Now, we’re all mostly familiar with Gul’dan. One of the singularly worst individuals within the setting, an Orc so twisted, inside and out, that he willingly doomed his whole world as much for spite and revenge as any other reason, and dreamed of joining the Legion’s upper ranks and helping them burn all of Creation down to ashes without even flinching, and might very well have succeeded if his lust for power and sadistic nature had not gotten the better of him.
But nobody is born evil. We are all shaped and forged by the environment around us, by the people who raise us, and the care, or lack thereof, we receive. Or rather, that’s hope things are supposed to be.
Gul’dan did not come out of the womb cackling maniacally. And we see in the Warlords pre-release movie, Harbringers : Gul’dan, that he had more than enough reason to hate and loathe his own people, that his ‘only predators and prey’ view of the world, and his place within it, came from the abuse and ableism of the Orc Clan he was born to, where a cripple had no place within their ranks, to never been seen or heard, to just exist on the periphery and endure any abuse, from any other able-bodied Clan-member, with silent acceptance.
Orcs, as a whole, tend to value strength, and not just physical might. The ability to endure, the ability to be self-sufficient, and the ability to help provide for the greater good all fall under that broad umbrella of ‘strength’ to an Orc. Draenor was not a particularly kind world to live on, and without the Clan, life could be measured in years, rather than decades. The weak could measure that lifespan outside of a Clan in months if they were lucky, days if they were not.
A cripple like Gul’dan, born deformed to a race known for their belief that the Spirits sent omens to their people regularly, and that only the strong could survive the relentless and pitiless trials of their world? He must have been born and seen as a great and dire omen for the Clan. How badly would his parents have been reviled for his birth? How terrifying to be a child, to reach out with that need for companionship and comfort, only to get rejected and shunned at every turn. And worst of all, being a cripple, he would never be able to be ‘useful’ to the Clan in any way that would enable him to receive that companionship and empathy that is needed to help one become a well-rounded individual.
From what we can see, from his in-game, cinematic and novel depictions, Gul’dan was born with two very debilitating conditions. The first, and most obvious, seems to be kyphosis of some sort, creating his hunch-back silhouette, extreme even amongst the Orcs, and from what we saw in the Harbringers cinematic, muscular dystrophy of some kind, due to the extreme thinness of his upper arms and thighs in comparison to the bulk of his lower legs and forearms. Starvation from being an outcast even before being exiled from the Nameless Clan also played a part, but his form was irregular, lumpy and distorted even before then. He needed a cane just to pull himself upright, and without it, Gul’dan was reduced to crawling on all fours to reach the Throne of the Elements.
So we can immediately point out that Gul’dan had pretty much no hope of a normal, happy life within the Nameless Clan. Ostracized and beaten on a daily basis, his own Chieftain treating him savagely at every turn, and consumed by bitterness and apathy, even going so far as to tell the Chieftain “Get on with it.” when surrounded and being stoned and beaten by the warriors of the Clan, as if to say either kill him, beat him up or just leave him alone, it made no difference to Gul’dan.
And then we see the Clan’s Elder Shaman, who channels the Elements to create a thunder-boom to command the other Orcs to leave Gul’dan alone. And we meet the one member of the Nameless Clan that does not seem to perceive Gul’dan as a burden, a foul omen or a punching bag, who sees within Gul’dan ‘greatness’ and honestly seems to love and care for Gul’dan, and has, by his own words, tried to help Gul’dan find a place amongst the Clan, and he doesn’t blame Gul’dan for this, he blames himself, he says he failed. And he says, with a heavy voice of pain and regret, that there is nothing more he can do for Gul’dan, but that he has always seen greatness within Gul’dan, that if he goes to the Throne of the Elements, he may yet find his destiny. And the shock, the hurt on that Shaman’s face as Gul’dan slaps his hand away is telling. This is somebody who cared for Gul’dan, who was probably one of the few members of the Nameless Clan who was willing to risk censure and social isolation to care for and socialize with Gul’dan.
In his bitterness and pain, did Gul’dan hear those words as meaningless gestures, as mockery, or was it simply he had come to view that one lone thread that prevented him from simply ending beneath the fists of the Nameless Clan as the greatest torment of his life? He would have no mate, no friends, no camaraderie or respect, he would always and forever be Gul’dan the Cripple, Gul’dan the Burden, Gul’dan the Shamed. Or was it compassion, knowing that if the Shaman kept going against the will of the Nameless Clan to protect him, that eventually the one person who would openly show compassion and kindness to Gul’dan would in turn share his fate?
Regardless, Gul’dan’s return to the Nameless Clan sees that same Shaman whisper his name with shock and surprise. Because here is Gul’dan, no longer bent double beneath his deformities, standing straight and true, thin but alive, proud and defiant, whole and no longer needing a crutch simply to stand on his own two feet. To the Shaman, this must have been a miracle, a blessing from the Elements themselves … until the Nameless Chieftain pushes past and immediately tries to dominate and belittle Gul’dan again … and gets a rude awakening on what it means to have ‘no people’.
