I am curious, which characters with potential do you think where butchered in the lore?
I would say definitely Bolvar. For a long time I imagined him as a badass Lich King and then he got he got spanked by Sylvanas, he had some really annoying interactions with his stupid daughter and he kept cringing the player with cliche quotes. Sad.
Sylvanas, she was cunning and then they just made her really stupid.
Most likely because Danuser is trying to decimate Kaplan’s legacy and make it his own.
Many Characters could’ve bigger role in last 20ish years. Vancleef and her daughter or lets say Defias could have atleast a good dungeon in Modern WoW. Akama Story stopped somehow in TBC, he could have more role for Draenei in newer expansions. (Ik someone gonna tag me and say he was casted out from Draenei, But lore can change now). Same thing happened for many characters in other expansions too.
One that springs to mind is Turalyon.
Anticipated for years after being MIA for decades. Heavily teased to return by Metzen ever since MoP. Featured on login hints since the beginning. Hyped up in the early Legion story.
Then poof. Came back as some sort of Zealot in weird armour, sounds like a wise king and not a grizzled warrior, won’t shut up about Alleria and prophecies, and about as ferocious as a wet noodle except for one Warfront.
I wrote fan fiction about his return for years prior, but the reality didn’t even live up to that.
Sylvanas got butchered since Cataclysm.
Malfurion spend most of his time doing nothing or being captured.
Anduin is scarred for life
Turalyon was caught simping for a Naaru over his wife.
Yrel was turned into a space dictator Pope out of nowhere.
Cairne got LITTERALLY butchered offscreen and his son spend most of his ingame time being passive outside of doing the right thing with Jaina’s brother.
seems to be a women problem in wow.
Jaina gone crazy, but somehow got back on track
Vereesa gone crazy, but somehow got back on track
Alleria…well she was better in warcraft 2 before the void phase
Tyrande…dont know where to start or where to end with her.
The only sane one might be Thalyssra and Talanji
There are plenty of men who also went through a “phase”.
Thrall, Anduin, Arthas, Medivh, Illidan, etc.
I kinda hoped back in WotLK that Varian kicks Jaina off the ledge when she started crying after the Saurfang encounter but hey…also Thrall should have died in Siege of Orgimmar at the hands of Garrosh. Oh well…
Really butchered character? Baine. He swore revenge and that he will aid us in SL and all he did was sitting in Oribos.
Arthas is also a no brainer on this list, among the Crown of Domination which is technically not a character but could be treated as such, given how their past was literally thrown out the window just to justify the Jailer’s existence.
Speaking of the devil, the Jailer…started out as an actually interesting character and ended up as a joke.
PS.: While I didnt like her much, I think most of us can agree that condemning Sylvanas to do Maw dailies for the rest of eterneity is indeed a fate worse than death.
Flynn
Shawn
Sylvanas
Thrall
Chromie
Bolvar
Arthas
Anduin
Jaina
…
Wait, It’s actually easier to make a list of NOT butchered characters…
…
Oh wait even that is hard because - The Jailer - .
Ugh.
you have a point,
But most of the ones you mentioned are villains aside from Thrall and Anduin, and Anduin was under the Jailer’s influnce. hardly would call that a phase. I dont even remember Thrall having a phase, must have been minor.
The women however are more prominant in the story when they do have a phase, and its usually one big tragedy that triggers it.
For Vereesa and jaina, it was the bombing of theramore. resulted in the purge of Dalaran.
for Tyrande its the burning of teldrassil. resulted in the night warrior
for Sylvanas… well, jailor apparently. resulted in burning of Teldrassil
Vol’jin was cast aside to put Sylvanas’ rotting bum on the Horde thrown without even a second thought. No major role in WoD despite being Warchief and even before he was killed off, they had Sylvanas giving orders during the opening of Legion.
Tirion Fordring was also done dirty towards the start of Legion. Killed off for the sake of letting all the Ret Paladins get their grubby hands on the Ashbringer. Like, I love the sword, but at what cost?
