I never liked Thrall mind you Cataclysm made it sealed infact. Because now I know my distaste in him was always justified. And with Calia we can pretend she isn’t the real leader for the forsaken so she maybe outvoted by the rest of the council any time they make a decision.
And my hate to him will stop when the Orcs finally have good land. Especially knowing now how great Draenor actually was before it went boom.
I don’t mean Calia (although I dislike her too). I mean the bit where Golden claimed that Forsaken had always been forbidden to think about their past, when Undercity used to be the best place Hordeside to find history books.
And let me guess, you disliked Thrall because he was “raised by humans” and “didn’t have true orcish values”? Because that’s a retcon plus fan interpretation/overreaction too.
Thrall is more human because Taretha hugged him once. He didn’t meet other Orcs until he ran away from Blackmoore. Retcons be dammed if you want to redeem him make him admit his mistakes and break all tents and abandon Durotar/Barrens for good.
Actually, I think it’s probably too late to make Thrall cool again. But I do think he was cool once, and all that nonsense about him being “more human than orc” from the start is just that, nonsense.
Thrall is pretty redeemable, they just need to commit to keeping him in the setting rather than playing housecat. That doesn’t mean he’s got to be plot relevant all the time, but no more screwing off to play stardew valley in Nagrand. Giving him a big blowoff when his ED arc is finally resolved for good will do a lot of work.
Calia, and to a lesser extent Baine are the ones that I don’t see ever really getting past their earlier story woes.
Calia and Baine exist because Blizzard needs characters that are willing to betray their own faction in favor to the alliance. If they don’t exist the peace time is over and we are back to being at war with each other again.
Yeah, but Shamanism, orcish clans, the mak’gora, the kosh’harg, their warrior traditions are all apart of orcish culture. Let’s not forget also that a rather big story beat for the orcs is that much of their culture from Draenor was lost when an entire generation grew up in the internment camps.
Be better, man.
In my opinion, this depends on a number of factors.
The sad orc storyline really needs to come to a close. Struggling to reconnect to the elements after having done so in Shadowlands is pretty lame and boring. They gave him back Doomhammer’s armor, but not the Doomhammer itself.
We’re well past the point Thrall’s biggest issues should have been resolved.
I think, if Blizzard takes advantage of the end to the faction conflict to dismantle the two factions to their core races (Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes for the Alliance, and Orcs, Tauren, and Trolls for the Horde), installing Thrall as the Warchief once more would probably work out pretty well. As is, the Horde is overwhelmed by races that complicate their internal relationships due to conflicts that have never been addressed and, as a consequence, were never resolved.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but no fewer than three of the Horde’s races should have had SOMETHING to say about courting the Zandalari during BFA. The Forsaken’s role in the Orcish Internment Camps when they were alive, again, is something that was never addressed. Blood Elves watched their loved ones torn apart, alive, by the undead, but never so much as flinch around the Forsaken. So much has to be swept under the rug to keep the Horde held together.
Boil the faction down to it’s core, and go from there.
When did it get swept under the rug? The Horde story outside of the core 3 races has always been about how it was an alliance of convenience and desperation that got tighter overtime as they dealt with shared crises
He can be improved from what he is now, but I don’t think he’ll ever get back to what he used to be in the first few expansions of WoW. Which is sad.
Whenever a new race joins the Horde, in effect.
Forsaken join the Horde, and the fact they were the humans who ran the internment camps is never mentioned. The mental image is just… imagine an Orc shouting at some Alliance human about how awful the internment camps were, and there’s a Forsaken standing right next to them going, “That’s right! I’d know, because I’m the guard who kicked his father to death right in front of him! It was pretty funny, actually.” Meanwhile the Orc just keeps screaming at this human from Stormwind.
The Horde courts the Zandalari, and the Nightborne have nothing to say, the Blood Elves are wandering around Dazar’Alor as if it’s a hot tourist destination, and all the Pandaren can think about is how cool it’d be to punch dinosaurs, not even a LITTLE BIT wary of the people who literally just helped the Thunder King not more than three expansions ago.
That’s part of the problem, in my opinion. We could have had stories where all this was addressed, and they would’ve been pretty interesting stories if done right.
That would actually be funny and fitting for the Warcraft humour that blizzard forgot a long time ago.
To be fair, this problem isn’t unique to the Horde. But this is a Horde thread, so it’s fair to focus on the Hordeside implementation.
Fun fact: All of the known internment camps are in the subcontinent called “Lordaeron”.
There is no internment camp of any kind in Stormwind or Kul Tiras.
Don’t the Forsaken claim that they are the rightful citizens of Lordaeron? How come the Orcs never confront them about that whole “locking us up inside of internment camps” business?
What’s this I smell, Ah Yes, it must be the usual Horde bias.
No, there was at least one in Arathi. It is the place now known as Hammerfall.
Where is Arathi Highlands? In Khaz Modan? In Azeroth?
Unbelievable.
And it was a joint effort between the remaining Alliance races, but I really don’t think it’s that big a sticking point with Thrall or even most of the older orcs given they absolutely detested what they were under the bloodlust and generally let the camp guards leave peacefully if they surrendered
It used to be a separate kingdom from Lordaeron, is my point.
Cool. Doesn’t change the fact that the Orcs never confront the Forsaken for establishing the Durnholde Internment Camp in which Thrall himself was kept, as well as Southshore Internment Camp where Grommash (legendary hero of the Orcs) was kept shortly before the exodus.
Meanwhile, while Stormwind served as the base for the authorities of the internment camps under Lord Danath Trollbane, and Kul Tiras/Proudmoore launched an invasion of Durotar, there is no records of any internment camps of any kind in Stormwind or Kul Tiras.
I agree that Thrall used to be great, but those days are over and Thrall could have been redeemed in Shadowlands just like Baine. But in the end, the writers decided that Baine would just sit around in Oribos while Thrall would be unable to pick up a weapon and then throw it at the enemies… Don’t forget how they end Thrall’s depression all at once. Then out of nowhere he got his old armor back for member berries.
I was hoping that Thrall would get in Shadowlands what Jaina got in BfA. In fact, Jaina has more screen time than Thrall and Baine combined…