Gul’dan finally had the power he needed to stand up for himself. And he did, in the exact same way that the Nameless Clan had taught him to, mercilessly, mockingly, with savage cruelty and humiliation as the Fel that had ‘cured’ him of his deformities lashed out, cursing the strong, the proud and the arrogant with weakness and pain, forcing hulking warriors and cunning hunters alike to their knees, their bodies folding up as they were consumed from within in a mocking echo of the same deformities that had caused them to torment Gul’dan all his life. And that Shaman, lying on the ground, watching all of this happen, is stunned, unable to process that the Nameless Clan is dying all around him, before Gul’dan, who kneels down next to his only friend and we see the first honestly soft expression on Gul’dan’s features in the whole cinematic.
“Thank you.” The Nameless Shaman looks up, confusion and loss on his face, before Gul’dan tells him. “I found my destiny.” And then immediately incinerates the Shaman, a quicker, if not kinder, death than what the rest of the Nameless Clan would experience, and then Gul’dan takes up the staff of his former guardian, now charred and Fel-scorched, and walks out of the village that is being consumed down to ashes by the Fel. There will be no remains of the Nameless Clan, nothing but Gul’dan.
No trail to lead others back to Gul’dan’s past. Nothing to hold him back from his Master’s plan for the Orcs, to use them as a bludgeon to hammer the Draenei into extinction. A Master as cruel and broken as Gul’dan and who tells him no lies, no false hopes, just a simple truth. Succeed and be rewarded, fail and be punished. To remake this world in Gul’dan’s own image, broken and deformed in both body and spirit.
And we see, later on after misleading the Orc Clans to first attack the Draenei, and then accept the Fel into their veins, Gul’dan lets the veil slip, revealing himself fully to the Orcs and the world around him. The Shadow Council, when they took the Fel into themselves, became beautiful (by Orc standards) or hideous mockeries of bulging muscles and serrated tusks, but Gul’dan? He let his deformities return, adding those spines growing from his back alone, a return to the pain of his existence to remind himself of what had made himself great, and to ensure others would always underestimate the Grand Warlock, to let them see only a cripple, and not the greatest predator on Draenor. He would break this world until it was lower and more debased than even himself, and then would he rule.
But it begs the question, if we’re told that Gul’dan always becomes a monster in every timeline, is it because of the Nameless Clan, or is it because of Fate? We’ve seen timelines where individuals who are monsters in our history be lauded heroes or great champions in others. That in every single potential timeline, the Nameless Clan were the Village Hidden In The Leaves ramped up to a thousand? No, it seems that Fate decreed that Gul’dan was and always would be a champion of Darkness, a spiteful and relentlessly cruel mockery of everything an Orc could be, and that strikes me as both tragic and narratively unsatisfying. With no family, no Clan, no social interaction that didn’t ultimately end in Gul’dan being beaten and broken, there was no hope for him to ever be more than a psychopath even before the Legion found him. And that in turns raises questions about the other villains of the story, and the heroes. Was Arthas always fated to become the Lich King? Was Varian always destined to become a great hero? Was Azshara always intended to become the doom of her people and the bane of Azeroth’s people? Was Thrall always destined to be a messiah and leader to his people no matter the cost to himself and the world around him?
There’s so many problems with ‘Fate’ in a setting because it can threaten to unravel any hope of free will and meaningful choice with a character. Fated to be a villain? It won’t matter how good you are or how hard you try to save people, Fate will twist every action around you, both yours and those who interact with you, to create the role it deems you must fulfill. And given that we meet plenty of anthropomorphized beings of universal constants, such as Time, Life, Death, Seasons etc, there’s a good chance there is a Fate-entity out there that, just like the Arbiter, mechanically and emotionlessly setting people on pre-destined paths and building a whole system around keeping people in their lanes, no matter the torment they cause or suffer as a result.
This doesn’t excuse Gul’dan and what he does, but it does explain him somewhat.
Was he a monster forged by the savagery of both Draenor and his Clan and then honed by the machinations of his Master within the Legion, or was he a tool for Fate, relentlessly pushed in the direction the system needed him to go to achieve further goals, and abandoned as soon as it no longer required his existence in the program? Gul’dan certainly had plenty of choices to not become the Grand Warlock and all the horrors he created and set into motion, but it also begs the question, if Fate hadn’t gotten involved, would Gul’dan have become anything more than just another sad byproduct of the meat-grinder that was Draenor? Would he have found a better path, or just been beaten to death? If not for Fate, would Neltharion have ever been corrupted by the Old Gods and betrayed everything he once stood for? Would Sargeras have fallen to the whispers of the Dreadlords?
What of us? The Champions and Heroes of the Alliance and the Horde? We’re told over and over that we are ‘shrouded’ in the timeways, that our futures and actions cannot be predicted. Does that mean we are severed from the control of Fate, or is it Fate that is protecting us so that we may achieve its end goals? Do we actually have free will, or are we no more and no less pawns than the people and creatures we face?
And what will happen to us, when our role in Fate’s grand designs comes to an end?