He sold his daughters soul so he could remain king, and acted so arrogantly Bwonsamdi straight up lets him die because hes sick of it.
To be fair his only options at the time are 1) Let Old Gods/Blood Trolls destroy your entire kingdom, including his daughter, or 2) make a desperate deal and live to fight another day.
And while Bwonsamdi is shady he’s has an overall pretty good track record for keeping up his end of the bargain. Most Troll souls end up with Bwonsamdi anyways so it bugs me that he’s being painted as the treacherous villain. He’s no hero to be sure but he hasn’t done anything evil. He just wants compensation for when he helps out.
EDIT: i feel like this is one of the only true examples of morally grey in BfA so far
Wait really? YES! THANK YOU BLIZZARD!
Edit: I just found the quote! Awesome! I hope he gets brought back some way.
I agree, I don’t think Bwonsamdis evil.
He has his role in the cycle of life and death, he guides lost spirits to the afterlife, so I don’t think that inherently makes him a bad character.
I feel like literally any non-Saurfang Horde character would’ve made more sense with this dialogue.
yeah I agree it seems weird that he’d care about it much at all but the only other horde character present for that conversation is Thrall who had even less of a part in bfa than Saurfang so Varok got the line i guess.
I do really enjoy the banter between the characters.
Clif notes version:
Saurfang: You Alliance killed a good king .
Shaw: At least they still have a home and civilians not burned alive…
Saurfang: I did not expect the Alliance to be here.
Shaw: Not the first time we’ve had to move against a corrupt warchief.
Saurfang: Or a sovereign king. Slain in his own home.
Thrall: Focus on the task at hand. Baine’s time grows short.
Shaw: A home that still stands. Can you say the same for Teldrassil?
Jaina: That is enough! We are not here to fight each other.
Honestly I would side with Shaw on the matter not because I am alliance but because Id pick the civilians over a leader and his army.
Alliance rarely lose any characters, at least compared to Horde
Arthas went rogue
Alliance lost Tirion
Alliance lost Varion (the only actual alliance leader to die as far as I know since the time of WoW)
Probably missing a few. The thing is. Horde keep losing their faction leaders over and over and over and over. Its why I moved to alliance despite Varion dying and the story being boring, cause that is dumb. One or two leaders fine. Three and more leaders in a very short time period and I’m out. And sylvanas is just another.
Alliance at least don’t keep losing faction leaders non-stop over and over and over and over and over. And of course can’t have an important alliance character die as fast as killing off an important horde character lol. Horde didn’t even keep Rastakhan. He was my favorite character in BFA. And did Alliance lose any super important leaders in BFA? Nope. Horde don’t kill Jaina or her mom or anyone iconic like Alliance were able to kill Rastakhan. Can’t have that now can we? Even though both sides lost, Horde is just dumb how fast they go through iconic characters. They have some of the worst story in Warcraft, even if alliance story is boring.
Alliance has a different problem.
Our characters don’t die often, they more often than not go neutral.
You’d HOPE he’d call the alliance out on killing Rastakhan. Even if he was deciding to be a traitor against the Warchief, it just wouldn’t make sense to NOT call them out for being lame.
He seems like a more jokey version of Wee Jas (DnD 3rd ed. Lawful neutral goddess of death, magic, vanity and law) who, while they might lean towards evil (as the killing of others or death might just be seen as evil) at times, they are more just doing their job.
Contrast with Nerull (DnD 3rd ed. Neutral evil God of death, darkness, murder and the underworld) This one is one that would be more likely to want to cause as much death as possible, the WoW equivalent might be the one that wanted Sylvanas in power
Funny how Saurfang has so much respect for a Troll he never met.
Not enough respect to not go ahead and work with the two of the three Alliance leaders directly responsible for his murder though.
I think part of it is the fact that in a lot of ways Horde is easier for them to work with since they tend to have more dramatic backstories.
You look at Thrall, Sylvanas, or many of the other major horde characters most of them have overcome incredible odds to be where they are, for better or worse. Building on that is easier, though as we’ve seen recently the easy way can cheapen the characters overall.
Alliance characters on the hand haven’t been through nearly as much. There’s definitely been hardships and tragedies but in most cases (there are definitely exceptions) they haven’t faced the same “impossible odds” which makes them harder to work with.
This isn’t an excuse. Both factions should see dynamic plots and character development even if some characters are easier to develop than others.
Blizz also needs to learn that there can be dramatic conflict and devestating loss without killing characters. A well placed death can be great for a story but too much or poorly timed it will only make the audience angry at the author instead of the cause of death in the story
sometime redemption can use as way first bring a character low to then make them see were they lost they way
I wish blizzard would spend time Studied Shakespear when they think about stories telling. he was great play write yet one learn a lot when come to video games stories tell for him.
All time favorite character?
Is you best friend someone you met 20 minutes ago?
That would be about the time equivalence Rastakhan had any relevance.
About as more relevance zappy boi had from the 1 second he was on screen in the bfa cinematic.
At least Zappy Boi did something. Did Rasta do anything beside make really stupid deals?
I haven’t gotten around to the Horde campaign yet.

