Is Garrosh one of the more misunderstood and better written characters in WC

[YUPPIE]

Sort of a long post, but this character is interesting and very tragic if you take the time to think about it and consume depth from the novels.

He had an exceptionally shitty upbringing because of Grom, which founded numerous mental issues. After being recruited into the Horde, he spends his time acting tough, trying to impress others and that he is worthy of dad's legacy, like what he did with Alliance sailors in front of Cairne. But other than the Orcs serving under him, no one really likes or respects him. Thrall then slaps Warchief title onto him hastily despite his vocal doubts.

Garrosh is then repeatedly antagonized by every other race and their faction leader in the Horde. With Vol'jin and Baine, he repeatedly tries to impress them and win their favor but is coldly rejected every time just because of previous tensions (unintentionally killing the latter's daddy), and Sylvanas and the Blood Elves couldn't care less. But the Orcs of Orgrimmar love him for his war hero status and bringing prosperity to them where Thrall didn't.

So being a mentally fragile guy that desperately wants approval but keeps getting rejected by all but Orgrimmar, it's not really surprising he would be corrupted by and so easily in favor of the Blackrock Orcs and Malkorok that only ever say yes to him and worship him. You can tell how fucked up Garrosh became in the head mostly when he started associating with these Orcs, especially Malkorok who pretty much became his best friend.

You can just see how fucked up Garrosh is mentally in War Crimes and through his interactions with Anduin, he speaks the way he does and acts in WoD because he feels like he has nothing left but to go on the path he's chosen by now since Azeroth obviously wants him dead.

Overall, I think as an example of a mentally ill character, Garrosh was done well and it pisses me off Thrall denies any responsibility and most people see him as a mustache twirling villain.

[Swalload]

I agree he's one of the better written character but I don't think he is that misunderstood. He's basically the Hitler of orcs.

[Wildberry]

Garrosh as a character is fantastic. Canonically he did absolutely nothing wrong, and the Horde would be better off if everyone had shut their mouths and fallen in line.

That said, he's pretty poorly written, even when taking the novels into account. If we just had a book featuring Garrosh, to actually explore his character some more, and highlight the reasoning behind his supposedly jarring personality shifts (Which are already currently explainable) he'd be a phenomenally written character.

[Arrashi]

He was great and had lots of potential. Then MoP happened. And all went to shit.

[Malagan]

He was great and had lots of potential. Then MoP happened. And all went to shit.

Pretty much this. In WotLK people wanted a TRUE Orcish warchief, Thrall was such a non-Orc. People were longing for classic brute Orcs and the Orcish Horde of the RTS games and Blizzard were building up Garrosh for that reason. So, in Cataclysm they gave us Warchief Garrosh. A brute, but an HONORABLE brute. He executed the men who dropped the Mana Bomb for committing war crimes. He talked back to Sylvanas for her war crimes with the plague and forbid its use.

He was the archetypal Orcish warrior. But people didn't like him, he came off as an asshole, so for MoP they wrote him to basically just be a Nazi. All honor he showed in Cataclysm was basically discarded to instead make him a 2 dimensional villain who tortures and murders children.

[TrueHorde]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-about-Garrosh

[Flurryfang]

Sort of a long post, but this character is interesting and very tragic if you take the time to think about it and consume depth from the novels.

He had an exceptionally shitty upbringing because of Grom, which founded numerous mental issues. After being recruited into the Horde, he spends his time acting tough, trying to impress others and that he is worthy of dad's legacy, like what he did with Alliance sailors in front of Cairne. But other than the Orcs serving under him, no one really likes or respects him. Thrall then slaps Warchief title onto him hastily despite his vocal doubts.

Garrosh is then repeatedly antagonized by every other race and their faction leader in the Horde. With Vol'jin and Baine, he repeatedly tries to impress them and win their favor but is coldly rejected every time just because of previous tensions (unintentionally killing the latter's daddy), and Sylvanas and the Blood Elves couldn't care less. But the Orcs of Orgrimmar love him for his war hero status and bringing prosperity to them where Thrall didn't.

So being a mentally fragile guy that desperately wants approval but keeps getting rejected by all but Orgrimmar, it's not really surprising he would be corrupted by and so easily in favor of the Blackrock Orcs and Malkorok that only ever say yes to him and worship him. You can tell how fucked up Garrosh became in the head mostly when he started associating with these Orcs, especially Malkorok who pretty much became his best friend.

