I’m saying following orders without question is not honorable. If it was then the Nuremberg trials should not have happened. If your leader is a traitor or a criminal, should you follow his orders?
I see it differently. His obligation was not to one specific leader, but to the Horde. Neither of these leaders did what was best for their people. They were murderers.
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There is explicit honor and implicit honor.
Explicit honor is consistently following codes of honor and of always striving to measuring up to the standards and expectations of those who adhere to those codes. These codes have explicit sanctions and represent the gating by which one is allowed in or removed from.
Implicit honor is something we all recognize but are hard pressed to define. The few of those who are this are easily recognized in any culture and show qualities we often see as noble. We believe them and through them feel stronger, more resolved.
Nazgrim was explicitly honorable. His standards were part of the culture and consistent with his words and deeds even to death. Whatever may have troubled his conscience and thoughts he would not allow them to deter himself, even if it meant supporting the very things he was questioning.
Saurfang was implicitly honorable. He was aware of the failings of honor, even his own. It was not about being true to a code, it was about a belief that there are things right, wrong and things not clearly one or the other. The courage to see that even winning the battle is really a defeat of everything one holds most true. It was, in the end, the faith that everyone on Aseroth deserved a chance to live their lives and that their hopes and dreams were not subject to the whimsical malice of those who made the lives of others nothing more than tools and cobblestones to their own ambitions.
Both warriors were honorable but in the end Saurfang chose to answer for his honor rather than to a code of honor.
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Just wanted to say nice name! Great for a monk.
Spent time in my youth doing a variation of Bagua (Pa Qua) in my youth. So many hours walking in circles 
Sylvanas was not legitimately warchief.
Even if she were, by her own example, it is clear that obedience to a warchief’s direct orders is elective, not essential.
After Wrathgate, the Forsaken were required to abandon any further development of the new plague. For a while, Kokron Vanguard elite forces were posted in Undercity to enforce this. As soon as they were withdrawn, development resumed.
In the Glineas campaign, Sylvanas was ordered NOT to use her Blight artillery. She chose to do so.
Since that is the respect she personally gave to the chain of command, that is all anyone in the Horde owed her - before she inevitably betrayed and abandoned them.
No, toots - Saurfang IS the hero, because if you know anything about history (Google “Nuremberg Trials”), following orders does not absolve one of responsibility.
Refusing orders not to commit an atrocity is objectively worse than refusing orders to commit one.
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When your leader has obviously gone off the deep end (see Garrosh and Sylvanas for examples), a sheep might be afraid to step out of line but a true warrior or an honorable man would do the right thing and tell both of them to take a flying poke at a rolling doughnut. Saurfang was hardcorps.
*an orc
If you’re going to be inflammatory, I’m going to correct your grammar. You’ve been warned.
Also, I’ll be correcting your gramma. She called and said the night is long and full of errors.
“I trusted you!”
-Sylvanas when she seemed actually genuinely surprised Saurfang wasn’t on board after repeatedly trying to kill him.
That’s some writing. Thanks for that Danuser!
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I mean I read that line as “i trusted you to help me prosecute this war correctly but instead you decided to betray me after i did one thing you didn’t like” it was a bit of knife twisting as she knew she was in full control of that particular duel and she wanted to pay him back for ditching her. Think of it like how Freeza gets mad at the Namekians for wasting his time instead of just giving him the dragon balls when he was sooo nice to them.
Leave poor Saurfang alone, he’s now been rendered into a trinket 
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He should of been rendered to 35 pieces of anima better suit him and he can have real honor actually being useful saving the world
very convenient when you dont want to uphold an oath you took. He took an oath to obey his warchief. this is just trying to talk his way out of it. Killing malfurion was what he was supposed to do. They were at war, killing enemy champions was just fine.
Saurfang served the Horde, and not just the Warchief. If the Warchief was betraying the Horde, what was he supposed to do?
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She was legitimate, there might have been strings pulled in the shadows, but she was chosen by the dying warchief. Killing Malfurion was not an atrocity and he deliberately disobeyed an order.
Makgora on the spot, not at the end of an expansion.
I too call Saurfang a coward and a weakling.
Though that is likely a consequence of Blizzards inferior ability at story telling.
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it was after he died the other leaders should have gone…
aww hell no. troll leaders mortally wounded hearing voices in their head after being pumped up with morphine to go out with less pain is not how we are doing this.
Sound mind part of the legalese not applying here really.
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So the Russian people should support Putin then? What’s the difference?
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Oh god no mate what can of worms have you opened
When you join the US military you swear an oath to defend the constitution, not a particular person. You swear to follow the orders of your chain of command. Army regs cover illegal orders. There are specific ways to report illegal orders. Most oaths of fealty in a feudal environment do NOT have those mechanisms. Azeroth does not have a modern legal system, and they do not have an independent judiciary. Saurfang swore a feudal oath, he was expected as a warrior to follow it, not lawyer up. If he had a problem, he was supposed to deal with it, not give aid and comfort to the enemy. Modern earth legal systems dont apply.
Saurfang served the Horde and did not betray the Horde. When a warchief went bad, Saurfang held steady so it can be said that Saurfang had more honour than Nazgrim, who would do as told regardless.