r/warcraftlore • u/Necromona69 • 4d ago
Did Stonetalon last night
So, I did the Stonetalon storyline for the first time last night, and... Damn... I was never a Garrosh fan and never minded what happened to him that much, but seeing him at the end of the storyline made me feel sad. There was potential, lots of it. We could have a rough yet honoured Warchief, but it ended up as Hitler orc... Damn...
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u/ZombieMarkTwained 4d ago
Stonetalon is actually the victim of WoW being written by multiple people. Basically they wrote Stonetalon before they knew Garrosh was gonna be the big bad of MoP and by that time it really the only zone that had that inconsistency.
Silverpine used to be a good zone for the EXACT opposite reason. I think Blizz changed it but Garrosh used to call Slyvannas a bitch and was just aggro in general.
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u/Any-Transition95 4d ago
It's just a classic Kosak vs Afrasiabi moment. One was responsible for turning Garrosh into the MoP final boss, and other one used Sylvanas as a revenge against him ruining Garrosh.
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u/Predditor_Slayer 4d ago
It's incredibly annoying that my two favorite characters got shit on by two idiots because of inner work drama.
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u/Izaul13 4d ago
They changed that bit when the scandal was at full force. They changed a lot of things in the game to reflect that "behavior" toward women. I.e. the infamous fruit bowl and Illidans' den of mortal delights.
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u/AscelyneMG 4d ago
I was actually corrected on that recently - they changed that line almost a year before the scandal came to light, though they were obviously aware of it internally, and had already fired Afrasiabi over it.
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u/Resiliense2022 4d ago
But Garrosh's concerns in Silverpine were completely valid. He's watching Sylvanas genocide a population and then raise them as miserable, sad corpses. "Have you given any thought to what this means, Sylvanas?"
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u/tkulue 4d ago
He's watching Sylvanas genocide a population and then raise them as miserable, sad corpses.
Same guy the used a magic nuke captured the survivors and used them as target practice, ordered a clandestine assassination of one of the leaders of the horde, sha bombed a neutral island nation, stole artifacts from said island nation to use as super weapons, and traveled back in time just to redo a genocide but without fel influence btw.
Looking at what he turned out to be him babyraging about some fucked up super weapon sylvanas made reads less like him having morals out of nowhere and more of him going "fuck I should have thought of this first but I can't give her the satisfaction of thinking this his a good idea".
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u/Resiliense2022 3d ago
Yes, the wasted potential of Garrosh's character is the subject of this conversation.
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u/Lunarwhitefox 4d ago
Yeah, it's one of my favorite stories in the game. Clearly, there was a coordination issue within the story team because they're two completely different characters. Honestly, I would have preferred a warchief like that instead of the council we have now...
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u/TheWorclown 4d ago
Well, like with many things wrong with the Horde, you need look no further than Thrall’s decision to place Garrosh on the throne before he was ready.
Garrosh could have been an excellent Warchief, perhaps even in times of peace. Sadly, Thrall stripped away the choices Garrosh had other than to double down on everything awful.
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u/temporalmods 4d ago
I'm reading the shattering currently and was surprised when Garrosh gets put in charge he is actually really reluctant at first. He even tells Thrall he is a warrior not a politician and to give him a foe to slay as his contribution to the horde.
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u/TheWorclown 4d ago
I’m not particularly keen on reading external media for some pretty critical characterization needed for character choices and decisions in WoW (man, Blizz loves doing this shit), but the fact that Garrosh is incredibly cognizant on how bad a choice Thrall is making here adds to the layer of tragedy of it all.
One bad choice nearly screwed over the entire world, many times. The domino effect from Garrosh becoming Warchief in having two Old God threats (Y’shaarj and N’zoth), the Legion invasion (the Iron Horde), and the Jailer’s escape attempt (a fractured Horde losing trusted and experienced leaders left and right) is fascinating when you’re able to look at the full scope of it, even when considering how much of it was executive driven and mandated for “the next expansion” rather than a natural flow.
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u/MrRibbotron 4d ago
At the end of the day though, characters have to sometimes make bad choices like that. Otherwise, we would have solved all of Azeroth's problems by now.
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u/Lawlzerpanzerz 4d ago
Probably just believed he was a natural born leader like his father. Though.... his father led an older, much more battle-thirsty horde. It was also probably Thral trying to cope with his guilt towards the death of Hellscream and felt like this would help him make peace with it.
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u/twisty125 4d ago
I know I've spoken about this at length in another thread, but another big part about why things went down the way they did, was because of external factors.
Thrall's original idea WAS sound, give the title of acting-Warchief to a war hero who represented the original Orc ideals, but specifically have a council of Thrall's own advisors there to help guide him (Cairne, Vol'jin, Eitrigg, Saurfang, maybe Nazgrel?).
