[Potential Spoiler(s)] Mag'har Orcs and the fate of Yrel & Grommash

Lore Story Forum
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I started this xpac late, so I’m enjoying the lore so far.

I just returned Derek & am waiting on my missions to be complete to finish that questline.

But I’m left with questions that haven’t been answered (that I’ve seen at least).

Why did we go to Draenor to recruit the Mag’har and not just to Outland? Lore-wise, it would have been easier to just hit up Outland than go back to Draenor.

Which leads to another question, when was the way to Draenor closed? Sylvannas wasn’t aware that there was a way to return, but I don’t recall us closing that once we finished there.

Anyway, both versions of Mag’har Orc clans had strong members, both dealt with their own versions of war. It would also make more sense to not interfere with the timeline of Draenor, more than we already did, by returning and reminding them that some are doubles.

Now it was nice to return there and see some changes, but we left with such a conflict! I want that to be resolved as I liked the character Yrel and the fact that Grommash was redeemed in the end of WoD, also has me liking that character as well.

It’s almost obvious that the Lightbound are in the wrong, but there has to be more to it as the Naaru wouldn’t support fanatical devotion to the light.

I really hope we at some point go back and try to resolve that situation. I don’t like where it was left. Grommash and the other guy aren’t going to win. They’ll either be captured or killed.

I was hoping we’d go in and fight Yrel to knock some sense into her as she knows us from WoD when we worked together with the Alliance.

We could even have Velen come in and guide them back to a better path.

This also makes me wonder that since we wiped out the Legion, the “light”, and the Army of, don’t have an enemy really. So is the fate of them to become fanatical, “spreading the word” and all that?

Was it a mistake to wipe out the Legion as they kept those who follow the light in check, creating a balance? Yes the Legion did horrible things, but now that they’re gone, look what the Lightbound are doing. Once they’re done with Draenor, they can go on their own “Holy Crusade” to spread the light to other worlds.

Is this a future enemy that we will face? To take on the Lightbound who can potentially replace the Legion as the major threat in the universe? We have warlocks using fel and demonic magic fighting against the Legion. So it would make sense to have Paladins & Priests using the light to fight against the Lightbound.

So many questions. Looks like I’m going to the Q&A at BlizzCon this year.

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The Mag’har orcs weren’t supposed to become playable until a later patch of the expansion, from what I’ve heard. Originally, Dark Iron Dwarves and Zandalari were supposed to be released together, but then they decided to push Zandalari back and release them at the same time as Kul’Tirans. So with the Mag’har recruitment scenario, we’re seeing storyline that was supposed to drop much later. That means that there will probably be a long-ish gap before any developments that were meant to come from it actually show up in the game.

As for why the Mag’har are from alt-Draenor instead of Outland, I imagine it’s because alt-Draenor was a better fit for the storyline they’re setting up with the Draenei. There aren’t enough Mag’har in Outland to have a grand clash with the Draenei, and besides, the history between the orcs and Draenei there is considerably different from the one in alt-Draenor.

Plus, alt-Draenor looks prettier (newer graphics) and was under-utilized in WoD because that expansion was cut short.

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We technically haven’t been to Outland in a long time, so we don’t know what’s going on there. Everyone could be dead.

I’m wondering though if the Lightbound are going to become a threat now that they’ve gone fanatical and seem to want to go on their own Holy Crusade. They finish with Draenor, they know other worlds exist, what’s stopping them from spreading the light?

And it would make more sense if this scenario came later towards the end of the xpac, so we knew what we were fighting next. I like that, but since they did it early, I feel like it should be taken more serious (even though we’re still focusing on our war), as if we don’t act soon, then it could get out of hand.

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One of the issues, while I agree with using Outland over Dreanor, is that Garrosh brought a lot of the battle ready orcs over from Outland with him. How many Mag’har guards, generals, Kor’kron, etc did we kill/died from Wrath to Pandaria? There were not many to begin with, and even far less so now. Not that feasible numbers have stopped Blizzard (Lightforged, Void Elves) but for story Outland does not work out in that sense.

Those Outland Mag’har were also already apart of the Horde. It doesnt really fall to well into the new allied race frame they’ve created. Allied races are new, shiny, generally unaffiliated. Outland Mag’har are old, dull, fully integrated into the Horde.

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The Iron Horde in AU Dreanor would certainly be more powerful than whatever is left of the Mag’har in Outland (especially since we didnt know they’d been decimated by the Lightbound), and more numerous. When we went to Outland the first time, the majority of the Orcs left were red and psychotic. Right color, wrong temperament.

