Looking at the general Horde-Alliance 'relationship' in Cata, there's not much to understand. Both sides already did more than sink a few ships and make an attempt, lethal or capture, on a leader figure.

It has nothing to do with sacrifice, fighting prowess, or even respect of either Saurfang as a warrior. This is strictly "I'm a father, I know how I'd feel if I lost my son, I'll cut you a break this once." Jaina cries and is all proud that he forgets his bigotry for about ten seconds. He's respecting the father-son bond for about ten seconds. Next time he sees Saurfang the Elder it's not going to be "I still feel for your loss", it's going to be "Let's kill that nameless Orc. What, I'm supposed to know his name? Who cares, he's an Orc, kill him."

Please note that I play a human and this is still my impression of the bastard. Varian's an ass and Garrosh is an ass. Varian's only redeeming trait so far is that he apparently cares for his son, as displayed by respect of another's dead child. Not that he's ever shown any affection for his own in-game, perhaps that changes in Cata.

Hell, much as I dislike Garrosh at least he's pro-Horde all the way. Varian's not pro-Alliance, simply anti-Horde - and they are not the same thing. Alliance would attack the Horde in a heartbeat. Varian's just such a bonehead that the idea of planning an assassination or kidnapping couldn't penetrate his skull. I personally put tactics beyond his grasp, much less strategy or logistics.

Almost daily all the faction leaders except Sylvanus become more and more two-dimensional or absentee. Multiple faction leaders who aren't involved: Tyrande, old Bronzebeard and then Moira's council, Velen, Lor'themar, and Cairne/Baine. Mechatorq was "fleshed out" to... the typical absentminded, inane self-exploding gnome stereotype. Does this even qualify as two-dimensional? Vol'jin was fleshed out to a liberator for his people - I haven't participated in this, but it sounded better. Only Sylvanus with her fluctuation between Machiavelli and Patton appears to have any flesh to her character.

I think it's more accurate to say that Varian's only real soft spot is for family. He's lost a lot of his family to various things (most notably his father to a Horde assassin) and come Cataclysm if you're Horde you actually have to fight both Varian and Anduin together as a Disc Priest/Fury Warrior team. Sort of, Anduin is apparently still too young to attack or kill I think even though his model is age ~13.

Here's the dialogue-

I still don't see why you think he's careless, but anyway, to me he's insightful enough to respect the Horde fighting against the Lich King, and that's why he would also be insightful enough to realise that if he stops Thrall; a powerful shaman, from sailing to the Maelstrom, the world might implode.

It's really amazing the way the tables have turned in terms of Warcraft's "good guys" and "bad guys". Warcraft 3 brought us over to sympathise with the New Horde, it's gone so far that the Alliance look like the "bad guys" now like in that new cinematic which just screams propaganda- shooting down "defenceless" ships and obscuring the faces of the crew, it's like that painting by Goya.

The way the ship captain was acting odd around the islands according to a grunts journal you find makes it seem like there was a bit more going on than meets the eye. Now sure that could mean Garrosh was behind it but it could also mean that the Twilight's Hammer was taking advantage of the situation and that it was them behind both sides.

The more I think about this, the more I get to the conclusion that Varian would be making a poor strategic decision by not taking this opportunity to capture Thrall - well, according to the evil overlord (not saying Varian is one) list, he should just kill him, actually.

So the omnipotent leader of the faction you're at war with is at a vulnerable position - depending on his transport to live, his transport being a boat, and we know the Alliance has better naval forces - and he'd cower away? From what, retaliation? He's at war already. His peers' dissapproval? Well, I'd say he already gets that from some of his behaviours.

And I'm not really sure about Varian being a thick-skulled anti-Horde. At least give him credit for having been trained and taught by the best human leaders there were.

Now, I'm no lore guru, but something I've been wondering, with respect to those who consider Varian to be nothing more than a reckless warmongering king, is: has Varian, in the WoW storyline, ever done anything clearly detrimental to his people because of his anti-horde stance?

As far as I can remember, the closest we get to this is:

- Nearly causing a full-scale war during the retaking of the Undercity, which would have indeed been detrimental considering the war against the Scourge; then again, this can be excused given the conditions (not just Bolvar's death, but the mutilated human bodies strung around the place), and given that Thrall could be considered much more responsible for these events, since he is the leader of his coalition, which included the Forsaken, rebellious and loyal alike;

- refusing to give all-out support in fighting Yogg-Saron (cf. the Secrets of Ulduar trailer); again, this can be excused, considering that a) Garrosh picked the fight rather than choosing an attitude more befitting of the recent Undercity betrayal, and b) Yogg-Saron was defeated by adventurers (us) anyway, so the Alliance's military support was not crucial.


