#griftah

For @thedeerfish. This list was slightly problematic. While I know exactly what characters are among my favorites, I never had the need to sort them into any kind of order. That is, until now. Oh, by the way, there is only one Top N list waiting in the queue, so if you like seeing these, you might go and suggest some. As long as it is Warcraft related, it’s good to go. Before you start reading this list, let’s play a game: Write down 10 characters you think I like. For each character on your list that appears here, you have a point. What’s your score? What's your most failed guess?

10. Griftah - He is a simple cheating shopkeeper selling useless things, sending clueless heroes to Zul’Aman. He has good lines. Ever since I’ve met him at the Shattrath Lower City, I wondered each new expansion locations “I wonder what Griftah is doing.” Given I play mainly Rogues, I was really happy about him being in WoD and later in the Underbelly. Let’s face it, where else would Griftah supposed to be than Underbelly? He isn’t much of a deep character with plenty of revealed lore, but he is one of those characters you just remember. Plus, with him the lack of lore and known personality traits doesn’t feel as bad writing but more as part of... What Griftah is keeping from us.

9. Har’koa - Cat mom. She is beautiful, she is a goddess, she is a mother. I have a lot of feelings about the adventures in Zul’Drak, especially about helping Har’koa. Plus it’s one of the few female characters I don’t feel Blizzard fucked up despite giving them some space. While it might be because she is there for like, 3 levels or so and then never seen again, I personally am of the opinion it’s because she was constantly in a form of a gigantic snow leopard and therefore couldn’t be stuffed in the practical female armor™ . Another thing is that Har’koa was never weak, even when she was trapped, and never stopped being kind and a goddess. I would really appreciate seeing Har’koa again. I would also appreciate an update on what is going on in the whole Northrend.

8. Maladaar - I haven’t got much reasoning here actually, I just happen to like him. On outland he was one of my favorite dungeon bosses and I was really sad about his whole story, despite I am not usually much into the “meant well but it went bad” backstories. Having Maladaar back on WoD was great and mainly the reason why I began to really like him. I mean, not only he is the Speaker for the Dead (which is, hands down, an awesome and a bit depressive title to hold) but he is also an active warrior, not just inactive priest who is defensive at best. He actually seeks justice. Maladaar deserved more space.

7. Chronormu - No such a list is, I think, complete without a dragon. There are plenty of dragons to choose from in WoW, so you can pick one to your taste. I like Chromie, the enthusiastic “let’s try again but better” dragon who decided not to be a boring elf but a Gnome (maybe she has a think for science?). She isn’t everywhere but she is everywhen, which is even better. She is cheerful even at the darkest hour without being an invasive optimist. Also Chronormu might and might not be trans. The -ormu suffix is, aside from Chromie, used only for bronze dragon males, while we always see Chromie as a woman. (How do you recognize a gender in a dragon when they are in a dragon form? You hardly do, they are reptiles, they don’t really have their gender visible.) Also I have a bet going on that when Nozdormu becomes Murozond, Chromie is going to become the next Aspect (or well... leader, since Aspects are no longer a thing).

6. Garrosh - First thing to remember: He fucked up everything he touched. Twice. He was given many opportunities for rising to greatness and also for redemption and he pushed every single one aside. He is a bad person. He isn’t a problematic fave, he is a total disaster and I absolutely disagree with what all he did. I don’t like for what he did, but because he is a damn interesting character (and mind you, it took me rather long to learn). And to me he is also to an extent very relatable, because I too used to view everyone around me as an enemy and tried to live up to my very awesome parent held in high regards by others who expected me to be exactly the same. So he made into the top 10 because he is a very interesting character, but I don’t really favor him as much as the others, because he is a bad person. I am still very salty about his death. I could have written it better.

5. Nozdormu - The only reason I don’t like Nozdormu more is because we don’t see much of him. He watches over time, travels through it as well. And he also looks damn fine. Like... damn damn fine. There is a picture of him in Troll appearance and that looks even better, but well, if he wants to be an elf... He is wise, he knows how and when and why he is going to die and he also knows he can’t do anything about it. Which is very heart-breaking, especially for him who just wants to protect Azeroth and time. He is in fact the most responsible person there is. A true Lawful Neutral. We all know what happens when he tries to change the history to be a better one (see Culling of Stratholme dungeon). Nozdormu is damn interesting and damn damn beautiful and I want to take him home and care after him so nothing bad would happen to him. He could do me the favour and be there more often in the game, me being the Champion Hero Adventurer and all, he could make some time for me.  

