Well, at least no one saw that one coming, so let's hope they keep it discrete. Ultimately, I think Azeroth is the centre of the whole storyline. Thrall is just the go-to-mortal for all our eleven-mouthed-octopus issues. Even if it's a scary prospect, I think they did such a good job taking Thrall off the stage that Metzen's statement has to be taken as a surge of honesty and a means to test the waters.

I don't like Mary Sues, they tend to narrow the paths a storyline can take, but I'll tolerate them if Thrall gets slapped around by a few demigods, everything should be fine. Powerful, yes, not Malfurion-like. I think no mortal should surpass an Aspect (and, therefore, any other being above an Aspect).

This is still rather distressing from an Alliance perspective. Players are supposed to be a group of Heroes who go out, kick ass, then the appropriate lore character steps in at the last moment for the denouement. Lore even records that the appropriate lore character won because the support of our nameless group of heroes in the background.

Example:
Tirion in Lich King fight - he was neutral and supported both sides, him winning out is fine. Now replace him with Thrall - Alliance wouldn't swallow that. At least some Alliance would gladly let the LK kill Thrall, and then jump in to attack, if not actively attack Thrall from behind (a reverse of/reprisal for the Horde in Icecrown).

Thrall is not a neutral party - he is the poster-boy for the Horde, and with good reason. Even if they take heavy steps to spin him to neutrality through the whole X-pac, it's insufficient for him to be seen as neutral.

So cue Deathwing fight. An Alliance raid gets him to 5% (or whatever). In steps Thrall to finish him. Thrall ninja-loots his Aspect-ness (possibly trading it to another dragon, not even in the raid!). Alliance go "WTF, we do all the work and the Horde gets credit for the kill?"

Don't get me wrong, I like Thrall. But setting up a faction-centric character as a saviour is badly planned. Malfurion would be equally bad, and he at least has the benefits that many Druids are often factionally neutral and he hasn't played any active faction role in WoW since release.

While I agree to a large extent, the problem is that the number of truly neutral characters is pretty low; everyone carries some taint of one side or another. Thrall will always be Horde, he will never be able to walk into Stormwind (just as I have a hard time seeing Tirion safely stepping foot into Orgrimmar). At least they're doing the right thing and moving him away from the Horde leadership before they go to town on his character.

Unfortunately, I don't think they did it soon enough to make him "neutral" by the end of Cataclysm. If/when Thrall clobbers Deathwing, he'll still be as much a Horde character as he ever was. If they really wanted to move him to a neutral status they should have taken him out of the Warchief position at the beginning of TBC or sooner (which is why I'm fine with him being the hero in WoW 11.3).

Excuse me, but that is an example for double standards. Tirion was Alliance once, he just turned "officially" neutral a while earlier due to his encounter with Eitrigg, while Thrall lore-wise always has been rather neutral anyway, cooperating with Jaina and the NElves, trying to create a permanent armistice, but "officially" was the leader of the Horde, the cliche opponent of the Alliance, until the Cataclysm expansion makes him a neutral character in the game as well.

Tirion the neutral LK killer is ok to you because he still appears Alliance-y due to his r... look.

To extend on Tinwhisker's mention of the "taint", many neutral factions slash important NPCs were Human or Night/High Elven, which was ok for "Alliance players" (generalizing here)
Even, say, the Scryer members of the Shattered Sun "are Elves anyway" and look familiar to the RL human eye.
In general, "neutral" factions are simply members of an Alliance race working against threats beyond the H:A conflict and thus also recruit members of other races (always saying "race" here sounds weird, I don't want to base this argument on that, more on what the players' subconscious deducts from the NPCs' looks and thus implicated alignments)
So it was ok, an Alliance subfaction turning neutral, out of need or goodwill also allowing Horde to join, but it was usually dominated by the "Alliance" members anyway: Cenarion Circle, Argent Dawn, Shattered Sun, even the Ebon Blade utilizes many (former) Human NPCs, including their leader of course.
The notable exception being the Goblins as "business partners" of the Horde during the First and Second War, though they sadly haven't had much story importance anyway (so far)

Thrall as a neutral main character and the rise in importance of the Earthen Ring, a faction formed by "Horde" members, would be a refreshing change from that. Warcraft has always been about that, taking stereotypes and twisting them.

