God, it truly is funny the consequences of Varian literally declaring war on the Horde in WotLK, only for Garrosh to be the one to “start it” … because he was reacting to the consequences thrust upon the Horde for WotLK. Unfairly, considering the Wrath Gate cost the lives of 4000 Horde troops too.
Cata was the point where Blizz really started taking this whole “The Horde HAS to be the antagonists for the Alliance, but the Alliance can never be antagonistic against the Horde” stance. Its where you see lots of whitewashing and burying the few Alliance grey acts under mountains of justifications really start taking effect. As well as an increasing lack of care for Horde motives and justifications; let alone validating those few we did get. That path to Alliance total moral absolutism was a tricky one in early years.
Well catas war was precipitated by alliance, especially night elves buuuut then they had Garrosh start it and just spiral from their. At the beginning you could’ve made the claim garrosh was justified as all other avenues to reinstate trade failed and only force would allow him to prevent his people from starving.
I still have no earthly idea why Garrosh was made Warchief. In Wrath he’s a petulant brat who literally has an outright temper tantrum when Saurfang is talking about logistics.
I cannot stress that enough. His reaction to being bored by hearing about supply lines was to jump up and down on a big war map and break the troop markers. That is the behavior of a poorly disciplined 9 year old who just lost a game of Risk.
The Darkspear intro is almost comical. Garrosh hasn’t been in for so much as a few years and he’s already alienated his closest allies so thoroughly Vol’Jin threatened to assassinate him last time they talked. And Thrall remains convinced this was a good idea.
I feel like he was selected because of Thrall’s misplaced idea of what would make a warchief good.
He looked at garrosh and went: “uncorrupted orc, populist messages, popular with our warrior culture.” And then he selected him thinking “what could possibly go wrong?”
But the story also kinda presents Thrall as being neglectful and that without his presencs of wisdom Garrosh was set up to fail.
Which I kinda feel is an unfair reading because I feel that it’s Garrosh’s fault that he’s no thoughts head empty, not Thrall’s fault. Garrosh isn’t Thrall’s puppy.
Same reason they propped up Sylvanas I’d wager. The original incarnation of Garrosh was supposed to serve as a more hawkish counterbalance to Thrall, but once Blizz decided to go “Green Jesus” they realized a “Aggro Counterbalance” to the Warchief of the Horde was not required. And, with them being noncommittal to Varian’s declaration of war … they needed a way for the Horde to be the aggressor. Thus, just like Sylvie, Garrosh was chosen. Since the Alliance cannot be antagonistic or aggressive, the Horde has to be.
I would be pretty mad if such a brat was appointed leader. The best justification for the Warchief position is that the most suitable person for the job could be placed there, but Thrall gave it the worst sort nepotism. The kind in real life that tends to result in some really terrible person and worker in the company.
Well considering garrosh’ personality is a product of Thrall going to nagrand and telling him about groms sacrifice you have him to blame for that, also Vol threatening to kill on multiple occasions instead of trying to help council definitely doesn’t help garrosh grow as a leader.
But you’re right Thrall should’ve appointed Cairne.
Also the appointment wasn’t supposed to be permanent, Thrall did promise to return after a few months.
It’s not like Garrosh couldn’t have known about the bad stuff Grom did though, given that he was depressed about it in the first place. Is that really supposed to be Thrall’s fault that Garrosh stopped taking the bad with the good?
I believe Thrall only hyped grom up and neglected to tell him how he drank demon blood a second time, so yah it emboldened Garrosh and made him not suicidal anymore.
Your point about Varian’s declaration of war in LK takes us to one of the most frustrating parts of what Blizz does - which is that there seems to always be a truce or a peace treaty in between xpacs even where it makes no sense.
Varian declares war in LK, but then apparently there was a truce between LK and Cata.
Cata seems like the Horde and the Alliance are in open war, but the Tides of War is written as if they aren’t or that there is a truce between the Horde and the Alliance, so Theramore is written as if it is a Pearl Harbour attack instead of an escalation of an already ongoing war.
Cata also marks the beginning of their habit of writing based on “different perspectives” so that we lose, to some extent, the ability to determine the facts of certain events.
Also, notice how whenever this weirdness happens its always the Horde thats forced into the “unexpected aggressor” role, while the Alliance was just sort of “minding their own business”?
Ok, but this should also be repeated again and again:
Thrall’s Horde was never meant to be the villains in the first place.
This was literally the whole point of Reign of Chaos and the Bonus Orc Campaign in The Frozen Throne (in which it was an Alliance leader, by the way, who instigated the conflict): that this is a new Horde freed from demonic corruption, and will now fight to protect Azeroth rather than attempt to conquer/destroy it.
While that was still portrayed fairly accurately in WoW’s beginning expansions, even with the faction war/system—largely because Thrall was still in charge—I do agree that it basically went out the window the moment he put a man-child like Garrosh in charge.
Garrosh wasn’t there to see what Grom had become. He wasn’t there at Mt. Hyjal. He didn’t witness Daelin Proudmoore’s prejudice and bigotry. He was literally absent for some of the most redemptive moments of Thrall’s Horde, and instead ended up taking it down the very same road they were trying to get away from.
Which Sylvanas also did, as Saurfang points out, but the story should never have reached that point to begin with—the whole “we is breaking da cycle” thing is so ridiculous precisely because the Horde had already broken the cycle.
It’s frankly disturbing to see just how ignorant the current writing team is of the game’s own lore and history.
Well just like in IRL Azerothian meritocracy lasts only until a rich or powerful man has an idiot son he doesn’t hate.
I do think Garrosh could’ve been interesting. The one we meet briefly in Stonetalon is pretty interesting even if it does feel like he’s one of the heroic Garrosh’s from the alt timeliness we’ve heard about. But Horde leaders can’t really be nuanced I guess. If they have any abrasive personality traits they’re bad guys who’ll have to be put down by Horde players like Old Yeller.
Slyvanas was similarly a waste of potential. A colder and more pragmatic Warchief could’ve been pretty interesting and she sure could give a good For The Horde. Instead though she had to murder as many people as humanly possible because she made a pact with the devil. Which I maintain would be pretty uninspired motivation for an 80s slasher villain, much less for one of the last still standing OG leaders of the original 4 playable Horde races.
Yes, it is part of their ongoing desire to keep going back over their “The Horde has not escaped its past, and needs to find itself” again and again and again.
Which is, of course, weird because it isn’t like the Alliance doesn’t have its own past to escape (Daelin, Arthas, etc etc) which they could write a story about the Alliance reckoning with. But apparently the Alliance sailed out of its past and into a shining future without needing to reckon with anything.
Ugh, they completely butchered that scene with Anduin’s attempt at “we had bad guys, too!”
Daelin, yes…but last time I checked, Arthas went rogue—he wasn’t even representing the Alliance at the time, and he certainly didn’t directly victimize the Horde.
Meanwhile, we have this other guy named Garithos, maybe you’ve heard of him? Kind of the reason the High/Blood Elves severed ties with the Alliance to begin with?
I don’t think that it is so much an issue of having directly victimized the Horde. I meant more that the history of Warcraft put plenty of skeletons in the Alliance’s closet that should have had more of an impact on the cultures of its member nations, how they think, how they act, what groups and entities operate inside of the Alliance. Some of those shouldn’t necessarily be sweetness and light, and they should do stuff that is antagonistic and drive the story. Rather than having us tread over the same worn ground of “Horde bad” over and over and over.