What happens when there are no good guys?

I find myself sitting here pondering something, the creation of yet another alt.

An alt to level slowly, uncaring about whether they ever see end game content or not.

One to go experience the story as its told while I’m leveling, as opposed to going full heirlooms and burning my way thru the zones, just killing the quest mobs and looting anything that sparkles.

Thinking about this I ran into a problem.

I’m planning to level as Horde, as most of my friends are there, but story wise it’s hard to wrap my head around wanting to be a part of that faction.

The Orcs, well, we have the whole Garrosh as a genocidal madman thing going on, and many following him. He’s even going to go on a recruiting spree thru the dark portal, and I may end up fighting my evil grandpa.

Something to do with the characterization makes me not want to go that route. Even Thrall, a character that once held my respect, is now in my mind complicit in Garroshes actions. After all, who made Garrosh warchief?

Then we have the Forsaken.

They have an interesting starting zone, and I did play thru most of the quests (at light speed, full heirlooms, never reading more than needed to know what to go kill). A lot of what they do just kind of gives me the creeps from a story perspective.  The biggest thing though, the events at the Wrathgate.

The Forsaken are members of the Horde only because it offers some bit of protection. A military alliance of convenience. They are actively trying to make a plague that will turn the whole world into forsaken.

Sorry, I just can’t get on board with that.

Goblins in and of themselves are pretty cool. The starting zone is pretty fun and well laid out, though it’s a bit of bizarro world mixed with the fantasy setting. My biggest problem is the faction leader, Galliwix.

The fact that he ended up as the faction leader I simply can’t understand. He left most of his people to die on Kezan and was planning on selling the rest into slavery.

I don’t know about you, but any Goblin character of mine would much rather kill him than follow him as a leader. (Has they made the faction leader Sassy Hardwrench we wouldn’t be having this conversation).

One of the things I have to wonder is who was the planed buyer. Looking at the map I don’t see any alliance cities nearby where my goblin washed ashore. Just food for thought.

Then we have the Blood elves.

I don’t know. Perhaps it’s all the time I spent grinding sunfury signets back in the day, but I just can’t wrap my head around playing a blood elf. Not to mention some of the underlying issues they have with substance abuse. (I wonder if there is an NPC named something like Walter White who makes really good mana crystals)

Trolls? Well, my first main character was a Troll. Still is actually, though I no longer play him. Once again, How many trolls out there are the bad guys? Troll raids, check. Troll heroics, check. Troll quest mobs, check.

Last but not least we come to the Tauren.

Well, now that I think about it, I don’t really recall them being painted in a bad light thru the story. Perhaps I missed that? The only thing that I find kinda odd is that Thunder Bluff, the home city of the Tauren, has most of it’s buildings made of leather. That always made me curious.

Ok, enough of my babbling about the problems with the Horde races. I’m sure I could find just as much bad by going thru the Alliance races as well.

Honestly I think that’s one of the problems with WoW.

Over the years there have been many tales told as part of the ongoing war between the factions.

Theremore.

Wrathgate.

Camp Tajuro.

Gilneas.

In an effort to give each side a rallying cry against the other, time and time again, they have had to paint both factions in a bad light. They both have done some pretty horrible things to one another.

There is no black and white. Both sides are a dingy tarnished grey.

There really are no good guys.