Golden makes me cringe.
16 Likes
Lotta focus on Big Papa Garrosh here. Which make sense and all I suppose.
Now, if I were a member of the story team and was interested in building Thrall up, I would have three characters who would be essential to the goal with what we have.
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Draka: Duh. Need mommy’s approval or guidance or something. Draka is the one who is most likely to help him get in tune with being a proud Orc who his people can rely on.
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Garrosh: These two are entwined with one another. Garrosh’s failure is directly on Thralls shoulders, which this panel made abundantly clear. Some form of reconciliation between the two could advance both characters. Garrosh then becomes the Arbiter after defeating the Jailer in an intense wrestling match (/s). Leader and teacher are the lessons I would want Thrall to take away from Daddy G.
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Cairne: While Baine needs him more, Cairne is a figure that holds a lot of influence in Thrall’s story. He and Vol’jin are the two characters that they have clearly established as the family the created the “New Horde”. Cairne is a wise figure and one who could offer spiritual advice that the other two lack. This would tie into his shamanism and raise him back up to the World Shaman that we knew him as.
3 Likes
Tauren being the moral heart of the Horde is a meme. At best, they’re like Baine - moral cowards that know what they’re doing is wrong, but unwilling to meaningfully oppose it.
They have all these ideas about what they want the player races to represent but there’s never any follow through.
17 Likes
I have an idea. Let’s take the opportunity presented by the Shadowlands expansion to bring back Cairne and his wisdom (and Vol’jin) and Thrall, who is clearly miserable being back with the Horde, can go scurry back to Outland.
I hope Draka smacks him.
EDIT: Thank you Baalsamael for collecting all of this info! It was a good and…unfortunately enlightening read.
4 Likes
There’s actually quite a bit of potential for Tauren being the Heart of the Horde here. See, at first I was annoyed at this because it implies that a race that’s always been narratively sidelined and who’s leader would be the first to race change if he could is somehow the moral compass of the Horde. Then I remembered that the one thing Tauren do contribute to the story is going off and finding other slightly different versions of tauren. So, what we really need to do is just let Baine join the Alliance and go recruit some of these other Tauren who might actually enjoy being part of the Horde. A heart transplant, if you will.
Yaungol kinda got shafted in MoP anyway.
2 Likes
I would say that there has been potential but it has never been capitalized on. For instance they might have done something in regards to goblins poisening Orgrimars water supply, but they didn’t. Its like they only exist to demonstrate that the horde is bad, not to ever actually do anything to engender change.
3 Likes
If you really want to cringe you should follow her Twitter. She named her cats Anduin and Sylvanas.
The first thing that came to mind when I saw that, was wondering when they would have kittens.
I’m just tired of
- Golden’s strange takes on Diaspora that are canon for the game
- Unrealistic lack of agency of what a House Slave indoctrinated in self loathing has
- the complete disconnect between what the three of them stated is the core of the Horde and what we are given in game.
- the doubling down that the Horde Council is a good narrative idea while gesturing to Thrall regaining the warchief title
- the implication only Thrall is getting development in 9.1 (Baine ignored)
Idk man
19 Likes
“Thrall hated all humans due to being raised in bondage and slavery and abused his whole life until a Blonde Human hugged him. He also hated all Orcs because he believed what the people abusing him told him”
Brain worms.
14 Likes
Chris Metzen just “got it” in a way that the current C-Dev team does not.
I don’t know if we will ever get Warcraft back.
16 Likes
The current writers are to high on their own hubris for us to ever get Warcraft back. They despise what Metzen built and are convinced that whatever result they get from scraping a piece of paper across the backside is infinitely better than what he left behind when he retired.
They aren’t here to create a compelling product that iterates and builds upon a beloved franchise. They’re here to push their moral platitudes and political ideologies on to the unwashed gamer masses and they’ll retcon anything and everything that gets in their way to do it.
9 Likes
God I’m sick of them saying this but never showing it.
For god’s sake, they told us 2 patches ago that Baine was the Heart and Best of the Horde … then had him discarded by his own damned kidnappers as worthless. To the point where in the beta we had to buy him back. I get that this was a convoluted panel on Thrall, but Golden you know what … how about Blizz stops turning the Tauren reps into accessories for Alliance reps? Or have any semblance of their spirit worship culture having any relevance in a damned afterlives expac?
And as for Cairne? Why Cairne for Thrall? How about Doomhammer? MU Grom? I thought Draka was there for Thrall’s growth and benefit? Of all the people not to give to friggen Baine to finally give that wretched, worthless plot-device his own character arc in over a decade … its Cairne?!!
22 Likes
Yeah the lack of Shaman Land for 9.1 is concerning to me.
Would’ve been how Draka and Thrall visit all their family (Durotan etc) and Baine to see Cairne and etc.
4 Likes
Oi vey.
Only three styles in modernity of someone raised to hate/resent/distrust their people of origin via isolation/indoctrination such a case:
- House Slaves, foremost of which was Nat Turner, and we know how that turned out.
- Indian Residential Schools in the US, with the actual official motto being “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”, and we know how that turned out.
- The Mortara Case, in which he was indoctrinated but not raised as a slave, and we know how that turned out.
Just unrealistic.
Really does seem like they are just patting themselves on the back the whole time. However all they’ve done is sold the Horde down the river as utterly redundant faction. Thrall a Human raised orc is the best among orcs. Or Tauren are the Heart of the Horde whose leader is sending off pieces of him self to the alliance leaders.
Not a good message.
it also illustrates how the current writers are so focused on specific characters they ignore the factions as a whole. That they illustrate how bad the Horde his without these Leaders Almost painting the entire horde culture as to toxic.
15 Likes
Bro they literally couldn’t name any other Horde leader off the top of their head.
They were like “The Horde Council: Thrall, and of course Baine, and uh… the uh… The Rest of the Horde. It’s The Horde. Our Horde”
??? Huge L
20 Likes
None of this bodes well for Horde players. Everything good about the Horde, in their eyes, is some noble savage version of Western values. Siiiiigh.
16 Likes
It amazes me that nobody has sat down with Copeland and Golden like “hey you’re invoking one of the most basic, common, 101 racist literary tropes, repeatedly”
17 Likes