What makes for a compelling villain?
This is one of those questions that applies to practically all of fiction. While there are stories where there is no bad guy, and the conflict is rather between the protagonist(s) and circumstance, a great variety of stories across all media have villains. Sometimes, the villains are more iconic than the heroes. Indeed, sometimes, the greatest villains are in fact the protagonists.
I'm going to talk about World of Warcraft here, but I'll start by describing one of the most iconic villains in fiction. In the theater world (to which I am somewhat connected, though I haven't personally been involved in it much since High School,) the name of this character, which is also the name of the play, is considered cursed (actually, the whole play is considered cursed, but especially the name.) It goes that you're not supposed to say his name in a theater unless it is the play that is being performed, and even then, you want to keep it to a minimum. Thus, people instead refer to it as "The Scottish Play."
But this ain't a theater, and I ain't afraid of no curses. So we're going to talk about Macbeth.
Unlike the other two members of Shakespeare's Tragic Trifecta, namely Hamlet and King Lear (he, of course, wrote plenty of other tragedies, but these three are usually considered his best,) Macbeth is no hero. Hamlet's trying to avenge his father, and Lear is trying to survive his daughters' betrayal. But Macbeth's story is not unlike that of Garrosh Hellscream or Arthas Menethil. Here is a man who rose to power and became corrupted by it, seeking more and more until he became a monster.
To sum the play up, Macbeth is a nobleman in Scotland who has just made a real name for himself by defeating the rebellious Thane of Cawdor. En route back from the battle, he and his friend Banquo meet a trio of witches. They greet Macbeth as Thane of Glamis (which is his current station,) but also as Thane of Cawdor, and future King of Scotland. They also address Banquo as the father of future kings, but neither man really thinks much about the implications there (perhaps they assume that their descendants will marry or something.)
Thus, the seed is planted. King Duncan bestows the title of Thane of Cawdor upon Macbeth, adding this to his role as Thane of Glamis. So Macbeth is very humble at first (not unlike Garrosh) and accepts the title.
Here's the thing. Macbeth's home life is not great. He and his wife, Lady Macbeth (no other name given - times have changed) have been married for many years, but they have never had a child, and not for lack of trying. So there's a bit of emptiness there. Macbeth tells his wife of the prophecy from the witches. Latching onto this - finally a chance for them to do achieve something as a couple - Lady Macbeth suggests that they host Duncan for a visit, and then murder him and his two sons. Macbeth is hesitant, but ultimately the seduction of power wins him over.
Duncan is murdered, but his sons escape to England and Ireland. Nevertheless, Macbeth is left in position to take power, and he does.
And then things go from bad to worse. Every dissenting voice, he silences. He rules through brute force (I saw a production of this with Patrick Stewart that set it in Stalinist Russia, which was very apt, and Captain Picard was awesome as usual.) Even Banquo, his oldest and dearest friend, is now considered a threat, because of the same prophecy that prompted his rise to power. Macbeth has Banquo murdered, though Banquo's son escapes (this was probably tossed in to appeal to the current monarchs, who traced their ancestry to a historical Banquo.)
Macbeth has gone off the deep end. He just can't retain power except through fear and violence (just like Garrosh) and it begins to take its toll. Lady Macbeth, who had been so gung ho in the first place, becomes convinced that her hands are still covered with Duncan's blood, and compulsively washes them over and over. As a resistance rises up to confront him, he returns to the witches, who now promise him that no man of woman born shall kill him, and that he will remain in power until Birnham Wood march upon Dunsinae Castle. Since everyone is generally born from women (not going to get into the whole topic of gender vs sex on a video game blog, so let's leave it at that) and most trees don't tend to go around marching, Macbeth figures he's perfectly safe, and that the witches just had a particularly poetical way of saying "You'll be fine!"
Well, Duncan's son Malcolm, and Macduff, whose family was murdered by Macbeth's death squads, march their army, camouflaged by the trees of Birnham Wood. The armies clash, but ultimately, Macduff confronts Macbeth, and, having been born by caesarean, qualifies as "not of woman born," and thus defeats him, cutting off his head.
So why is this one of the greatest stories ever told? Because we witness Macbeth's fall. Remember, as Thane of Glamis, he is a hero of Scotland, and makes his name defeating an enemy to the crown. We can see what power does to a man, pushing open those small cracks and flaws in his character until they cause what was once a good person to crumble into evil.
In many ways, I think that Garrosh's transformation into a villain owes a ton to Macbeth. Hell, the failed assassination attempt on Vol'jin is almost equivalent in terms of story-propulsion to the murder of Macduff's family. Vol'jin is Macduff, Thrall is Malcolm (and, paradoxically, Duncan,) and the Alliance is England.
Of Warcraft Villains, generally Arthas is considered the most compelling. Now part of that is that the Scourge, with its whole aesthetic, is really cool. But we also see how a bright young Paladin could find himself gripping Frostmourne. Arthas' main flaw in life was equating fighting evil with doing good. Rather than staying in Lordaeron and dealing with the plague, establishing a Lordaeron CDC, essentially, he followed Mal'ganis to Northrend, leaving his country to its fate. Sure, Arthas thought that by fighting the Scourge on its home turf, it would protect his home, but ultimately one wonders if there wasn't simply an inherent blood lust there. Just as Macbeth finds he only knows how to exercise power through violence, Arthas finds that he cannot retreat, cannot allow for a defeat. Did his actions at Stratholme prevent the spread of the plague? Clearly not in the long run. Yet perhaps a different Paladin might have instead quarantined infected areas, and saved those citizens who might have avoided the plagued grain. But Arthas was ultimately too bloody-minded to consider that. One even wonders if it was purely the Lich King's influence that turned him into such a monster after taking up Frostmourne. Perhaps he finally felt liberated. Rather than being forced to use his power and strength to protect the weak or uphold some abstract concept of "good," he was now unfettered, and came to the realization that the reason he slaughtered the people of Stratholme was that he had always felt a certain contempt for the weaker, common people of Lordaeron. Perhaps, Arthas was always a Death Knight at heart.
As has been said even by Blizzard, Garrosh is ultimately a weak personality. Just as Macbeth was swayed by his wife's ambition, Garrosh was swayed by the romanticization of the strength of the Old Horde. Thrall showed him that his father had managed to fight off his demons (literal and figurative) in the end, but what Garrosh took from that was that Grom had overpowered his demons - that his strength could conquer evil itself. From there, Garrosh fetishized any sign of strength. And conversely, "weakness" became equivalent to "bad." Garrosh was given power, and he came to hate the Alliance. Not because he had any reason to - the Alliance had never done anything to Garadar. It was merely because he felt that the Horde's purpose was to fight the Alliance. Garrosh's obsession with strength made him enemies, but rather than looking at himself (and unlike Macbeth, Garrosh had no "original sin" of murdering his beloved predecessor, though perhaps one could argue that the death of Cairne was always at the back of his mind - the frustration that Magatha's treachery had made him look not only dishonorable, but weak) he struck out at dissenters. Just like Macbeth, Garrosh has alienated nearly all of his people (and just like the rebel Scots in Macbeth, they've enlisted an old enemy to help support the war against their leader, namely the English/Alliance.) And just like Macbeth, a day of reckoning is coming.
I really think that a whole bunch of Ancients and Treants should march right up to the walls of Orgrimmar during the Siege. There's precedence.
(PS: JRR Tolkien always found the play-on-words-style fulfillment of the witches' second prophecy disappointing. That is why in the Two Towers, the trees and the Ents march on Isengard, and why the Witch King of Angmar, whom no man can kill, is killed by a woman.)
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