Talk:Grommash Hellscream/Analysis

Grom's Legacy: One Possible Interpretation
''Note: Although I once tried to place this on the official page regarding this character, I now understand why that was inappropriate. This is biased, and unapologetically so. My own bias with regards to World of Warcraft in general overwhelmingly leans towards the Horde, factionally speaking; to the degree that, as rediculous as it may sound, I have commented in-game before that I only really began to emotionally/experentially understand the concept of patriotism after starting a Horde character in this game. So, you are invited to take the following with the requisite grain of salt.''

In attempting to understand Grom, acknowledgement of responsibility is important. Choices were made, and made willingly. We can also note that the other orcs' taking of the Blood would have been partially due to Grom's urgings. Thus, not only was he responsible for willingly corrupting himself, but he was also at least partially responsible for the corruption of others as well.

However, the degree of willingness he displayed in seeking to make amends would also suggest that the situation is not as simple as it may appear. Hellscream as an individual was perhaps the single most visible manifestation of the love of warfare held by the Orcs as an entire race. This was not a hunger merely for destruction for its' own sake, as held by the Burning Legion, but rather a love of competition, and of the carnal elements associated with combat, the elation and the fire in the blood, and the idea that, somewhat paradoxically, there was perhaps no greater way to celebrate their lives than to risk bringing about their end; that the life lived during those moments spent preventing its' end were lived with greater intensity and in sharper relief than any other part of it, and that, to quote the saying, perhaps the flame which burned shorter truly did burn with greater intensity. The tragedy which occurred during the Orcs' involvement with the Legion did not so much involve the Legion's wholesale creation of characteristics which had been previously absent, but rather the magnification of already innate characteristics to a chronically extreme level, such that the underlying intent and motivation was perverted to something much closer to the Legion's own.

This, then, is perhaps one possible way to view Hellscream; as a monumentally anarchic, reckless, and aggressive individual who was fully responsible for allowing those characteristics to at times override the rest of his personality, yet who overcame those elements within himself, and also managed to free the rest of his race from at least the demonically induced magnification of them. Ultimately, even while under the influence of Mannaroth's blood, Grom Hellscream lived, and died, entirely on his own terms.