Rant below. TL;DR: Making Gazlowe leader of Bilgewater is lore insensitive af.
Gazlowe is indeed confirmed as the new Goblin leader due to Gallywix seems to have fled and likely remains loyal to Sylvanas still.
I was afraid that this would happen and I hate that it might. Don’t get me wrong, I like Gazlowe, but this quote of his:
“A cartel ain’t a clan or a tribe, Thrall. Steamwheedle, Bilgewater… it don’t matter who supplies the cash–so long as the pay’s good.”
It pisses me off. Bilgewater and Steamwheedle are competitors - Gazlowe is either abandoning his own cartel, or he’s trying to merge it with Bilgewater.
What of all the goblins who have been working to overthrow Gallywix and become Trade Prince?
What about Boss Mida who has a far more legitimate claim to that throne, even if she’s not a character with massive lore?
So Gazlowe joins the Horde for good - what does that make of Ratchet and the Steamwheedle aligned goblins there? What does that make of Steamwheedle Cartel as a whole at all? What happened to ‘neutral’?
If I was a Bilgewater goblin I’d be fuming at the mouth not only at Thrall but also at Gazlowe. 134 years of Cartel history swept under the carpet because ‘Gazlowe is nice I guess’.
I mean, seriously, the last 134 odd years have been marked by ruthless economic warfare between the goblin cartels - as well as warfare of the bloodier kind - all because the cartels do not like each other. Gazlowe has nothing to say for the Bilgewater Cartel, but because he’s a likable and cool goblin character I’m sure we won’t hear any of that.
SO MANY THINGS DO NOT ADD UP WITH THIS DECISION IT IS BAD AAARGH.
/rant
EDIT: At the very least it’s an opportunity for some interesting RP.
Boss Mida has AFAIK been in charge of the Bilgewater Cartel in Orgrimmar since day 1, even if Blizzard has opted out of using her past making a reference of her. It’s one of those ‘probably been doing a lot more than what player characters get to see’ scenarios.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Sassy Hardwrench at the lead either.
Granted, I wouldn’t mind seeing bloody Gobber as head of the Bilgewater Cartel, as compared to Gazlowe.
I’m not assuming, I expect the worst at all turns - that’s the Goblin procedure - but a positive surprise every now and then could be refreshing. Uplifting, even.
Was gonna make my own post but you summed it up yeah.
Gazlowe is a greenskinned gnome.
Also, disconnected, but the Anduin-Jaina convo about Taelia is hilarious to me.
Anduin in Kul Tiras: Taelia please come to Stormwind I want to tell you about your dad.
Anduin in Stormwind: Oh god I hope Taelia doesn’t come here I don’t want to tell her about her dad.
I read it more as he’s essentially being paid to do the job- Which would be something that he frequently does. Think of it as a CEO of a company/cartel.
Goblins don’t really have monarchies or heriditary cartel leaderships per-say- I mean, look at how Gallywix got his spot over the former Trade prince of Kezan.
Essentially yeah. I wonder if he’ll appoint somebody to run Ratchet in his absence or if he’ll be juggling management himself between his neutral operations and those of the Horde.
Gallywix wasn’t Trade Prince of Kezan, but of Bilgewater Cartel. And the way he got the spot was just as fair as the way Gazlowe would had gotten the spot, had Gazlowe been at all a part of the Bilgewater cartel.
I love how he waxes on about how cartels aren’t clans or tribes when they are kind of far more than that. They’re contractually separate, bound by law separate, the system is defined by their separation levels of separate.
By the way, regarding this: Is the cartel warfare thing canon anymore? From what I remember rom the 1st chronicle, it was retconned that goblins literally became “Intelligent” again like 100 years ago or so when they re-discovered kajamite in Kezan, afterwhich they spread around the world.
I remember the cartel war and them surpassing even gnomish tech in their glory days being a thing for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, but I was surprised to see its absence in the chronicles.
It isn’t entirely clear to me what exactly the cartels are in nature- Are they pseudo nations/subcultures in goblin culture, over-arching employers (As the name would suggest) that control all economic activity within specific parts of the world, or something else?
