Thrall

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.

In a little over a year, we're going to see a third iteration of Orgrim Doomhammer in the Warcraft movie. Maybe not exactly the orc we know from history, but another representation. Which leads most people to ask a natural question: Is Orgrim Doomhammer a good guy, or a bad guy? The most truthful answer I can give you is "Yes."

It's not just Grommash's character we're looking at here -- it's the entire state of the Horde as we know it. Did the Horde need Garrosh Hellscream? Yes, it absolutely did, and now that he's gone, there's a void left behind that could be filled, oddly enough, by his father from another reality. But before you get me wrong here, I don't mean Grommash should fill that villain role. Far from it.

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.