Was Sylvanas a good warchief?

[Zuben]

BfA was a colossal failure on every possible front, and irreparably damaged any and all stories to setup Sylvie's Merry Adventures in Hades. It was billed as the faction pride expansion and made players on both sides quit in disgust at their faction.

This is a great summary of the grievance BFA left in people at large. As some have stated the questing experience in Kul Tiras and Zandalar was pretty good, and I felt they nailed the landscape/city design as well (well, Dazar'Alor is a bit unwieldy...). The expansion had great footing.

Then the writer's team took bad acid and went ham on the main plot. Good god, I wonder what's going on there right now. Are they even aware how their customers feel about their output?

[Syegfryed]

Well yeah, because my statement was about what the Writers would never do. You're turning it around and assuming that I said that with regards to both sides being equal, when I was making a point that the Alliance could absolutely be written to dominate a side

therefore, it always boils down to "the writers can do waht they want" that you claimed you didn't said

yes, the writers could do that, just like they could make anduin and sylvanas have a child, this isn't a valid point to make in the discussion about the war outcomes.

You're telling me that the writers were forced to have the Alliance have nothing left by the end even though they have plenty at their disposal that has not even been utilized? Right after the Battle at the Gates, they fucking fought N'ZOTH, and you're telling me the Alliance had no power whatsoever.

you think they have plenty at their disposal, this is a case of headcanon assumed to be the truth, like thinking the spaceship is world ending threat

The alliance simple had no way to force shit on the horde, neither the horde could force shit on the alliance, they prefer to end the conflitct.

Sounds like copium. You're headcanoning the shit out of the Night Elves. Who said they are trained against uncivilized races? This is nothing but made up bullshit, and you know it. It's sad, really, how far you're willing to make shit up.

Since early days of their introduction night elves got screwed by more organized races, WC3 show what they did against ONE clan of orcs, this keep going on and on with Varian having to teach tyrande strategy

I'm not surprised since you seem to think that the writers have no choice but to write a war story where nothing actually happens at the end. Those poor writers!

say copium but you are trying to do a strawman here neat

Says the Horde fanboy? Please.

i believe both factions were fucked in BFa

you think its only one

i wonder who the fanboy is

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Triceron is one of the few who gets it.In any logical scenario both Garrosh and Sylvannas and their Horde under their command would not be able to do what they did as they wouldn't have the resources or manpower behind it,.

and why do you believe Garrosh didn't had resources or manpower behind? lore shows he had, he even got more clans of orcs on his back in cataclysm and got resources in MOP

[Triceron]

therefore, it always boils down to "the writers can do waht they want" that you claimed you didn't said

yes, the writers could do that, just like they could make anduin and sylvanas have a child, this isn't a valid point to make in the discussion about the war outcomes.

I don't see the difference here.

Either way you're talking about things that will never happen, right? And these are things the writers could absolutely write in even if it's absurd, right?

No difference in considering how the Alliance would actually win then. I think Feanoro is correct in the assessment. I'm talking about a Doylist POV, you're stuck in Watsonian. That's the crux of this discussion.

i believe both factions were fucked in BFa

you think its only one

i wonder who the fanboy is

? Where have I said the Alliance wasn't fucked?


How did you even come to this conclusion?

I said the Alliance had the power to completely dismantle the Horde, given that this is a complete work of fiction and could be written any which way. That the writers chose not to change any power dynamic for the sake of maintaining the basic gameplay pillars is a conflict of interest to having a war story written between the factions, something which expects to have a winner and a loser. The Horde was already in the midst of a complete civil war, with Horde Loyalist pitted against Sylvanas Loyalist. This was written into the gameplay!

It's like if you watch a sports game, and neither side manages to win. As a spectator, that would be a disappointing game, but you don't really get mad or frustrated at the game itself because both teams tried their best and there's really nothing that could have changed the outcome. But what WoW does is take it further, because it's a work of fiction that has people writing in who wins and who doesn't. And it doesn't just end in a tie, but with both teams losing because Sylvanas got away and then managed to kidnap the leaders of the Alliance and Horde. There's no word for this level of disappointment, and full acknowledgement that someone actually went out of their way to write the story this way.

