Thrall vs Garrosh

[KingCamel]

Alright my lovelies. As you may or may not have heard, Garrosh Hellscream does die in Warlords, and it’s Thrall who kills him. A lot of people are happy, some people (Myself included) are pissed off about it. Before getting into Thrall, we need to look at Garrosh.

The WoW community has been jumping on the “Hate Garrosh” bandwagon since Cataclysm, and if you never read into it, it’s not hard to see why: He’s a loud, racist and immature son of a !@#$% who killed Cairne Bloodhoof and insulted the precious Sylvanas Windrunner. He rules with a totalitarian fist, segregates his city, and has a dangerous lust for power. That’s all that there is to him, right? Right?

Wrong.

Garrosh, like many of our esteemed Warcraft heroes, has a whole lot of daddy issues. For the longest time, he was depressed because of Grom: He grew up with little interaction with his father, and knew that it was that man who had damned his people to slavery.

Then, one day in The Burning Crusade, the player character comes around and tries to cheer young Garrosh Hellscream up. Eventually this leads to Thrall meeting Garrosh, and telling him about his father’s heroism. He convinces Garrosh to join the Horde, and he becomes a general, leading his Warsong Clan into battle against the Alliance.

By this point, Garrosh has a lot on his plate. He’s a high-ranking member of the Horde, and he has a legacy to live up to. He’s the child of an orcish hero, and as such, he needs to be a man worthy of the title. He, by all means, proves himself, too! In Northrend, he becomes a hero and is constantly seen in Thrall’s company. He attends important meetings, he was there when Arthas fell, he’s made quite the name for himself!

Not only that, but he had become close to Thrall in this time. Thrall, in Garrosh’s eyes, was not only a friend, but he was a mentor and father-figure. Remember how Garrosh was never close with his daddy? Thrall, being Grom’s best friend and the man who had taken Garrosh under his wing, had filled that void.

During the events in the book The Shattering, we can see just how Garrosh became Warchief, and how his position started off. What a lot of people like to forget is that Garrosh never wanted to be Warchief. He begged Thrall not to give him the position, telling him that he was a man of war, not diplomacy. That’s right: When Thrall gave Garrosh the mantle of Warchief, Garrosh told him flat out that he did not want it, that he would not do a good job, and that it just wasn’t a good idea.

But really, what choice did Garrosh have? Thrall was leaving within a few days, if not sooner, and the Horde needed someone to lead it. Because guess what hot mess Thrall left for Garrosh? Orgrimmar was recently burned to the ground. People were starving in the streets, without food, shelter or water. They had only just enough money to repair Orgrimmar, and even then, they had no natural resources to work with. Durotar, unless you have forgotten, is a desert. You won’t find much wood there, or fertile soil.

In the past, Orgrimmar has gotten its wood via trade with the Night Elves. However, due to the events at Wrathgate, the Kaldorei completely closed off trade to the orcs. Do you know what that means? The orcs were dying in the streets and the only people who could logically help them were refusing to do so, despite diplomacy, and while this was all being figured out, we had Horde citizens dying in the streets of their home.

And so, Garrosh invaded Ashenvale for their natural resources. It was an action of necessity. Early into this campaign, a group of sentinels had been attacked. They were skinned, and their pelts hung on the trees. Something wasn’t right in there, but things, as always, were blamed on Garrosh.

So we fast-forward a bit, there’s a meeting of druids (Both Tauren and Night Elf both) in Ashenvale. It was a peaceful summit, nothing more, to discuss re-opening trade with Orgrimmar. The Archdruid Hummel Runetotem was present. In the middle of the meeting, the group was ambushed, and the only face that Hummel saw was that of an orc. And so, when he reported back to Cairne, he told him that Garrosh had sent assassins after the druids.

This is what made Cairne march to Orgrimmar, and challenge Garrosh, who honestly had no idea what was going on, as the orcs who had killed the druids were not his, but orcs of the Twilight Hammer cult. He believed that Cairne was fighting him because he didn’t approve of how Garrosh was leading the Horde. We all know what happens next, in that Magatha Grimtotem, an enemy of the Bloodhoof tribe, poisoned Garrosh’s weapon without him knowing, which is what lead to the death of Cairne. Garrosh had played fairly, and when he learned that it was poison which had killed Cairne, he was absolutely furious and guilty. He knew that Cairne deserved a better death, as he did respect the old Tauren.