You can just see how fucked up Garrosh is mentally in War Crimes and through his interactions with Anduin, he speaks the way he does and acts in WoD because he feels like he has nothing left but to go on the path he's chosen by now since Azeroth obviously wants him dead.

Overall, I think as an example of a mentally ill character, Garrosh was done well and it pisses me off Thrall denies any responsibility and most people see him as a mustache twirling villain.

First of all: Garrosh is not misunderstood, he has a clear goal from start to end and does not hide anything.

You are putting alot of unsaid things into this character. It does not seem like he is looking to impress any1 in Northrend, he is a cocky person who goes against Thrall in every way he can and is just filled with spite for the alliance for some reason. Despite this, it does seem like he is liked after Wrath for his effort in the war, so i don't know about this dislike or disrespect.

The problem comes when he is made Warchief. Sure Thrall made a bad choice when he gave the mantle of Wrachief to a person who had no diplomatic connection, but when Garrosh demanded Sylvanas to go to war for him, killed Cairne and did nothing to compensate for that loss and showing the Trolls and Goblins out of Orgrimmar while also using the Blood Elfs connections against their will, he became a clear villian. There is nothing to misunderstand here, there is good reason for the rejections.

And pointing at that does not really excuse him for turning corrupt and destructfull at all. His point of view was not mentally desturbed, it was the mind of racial purest who longed for conquest and glorious victory no matter the cost. It would have been brilliant if we had seen his mind be fragile or seen him a situation where he was truely deranged, but none of that is ever shown. If there is one thing clear, then it is that he knew what he was doing and the entire SoO scenario was done by an orc with a clear mind for power and victory.

Undtil MoP, Garrosh had the potential to be a very good and well written character. He could have been a warchief, who did not care so much about peace with the alliance, but more about honor within the Horde and the glory of the combined forces. In MoP he clearly truned into a one-sided villian, all he did was brutish, merciless or just plain evil. He turned the Horde into a racist warmachine and he even let go of the aspect of honor. In the end of MoP, what attributes did he really have left? What did he fight for other then just killing and getting power? Even the memory of being a better version of his father had complete been tossed away in the end.

If Blizzard had used Garroshs past and the memory of his father as a primary drive throughout MoP, i would agree that he was well written. If they had given Garrosh a motive other then world domination in SoO, then i would say, that he was well written. If Blizzard had even just tried to make him a bit sympathetic, even from the standpoints of orcs, then i would agree that he was well written..... But none of this happend. Blizzard took a potential wellmade character and tossed him in the dirtpile, that is boring one-sided villian. So no..... He is a good written character.


PS: And in WoD, Blizz even had a chance to give him some character, to show his doubts and his remorse of failing his true Horde back in SoO. They could have shown a Garrosh who after having saved his father and given the Iron Horde a way to fight the demons, had gone into exile because of his past failures. Just atleast shown a small hint, that seeing the Horde which he was given by Thrall, be torn apart by his actions, had had an effect on him in some way, would have made him a better character, but again no... Blizzard sucks at writting 2nd and 3rd act for their characters, even Garrosh.

[Dagoth Ur]

I would love if they tried to make Garrosh what Orgrim Doomhammer was in Tides of Darkness. (He was kinda like that in Stonetalon)

Instead he ended up being this racial supremacist who divided the Horde and was killed off as villain while Allies got to raid our capital. /hate

[Deleted]

Garrosh never tried to impress Vol'jin.

He wanted to give the Orcs prosperity by taking resources of the Night Elves and eventually taking over Azeroth for the Horde.

Vol'jin constantly cried at Garrosh for peace. Really, there is not a single sentence where Garrosh wants to impress Vol'jin or Cairne/Baine. He had his own goal, the others came to him and kept complaining.

After all, Garrosh is anything but mentally weak. He had will-power to withstand the whole world and even the most powerful Old God didn't killed or corrupted him, unlike likes as Cho'gall, Death Wing or Azshara. Garrosh being "mentally weak" is wrong, he is complete opposite.

The only one he wanted to impress was his dead father. The book said they had incredible good relationship. Garrosh probably missed him alot.

[Kralljin]

After all, Garrosh is anything but mentally weak. He had will-power to withstand the whole world and even the most powerful Old God didn't killed or corrupted him, unlike likes as Cho'gall, Death Wing or Azshara. Garrosh being "mentally weak" is wrong, he is complete opposite.