The writers absolutely fucked both factions. That doesn't mean the Alliance couldn't have still crushed the Horde. The writers intentionally left out all the things the Alliance had at their disposal to do so, and that includes all the setup in MoP/Warlords that would have been set in place to prevent that situation from happening again; which all were conveniently ignored for the sake of perpetuating the war the writers wanted to tell.



My criticisms in this thread thus far were focused on the Horde, because ultimately this thread is about 'a good warchief', and I don't think the writers know what that even means.

If the story has shown us anything, it's that our own player characters never actually followed a good reason to fight the Alliance, ever. Any time we're actually in war, it's for the sake of pointless territory disputes, vengeance or some miscommunications. Thrall and Vol'jin absolutely abstained from total war against the Alliance. Garrosh and Sylvanas actively incited warfare. So as players, what are we to think here? That any 'good' Warchief should be the one that doesn't do any War at all? It's a complete contradiction to the position. And as players, it makes having a Warchief completely pointless. They should be the ones who represent the faction, yet the ones that ever called for war ended up being considered 'evil' and had to be removed from power by our own players. That's fucked up writing for the Horde, no matter how you look at it.

Thrall never ever commanded the Horde to actively fight against the Alliance. All he ever did was stay neutral in all accounts of action, and he allowed faction disputes to remain completely out of his control outside of some few commands to hold certain points of territory. He never actively called out to attack the Alliance in retaliation or for the sake of conquering. They never wrote him in that position, so really we don't have a real strong representative for what a Warchief should be, since it is supposed to be a military-oriented position, while Thrall himself was more of a 'Shaman of the World' neutral hero than he ever was a true commander of the Horde. That, unfortunately, is what kills the whole meaning of 'Warchief'. Thrall became the ideal Warchief, and that in turn has resulted in 'the writers presenting stories where any Warchief who engages in conflict with the Alliance ends up being deemed 'bad'.

[Feanoro]

and why do you believe Garrosh didn't had resources or manpower behind? lore shows he had, he even got more clans of orcs on his back in cataclysm and got resources in MOP

Largely because that is part of a huge contradiction. We're told the orcs are starving in the desert, yet somehow launch a multi-expansion war. "An army marches on its stomach" is ancient wisdom.

We're told the Cataclysm drastically reduced resources, yet magically Org is redone in metal (in a desert, GENIUS move lol) with even more of the tasteless phallic spikes and chains. Garrosh's story was one of the earliest examples of writers egregiously ignoring their own setting for their plot.


@Darth-Piekus @Zuben Thank you.

[Triceron]

and why do you believe Garrosh didn't had resources or manpower behind? lore shows he had, he even got more clans of orcs on his back in cataclysm and got resources in MOP

Shattering established that he came into power without the resources necessary to sustain the Horde, which lead to them having to dig deeper into Night Elf territory. It's those border disputes over resources that really drove up the conflict between Alliance and Horde, which wasn't helped by the Twilights Hammer posing as Horde and causing further chaos.

Garrosh then kicked all other races out of the Horde, keeping only Tauren and Orcs (and to an extent, Goblins) exclusively in Orgrimmar. So effectively, that would have easily cut the Horde population in half, and the gains from the 'other clans' would not have made up for the loss of Forsaken, Trolls, Blood Elves and all those who did not follow Garrosh.

Blizzard actually broke the rules they set in place in order to have Garrosh have enough forces to sustain the Siege of Orgrimmar. Realistically speaking, the majority of the power of the Horde lies with the player character itself, so wherever we go is where the 'Horde' goes. We are the PoV representatives of the Horde, and whatever forces Garrosh has as his disposal are simply NPC enemies who get in our way. And where exactly do all those Orcs we fight come from? Magic of bullshit story writing. After we killed them all, where exactly do we have all the future number of Orcs fighting in all the wars to come? The numbers are completely fudged. They exist at the convenience of the writers.

The writers could say that 99.9% of Night Elves died at Teldrassil, and they could still write in huge armies of Night Elves participating in future wars just as easily because the numbers don't matter to them at all. There are no lack of resources in the eyes of the writers, since this has never been a tangible or realistic war story whatsoever. These are the contradictions we're pointing out, and criticizing how the writers don't adhere to any of the rules or reasons they themselves put in place.

