Iron Horde

Garrosh Hellscream is headed to the Nexus -- perhaps an appropriate epilogue for a story that swept through five expansions before its explosive finale.

Let's face it, Azeroth has never been a safe place.

“...wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” Shakespearean quotes about angsty princes, murderous relatives and pensive ghosts aside, I’ve recently been reflecting on the fact that when we say goodbye to this expansion, we’ll also be saying goodbye to a large number of plotlines and stories that took place in Draenor.

If you've been playing World of Warcraft for a while, or were familiar with the Warcraft 3 game or tie-in books like Lord of the Clans and Rise of the Horde you were aware of a certain conception of orcs and their nature and identity.

What does Wrathion want with Draenor, why is he there to begin with, and why did he ally with Kairoz and help Garrosh Hellscream escape? I think the answer to that question may very well have been staring us in the face all along, and it's been staring us in the face since the end of Mists of Pandaria.

What I really enjoyed about Welcome to the Machine is that for a moment it took you out of that role of adventuring hero, and put you in the NPC position. It was an amazing, wonderful, weird quest, and I still consider it one of the highlights of the Cataclysm expansion. As much as I love the quest, though, I didn't really want an entire expansion of it.

You know, we spend a lot of time talking about the various Warlords of Draenor as they're presented in the latest expansion's version of history. Lords of War was supposedly Maraad's tales of these old warlords, but the stories were pretty specific. And in some cases -- like Kilrogg's vision of his death -- they seemed like a direct reference to the alternate version of Draenor's warlords, rather than our own.

One could argue that by the end of the events that play out in 6.0 and 6.1, the Iron Horde has been effectively shut down, backs against the wall, leaving them with no other apparent alternative than to turn to tactics they weren't originally going to use. But the one thing we haven't done is really look at the situation and ask ourselves -- why the Iron Horde to begin with?

This is the story of an orc whose life played full circle, ending where it began -- before it began actually, in an odd twist of fate, time and a little bronze magic. It plays in counterpoint to the tale of Emperor Shaohao, who hid away his kingdom, so confident and prideful in himself and his people's abilities that he was certain they would thrive in abject isolation from the rest of the world. The orc, on the other hand, came from an absence of pride into a sudden and overwhelming abundance of it... and it slowly ate him alive.

If you don't want more spoilers about patch 6.2 and the legendary questline, you should probably avoid this post.