Garrosh was kinda influenced by the Old Gods power, his worst character traits just came out full force.

He would've caved in sooner or later.

[Deleted]

Garrosh was kinda influenced by the Old Gods power, his worst character traits just came out full force.

He would've caved in sooner or later.

His emotions got slightly stronger, but he was fully in control, not a slight hint of him losing himself to the Old God. Y'Shaarj was basically his toy.

That requires incredible will-power and mental strength to do that.

And he would been caved sooner or later? Based on what? There isn't a single scar on him. Cho'gall embraced to become a minion of C'Thun. Garrosh is not like Cho'gall, he despise becoming minion to something greater than him.

[Deleted]

I agree he's one of the better written character but I don't think he is that misunderstood. He's basically the Hitler of orcs.

Comparing a character to a real life person who's motives we still don't fully understand is rather silly. Garrosh his reasons for disliking the other races were rather reasonable if you look at it form his perspective. When he became warchief Vol'jin threatend to kill him and Cairn basically said "fuck this". Then when Garrosh agreed to diplomacy with the night leves, all the emisaries are murdered which Garrosh gets blamed for by Cairn.

I'm not saying these are excuses for what he did, but it's more than "He's a racist". Vol'jin as representative of the darkspear basically showed complete disloyalty towards him and the Horde (Threatening to kill your new leader would be conscidered treason.) just because Garrosh is a hot-headed person, even though Garrosh was trying at that time to listen and learn. It is rather normal he would feel like trolls can't be trusted, the incident with Cairn and Magatha didn't help either, he even respected Cairn, so it really wasn't racism. Then you have the forsaken which are undead and don't need an explanation since most beings have a distrust towards the undead.


I wish he was written with a lot more nuance in the game, because he really is a great character with a lot of depth and issues, and I'm sad that he's gone. Not to mention his voice actor did an amazing job.

There were a lot of writer fuck ups sadly with his character, like him being a honourable orc to using a mana bomb and old god hearts just didn't feel right. You could explain it as him starting to feel cornered and severe paranoia, but the game nor novels really said anything like that. I however like to think that this was the case instead of the sudden change in him that we got.

Garrosh never tried to impress Vol'jin.

He wanted to give the Orcs prosperity by taking resources of the Night Elves and eventually taking over Azeroth for the Horde.

Vol'jin constantly cried at Garrosh for peace. Really, there is not a single sentence where Garrosh wants to impress Vol'jin or Cairne/Baine. He had his own goal, the others came to him and kept complaining.

After all, Garrosh is anything but mentally weak. He had will-power to withstand the whole world and even the most powerful Old God didn't killed or corrupted him, unlike likes as Cho'gall, Death Wing or Azshara. Garrosh being "mentally weak" is wrong, he is complete opposite.

The only one he wanted to impress was his dead father. The book said they had incredible good relationship. Garrosh probably missed him alot.

He did try to be peaceful and listen to his advisors, Vol'jin never gave him a chance. And when he agreed to a peaceful approach, he got challenged to a Mak'gora (Declining is conscidered dishonorable) and was pulled in a war by no fault of his own. From there on peace wasn't an option.

[Deleted]

Comparing a character to a real life person who's motives we still don't fully understand is rather silly. Garrosh his reasons for disliking the other races were rather reasonable if you look at it form his perspective. When he became warchief Vol'jin threatend to kill him and Cairn basically said "fuck this". Then when Garrosh agreed to diplomacy with the night leves, all the emisaries are murdered which Garrosh gets blamed for by Cairn.

I'm not saying these are excuses for what he did, but it's more than "He's a racist". Vol'jin as representative of the darkspear basically showed complete disloyalty towards him and the Horde (Threatening to kill your new leader would be conscidered treason.) just because Garrosh is a hot-headed person, even though Garrosh was trying at that time to listen and learn. It is rather normal he would feel like trolls can't be trusted, the incident with Cairn and Magatha didn't help either, he even respected Cairn, so it really wasn't racism. Then you have the forsaken which are undead and don't need an explanation since most beings have a distrust towards the undead.


I wish he was written with a lot more nuance in the game, because he really is a great character with a lot of depth and issues, and I'm sad that he's gone. Not to mention his voice actor did an amazing job.

I agree! He was in a very complex position. His non-Orcish allies were slowly making Garrosh "racist".

I just wish they could rewrite his lore in MoP... He was such a creative problem solver in wars.

