If we were going to go for Characters that could push the faction conflict with actual nuance and have both valid reasons for players to support them and for players to oppose them, on both sides of the faction border, would be to take notes from Daelin Proudmoore, Kael’thas Sunstrider, Illidan Stormrage and Arthas Menethil.
They fought for their people, they bled for them, they strayed from the path of righteousness because they were flawed individuals and they were pushed into corners by the bigotry and politics of not only their enemies, but their allies.
Daelin searched the globe for his daughter … and in the process probably came across, and abandoned, his former Alliance allies in the process, since Daelin would likely have gone inland to find Dalaran, the last place he knew his beloved daughter would have been.
That meant he would have passed Gilneas, Lordaeron and what has become the Plaguelands, and helped nobody.
Then he went to Theramore after finding Kalimdor and upon finding Jaina, immediately turned her back into a helpless, naive little girl that couldn’t do anything right just so that he could save her and take her home. He ignored everything she said, everything she’d accomplished, because she was, and always would be, his little girl. His love for Jaina was no less deep than any other parent, but also dismissive and possessive, valuing her less than his sons, seeing her as inherently ‘foolish’, and ironically becoming a self-fulfilling prophet because his actions were used by war-mongers in both the Alliance and Horde later to stir up the conflict as well as weakening the positions of the pro-peace characters.
Kael’thas Sunstrider … there’s volumes that have been written on how badly our boy got done during the Burning Legion, especially being dominated by Kil’jaden and turned into a disposable meme-minion-fillain. Betrayed by his commanding officer and the one nation that should have been most willing to listen to his people, entrapped by his enemies in a scheme that saved his people in the short-term from the trap of his former allies, forced to serve a monster because there was no other way to save his people and condemned by his former comrades in the Alliance who then went out of their way to sabotage the only short-term cure for the Withering and condemn the entire Sin’dorei people into devolving into the Withered, Kael’thas, much like Illidan before him, was a mere pebble before the uncaring tide of destiny, doomed by the prejudices of those around him as much as his own choices.
Arthas in particular is a particularly tragic and brutal take on this, a person so utterly convinced of their moral righteousness and their right to rule that they made mistake after mistake to the point that they forsook the very reason for their descent into villainy for the sake of their personal quest for vengeance.
Illidan Stormrage, condemned from birth by the absurd expectations of his people, the accident of his birth granting him the ‘eyes of destiny’ that he would lose to pursue his true destiny, Tyrande’s refusal to simply come out and tell Illidan she did not love him in turn, Illidan’s over overweening arrogance and pride blinding him to his own flaws until it was far, far too late to turn back, the petty disputes between Illidan and Furion causing ‘Mal’ Furion to eventually cast everything his brother did as potential villainy and blinding him in turn to any and all explanations other than the most vile and depraved the Arch-Druid could conceive.
Genn Greymane’s blind stubbornness, his egotism and his pride has led him to abandon the Alliance before, imprison his people who refused to turn their back on the outside world and condemned many thousands of Lordaeron people to being consumed by the Scourge after Arthas’s return from Northrend.
I’ve written essays on Tyrande’s hypocrisy, her zealotry and her intolerance, but after everything that’s happened in the Battle for Azeroth, if she’s not liberally used to push the Alliance into, at best, a vigilance-at-all-costs stance against not just the Horde, but any former and potential threats, I will start flipping tables purely on principle.
The Ren’dorei and Light Forged, ironically, also make a great option for the Alliance to have even more war-hawkish characters without pushing the Alliance into the same buffoonish villainy the Horde’s been forced to slog through for five expansions now. The Ren’dorei, plagued by whispers from the Void and burning with the need to return home to Quel’thalas, regardless of the cost to the Sunwell and the rest of their people, pushing to force the Sin’dorei to break ranks with the Horde either through politics or subterfuge, while the Lightforged Draenei can bring Lightbinding to bear, literally changing the Horde’s mind for them and turning these mighty savages into docile and obedient servants and fodder-troops to support the Alliance.
Add in to the fact the High Elves and Human kingdoms reduced the Amani to savages in hide tents in their own homelands, and the other Human and Dwarven kingdoms have reduced the native Frost Trolls of Dun Morogh and the Jungle Troll Tribes of Stranglethorn were pushed out of their territories in Westfall, Duskwood and the northern reaches of Stranglethorn repeatedly throughout history by the expansionism of the Humans, and we’ve got plenty of reasons for the two Mega-Factions to remain at each other’s throats, even if there isn’t open warfare anymore.
And that’s just the Alliance. The Forsaken have been given a bum-rap for years now for something that wasn’t even their fault, and turned that enforced martyrdom into their strength, turning their unwilling monster-status into a badge of terror and fear to keep their former friends and families at bay and away from the Forsaken’s ‘second life’.
For every Orc like Thrall, Saurfang, Aggra and Gorgonna, there’s another just like Garrosh, Blackhand, Shoka and Gul’dan. Even now, even after the Battle for Azeroth and all the horrors we’ve witnesses, there will be those who remain stubbornly blind to the misery and the suffering their petty, spiteful need to inflict violence on others and call it ‘honor’ because to admit it is to be left with nothing, because that’s all the Shadow Council, Blackhand, Orgrimm and even Garrosh hammered into the successive generations of Orcs that followed them, both the countless waves of children twisted into adulthood by the Warlocks of the Original Horde and whose culture was completely annihilated to turn them into willing fodder-troops for the Legion, and those children born after the end of the Orc Wars who knew only the biased history their ashamed parents told them to try and give them something to feel honor and pride in.
The Darkspear were peaceful and their first encounter with Humans? “Trolls! KILL THEM!”, and it hasn’t ceased yet. Even if Zappy Boi does push the Darkspear away from the same conflict that condemned the Horde to ruin, there will be those within their ranks who will not let this grudge die. And let’s not forget Bwonsamdi’s need for souls for the other side. Peace generally does not fill the coffers of the afterlife as swiftly and richly as endless war does …
Tauren might be willing to go back to peace and lead the Horde back into spiritual lives, but they’ve got their own share of rogues and renegades who thrilled to the Orcish ‘ideal’ that Garrosh and those like him championed, to take their great strength and for once in their long history of being pushed to the brink of extinction time and time again, to take something from those who would hunt them and drive them from their lands.
There’s no end to who can start a fight and for what, but I think if Blizzard could just look back at their most successful characters and story-arcs and stop trying to JUMP THE DAMN SHARK every other patch, we could get back to the glory days of Vanilla, BC and Wrath where the story mattered more than big, hopelessly complicated set-pieces that made no sense and simply took a giant squat all over the narrative.