You could argue that the Horde that existed in the First and Second Wars is not the same as the one that Thrall settled in Durotar, just as you could argue that the modern Alliance isn't the same as the one created to fight the Horde in the Second War after the destruction of Stormwind.
Thrall's reformation of the Horde was profound. Rejecting demonic magic, refusing the be pawns of the Burning Legion, and on top of that the embracing of pre-Horde orcish traditions, most importantly Shamanism, were keys to changing the character of the Horde.
Another was the inclusion of new races. While the Horde had made alliances with trolls, ogres, and goblins during the Second War, these forces were not really considered a part of the Horde itself. Thrall changed that, bringing the Darkspear (who, notably, did not fight in the Second War) and the Bloodhoof Tauren in, as well as (controversially,) the Forsaken. These people were made Horde, and officially, they had just as much of a claim to being "true Horde" as any orc.
But Thrall's nostalgia for the old ways was problematic. After all, even under Orgrim Doomhammer, the old Horde was still bent on domination and conquest, and Gul'dan was permitted to keep committing his atrocities (until he abandoned the Horde to go get himself killed at the Tomb of Sargeras. Sidenote: now that we've been inside, where exactly was he killed? Crazy to think that both versions of him died just across a narrow strait from one another.)
The Orcs had suffered during their internment, and it's clear that the humans who kept them prisoner were motivated by spite and vengeance to keep them low, rather than find a way to rehabilitate them. (As an alternative to genocide, the internment was surely the lesser of two evils, but it's clear that the Alliance failed to come up with a longterm solution that the Orcs deserved, so Orcish resentment of this treatment is certainly justified, though hardly worse than anything the Horde did to humanity or other Alliance races.)
Thrall whipped his people back up into a proud nation, but doing so required him to whitewash much of the Horde's history. Those founding fathers of the Horde - the Warlords of Draenor - were mostly genocidal war criminals, not to mention pawns of a warlock in league with demons. But because they were the historical figures Thrall had, he made them into heroes who had fought with honor. It's likely Thrall himself had only heard self-serving versions of these stories, and the version of Grom Hellscream he met as a young man was the beaten-down and broken version, not the arrogant bastard who drank demon blood so he could more effectively murder Draenei.
But I also think one of Thrall's greatest failures of vision was to retain a notion that the Horde was primarily an Orcish institution. While Vol'jin had been a loyal and effective ally since before they even arrived in Kalimdor, Thrall felt that what the Horde needed after he stepped down would be a classical Orc warrior, and who better than the son of the legendary Grom Hellscream?
Garrosh's reign as Warchief was a perfect example of how you should be careful what you wish for. His reign was built on Orcish supremacy and brutal, fascistic ideology, which considered violence and death the ultimate arbiter of power, fetishizing militarism and showing contempt for anything that would oppose it.
The lesson the Horde learned from Garrosh was that the Horde could not be such a thing and survive. It had become too heterogeneous to allow for a single strong personality to empower only those of his own race. Vol'jin successfully led a resistance against Garrosh that ultimately wound up drawing basically all the other leaders of the Horde. While Vol'jin was careful to avoid allowing his revolution to be seen as a puppet of the Alliance, the two fought in parallel and were able to secure a (sadly short-lived) peace following Garrosh's downfall.
Honestly, we don't actually see much of Vol'jin's time as Warchief. He's in charge basically only during Warlords of Draenor, and we spend that entire expansion (minus the revamped Upper Blackrock Spire) off-world. One assumes things went decently well under his rule.
Vol'jin's death after the Broken Shore is, of course, tied up with plots that we have yet to unravel, and will likely play a big role in Shadowlands. Indeed, the rest of this history is going to be somewhat tentative.
There's a moment, in the cutscene in which Vol'jin dies and names Sylvanas his successor, where it seems like she might rise to the occasion. Indeed, I'm almost inclined to believe Blizzard had been thinking of her arc as going in a very different direction, though given how briefly she seems to be on the level, I think perhaps this was a bit of false hope for her that might show Horde players how the Horde could once again be fooled into thinking a tyrant who relies on a cult of personality might be a good leader.
Sylvanas, we now know, was already part of a conspiracy with the Jailer, and she organized a massive war to feed souls into the Shadowlands.
Sylvanas' ultimate motivations remain murky (even if it might be cheesy for us to find out she was actually trying to serve the greater good all along, it might still be better than "she was just evil all along.") But after Saurfang died provoking her into showing her true colors, the Horde seems to have undergone a new reformation.
The Horde does not have a Warchief anymore, for the first time since Blackhand. What does that mean?
Well, it's funny, because on one hand, some members of the Horde - particularly the new Zandalari members - actually have a lot of reason to hate the Alliance. Indeed, the Zandalari have the most sympathetic case: they allowed the Horde into their city because Talanji (now Queen) knew how completely messed up things had become (about half of the Zanchuli Council were G'huun cultists) and even if things looked ok on the surface, the place was in total shambles. The Horde offered help, and she was in no position to refuse.
But because of that partnership with the Horde, Zandalar became a target for the Alliance, leading to the Battle of Dazar'alor and Rastakhan's death. Rastakhan, of course, proved to be short-sighted despite his long life, and his deals with Bwonsamdi weren't enough to save him from the Alliance forces (didn't prevent the breaking of the Great Seal either, actually.) With the war now ended because Sylvanas showed her true colors, the Zandalari were never given the opportunity to take retribution on Kul Tiras and the Alliance.
Of course, that's nothing compared to the Night Elves, who suffered an attack of truly genocidal proportions (indeed, most of the people who died were civilians, including children). So that presents another challenge for the Horde.
Still, it seems as if the truly warmongering leaders in the Horde are sort of all out. Lor'themar has been cordial with the Alliance when it's possible. Baine is good friends with Anduin (we even see him in the Stormwind throne room when the war comes to an end.) The Forsaken don't really have a leader right now, but if Calia Menethil steps in to lead them, that makes it really hard to imagine that they'll go back to their aggressive ways. The Orcs are kind of leaderless, though if Thrall were to return, he'd probably be an advocate for peace. Hell, even Gallywix is gone (finally!)
During the WoW era of the Horde, there have always been skirmishes here or there, but it was really the push of its more aggressive Warchiefs that drove the world into major conflict. (You could argue that the war that ended in Mists started with Varian's attack on Thrall and Sylvanas in the Battle of Undercity, though I think that didn't really ramp up into a full-fledged war until Cataclysm and Garrosh's aggressive actions.)
Naturally, any coalition like the Horde is going to still have some of its dark elements. Indeed, it seems that Sylvanas loyalists who finish the war campaign occasionally get whispers from Forsaken npcs who remain loyal to Sylvanas (this despite the fact that I'm pretty sure she's abandoned them.)
But it does seem like the Horde has really gone into a serious reformation to prevent the kind of warmongering aggression that we've seen in the past.
That being said, the Alliance is starting to show some cracks. We'll see if they develop into anything we need to be worried about.
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