Need help coming up with reasons for a Pandaren to stay with the Horde

Lore World's End Tavern: Role-play and Fan Fiction
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Hey all. I’m thinking about starting a personal project that combines my love of pandaren, RP, and completionism. The other day I had the idea for a Pandaren character that I could play as Horde through all its content up until the end of BFA, then faction change (roleplayed as a defection) to Alliance and do all of their content too. This would give me a great excuse to play Horde, something I haven’t done since Burning Crusade!

However, I’m having trouble figuring out why a Pandaren would stay with the Horde. I can see why they’d join, since the Horde they meet on the Wandering Isle make a good first impression. But after meeting Garrosh, and soon after being tasked with deforesting Ashenvale, I can’t imagine a Pandaren that wouldn’t just pack their bags and leave the Horde for the Alliance or their former neutrality.

How would you guys and gals go about roleplaying a Pandaren that doesn’t immediately deeply regret joining the Horde? What would a Pandaren like about the Horde? What would make them stay, beyond just having friends in that faction?

Important note: I’m not trying to slam the Horde here or anything, I think the tensions and differences between all their races makes for a story that in many ways is more interesting than the Alliance’s. However, I’m just having trouble imagining a Pandaren that is loyal (for a few years, anyway) to the Horde instead of immediately feeling repelled by its leader(s) and the campaigns they send them on.

Thanks for reading!

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I think there are a few things to consider in this particular case:

Personal motives

The Horde is more than their Warchiefs

Personal experiences

If a Pandaren has chosen to officially join either faction, they must have had a particular reason for doing so. There is of course the mentioned introduction to members of the factions in the starting experience. It is very likely however that many among the Houjin may not have physically been there to experience that, and may be more likely to have just heard stories or were following their philosophical leaders, but I digress. Contemplating the motives of a Pandaren with limited knowledge of the Horde should be a decent base to work from.

The Horde isn’t a hivemind, and just as history has shown some uglier elements of the Horde there have also been positives on various levels. Just as there will be those who may promote a bad impression, there’s also bound to be those who will be the opposite. Personal experience could potentially exemplify this rather well. Tying into the previous point on motives your character’s personal motives could be influenced by those of another.

If none of the above helps then perhaps this will:

My Horde Pandarens’ guild, Steelpaw Shaodin, is ic aligned with the Horde. In general we don’t actually have much love for the Horde itself. The Steelpaw’s allegiance is mainly political. See the factions are obviously quite powerful; having the favor one, especially if that one eventually wins, would be a great boon. By gaining notoriety through service the clan could have a powerful ally in the potential and/or eventual reunification of Pandaria, and otherwise potentially be a positive influence among the faction and our own people.

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I think a lot of good aligned characters had trouble justifying their Horde allegiance in BFA but I think Zenkan kinda spelled it out for us, “The Horde is all we have!”.

I get it’s probably different for Pandarians to an extent but for the core races of the Horde they’re here because the alternative was extinction. That’s what I find so fascinating about the faction. It’s a group of incredible disparate races that share little to nothing in common and in fact have a lot of ideologies that outright clash.

But they’re united under one banner in the name of survival. They need eachother. If they stood alone they’d have been cut down long ago.

I think a Pandaren on the Horde side could understand this and continue to serve not out of patriotism- but because they’ve met the races of the Horde and know good people exist within all of them. And if the Horde were to collapse- those good people would very likely cease to exist sooner or later.

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Personal favorite motive for a Kun-Lai Pandaren - because the Yaungol destroyed your family farm and had plans to enslave/kill you and your family, when the Horde showed up, killed the most immediate Yaungol, fed your family, and then trained your most able family members into a competent militia who could stand up to the Yaungol.
It’s basically what happened in the questline there, and while it happened for both factions, it echoes strongly of what happened in Dragonblight with the Taunka.
Rescuing, feeding, and then arming and training refugees is pretty much Horde recruitment 101.

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It sounds like you’ve got a pretty solid concept for your character, their personality, goals and life experiences. If that is the case we might be able to give more advice if you are more specific.

In general though it comes around to giving your character a motivation. So here is a list of motives that work.

  1. While part of the Horde I have helped save the world.
  2. The Horde and Alliance are two sides of an unending conflict, sure it causes alot of pain and death, but the two factions also stay sharp. If the Horde were to ever be permanently destroyed, I’m not sure the Alliance would be prepared or able to save Azeroth from the next overwhelming threat.
  3. I’ve made friends in the Horde, I must remain here to protect them.
  4. The Horde can be a force for good, but only if good people remain and work to make it so.
  5. I’m a violent maniac who likes to see people in pain, the Horde is my jam.
  6. The Horde saved my village, I owe them a life debt.
  7. All that I’ve ever wanted was to see the world, as a soldier of the Horde I get to go to unimaginable places.
  8. Red is like, totally, my favorite color. I’m so quirky.

Pick any 2 that fit your concept and you’re good to go.

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One thing that can help is remembering that the Horde is not just orcs (something that sometimes the writers tend to forget). Just to throw out a few suggestions that might help explain why they feel like it’s something worth fighting for.

The Tauren. The Tauren frequently seem like the spiritual and moral center for the Horde. I don’t mean that in the sense that they embody the spirit of the Horde; rather, I mean that they seem to be the people most likely to say “Whoa. No, this isn’t right.” They are in tune with nature, and live in harmony with the lands around them. They have a balance between knowing when to take a step back, and when to fight. That could be something a pandaren could recognize and appreciate.

Blood elves, too, are an integral part of the Horde. They suffered an unspeakable tragedy, and found the perseverance to stay themselves. A pandaren could possibly find some common ground between the sin’dorei struggle to remain centered in the face of magic withdrawal and the pandaren need to remain centered in the face of the sha.

On a personal level, your pandaren might be thinking in terms of Emperor Shaohao. You made a decision, and leaving because things aren’t as easy as you thought they would be? Angry at the decisions being made, thinking maybe this isn’t for you? Just going to leave instead of trying to fix it, and punch out anyone who says otherwise? Because you know better than this entire faction?

Pride. Anger. Despair. Fear. Doubt. Violence. Hatred. When Shaohao was faced with these, he overcame them. In doing so, he made himself and his people better. Perhaps you may feel like you should do the same.

Perhaps your character finds something curious about such radically different people uniting under a single banner. Goblins and Tauren. Orcs ans Undead. Trolls and Blood Elves. You might be determined that there’s something that exists beneath the surface, and you might hope you can apply that to your own life. Especially in the face of trolls and Tauren. Given your history with the Zandalari and the Yaungol, finding out that you can trust and rely on these trolls and these Yaungol might have you trying to figure out if maybe there is a better way for your people on Pandaria.

It can certainly be jarring in some of those redesigned Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms zones, still living under Cataclysm rules. The whole “Corrupt the Forest Heart” thing…look, I get where you’re coming from.

I hope that helps. And I hope you find what you’re looking for. Ultimately, you have to find the answer to “What is worth fighting for”.

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