If lack of resources was the reason that got Garrosh fueled into starting a war with the Alliance, and he further split his own forces by ousting the majority of Horde races from Orgrimmar (including the player), then realistically speaking he shouldn't have been able to hold a strong fight against the combined might of the Alliance and Horde rebels.

[Syegfryed]

I don't see the difference here.

Either way you're talking about things that will never happen, right? And these are things the writers could absolutely write in even if it's absurd, right?

No difference in considering how the Alliance would actually win then. I think Feanoro is correct in the assessment. I'm talking about a Doylist POV, you're stuck in Watsonian. That's the crux of this discussion.

both factions could have won in BfA, if it was not by the writers, this isn't ana rgumment

the problem here is that you, and others alliance boys, think only the alliance could have won the war, - and not just won the war, dismantle or genocide the horde - because they had a spaceship that destroy rocks or a flying ship like any other airship the factions had, and the only reason they didn't, isn't because logic, lore or gameplay, but just because the writers didn't want to

? Where have I said the Alliance wasn't fucked?


How did you even come to this conclusion?

yeaaaah, youa re saying ONLY the alliance was fucked by the writers, when, in fact, both factions suffered from terrible writing.

you think only the alliance had a chance of wining the war, despite the very first interaction of this war would lead to an massive horde victory, "if it was not be writers"

I said the Alliance had the power to completely dismantle the Horde, given that this is a complete work of fiction and could be written any which way.

And im telling you they didn't had the power to do that, given this is a compltele work of fiction with rules and lore established to follow

there is things that could happen, based on the gamelore that make sense and are organic, others you need make up shit from thin air

saying "the alliance could have dismantled the horde, because this is fiction and writers can do what they want" is on the same level of saying "anduin and sylvanas can have a child because this si fiction and writers can do what they want", is a nonsensical statement, like fighting if the water can be wt or not, leads to nothing

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Largely because that is part of a huge contradiction. We're told the orcs are starving in the desert, yet somehow launch a multi-expansion war. "An army marches on its stomach" is ancient wisdom.

We're told the Cataclysm drastically reduced resources, yet magically Org is redone in metal (in a desert, GENIUS move lol) with even more of the tasteless phallic spikes and chains. Garrosh's story was one of the earliest examples of writers egregiously ignoring their own setting for their plot.


@Darth-Piekus @Zuben Thank you.

Well, if you just had read the lore, of both factions, instead of complain about horde bias, you would know that:

- one of the reasons horde was fucked before cataclysm was because orc forces were spread thin across azeroth, with orcish forces send to help blood elves, forsaken, taurens and trolls, most of those fronts with nothing changing, like how the trolls were not able to get their home from zazalane.

- Garrosh pulled all forces back, trained then in military, and, as a good strategist was able to launch an attack force against ashenvale and get the resources, not just that, launched other attacks securing durotar and adjacent lands

- Cataclysm also helped the horde giving clean water to durotar

- More allies came in cataclysm, goblins with their tech, the blackrock clan with their numbers and dragonmaw with their dragons

The reasons the orcs and orgrimamr were fucked was because of thrall passive and bad leadership since vanilla who refuse to counter attack

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Shattering established that he came into power without the resources necessary to sustain the Horde, which lead to them having to dig deeper into Night Elf territory. It's those border disputes over resources that really drove up the conflict between Alliance and Horde, which wasn't helped by the Twilights Hammer posing as Horde and causing further chaos.

read my previous comment

Garrosh then kicked all other races out of the Horde, keeping only Tauren and Orcs (and to an extent, Goblins) exclusively in Orgrimmar. So effectively, that would have easily cut the Horde population in half, and the gains from the 'other clans' would not have made up for the loss of Forsaken, Trolls, Blood Elves and all those who did not follow Garrosh.

this statement make no sense, what you are talking about and in what timeline, you are talking about MOP? or before? this is way too confusing cause blood elves and forsaken were not in orgrimmar in numbers, never were, and trolls kicked themselves with Vol'jin.

plus, blackrock, dragownman and the rest of the maghar had numbers, orcs, trolls and goblins always reproduced like rabbits and they mature at age of 13, they can pull out numbers way faster than alliance races.

[TheFirstOnes]

...No. She served Zovaal during her reign, the fuck?

