I don’t believe he was very popular at all back then. With the exception of Orc fans he had kinda managed to piss off most other Horde players with the way he treated the other racial groups within the faction.
Of course with Blizzard violently butchering the Horde and killing off all of the old fan favorites and turning the whole faction into a scuffed, red version of the Alliance it’s no surprise at all that many will be nostalgic for the “good ol days” and Garrosh is in many ways an avatar for that.
ut what do players mean when they say “A red version of alliance”? I see this a lot but nobody is specific what they mean by it.
Is it because they work with the alliance for a greater goal? Why does that make them red alliance and not make alliance blue horde?
It’s so bizarre that you don’t see this “blue horde” mentality on alliance yet on horde there’s the phenomena of the “red alliance” but I really wish people would explain what they mean by it.
Because this is not a partnership of equals. Whether by design or not the status quo is such that Alliance adjacent characters are being imposed upon the Horde to fill the gaps left behind by Blizzard and existing Horde characters are measured by their proximity and relationship to the much more powerful Alliance characters in the setting such as Jaina and Anduin. Anyone who is given permission to speak out against this is either pushed to the backseat of the red car (Rokhan, Geyarah) or written in such a way that their legitimate grievances against the other faction appear wholly unreasonable from the meta point of view of the authors. (Talanji)
Compounded by this is the fact that post-BfA the Horde really has nothing left to offer with most of our A-listers either dead, soon to be dead, jumped ship or just perpetually unexplored and underpowered. It’s particularly clear in Shadowlands where from the moment we set foot in the Maw our supposed reps are either saved by the blue team or dropped like a sack of rotten potatoes by the big baddie himself. Nothing that they do contribute to the progression of the story in any meaningful way which is a problem when these two sad saps are the de facto leaders of the Horde and one of them arguably our strongest.
The trolls have literally no1 as leader and Vol’jin was really wasted as Warchief, serving as a placeholder just to die.
Lor’themar and Liadrin have minor appearances while right now are the de facto most powerful leaders/commanders left alive and the entirety of the BE faction is composed by some individuals that might or might not have an importance story wise.
Baine has 0 evolution as a character on the contrary of Anduin, his only exploit when he freed Derek has had no followup on him as a character and I can’t really see him as a leader at all.
There might be hope for the Forsaken but IMO for that to happen they have to get back Nathanos because he is the only1 with enough charisma, subtlety and expertise in warfare that would keep the identity of the faction.
I really can’t see any Orc worth enough to be placed in charge right now, Thrall (while always being a major face of the horde) shouldn’t come back but I’d gladly see another Shaman as a leader of the Orcs because they need to get something different than the typical “ME AXE YOU!” kind of leadership.
But you’re looking at these characters purely through the lens of alliance affiliation. It’s like you’re presuming bad behaviour on their part.
Why can the actions of people like Baine or Thrall not be seen as actions undertaken to steer the horde away from self destruction, maintain internal long term stability and spare their people hardship? It’s like if a human is nearby people can only see it as “oh it’s alliance simping”. As if the horde SHOULD as default position be continually fighting the alliance.
It’s a bizarre assumption to me. Thralls initial horde was about setting up a means of continued survival for his people, and those he aligned with, preserving their ways of life and heritage, giving them a home. It was NEVER about creating something to destroy the alliance, so when a leader takes steps to do something that involves brokering with the alliance, and it results in continued survival, preservation of the culture, preserving homes, how can that be seen as “anti-horde”? To me it makes no sense.
Way too many people define the horde solely regarding its relationship to the alliance. In my opinion this is wrong. At times the horde fights the alliance at other times they don’t. Whether they do or don’t have nothing to do with how “hordey” they are if we take the spirit of Thralls new horde as to what the Horde is actually about.
Where characters whom appear to “shine and get screen time” could have nothing to do with the fact they’re “pro alliance” or whatever and everything to do with the fact that their actions are the ones that resemble the spirit of the original new horde and its people and those who shout and rah rah rah about the alliance non stop continually compromise those things to try and define the horde regarding the alliance so to the back they go.
Also, I’d say, imo only, the narrative of exploring the horde solely through their anti alliance stance is limited and boring and predictable. It leads to the eventual toppling of a warchief because the horde cannot succeed in this endeavour because blizzard will not eradicate an entire section of the playerbase, so it leads to either lack of success (horde incompetency) or a stale story that never evolves and just drags on.
Personally I’d rather the faction was about more than looking and sounding rah rah cool and failing to ever win on the back of that or continually being shown to fail at it.
I like my faction leaders with a sizeable cup of villainy… Makes things more interesting and enjoyable.
I can’t stand goody two shoes… Unless their virtiousness becomes fanatical insanity. Then it becomes interesting again.
You mean like the cultists we found in Orgrimmars ranks killing people going against Garrosh and all that?
I mean, wasn’t it a ploy made by bad actors in the first place?
He used a lot of people, ‘interesting’ depends entirely on opinion.
By ‘wet slob’ do you mean not drooling and slobbering all over declaring war and hate for things for no reason? Also Jaina was one of the reasons the Alliance and Horde had peace at all and was always trying to work with the Horde for such measures. I would figure a reasonable leader would’ve tried to talk with Jaina about things instead of starting fights he can’t win in the end but - Garrosh loved doing that.
I would prefer a leader that cares for the horde and takes responsibility for their actions like not blaming someone else for ‘putting them in charge’.
So weak he ate old god heart to become ‘strong enough to fight’ people.
I think OP simply means, he was fun to watch, what kind of crazy sstuff is he gonna do next. They could easily let other characters actually do stuff without bringing garrosh back, but lately it’s all been sylvanus. I feel their writers always let one person do all the stuff as other sit by and just react.
I think you’re taking this world a bit to seriously, it’s not meant to reflect the real world or a utopia, it’s a world of warcraft where strange things happen and it’s fine because none of it is real. Atleast this is my opinion, being horde i was not negatively impacted by garrosh’s or sylvanus’ bad leadership, it just made some interesting writing, the things they did, which are not possible in the real world, you know.
It doesn’t reflect either, never has tried anyways? If you think the horde wasn’t negatively impacted by Garrosh’s or Sylvanas’s leadership I don’t know what to tell ya.