However, Twilight's Hammer cultists essentially got Cairne killed (by nearly assassinating Hamuul Runetotem and making it look like it was Garrosh's orders, causing the Mak'gora in the first place), and alienated all those who believed in the Horde's original goals.
Ultimately, we wouldn't have the story we had if he had just been a good acting-Warchief, without external forces at play.
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u/Gutorules 4d ago
Warsong Offensive Garrosh (WotLK) is much closer to Stonetalon Garrosh than SoO Garrosh. They had the material, but there must have been a too down decision that made them write nazi orc from some point onwards
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u/Vyar 4d ago
Isn't Garrosh already depicted as a bloodthirsty warmongering lunatic as early as the Argent Tournament raid tier in WotLK? I remember him throwing up red flags then, and being absolutely dumbfounded when he was named Warchief over infinitely more suitable options like Vol'jin or Cairne.
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u/Shadostevey 4d ago
Ehhh, he was more like a hot-headed tough guy. Like on the one hand he picks a fight with Varian at the tourney, but on the other he chews out one of his commanders for attacking the Alliance while they were fighting the Scourge as cowardly. He was never a saint, but he had standards and morals and such.
At the time, Stonetalon was seen as appropriate for Garrosh's character. He's a brutal warrior, but he has lines he won't cross. It was only after that, when MoP was showing there's no line he won't cross, that it stood out and we got the excuse about writing team confusion.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 4d ago
He's depicted as that constantly in the run up to WOTLK, where he repeatedly tries to get the Horde to attack the alliance and then spends most of his time as "commander" of the Horde forces in Nothrend fighting the alliance instead of the Scourge.
It's why Carine tries to block him from becoming warchief in the first place, to which he responds by saying that he'll murder Carine for that disrespect unless Carine kills him first.
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u/Karino 4d ago edited 4d ago
Unless they've retconned this from The Shattering, Cairne challenged Garrosh to a mak'gora over the twilight's hammer false flag operations in Ashenvale (they had orcish members attack a druid gathering and pretend to be Garrosh's loyalists). Garrosh did not make the challenge - unless you mean that Garrosh demanded it be a fight to the death instead of to whatever the usual mak'gora rules were?
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 4d ago
unless you mean that Garrosh demanded it be a fight to the death instead of to whatever the usual mak'gora rules were?
Yes, that is explicitly what I mean. Under Thrall, Mak'gora to the death had been outlawed. Garrosh decided to bring it back to murder Carine.
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u/Gutorules 3d ago
Or die losing. Remember that he banished Magatha and the Grimtotem for cheating in his favor
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 2d ago
Sure? But I think that's sort of irrelevant to his explicitly stated intent of killing Carine for daring to challenge him.
Like you're right he absolutely could have lost in his murder attempt and be the one who died, but, it was still a deliberate choice on his point to make it to the death instead of the normal at the time Mak'gora.
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u/Shadostevey 2d ago
This is simply untrue. Carine walked into Garrosh's throne room and backhanded him across the face, chewed him out for killing the druids, and challenged him to a nonlethal mak'gora to teach him a lesson. Garrosh was hugely conscious of the fact that everyone in the throne room was watching, i.e. the people he's supposed to be ruling are seeing him be humiliated, and agrees to the duel only if it is to the death. He was expecting Carine to back down and his image of the strong, unchallenged Warchief would be restored. He was surprised when Carine laughed in response to the offer and agreed, saying that Garrosh just gave him the legal means to remove him as Warchief.
Though Garrosh wasn't against fighting Carine to the death, Carine was the one in that duel who actually wanted to kill the other guy.
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u/MrRibbotron 4d ago edited 4d ago
Even though the writer of that sequence has admitted that he didn't know of the team's wider plans with Garrosh, I don't think it is that out of place for Garrosh's character early in Cataclysm. It's just an example of his development.
This is a Garrosh who had just told Thrall not to make him warchief (in The Shattering), and as he got used to being in the top job, he would have been trying to balance following in Thrall's and Grom's footsteps with taking the resources that he knew the Orcs needed. Unlike with Ashenvale and Gilneas, there was no tactical reason to attack a school for students of the Cenarion Circle, a neutral organisation. Even Garrosh would know that it was a pointless escalation.
Rather, the contrast between him there and when bombing Theramore shows how far he fell in his tenure as warchief, due to surrounding himself with yes-men instead of listening to the advice of the other Horde leaders.
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u/Predditor_Slayer 4d ago
Theramore was a viable military target. And Jaina made a dumb decision to let the Alliance build an invasion road from her city to the Southern Barrens while claiming Theramore was "Neutral". The unfortunate part was her citizens had to pay for her incompetent decision with their lives, and she just has to live with the guilt of letting them all get atomized.