If the former, then the idea that you can just swap out of a cartel to another doesn’t seem like a big jump. Goblins don’t seem to (often) have a lot of sentimentality nor grudges about changing. Then again, they -do- have championships between different cartels in footbomb.
Gazlowe’s always said that he’s biased toward Horde over the Alliance.
By the way, regarding this: Is the cartel warfare thing canon anymore? From what I remember rom the 1st chronicle, it was retconned that goblins literally became “Intelligent” again like 100 years ago or so when they re-discovered kajamite in Kezan, afterwhich they spread around the world.
Got my chronicles copy right here. I quote:
The surviving Zandalari fled, and the goblins celebrated their new liberation by turning on each other in a mad scramble to fill the void of power. Amid the chaos, countless factions and allegiances formed. The most powerful of these groups were known as cartels. When no clear winner emerged from the fighting, these cartels brokered an uneasy truce. Conflict would never really end between the various goblin factions, but for decades, they waged most of their battles in the economic arena. The cartels ultimately turned to trade to sustain themselves and used their profits to amass even more wealth and power.
^ This, plus the fact that Gallywix’s path to Trade Prince can be seen in his short story, which carries references to material that is still in game and ergo remains cannon until stated otherwise. Furthermore, this alleviates to ‘decades of economic arena warfare’ - which leaves the reader to interpret what the remaining decades were spent doing. Killing each other, is what I’d venture a guess at.
Cartels are factions / allegiances. It’s whom you throw in your lot with. Simultaneously they’re also cartels:
an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition.
AKA: Cartels were born from war, are factions and strictly defined by trying to beat each other in the economic game. Plus, according to the information we have from Gallywix’s short story, there were literally 4-5 wars in Kezan in a rooough timespan of like 10 years after the Dark Portal opened.
That much is clear- I also agree now that the cartel wars were a thing (though it seems due to the retconned timespan they have been greatly diminished).
However, I’m still not that convinced about the faction thing for cartels and companies. Take the blackfuse as an example, or the venture company, or really any other one. It seems to me that most goblins (unsurprisingly) are quite happy to change their allegiance according to opportunity. They are not as rigid cultural things as, say, tribes or clans are. Then again, some goblins pride themselves as being part of some cartel, as the footbomb tournaments show.
So my point’d be that Gazlowe’s actually fundamentally right. Most goblins don’t care who’s the boss, as long as they are paid. Obviously this has some limits, but the point remains.
I only now came to realize that Goblin Trade Cartels are, in fact, glorified Stormwind noble house guilds (you know the ones, that stand around Cathedral Square and yell for you to join them). Except profits are replaced by Banner Recruits.
I don’t know much about the retconned cartel wars you’re referencing so I cannot know for sure what costs they came with. But I can guarantee that there’s been a century of non-stop conflict, black-mailing, backstabbing, false incarceration, street gangs, street wars and general trade wars as a constant in Kezan.
If you’re roleplaying a goblin these losses will be felt. We see heartless goblins, but we also see goblins that mourn. The cartel wars are a living memory to most goblins right now, and I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t find it feasible that they’d take it easy when the system they’ve bled by, for and because of is so readily disregarded by an outside influence (Thrall) and then by Gazlowe as well (who must have had a role in said wars as well, no? He wasn’t born in Warcraft III).
And as Elenthas already pointed out, there are a lot of goblins that want the title and priviliges of being a Trade Prince. Having that just swept out of their hands will be infuriating, and infuriated goblins will go to great lengths to off the Trade Prince. Our good Gazlowe is now the target of assassins and sleazy law-folk. But naaaah, they won’t care if he just pays them well, right? Right?!
Gazlowe’s point is a point. But his willingness to sacrifice his own safety, past and position to take over from someone who had targets painted on his back as well as everyone else’s feels massively out of place.
I doubt the cartels were ever meant to be things you took massive pride in serving or being loyal to, but these groups formed as a struggle for power. Struggles carry consequences, and consequences go remembered. And many goblins, like people in general, can hold a grudge for a very, very, very long time. Gallywix himself has several.
Goblin/Gnome lore and untapped potential go together like butter’n’bread.