Of course this prominence of Human and human-like main characters also makes a certain sense from an objective point of view, as Humans were the major players on the Eastern Kingdoms before the arrival of the Orcs, as were the Night Elves on Kalimdor.
I think once we leave Azeroth again, we will see more, not necessarily Horde-dominated merger factions (I doubt the orcs and the members of the Alliance Expedition who escaped Draenor through the portals get along very well) but also non-human-like factions without ties to either main faction, say "truly neutral" ones without that "taint", like the Consortium.

Then again, Blizzard has already set a precedent with a faction leader taking a powerful lore position: the Lich King is officially the former Alliance High General (officially as in "nobody knows, but the heroes who were there saw it happen and know"). Obviously, this Lich King is one we're supposed to forget, but even though he wishes to quell the Scourge, he nonetheless has great power over it, power he could use to other ends if he so wished (or if he went mad).

Obviously, we're never going to see a Horde vs. Alliance war with the Lich King on one side and the Aspect of Earth on the other - though that would be awesome - but it does show that Blizzard isn't too shy on giving faction-involved characters important roles in which they have power over both factions.

To be fair I think it's less about morals and more about diplomacy. Ethereals are essentially space goblins that are slightly less prone to cause explosions. Most care about profit. They just don't always agree on what the best way to make a profit is. That's why you have some Ethereals that are Venture Co., and some Ethereals that are Steamweedle. The Venture Co. takes what they want and don't believe that diplomacy will turn in any profit. The Steamweedle Cartel believes that diplomacy will allow them to get more customers, trade partners, and less harassment when they want to operate in a region.

They sacrifice completely morally outrageous operations to keep diplomatic relations up, but you can see from their other operations that they're still pretty amoral and have no qualms with murder, stealing, larceny, etc., as long as it's against someone who they are either enemies with or have no need to be diplomatic with.

For example, the Consortium did business with Kael'thas and didn't stop doing business with them until the elves started to steal from them and such.

The Protectorate are the Ethereals with moral fiber (at least as much as Ethereals get), and the significance of this is that The Protectorate is not a trade cartel. Speaking of which, I'd like to see them and Dimensius make a comeback at some point.

Tirion is acceptable to me because he has been Neutral since WoW launched. The entire gameplay experience he has interacted with both Alliance and Horde on an equal basis. Both have hung out at his shack, Light's Hope, Crusader Point, and so on. His pre-game viewpoint is exactly that pre-game. In WoW he has always been neutral. My first 60, which I played for more than a year, was Horde - he completed all of Tirion's quests.

Thrall has not been neutral. Very much the true center of the Horde.

Jaina has not been neutral. Mostly a fringe Alliance member, but Theramore never offered a general welcome to the Horde to walk through its gate. It's merely been an acceptable location for talks under flag of truce (for that matter I've never been happy with Dalaran in Wrath).

I would be just as annoyed if Jaina was to be some neutral super-saviour in a short timespan. We'd need an Ex-Pac or two of Theramore with a sanctuary buff and everyone mingling under her "rule" for her to be acceptably neutral. And she has the benefit of at least starting on the fringe of Alliance politics, rather than driving the core of them.

I do not care that both have leanings and tendency towards neutrality and fairness to the other faction. If I run into Thrall's chamber in Orgirmaar, he will attack me. If a Horde runs into Jaina's tower in Theramore, she will attack them. This was Blizzard's decision how they were to be portrayed.

It is strictly a matter of internal consistency - in WoW, this is how the characters have always acted. Some external sources (books, comics, etc) may show them in different lights, but from a gameplay perspective they are heavily integrated with their factions. A majority of times Varian shows up to talk, Jaina is there. This is to offer a mitigating influence, no doubt, but association goes both ways. Whatever polish Jaina adds to Varian's rep, the tarnish reciprocates to her.

I willingly and entirely agree that Blizzard appears to repeatedly use characters of races which belong to the Alliance as Neutral parties, and ignore these positions for characters of Horde races. This is a huge shame - I like the Horde races. Even IoQD were possibly High Elves, since Alliance wouldn't cooperate with Blood Elves (and were actively killing the corrupt ones to clear the Isle). This is simply a knock against Blizzard - they need more neutrals from Horde groups (even Cenarion stuff always seems to be lead by Nelves, with some reason based on experience with druid-ing, with some Taurens hanging around as guards or the stray quest giver) . I'm rather hoping the Earthen Ring is more active and neutral in Cata. Create new characters in this faction (Thrall's girlfriend?) who begin as neutral from the start. Create neutral Troll factions (who aren't there for both factions to kill and loot), Tauren factions (they only joined the Horde because they respect Thrall and he helped them survive some centaur assaults, they're pretty level headed and I could see a neutral "lost tribe" situation), or Blood Elves (betrayed by a single Alliance "leader", then betrayed by their own leader, maybe some could consider the scales equal). I think the Ebon Blade was the closest to neutral Forsaken we could ever get, and even that skewed far more factional than neutral.

