Well before ret-conning: Ner’zhul built the dark portal on Draenor(in fact he built too many, leading to Draenor being pulled apart) and Medievh built the one on Azeroth.
Ner’zhul led the Shadow Council, created the title of Warchief to control all clans but they were only a puppet. Only someone who understood the motivations of others and could predict the consequences of them could actually control so many clans with their own separate cultures and values, which Rend Blackhand certainly couldn’t, nor could Gul’Dan even in his ret-conned blow-up version.
Well the ret-conning blew up in Blizzard’s faces: it turns out that genuinely intelligent villains who think carefully, have sentimental attachments and believe they are doing the right thing are quite popular. They already had one in Ner’zhul, but they wasted him and have instead been doing moody, irrational, callous and shallow characters that belong in a pantomine: Garrosh, Sylvanas and Gul’Dan.
Well you can argue whether Orcs are highly intellectual creatures but somehow they ended up not being dead. So how smart is it to die man? So you can say that Undead failed their test of life the first time. So how can a creature who’s clearly so dumb he/she died wield such powerful magic??
And maybe the Orgrimmar University of Advanced Necrotic Sciences classes took longer than the Lordaeron University of Magics. Who knows, who knows??
An orc warlock is usually an orc shaman that has turned to fel magic because it’s much better. That’s basically the lore behind them; and orc warlocks are generally warlocks that either were shamans, or really seek power. And since orcs are all about power and conquest, I’d say it’s fitting
I think orcs are the quintessential warlocks. I mean the archetype warlock is Gul’dan who is an orc and that helps, and the ‘modern warlock’ is very much a product of orcish culture. But moreso than that - warlockery is about intellect, but it’s about brutal intellect and not refined intellect to me.
Like mages, warlocks have to study and have a decent intellectual grasp of their magic to be successful. However that’s where the similarity ends. The arcane, in the sources I have read, is very mathematical and logical - it’s a magic of Order, it’s a magic based on rules. You apply your mind to understand the rules and shaping the world around you, and you expend your energy and the innate energy of the world to do it.
Fel is not a magic of order, rules and the application of principles. Fel is about sacrifice, about brutality. You don’t get power for fel by studying leylines, you rip it out of living beings and throw it at other living beings. You don’t study to make sure you understand the innate laws of the universe, you study so that the intricate rituals you perform won’t kill you or get beyond your control.
To me, the mind suitable for a warlock is the mind suitable for a shaman in the real-world sense. Someone who knows traditions and stories, knows secrets that other people don’t quite grasp, and can tell those stories so well that it makes them feel real - except in wow, when they do that the spirits and beings of the other world ARE real and are actively telling you how to do the next bit.
Orcs are creatures of tradition, storytelling, legends, passion and brutality. They have intelligence in terms of cunning and wit, and that seems to suit far more than the cold logic of a mage. All of those things are very warlock to me. Of course this isn’t to say they can’t be good mages, orcs simply are not stupid in wow lore, but they suit the warlock mould well.
For one the fact that we have kil’jaeden and archimonde rules out gul’dan immediately.
But aside from that, it’s probably because orcs are not stupid, but rather their culture makes them seem more stupid than what they actually are, but there are some very smart orc individuals.
