Warcraft: A Lore Primer

Warcraft [1]3,432 words

Last Friday at the convention known across gaming fandom as Blizzcon, the full trailer [2] was released for the upcoming film Warcraft, which will be based of course on the Warcraft and World of Warcraft video game series. As an ardent fan of the games, I was filled with enthusiasm and impatience upon watching it. I rarely go to the movies anymore, but for a film that cinematizes one of my favorite games, I would surely be there on opening day. It will be out in June and will star Travis Fimmel, who plays Ragnar Lothbrok in the Vikings TV series. 

Shortly after my rush of fanboy excitement, a disconcerting afterthought crept into my mind. As one who has obsessively played the games and deeply studied their storyline and background lore, I realized that this film could easily be used for anti-White propaganda purposes. You see, the very first Warcraft games (on which the film is going to be based) tell the tale of an alien race from a dying planet traveling through a portal into the world of Humans, which resembles medieval Europe. This leads to borderline genocidal wars as the Humans defend their kingdoms from the onslaught while the Orcs battle through their lands to procure living space. It is a little ironic that such a story is being projected to the silver screen at a time when Islamic savages rampage across the borders of Europe and Donald Trump talks about plans to build a wall between the US and Mexico to discourage illegal immigration.

Whatever the producer’s rationale may be, I felt that a primer on Warcraft lore would be good for those intent on seeing the film, or for those who are otherwise curious about Warcraft hype. I have been meaning to write a Warcraft article for quite some time, because there are a number of themes within the game and the novels pertaining to the game’s universe that are of relevance to White Nationalism. As with many role-playing game universes, race plays a central role in the story.

The saga centers around the invasion of a European-looking Human world by green-skinned brutes, the Orcs. These are not the cannibalistic, linguistically challenged, culturally void, grotesque servants of Morgoth from Tolkienian mythology. While they are monstrously large, thickly muscled, quick to anger, and warlike, their history reveals them to have much more in common with our own White race than even their Human rivals. This history is told through the games as well as works of fiction, particularly the novels of author Christie Golden (yes, she is Jewish, but the books I am quoting do not promote anti-White biases). The picture we get is of a people who once lived in accordance with something resembling Tradition, only to be corrupted into a spiritually-twisted war machine by sinister external forces from beyond their world. Sound familiar?

Warning: possible spoiler alert.

Draenor

Warcraft2 [3]Orcs hail from a once-verdant planet known as Draenor. They lived in small villages and were organized into clans headed by chieftains. Clan names described aspects of the land or traits of the people, with examples like Bonechewer, Twilight Hammer, Frostwolf, and Blackrock. Clans often warred over territory and hunting grounds, but religious festivals brought them together and reminded them that they all still shared a lineage. When that was not enough, attacks from the neighboring Ogres promoted unity.

Clan life was idyllic and organic. Men and women went on great hunts to feed the village and engaged in whatever other civic labors were called for (foraging, mining, building, etc.). Rather than horses, Orc raiders rode forth on wargs wielding polearm weapons against their rivals. Marriage was monogamous, and wives fought alongside their husbands in battle.

Religion centered around the worship of elemental beings within the world and reverence for one’s ancestors, with totems and sacred locations playing a big role in rituals. Shamans occupied an important place, as they administered the race’s religious observances and were able to summon powerful elemental magic when the need arose. Some shamans even served as chieftains. In summation, they lived in a manner similar to Celts, Goths, or Vikings (similar because they followed an indigenous Tradition, not because they worshipped elements).

Orcs and Ogres were not the only races that populated Draenor. Among their neighbors was the Draenei, a mysterious and reclusive race of blue, intelligent satyr-like beings that dwelled in hidden cities and temple complexes. While the Orcs occasionally traded with the outsiders, they were unaware of a dark skeleton in their closet: the Draenei were actually aliens from an entirely different planet known as Argus. Millennia ago, Argus was infiltrated and destroyed by a demonic army known as the Burning Legion, which cut a fiery swathe across innumerable worlds on a destructive crusade to undo the creations of the order-bestowing Titans. Those Draenei that were not assimilated fled across the universe until finally settling on Draenor, where they established their civilization anew. Their crashed ship resembled a white mountain, and eventually became used as a holy site for Orc shamanism.

