Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain
Hi, everyone. This is Averry, the writer behind the Warchief’s Command Board.
As those of you who’ve read the site’s About page already know, I’ve always made a point never to break character in the blog. I’ve decided to make this one exception, though, to address a recent development that affects the Command Board. This is a one-time thing; I don’t plan on ever posting as myself here again after this.
You probably already know what this is about. During Blizzard’s Mists of Pandaria press tour, it was announced that the final tier of the MoP expansion will be the Siege of Orgrimmar, in which both Alliance and Horde lay siege to the city in order to end the rule of Garrosh Hellscream.
Since news broke about Garrosh being the final boss of the expansion, I’ve gotten a number of comments on Twitter and in e-mails, either wondering how this news will affect the blog, or, more flatteringly, basically saying that blog-Garrosh has had a hand in making them a little less excited about the prospect of being rid of game-Garrosh. Thank you for that – it really feels great to think that people have been enjoying the blog at all, much less that they’ve developed sympathy for – let’s face it – a rather unlikable character as a result of it.
I’m not sure yet what this is going to mean for the blog. There’s still plenty of time to figure that out. The short version, for the short term, is that the blog isn’t going anywhere. I’m already cooking up a fair number of ideas about how I might play this upcoming storyline, but since we still know very little, they’re just possibilities. Once we have more definite information about the MoP story, I’ll start incorporating it into the blog.
The one request I would make is that everyone try as much as possible to keep direct references to the planned MoP developments out of their comments to posts here. (Well, other than this post. Comment away on this one!) Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love seeing your comments and hearing from you. But to a certain extent, talking about the upcoming Siege of Orgrimmar tier here breaks the blog: since I write from Garrosh’s perspective, and the conceit of it all is that Garrosh is an actual person who’s writing about events as they’re actually happening to him, upcoming patches represent events that are out of his frame of reference right now. There’s no way he could respond to comments about them, simply because they wouldn’t make any sense to him. It would be like someone showing up at your work and saying to you, “So how does it feel knowing that two years from now they’re going to fire you for embezzling funds, which by the way you’re not actually going to start doing for another six months or so.” You’d be at a loss to respond to this person, because you’d be too busy calling the nearest insane asylum.
One of the things I enjoy most about the blog is hearing from readers and getting the chance to respond, whether that be through comments or the mailbag posts (yes, “Bob” notwithstanding, the vast majority of the letters really are from actual readers). But when I get comments that basically say “Hey, look what’s going to be happening to you, Garrosh!”, there’s really no way for me to respond, because if you think about it, all Garrosh could respond with would be a blank stare. I mean, a blanker stare.
Rest assured, we’re a long way from seeing the end of Garrosh’s adventures across the internet. I still have plenty of ideas (WTB more time to write them in!), and I’m sure MoP will end up giving me even more great material to play off of.
Thanks once again for reading, friends. Honor go with us all—hang on. Ack, it really is easy to lapse into character sometimes. Sorry.
Be seeing you,
Averry
ADDENDUM (Added 7/26/12) — In light of the Mists of Pandaria release date, I thought I would add one additional note to this post, just to give everyone a heads up – don’t be surprised if there’s a bit of a time delay between new lore developments going live in-game and being acknowledged in-blog. The new storylines of MoP, and the pre-launch events, will definitely be reflected in Garrosh’s posts here, but I’ll be giving myself a little leeway time-wise to play through the new content and process it for post/story ideas. I’m not on the Beta, so other than a few odds and ends that I’ve picked up online, I’ll be getting my first exposure to the new material on launch day. Please don’t send leave angry comments on September 26 when I haven’t started talking about Pandaria yet!
I’m a huge fan of this blog, and just wanted to let you know how envious I am of your situation. Getting to give us a first-person view of Garrosh’s descent is going to be almost as thrilling as taking him down in-game. Keep up the great work!
I was just now trying to explain to a friend, who doesn’t play WoW, what’s going on with this Garrosh news. I described Garrosh as a major character descended from great power, who rises from an emo whiny teenager to become a major player in world events, but whose temper, dull-wittedness, emotional instability, unwillingness to listen, and thirst for power will eventually lead to his fall.
My friend’s response: “So basically Blizzard is handing you the keys to a Build-Us-a-Better-Anakin-Skywalker machine.”
I love my job.
I have to admit that this blog did change my feelings about Garrosh and is instrumental about my feelings of sadness about killing the guy. I will play along and have a ton of fun doing it and will miss catching up with this blog when the end comes.
Thanks, Toka. I have to admit, it’s weird to me to hear people saying, basically, that I’m responsible for their gaining greater sympathy for Garrosh, considering that when word first got out that Garrosh was taking over as Warchief in Cataclysm, I went around for a couple weeks promoting my “Saurfang/Bloodhoof 2008” campaign.
(So see, that’s where the Saurfang plotline came from, sort of!)
