What has become of the former Warchief of the Horde? The first shaman since the orcs’ fel corruption, the prophesied orc destined to lead his people to a better future, the World Shaman, the one chosen by the Earthen Ring?
It’s been a decade, ten years now, since Thrall lost the Doomhammer and seemingly much of his connection to the elements. While he still calls upon them from time to time, it has never felt the same. I’m genuinely confused about what Blizzard wants to do with his character. Why do they keep teasing him in promotional artwork, expansions like The War Within, and BlizzCon appearances when his story never seems to progress?
Thrall has become incredibly ineffective. Looking at the new leveling experience, why is he even there? He’s portrayed as powerless, helpless, and little more than a token Horde hero. Meanwhile, his counterpart, Jaina, is constantly changing the course of battles almost single-handedly. The sad part is that Thrall used to be portrayed as being at least her equal, if not stronger, and now all he seems to do is stand by and watch.
At this point, I’d rather Blizzard either give him meaningful character development or kill him off entirely instead of reducing him to the role of a glorified grunt.
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thrall needed to die in cata and fulfill his jesus role, maybe making garrosh go crazy in mop with a reason or smt
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Let’s all be honest: He retired.
And not in a cool, passing the torch gloriously – epic sort of way either …
Thrall retired →
Lamely.
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Thrall is, I remind for the hundredth time, a Moses figure, not a Jesus figure.
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Jesus figure in WoW would be Gul’dan no? 
Turns water at the Moonwell of Ashenvale into ‘special’ water.
Dies and eventually returns & brings about great change to Azeroth.
Sticks up for himself against a demon that seek to use him deceptively.
Unites many races and peoples of far across lands & kingdoms together.
Maybe if they skipped the whole Garrosh and the Gang Became Racists storyline in MoP the Horde would be in a much stronger place.
Garrosh needed to grow into his role like Varian did. Garrosh could have become a strong warrior chieftain. Thrall could live with his little family as a wise sage.
Lei Shen was a fantastic villain and could have carried MoP across the finish line. We didn’t need The Siege of Orgrimmar.
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Literally, just wish at this point that blizzard doesn’t touch him or give him his shaman powers back. Do one or the other, I hate him showing up only to stand next to Jaina n others doing nothing. He has become nothing more than a Horde poster child.
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That hasn’t been a thing for several expansions now.
Thrall was a good character and had the charisma to lead. During Cata though they kind of ruined him making him a world character which basically dissociated him from the Horde as a whole also made him responsible for all the terrible warchiefs that came next, which ruined the Horde as a whole.
Now in the game he isn’t even a leader, he is just another one of Anduins followers and basically is just Token horde inclusion and even then he’s barely present compared to the Alliance counterparts.
He needs a proper replacement like Garrosh was going to be but without the Racism craziness that Garrosh ended up being. A leader who is about the Horde and not playing nice with the Alliance. Sadly the Horde doesn’t have any characters left that meet that criteria.
Horde is kind of ruined short of bringing back a lot of long dead charcters. Hell, they have a great character who has just been sitting on the side for all of wow in Rexxar.
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There are few horde characters that are not even used yet like Samuro. He played a huge role in founding of durotar. It is a crime that he isn’t in wow yet.
There are others like orc with a short story in MOP, forgot his name as he never made it in the game either. Thralls kids to name a few.
Oooh there’s a prompt.
Unironically would have been a great story if Garrosh’s descent into madness came from learning Thrall wasn’t gonna take the chair back.
Like pretty much all of Garrosh’s problem cycle back to his insecurities. But what if they emphasized his impostor syndrome. He never sought the position of Warchief after all.
So what if instead of holding onto power desperately Garrosh was really waiting for Thrall to finally be done with his Earthen Ring nonsense and take back the mantle of Warchief so Garrosh could go back to being an Overlord. But then Thrall dies and Garrosh realizes he’s basically stuck and the burden of leadership slowly drives him insane.
In a way that kind of WAS the story but it got muddled in a bunch of other nonsense.
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I kinda feel like it started with the entire “Green Jesus” meme (I think the meme was about the spotlight not the exact function) and the writers went like “Okay then”. Been a while though.
Also look what happened to Vol’jin and Saurfang, I am not entirely sure we wouldn’t see fastforwarding the years of legacy into a temporary “High Stakes” display again.
I suppose Metzen would be inclined to give him some more screen time still. Maybe some struggle to connect with the younger generations, but instead of your average loopy grandpa, it would be how this gap in personal experiences is genuinely alienating and how much is actually worth carrying forward.
Still probably not a story for the average axe shaking mob tho 
Characters like thrall should be quest givers only and not Adventures, They should be used very rarely in quests and cinematic.
That way when we do see them take the field it feels like its should feel like an actual moment in the game that stands out.
These days it feels like we are just playing tag along with what ever writers pet is around at the time sometimes multiple and we are just bored of them. we are no longer working along friends and guild mates overcoming bad guys we are just babysitting the anduins, arators and thralls of the setting helping them with their impotency problems so they can do it.
Its bad writing for a MMO
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We barely done anything with thrall in the last decade. But yes I agree they should rarely be in quests. The issue is every expansion is a world ending threat, so major characters do need to be involved. This world ending threats need to stop.
We did back in Cataclysm and that is when these issues started where we playing second fiddle to a writers self insert. Some will point to Turaylon but honestly him and the Ashbringer were used more to release the player so we could defeat the Lichking which I would say was borderline too much.
We are playing a MMO not Warcraft 3, we make our own characters to play instead playing through the lense of a hero like thrall. We really don’t need major characters involved more than handing out quests for us the “champions” to do and overcome. Not walk Arator to point A so he can use his McGuffin power to beat the bad guy,
Supposedly that was the original plan for the character.
Rexxar was fairly prominent in BfA and even managed not to get ruined by that expansion. Let’s not push our luck.
It would have been a great story for a novel, or maybe even in the RTS games. But I don’t think it would have been fun to play through in an MMO where you’re just watching it happen, not taking the part of the main characters.
That’s fair. Honestly that’s one of the big problems with modern WoW narratives. It seems like the writers somehow don’t realize they’re writing for a live service game and playing around with the worst case scenario for something people care about induces anxiety not anticipation
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Yeah I never understand even now why kings keep fighting on the front lines. This started in like Wrath and never ended. You’re a king and you don’t have like 40 generals of the Alliance to show up? You gotta fly an airship directly into a swarm of demons to do big epik fight? The only one who should actually show up to play Marvel superheroes is unironically Sylvanas since she was a general.
Remember Anduin jumping on the siege tank? Go back to your chair in Stormwind pls
Cataclysm was 16 years ago. I’m not saying Thrall needs to be the central character again, but I do want him to feel relevant when he’s on screen. The new leveling experience is a great example of the problem. He spends most of his time standing around while Jaina single-handedly saves a Horde town and then goes on to destroy an enemy fortress by herself. Meanwhile, Thrall contributes virtually nothing. When one of Warcraft’s most iconic characters is present, he shouldn’t come across as useless or pathetic.
Unfortunately, that’s par for the course over the last 5 expansions or so.