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When in lack of non-fallacious arguments, open another thread to non-constructively rail about ermahgerd fanboys some more? An interesting strategy to be sure. Not very effective, mind you, but interesting. In a similar vein to the Wieliczka museum in Poland. Also, given how many people on this forum get triggered the moment Sylvanas is even implied to be in a given story, WTF is this supposed to prove?

Lot of big words for someone defending a girl whose reign as Warchief proved only beneficial for the greatest enemy we've ever faced so far.

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Why are we arguing if the enemy of both factions was a good Warchief, the fuck??? Like, I'm going through all of this, and it just feels like y'all are arguing a whole lot of NOTHING!

[Mehrunes]

Lot of big words for someone defending a girl whose reign as Warchief proved only beneficial for the greatest enemy we've ever faced so far.

Meanwhile you provided lots of nothing about nothing just to make a sad attempt at a jab. It does nothing to vindicate the OP nor does it shine any other light at the purpose of this thread. It's also false as the Janitor is neither the greatest enemy we've faced (his greatest achievement so far is stealing the sigil from an already inactive Aribter while everyone else was busy fighting either Sylvanas or Anduin), nor did Sylvanas' reign prove beneficial only to him since, as I already pointed out, she both expanded the Horde significantly and the end tally of her war is the Horde ending up stronger than the Alliance, which is flat out stated by even Alliance leaders. Then again what else to expect from someone who things saying someone is using big words actually constitutes a jab. Not that there were any in what you quoted, mind you. What's the big word there supposed to be? Museum?

[Feanoro]

Why are we arguing if the enemy of both factions was a good Warchief, the fuck??? Like, I'm going through all of this, and it just feels like y'all are arguing a whole lot of NOTHING!

First time dealing with the Lich Queen's adoring fanboys?

[Karrde]

Not even close. And I am a fan of what she use to be.

Hell, she spent most of legion MiA pursuing her own goals and left the Border leaderless basically. Then in BFA she marches on the NEs and we follow her like a bunch of idiots.

But honestly, the horde hasn't had a good leader in a long time.
Voljin - became leader and did nothing, dying to super powerful legion poisoning that NO other demon but that one grunt used apparently.
Hellscream - hated most of the races in the Horde.

So she is sadly not necessarily our worst leader ever haha

[Ielenia]

She strengthened the Horde with permanent allies that remain after her reign. That's going to be a part of her legacy despite all the damage she did.

My take on that is that Sylvanas didn't do this "for the good of the Horde". I imagine her thought process for this wasn't "oh, I'll seek more allies to benefit the Horde" but more like "I'll seek more meat to throw into the grinder to make my totally not lord, master and owner the Jailer."

"New allies" is more of an unforeseen consequence of her plans than an actual intention, because if Sylvanas' plan worked, everyone would be dead, so I don't know if it should be lauded as a positive for Sylvanas.

[TheFirstOnes]

Meanwhile you provided lots of nothing about nothing just to make a sad attempt at a jab. It does nothing to vindicate the OP nor does it shine any other light at the purpose of this thread. It's also false as the Janitor is neither the greatest enemy we've faced (his greatest achievement so far is stealing the sigil from an already inactive Aribter while everyone else was busy fighting either Sylvanas or Anduin), nor did Sylvanas' reign prove beneficial only to him since, as I already pointed out, she both expanded the Horde significantly and the end tally of her war is the Horde ending up stronger than the Alliance, which is flat out stated by even Alliance leaders. Then again what else to expect from someone who things saying someone is using big words actually constitutes a jab. Not that there were any in what you quoted, mind you. What's the big word there supposed to be? Museum?

It wasn’t even personal. I’m literally saying quit defending a clearly evil bitch who was only Warchief so she could aid the Jailer in his plans.

Like, Mueh’zala’s whispers to Vol’jin in order to rig the Warchief position, the shit in Hellheim, the shit with Teldrassil, the shit with Lordaeron, Stormheim, etc. All there to benefit Zovaal.

And you still want to yell at me cause I’m clearing saying the truth. Really? We just gonna ignore the blatant shit that exists? Or???

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Also, Zovaal IS our greatest foe so far, what?

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Who do you think indirectly caused the Legion to fuckin happen? Cause the Dreadlords didn’t get the order to fuck with Sargeras from nobody.

