Varok Saurfang: A Ruined Character

Lore Story Forum
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It’s a damn travesty how Blizzard managed to take a universally-loved character within the Horde playerbase and completely throw him under the bus. Yes, under the bus, ruined, assassinated, whatever you want to call it. You still support his character? Sure, I still support Sylvanas, doesn’t mean his character isn’t ruined (or Sylvanas’s for that matter, but that’s another story). So why is Saurfang ruined? Well let’s talk about it.

I Didn’t Sign Up to Play MoP/SoO 2.0 Undead Boogaloo

Is Blizzard unable to write a faction war where both sides can feel motivated/justified fighting for their faction? This should honestly be the bare minimum for pitting players against each other in a narrative sense. But no, apparently faction wars in Warcraft, per Blizzard, must operate on the stance that one faction needs to risk civil war within itself while the other can stand unified while taking repeated beatings only hardening their resolve/motivation even more. And uniquely to Warcraft, the civil war crap is only exclusive to a single faction! But seriously, the purpose of MoP ending with SoO, as marketed by Blizzard (and Metzen) was to put to rest the question of “what is the Horde”; why are we, again, shoved into a narrative to find ourselves when we were already were supposed to find ourselves years prior when this narrative was originally written. So with a crappy narrative being planned out from the getgo, apparently, let’s actually talk about Saurfang…

How to Rebellion, by Vol’jin

Y’know, it is one thing to go rebelling, but it is another thing to go rebelling with the context of having participated in a rebellion just, what, two years ago, and doing it fundamentally worse. Vol’jin executed his rebellion without hampering the actual war effort against the Alliance, hell, Vol’jin’s rebellion was entirely irrelevant of the Alliance and actually made statements on general distaste of them too. What does Saurfang do? Oh aside from failing to kill Malfurion because of some silly notion of Honor 2.0 BfA Edition, there’s also the fact that he apparently forgot what he did to go against Garrosh back in SoO. I remember a Saurfang joining the assault on Orgrimmar to take down Garrosh, but instead we have a Saurfang moping in an Alliance prison. Speaking of said Alliance prison…

Orcish Honor… Defined by Anduin?

Man I sure love it when the Horde PC can’t even motivate Saurfang out of his stupor of feeling bad due to Sylvanas. But don’t worry, he’s motivated in the end by… the Alliance? By Anduin? Man, this faction war narrative is 10/10. Can’t have anyone work against Anduin. Nope. Also got to shove that little tidbit than Anduin is better than you, at everything. Way to go Horde PC.

Conclusion

Regardless on where you personally fall on the Sylvanas/Saurfang debate, Saurfang doesn’t come out of this 100% true to his character. I personally remember a Saurfang who acted on his own, had the strength/power to act on his own, and didn’t need an outside party, let alone the enemy, dictate his motivations on what needed to be done. And we, as narrative/lore enthusiasts, should be cognizant of this flawed character and criticize Blizzard for taking what was once universally loved and ruining it as such.

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To be fair the only reason why Saurfang hasn’t cleaved sylvanas in two already is because of the plot armor.

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And to give a similar simple response. I’d rather have that narrative over what we have received thus far.

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Agreed. I’m not 100% against the direction they are going with Saurfang right now, but they are making it look pretty stupid and drawn out when he could/should have challenged her to Mak’gora.

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Blizzard, if you read no other feedback on Saurfang’s character change and the upcoming (2nd) civil war arc, read this one.

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Your points are valid and would definitely make for a better story. But I still love Saurfang. I really identify with him. The voice of the honorable horde is an old man who’s tired, worn down by all of this, and deep down just wants to die. That’s how this story makes me feel too.

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The demand for a character to get more time in the spotlight is one hell of a monkey’s paw. There are a lot of characters I’d like to see do more things but if the alternative is to have something awful happen to them then I’m happy if they stay in the background.

With some characters, there’s a level of hype that mounts over the eventual prominence or return of a character. We saw it in the underwhelming return of Turalyon and Alleria and we’re seeing it now with Varok.

Blizzard’s really into re-hashs and do-overs, feels like. They weren’t exactly opaque about wanting to do a better Illidan story and the more conspiratorial part of me wants to go ahead and say WoD was nothing more than a set up for Gul’dan so he could be nothing more than a set up for Illidan’s return. The problem is, Legion did well, so now Blizzard thinks they’re onto something.

