Something that occurred to me during work today is that the reason the Warcraft Movie ‘flopped’ was the setting is so Lore-dense and heavy and they tried to cram the entire story into the movie, rather than the cliff notes and the important moments.
So rather than focusing on the ‘Main Characters’ in the TV series, I wanna pitch something to you, my fellow nerds.
Every Season is split into 6-7 episodes and follows a small group of characters involved in pivotal moments in Warcraft’s story.
1st Season follows a survivor of the Orc’s original invasion signing on with the Alliance army and fighting the Orcs alongside a Dwarven Rifleman and an Elven Mage, and while the trio bonds fairly well and plays nice together, they’re also witness to the political division within the ‘Alliance of Lordaeron’, the racial prejudices and the rise of Deathwing as ‘Daval Prestor’ who is actively trying to sabotage the Alliance of Lordaeron from within by using his sorcery to undermine the King of Lordaeron and foment unrest, rebellion and inflame the already tense political situations to keep the Alliance from winning.
They also are there at the battle of Blackrock Mountain where Lothar and Ogrim duel and witness the ‘Official Blizzard Stance’ ‘duel’ between the new Warchief and the High Champion of the Alliance of Lordaeron, and similar situations.
2nd Season follows a pair of fresh recruits into the Lordaeron Army after the Orc Wars who wind up under the command of Prince Arthas and follow his journey, encountering such characters of Jaina, King Terenas, Uther and even ending up in the retinue of Arthas himself sometimes, and we see these titanic figures both through the eyes of these fresh-faced recruits, and their truly Human sides as the season progresses, where Arthas is clearly an empathic and proud future ruler of Lordaeron and has a deep love for his land and his people, which twists the knife as we chase down Fel Orcs trying to summon Demons again, rumors that the ‘Free Orcs’ who broke out of the Internment Camps are trying to flee across the ocean, and the first beginnings of the Cult of the Damned rising to power.
One of these characters is devoted to justice, the other, to loyalty, and this works well for them until Andorhal, where one sides with Arthas, and the other sides with Jaina and Uther, and there the last four episodes split, two episodes per character, with the Loyal Soldier following Arthas to Northrend and follows to the bitter end, desperate to believe the embittered figure they still see as their light in the darkness is still the best hope for Lordaeron.
The Justice Character follows Jaina and we see her attempt to rally as many people as she can, months after Andorhal, as Arthas, now a Death Knight, scours Lordaeron and the surrounding regions of the Living, and has a final, climactic battle against their Loyalty counterpart, who has been turned into an Undead proto-Death Knight, now fully devoted to their ‘King’ in madness and in thrall to the Dread Blade, Frostmourne, before Jaina and her flotilla of survivors and soldiers sail away, following the Orcs across the sea to Kalimdor …
3rd Season follows a young Orc woman who has awakened to Shamanism, having been born in the Internment Camps and struggles to reconcile the ‘honor’ of her people with the horrors they have committed, and the lasting legacy of Blackhand and Gul’dan on the older Orcs, who in turn struggle to accept a woman as a warrior in some cases, and other Orcs who are desperate to rekindle their own faith in Shamanism, when the young Orc is just barely learning the ropes herself.
She walks alongside Thrall in some scenes, this titanic figure of messianic proportions, and also sees him struggling with the burden of leadership, of reigning in Grom Hellscream’s battle-lust and the deep scars that the Shadow Council left within the Orcs. The first three episodes establish her, her position in Thrall’s new Horde, and then the journey by sea to meet the Darkspears, where she meets an unlikely friend in a Darkspear Shadow Hunter as the Darkspear Troll Tribe is recruited and saved from the Sea Witch, and we get more insight into Orcs and Trolls that isn’t Alliance focused, before the next two episodes see us landing on Kalimdor, meeting the Tauren, fighting the Centaur, and Grom’s fall to bloodlust and re-enslavement by the Legion, before the rough Alliance between Alliance, Kaldorei and Horde begins to take shape …
The Fourth and Final Season introduces us to a pair of Sentinels, a Priestess of Elune and a Druid in Kalimdor, hunting down Satyrs who have begun to boil out of the darkest corners of the forests, and find hints of ‘invaders’ from across the sea. It is these Sentinels who, rather than listen to the Priestess and inflamed by the Druid, attack the Warsong Orcs for ‘desecrating’ the forests and kick off the conflict with the Outsiders, and then we get to witness their horror as a Fel-fueled Grom and his Fel Orcs butcher their way through hundreds of their allies and even slay Cenarius the Forest God.
It is through their eyes we see Tyrande as both the careful and empathic leader of their people, and the unflinching blade of their Goddess against any who would threaten them, and even meet Malfurion and witness the return of Illidan, the unification of the Alliance, Kaldorei and Horde to defend Teldrassil, and see the Legion burn their way to the foot of the World Tree before Archimonde is caught in the trap and destroyed by tens of thousands of Wisps, at the cost of the World Tree’s burning and their own immortality.
The problem we have is that WoW is so damn Lore dense, there’s dozens of things going on at all times, with dozens more perspectives and ‘sides’ to consider, that we can’t just cram it all into one thing and go “DONE!”, because it just makes a lumpy mess that satisfies nobody.
But what are your thoughts?