Why I don't think Garrosh Hellscream should die in 5.4

I won't lie, I'm hating the Hellscream family a lot right now.

I've got Grom Hellscream making his orc brethren turn into demonic versions of themselves and turning against his 'brother' Thrall in Warcraft 3, and his son, Garrosh Hellscream, who keeps on killing me in the beta game Hearthstone. Not to mention, there will be an all-out war against Garrosh come Patch 5.4 in World of Warcraft.

If I had to pick between them though, I would choose Grom hands down, for the sole reason that he actually chose to sacrifice himself at the end for Thrall and his orc brothers, ridding the orc race of their demonic corruption by killing the vile pit lord Mannoroth, who tainted a river of water with his blood (long story XD)

Garrosh Hellscream on the other hand, while I can applaud his love and dedication for his brothers, has now (I think) just gone mad with power, to the point that he just doesn't care about anyone or anything, only using them so he can gain more power in the process.

I've done my best to understand why he's like this in WoW lore, even going back and doing the first Mag'har quests in Garadar with him as a completely depressed individual, who was shameful on what his dad before him had done to his race with the whole demonic corruption thing.

After Thrall came to Garadar himself and told Garrosh what his father Grom had done (via a shamanistic vision), and his ultimate sacrifice, Garrosh himself felt uplifted in the fact that his dad HAD done something right in the end, that he had chosen his own path for his people.

Feeling renewed, and with all the qualities that his father had inherited - strength and courage definitely -, he and Thrall traveled to the icy lands of Northrend to begin the campaign against the Lich King. (At least, I'm assuming this is where they headed after the two reconciled).

With Thrall keeping watch over his Horde, he put Garrosh in charge of the Northrend campaign, and this is where I think he started to slip. Armed with the fact that he could be as awesome as his dad, and with the 'I-can-do-anything-I-want-don't-tell-me-off' abilities as a leader, he would definitely start to make some rather brash decisions on what and how he wanted to kill the Lich King. (Just see what he does with the Northrend map when you get to Warsong Hold in Borean Tundra!)

So after the Lich King was defeated in Northrend, he definitely started to feel pretty powerful at this point, thinking he could do anything, or overthrow anybody that tried to rise up against him - especially when Thrall stepped down and Garrosh became Warchief of the Horde. To me, there's also the underlying fact that Garrosh (now aware of his father's actions against Mannoroth and his race's salvation), wants in someway to prove to Grom that he's worthy of the Hellscream name.

Having said that, you can clearly see the way Garrosh acts when Taran Zhu in the Patch 5.4 trailer below (1:12 mark) taunts him about his dad, and how angry that comment makes him.



Now with nothing standing in his way, Garrosh is ready to take on the world, turning his attention towards the continent of Pandaria, and seizing the resources (and weapons), of the land so he can better use them against his enemies, or as he puts it - "anyone that stands against my NEW Horde!"

Which brings me to next week when WoW Patch 5.4: The Siege of Orgrimmar, is released. Yes, Garrosh Hellscream is the last boss in this particular instance, and I'm totally looking forward to kicking his butt!

Like many others, I can't wait to get my revenge on him for everything he has done over his life against the world and people of Azeroth - there are too many innocents to count, not to mention turning particular favourite characters against me, and beautiful locations to desolate wastelands (not going to say here, spoilers :P)

But, as much as I want this angry, evil-mad character to die, I think that would be a mistake lore wise. And here's my own opinions why:

I think Garrosh expects to die in the end - The Horde is all about honor, orcs even more so. The well-spoken Horde phrase, 'LOK'TAR OGAR!' or 'VICTORY OR DEATH!', is not just a bunch of words. When a person wants to sign up with the Horde, they swear a blood oath to those words, meaning you either get through a battle and be victorious, or die an honorable death.

Obviously, the new patch won't have a scenario where Garrosh WILL win - too bad evil characters always go down one way or another -, but to have him killed at the end of the new raid is, I think, a cheating way to end the Garrosh storyline, and wouldn't justify this guy's struggle with his own identity and who he is.