The Legion never forgot its grudge against the Draenei, and plumbed the depths of the universe until finally locating them on their new home. Unable to mount an actual offensive against Draenor, they sought other means of eradicating their ancient foe.

Like our Indo-European ancestors, the Orcs were a direct people who settled matters with an honest word or a swing of the axe. Manipulation was a concept totally alien to the vast majority of them, except for the sinister few with Machiavellian personalities. As such, they were particularly vulnerable to it. Seizing upon the naivety of the Orcish leadership and the opportunism of a self-serving minority, the Legion began subverting the Orcs into becoming their own slave army.

A powerful shaman and chieftain named Ner’zhul was tricked by an image of his deceased wife into believing that the Draenei were planning to wipe out the Orcs and conquer their lands. With his influential position among the Orcs, he dispatched envoys to warn the other chieftains of the supposed threat, and worked toward uniting the clans into a single nation. Those skeptical few were swayed by intimidation from the others, driven by an “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality.

Before long, the regional clan identities of the Orcs were supplanted by the nation, or The Horde, as it came to be called. Led by Ner’zhul and driven by paranoia, the Orcs embarked on a genocidal campaign against their reclusive neighbors. Cities were burned and thousands were massacred while the Legion looked on gleefully at the impending demise of its old enemy.

It was not long until the actual ghost of Ner’zhul’s wife informed him of his folly. Before he could reverse his policies, his apprentice Gul’dan, who had secretly been in communion with the Demons the entire time, ousted him as leader of the Horde. With the Demons at his back and a new position of leadership, Gul’dan got to work on a major overhaul of Orcish society.

His first act was to establish a government to rule over this new Horde. There would be a Warchief and his generals to command from the front, which would make the Orc warriors believe that one of their own was in charge. The true power would lie behind the scenes with a council of warlocks called the Shadow Council, led of course by Gul’dan, who took orders from his Demon handlers. Much like the corrupt politicians of White nations — who work to undermine our culture and destroy our communities — the Warchief knew who was truly in charge and did as he was told so long as it kept him in a position of power. He muses: “Now he knew why he liked Gul’dan so much; the former apprentice, now master, was like Blackhand himself. He had no use for ideals, only practicalities. And power, good food, lavish armor, and bloodshed were things both orcs craved.” (Rise of the Horde, 204.)

The shamanic religion was subverted into a cult of Demon worship, and elemental magic was replaced with infernal magic from the Twisting Nether. Rather than requesting the aid of the elements through ritual, the new warlock caste pulled energy from the Nether at will to cast black bolts of unholy flame and conjure Demons against the Draenei. An Orc chieftain named Grom would later remark “lightning is a natural phenomenon. You call it by requesting it. With hell’s fire, you make a bargain. It costs a little of yourself.” (Lord of the Clans, 141). Those shamans who refused to abandon their traditions were ostracized.

To increase the numbers of able-bodied male warriors, the warlocks magically forced children to grow prematurely in a compulsory ritual: “They writhed in pain, screaming and flailing on the earth as bones were stretched, as skin and muscle burst into unnatural growth. A sickly green line linked the children to the warlock, as if he was sucking the very life out of them.” (Rise of the Horde, 232). Any chieftain who took issue was threatened with execution.

In the final and ultimate act of corruption, the Orc army was ordered to drink from a pool of Demon’s blood to increase its fighting prowess. This threw them into a chronic state of frenzy and tainted their souls.

Gul’dan’s new culture allowed the Orcs to drive the Draenei into near-extinction, but not without great cost to his race and planet. The continuous use of Nether magic had a corrosive effect on the landscape, mutating the once-lush forests and fields into wastelands of red rock and sand that resemble the surface of Mars. The Orcs began to mutate as well: their eyes blazed red, their spirits burned with an insatiable bloodlust, and their brown skin flaked off to reveal a shade of green. Years later, Grom would say in hindsight that remark “The warlock’s way was quicker . . . More effective, or so it seemed. But there comes a time when a price must be paid, and sometimes, it is dear indeed” (Lord of the Clans, 141). The few true shamans who remained were unable to practice the old religion, as the elements and spirits were horrified by what the Orcs had become and refused to aid them.

