Thank you for pointing out the ancient heritage of the trope. It’s not new, it’s baked into the bones of how we perceive power.
The problem is the repetition. Blizzard is obsessed with it.
Baine didn’t want to lead the Tauren. Mayla didn’t think she was capable of leading the other Tauren. Thrall was an eager ruler in WCIII but gave up his mantle to Garrosh and resisted taking it back multiple times. Lor’themar hated politics and just wanted to be a ranger. At least half of the Forsaken Council was hesitant to be there.
And that’s just the Horde. It’s just so tired.
The other problem is that change and reformism can’t really flow from this kind of trepidatious rule. Systems are not made better by people who are so in awe of them that they’re afraid to put their hands on the wheel. This isn’t a huge problem in WoW because Blizzard is totally uninterested in displaying these societies as having realistic internal problems (the only internal conflicts we ever see are various infestations of evil cultists who need to be killed) but it still irks me.