A friend and I were discussing new race/class ideas and one that popped up was paladin. We tried for a good solid hour to find a reason why pandaren, lore wise, would be unable to become a paladin and were unable to find anything.
It seems like pandaren might be a fitting race for paladin. They can get power from the light already and tend to be able to keep their emotions in check. Why no holy warriors of the celestials?
inb4 male human paladin comes in and throws a fit.
You get a cookie and a like just for this. (giggle)
Good news, I’m a female human paladin.
Those furballs are more into jade dragons, less into the light.
usually people with a hangover can’t stand excessive amounts of light
10/10. Love it. 
pandas are all sinners.
sweats oh god they’re evolving! Retreat! Retreeeeeat!!!
Excuse me, I’m not a fur ball.
I’m a fur MOUNTAIN!
you should be zealot to become a paladin. Pandaren zealot wont be a thing
With the addition of vulpera I may need to update my terms.
Also a good point. Too relaxed for zealotry.
I’d like to introduce you to Taran Zhu, and the rest of the Shado-Pan…
I rather Pandaren get Druid.
Feels more fitting as well
i have wished for a gnome pallys. i have a wow tcg card that has a gnome pally.
but…i never really thought a panda pally?
thats more lore behind that the gnome!
on MG on players TRP3 addon, [no plug intended hehe] i have read some pandarian warriors or dk’s RP’ing as a pally.
but i would love to create one!
tbh, i wish blizzard would open all race to all classes!
they already broke lore, give us options with races to classes!
Thats what I thought too but that also mostly stuck to and struck from the shadows, which felt more rogue like than paladin but it is a good example that a pandaren can be a zealot of some kind.
If I had to take a stab at I’d say that there isn’t the right kind of influence for a Pandaren to adopt the kinds of traits that spawn paladins.
Panda are too fat for the bubble to fit around them?
Plot twist, they are the bubble.
But I’m trying to decide if their paladin organization would be better served with a name of :
hors d’oeuvre Of the silver hand
Or:
Order of the Silver Paw.
I still want a Worgen Paladin.
I think that would be cool - especially if they became Paladins post-curse.
I’d also like Forsaken Paladins, almost like an inversion of a human death knight. Calia might be a cool way to introduce such an ability to incorporate Light into undeath. Since It (Light) likes making bargains and wheeling and dealing with the “enemy of all.”
I think it would be a great way for the Silver hand and other paladin orders to start to make peace with undeath and realize not all things are “as they seem,” with regards to undeath always needing “cleansing.” Might make the paladin class a bit more nuanced and compassionate (which is one of the darn tenets in the Church of the holy Light) in their approach to things.
The Pandaren starting experience explains this pretty perfectly if you choose Alliance, actually. When you’re walking up to Stormwind Keep to talk to Varian (now Anduin), you run into a paladin and their student along with Aysa and Jojo. Jojo stops and asks “What’s the Light?,” because it’s not a part of Pandaren culture.
No knowledge of the Light means no paladins.