Now we have the events up in the Northern Eastern Kingdom, where the Forsaken is repopulating itself and invading Gilneas. After Wrathgate, the Plague was deemed too inhumane to use in war, or at all, and its production was ordered to halt. What makes people get furious is that during the events up there, Garrosh insults Sylvanas.

What people need to understand is that Sylvanas is doing exactly what Arthas was doing. She was intentionally killing people to raise them as Forsaken, and to add insult to injury, she was doing it through the same methods that the Scourge did. Now, imagine that you’re a soldier, and you’ve just returned from a land that can only be described as a living hell. You go pop in with your buddy, and she’s mirroring exactly what you saw thousands of people die to stop. I think that’s warranting calling said buddy a ^-*!@, that being the kindest of terms. And then later, she uses this inhumane, horrible weapon that even Garrosh said was awful, and after, she has the gall to send for Orcish reinforcements.

And somewhere in the mix, you have Vol’jin, who Thrall had promised Garrosh would be there to serve as an advisor when things got rough, wanting absolutely nothing to do with him, and threatening assassination after insulting Garrosh’s family.

What does all of this teach Garrosh, who never wanted the position, has no idea what to do, and has seen nothing so far but betrayal and broken promises? Garrosh learns that people who are not orcs are not friends. He still leads them, of course, but he doesn’t expect much of anything in return, lest they turn their back on him, like everyone in his life already has.

Garrosh by this point has been abandoned, betrayed, threatened, tricked, and has had his name dragged through the mud under false claims. All because Thrall left him to the wolves and gave him something everyone knew he was not ready for. So now Garrosh is expected to lead a group of people who don’t respect him, never gave him a chance to do any good, and now he needs to prove himself not only to them, but to the rest of the world as a capable leader, and someone who will make his people strong. He needs to live up to Grom’s legacy, after all.

Garrosh’s only father figure was not there to catch him when he inevitably stumbled, and it caused Garrosh to fall.

Garrosh fell to paranoia, hatred and fear. He was thrust into this position and no matter what he did, everyone saw him as the bad guy, and everyone was out for his blood.

And then we have Pandaria. Garrosh dabbled in forces he did not fully understand, and it was to make the Horde stronger, and to validate his own strength and meaning in the world. To prove himself, as he’s always trying to do. But he does go mad. The common theory and the one I personally accept is that Wrathion tricked Garrosh into drinking the blood of the Old God Y’shaarj, which is what tipped him over the edge.

If you listen to the whispers that come from the Heart and the corrupted Gorehowl, we can easily see why Garrosh acted the way he did:

"Nobody is coming to save you"
"Your allies will leave you behind"
"Your allies think you are weak"
"Pay the cost of greatness"
"All should bow before you. Make them!"
Now, just imagine what he was saying to Garrosh? Whose mind was fogged with madness?

Now we go into the events of the novel War Crimes. By this point, Garrosh has been captured, and he is in trial, as to see if he should live or die. During the events of all of this, nearly everyone in the book looks back onto the moment that they regret the most. As the reader slowly figures out in the book, it was never Garrosh who was on trial, but everyone else. They all made Garrosh what he had become. Garrosh was not to blame for his actions, but everyone around him. He was just as much a victim as everyone else.

The Celestials ruled that Garrosh was to live. Shortly after, the former Warchief escapes into the time ways.

Now, if what Blizzard said is true, then the timeway in which Garrosh went into had absolutely no effect on the one we play in. So they could have very easily let Garrosh go, and that would be that. No more problems. But alas, pride gets in the way.

With Garrosh’s story out of the way, we come back to Thrall, the man who made all of this happen. Thrall had been told more than once by many different people (Cairne, Vol’jin, Jaina, Garrosh, the list goes on) that promoting Garrosh Hellscream to Warchief was a bad idea.

Thrall didn’t listen and he left. Despite people constantly contacting him about how BAD of a choice this was. While one could argue that he was busy saving the world, he got married on Mount Hyjal. He had a huge ceremony for this. He could have always just, y’know, stopped near Orgrimmar, said “Hey Garrosh this is my mate and by the way WHAT THE #$%^ ARE YOU DOING LET ME HELP YOU PLS.”

By the time he DOES visit Garrosh, it’s beyond too late.

And so here we are, and Thrall is laying blame completely on Garrosh for everything that had happened. And he still does this after the celestials quite literally say that it was not completely Garrosh’s fault. But I mean -*!@ listening to those guys, right? What could they possibly know?