Averry, you forgot to use this post as an opportunity for guild recruitment! Here, let me correct your oversight:
If you like this blog why not try our guild? Join of Kargath (US) on the Horde side and raid with your Warchief! While you also… raid your Warchief. (It’s just so darn meta, how can you say no?)
Check us out at http://electricmayhem.guildlaunch.com
Boo, it ate our guild name. Well, we’re Electric Mayhem of Kargath (US).
Shameless self-promotion is shameless.
…but a good idea nonetheless. 🙂
You made me your recruiting officer and I try to recruit for you. I’ve been dying to use the “Raid with your Warchief!” angle! LOL
Haha, awesome. I should really log in over there once in awhile. But between two guilds plus ToR … >.<
If SR ever dies though (Light forbid) I know where to find you. 😉
Honestly, before I started reading this blog I thought of Garrosh as a whiny little bitch. However, you have made him into a more 3 dimensional person then Blizz has and I love it. I enjoy talking to you on Twitter (not that I have time these days) and Iove reading about Garrosh’s adventures here.
Loktar Ogar!
The irony here — and Khizzara will testify to this — is that the blog really was born out of the fact that I don’t particularly like Garrosh. I just thought it would be funny to give him a blog and see how many ridiculous things I have him come up with, and maybe every once in a while I would let him have a soul.
But very early on I realized that if every post basically consisted of “HAHA GARROSH IS STUPID,” I would get sick of it within a couple weeks. So then it became an exercise in seeing if I could give him some levels…without undoing, y’know, “HAHA GARROSH IS STUPID.” And then we got the poetry, and things like the Stonetalon storyline.
Hi Averry, nice to meet you. 🙂
Let me add my voice to those telling you how much I’ve enjoyed your writing, and how significantly your portrayal of Garrosh has changed how I think of him as a character. I wasn’t interested at all in Garrosh after reading about him in The Shattering – he seemed so one-dimensional.
What I’ve loved about the voice you’ve given Garrosh is how varied and surprising he’s become. His humor, honor, and pride have all gained such depth in your posts. While I personally may not be thrilled about where Garrosh is headed, I’m glad to hear you will stick with his story. Thanks for giving me a new perspective – I’m looking forward to more posts from the Warchief!
See, this is what I keep saying on Twitter basically…who knew Garrosh had LEVELS? 🙂
Thanks for writing, Tzufit!
Averry, it’s nice to meet the person behind the curtain. /wave
I wrote on my blog just recently about how the MoP news would affect your blog, as I am anxious that thinking in a year or two, one of my favourite blogs will be no more. This break from your character allows me to express how much I have enjoyed reading your writing, and that your blog is one of the most original blogs in WoW I have seen, and I look forward to reading how Garrosh changes through these new storyline directions.
I did notice the comment on your blog about it, which I appreciated. By the by, for both you and the many other bloggers here — I do keep an eye on your blogs as well! Don’t think just because I may not comment often that I’m not reading. I just feel like I should only be chiming in as Garrosh if there’s a particularly…well…Garroshy response to be made.
Regarding the “Anakin Skywalker” thing – have you played WC3’s human campaign? It seemed (to me at least) to be directly lifted from Lucas’ prequels – with Uther standing in for Obi-Wan, Arthas for Anakin, et cetera. To be kinder to Lucas (who doesn’t deserve it) and Metzen (who maybe does), it may be that “hotheaded young man out to prove himself goes too far, turns evil” is a common theme.
I haven’t played WC3 (my first exposure to the Warcraft universe was WoW, which I started playing early-ish in vanilla), but I’ve seen a YouTube video in which someone edited together the whole Arthas story. The parallel fits, but you’re probably right — it does sound like the kind of story that would be a common trope, even though I’m blanking for other examples off the top of my head.
Thanks for an amazing blog. Count me among those who aren’t as thrilled as they once would have been at the news that we get to kill Garrosh.
Thanks, WookieeBH. I’m in much the same boat — a couple years ago I would have been thrilled at the prospect of getting to kill Garrosh. Now I’m mostly going to miss ventriloquizing for the big lug.
…Or will I? Who knows what will actually HAPPEN to Garrosh by the end? And even then…say it with me…the Siege of Orgrimmar was merely a setback!
I think you’re right, the Siege of Orgrimmar will only be a setback, Garrosh is bigger that Azeroth. I thought Garrosh was a whiny asshole too until I read The Shattering. I thought he was developing really well. Your blog reinforces that he’s just trying to do want he thinks is best for the Horde and won’t take a backward step and those whiny Alliance bitches.
I don’t think MoP will be the end of Garrosh, but he will have to spend some time in the Rooms of Mirrors to take a good hard look at himself.
Anyway .. someone has to take down Johnny Awesome
Hi Averry! I just wanted to say that although I am not the biggest fan of Garrosh himself, I do love your writing and I enjoy reading about the happenings of the Horde leadership. I’ll be making sure to /salute the warchief with respect before I smack him one.