Five Warcraft Characters That Could Use a Mercy Killing

by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

We’re now some nine years and change into the World of Warcraft narrative, and to say some of it’s characters are storied is to do them an injustice. Quite a few of them have been around since Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos in 2002, some longer. That’s a crazy amount of time. While a number of them have aged with grace and continue to make for compelling characters, others have long since outlived their usefulness and could honestly use a mercy killing of sorts. Here’s my personal list.

WARNING: Spoilers for both World of Warcraft and the Walking Dead below!

Thrall

There’s no denying that Thrall was an awesome character back in the day. He was the orc who became a slave, the slave who became a warrior, the warrior that defied an Admiral, et cetera. Unfortunately, in recent days, Thrall appears to have lost his way. He’s the dude who basically gave Garrosh a pass to be Warchief despite every other person in Azeroth being like, “I dunno man”. With Garrosh handled, and Vol’jin acting as Warchief in Warlords of Draenor, maybe Thrall, Aggra and soon to be kids can take a family trip to somewhere a bit quieter, maybe enjoy some time away from the limelight. Maybe if Thrall dies in Warlords (heroically, of course) Aggra can actually rise to prominence, something the community has seemed incredibly receptive to.

Ultimately, Thrall’s served his plot purpose. He bound the Horde, led them for three expansions, botched succession, helped save the world from Deathwing and stared into the eyes of a tyrant who betrayed his trust. Thrall’s done some good work. Give him a break!

Sylvanas

I don’t enjoy writing this, because honestly Sylvanas is one of my favorite characters in the universe. She’s cold, remorseless, and a breath of fresh decrepit air in a universe often populated by pop culture references and poop quests. Unfortunately, while Thrall continues to limp along, Sylvanas is simply a non-factor. She began Cataclysm with a really satisfying war against Gilneas, but it just sort of died out. A conclusion was never really provided for the players. She’s not even really in Mists of Pandaria, save for some cameos in Siege of Ogrimmar. Sylvanas does have a plot arc in World of Warcraft: War Crimes, but it doesn’t seem to offer much insight about her future in Warlords of Draenor.

At the end of Siege of Ogrimmar, Sylvanas admits to having ‘no loyalty’ to Vol’jin as Warchief, despite respecting what he’s done with regards to Garrosh. In the last couple of expansions she’s seemed fairly interested in loosing the blight on the populace. I’d love to see her going out essentially trying to turn the rest of the world into Forsaken, despite the protests of the Horde. It would be a lot more satisfying than seeing her in cut scenes as the Forsaken’s unique piece of furniture.

Garrosh

If you watched season three of AMC’s the Walking Dead, you no doubt recall that the Governor manages to escape what seemed like a mandatory death based on the source material. It was a source of great frustration to me as it meant that, inevitably, I’d be seeing the Governor in the next season. Garrosh is essentially World of Warcraft’s version of the Governor. We know he escapes. We know he’s coming back next season. While it’s been confirmed that he won’t be the main villain, he will be around as a villain.

It is my hope that Garrosh gets a swift end in Warlords. He’s an incredibly hamfisted bad guy and while he had his moments in Cataclysm and Mists, I can safely say that I’ve had enough of Hellscream Jr. Go ahead and end him and let me enjoy Papa Hellscream kicking me around for a bit.

Varian Wrynn

Stormwind’s King has come full circle. He was once a brash, savage jerk who seemed unfit for leadership. He’s now morphed into the wise, reasonable King the Alliance needs to lead them. What’s next for Lo’Gosh? The Prince and heir apparent Anduin Wrynn is being developed rather nicely, and there’s a lot of room for him to continue progressing as a character as we hop into our Police Box and go all wimbly bimbly back in time. This doesn’t seem to leave much room for Varian.

While there will always be a bit of Horde versus Alliance for the sake of PvP, Varian and Vol’jin seem to have things well in hand, making for a rather bland state of affairs in Azeroth. Unless Sylvanas and Jaina get together and cause problems, I just don’t see much happening to continue the standard Horde Alliance feud. If Varian were to perish however, Anduin could either be too young to rule, or simply ineffective at keeping the myriad of personalities in check, leaving plenty of room for the sort of diplomatic nonsense that keeps the narrative progressing. It might even let Jaina have a more prominent role, and that would just be great.

Hemet Nesingwary

I can feel it in my bones. It makes no sense, but somehow Hemet Newsingwary is going to find a way to go back in time. I’m going to run into him, and he’s going to be like, ‘Hey guy, I know you’re busy with this whole Iron Horde debacle, but could you go ahead and murder 84,000 wolves, 84,000 birds and let’s say, 120,000 deer? Yah, that’d be great’. Please, no more Hemet, no more.

What I would enjoy is Hemet Nesingway being taken out after stepping foot into old Draenor. I’d get to him, he’d start to rattle off something about animal control and then he’d get mowed down by some giant orc with an axe for a hand. We’d still be given quests to hunt down beasts, but we’d know that we were finally free of Hemet’s tyranny, once and for all… until the expansion where Sylvanas actually wins World of Warcraft and he’s back as an Undead.