How did Thrall become Warchief?

[Jastall]

Grom is consistently shown to us as someone without too much leadership chops and mostly coasting by on what other, more capable leaders project onto him. Thrall gives him wide latitude for a while and has a very high opinion of him because he's part of him getting back in touch with the orc-itude and their surrogate brother dynamic. Garrosh wants his fantasy Horde to be run by his dad and misinterprets Grom heavily to get to that point, and as a result Grom is put in charge instead of the far more competent Blackhand.

Grom is a top tier commander of warbands and the like, but not as Warchief.

As a general Grom would be perfect, well assuming he would actually follow orders unlike his WC3 self at any rate. As Warchief obviously he's a disaster, despite the position's name the big boss needs to know about more than axes and how to bury them in people's skulls.

A criticism one could also levy at his kid to some extent. Garrosh was a lot smarter than daddy dearest but had the same crippling flaw of being an overly emotional prick. But a loyal Garrosh as second in command to a Thrall that hasn't had his IQ and competence bombarded from orbit would make a great leadership duo for the Horde. Alas, we needed to be taught the lessons of Pandaria twice, and instead dealt with Orc Hitler, then Wicked Witch Windrunner, and then had a council where the fucking elf starts Lok'tar Ogar-ing. Not the worst timeline because WoD's exists, but not that far either. Anyway I digress.

Not sure what Varok was doing back then, too. He didn't even exist in canon back when WC3, Rise of the Horde and Lord of the Clans were being written, so I'd assume he was lethargic like everyone else, and probably already too old to be Orgrim's likely successor.

[Super Dickmann]

As a general Grom would be perfect, well assuming he would actually follow orders unlike his WC3 self at any rate. As Warchief obviously he's a disaster, despite the position's name the big boss needs to know about more than axes and how to bury them in people's skulls.

A criticism one could also levy at his kid to some extent. Garrosh was a lot smarter than daddy dearest but had the same crippling flaw of being an overly emotional prick. But a loyal Garrosh as second in command to a Thrall that hasn't had his IQ and competence bombarded from orbit would make a great leadership duo for the Horde. Alas, we needed to be taught the lessons of Pandaria twice, and instead dealt with Orc Hitler, then Wicked Witch Windrunner, and then had a council where the fucking elf starts Lok'tar Ogar-ing. Not the worst timeline because WoD's exists, but not that far either. Anyway I digress.

Not sure what Varok was doing back then, too. He didn't even exist in canon back when WC3, Rise of the Horde and Lord of the Clans were being written, so I'd assume he was lethargic like everyone else, and probably already too old to be Orgrim's likely successor.

Grom under other people has generally been successful. But even in his WoD appearances all his major decisions were done either by Garrosh nudging him (rejecting the blood, sparing the Gorian ogres, managing the Shadowmoon) or were held together by Blackhand (the Iron Horde turning against him en masse after the Foundry collapses).

I'd say Garrosh and Thrall are a bit similar, not ideologically, obviously but in the kind of people they are - they're both fairly good leaders, creative as well as inspiring figures when it comes to up close fighting, but they're also massive idealists willing to crash and burn with whatever cause they've latched onto at the time. It's just that Thrall's thing was building bridges even when it was a terrible long-term foundation that wouldn't end up working, whereas Garrosh was set on doing things a certain way and when people didn't behave themselves as he expected he would consider it an insult to himself. They also had moments of mental retardation - Garrosh sending his vanguard away in Twilight Highlands and Thrall keeping Gallywix in power for instance.

In terms of a dynamic between them, I honestly don't think it ended up badly in the story we got. It's their equivalents in Mists 2.0 with Saurfang and Sylvanas that's a duo that bounced off each other really well in the few chances they had to interact and both be characters rather than broad archetypes so I'd have liked to see more. Re: him as Warchief instead of Thrall, if you disregard that Varok wasn't even an idea by the writers at the time, he wouldn't really cut it as Warchief.

[Maljinwo]

Pre-Cata Thrall was great

[Jastall]

Grom under other people has generally been successful. But even in his WoD appearances all his major decisions were done either by Garrosh nudging him (rejecting the blood, sparing the Gorian ogres, managing the Shadowmoon) or were held together by Blackhand (the Iron Horde turning against him en masse after the Foundry collapses).

I'd say Garrosh and Thrall are a bit similar, not ideologically, obviously but in the kind of people they are - they're both fairly good leaders, creative as well as inspiring figures when it comes to up close fighting, but they're also massive idealists willing to crash and burn with whatever cause they've latched onto at the time. It's just that Thrall's thing was building bridges even when it was a terrible long-term foundation that wouldn't end up working, whereas Garrosh was set on doing things a certain way and when people didn't behave themselves as he expected he would consider it an insult to himself. They also had moments of mental retardation - Garrosh sending his vanguard away in Twilight Highlands and Thrall keeping Gallywix in power for instance.

In terms of a dynamic between them, I honestly don't think it ended up badly in the story we got. It's their equivalents in Mists 2.0 with Saurfang and Sylvanas that's a duo that bounced off each other really well in the few chances they had to interact and both be characters rather than broad archetypes so I'd have liked to see more. Re: him as Warchief instead of Thrall, if you disregard that Varok wasn't even an idea by the writers at the time, he wouldn't really cut it as Warchief.

Problem is the dynamic escalates into hostility both times because muh faction drama. It's not enough that Thrall and Garrosh disagree on the Horde's direction, they must fight over it and the ideas behind their differing visions must lead to Horde civil wars, not once but twice, and to the former becoming a flanderized shadow of his former self while the latter founds the NSDAP to take everyone's lebensraum. The Saurfang-Sylvanas duo made some sense back when there was a chance she could be a ruthless but reasonably pragmatic person attempting to lead the Horde towards a particular path but obviously falls apart when she, in the end, is a screeching bitch who wants everyone to die and thus can only have a dynamic with by-default heroic figures who don't want everyone to die.

Other characters have this sort of back-and-forth from time to time, like Lor'themar and Rommath or Anduin and Genn (when they remember he has a character). But because the Horde has to be at a crossroads every Tuesday it must there escalate into sillyness.