I was curious about the concept of honor created by the horde and orcs.
Would anyone know how to talk about it and list their honor codes?
Honor isā¦ a flux concept. Thereās no real definition for it in terms of WoW that I could verifiably state for you thatād be consistent. And I think in lore, some characters would agree. Listen to Saurfangās spiel in the Negotiation, when Anduin asks him what kind of Warchief heād be. Thereās a refreshing level of self-awareness there that goes into what the claim of honor supposedly propagates, but the foundation of the faction as a whole (at least pre-BFA) contrasts with.
Might not make TOTAL sense, but itās the best I can think of.
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Honor isnāt real, thus what it means varies from person to person, culture to culture. The only time Iād say someoneās defination of honour is āwrongā is if they are only using the concept to further their own means, and donāt actually care about it, like Sylvanas and Nathanos.
And the orcs are a diverse culture. Orcs only merged into one larger culture a few decades ago, before then each Orc Clan had a different definiation of honour.
For the Frostwolves, honour meant victory without loosing yourself. In Durotanās short, he successfully saved his mother from garn, but in the process gave into bloodlust and killed a friend, his motherās wolf. Thus, although he āwonā in the sense of protecting his mother, the way he did it was considered disgraceful, and thus lacked honour.
But other clans are different, Blackrock for example have always prioritized winning over anything else. Whether this means doing things like fighting, negotiation with enemies, or backstabbing in the dark, the Blackrocks seem to care more about the ends rather than the means. Victory is honourable for them.
Then you go to non-orc races like tauren, and yet again they have different definiations of honour. Tauren like Baine seem to value violence as only a means, and as a last resort. You can like fighting, Baine enjoys fighting personally, but only fight if another means is not possible, and Baine strives to solve conflicts with as little life lost as possible, like when he helped the quilboar with their water issues.
I donāt think having such varying degrees of honour definitions is a bad thing either. In fact itās actually a pretty decent way to showing cultural differences. But the concept of honour is conplex, and what one person considers honourable, another might not.
If everyone shared Saurfangās defination then the rebellion wouldāve happened much earlier. But they donāt, and they rallied over time as what they considered right and wrong was challenged.
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Itās Klingons.
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Unfortunately, orcs have been written by so many different authors over the years that there isnāt any real consistency in what they call honor. Itās whatever sounds good to the current writer.
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Unfortunately the writers have made it so that the concept of Orcish honour basically means being a giant contradiction, wherein an enemy is only held to that standard of honour if the Orcs are winning, and if the Orcs start losing the enemy is being dishonourable in some way.
This is another thing that both Chronicle and Warlords of Draenor kind of wrecked, but itās been eroded since Cataclysm. Blizzard seems to want it to be an ideal of āFight an enemy no matter how strong, aim for victory even if it means death, and rely on your own strength and power to see you through. If you lose, that is the natural order because the strong triumph over the weakā, which we see in things like Makāgora, and other types of duels like MakāRogahn.
But Chronicle of course breaks this notion, when referring to the Draenei and their relationship with the Orcs. When the Draenei clashed with the Ogres, they were clearly much stronger, and yet spared the Ogres, and the Ogres yielded and surrendered. Per the lore surrounding MakāRogahn, or a Duel of Will, by that notion of Orcish honour, the Draenei were strong, while the Ogres disgraced themselves by not fighting to the end. Instead, Chronicle states that when the Orc clans met, they discussed attacking the Draenei because their mercy was āweaknessā, which doesnāt match up, as the onus should have been on the Ogres to fight to the last.
Only one clan decided to attack the Draenei, on and off for close to a century, the Bladewind. And again we see a contradiction, wherein itās described that the Bladewind only attacked less protected caravans because they ārespected strengthā. But per Orcish notions of battle and honour, attacking weaker caravans and civilians is dishonorable, while attacking the stronger ones would have been a true test of prowess. Yet the book frames it as part of Orcish culture.
And then finally we have what started the Orcās attacks on the Draenei, which was when after 90 or so years, the Draenei finally hit back hard, and razed a Bladewind village. Again, this would logically be completely within Orcish honour standards, as it was the strong defeating the weak, in a way that was more within what Orcs would approve of. But instead, the Orcs are incensed by it and it helped catalyze the formation of the First Horde. Not only does this not match prior Orcish notions of honour, but it doesnāt even match what was talked about earlier in Chronicle. The Draenei were considered weak for sparing the Ogres, and thus attacking them was tossed around. But when they didnāt spare their foes, they were now a threat and needed to be attacked.
And then of course we haveā¦ all of WoD so I wonāt get into that. But suffice to say that Orcish honour was at least somewhat defined prior to Cataclysm, but was eroded at and then tossed out the window by Chronicle and WoD. Now itās anyoneās guess.
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Dealing with an ambush, do you believe that for the orcs it would be considered dishonorable?
Orcish honor has really taken a hit throughout the expansions after cata, Garrosh in stonetalon peaks had a great showing of orcish honor by being absolutely disgusted with Kromgars handling of the war efforts in the area and summarily executing him got killing children and innocent non combatants.
Not entirely trueāSaurfang angsts a lot about dishonorable wins (see: Malfurion).