If, and I stress the if part, Blizzard wanted to go back to a single Horde leader why wouldn’t ‘Chieftain of the Horde’ work? It is clear, carries less baggage, and is certainly less aggressive of a title than ‘Warchief.’
Though I doubt there will ever be a single leader again. It really feels like the Horde council is more of a reflection of the Horde now being more of a confederacy of nations and less a single government over everyone. And I don’t see Blizzard changing that.
When it comes to marketing, Chieftain of the Horde is less of an iconic title than Warchief of the Horde. We weren’t going around as Thrall in the campaigns seeing people call him Chieftain, we were seeing him be called Warchief. They advertised the Horde with the Warchief, its been their thing for almost the entire franchise’s history.
IIRC the official title for the ruler of Durotar is Lord of the Clans which I guess is sort of a High Chieftain
So iconic that the basic campfire jokes date from Cata and the next warchief after Garrosh did literally nothing for most of his debut expansion. He then proceeds to die a patch after he does do something.
Wiki doesn’t even have a title article for it.
“b-b-but wiki is just people recording things…!”
yeah.
exactly.
turbonerds who’ve been recording things for twenty years.
Even if we’re going with the lame path of abolishing Warchief in times of peace, we’re never at peace. When the position was abolished and the Council was formed, we were in an existential battle with an Old God. Then we were fighting a war against Zovaal. Then we were fighting a war against the Incarnates. Now we’re fighting a war against Xal’atath/The Void. Then we’re probably going to fight a war against the Titans. Even the internal logic of the aesthetic diluting plotline doesn’t add up.
Seems like someone, at some point, decided Warchief was about the state of Alliance relations. That’s dumb. Lean into Horde Culture again, give us Warchief back, and stop making everything about elves and humans.
Yeah but that has absolutely nothing to do with my point.
The title is such a non issue that no one across all of the warcraft wikis/pedias i’ve come across, have made an article about the title.
This just feels like a ‘we have always done it this way’ kind of argument, which I don’t think is a good argument. I would argue that it was iconic just because it was used for so long. It might take 5 or 10 years for Chieftain to become iconic. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be.
And Blizzard has clearly shown a desire to change that.
I would argue it is more about the power of the position. The Horde races do not want a single leader that can drag every member into. Most of the races in the Horde did not want to go to war either time. But the Warchief had the power and authority to force it.
And so far the only way to stop a Warchief that is doing things the member states to not want is a civil war. Any return to a single leader would have to address that. And I don’t think Blizzard is up to doing what is needed to communicate that well.
Baine literally says “there is no place for a Warchief in a time of peace” in the scene that establishes the Council. While N’zoth is trying to break reality and overwrite it with his Black Empire, I might add. The only war that had ended was the Horde/Alliance Fourth War. Unless the intent was to portray Baine as 100x more clueless than he already seems, I can only reason that he seems to think a Warchief should only exist when we’re warring with the Alliance.
Thing is, each Orcish clan already has/had a Chieftan that rules. Warchief is the iconic title because it’s been used to symbolize one leader for the entire Orcish horde. Who spoke for all the clans.
Technically the Fourth War was an armtice, which only means it’s been put on the back burner for the time being. Much like how the Third War between the faction dragged on for years until it was officially settled
Well, it depends on how you look at it. If you look at everything (destroying Tauren tribes like the Stonespire, trying to murder the entire Bilgewater cartel, the Purge, the attempt to kill everyone in Orgrimmar and another attempt to kill everyone in Durtar, etc.) the Alliance isn’t any more moral (maybe even less). OTOH, Blizzard has the Alliance fail at their biggest atrocities and always moves on and forgets about the. While the Horde villains are continuing themes.
[If anyone wants to try and divert to a “the Alliance has done nothing wrong” meme… Don’t care. It’s all been done before and is boring.]
You get what I mean, I’m not gonna get caught up on semantics
Although I’d hardly wager the opposite happens – They’re certainly not reflected off as heroes in faction wars, they simply get off scot-free but are still ultimately depicted as ‘the bad guy’ in said-conflicts.
That’s kind of a stretch though.
I don’t think the Alliance have anything to what’s equivalent to Theramore or Teldrassil.
Lordaeron was kind of the Horde’s self-played “destruction” and the newest Chronicles downplayed both the Horde’s suffering and their innocence in the Purge of Dalaran, justifying the Alliance’s actions.
Ultimately it seems like the Alliance always have a scape-goat of some sorts, whereas the Horde tend to be humbled by the Alliance or virtue-signaled by them — into admitting they were wrong, their crimes have been defeated and that they must do better or some crap like that … It’s sickeningly exhausting at this point
To be completely accurate here:
The Horde are the ones that use a scapegoat.
The term scapegoat comes from the bible. It was one of two goats. One goat was sacrificed and the other was sent into the wilderness, symbolically carrying the sins of Israel. Thus it was the escaping goat, or scapegoat. Similarly today it is used for a term for the person who takes on the blame for others.
The Horde put all the blame for their crimes on the two Warchiefs that started the war, Garrosh and Sylvanas. They carried all the blame. They were the scapegoats, carrying the sins of the Horde.
The crimes the Alliance is blamed for tend to have some amount of justification. Whether or not you personally think it is enough justification is irrelevant. Because there is some justification they are more grey. And the story treats them as such.
Right, because the being repeatedly told the only way the Alliance can defeat the Horde is if the Horde rebels against itself, and even then victory is only possible with the help of the rebels is super humbling to the Horde. /sigh
The Alliance never humbled the Horde into admitting it was wrong.
In fact, I don’t think the Horde ever admitted to being in the wrong. The closest thing was Thrall and Jaina both saying they made mistakes.
Look, there are legitimate and fair complaints about the Horde story. Being made to play the villain for example. You don’t need to invent more.
Whilst that may be true, I meant more in the regards of the Alliance always have a justification towards their actions made against the Horde.
Whereas the Horde are just blindly following their leaders who did the naughties and then last minute: “Are we the bad-guys?”
They still followed and acted alongside those leaders …
I didn’t mean it in that manner.
However the Horde lost the 4th war utterly & completely — Confirmed to having lost every single warfront.
They showed up on their doorstep of the Horde’s seat of power with the “rebels” and resulted Sylvanas to state that the Horde is nothing, then make them come to terms with their faults & end the war then & there.
My ultimate point was that the Horde are applied in a far more villainous light than the Alliance are.