The Devs said that Garrosh got the villain back because there was miscommunication about what was going on with his character. So I guess they’re on the heels of a successful Illidan rehash and want to try for a successful “flawed and misunderstood Warchief” angle since they failed to make Garrosh sympathetic and had to get him replaced.

Saurfang’s characterization doesn’t stick in my craw all that much. If Blizzard didn’t feel we needed another stupid civil war over the ‘soul of the Horde’, he probably wouldn’t be so badly handled by the narrative.

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The problem with the Mak’gora angle is that at least with Cairne/Garrosh and Garrosh/Thrall you had participants who were playing by the orcish honor book (aside from your personal feelings about Thrall using his shamanism at the end). Garrosh had many, many faults, but he was sticking to the traditional rules of Mak’gora in both cases and was fighting fair (not his fault that Magatha poisoned his weapon without his knowledge, and he was ticked about it when he found out because to him it invalidated his victory because it was cheating).

Saurfang is still a fierce warrior, but he’s also an old man. AND he’s smart enough to know that, in her own words’ honor means nothing to a corpse’. Even if he DID challenge Sylvanas to a Mak’gora 1) There’s no guarantee she’d even accept…she DID cowardly send her dark rangers and goons out to assassinate him and she looks down her nose on the ‘primitive’ Horde customs in general. 2) If she DID accept, she’d cheat to ensure she won once it became clear she couldn’t beat him in a fair fight. She’d probably have Nathanos snipe him in the back from the bushes because we’ve all seen how she doesn’t have a problem with cowardly ambushes from behind.

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How is sending assassins against a traitor cowardly? Anyways Sylvanas cheating in a mak’gora is a biiiiiig stretch considering she didn’t want the Warchief role in the first place. I reckon it’ll either end in Sylvie just giving the Warchief role up if Saurfang issued the challenge with no hassle OR the duel commences and Sylvie wins resulting in Saurfang’s death just by sheer ability. Either way, both options end on a good note for Saurfang and doesn’t assassinate/ruin his character unlike what we have now.

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Before BfA started, I would have been 100% fine with having Warchief Saurfang someday, apart from an eye-roll at the whole musical warchiefs thing. Now I’m actively dreading the idea.

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He ‘betrayed’ HER, not the Horde itself. Lyana even says “you betrayed the DARK LADY”…it was a personal grudge because she knew he wasn’t going to bend over and lick her boots and has actual morals and notions of honor (which she clearly doesn’t…Miss ‘all will serve me in death Lich King 2.0’. She even tricks the Horde PC into going on the mission on the lie that it’s to ‘rescue’ Saurfang, and then orders them to stay in place so her goons can go assassinate him behind their back. Assassinations themselves are underhanded and cowardly.

And if you think she’d ever willingly surrender the Warchief position you haven’t been paying attention to her behavior during BFA. She might not have originally wanted the job, but now that she has it she’s drunk on the power and the free armies it gives her access to. She’s an evil lying snake and the sooner she’s removed from power the sooner I’ll actually be proud to play Horde again regardless of who replaces her.

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I agree on most of your points OP - except the main thrust.

Is Saurfang ruined? Idk. He has a loyal contingent of Orc/Anti Sylvanas Horde players. As well as Alliance players who love Anduin and are just thrilled to have Saurfang fighting for their High King.

Fighting against the Horde is what these players always wanted for Saurfang. Alliance players loved him as a meme, and now he is fighting for the High King and against the Horde.

It is a character development. I don’t know if it ruined him.

It’s like when Magneto teams up with Professor X to fight someone worse - like Mr Sinister. It’s like BfA is “Alliance and Friends (Saurfang, Baine)” against the Horde. Sort of like much of Legion and Argus was “Alliance and Friends.”

Maybe the lesson from all this is that “Alliance and Friends” is the future of Warcraft. Maybe Saurfang was “saved” as an Alliance pawn for future use, instead of going down with the Horde.

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No, he betrayed the Horde itself. Beyond quitting the Horde entirely, he willfully kickstarted the war with Sylvanas via War of Thorns and is now absolving responsibility for said war and what followed after by quitting the Horde entirely while the Horde itself is still carrying itself through the conflict. You don’t absolve military commanders just because they follow a dictator.