Hell - I'd have followed Saurfang Sr. and cheered if he was a neutral leader throughout all of Wrath, since he'd shown his neutral chops as the Might of Kalimdor. They had taken an appropriate step to divorce the character from the faction far in advance of using him as a cross-faction deus ex machina. Unfortunately Wrath took him back securely into the Horde as a balance to Garrosh.

In closing - I have no problem with a groomed-to-be Neutral individual or association (Earthen Ring, please) made up mostly of Horde races and lead by someone of that persuasion. My issue is with someone who is even today on the live servers upholding orders for all Horde to effectively kill-on-sight Alliance races (since that is how all faction guards on both sides behave).

P.S. They had the foot in the door to make Thrall neutral back in BC after Old Hillsbrad. If it was started at that time, I'd support him as neutral in Cata.

In an expansion that's so big on the Elements and Thrall, it's ironic that Blizzard is really showing the Tauren side of the Cenarion Circle a lot more in Mount Hyjal. Hamuul Runetotem is an important questgiver, the only Druid in Hyjal who manages to visibly heal the scorched earth, and Malfurion considers him very much an equal (as evidenced in the final quest to defeat Ragnaros, where Hamuul and Malfurion play pretty much identical parts).

Just for the record, unless things have changed since patch 3.2, Jaina does not aggro horde players until they attack her. As a horde player, you can quite literally stand on top of her after having slaughtered every last NPC/PC around her (and the guards will aggro you), as long as you're not attacking her, you're fine. I can't really think of any major Horde NPC that does the same however.

You really do need a completely lost tribe, popping out of nothing, at this point.

The only non-horde aligned Tauren tribe (and by horde-aligned, I mean "has sworn indefectible loyalty to") are the Grimtotem. It's explicitely stated in Christie Golden's last book.

I don't think Thrall as neutral is too much of a stretch. He is probably the most iconic good guy in the lore, and anyone even remotely interested in lore will know of him and his moderate nature. They'll also swiftly realise he'll care more about the grand scheme of things than petty wars. Despite what Exemplar says I do think theres a lot of double standards on the issue. The number of human main characters is just tiring, even if you just look at this expansion alone; Arthas, Tirion, Darion, Uther, Terenas, Bolvar, Jaina and Varian have all pretty much carried the plot of this expansion with the help of a dwarf and a couple of orcs and a brief interlude by some High Elves. I don't really think Thrall killing/aiding in killing Deathwing is that different to Tirion despite the latter's longer period of neutrality, especially considering we know that Tirion was as much an orc hater as Varian at one point wheras Thrall has always seemed above racial hatred.

It is nice to hear some of that imbalance is being addressed in the new zones, Tauren getting more important within the Cenarion Circle. I presume the Earthen Ring will be Horde dominated but with a healthy mix of squids and Dwarves. I liked Hamuul and the Tauren too, and they should really be allied with the Night Elves as they have more in common with them.

The only part that doesn't sit well with me is the whole Thrall being taught to shaman poorly by Drek'thar, which doesn't seem to make sense. Thrall's been the most powerful shaman for a long time now from what I can tell, but the Earthern Ring come along and suddenely he's doing it wrong. I know they are going for the whole get back to your roots theme but it seemed a bit silly. I know we mentioned this a few pages back but I still don't think it works very well.

Random side thoughts on world ending scenario, I'd love if they ever did that to remake the bonds between the factions. Existing factions are dissolved as each race scrambles through to other planets just looking out for themselves, and when the dust settled you could have new factions. I always thought Night Elf, Tauren and Orc's would work well together, throw in the squids and possibly the Dwarves and you have a real hippy hug a tree type faction. Then the Humans, Blood Elves, Forsaken form the evil power hungry faction and possibly could receive the Goblins as a highest bidder deal, and a tribe of darker trolls than the Darkspear to bring some bad mojo. Gnomes never made it through the portals as there was a height restriction to ride. I don't think they are that interested in creating a good vs evil type faction war as they've worked hard to keep the Horde looking fairly good faction (though without Thrall that could take a hit) and to distance the Alliance from all the horrible shit random humans do/have done to keep the Alliance looking shiny.