Also, and I know everyone is thinking this, there's no doubt that Vol'jin will attempt to get Garrosh back for what was done to him (Dagger in the Dark scenario), among other things with the trolls. But what if say, Vol'jin kills Garrosh... what then? Vol'jin would be happy he's dead, but he'd turn out no better a murderer than Garrosh, not to mention the guilt that would follow by killing him.

True, Garrosh is such a powerfully evil character right now with an enormous army, and a various array of all-powerful weapons at his disposal, not to mention he plans to dominate the whole of Azeroth (bad-guy cliche), so maybe the world would be better if he was dead. Still, I think that would cheapen the story somewhat.

This is what I'd do. When I attack Orgrimmar next week with my friends and comrades who are against Garrosh, I'll wipe out his army, make a beeline for his fortress or wherever he's holding up, and imprison him, or trap him, just somewhere he won't be able to do anymore damage. Yes, you could have the choice to kill him, but I'm sure that's what he'd want, to die honorably.

But to keep him alive, imprisoned, while his fortress, his army, his POWER... is stripped from him, would just downright humiliate Garrosh. To be kept alive, but lose the battle, and not given an honorable death on the battlefield, would go against everything his beliefs and that of the Horde's would stand for.

No victory. No death. Just imprisonment. I also think keeping him alive would be the most moral thing to do, and in doing so, would free people like Vol'jin (if he does end up killing Garrosh), from the guilt, not to mention not giving Garrosh what he wants... an honorable death, or a quick death at least.

I have a few more thoughts on this, but it would involve spoilers from the new 5.4 raid, which I might bring up after it's been released :)

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading my thoughts on Garrosh's 'demise', and hope it all makes sense to you ^_^

Please feel free to leave some comments and tell me what you think should happen to Garrosh next patch! :)

'Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft' - First Impressions

I recently was lucky enough to get an invite for the 'Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft' Beta card game - it's very similar to Magic: The Gathering if you've played that instead :)

Personally, I find it a lot more appealing than Magic (please don't kill me Magic fans :P), just because I have a more deeper understanding of the lore and characters from the World of Warcraft universe. Fortunately, there's no NDA surrounding the beta at all, so screenshots and video's are very welcome, and Blizzard have encouraged people to show their games off and the like :D

So after installing Hearthstone with the new Battle.net app (also in Beta as of this blog post), I was ready to play ^_^

After a brief introduction to the game via the Hearthstone official trailer, we were launched right into the game proper, playing a familiar Alliance mage by the name of Jaina Proudmoore :)

My first battle was against a gnoll named Hogger, who for those familiar with WoW, is one of the bosses in the lower level dungeon 'Stormwind Stockade'.

As any first battle goes, it was very easy to send Hogger packing, not to mention I could play any card I wanted - the tutorial introduction of Mana (aka Land), was shown to me in the 2nd battle :)

The beginning levels of Hearthstone against NPC controlled characters (there's 6 of them), are very fun to play, each giving me one of their usual taunting lines. For example, I used a Beast creature against Hemet Nesingwary (the Safari hunter from WoW), and he commented that he wanted to skin it haha :D It's small details like that, that make the game more fun to play ^_^

Right now, I'm fighting against the last of the 6 NPC's, and somehow knowing he would appear last, I was overjoyed and excited to fight Illidan Stormrage himself ^_^

Turns out I wasn't prepared to fight him - he makes sure you know that at the start of the battle too :P

I'm finding Hearthstone very fun to play, and so far as beta games go, it's doing a great job! The only downside so far that I've found, is that everytime Battle.net disconnects via the Bnet app, the game essentially quits itself :S Hopefully, they either fix this annoyance, or remove it so it's much like WoW and won't quit the game on you :)

Anyway, I'm back to beating Illidan, though to be honest, I don't think I have the strength to be victorious against him, since he is my videogame idol ^_^