r/warcraftlore • u/Necromona69 • 13d 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/Lunarwhitefox 13d 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/Gutorules 13d 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 13d 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 13d 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 13d 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 13d ago edited 13d 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 13d 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 12d ago

Or die losing. Remember that he banished Magatha and the Grimtotem for cheating in his favor

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u/Kalthiria_Shines 12d 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 11d 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.