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Honestly, Saurfang never made sense as a warchief, irrespective of current events. He’s a warrior, a tactician, and that’s about it. Yeah he’s great at those things, but I’ve yet to see him show any leadership qualities or any desire to lead anyway.

I highly doubt we’re going to see Saurfang as warchief so you probably can stop dreading it.

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Friend 1: Hey guys let’s go to the mall and do some shopping
Friend 2: Sounds cool, lets do it
Friend 1: <breaks into store to do some “shopping”>
Friend 2: Oh hell no, this isn’t what I signed up for!

Per your comments here, Friend 2 is a terrible person that has betrayed Friend 1 because he signed up to go shopping with them and then bailed instead.

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The equivalency fails as waging war isnt in any, way, shape, or form to shopping with friends. Let’s take a look at war history of RL shall we? Did we forgive Hitler’s military commanders in WW2?

Edit: I dont even have to go to Godwin’s Law for this. When has any war in history resulted in forgiving military commander under orders of their respective monarch?

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A more appropriate example is Japan.

Hirohito was the leader - and after surrender, he lived and reigned.

His generals/admirals largely were executed.

Hirohito would be akin to Sylvanas and Tojo would be akin to Saurfang.

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Not really a good comparison, though. It’d be more like:

Friend 1: “Hey, can you help me murder this dude?”
Friend 2: “Sure. Here’s my carefully laid out plan to murder that dude.”
Friend 1: Murders dude and his whole family.
Friend 2: “Dude, wtf!?!”

This still falls short as a comparison, but it’s a bit closer.

Either way, I believe Vivette’s main point is, regardless of what happened to Teldrassil, Saurfang is culpable for starting this war. But that the blame has been fully shifted to Sylvanas.

He refuses to fight for his people in a war he helped start. For as long as he willfully stayed in that cell, Horde lives were lost. Personally, this is my problem with Saurfang in BfA.

Saurfang was an Orc who would give his life to protect the Horde and its people. Back when the Garrosh fiasco was happening, I hated that they left him on the sidelines till the very end. It seemed antithetical to his character that he would let Garrosh run amok for so long without acting.

And now we’re getting a bit of a repeat of this, only now the conflict that consumes the Horde is one he, himself, helped start. I’m sure Saurfang will eventually do something. But to some posters, like myself, the time for something has already passed.

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I agree with this point, but that was not how I read Vivette’s original point. Saurfang absolutely helped start the war but he didn’t sign up to torch a world tree, blight his own troops, etc.

So yeah, he helped start this mess for sure. But there are things that have been done that he did not agree to that seem a tad unfair to suggest are also his fault.

He refuses to fight for his people in a war he helped start. For as long as he willfully stayed in that cell, Horde lives were lost. Personally, this is my problem with Saurfang in BfA.

I agree with this gripe. Ironically, Old Soldier (or whatever the first Saurfang cinematic was called) set things up to not only address this but suggest that Zekhan had steered Saurfang down the ‘correct’ path and he’d fight by the side of his fellow Horde despite his problems with Sylvanas’ actions. And then this got obliterated immediately afterward.

Saurfang was an Orc who would give his life to protect the Horde and its people. Back when the Garrosh fiasco was happening, I hated that they left him on the sidelines till the very end. It seemed antithetical to his character that he would let Garrosh run amok for so long without acting.

I can understand this, especially since he started voicing his concerns about Garrosh all the way back in WotLK.

And now we’re getting a bit of a repeat of this, only now the conflict that consumes the Horde is one he, himself, helped start. I’m sure Saurfang will eventually do something. But to some posters, like myself, the time for something has already passed.

Definitely agree with this. You would think that after already gone through this with Garrosh that, at the very least, prominent members of the Horde would be less hesitant to take action. So far the only reason that this story arc isn’t Garrosh 2.0 is because for some inexplicable reason most of the other characters are totally cool with being complicit with Sylvanas’ actions.

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He’s supposedly been racial leader of the orcs for two expansions. Yes, I know he hasn’t done anything in that time, but Blizzard might consider that to be enough qualification to make him warchief. I see his chances as about 50/50.

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