Now that would be quite a mind trip. Their Velen died and passed the torch to Yrel… our Velen could say he was literally THERE when the Legion was taken down and Sargeras defeated. Blizz is painting the Lightbound as fanatics though, so even if they initially listened to Velen out of respect, they’d eventually reject what he’s selling.

I still hope for a way to redeem Yrel because she was my favorite NPC of that expansion.

It is very much beginning to seem that way. The Alliance already has the Lightforged within their ranks. The Lighbound of AU Dreanor should be a warning to us what happens with Light-infused Dreanei when they have no Legion to fight. (The Legion recruited them for a reason after all, perhaps Sargaras foresaw that they could be immensely powerful antagonists no matter which path they took and he wanted to make sure they were on his side…)

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I loved Yrel when I did my ally characters. I am still salty about Mirad though. :frowning:

Favorite quote from Satan in the South Park movie:

“Without evil, there can be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometimes”.

You can then look at the Jedi & the Sith. You have to have a balance of both, so we messed up and now we have Naaru doing who knows what.

The only true good and true evil were the Titans vs the Old Gods, not counting corrupted Sargy.

Why can’t the light corrupt an evil Old God to make it good?

And the only issue with bringing our Velen is that you’re not supposed to tell the AU timeline where you’re from, or that will cause problems.

I still wasn’t certain if Garrosh told Grommash in WoD, but I know that Gul’dan told Grommash as he captured him before the final raid came out.

And in the Mag’har quest, Grommash knew about all of it. But who all knew from AU Draenor, of what was going on? Grommash, Gul’dan, and that’s it? Yrel didn’t seem to know, Thrall didn’t tell his parents who he was, & neither did we.

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That was a major annoyance with me that entire expansion. It just felt … under-explained.

Grom apparently did eventually find out Garrosh was his kid from an alternate future (not at first though, obviously, they’d have thought he was crazy). Gul’dan clearly knew because he said so in that cut scene, but I dont believe it was a widely known fact. We’ll never know because it wasnt really explained well.

I assume Thrall didnt tell Durotan and Draka because he isnt technically their son. This is an Alternate Draenor, so while they’re as close as he’ll ever get to meeting his parents, they technically are not them. Plus, that revelation would have been quite mind-rattling.

On the Alliance side, I had assumed the AU Dreanei had at least some understanding that we were from a different world, and had Dreanei of our own on that world. I mean, we came through a Portal and rescued Yrel right off the bat, so if they can put two and two together, its pretty obvious (Plus, we brought our own Draenei to the fight so…).

WoD had a lot going for it, but felt cut short and under-explored. I wonder if they’d intended to go further into this but scrapped it to develop Legion?

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I believe the reason was to add in what others said, the fact there wasn’t that many Mag’har left in Outland. Most if them were corrupted and turned to Fel by Illidan to combat the Legion. Not to mention I believe most of those Orcs served Magtheridon before Illidan took over. Maybe about ooohhh 90%? 80% turned Fel? Give or take. Topping that off with Garrosh’s recruitments, there probably is barely a settlement left. The Horde needed a huge army with advanced tech to even stand a shot at fighting the Alliance, not what is very few left of some clans.

The second big, and I think this was the deciding factor, was that the Mag’hars in Outland were basically only a few clans. While in AU there were Blackrocks, Shattered Hand, all of the clans. Therefore we would have more customization options. Blackrock for example is extinct in our universe.

I hope we get back go the whole Yrel and the light crusade. From what I could tell, and this could be easily wrong just a theory, the Burning Legion was the balancing factor between the Light and Void. Since the BL was basically infinite and was fighting both the Light and Void, both forces had to focus their attention on the BL. This became some sort of weird cosmic balance.

The problem was that the Burning Legion became too powerful and did become the most powerful force in the cosmos. If the BL succeeded in creating the Dark Pantheon, everyone would lose. The entire universe would burn, cleansed in fire as demons say. Void would lose, Light would lose, we would lose. So we had to stop them, take out the BL command, and imprison Sargeras to knock the BL down a peg. Problem is now the Light and the Void are out of control without their balance.

My guess is that it is up to us to try to rebalance everything. We may have to release Sargeras even when the time is right, or take the mantle of the Burning Legion to balance the cosmos. These are just guesses anything could happen at this point, it is new territory for Activision Blizzard.

Also if someone could correct me if I am wrong, isn’t Fel the combination of Light and Void or something? I think this was stated in Chronicles or something. Because if it is, wouldn’t that further prove that Fel is the balancing factor between Light and Void?

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I’d say the main reason they went with AU Draenor as opposed to Outland, is that AU Draenor brings with it distinct clan identities and Iron Horde technology. Thus setting them apart from the Orcs we are used to.

