Character Deaths in WoW

Lore Story Forum
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I was thinking about this lately and very few major heroes in WoW ever get killed off. I’m going to clarify real quick, when I say heroes, I mean they die AS heroes, not them getting hit with corruption or a villain bat. I specify this because this way of killing of characters (Kael’thas, Lady Vashj, Staghelm, Benedictus, Nazgrim, Ursoc, Ra-den, etc.) because it has long been criticized on the WoW forums as being cheap and often seen more as annoying rather than tragic or otherwise impactful (main exception being Ysera).

Up to WotLK, pretty much the only death that I can think of was Dranosh Saurfang, In Cata we lost Cairne and Krasus in the books, Rhonin in the pre-patch for MoP, Maraad and Taylor in WoD, a 3-in-1 with Varian, Vol’Jin, and Tirion during Legion (and debatably Ysera, but that could fall under corruption), Varok Saurfang and Rastakhan in BfA, and nobody in Shadowlands or Dragonflight (so far).

Dranosh was a Horde character, Cairne, Krasus, and Rhonin were all book-deaths (with Krasus and Rhonin only being major players in the books), Maraad was mostly just an Alliance character whose relevance was in the comics, Taylor immediately came back as a ghost garrison follower, Vol’Jin is reincarnating, Ysera seems to be coming back, and Rastakhan was only onscreen for 8.0 and died 8.1.

In terms of deaths that would likely have an emotional impact on players of both factions, that leaves Cairne, Varian, and Tirion as characters who died as heroes, not as quest fodder or loot pinatas. Of these, Tirion was literally ONLY brought back to show up and die; if you count the Ret scenario we essentially watch the guy die on-screen twice (which was always weird to me).

I’m not saying we should start pulling a GoT or TWD here, but we keep adding more relevant characters who barely have any screen time (the Forsaken have a council of 4 guys of which I only recognized 2, the Pandaren leaders STILL have almost no relevance, and half the Allied Race leaders went offscreen as soon as they joined) without killing off characters unless we need a new raid boss. The Jailer literally took Thrall, Jaina, Baine, and Anduin and they ALL survived; surely, we should have lost SOMEONE there, right?

It makes it hard to feel like there are stakes when the only people dying are side characters or nameless off-screen masses. In Legion, outside of the Broken Shore (literally the first 30 mins), the stakes were pretty non-existent as far as the Burning Legion went (you could argue Ysera, but that was mort Xavius/N’Zoth than the Legion). In lore they were throwing the world into chaos, but from our perspective there were barely any other casualties AND we beat them on their home turf without losing anyone else.

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Yeah I really don’t have any disagreements with what’s been said here, Blizzard wants the emotional pay off of someone dying yet they don’t really put in the legwork for it. Especially with how many “main characters” we serve as vehicles for telling their stories in this game, it is hard to form any real attachment when to them when we’re playing 3rd fiddle to them, we’re not even treated as a person, a friend, a confidant. Despite the years our characters have served saving the world from the brink of destruction and becoming “champion”, idk it all feels rather impersonal to me.

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I wouldn’t put Nazgrim in this list. He wasn’t corrupted by anything other than a sense of loyalty to his Warchief. He knew Garrosh had to be stopped but couldn’t bring himself to betray his Warchief personally. Hence why he allowed Thrall and Varok into Orgrimmar to try and depose Garrosh.

If you are horde, his encounter is played as a tragedy and he has no ill will against you when you defeat him. He is also proud of Gamon for standing up for himself.

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Fair point, I think when I wrote that I lumped him in on the “villain bat” side of things since I forgot the tragedy part for Horde players.

That said, his death ultimately meant nothing at this point since he has been a DK since Legion; probably being an even more egregious example of what they did with Ysera and Vol’jin coming back, since at least they are reincarnating and not just being resurrected in their previous form.

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King Lane

Varian Wyrnn

Vol’jinn

Cairne,

Rhonin,

Korialstrasz,

Ysera,

Admiral Taylor,

Tirion Fiordring,

Marad

The Good Guy Roster has taken quite a bit of trimming.

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You don’t consider Vol’jin to have died as a hero?

It was an undignified death in service of shifting the spotlight to Sylvanas, but he absolutely died with his integrity as a hero of the Horde unblemished.

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It’s such a shame his tenure as warchief was so brief, and he didn’t do much of anything. Was truly the worst narrative decision.

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Sorry, I think I worded it weird, Vol’Jin died a hero but his death is undercut by him reincarnating and having had his story confirmed to not be over all the way back in Legion (as far as I remember)

Compare that to Tirion or Cairne who are still just dead and Vol’Jin’s death feels less like a hero dying and more like an Illidan situation, where he is just written out for a bit.

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I agree that there haven’t been a lot of (major) character deaths in WoW, but I’m not sure that needs to change. Character death is not the only way to show the danger of a new threat, and I’m not sure the writing team could consistently pull off emotionally fulfilling stories if characters died so often - neither stories for the characters who died, since it would all too easily feel like the Worf Effect, nor for the characters who remain, because it’s harder to get invested when the character may keel over at any moment.

As I see it, there’s a few ways of doing a character death well* (*Individual tastes will vary, and that’s why having too many character deaths is very dangerous for a setting.)

  1. The heroic arc - the character has been in a dangerous situation, is fully aware of the dangers, and chooses to put themselves in a fatal or near-fatal situation in order to accomplish a heroic goal. The character’s dangling plot threads have been almost entirely wrapped up beforehand, so the audience is not too surprised by the death, but still saddened based on the emotional weight of the scene. (Varian, Ga’nar)
  2. The tragic arc - the character spirals down towards their death because of frequently-shown character flaw(s). Their death at the end is not a surprise, simply a conclusion, and the audience is left feeling both sadness and relief. (Maybe Garrosh? Sylvanas if she actually died? I don’t have a good example, but I wanted to include this category anyway - I think the factions should have some more flawed characters who follow this.)
  3. The surprise - the death is not foreshadowed (and thus should be done very infrequently), but is still a clear consequence of the character’s actions. The non-cynical audience is surprised, and the story has to spend enough time on the death’s aftermath and aftereffects to settle them. (Ysera)

When I think of characters with epic send-offs, I think primarily of:

  1. Bolvar and Dranosh (A mix of the heroic death and surprise death, with significant and long-lasting aftereffects)
  2. Varian (heroic)
  3. Ysera (surprise, with lots of story afterward reflecting on it)

The other major character deaths, I feel, didn’t have either enough build-up or enough reaction. Vol’jin, for example, was probably supposed to be a heroic/surprise death, but had little build-up or foreshadowing and thus rung hollow - especially since it was at the same time as Varian’s heroic death. Teldrassil and Cairne’s death, meanwhile, are clearly in the surprise death category, but without enough follow-through to settle the anger they generated. Both raised the potential for a juicy story… but the story shifted focus and didn’t live up to that potential, making the death(s) feel like an immense and painful waste.

So, my main worry is that the most effective and least audience-off-putting deaths require a long lead time, story focus, great writing/cinematography, and reasoning that the audience finds acceptable - and those are hard to churn out without making every other death lose its meaning.

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