Considering everything the Alliance has been through during the WotLK era - losing its highest ranking General and long-time leader, suffering a Scourge invasion, etc. - I believe Varian has actually been a rather efficient leader rather than a blundering fool. At any rate, maybe I'm missing some important event, but his fierce hatred for the Horde certainly hasn't stopped him from being a good leader.

The other facet of Varian letting Saurfang collect his son's body is the fact that Saurfang's son also jumped in to help Bolvar in his battle, who was more or less a brother to Varian. I think that probably scored the most points with Varian to be honest and was the strongest reason he let Saurfang get the body.

So what? Arthas was taught by one of the best human leaders - Uther. And he still turned into a whiny, self-absorbed idiot with very poor grasp of tactics or strategy. Only a child would think the "I'm sparing you to become more powerful" schtick is a good idea (just kill/convert us, then let us rise to our potential or just find our place in the hierarchy), much less multiple times.

Also many of the "best human leaders" have made serious mistakes based on character flaws. These flaws would negatively impact any training they might provide, as they bias all actions. Proudmoore, Greymane, and Menethil all made pretty serious mistakes.

Belegûr - what leadership from Varian in Wrath? Bolvar organized Wintergarde Keep. Varian sat on some bleachers in ToC. After a few months Varian began hanging out at the entrance of ICC, but doesn't say a word - it's entirely the Argent/Ebon party. Releasing one corpse (in which he wasn't even involved, Muradin charged Saurfang before we do the dirtywork) to the enemy, while a dozen Horde we killed en route to the Gunship are allowed to rot (freeze?). I do not recall a single act attributed to Varian other than that in which he personally participates (such as Undercity). I get more the "American General thinks: Thank god the President isn't messing with our business telling me wrong things to do and is just letting me do my job" vibe.

I've read about Garrosh development in Cata (the one-handed Orc toss), Sylvanus development (lots!), and even a smidge of Vol'jin development (phones it in!), but not a word of Varian development. As far as I can tell from an outside perspective he initiated war against the Horde by sending overwhelming force directly towards Orgrimaar's front door and was foiled by Deathwing's timing.

His tactics are weak (front door? Really?). His strategy is weak (walk through all of Barrens, first, giving them lots of time to prepare for your attack on Org and opening your flank to the Tauren from Mulgore). His logistics are piss poor (you really want to ship supplies via Theramore, through the swamp, up the Barrens, to your front line? Did you completely forget about Northwatch Hold?). The only reason it wasn't a debacle is apparently quantity over quality. If this is the result of a military mind trained by the best human leaders... I'd like to start a coup and install Topper McNabb as the next King of Stormwind.

Bierz - what shows Varian's a smart nobleman? I cannot think of a single event in game where this is demonstrated, not even from some other quest giver's quest text. I suppose in the comics he could have some soliloquies of substance, but in-game he's either absent or mimicking Garrosh with scream'n'charge.

Blizzard can tell us "Varian's a great guy" as many times as they want, but like Garrosh in Wrath, if they don't bloody show it in-game, I'm not going to swallow it.

Don't forget that he's spent alot of money and resources on the war against the Scourge/Horde, so much that Westfall is full of starving, homeless people that don't care for his warmongering.

Since nobody in the WoW universe is omnipotent (nobody tied to either faction anyway), the most likely scenario is that some organization (like a certain Cult) is actually on both sides of this event.

It's nigh impossible that anyone in the Alliance is going to have knowledge of Thrall's specific traveling plans which would be necessary to pull off an effective assassination or kidnapping. Obviously, somebody in the Cult is on the Horde side in high enough position to know when and where Thrall is moving and presumably also the why because they want to stop him. Obviously the Cult then knows but it seems unlikely that they'd just flat out tell Varian, "Hey buddy, Thrall is going to be at Orange Julias in the mall next Tuesday at noon, you should totally go flip his drink." They wouldn't want to risk his reaction and possible questions about how a random official knows the Horde's secret plans. It seems more likely that they're in enough power in the Alliance to order a few ships out themselves under false pretenses during the confusion of Deathwing breaking thorugh (the Captain won't question things, just open these secret orders when you're out to sea).

At that point they can either allow the Alliance force to deliver Thrall to Varian (at that point any questions Varian might have would be moot) or simply attack the weakened Alliance force and keep Thrall for themselves. Whether they want to take Thrall for themselves or simply let the Allies take him back to SW isn't really important though since they've stopped Thrall from his mission.