[therealstegblob]

Okay so ignoring some of the more deranged posters contributing to the thread: Yes, Garrosh Hellscream is one of the better written and morally complex characters in Warcraft canon.

Warcraft is painfully lacking on characters that are truly morally grey (whenever I say this there are always a few people who try to "blow me away" by naming off a bunch of WoW characters that they think are morally grey like Varian/Thrall/Moria/whatever, but really aren't morally grey). Garrosh filled this niche very well and it's too bad he had a few lapses of writing.

We all know the hiccup that was Cataclysm Garrosh versus MoP/WoD Garrosh. This unexplained personality shift from hardass Orc warchief with slight flaws in aggression and shortsightedness to outright racial purist/insane dictator is the one big stain on his writing, but it's nothing that major or jarring (I would argue). Putting that aside, if you can just pretend Garrosh had a smooth transition between Cataclysm and MoP, you find his character is actually rather complex. He has pride issues (going from a character who believed his father had doomed his whole race to suddenly learning his father was a legendary hero who broke the orcs of their curse, and therefore finally had a reason to 'prove himself' was a very good setup for his character).

At least in terms of villain writing Garrosh is leaps and bounds better than, well, practically any other villain I can think of off the top of my head in Warcraft. The only possible contender would be Arthas, but then Arthas' moral grayness was far more one-note that Garrosh's.

Overall he was a good character in a canon that doesn't have a lot of very good characters. Judged from outside of Warcraft he's more mediocre, but at least in his own canon he's one of the most (arguably even the most) strongly written characters, minor writing flaws aside.

[Obelisk Kai]

The fact we are discussing Garrosh, his purposes, his motivations and have opinions ranging from he was right to he was 'Orc Hitler' so long after his death puts the lie to the idea he was a badly written character.

Yes, he was in fact one of the most well written characters. Certainly the most complex villain the franchise has produced since Arthas.

- - - Updated - - -

Okay so ignoring some of the more deranged posters contributing to the thread: Yes, Garrosh Hellscream is one of the better written and morally complex characters in Warcraft canon.

Warcraft is painfully lacking on characters that are truly morally grey (whenever I say this there are always a few people who try to "blow me away" by naming off a bunch of WoW characters that they think are morally grey like Varian/Thrall/Moria/whatever, but really aren't morally grey). Garrosh filled this niche very well and it's too bad he had a few lapses of writing.

We all know the hiccup that was Cataclysm Garrosh versus MoP/WoD Garrosh. This unexplained personality shift from hardass Orc warchief with slight flaws in aggression and shortsightedness to outright racial purist/insane dictator is the one big stain on his writing, but it's nothing that major or jarring (I would argue). Putting that aside, if you can just pretend Garrosh had a smooth transition between Cataclysm and MoP, you find his character is actually rather complex. He has pride issues (going from a character who believed his father had doomed his whole race to suddenly learning his father was a legendary hero who broke the orcs of their curse, and therefore finally had a reason to 'prove himself' was a very good setup for his character).

At least in terms of villain writing Garrosh is leaps and bounds better than, well, practically any other villain I can think of off the top of my head in Warcraft. The only possible contender would be Arthas, but then Arthas' moral grayness was far more one-note that Garrosh's.

Overall he was a good character in a canon that doesn't have a lot of very good characters. Judged from outside of Warcraft he's more mediocre, but at least in his own canon he's one of the most (arguably even the most) strongly written characters, minor writing flaws aside.

I would upvote you if I could.

[Kralljin]

His emotions got slightly stronger, but he was fully in control, not a slight hint of him losing himself to the Old God. Y'Shaarj was basically his toy.

That requires incredible will-power and mental strength to do that.

Yep, and now continue on that for a year or two.

Fighting a mental battle for a few hours is one thing, doing that for a prolonged amount of time is much different.

Old Gods have time, that's how they grinded Neltharions resolve to dust.

And he would been caved sooner or later? Based on what? There isn't a single scar on him. Cho'gall embraced to become a minion of C'Thun. Garrosh is not like Cho'gall, he despise becoming minion to something greater than him.

Cho'gall is kinda a bad example here, he first believed that most of Pale are talking nonsense but still used the powers of the void, once he set a foot on Azeroth he realized that these powerful void beings actually existed.

Going by AU Cho'gall, he was never truly sane to begin with, so there's that.