4. Ortell - The first time you meet this dude, he is almost naked sitting in a cave in Silithus and he translates the encrypted Twilight texts for you, because he realized those fuckers are no good, so he abandoned them. Hermit Ortell was quite a nice character and I liked visiting him in his cave, always brought him some papers to translate and read, because he then sent me a mail saying how nice it was I remembered him. Like, one of the few persons who actually liked to see me. And the boom baby, he is now Elementalist Ortell at Mount Hyjal, helping to infiltrate the cult he once used to call home. He also got some very ominously sounding lines. I loved hearing he is well and still on his bullshit. BfA is going to be about the Old Gods, I personally am of the opinion that Ortell should appear again - let’s just throw him at N’zoth, that tentacle fucker is just gonna run for momma in fear of Ortell. In our house goes a meme: “Little (out)house, little (out)house, who is inside?” - “Elementalist Ortell!”

3. Oculeth - A prime example that first impression matters. His first instinct to seeing a suspicious armed stranger is to put him in a deadlock bubble. In that very moment as the bubble was rising my main slowly to the ceiling, I thought “I know him for only ten seconds, but if anything happens to him, then I’d kill everyone on this server and then myself.” Oculeth is a walking disaster, this close to just losing it, but he is still brilliant and not giving up, he is a gigantic nerd and just loves things that move around thorough telemancy. Let me show to him the Wester and Eastern Earthshrine, please! Let me make my mess of elf happy!

2. Kel’thuzad - The sassy intelligent founder of Scourge (more or less) who isn’t paid enough to deal with all of this bullshit. Having read the Road To Damnation, I now know he didn’t actually want the power but the knowledge. Knowledge seeker. I can relate. But he isn’t actually a tragic character (by canon interpretation at least) which is somehow really... amazing. Life and death both threw stuffs at him and he just kept all of them for later use. And we knoe he has a cat he loves, and when worried then floats around like a distressed nurse in a field hospital . Now when Bolvar is in charge of the Scourge, Kel’thuzad is, technically speaking, a good guy. Or a neutral guy at least. He serves the Lich King (he doesn’t have much of a choice) and that’s all there is. Plus I always had a thing for necromancy and liches and this dude has been among my favorites since Warcraft III (when I couldn’t even read, not to mention understand English) and like hell am I going to change that now just because he is seen as a problematic character. Of course he is a problematic character, all characters have flaws of some kind. If they didn’t they’d be all the same and boring.

1. Vol’jin - DAMMIT BLIZZARD I DON’T CARE YOU ARE BRINGING HIM BACK IN THE BATTLE FOR AZEROTH! YOU HAD LITERALLY NO REASON TO KILL HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE AND NOT GIVING HIM MORE THAN 5 MINUTES OF SCREENTIME AND JUST ONE BOOK IS INEXCUSABLE! Okay, now I have calmed down a little. He is a strong character, both physically and mentally. He lost his son, his homeland, his homeland v. 2, his best friend, his homeland v. 3, the he had to kill the said best friend, then he had to leave Orgrimmar and his race was treated poorly in the Horde he helped to form... And nothing of that broke him. Just like Garrosh, for him everyone around was an enemy. But he didn’t kill them outright, he negotiated, he calculated, and he waited. Instead of enemies he sought opportunities, he was flexible. Yeah fine, until MoP he wasn’t all that accepting to people but he was proved wrong and he admitted it and that is something even real people have problems to do. Vol’jin is truly an inspiring character who was never afraid to call out anyone on their bullshit while keeping to both law and moral. His greatest weakness was his own damned intellect when he had the tendency to make things more complicated then they actually were. He was never my Warchief (I personally think that Cairne or Saurfang should have been the Warchief, later Baine), but he is someone whose orders I would do without questioning, knowing that all the questions I would have asked him, he asked them himself too, twice.

Griftah! NO! TOO SOON!