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Greatest foe doesn’t have to mean “most powerful”, you know that yes? Granted, I can also make an argument for that, but I won’t right now since that’s irrelevant to the topic at hand.

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My take on that is that Sylvanas didn't do this "for the good of the Horde". I imagine her thought process for this wasn't "oh, I'll seek more allies to benefit the Horde" but more like "I'll seek more meat to throw into the grinder to make my totally not lord, master and owner the Jailer."

"New allies" is more of an unforeseen consequence of her plans than an actual intention, because if Sylvanas' plan worked, everyone would be dead, so I don't know if it should be lauded as a positive for Sylvanas.

Bingo. More “troops” for the Horde = More dead bodies on the battlefield = More souls for the Jailer to help power himself.

[Triceron]

My take on that is that Sylvanas didn't do this "for the good of the Horde". I imagine her thought process for this wasn't "oh, I'll seek more allies to benefit the Horde" but more like "I'll seek more meat to throw into the grinder to make my totally not lord, master and owner the Jailer."

"New allies" is more of an unforeseen consequence of her plans than an actual intention, because if Sylvanas' plan worked, everyone would be dead, so I don't know if it should be lauded as a positive for Sylvanas.

It doesn't matter what reason she did it for, good fpr horde or not. The ties she created are permanent for the new horde regardless, and we have to be clear these ties were never formed under any other warchief. Thrall can be given credit for bringing in Tauren, Trolls and Goblins. Sylvanas was responsible for Blood Elves and all the Allied Races, despite whatever insidious reasons.

Even Garrosh brought in more clans like Dragonmaw, but they end up being treated more as enemy Npcs on the end. Not Allied races, and that's a big difference.

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both factions could have won in BfA, if it was not by the writers, this isn't ana rgumment

the problem here is that you, and others alliance boys, think only the alliance could have won the war, - and not just won the war, dismantle or genocide the horde - because they had a spaceship that destroy rocks or a flying ship like any other airship the factions had, and the only reason they didn't, isn't because logic, lore or gameplay, but just because the writers didn't want to

Lol, what? Is that what you really think?

So anyone who criticislzed Horde's writing is now an Alliance fanboy eh? Talk about bias

I criticized both factions. Fact is, the writers did not write the Alliance into a situation where they were going to fall, ever. The loss of Teldrassil was a tragedy, but one that united the Alliance more in a collective war effort. Meanwhile, the Horde was facing a massive internal civil war amidst a war being waged directly onto the Alliance.

How exactly do you perceive this as the Alliance falling, on context to the story? With what is there to talk about the downfall of the Alliance in BFA? Sylvanas did not have the power to do this at all, considering she was fighting TWO wars and a split of her own forces. The story was focused on splitting Horde loyalties, and did nothing to focus on any problems within the Alliance other than Tyrande and Jaina becoming super-powered emo. What exactly would the Alliance fall to? The whole Azerite plotline went nowhere, Azhara's story went nowhere, and taking down Sylvanas even went nowhere since she escaped. What was known was the Horde suffered massive losses to their organization from losing their warchief and having split loyalties internally, with some STILL being secret loyalists. The writers set up the Horde to fail here. And the Alliance being unable to take advantage of that? That is also setup to fail, since they should have never allowed a Garrosh 2.0 situation to continue ever. They are fools to allow the Horde to continue to exist, based on the story telling us the Horde is prone to warmongers as their leaders and are a direct potential threat to the Alliance such as the burning of Teldrassil. They are prone to manipulation, hey are prone to abusive leadership, and the Alliance had no hand in forming the Horde Council or insuring this doesn't ever happen again. Suffice to say, the writers have written the Alliance choosing not to take action in a situation where they have the power to take action. That is my criticism.

The Horde is not the dominant force by the end of BFA. They are not in an equal position to the Alliance. Let us be clear

[TheFirstOnes]

How are y'all defending this? That's like saying Gul'dan was a good Orcish leader unironically.

[Ielenia]

It doesn't matter what reason she did it for, good fpr horde or not. The ties she created are permanent for the new horde regardless, and we have to be clear these ties were never formed under any other warchief. Thrall can be given credit for bringing in Tauren, Trolls and Goblins. Sylvanas was responsible for Blood Elves and all the Allied Races, despite whatever insidious reasons.

