Warchief Thrall didn’t really do anything in WoW.
Cata Thrall got a wife and used ChosenOne™ powers to defeat Deathwing.
MoP Thrall opposed Garrosh, I guess.
WoD Thrall got confronted with traditional orcish identity, as well as his own failures.
Legion Thrall randomly lost his Mojo… and did nothing.
BfA Thrall left his family when asked and did some busywork that we really didn’t need him for.
Shadowlands Thrall at this point randomly got (some of?) his shaman mojo back, and had a talk with some version of the mother he never knew.
So… is this going anywhere? In Legion we pretty much thought that Thrall was retiring with Metzen. But then they dragged him out again and… well, he is there, I guess. Is there any rhyme or reason to it? Where can this character go from here, and do we want him there?
In my opinion when it will be clear that a Council of leaders is not the best option for the Horde in times of war as it will be too “dispersive” and not very effective ( a war either against the Alliance again, or some other enemy), Thrall will likely be convinced to become Warchief again. Probably there will be some limitations though, like I said he will be the Warchief only for the duration of the war, then he will step down again and the Council will rule only in times of peace. Even better, the Horde could name two Warchiefs even in times of war, so the Kalimdor Horde and Eastern Kingdoms Horde have two different rulers who can coordinate and work together without any of them having absolute power over the Horde (I think this is something similar to the ancient Roman Empire system)
Point is, despite the promise he made to Saurfang, he still needs some sort of closure over the Warchief position after he made the terrible mistake of trusting and appointing Garrosh, and all the future consequences that happened to the Horde with that choice, so in my opinion he definitely needs to rule the Horde at least for one last time to “redeem” himself as Warchief and truly return to his roots as a character
Well when I initially saw that both Varian and Vol’jin were dying in Legion, I was certain they were removing them becuaee Metzen was leaving the company and he’s the one giving them voice,but in the end it didn’t seem like that since he’s still Thrall(who is still alive) , and many many more smaller characters throught Blizzard games… P. S There was alot of room for Thrall from classic to Cata to do something, weird they never did much with him in those years, but same can be said for Varian who was missing I guess
I kind of doubt it. At this point it’s kind of stupid, with Thrall going to retire only for something to come up like an expansion later, which forces him to come back again and again and again. He is basically untouchable, because of being the Metzen insert to rule them all and is the single Horde character, who is genuinely marketable and doesn’t need some serious time out of the spotlight.
He hasn’t really brought anything to the table since… well Cataclysm really. Besides the “Oh wow i recognise that character’s face!” factor. Unless they give his kid some relevance post timeskip i can’t really see him becoming anything more than a part of the scenery.
I just feel that all the ingredients for a character arc are there, they just failed do actually make it happen… He realized that warchiefing actually wasn’t all that, and found a girl that reconneced him to his shamanistic destiny. We went to a world where he could for the first time experience his ancestors’ culture, and some years later he in his ancestral home world, wearing wolf pelts and caring for his family. He had a part in enabling the monster Garrosh, lost his confidence, and got a pep talk from his dead mother. He lost his shaman powers, and… got them back, when he got back into action, I guess?
It’s not necessarily bad, and the puzzle pieces might fit together… but we certainly don’t get a story, here, just pieces. Not an arc, just the material for one. And I really don’t have any clue which parts of his story are supposed to be finished and which aren’t. I had assumed that his struggle with leadership was over, for example, but seeing Hellaynnea’s post I guess there isn’t really any reason it would be. I’d have guessed that his spiritual struggle with the elements would be a relevant thing, but I guess Blizz didn’t think so. Considering this is probably the most iconic surviving Warcraft character that feels a bit… strange, and I was kinda hoping I was overlooking some great… or at least any plan.
I don’t know i’ve never felt like he ever learned anything which would profoundly alter his way of thinking. They could have connected his guilt over Garrosh to Sylvanas’s struggle against fate or whatever the hell it is. To a point, where he could even empathise on some level, with what she is trying to achieve.
Atm we’re at a place, where he was in denial, suddenly got an identity crysis and now is going back to denial, because his dead mom told him to… (Which has absolutely nothing to do with the story at hand)
I think the character still has things to tell if they handle him correctly in the future. The story of his identity struggle and his desire to reclaim the orcish legacy he’s been deprived of (both because he was born in Azeroth and because that orcish legacy is now tainted with darkness), a desire made clear by his obvious interest in Outland even to this day, is something I’ve always liked