Given the current narrative, its getting harder by the day, yes.
But still, i think thats one of the few ways there are to keep both the uniqueness of the Horde races, and at the same time, do not alienate the essence of the Warchief title (both in theme and role).
If you throw in some universally accepted “Warchief”, said dude would need to be a figurative aberration that somehow conciled Tauren and Forsaken, or Trolls and BEs traits.
The Horde had several characters playing the Warchief role that had different ways to tackle this. Thrall forced some of the conflicting traits to go undercover, while Garrosh weaponized them.
I just think that going with the intermediate route (Doomhammer) is the perfect kind of way.
Orgrim had to often force his hand on Ogres and Dks, but acted amicably around the Amani. And treated everyone with certain degree of honour.
I think that said sort of mixture is the balance to strive for the Horde leadership.
Not really. They would just need to have the traits each of them respect. And that isn’t necessarily contradictory. The Warchief can never represent all the different races, but he could well be the leader that makes sense for all of them. The Forsaken don’t necessarily need someone who got twisted by undeath, they need someone they trust to do what is necessary for them to survive, even if they think it could be done more efficiently. The Tauren don’t necessarily need someone who shares their spirituality, they need someone with clear principles they can respect and that set clear boundaries to his actions, even if they don’t fully agree where these boundaries lie. And so on. If there can’t be a person like this… there shouldn’t be a faction like this. In my eyes you can’t pretend that the faction makes sense without accepting that a fitting leader could exist.
Well, I adressed that in my response to zarao above. This only works, if the Alliance is a credible threat to their way of life, which, at the moment, would need some big changes on team blue that I find hard to imagine.
That doesn’t really need a faction, though, each nation could have its alliances, and they wouldn’t need to be restricted to Horde races. I’m sure Tauren could make defense treaties with quite a lot of Alliance races, for example. With each race acting independently, there is no real argument why you can’t ally with one without allying with all and fighting against the Alliance.
I think these two things could be weaved together and work.
Just as an example the Tauren could go ahead and ally let´s say with the Nightelfs, Draenei and Gilneans could easily work in my opinion. But now you take it one step ahead just imagine the Nightelfs and Worgen are unable to come to terms with the Orcs, AuOrcs and Gobbos of Orgrimmar. Therefore they want them to leave all Lands north of OG.
Suddenly Goblins are faced with losing the one and only city they have and Orcs go back to fighting for every scrap just for survival. Naturally they refuse and stay so the Tauren are forced to choose do they honor the bound they have with the Orcs since they saved their entire race or do they stick with the new allys.
In this scenario no one is really the bad guy but it still could come to conflict that keeps the Horde as it is. This of course requires this plot points to be thoroughly explored and communicated to the playerbase which i do net see ever happening. I just think there is plenty of racism, hate and what not in both factions to use for this to work.
Which would be a very big change in Alliance policy, which hasn’t really been prepared at all. Indeed, the last timeTtyrande talked about Azshara, she was strangely okay with ceding it to the goblins. You need the Alliance to be going out looking for a fight, and I just don’t see that happening.
Many people seem to think Genn and Tyrande will suddenly be aggressive in a Horde conflict, when all signs point to Tyrande settling her beef in Shadowlands without touching the Horde, and Genn doing whatever Anduin tells him like the good dog he is… But I don’t. Any concept that needs this to happen as a premise is one I don’t buy.
in the case of Azshara you are probably right but after the whole Burning Tree Festival it wouldn´t be out of character for Tyrande to want to rid the Horde from Darkshore and then Ashenvale and then maybe Stonetalon just to secure Kalimdors westcoast and her Homelands. Especially Ashenvale has a long lasting feud between Nightelfs and Orcs. I´m not saying this could work with one sentence but i think it doesn´t need much imagination to lay the foundation for such story development.
Here i just want to remind you that Genn and some high profile Gilneans joined Tyrande in Darkshore. Granted Genn told Anduin beforehand but he also said his wife would lead the Gilneans there without Genns aid if he refused. And i think this was a somewhat nice example of a leader being practically forced into a decision because of factors outside of his control.
But i do agree with your underlying tone. This sort of development needs a little bit of time to unfold beforehand and can´t be settled in a 15 sec in game dialogue once.
While we do not agree often, I daresay I kinda like that idea.
Mind you, Zul’Aman should have never been made a dungeon-run in the first place, rather keeping it “alive as a contested area”. Despite Halduron’s, Vereesa’s, and Vol’jin’s efforts. Seeing the Amani as thugs in Dazar’Alor is shameful in a sense.
