
This is why I love you and your blog! Good stuff.
That was hilarious! =)
I always loved Tirion, at first out in the middle of nowhere in the plaguelands. Now he’s a major player. Thats what I call moving up in the world.
Wasted this article was not. I was laughing enough to cry, then sent it to other people who don’t even play WoW and they loved it.
“Come save the world! The apocalypse is nigh if you do not act!
Yeah, yeah, they say. Like we haven’t heard that before.”
I lol’d so hard at that.
Two thumbs up, Tirion!
I’ve been wondering for day now why the hell everyone is partying and playing in the Lich Kings back yard. The whole thing didn’t make any sense to me at all. Well until I read this post. LOL funny stuff
Cheers, my fellow mage. This was a mighty fine argument.
Yet again, I feel like I need to play the original games to get a complete sense of the lore behind all of this. I really one day just want to sit down and read “Warcraft, a History” Hermione-style.
However, you made me laugh a lot, and I actually had been saying some of the same things to my friends. Especially since many of them have not done a lot of icecrown quests, so they don’t know much about it yet. They got to 80 and started raiding, forgetting all the cool storylines Blizzard provided.
Restores my interest in questing every once-in-a-while.
That was absolutely hilarious!
“Simple. If they want purple pants, let them have purple pants!”
I literally lol’d. I had to hide behind my cubicle so now one could see me cracking up.
Just found this blog today. Will have to bookmark you.
^
no instead of now. An editing option would be super.
You have a point. It is rather hard to convice so many adventurers to come and fight the Lich King for the good of the world. As Arthas himself says to the players “Is it truely righteousness that drives you? I wonder.” If the players weren’t dead they’d probably say “No, its the desire for epics”.
Nevertheless, I don’t believe it reflects upon Tirion himself. He is doing this because of righteousness, holiness and justice. Thats why I like him so dang much – I intend to follow those examples in real life.