Now in Warlords of Draenor, since absolutely nothing is Thrall’s fault and it’s completely Garrosh’s, Thrall goes out to kill the man he had damned. He challenges Garrosh to a Mak’gora, a duel which Thrall ruled was not to the death. Yet he did it in the traditional sense.

But you know, this honestly can’t even be considered a Mak’gora. A Mak’gora is a challenge of honor, and Thrall has none. He’d be a terrible PvPer. So the rules of a Mak’gora are the following:

Each Participant is allowed to use one weapon
Body armor is forbidden
Each participant needs at least one witness
And so here is what Thrall does. He challenges Garrosh, and where Garrosh shows up in nothing but his pants, boots and belt, Thrall is there in full body armor. They’re completely alone in the field, though I’m going to assume that the player is to be Thrall’s witness. And so they fight, Garrosh screams to Thrall over how he was abandoned, and how Thrall made him what he was. Thrall responds by saying, in a nutshell, “You did this to yourself lol look at this” and killed Garrosh with his elemental magic.

So I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem very Mak’gora-like. Thrall used a total of three weapons (Doomhammer, molten rock, and lightning), he showed up in armor, and Garrosh had no witness to speak of, so nobody was there to call Thrall out on his murderous bull#$%^.

So we have Thrall, who took a man who looked up to him as a father, and he ruined him utterly and completely, then blamed Garrosh for being ruined, and when someone told Thrall “Hey you’re wrong” he throws a tantrum, he risks the lives of Horde soldiers to needlessly go after someone, then he challenges Garrosh to honorable combat, cheats, and is hailed as a hero for it. Fook thrall

[jimmys96]

So basically you're saying Garrosh was mentally ill and therefore not responsible for his actions? You should be a lawyer tbh

[KingCamel]

So basically you're saying Garrosh was mentally ill and therefore not responsible for his actions? You should be a lawyer tbh

There's still time for schooling!

[MrPanquecas]

Man you totally changed the way i think about thrall... dude...

[JordanEamonHurley]

Now I have a completely backwards view of which I always had...

Brilliant post. Now I find myself pitying Garrosh and resenting Thrall...

[vv3]

Excellent read. I wanted to give you rep, but then I saw you just reposted it from Why Thrall's a jackass. - Forums - World of Warcraft without providing a source

[KingCamel]

Excellent read. I wanted to give you rep, but then I saw you just reposted it from Why Thrall's a jackass. - Forums - World of Warcraft without providing a source

It's my post.

[KingCamel]

Edited out a double post.

[Ziggeh]

Garrosh was the only warchief The Horde has ever had. One that didn't dream about making peace with Alliance, but winning the war against them. Everything that happened in Mist of Pandaria was tailored to make him look bad, since he was already decided to be killed off.

I believe it wasn't meant to be like this. I believe that initially Blizzard intended Garrosh to bring Horde back to its roots, which was badly needed after all those tea parties and hand-holding with Alliance in WotLK. Liberal degenerates, SJWs and other scum were furious, as per custom. Garrosh represents a lot of things they loathe and fear and they wanted none of it. Blizzard, for whatever reason, had obliged and killed him off, making Vol'jin, a pretty dull and uninspired character the new warchief and pretty much putting and end to the whole "Horde" thing. The Horde now exists simply for there to still be some kind of logic in "warcraft". There isn't a war anymore.

Bleurgh.

[Cheengle]

Wow. This just blew my mind, I have a completely different view of Garrosh & Thrall now... I feel bad for Garrosh.

[Yasu]

Shamans can't kill shit this xpac. Garrosh is still alive bro.
Interesting post, I'm not much into WoW's lore but this was great. Thanks for sharing.

[KingCamel]

Shamans can't kill shit this xpac. Garrosh is still alive bro.
Interesting post, I'm not much into WoW's lore but this was great. Thanks for sharing.

hahaa +rep for making me LOL

[onlyomaha]

Also i still dont see any problems with Garrosh ! I dont see why people hate? Orcs were ment to be killers slayers animals etc. Rule by power, rape human women, kill children, kill who oppose you ! thats how i remember orcs from warcraft days decade years ago. Now they turning in to humanoids with feelings etc. I dont like it and thats why Garrosh was last hope to make orcs like they were ment to be.

[KingCamel]

Edited to please Creative so he can stop whining.

[CreativeXtent]

You have a valid point.

did you really need to necro for this comment?