The Dark Portal and Azeroth

The Orcs were eventually left with no more frontiers and a dying planet. When it seemed that they would splinter apart and kill each other over the few remaining resources, Gul’dan received a vision from a sorcerer from yet another world. Medivh, as he was named, taught him how to build a gigantic portal that could transport the Orcs to a new planet teeming with life. Gul’dan immediately set his race upon this new project, and it was not long before the Horde threatened another race, the Humans.

The Humans are a physically European race that inhabits a world called Azeroth. Their material culture is medieval, they are separated into several feudal kingdoms, and their religion is essentially medieval Catholicism with the word “God” replaced by “The Light.”

The events that occur after the Orcs cross over into Azeroth are told over the course of three video games and several works of fiction. To sum it all up, the Orcs forged an alliance with Azeroth’s native voodoo-practicing Trolls and tech-savvy Goblins; the Humans allied with the tinkering Gnomes, crafty Dwarves, and magocratic Elves; and the two sides fought two destructive wars that ended with the Horde’s defeat. The few thousand Orc survivors were imprisoned in internment camps and gradually lapsed into a debilitating lethargy.

Recovering a Lost Heritage

Between the events of the games Warcraft II and Warcraft III, a blue-eyed Orc is born to a chieftain who disagrees with Gul’dan’s methods. After his parents are assassinated by the warlock, he is recovered by a power-hungry Human warlord who oversees one of the Orc internment camps. The Human names the child “Thrall” to keep reminded of his subservient status. As the Orc child grows up, he is secretly educated in reading and history by one of the warlord’s servants. It is then that he understands his Otherness.

With a new enthusiasm to explore his racial identity, Thrall steals away from the castle into the nearby internment camp. Once inside he finds a race of borderline-catatonic shells that barely communicate with one another, and that show no interest in him or his questions. Only after laborious prying does he manage to get one Orc to talk to him, and thus discovers the whereabouts of Orcish clans out in the wilderness that managed to evade internment.

Driven by his desire to discover who and what he truly is, Thrall journeys into the Alterac Valley and finds the remnants of his own clan, the Frostwolves. The shaman Drek’Thar educates him in the old ways, which he was able to rekindle by earning the elements’ forgiveness and forsaking warlock magic. In speaking with other free Orcs, Thrall “learned that the orcs were of a noble race. They were masters on the battlefield, and had been known to revel in the spray of blood and the crack of bone, but their culture was a rich, elaborate one . . . each clan was separate unto itself. Each had its own symbols, customs, even speech” (Lord of the Clans, 140).

With a renewed sense of self, Thrall decides to network with the other Orc clans that escaped imprisonment. He soon encounters the defeated leader of the Horde, Orgrim Doomhammer, who overthrew the former Warchief after learning that he was Gul’dan’s puppet. With a small army, Thrall and Doomhammer begin raiding the nearby internment camps and freeing their kin. These Orcs are reeducated on their heroic past, shown shamanic feats of magic when skeptical, and absorbed into the new Horde. Doomhammer eventually falls in battle and appoints Thrall as the new Warchief with his dying breath.

At the end of the novel Lord of the Clans and the beginning of the game Warcraft III, Thrall completes the liberation of his race from the camps and leads them across the sea to a distant western continent. Once there, they erect a new Orcish civilization based upon the traditions of old and supplemented with some of the things they learned along the way. They reforge their alliance with the Trolls and Goblins, meet some new friends, and prepare for whatever this new planet has to throw at them. Very Old Testament, I know, but nonetheless a positive story about racial pride and preservation.

While the Humans of Azeroth may resemble the White race during a particular stage of civilization, the history of the Orcs offers a more direct parallel to that of our people. At one time, we had our own corners of the world where we practiced homegrown cultures and religions. Our societies were organic, where everyone had some role to play whether it was political leader, priest, warrior, tradesman, or laborer. We lived harmoniously with nature, or at least much more so than we do now. We killed when it was necessary for the greater good of the tribe. We may not have worshipped the elements, but we kept our gods and revered our ancestors. When our communities faced external threats, our leaders did what was necessary to safeguard their people and remove the threats (most of the time.)