Even Garrosh brought in more clans like Dragonmaw, but they end up being treated more as enemy Npcs on the end. Not Allied races, and that's a big difference.

"Sylvanas did try to end all life and damn us all, friend and foe alike, to a never-ending hell of eternal torture, but, hey, she brought new allies to the Horde-- well, more bodies to quickly kill and power the Jailer, yes, but still, they're now allies-- so she wasn't all that bad..."

That is my take from anyone who tries to defend Sylvanas as a good warchief.

[Varodoc]

Well, the vast majority of people here agree with the Canonical portrayal laid out by Blizzard, just look at the completely onesided poll. It's just a bunch of contrarians who as usual need to defend and justify the villain.

[Aresk]

The Horde is not the dominant force by the end of BFA. They are not in an equal position to the Alliance. Let us be clear

Out of curiosity, how do you explain Anduin's statements of "Enough [troops] for one final assault. If that fails...we're done." and Alleria's statement of "Sylvanas commands what may be the only army capable of defeating N’Zoth."?

[Triceron]

"Sylvanas did try to end all life and damn us all, friend and foe alike, to a never-ending hell of eternal torture, but, hey, she brought new allies to the Horde-- well, more bodies to quickly kill and power the Jailer, yes, but still, they're now allies-- so she wasn't all that bad..."

That is my take from anyone who tries to defend Sylvanas as a good warchief.

I never said she was a good warchief. I said she accomplished what other Warchiefs did not.

You read the words I said above, and nowhere did I ever say she was a good Warchief. Read more clearly.

[Ielenia]

I never said she was a good warchief. I said she accomplished what other Warchiefs did not.

You read the words I said above, and nowhere did I ever say she was a good Warchief. Read more clearly.

But that is meaningless to the topic of this thread.

Vol'jin also technically accomplished things no other warchief could: keep the peace between the factions, save for one single conflict in a different time/dimension.

This thread isn't about "which warchief did more or less than the others". This is about being a good warchief.

[Triceron]

Out of curiosity, how do you explain Anduin's statements of "Enough [troops] for one final assault. If that fails...we're done." and Alleria's statement of "Sylvanas commands what may be the only army capable of defeating N’Zoth."?

Bad writing. Plain and simple.

That Anduin was ever put in a position where he only had enough troops for one final assault is purely fabricated by the writers. Same with whatever Alleria's statement regarding Sylvanas was. The writers have some obsessive infatuation with propping Sylvanas up on a pedestal and having her be super special, and it should be pretty obvious that whatever the circumstances, Sylvanas was going to come out on top, and she's gonna have some moment where she 'redeems' herself, and the whole war in BFA is all a means to an end to take down the Jailer and have her be Kerrigan 3.0 where all the wrongdoing she did gets erased because she's the one who saves the universe blah blah.

Everyone is set up to fail in order to set up the backdrop to entering the Shadowlands and presenting some big bad who was manipulating everything from the start, all the way back to creating the Lich King and whispering to Vol'jin and the burning of Teldrassil etc etc. And the way the story is moving forward, Sylvanas is still alive because she's likely to become Arbiter after everything is said and done. If not, the story could have easily ended her in this very raid, permanently. It didn't. No surprise at all why.

Alliance and Horde will continue to lick their wounds and prep up for the next big bad, as if everything that happened didn't really matter. Cuz let's face it, every lesson learned in MoP and 'why we fight' amounted to nothing to prevent a BFA from happening. The history doesn't matter, the stakes don't really matter, because the Alliance and Horde will never truly fall and the game will carry on fighting bigger and bigger bads with a whole bunch of 'shades of gray' in between causing unnecessary drama for the sake of whatever story the writers choose to tell in the moment. My guess? The next major story focus is Turalyon, the Army of the Light, and how the Light can be 'evil'.

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But that is meaningless to the topic of this thread.

Vol'jin also technically accomplished things no other warchief could: keep the peace between the factions, save for one single conflict in a different time/dimension.

This thread isn't about "which warchief did more or less than the others". This is about being a good warchief.

If you followed my argument from the beginning, it would make more sense, instead of just jumping in and making a bunch of assumptions.

