The Fate of Gul'dan

While Grommash Hellscream was the headlining villain at the expansion's launch, it seemed really clear that the actual threat was Gul'dan. Freeing Gul'dan was a strategic concession to close the Dark Portal, but it turns out that weakening the Iron Horde like that has created a bigger problem.

The thing is, the math on the Iron Horde never really made sense. The Iron Horde had two major things going for it - modern technology and a population that consisted of almost all the Orcs in a pre-Outland Draenor. That made them a threat to the existing denizens of Draenor, but it was never more of a threat than the original Horde had been. Still, the original Horde succeeded on our Draenor, so the tradeoff of Demon Blood for Modern Tech could be seen as a wash.

But a few factors arose as a result.

First off, with the rejection of Gul'dan's offer and the pact with the Burning Legion, the Iron Horde was fractured in comparison to the original. Even if the Legion Proper did not get very directly involved in the original Horde's affairs, there was still the Shadow Council. The Iron Horde created a second front in their war by rejecting Gul'dan (not that I blame them at all.) But then, of course, there's the Original Universe factor - something Grommash wildly underestimated.

The original Horde was able to defeat Stormwind in the First War through numbers and Fel Magic. But the Iron Horde attacked not just Stormwind, but the Alliance... and the original Horde.

Immediately the technological advantage disappeared because, well, it's our technology (or at least contemporary with ours.) The numbers advantage disappeared because not only does Stormwind have Ironforge, Gnomeregan, Darnassus, the Exodar, Gilneas, and the Tushui backing them up, but there's a whole other equally-populous coalition that, while far from being "allies" of Stormwind, are at least willing to fight alongside them to counter a mutual threat.

The Alliance also has over thirty years of experience fighting the Horde. The Horde has over thirty years of experience being the Horde.

Really, the only solid Pro in the Iron Horde's column was that the forces of Azeroth had only just recovered from a massive and costly war with one another. But the Iron Horde practically negated that by striking before they were able to secure Draenor itself, leaving the Draenei, Frostwolves, and the Shadow Council undermining them as they went.

The deck was stacked so far against the Iron Horde. And Gul'dan knew exactly how to exploit that. Just as the original Horde turned to the blood of Mannoroth when the assaults on Karabor and Shattrath lost momentum, the Iron Horde turned to the Legion when it became clear that they were on the verge of defeat.

And now, Archimonde, tied for the second most powerful member of the Burning Legion, has taken an interest, and Gul'dan has taken over the Iron Horde - through Kilrogg, if not Grommash, but it's all the same to him.

Yet we don't seem to be fighting Gul'dan in Hellfire Citadel. Not only is he not the final boss, as I had assumed he would be, but we don't seem to fight him at all within the raid. Yet with a figure like Archimonde as its final boss, it's hard to imagine that he is not the final boss of the expansion itself (though admittedly, he was fightable in BC without being the final boss, though his equally powerful colleague turned out to take that role - and we did fight him in a Caverns of Time instance, which sort of bends those rules.)

So if there is no third raid tier to Warlords of Draenor, what might become of Gul'dan?

Well, let's turn to extreme speculation mode.

While we've been totally wrong before (ok, many times. Basically every time since Cataclysm,) there seems to be a growing sense that the next expansion could finally have us face off against Azshara. That's hardly solid proof, but suppose it is the case:

One of the locations we'd be likely to see in a South Seas/Naga expansion would be the Broken Isles, where the Tomb of Sargeras is (if I remember correctly, it's really the tomb of his avatar, which is still pretty close.) It was this that Gul'dan abandoned the Horde to explore - plucking the location from Medivh's mind as he died - and it was here that Gul'dan was torn apart by demons - which, given his skill as a Warlock, means there must have been some dangerous freaking demons there. (Though there are some fan theories that they weren't demons, but rather Naga.)

The alternate Gul'dan might find out about this place, and just as his original-universe doppelgänger, he might be tempted to retrieve the artifacts there as well.

A Gul'dan on the loose would be a very strong motivator to head out to the South Seas to take him down.

But in doing so, we'd risk drawing the ire of Azshara. Not only that, but Azshara's probably the only "mortal" spell caster who could be plausibly more powerful than Gul'dan.

Anyway, I think we need to keep a close eye on that devious Orc. We might not be done with him as soon as we think. Or maybe we will. I'm not a fortune teller.