Then, a corruptive force (Jews and their various doctrines) from outside of our race insinuated itself into our civilizations. Using self-serving opportunists from among our own ranks, this force spread new ways of life that caused a dark metamorphosis in our people. It gave us new religions that caused us to abandon our gods in favor of an alien deity and alien symbols. It gave us new political ideologies that led to a monstrous version of the centrally-governed state. New technologies made us powerful, but the corruptors steered them in such a way as to bring about the death of our old warrior ethics while also causing harm to our planet. Our leaders have gone from representing their own people to representing the interests of the corruptors, who rule secretly from behind-the-scenes. When the need arises, the corruptors use our warriors to kill off their enemies. Our children’s normative development has been impeded by the new culture of the corruptors, which encourages them via television, movies, music, and other mediums to be harmfully precocious.

Where do we stand now? Much like the Orcs of the internment camps, many of our people are lethargic automatons who lumber on through the motions of daily life. No higher ideals stimulate them and no culture animates them save consumerism. Our lands are controlled by a foreign elite who would see us waste away and disappear. Even so, we are still White men and women, just as Thrall’s people were still Orcs. When the hammer fell, the old flame of the Orcish spirit was rekindled, and they rose up to smash their captors into the dirt. They then went on to carve out a piece of territory and erect a new state that served the interests of Orcs and their allies — a federation of ethnostates, if you will. Those who play World of Warcraft have been to its capital city of Orgrimmar hundreds of times, no doubt.

I hold out the hope that the Orcs’ destiny will be our destiny. We will have our Thralls, and we will build our Orgrimmars, and we will make our enemies and their supporters pay for their crimes. Given the terrors that are currently being inflicted on our ancestral continent with the complicity of the governments that are supposed to be protecting it, and given the discourse occurring in American politics, universities, and on the Web over immigration, feminism, and the insanity of the Left in general, I cannot help but feel that an awakening is brewing within the hearts of our kin.

Conclusion

I have no doubt that Warcraft will be an excellently entertaining film, especially for video game fanboys like myself and fans of the fantasy genre in general. I can only hope that it will not be used as a tool for subversion.

Whether Legendary Pictures has decided to politicize the film or not, I felt that a primer on the lore of Warcraft would still make a good addition to Counter-Currents for three main reasons (and spoiling the story for everyone is not one of them.) Firstly, it will give people who intend to see the film, or who are otherwise curious about World of Warcraft, a frame of reference. Secondly, it will show readers that even if the directors choose to make the film a pro-immigration story, the original lore lends itself to other interpretations. This brings us to my third reason: the story of the Orcs can easily be interpreted as a story about the White peoples of Europe; it’s a story about our idyllic past, our rise to power, and our decline. But it’s also a story about how we can rise again! We can reclaim our identity and culture; we can build new nations that represent our interests and ensure our survival; we can have positive interactions with other nations and races who have done the same for themselves. We can fuse the old with the new to create a civilization that is modern in its style and technology but traditional in its guiding principles.

To quote the shaman Drek’Thar:

They are like empty cups . . . that were once filled with poison. Now they cry out to be filled with something wholesome once again. That which they yearn for is the nourishment of the old ways . . . a reconnection with the simple and pure powers of the natural forces and laws . . .This, and only this, will rouse them from their stupor and remind them of the proud, courageous line from which we have all come. (Lord of the Clans, 173).

We may not yet have our Thralls and Doomhammers, or the support of Trolls and Goblins, but we have resources to lay the groundwork for their eventual victory. We have books, blogs, webzines, and YouTube channels that work to “remind” us of our “proud, courageous line” and to inform us about how our enemies are deceiving us. We have the tireless efforts of those individuals and organizations working to spread awareness among our people and build alternative communities. When Thrall finally mounts his offensive against our overseers, hopefully we will already have enough sense to unlock the gates so he doesn’t have to batter them down.

Bibliography

Christie Golden, Rise of the Horde (New York: Pocket Books, 2007)

Christie Golden, Lord of the Clans (New YorkPocket Books, 2001)