Now that I've gone through the mechanics of the last three fights in Siege of Orgrimmar, I figured it would be a good time to talk about the ending of the raid, and the expansion.
This is going to be fully spoilerific, so I'll make a cut.
Two very profound things have happened following Garrosh's defeat. We'll deal with the mundane stuff first.
The full-scale war between Alliance and Horde is probably over. Sure, we can expect conflict to continue, and there's no guarantee that it won't boil up again (though if I were Blizzard, I'd never put it center-stage again, lest they cheapen this moment.) The Darkspear Revolution is over, and Vol'jin is now Warchief of the Horde, while it appears that Thrall is returning to a leadership position among the Orcs (and he'll be needed to clean up the mess the Dark Shaman have made.)
Meanwhile, Varian has made a very tough call. While there was an opportunity here to fully decapitate the Horde and theoretically conquer the whole thing, he has chosen to allow them to remain an independent organization. Will this bite him in the ass? Possibly. On the other hand, in doing so, he has really ended the current war in a position of strength.
His attitude seems to have shifted to consolidating and strengthening the Alliance rather that pursuing some kind of retributive action against the Horde. He mentions by name Gilneas as a goal for that end. While Sylvanas remains a serious danger, the hope here is that by cleansing the plague from Gilneas and creating a major Alliance presence there, he can keep the Forsaken in check. Lordaeron will probably remain under their control, but if Sylvanas can ever be content with what she has, we might actually see something of an armistice there.
Meanwhile, Tyrande has decided that she's willing to give Azshara (the place, not the person) to the Horde if it means their abandoning Ashenvale. She expresses serious doubts that the Horde will be content with Azshara, but it's a welcome gesture. Garrosh convinced the Horde to follow him because of claims that the Alliance was keeping them out of the more fertile lands to the north, callously letting them starve. Yet in the presence of clear evidence to the contrary, might that make the Horde less hostile? That's the hope.
The Alliance is trying to be as generous as they can. It's a dangerous tactic, but if Vol'jin can live up to the standard of honor that Varian is holding him to, it could mean a far greater peace than they had even while Thrall was in charge.
Garrosh is being taken to Pandaria to stand trial for his crimes, but there's still the issue of the Vale, and it's here that the most profound impact of the entire expansion is revealed.
Sure, the Vale is damaged, but as the spirit of Shaohao explains, the heroes of Azeroth have achieved something utterly unprecedented. When Y'shaarj was killed, he cursed the land with the Sha. Even the Titans were unable to fully purge the land of the influence of the Old God. And yet look at us now:
Y'shaarj is long-dead. The Seven Sha are all destroyed. And the Heart of Y'shaarj, which held the last remnant of his power, has now been utterly drained, and its essence expended.
We have, finally, utterly defeated an Old God, and purified a part of Azeroth of its presence.
That's big, guys. Really big.
This has huge implications for the future. If we, the mortals of Azeroth, can defeat both Old Gods and the curses they leave behind when they are killed, there may in fact be hope yet of ridding Azeroth of these eldritch abominations.
It was a complicated process, true, and one that was not without its costs. But in the long run, we may have actually left Pandaria in a better state than when we got there. True, the Pandaren have gone through a kind of loss of innocence, and the scars of the war will remain for the rest of history.
But it is on Pandaria where we proved ourselves more powerful than our own creators. Just imagine what we can take on next?
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