At least Zappy Boi did something. Did Rasta do anything beside make really stupid deals?
I haven’t gotten around to the Horde campaign yet.
Im not judging why just saying that a few seconds can already be enough. I thought Rasta was a bad king imho but he did learn quickly from his dumb mistakes, or more like learned quickly enough he made a dumb mistake. To be fair he had more character development then Lor’Themar.
I don’t get people’s obsession with Rastakhan. He was the typical clueless leader that buried his head in the sand when his people needed him. Then he strikes a deal with the devil that resulted in a curse he knew would be passed on to his child and any future grandchildren she might have.
But, I think Talanji will break this curse and once again clean up her father’s mess.
First off I said one of my all time favorite characters. He ranks really high though if I had to pick one absolute favorite it probably wouldn’t be him.
Secondly Rastakhan has been in the lore for a long time even if his time as being in the game was (sadly) quite short. I’ve always been a troll fan ever since warcraft 3. That sentiment only grew as i played wow more and more. So the mysterious and enigmatic Rastakhan, King of Trolls, naturally he was a cool character for me. He lived up to my personal hype in BfA, and while they may not like him as much as i do/did i know a lot of horde players really enjoyed Rastakhan as character.
A character doesn’t have to be around long to be someones favorite. One of my favorite characters from Lotr is tom bombadil, a character who had such little impact on the story he’s removed from the movies and other media.

Did Rasta do anything beside make really stupid deals?
As far as the deal goes it was one out of desperation. His only choices were to let his kingdom, people, and daughter be destroyed by old god/blood troll forces or promise to have him and his decedents worship Bwonsamdi above all other Loas. And mind you the reason he was in this position is because his enemy was someone who could literally see the future. Zul is also the same person who easily outsmarted Jaina with nothing more than a well placed torch.

I don’t get people’s obsession with Rastakhan. He was the typical clueless leader that buried his head in the sand when his people needed him. Then he strikes a deal with the devil that resulted in a curse he knew would be passed on to his child and any future grandchildren she might have.
But, I think Talanji will break this curse and once again clean up her father’s mess.
I believe the reason most people like him is because while he made mistakes, he also admitted and learned from those mistakes. He had to make difficult decisions and overall he had much better character development than a lot of WoW characters have gotten recently.
Also Bwonsamdi is not the devil. He’s no saint, but he’s not evil. He’s the caretaker of the Troll spirits. He’s helped more ofthen then not, he just wants compensation when he does. Plenty of trolls worship him happily and willingly. Vol’jin and the Darkspear being a major example.
However I’m guess that you’re right that Talanji will end up getting out of the deal. My guess is the Vol’jin will help her and either work out a new deal or just straight up strong arm Bwonsamdi into letting her off the hook.