[Dagoth Ur]

Okay so ignoring some of the more deranged posters contributing to the thread: Yes, Garrosh Hellscream is one of the better written and morally complex characters in Warcraft canon.

Warcraft is painfully lacking on characters that are truly morally grey (whenever I say this there are always a few people who try to "blow me away" by naming off a bunch of WoW characters that they think are morally grey like Varian/Thrall/Moria/whatever, but really aren't morally grey). Garrosh filled this niche very well and it's too bad he had a few lapses of writing.

We all know the hiccup that was Cataclysm Garrosh versus MoP/WoD Garrosh. This unexplained personality shift from hardass Orc warchief with slight flaws in aggression and shortsightedness to outright racial purist/insane dictator is the one big stain on his writing, but it's nothing that major or jarring (I would argue). Putting that aside, if you can just pretend Garrosh had a smooth transition between Cataclysm and MoP, you find his character is actually rather complex. He has pride issues (going from a character who believed his father had doomed his whole race to suddenly learning his father was a legendary hero who broke the orcs of their curse, and therefore finally had a reason to 'prove himself' was a very good setup for his character).

At least in terms of villain writing Garrosh is leaps and bounds better than, well, practically any other villain I can think of off the top of my head in Warcraft. The only possible contender would be Arthas, but then Arthas' moral grayness was far more one-note that Garrosh's.

Overall he was a good character in a canon that doesn't have a lot of very good characters. Judged from outside of Warcraft he's more mediocre, but at least in his own canon he's one of the most (arguably even the most) strongly written characters, minor writing flaws aside.

Majority of Warcraft fans have a hard time recognizing morally grey characters and how they make the story more interesting.
They bring dynamic to the story and are generally more interesting and allow for cool story twists.
I mean same thing is happening with Sylvanas now, whether you like her or hate her, you can't deny she makes the story more interesting.

Garrosh had so much potential to be one of the better, with depth written character who should've stayed in for the long run.
I mean the whole idea about him was cool being a son of iconic Horde hero inheriting some of his father's faults while also being conflicted about his father's actions.

I know Horde is purposefully written to be more morally grey but I think it's kinda shame Blizz does this very rarely for Alliance.
If Alliance was written a little bit more realistic without its unbreakable unity and lawful good hivemind, maybe characters like Garrosh wouldn't be cosndered so villainy and killed off.

[Arrashi]

I think that garrosh was in many ways first, and biggest victim of blizzard caving to players..."demands". In a same way vol'jin got killed and thrall removed from the story.

I would much rather have them write whatever they want, rather than trying to please audience on every step and as result creating weird, pointless and unengaging story.

[Darknessvamp]

Garrosh as a character is fantastic. Canonically he did absolutely nothing wrong...

Sorry, what? Garrosh is the prime example of when a group of writers can't agree on what character they're writing. From the coughing depressive young Orc who had been afflicted by Red Pox in TBC to the foaming at the mouth warrior who wanted to prove himself to thrall and the horde in WotLK to the frankly split personality he had up to and in Cataclysm where one minute he's showing concern for Alliance soldiers, abhorred the Night Elf Druid's being manabombed against his will and rejecting the position of Warchief then the next he's advocating the complete eradication of the Alliance, has little grievance as Warchief of the Horde and goes so far as ignoring his advisors and creating his personal force to assume total control and rebutting a challenge for his position with a fight to the death when he didn't even want to be Warchief in the first place (or so he claims) then in MoP he's cool with manabombing theramore, actively begins planning the genocide of the other races of the Horde because Warchief and nukes a valley all to gather the heart of an Old God and this was before he was corrupted/sent mad. Then WoD is literally him running away from owning up to his actions and fucking with the timeways, helping set up a failure of an Invasion by the Iron Horde which consequently leads to an even worse Legion presence on Draenor and then blames Thrall for choosing him to be Warchief when it was only meant to be temporary and he had plenty of chances to pass on the mantle to someone else.

His character is appalling and it's ridiculous how many things he did that were both wrong and/or inconsistent with his portrayal at the time.

[Dagoth Ur]

I think that garrosh was in many ways first, and biggest victim of blizzard caving to players..."demands". In a same way vol'jin got killed and thrall removed from the story.

I would much rather have them write whatever they want, rather than trying to please audience on every step and as result creating weird, pointless and unengaging story.

That's how any confident writers write his story.
I feel like Blizzard story is mainly being led by what they think community will consider cool or what they're afraid community will hate.