One of the things that really drew me into WoW was the fact that the Horde was not truly evil. Orcs have, since Tolkien (and possibly before, as Orcs actually date back to at least Roman Mythology, deriving their name from Orcus, aka((ish)) Pluto. Orcs are actually etymologically linked to Orcas!) always been seen as evil. On TVTropes, they're probably the poster-child for "Always Chaotic Evil." Yet, starting with WCIII and expanding on it in WoW, the Orcs of Warcraft were given a more fleshed-out backstory that explained how they weren't really evil, but mislead. Likewise, the Trolls and even the freaking Undead were given backstories that redeemed them to the point of relatable, even if they weren't perfect. (Tauren were always good guys, so they needed no redemption.)
Despite this great set-up, where the Alliance is the typical group of heroic fantasy races (Humans, Dwarves and Elves, with Gnomes filling in the miscellaneous category that Hobbits do in Tolkien) but the Horde is a group of stereotype-defying "evil" races, Warcraft still seems to be struggling to decide just how complex the moral scale should be.
Aesthetically, Warcraft's always been a little cartoony - there are bright colors and a very strong vein of humor that runs through everything. There's certainly a lot of wish-fulfilment in the ability to just be a crazy badass in (currently) eleven different flavors.
But in terms of actual characterization, the main plotlines for each expansion are played pretty much straight. We're supposed to take the Old Gods seriously, and the Scourge really would be a menace. There are tragic losses and glorious victories. We're not supposed to laugh about the Wrath Gate, or the destruction of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Nor are we just playing around when the Sunwell is reignited, or Algalon the Observer is convinced to give Azeroth a chance to live.
But even serious plots can be done in a simplistic way. And sometimes, these simple stories can elicit the most powerful, raw emotions. Fantasy, after all, has the potential to give us villains who are truly evil, whom we can fight with no qualms. In the face of super-powered, horrifying evil, victory feels like something amazingly glorious. I mean, we've killed (ish) two Old Gods. There is nothing not awesome about that.
And yet, moral complexity in any form of drama, be it a novel, a movie, or a video game, can draw us in. In the real world, bad people are not "just evil." Just as fantasy allows us to create characters with pure intent - both good and evil - it also allows us to examine how a black-and-white world view can develop, and how it can be transformed into something else.
So it can sometimes be disappointing when the Warcraft factions and races fall back into their stereotypical ways. To me, the fact that Sylvanas is clearly raising the dead against their will (no matter what Blizzard says, there's no way those people would immediately join up with the Forsaken) will be extremely frustrating until we deal with the fact that the Banshee Queen is basically turning the Forsaken into Scourge 2.0. Garrosh, and more to the point, the cult of personality he built up among the Orcs, is a serious back-slide into the ways of the Old Horde, back when the Orcs were more generic.
And on the other side of things, it can be frustrating when the Alliance comes off as nothing but pure good. Not only does this mean they can basically never act aggressively (unless the majority of the Horde is in on it as well,) and thus has them constantly losing territories or heroes, but it also means that it's harder to create conflict within. The Worgen are supposed to be monsters. Remember how that guy in Grizzly Hills wants you to skin an Orc? I want to see that kind of brutality in the Gilnean heart, even if their allies hold them back before they can do it.
Good vs. Evil can be a great story, but when you're dealing with two opposed player factions that are ostensibly the good guys, it demands more nuance.
Which brings us to Garrosh Hellscream.
To me, it seems that a lot of people who complain about his being a villain almost seem to wish he had been irredeemably evil from the start, or that he had never gone down this path.
More reasonable people wish that the transition had been more gradual. They point to the rift between a Warchief who is willing to examine himself and attempting to forge himself into a proper leader during Cataclysm and the Warchief in Mists, who seems to be a single-minded, genocidal tyrant.
The WoW Insider article suggests that perhaps, if we had not known that Garrosh would be the final boss, his transformation might have been more impressive. I agree with this assessment largely, though I also think that perhaps there might have been more care put into his development.
That said:
I am very happy that Blizzard has taken on this challenge. For all the fallout that it has caused, I love that we have a villain whose motivations are recognizable. Garrosh doesn't arbitrarily want to destroy the world like Deathwing or the Old Gods or the Burning Legion. Ultimately, Garrosh believes that he is doing what is best for the Horde. He has a vision for a livable world, but it is one that requires unparalleled brutality to maintain.
Make no mistake: Garrosh is a villain. Real human history is filled with horrific villains (the list in the 20th century alone is stomach-churning) but every single one of them, deep down, was actually a human being, and it wasn't demons or Lovecraftian horrors pushing them to do what they did - it was their own flawed logic and philosophy.
Does every expansion need to focus around a flawed mortal, falling down an ideological slippery slope? No. I want to kill more Old Gods, I want to fight the Emerald Nightmare, and I want to fight Sargeras (though in his case, he actually might be a little more of a Garrosh-style villain than a Deathwing.)
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