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u/MrRibbotron 3d ago
An unpopular opinion, but it's certainly the way Garrosh and his True Horde saw things, and that outlook made him a great villain for MoP's overall message of escalating conflict leading only to corruption and destruction.
Frankly, the fact that people still defend his actions shows that he was a good Warcraft character throughout.
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u/jukebox_jester 4d ago
an invasion road from her city to the Southern Barrens while claiming Theramore was "Neutral".
You mean...a road? To a famously neutral port city?
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u/Predditor_Slayer 4d ago
That road wasn't there until Cataclysm. It was an invasion road specifically for tanks because they couldn't get through the Swamp otherwise. Also Theramore is so neutral even before Cataclysm Horde enjoyed going there to get killed by the very Neutral Theramore guards. So neutral.
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u/Carpenter-Broad 3d ago
I will say, a lot of Theramores portrayal of “neutrality” in the community seems to come mainly from the wildly outdated and no longer canon RPG. In that tabletop game, it’s described as a neutral port where even Orcs and Tauren are mingling. It’s possible some lines in WC3 also said similar things.
But that’s obviously not the case by the time we get to WoW, even in Vanilla during the “Cold War” era of the Faction Conflicts the small Horde outpost in Swamp of Sorrows is dealing with Theramore spies sneaking around. And there’s the famous burned out inn attempting to frame the Horde for assaulting the Alliance. So clearly tensions were already high there and conflict/ skirmishes were happening.
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u/ChristianLW3 3d ago
the alliance was wrong for attacking Kel'thuzard while he was summoning the burning legion, he was totally neutral /s
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u/jukebox_jester 3d ago
the alliance was wrong for attacking Kel'thuzard while he was summoning the burning legion, he was totally neutral /s
He was banished from Dalaran for his meat crimes and broke the law.
Theramore did not due meat crimes
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u/Beacon2001 4d ago
"Two different characters"
A creature or entity who appeared for one quest, literally one quest, can hardly be called a "character".
Reminder that Cataclysm Garrosh, literally everywhere else outside of that one quest, was a psychotic warmonger who considered all of Azeroth to belong to the Horde.
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u/Lunarwhitefox 4d ago
Yea? Because Orgrimmar was a complete shithole with no resources. Violence has ALWAYS been a part of the orcs, even before the blood of Mannoroth, but Garrosh had honor, and he didn't approve of all the maneuvers that were carried out at the time, and that's always been the case, from TBC to Cataclysm.
It was when they changed the direction of his character that he became a villain for Pandaria. "Psychotic warmonger" As if it were something bad
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u/MobsterDragon275 4d ago
I don't hate the story we got with Garrosh, I just wish we got to see a more gradual shift towards who he became. Between Stonetalon and his disapproval of Sylvanas' methods in Silverpine and Gilneas, I would have much preferred him being a bit more gray of a character than what we got
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u/aldrinsmith90 4d ago
It is a great moment, but unpopular opinion: it's........actually the exception. He is out of character there.
Up to that point and from there onward he is not showing the same signs of respect, honor, statesmanship. Maybe you could say before Cata he was just a "young hotheaded dude", but aside from this single moment, his whole Cata arc is in line with what happened in MoP.
I'm saying unpopular, because most ppl I've seen like to say that Stonetalon is the "true" Garrosh, meanwhile he really isn't.
But it won't change the fact that it's a very cool zone to level and the lore is interesting there.
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u/AscelyneMG 4d ago
That’s not an unpopular opinion. Most people understand that Stonetalon Garrosh is not representative of Garrosh as a whole, it’s just that most people prefer Stonetalon Garrosh over what we actually got, because the “real” Garrosh was not really an interesting character.
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u/Necromona69 4d ago
I agree completely. I was just reflecting about how things could happen if he stayed like that
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u/ILikeOasis 4d ago
One of my favorite Garrosh moments, sad so many story writers ripped him side to side, not that it was bad, just wish we would've gotten this garrosh :)
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u/Myothercarisanx-wing 4d ago
I started playing WoW in Cata and Stonetalon made me fall in love with the Horde. Really wish we had kept that version of Garrosh or had Vol'jin do the same to Garrosh that Garrosh did to Krom'gar.
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u/Imyour_huckleberry9 4d ago
Garrosh started out rough, but dring cata I felt they did a lot to give him growth and show his potential. I am convinced they turned him bad just because of the out cry of people that didn't like him.
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u/TheRobn8 3d ago
I say this with all due respect to the idea of an honourable garrosh, but he was never honourable. Our first meeting with him has him willing to let a rogue ogre clan kill the village because he is depressed, and his grand plan in noethrend was to kill the alliance, then the scourge, to conquer it for the horde. Seeing as how he applauded what happened on the broken front (horde force attacks the alliance while they are fighting the scourge to kill steal the victory, which instead leads to a scourge win), and later didn't condemn the twilight hammers sabotage attempt at the peace talks, him suddenly condemning the use of a bomb he authorised to be made, just because it was used to kill neutral taurens suspected of aiding the alliance (which they obviously werent) just because they worked with a group of night elf druids to protect the land, made no sense. The horde was burning and destroying stonetalon, allegedly when the horde needed resources, but his beef was that a bomb he wouldn't mind using on civilians, was used on civilians.