Same with Zul’Drak. Gundrak should be a contested area too and rather Voltarus made a dungeon-run. Ahh, well …
But you don’t just need Tyrande. You need it to be an Alliance action, because you want it to need the united Horde to fight it off. And Tyrande is getting her next story in the Shadowlands, where her priorities are probably the same she told Shandris in Stormwind: Getting Sylvanas and finding out why Elune let Teldrassil happen. She won’t start a war with the Horde before that, and we have no idea who she will be - and if she will still be alive - when that quest ends. And neither Shandris nor Malfurion seem to share her vengeful anger in the same way, as far as we can tell.
And for the rest… The leader of the Draenei is still Velen, and he certainly wouldn’t be with Tyrande or the Night Elves on something that would at this point be an expansionary war, and that most definitely would be against Ansuin’s orders. Let’s grant you that the Worgen, with or without Genn’s blessing, might be up for sticking it to the Horde in force, we are still talking about Night Elves and Worgen at most. You want to depict it so that the forces of Bilgewater and Orgrimmar would be overrun by that? I know numbers are flexible in WoW, but after multible expansionary wars in Night Elf lands we have seen until now that seems like quite a flip.
I can agree with you on that. And making the Alliance a credible threat is a way of making the Horde necessary… But as I said above, to sell this would take great changes within the Alliance, and they wouldn’t just have to threaten the Orcs, but especially the outliers like Nightborne, that are the ones least bound by loyalty and economic dependence. Not sure I can ever see that happening the way the game is written.
That’s why I would greatly prefer abolishing the factions altogether and not forcing 12+ very different peoples in an unflexible block… or at the very least trying to sell us that there is something the block actually stands for. Something that unifies them beyond the need of the moment. Something all of them would respect and admire. And that’s why I am arguing for a Warchief that passes all of their tests here. Someone that can be that uniting thing. A leader all of these peoples trust to be fair towards them. Someone they don’t want to break away from, even if they would break with cultures of the Horde otherwise. I find that very much preferable to always inventing pressures that just happen to press together an alliance that would break up if it ever lessened for more than a moment.
Considering we had 2 Orc war chiefs, 1 Troll and 1 Undead overlord so far, Baine might be in order now - also - because he had lost his father in a most unfair fight for leadership control when young Garrosh was still poncing about.
The Goblin and the Belf one can wait their turn, imo. The BWC is doing fine anyway, without such prominence. So no real loss there.
Seniority doesn’t make any leader any more competent. And Baine has been one of the most incompetent leaders in this game.
He will be promoted to said prominent role because he is one of the writers favourites, and because he is so wrapped around Anduins…persona…, that we might tag him as an extension of him.
Which, of course, comes with additional “boons” such as rising up to leading positions or prominent roles, regardless of how stupidly you behave along the way.
If she wasn’t written as crazy-villain, and grew some additional empathy/understanding regarding how the rest of the Horde races behaved, then yes. She certainly would be quite a good Warchief material.
She already has the experience on her side, a few military victories under her belt, and until BfA, seemed to have the interests of her people in mind.
Pick at random only one of those traits, and she’d remain one step ahead of Baine.
If you think that appearances matter in terms of who should be warchief, then you don’t understand the title at all.
Also, talking about Baine, isn’t the same as talking about the Tauren. Regardless of how much writers try to force it, Baine does not represent what Tauren people are. He is but a distortion of it.
Blood elves are as much part of the Horde as Tauren.
The title of leader of the faction transcends themes.
If only a BE, or a Forsaken, or a Goblin, is able to encapsulate accurately the aspects that comprise a good Warchief, then that’s the adequate alternative.
Baine does not meet the requisites. Writers can force him into said position and try and force players to like him all they want. But that won’t turn him into a good leader overnight.
So? Does not change the fact that their mentalities are neither compatible nor close.
Nor did that apply to Garrosh. Did that stop Blizzard? Certainly not. The only reason he could survive as long as he did, was because Cairne had been poisoned. Garrosh would have never stood a fair chance against the chieftain of the Tauren any other way.
With Baine as war chief, at least, the Horde will regain some of the honour it has lost.
I’m genuinely at a loss here regarding what any of this has to do with whether Baine would be more suitable to be warchief than Sylvanas or some BE.
If as you say, having their mentalities being this disparate, somehow disqualifies any BE or Forsaken to be Warchief, then the same would go for any Tauren candidate.
I could go on an essay regarding what “Honour” is about.
I understand that from an Alliance point of view, “honour” means to have the closest aproximation possible to the Alliance values.
But in short, i’ll just leave it with this: No, the Horde does not need the sort of “Honour” that would come from the likes of Baine. It does not need a leader willing to undermine his own people for the sake of those that consider them their enemies.
Cataclysm Garrosh was a better Warchief than the one Baine would ever be. And i’m not even considering Garrosh a good warchief.