Bolvar was utterly butchered for the sake of making Sylvanas into a Mary Sue. God almighty, the writers deserve to be punched. There was no build-up. Nothing that made Sylvanas deserve to be that potent. It was simply written that she was.
Sylvanas was also butchered for the sake of some really dumb, incoherent story. She was made a Mary Sue and then went off on her “edgy” villian spiral. Oh, but don’t worry, no end for her. We’re putting her in timeout instead of killing her off. Her punishment will be forgotten as soon as the devs can crowbar her back in.
Speaking of which, Malfurion has been done dirty since the BFA prepatch. Completely cucked, in my opinion. He’s done nothing and then is swapped out for a dead dragon. Good grief.
Baine has also been butchered into some whimpy quiet child. He did nothing for almost 2 expansions. The outburst in Dragonflight does not make up for him sitting on his bum all day in Oribos.
I’d also say that Jaina and Anduin, despite their screentime, have been just abused, Garrosh, Arthas and many of the other “dead” characters (like Ursoc) have just been given no respect by the writers as well. Just disgusting.
Yeah, but it seems that it’s a bit more… “off” when the female characters go mental.
Thrall went native, but not evil. Anduin is a wuss, was mind controlled, and now is even more of a wuss cos he’s scared he might not be a wuss. Arthas turned into Death Vader to the end. Medivh was corrupt from the start. Illidan was edgy from the start.
So many of the female roster of Heroes have flipped out and gotten pissy before suddenly turning back into “oh, but there must be a better way” peace advocates when the plot feels its fine again. Look at Sylvanas, even she’s now gone that route…
Eh giving up the Night Well and as the second most potent mage of a race of the most competent mages of Azeroth and she is even unable to figure out Jainas Ship Levitation.
Seems like for me her cold turkey addiction cure had fried her brain cells.
But let us look at the established characters that are either forgotten, wasted or only just remembered again.
Tagar
Nazgrel
Samuro
Runthak
Bovan
Mathogg
Tharg
Draz’Zilb
The biggest lore butchering to me is Saurfang.
You’ve got this elite badass that has led both the horde and the alliance under his command, his reputation is so scary that it was memed to hell in the game, he is supposedly a military genius and a veteran so good that his very name strikes fear into anyone coming in contact with him.
He was then reduced to a depressed suicidal old man with PTSD.
There was so much lore potential with him, especially as the horde’s Warchief.
The story has been so unbalanced with the Alliance overpowering the horde in everything, raw power, numbers, heros and technology, a good remedy for that is the horde getting a super powerful character that can cause a stalemate where non-can overpower the other.
Imo, the best outcome to him would be to get a power up ( To remedy the old age thing ), like becoming the Lich King, or infusing himself with demonic power, something akin to facing his own demons and taking on the pain for his people and then rule the horde as warchief as a superpower that is able to fend off the Alliance.
It would be so fitting for Saurfang to face his demons and instead shoulder the pain in order to create a path for the new generations of the horde, while simultaneously become super powerful at the cost of facing absolute corruption.
It could also provide a very nice cinematic where he fights of some legendary demon and then drinks his blood to fuse with him, this blood makes him younger and superpowerful a mutated fel-infused orc like no other.
Saurfang imho should had been the first orc paladin
Without any joke and sarcasm, you are right
His strong belief of the Orcish honor and tradition, the Horde Values (that actually never existed) is basically a relegion of its own 
Those Orcish paladin spells and abilites easly could be fueled and powered by the Ancestors instead of the Light (or they would act as a conduit for the Light to use them, just like how the Loa the conduit for the Prelates, or the Sun-worship is to the Tauren Sunwalkers)
I know right, it would had been both the right progression for his hero journey but also a great new option for orcs.
The way he got Alt-F4ed was such a waste. Why did Sylvanas had to have Avada Kedavra but just for that one time and never again
Yeah
And even his death could have been used as an inspiration for young Orcs to pick up the sword, so to speak and follow the Way of the Old Warrior and became the first Order or the Orcs, Heck, Saurfang even could have stayed around like Uther as a Ghost to guide them
The Keldorei in general but especially Malfurion and Tyrande