I have been wondering what the point of Thrall in Shadowlands is…or what the point of Thrall is at all, nowadays. They seem to be keeping him around even though he’s been depowered and made largely irrelevant. And he’s in Shadowlands, doing something.
Are they going to bring his shamanism back, maybe? Could Draka help him get back in touch with his roots?
What elements got to do with the underworld?
I didn’t say it’d make sense. 
They’re definitely planning something with Draka and Thrall. It can’t just be a reunion and then that’s the end of it, can it?
No but I can be certain that it will be really stupid.
Calling it now: it’ll be a wink and a nod to the scene between Thor and his mother in Endgame.
(Observation): Shamanism deals in 6 specific powers, if I recall correctly. Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Spirit, and Decay. I imagine Thrall might be able to regain his powers by forging a connection to Spirit and Decay.
Actually, come to think of it, isn’t the afterlife the perfect place to get in touch with Orcish shamanism? It’s ancestor worship, right?
Why did he even lost his powers?
Some kind of brainblock after he killed Garrosh. It was supposedly because using shamanism in the mak’gora was cheating and the elements turned on him for it, bu A) the elements have been shown to not care about that sort of thing and B) he used it in a mak’gora before, with Garrosh, during the WotLK pre-event.
They then changed it to be, vaguely, because he’s lost touch with a part of himself or has been so deeply affected by what happened with Garrosh that he doubts too much to use it. Really, we don’t know for sure at the moment.
If it’s a case of brainblock, then Draka could probably help. If it’s more to do with the elements, then probably not.
This is what I was thinking. Elementals are naturally neutral and chaotic and don’t care for the rules or boundries of societies.
So just a narrative way for Metzen to leave the scene.
Kinda cruel from Tyrande to expect from wet noodle Thrall to retrieve the head of Sylvanas while she oneshoted Saurfang easyly.
Nah, she’s gonna teach him rogueism.
The Thrall/Tyrande thing is actually one of my favorite stories spinning out from BFA? LIke, it’s not cruel of Tyrande. She’s basically told him, in one of the most brilliant scenes in any of the books, that “You can’t make this up to me. It’s impossible.”
And Thrall understood the pain, understood the harm the Horde did, and for once, decided to take responsibility for it. And he’s apparently, as a wet noodle, following Tyrande herself into literal hell to help make things right. Not because he wants to prove her wrong, but because he knows his people have to atone and this is what he has to do.
It’s…really touching, actually! Dare I say, Good Writing! I guess we might have Madeleine Roux to thank for the idea?
That’s fan interpretation.
I might be misremembering but didn’t Word of God back this up at one point?
I never heard about any Word of God backup. If anyone has a link, I’d be interested in seeing it.
All the game says is that Thrall felt bad after killing Garrosh and hadn’t been able to connect with the elements since it happened.
Pretty sure the “cheating” thing came from the film universe’s version of a Mak’Gora. Which is not canon. I’ve not heard anything from Blizzard devs that Thrall cheated in WOD.
In WotLK, Thrall and Garrosh had the exact same fight and Thrall used the elements. Garrosh almost won that fight, if not for the Scourge invasion.
Don’t get me wrong please, I really liked the Hyjal scene in the book.
I just thought about it in a perspective of Tyrande literally sends Thrall on a suicide mission, knowing he can not succeed and it would kill him.
He used his shaman powers at the Broken Shore, so whatever caused him to no longer be a shaman happened around then. Probably just depression or some such from feeling like he failed his friends and family.
As far as I know, it was always depression that de-juiced him. Garrosh and Thrall had a mak’gora once before during the WotLK prepatch and nothing negative came as a result of him using shaman magic back then either.
It would be a pretty stupid limitation anyway. It’d be like challenging a warrior to a brawl with the stipulation that he dismember his fists first.
Edit: But I’m pretty sure it was just a meta reason of “everyone’s sick of seeing him so let’s retire the character since Metzen was on his way out”.
It happened in the Shaman intro quest to Legion.