Maybe There's Hope for Garrosh

Most Horde players don't like Garrosh Hellscream. First he was this mopey orc sitting around in Nagrand whining about how he wasn't fit to lead and how he was a horrible person, not through any fault of his own, but because he had the shame of being Grom Hellscream's son.

Through a long and involved quest chain we managed to bring Thrall to Nagrand and he felt duty-bound to enlighten the sulking Garrosh and show him that hey, Grom redeemed himself. It's not shameful to be his son. Garrosh gave out a big ol' orc battlecry, buffing all Hordies in the zone with Hellscream's Warsong, and it seemed all was well in the world. Garrosh got his spirit back.

But then the next time we saw him he was talking smack to Thrall about taking out the Lich King and even challenged Thrall to combat. He was bloodthirsty and impulsive, and when we finally got to Northrend we found out he was the Overlord of the Warsong Offensive in Borean Tundra. Not only that, but he was dismissive of Saurfang's extremely valid concerns about their war effort.

Garrosh became headstrong and warmongering, concerned with glory in battle more than practicality and the need to find a peaceful resolution when peace could be found. Garrosh became everything that Thrall wasn't, but Hordies like Thrall, so we don't like Garrosh, and we especially don't like that he's going to become our new faction leader come Cataclysm.

But Blizzard has said:

Garrosh is a character with a lot to prove. I realize there's a great deal of consternation out there concerning the tales of what's to come, but I want to reassure you that we understand that concern. We know where you're coming from.

Why are we still going this route? With all respect, you haven't seen the entirety of who Garrosh is. You've seen a great deal of his faults, certainly, but people grow over time, and you may find, come Cataclysm, that he is not quite the disaster you portend. :)

(Mind you, that doesn't mean he's Thrall, either.)

Now, this is all that people generally consider when they think about Garrosh; just the basics, the highlights. Nagrand was a long time ago. But because I have been leveling my feral druid, I had the opportunity to revisit that quest chain this weekend, and you know? I do think we're missing something of Garrosh, that there is hope for him yet.

Take this dialogue from Greatmother Geyah:



He [Garrosh] just needs to believe in himself. He fears so much... He fears so deeply that if he lets himself go, his rage will consume him and all that would be near him.

Doesn't that sound familiar? Isn't Garrosh's rage at that point now that we're in Northrend? Perhaps Garrosh had a right to fear what he would become.

But at the same time, Greatmother Geyah believes in him, he is described as both strong and wise. The spirits approve of him, and from what we know of the spirits the orcs believe in, they're not exactly a bunch of warmongers either. They must be seeing something that we're not.

And when I talked to Garrosh during part of the quest chain, he had something more interesting to say now that we know what happens in Northrend.



He says: I will not... I cannot become the second Hellscream to damn the orcs.

I think prior to Cataclysm Garrosh will be hit with a wake-up call that will make him more sympathetic to the Horde player. Somewhere between the two extremes of warmonger and mopey warrior is the leader that Greatmother Geyah and the spirits believe in. He cares and at one point he cared so much that he felt that doing nothing at all was better than damning his people.

In Northrend he's may be doing the exact thing he wanted to avoid, and perhaps something will happen between now and Cataclysm that will cause him to realize, "Hey, this isn't such a good idea! We're going to lose out here!" After all, the Lich King has to be enjoying the Horde and Alliance fighting each other instead of him, and Garrosh probably won't like being a player for the Lich King's amusement.

That's a possibility for the future though. In the meantime nothing's going to stop me from doing this:



Maybe it'll help knock some sense into him later.