My argument is that there is no such thing as a 'good Warchief', because WoW has portrayed a complete contradiction between what a Good Warchief should be, and how every Warchief in WoW has done the complete opposite. Warchief should be equivalent to a dictator or emperor - their word is the law and they are above everyone else. In WoW, the Warchief position has become more of a President; a democratic leader or governing head who represents the people. That is a conflict of interest, because a Warchief is not a peaceful, government position. It's a position of a dictator who has unrivaled command of all those under them. So if we're talking about a good Warchief, then we're talking about a good Dictator.

"Good" also has double meaning; either it could be altruistic (Good vs Evil) or it could be about effectiveness (Good at his job). IMO, a Good Warchief is a Dictator that has full command of their troops, through either fear or respect. A Warchief that allows their underlings to undermine them or hold a coup is not a good Dictator. And as for altruistic values? I personally think being democratic is a conflict of interest to the Warchief position; it is not a 'High Chieftain' position, it is a Warchief. A Warchief that allows his power to be shared is not a Warchief at all, even if it's the altruistic or democratic thing to do.


Orgrim Doomhammer may have been best example of an effective Warchief, but even then he fucked up by allowing Gul'dan to live and completely undermine him. Basically an effective Warchief would be a dictator with supreme command of his forces. No rebellions, one singular goal - the will of the Warchief. Since WC2 has a very simple backstory and plot, there wasn't much nuance to it, and he had a pretty strong command of his forces during a time of war, barring Gul'dan's betrayal.

Thrall was a good ruler, but I do not think he was a good Warchief. He chose not to fight with the Alliance and maintain peace, yet he allowed commanders to fight battles on their own terms outside of his personal command. Much of the PVP reasoning in the world during Vanilla-to-Cata was all out of his control, outside of holding and defending territory. It was not his command to attack the Alliance. The story even has him tiring of the position, since he tried too hard to balance saving the world with leading the Horde, and frankly they are two very different positions. Based on WoW's story, Thrall was a better Shaman of the World than he really was a Warchief of the Horde.

Garrosh had good intentions and a strong goal to unify the Horde, but they were all goals contrary to the players ideals. Thus a story about him becoming evil and us having to throw him out of power. IMO, it was a poorly told story, and it was a story born out of people's distaste for him as a Warchief during his reign. Personally, I really liked him in Shattering, I thought he was a misunderstood character. I was genuinely surprised they ended up making him Big Bad of MOP, even if I acknowledged many people hated him as Warchief at the time. I felt like his character could be redeemed, instead of turned into a villain. And I am not a 'Garrosh did nothing wrong' supporter at all, I simply see the writers doing him wrong for the sake of making him a Villain. But overall, was he a good Warchief? No, because he ended up having a massive coup against him, and he purposely split the Horde and ousted the other races, which overall weakened his position rather than strengthened it. These are poor decisions from a military standpoint.

Vol'jin did nothing but set things up in the future to fail, and die in the process. He literally had no story since we left Azeroth as soon as he took power, so no I don't consider neutrality to be a 'Good Warchief'. To be frank, I do not consider him a Warchief because he did not earn the position through Blood or Honor. He was granted the position after Garrosh was deposed, and this has never happened in Orc culture where they were granted any sort of 'democracy'. The Warchief title is earned through blood and honor. Vol'jin did not duel Garrosh, he was not the sole leader, and he was simply set into the position democratically. That is not a title befitting 'Warchief'. The writers absolutely fucked up the meaning of Warchief, and that's my personal take on this.

Sylvanas is the most nuanced one. I think it's clear enough that she had zero interest in the Horde, and she was using her position as a means to an end. She didn't even earn her position, it was all manipulated from outside forces. So really, I don't value her in this position at all really as a Warchief. Yet the things I said earlier still stand. She reigned, she lost a capital city, she gained allies, she betrayed the Horde. IMO she's more akin to what Gul'dan was to the Horde than an actual Warchief; a manipulator. Is she a good or bad Warchief? In my personal opinion, she wasn't a Warchief at all since she did not earn that title through Blood or Honor.

Conclusion? WoW has not written any good Warchiefs. We've had good Horde rulers, but they never truly acted as Warchiefs would. We've had effective Warchiefs, but they are always being depicted as 'bad guys'.