Doesn't really matter if Saurfang is indeed forced to retaliate. He knows he's got nothing to gain by a prolonged conflict and will likely attempt do disengage the Horde as soon as possible, as well as exploit any decrease in the intensity of the fighting to settle this peacefully. He seems very determined not to waste lives needlessly anymore. Preferably not Horde lives, but I'm sure he won't back down if some poor Alliance fools escape his wrath

Who said Saurfang needs to actively engage in battle to die? He could be Orgrim Doomhammer II.

Trouble is, we'll have two tactical geniuses at work there, Varian's knowledge deriving from study as well as battlefield experience. Wrynn's more than capable of forcing Saurfang into a fight and cut off any escape/circling route.
I'm still scratching thy head trying to figure what would trigger this race to the top. Assuming they don't know of Fordragon/Saurfang Jr.'s convertion, it all seems to come down to "Lich King was an orc/human, it's our right to kill him". Perhaps Saurfang will be under orders from Garrosh? Though it seems implausible he'd abide by them, if it meant compromising the Icecrown invasion.
What if...one side kills the other side's leader? Nothing has been heard of Varian for Cataclysm. It could be the moto for a whole new level of aggressiveness between Horde and Alliance.

Edit: Doomhammer died while fighting eight knights on his own, with a lance bursting through his breastplate. What do you mean by "actively engaging in battle"?

I doubt either one will die since it just wouldn't make sense how that would work out lorewise making Blizzard decide which side is canon. Would they go with the Horde killing Varian and ignore the Alliance version or have the Alliance kill Saurfang and ignore the Horde version. In the end I think it will just be some random Airship commander who dies (like the current commanders of both Airships who have mutual hate for the other side) which is the most reasonable route to go and needs no further explanation. I'd go with Bolvar and Saurfang Jr being a Twins like encounter in the Plague wing since the Blood Wing judging by the name will be all about the Blood Princes.

So, lorewise, neither Saurfang nor Varian would have been at the Icecrown "airship battle"? That seems actually worse than when we kill a raid boss then find him to be alive (like C'thun) or killed by another main character (like Onyxia, by Wrynn). It would be a very risky move by Blizzard and, to be honest, I'd hand Saurfang to the spirit-healer before having to endure such a sloreghter. As much as I prefer him to Varian Wrynn (who is obviously a more important character, nonetheless).

This doesn't bode well for Warcraft lore. The Argent Coliseum was stretchy enough - just because you're not strong enough to go to Icecrown, you don't need to die. Smaller challenges and perils to Azeroth are always coming up. Selection doesn't need to be done at the expense of the weakers' blood. But now this...I'm guessing only Garrosh would be stupid enough to attack the opposing faction while trying to reach the most powerful villain currently in activity. And even then...Unless there's the best reason in the world, I can't see this making sense. Well, Varian's distrust for the Horde could lead him to carry out a preventive battle. But why the hell doesn't he just take the opposite turn at the 3rd floor?

Well, are they dying? Or 'dying'? My understanding was that they could Resurrect too. And the Tournament was performed that the 'Good™' guys would resurrect the dead, not Arthas. Hence preventing those who would only bolster Arthas' forces from going.

Maybe i'm wrong, sometimes the line between game mechanics for playability reasons and actual Warcraft spells/possibilities is blurred.

Otherwise, I don't think Varian or Garrosh will die in Icecrown. I would be absolutely floored if Thrall died. (Especially gievn him showing up at the Goblin starting zone? Unless that's in the 'past'.) So I expect that there will just be a 'Oh, look, it's the Horde/Alliance. You guys suck worse than your face. You heard us. And to prove that point, we'll beat you to Arthas. Pansies." And that will start the whole roid-raged race. Then afterwards, we'll face Bolvar / Saurfang, and maybe that will cool it a bit. But it's possible that we'll each see the other pwn our buddy, and further Kamiha will ensue.

It is likely that in the end, there will be a scripted event between the two factions, either before, after, during the Arthas encounter, (possibly all) which will continue to propel the 'OMG WAAARRRR' portion that they™ keep injecting in. But I, at this point, I will give them my trust that it won't be ham fisted, and will lore-wise be acceptable. Who knows, maybe we'll fight the (not 1 but) 2 Wyrms again .. the Coliseum was just a set back afterall...

It would seem odd to hold a moment of silence for the fallen, as Tyrion does in ToCr, if they can just be resurrected. "Moment of silence" has far, far too many connotations as an expression of permanent loss. If it was really so simple as to just pull out the holy defibrillators, you'd expect something more along the lines of, "Though they fought hard and well, these challengers have fallen. Bring them to their feet, and let us have the next heroes test their might."

The Black Dragon-Mind Control theory actually made some success here. A few of us thought Garrosh's spiraling behaviour towards absolute disaster (war with the Alliance while fighting Arthas and Deathwing showing up - he doesn't know it yet, but he'll keep the hostility in Cataclysm) made it reasonable (if still farfetched) to think young Hellscream could be the orcs' Prestor. Only this time, the Black Dragons could be using a real orc.

Yes, it's farfetched and probably not as interesting as Garrosh being an ass on his own, but it would make the "D" in "Dark days for the Horde" capital.

The people dying in the Coliseum actually died considering what Tirion says after the Faction Champions fight. The 5 man instance is probably the weirdest with us killing Argent Dawn members before fighting the boss.

There's a perfectly reasonable reason for each side to want to kill each other to stop them from getting to Arthas first.

All it takes is thinking the other side will use Frostmourne if they get it.

They don't die they kneel down and say a speech and you move on.

