I’m sure this has been discussed quite a few times already but I’m getting this off my chest and putting it out there, another one to the pile.
The position of Warchief is one of the Horde’s most identifiable characteristics. Without one and a council in it’s place, the Horde becomes more bland and Alliance-esque, it’s becomes lesser. A council may work well for a specific race like the Forsaken at the moment but the Horde needs a figurehead to inspire the masses, to take up arms, to survive in the harsh reality of Azeroth. Hell, a council suits the Alliance way more than it does for the Horde.
It kinda peeved me hearing Thrall and Baine talk about how there’s no need for a Warchief now since there’s peace. Peace? I didn’t know the only wars the Horde fights are ones against the Alliance. What was Ahn’Qiraj? The Legion? The Scourge? The Iron Horde? Old Gods? Does Thrall and Baine not consider them wars that everyone fought and died in? Plus someone could’ve told these dummies if the word of Warchief upsets them so much as Baine says, you could always just drop the War and keep the Chief. Chieftain of the Horde.
Of all people, it’s Lor’themar that makes the most sense in that interaction, reminding them of the Warchief’s importance to the people. He gets it.
I just don’t like the direction the Horde is going, some may see it as “evolving”, “democratic” or “progressive” but I just see it as stripping a big piece of the Horde away. After the story beats of BfA leaving a bad taste for many on both factions, this was the sour grape on top. The Horde doesn’t need any of those things to be good, honourable or likable anyway, they just need a Warchief that’s not written as a psychopath.
That’s just my two cents.
I just hope this council thing is temporary and is dealt with quickly, the Horde needs it’s Warchief.
P.S. Alliance, can you please take Baine? I’m sure he would make a great friend.
Only if you take Anduin
And the Alliance needs a council, no 14 year old boy as a peacechief that protects his enemies more than his allies.
As for the topic, it’s very likely that Sylvanas or Thrall become warchief again soon, but hopefully the Alliance won’t just stand by and say “This is fine” then because all the forgiving and forgetting genocide was because the Horde has a council now.
Good god. I hope not. At least not Sylvanas. I think after everything she has done plus screaming “The Horde is nothing!” puts her in a position where she never comes anywhere close to Orgrimmar again.
Plus we’ll take Anduin no problem, he can lead the Orgrimmar orphanage.
Any benefit of having a council, such as the Warchief not being villain batted anymore, doesn’t matter. Lets the honest, the council will not stop Blizzard from making the horde villains if they wanted to. They got orcs to go bad again without fel, they don’t need a warchief to bring the horde back to their WC2 fantasy.
I think this is intentional and goes outside of the game. The writers are affecting a few players such as yourself who are “horde loyal”. I’m in that group, too. But I think something is going to happen that demands the mantle be taken up again - like some sort of restoration of all things (if we’re all dead in shadowlands, then that makes sense that a restoration is in store for us).
The cinematic at the end of ICC makes sense, too, from that perspective. A Lich King is always needed, yet Sylvanas destroyed that. There would need to be some sort of restoration in order to bring balance to Azeroth. I think a Horde faction leader will be needed.
We will see how that plays out, but I think we even may see the return of Vol’jin from the Shadowlands (which would really be epic). I mean, there was a questline and some attention given to Vol’jin’s remains in BFA, so it’s not entirely unrealistic to think that maybe we will see the resurrection of certain Warcraft characters from the past (even Arthas and Uther, who would still have the “old” thinking of Horde vs Alliance).
I agree whole heartedly, yes. I think the Warchief position is iconic and necessary for the identity of the Horde.
I also think that the Warchief should be the best the Horde has to offer, someone of sound reason and function, who is both aware of the long game and the careful balancing act, wherein if he were in danger of leading to another Garrosh situation, he’d be challenged for his position with Mok’gora. In this case, we have Thrall back, but, he shouldn’t had ever left to begin with.
Totally agree here. When they launched Classic, that was one of the really emotional things for me - going into old Org and seeing Thrall as Warchief. Even gave him a /salute.
I can see a Warchief coming back, but only as a military leader and not the leader of the entire faction. Because so far Thrall’s Horde is 2 for 2 with producing absolute monsters in the role and I’m being generous including Vol’jin for all the nothing Blizzard had him accomplish.
Because seriously, at this point you’d be better off not having one.
Well depends, either Sylvanas becomes a neutral hero or she goes back to the Horde, but blizz did state that she is just trying to defend her people, and her people are in the Horde.
You can take him as a warchief. He worked hard on getting his allies killed when he was their high king, imagine how gladly he’d kill Alliance members if he was part of the Horde.
There is a chance that the two Factions go to war again, and the Horde sees the need for a War Chief.
Lets say Sylvanas is defeated in the Shadowlands, and she runs off as a fugitive of all sides. With no immediate world ending threats, the Alliance turns its gaze upon the Horde, and kicks their butt.
In desperation, the Horde council decides to find Sylvanas and barter an official Horde Pardon if she helps. She agrees, just to have less enemies for a moment.
As the war rages on, she kills a few more Alliance, and the Horde soldiers on the ground start cheering and calling her Warchief as an honorific. She did win the Makgora, after all.
The quest chain could be called “The Return of the Warchief.”
But even without Sylvanas, I suppose they could make any one Warchief.
Blizzard also said in that same interview that she was NOT acting cruel, and this was said during patch 8.1 before the “dramatic reveal” that she didn’t care about the horde and was throwing everyone’s lives away. I’m not sure why you can’t accept that this stuff was all BS to string players along.
look at the history… we’ve had 4 war cheifs and thrall doesnt like the position. what else the horde gon do. roll the dice or flipa coin and hope their cheif isnt corrupt as Sylvanas? Its more of a check and balance the horde needs. I promise you race leaders can rally the horde faction together just as easily as 1 warchief.
The modern Horde isn’t a bunch of clans who swear their lives away. Everyone keeps asking why the various races of the Horde didn’t just up and leave Sylvanas when she decided to be a monster and there is an in universe reason: Those people all swore their lives to the Warchief and the Horde.
Why would a sovereign nation swear themselves to another like that, to be dragged into multiple world wars without really having a say in the matter?
So yeah. The Council elects a Warchief to lead their forces into war, to use as they see fit, but at the end of the day the Warchief answers to them. Only then can I see a warchief coming back.
EDIT: And the above was the in universe reason.
The Meta reason is because, quite frankly, having the entire Horde’s storyline dominated by just one character made it way way too easy to beat someone over the head with the villain bat to have another story of “The Horde is finding itself because the Horde is strong and cool” played. With a council which they appear to actually care about would at the very least prevent that.
Yeah, an extremely negative one. It’s identifiable as a shortlived position that often meets a bad end, that repeatedly leads the Horde into ruin.
Continuing to have one at this point identifies the Horde as a bunch of dip****s that never learn their lesson.
Except not. Because the Alliance doesn’t have a council. They HAVE a Warchief.
It is. It’s cutting out a tumor that keeps trying to kill us.
Not sure why they’d do that. She’s proven to be a piss poor commander(albeit, intentionally), and unless she commands some kind of large army, I’m not sure why they’d bother for one person, even if they are a badass.
The Horde has outgrown the position of Warchief (which was only made to make the slaughtering of a peaceful people easier.) The Horde is more than just one big, rampaging army. It’s a nation that represents a multitude of differing cultures, peoples, and interests. It takes more than a single supreme dictator to properly represent those interests.
Besides, it’s easy to say that they just shouldn’t select a psychopath, but given that half of the Horde’s Warchiefs turned out to be “psychopaths,” two of which were selected by non-psychopaths, it’s not quite that simple.