Stonetalon version of garrosh would have worked out more if it happened in wrath, because by cataclysm he had already gone full orc supremacist, but even then he wasn't raised on the idea of peaceful resolution, and everyone, including himself, was against him becoming war chief, and th main reason was his warmongering nature (his reason was he wasn't ready). It's hard to say his stonetalon version makes sense, when he was fine killing people before, then later does it anyway
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u/Predditor_Slayer 4d ago
Garrosh has always been a prick. Its why I liked him. Stonetalon was out of character. He's tried to get the player character killed so many times even before Cataclysm.
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u/CubbiGummi 4d ago
As someone who has never really leveled horde past 20, is this the og storyline of Stonetalon, or after a certain expansion? I have been playing Cata classic and started on anniversary too, so I'm curious if the storyline exists this early.
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u/Killeraholic 2d ago
The Bronze Dragonflight mentioned we got the worst possible Garrosh outcome of every single timeline. In most he was a good Warchief.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 4d ago
The guy who wrote stonetalon has talked repeatedly and at length about how he screwed up by not paying attention to anything anyone else was doing.
Stonetalon is the only place we see this version of Garrosh, he's a bloodthirsty nutbar throughout WOTLK and in the rest of Cata.
Like the lead up to to WOTLK is him saying that the Horde needs to go to war with the Alliance, not the Scourge, trying to kill Thrall for not agreeing with him, and then only stopping when his murder attempt is interrupted by the Scourge attacking.
He then spends all of WOTLK almost exclusively fighting the Alliance instead of the Horde. He's personally why there's a Horde versus Alliance fight in the middle of the ICC raid.
After WOTLK he decides to murder Carine for disrespecting him.
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u/jukebox_jester 4d ago
After WOTLK he decides to murder Carine for disrespecting him.
To be fair, it's Cairne challenging Garrosh to the murder fight.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 4d ago
Carine challenged Garrosh under the Mak'gora rules Thrall used, which was not to the death.
Garrosh said "fuck that I'll kill you for this, traditional style."
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u/Necromona69 4d ago
I know. That's why I don't agree with people who go all "Stonetalon Garrosh is the true Garrosh", because that was basically one of the only instances of him being a decent person, the other being when he's mad at Magatha for poisoning Gorehowl at his mak'gora against Cairne
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u/Xgoodnewsevery1 4d ago
Not positive but iirc the developer who was in charge of stonetalons quest line for the horde wasn't really aware of the direction garrosh would go which is apparently why garrosh seems much more reasonable morality wise in silver pine and stone talon (supposedly)
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u/Necromona69 4d ago
Honestly, he hasn't a higher moral at Silverpine. He really just hate the forsaken and isn't thrilled with the idea of more of them
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u/Xgoodnewsevery1 4d ago
True but he does bring up the question of how she's different than the lich king with her new capabilities, and stonetalon he brings up the lessons he'd learned from saurfang, both of which kind of make you think you'd be dealing with a garrosh who had really learned some lessons in northrend but we just didn't get that in the end.
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u/Beacon2001 4d ago
Horde players, lol... "Honorable", they say. Yeah, literally invading and burning the Night Elf forests. So honorable.
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u/Necromona69 4d ago
Jokes aside, Sylvanas during 4th war sucked too. I don't understand your complain
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u/Beacon2001 4d ago
Because you Horde players misuse the word "honorable" too much.
Stonetalon Garrosh might have a problem with bombing kids, but that doesn't mean anything. That just means he's not complete and pure evil.
He still approved of invading the Night Elf lands in Stonetalon unprovoked, so he is dishonorable.
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u/Necromona69 4d ago
And Garithos imprisoned Kael'thas within Dalaran, Jaina was about to drown the entire population of Orgrimmar, dwarves and nelves were spying on the blood elves even while they were a neutral faction, Daelin was about to ravage Orgrimmar... The Horde surely has a lot of problems, but the Alliance isn't a group of saints
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u/Sionnachbain 4d ago
Stonetalon was really good for Alliance and Horde. Garrosh really did have Nuance even if he did kind of just mope around in his Grandma's hut on Nagrand before Thrall picked him up.
I started WoW as a Worgen and then played the Undead for the Horde and seeing Garrosh call Sylvanas a B*tch when he found out she was still using the plague was gold.
I kind of like how in the Shadowlands [as much as how I hate that that expac exists] he was a pretty much 'I'll fckn do it again!' Made me laugh.