I never really liked how we kill off the canon fodder trash with no remorse but the bosses all walk away alive and well (other than the Black Knight).

Why the double standards, Tirion?


As for all the comments about Garrosh being stupid, I think people don't give him quite enough credit. The truth is we don't know how much tactical knowledge Garrosh possesses. All we know is that he prefers the ham-fisted "Kill them all first, ask questions later" sort of approach. Does this make him stupid? Not when it's canonically stated that he's gaining support in the Horde because of how well these tactics are working in Northrend...

It's not likely that he's a tactical genius, but he is the commander of the Warsong Offensive, and (by now) the leader of the Mag'har. You don't get to be in those kinds of positions by being stupid. None of us like his attitude or how he snubs Thrall, but he's yet to make any grievous tactical errors that his counterpart (Varian) has not also made (being bigoted and uncooperative in the face of a great evil).

My understanding is that Resurrection is a game mechanic, but otherwise doesn't normally exist in the world (barring leveling "Here's how you use that new Rez spell" quests).

Otherwise Arthas wouldn't have huge armies. Just rez your folks before he can infect and raise them.

I'm sure Thrall would have rezzed Grom if he could cast Ancestral Spirit. Garona would have carried Llane to a priest after she snapped out of her Manchurian Candidate trance. Arthas would have rezzed Muradin (thinking he was dead) rather than shrugged and run off. Kael wouldn't have had a crazy stone stuck in his chest and EVERYTHING would be merely a setback if his people could just rez him.

The opportunities for resurrection in-game are numerous. The fact they haven't creates more drama. After all, the risk of death creates a great amount of dramatic tension - having a surefire way to come back (unless infected by the plague) would vastly alter how many people act. It's not bravery if you know you won't stay dead.

Edit: Elves lost their "immortality" but still don't appear to age. If they could rez, they'd again be effectively immortal.

I think its important to point out that, strictly speaking in the case of the lore, we are only going through ToC once. Just because we can go through the 5 man everyday (10-25 man every week) and kill the trash and/or opposing faction champions doesn't mean that its happening for the Trials that "we heroes" aren't involved. Especially in the case of the 10-25 man, I think Tirion's words make it very clear that we were not meant to fight OR kill the opposing faction champions, but our two favorite bigots of WoW couldn't leave each other alone.

As for the trash in 5 man, its conceivable that they were warned of their potential death. I could imagine them be told something along the lines of, "You are a powerful Priest/Palladin/whatever, but you are nowhere near strong enough to battle the Lich King. Instead, we will use you to help filter out those with that strength. You must not kill those you best because we know you're limits, but there exists the very real possibility you will face your own demise, as we will not restrain those you test. Do you accept this challenge?" These are people wholly and completely dedicated to stopping the Lich King. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if there were a number of volunteers for the job. It wouldn't be the first time that human beings have killed themselves for what they believe in (see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 just from America's relatively short history).

For those that haven't seen the event yet, the Priest and Paladin from the 5man dungeon are the ones that capture the twin valkyr for the 25man. I'm not sure how often the event occurs but it makes it fairly clear that what occurs in the 5man is really supposed to be no more than a sparring match which makes the NPC deaths in the 5man all the more confusing.

Neither of them die in the 5 man. We kill normal Argent Crusade NPC's before we fight them and they give up.

I think resurrecting has it's limits such as the body cannot be completely mangled into nothingness and there is a time period that they must be resurrected during. There is probably also other factors such as the will of the person to want to live and their age before they died. It is possible that the spell lore wise doesn't have a 100% success rate like it does on players for example. Players are definitely outside the norm for this (since we have been mangled to pieces) but death and resurrecting in general is awkward in most MMO's. A neat thing that Aion does to explain the death factor is by having the players be Daeva's (which are immortal) and their soul and body can always be resurrected as long as there is a Obelisk where they can resurrect from (and in some cases they fully die due to no Obelisk). It's a nice clean way to explain why you always come back and why the enemy can come back.

Resurrecting in general is just awkward in so many ways in the Warcraft universe . You have the rare occasions like you just mentioned but then you also have to ask yourself the question about why it wasn't done for so many others. Maybe it could have something to do with the power of the individual and heroes such as Grom, Uther and etc. just were far beyond the ability to be brought back.

On the topic of resurrection as a game mechanic;
High Inquisitor Whitemane yells: "Arise, my champion!"

I'd say the limitations on resurrection are lifted for gameplay reasons, but I imagine the body is required to be completely intact and the resurrection needs to be attempted before the soul has permanently departed.

Just hope the target doesn't release spirit too quickly.

EDIT: In terms of Grom, one could argue that his body was incinerated beyond repair. And as for Uther, well, Arthas butchered him. If I recall correctly, he took one giant diagonal slash from his shoulder, down across his throat and torso. <removed misinformation!>

Eh? His Soul is at that tome in Western Plaguelands.

Hmmm, I thought I remembered Arthas taking his soul in Rise of the Lich King. My mistake I guess!

I just assumed that it was them being raised as ghouls for the Dark Knight event:

Risen Champion - NPC - World of Warcraft
Risen Jaeren Sunsworn - NPC - World of Warcraft

Or one of them dies in both versions. Lets be honest though, its the King of the Alliance (it seems) and the only Alliance character who seems to be doing anything now. They wanted to give Alliance a figure to stand behind other than the moderate Jaina and he is the only one, so he isn't going to die. Him killing Saurfang however would galvanize a lot of the Horde players behind Garosh for revenge who currently dislike him. It would be a bit of a boring ending for the brother of Broxigar though, to die to a human.