Outland Mag’har only really bring with them brown skinned Orcs. That’s more of a customization option then an Allied Race.

On a more meta level I also they wanted to use the oppertunity to bring some of the WoD minor races to Azeroth so they will be available for future storylines, as well as setting the stage for a light-themed antagonist down the line.

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Side point, but that’s not the case according to George Lucas. According to him, the Sith are the cause (or a cause) of imbalance in the Force, and Anakin/Darth Vader brought balance to the Force by destroying the Sith.

In the Warcraft universe, though, it does seem like reaching some kind of balance between Light and Void is going to be important in the story going forward.

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Bringing balance requires both sides to be equal. If you destroy the Sith, you have to destroy the Jedi.

Anakin brought balance by lowering the numbers of the Jedi down to Yoda & Obi Wan vs Anakin & Sidius.

But those were the known Jedi/Sith to be alive.

Clearly, after the fall of the Empire, Snoke rose to power. But w/ Ben & Rae the only 2 (known) to be alive, we have balance again.

And I agree, that there looks as if there will be a need for balance between both sides in WoW. The Legion kept the Light in check.

Thanks everyone for the replies. Makes a lot of sense now as to why we wen’t Draenor & not Outland.

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That is a popular fan theory, and it may be the view presented in the new sequel trilogy, but like I said, it’s not how George Lucas saw it. I don’t want to derail this discussion, but I recommend Thor Skywalker’s short series on YouTube as a good explanation of the matter of balance of the Force:

~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cTXAml0pgg

~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ2eFJXvebY

~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQQosTTfgEo

~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udhcy-cxREk

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I don’t think travel between Azeroth and Draenor was ever supposed to be as easy as game mechanics lead us to believe after we destroyed the Dark Portal, judging by the fact that the Kirin Tor had to build their own, smaller version for a supply line in the Everbloom and when you set up your own garrison, Khadgar says he can only hold the portal open for a few moments.

I honestly expect it to be the next expansion or the one after.

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Dude, my god, you gotta stop hitting ENTER after every sentence. You’re taking up an unnecessarily large amount of space to convey what only needs to be like two paragraphs.

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Seriously most of the questions asked here are answered in text quest by eitrigg.

They are after the mag har from au cuz they made an oath to us in the end of hellfire citadel.

Thats why, blizzard just used what they had and the end.

The draenei been fanatical and all are just to show us that the light can be bad too, conecting with xe’ra the prime naaru.
And of course to set new bosses for raids and all.

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There’s that this one line you get with the Mag’har npcs in Org where they just say “Oh Grom MUST have died to Yrel, the Lightbound MUST have killed him”. Leads me to believe we’ll eventually be fighting Yrel and Garrosh Heavenscream as well as a Lightbound Grommash and Lantresor in the future.

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It’s an interesting fact that this suggests that Velen is in fact the designated driver for the Dreanei, and without his guidance they go either full Fel or Light Fanatic.

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The thing I think everyone is missing is that everything that happened in MU, from the first opening of the dark portal until BFA, never happened in the AU. That means no Litch King, maybe Illidan was never freed, and no Thrall & Jaina to add to the defense of Nordrassil.

Most probably none of the aforementioned mattered because Broxigar would have never been sent back 10,000 years in time with Rhonin and Krasus to play his part in defeating Sargeras at the first well of eternity.

The point of all of this being that more than likely Azeroth of the AU is a Legion world. The chosen one serves the Legion, if he’s still alive. Alleria and Turalyon would never join the army of light. Most importantly Xe’ra would not send her core to a Azeroth in the hope of finding Illidan.

With the fall of AU Azeroth to strengthen the Legion’s forces The Army of Light would be fighting a far more desperate battle. In the face of defeat, and without Azeroth for support, why wouldn’t they invest their hopes in the remnants of the uncorrupted Dreanei still on Draenor. Especially seeing as how Draenor is a likely Legion target.

As Locus-Walker told Alleria “Light seeks one path and shuns all others as lies.” So it’s not inconceivable that, even though they prefer to let others choose the one path, they don’t see anything wrong in forcing them down it either.

Especially when all of existence is what is at stake. While the number of Naru & Dreanei dwindle Sargeras conquer more worlds strengthening the Burning Legion. You can’t beat an infinite army with finite resources.

Edit: That would also mean that MU has a portal to a reality where Azeroth is destroyed, corrupted by the Burning Legion, or reshaped by the old gods.

Draenor

Round 3

Fight!

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Confused screaming

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Someone needs their coffee int he morning.

This isn’t a writing class and there isn’t a rule on how to format your posts.

Was it a difficult read? No.

Are you just pissy about something? Probably.

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