World of Warcraft: Goblins

Booty Bay is a gorgeous city built into a few steep hills on the southern tip of the Eastern Kingdoms, and it serves as a perfect metaphor for the goblins that inhabit it. No other group of people would ever think of building their entire city on hastily-constructed timber pylons dug into the side of a mountain. It's not wise at all, but it takes a certain degree of intelligence and obstinacy to pull it off. That sums up the goblins pretty well.

Their lack of wisdom and general disregard for anything involving other races is evidenced throughout Azeroth. The Venture Company has invaded several locations around the world that bear great importance to either the Alliance or the Horde, and they seemingly have no regard for either of the great factions, even though either one could utterly wipe them out. The Steamwheedle Cartel is the largest and most well-known of the goblin cartels, and their interactions with the other races have been dicey at best since the Second War.

It's not surprising that the goblins act in such a way. Goblins are descended from the creations of the Titans, designed to dig through the earth and to build great machines. Though they've lost much of the wisdom of their forebears, they still carry the deep desire for beautiful eruptions and strip-mining operations. The genetic heritage and destiny of their race is to destroy and rebuild.

If that was all that was guiding their actions, they could be, if not forgiven, then at least excused. If it was just a deep-seeded intellectual curiosity that drove them to create their vile machines, then they could be understood. Unfortunately, that's not what drove them to wreck the Stonetalon Mountains.

What drives them is profit. They crave acquisition, currency and gold, but they're not wise enough to know what to do with it. They do not paint or sculpt masterpieces. They do not innovate useful magics or create fascinating works of architecture. All of that gold that they dredge up just goes into sinister machines that can dig up more gold; all of this at the expense of any kind of real culture. Gold for gold's sake is no use at all. This is why I react to them in the same way that normal people react to the idea of touching the door handle of a bathroom stall.

It's that dual-purpose of engineering and profiteering that makes them such a dangerously good fit for the Horde. The Horde lacks good engineers, and many of the groups that make up the Horde can make good use of the goblins' skills. The goblins want acceptance into the Horde, and they'll use their vaunted engineering abilities to make themselves indispensable to the Horde leadership.

It's all about getting what everybody wants. The Horde wants land and resources. They want to strip Ashenvale's forests to the ground to power their war machines. Since the Venture Company has proven itself to be adept at harvesting vast acres of forest, it would be politically wise for Garrosh to provide the goblins resources for accomplishing a similar feat in Ashenvale.

The political winds in the Tauren camps are shifting towards policies of expansion and open war, and they'll be more than happy to use the tools the Goblins give them to win battles. The Tauren are highly susceptible to the malevolent influences of the Orcs, and it would not surprise me if we soon saw a vast chasm erupt in the leadership of the Tauren people. The old guard still retains its love of nature, still seeks a balance in all natural things, but the new breed of Tauren warriors act very much like the Orcs with which they battle.

The Horde races that dominate in Lordaeron and Quel'Thalas – the undead and the blood elves – do not have as much of a stake in the fate of the goblins, but they are highly dependent on the generosity of the Orcs. Without the threat of the full Horde, it is highly likely that the powers that be in Stormwind and Ironforge would have razed the Undercity to its foundations after the betrayal at the Wrathgate. The blood elves may have recently returned to the light, but their relationship to any of the other races is tenuous at best.

The Trolls, the Darkspear tribe in this case, have as little stake in this as could be imagined. It is unknown to me what it is that they actually want. Darkspear trolls have been instrumental in the destruction of other tribes in Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman. They've fought with the Horde since Thrall landed in Kalimdor, but they are certainly tired of fighting for other races without gaining anything for themselves. Their homeland, from what I understand, has been in the hands of a madman for many years now. Surely, it would be in the best interests of the Horde as a whole to seek a new homeland for the trolls, but that is not how the leadership of the Horde thinks.

It's probably important that I describe myself in some detail, since that is important to understand why my reaction to goblins is so visceral. I play a warlock, a student of Azeroth's recent violent history. I've always been drawn to epic stories, whether they're in video games, books or movies, and Warcraft is just a big old cluster of epic sagas all mashed together into a heady mix. Those stories move me.

So, if I occasionally lapse into dramatics, I hope you can one day find it in your heart to forgive me.

The recent tales of Azeroth all revolve around Stormwind - the Orcs originally razed the city during the first war, and the Second War saw Stormwind retaken by the Alliance and rebuilt. If that great city had not been retaken by the Alliance and the Horde defeated, then the recent history of Azeroth would be a much more terrible tale. The men of Stormwind needed to be in their position of strength in order to help defeat the Burning Legion when the demons invaded, and humanity as a whole was forced to retreat to the south when the undead overwhelmed Lordaeron.

My goal with this column is to talk about those stories - from the moment the Orcs were lured into demonic slavery to that one day in the future where all the races will unite in one army against the Burning Legion.

But first, a segue. My dislike of Goblins is tied directly into the Second War, when one of the cartels aligned themselves with the Horde. To the goblins, this new alien race presented several opportunities for profit. The Horde needed the machinery and ingenuity that the goblins could provide, and the goblins were more than happy to reap the profits of war against the Alliance. War profiteering is a vile thing, but those profits allowed the goblin cartels to expand into other parts of Azeroth.

Maybe, that expansion can be justified by the Goblins assisting both the Alliance and the Horde against the undead during the Third War, but I tend to disagree with that assessment. It was the ingenuity of men and the never-say-die obstinacy of the Orcs and Night Elves that pushed back the Burning Legion at the end of the Third War.

After the first war, the remnants of the kingdom of Stormwind limped north to Khaz Modan and Lordaeron, where they established the Grand Alliance in order to retake the southern human kingdom. It took them years to get ready to engage the Horde, which by then had advantages in Goblin technology and fortifications throughout the Eastern Kingdoms.

However, the true wealth of mankind does not lie in gold or fortresses. It is not in the oil we dredge from the sea or the iron we dig from the mountains. The value of mankind - the value of the Alliance - is in our courage and our tenacity to adapt to catastrophe and rise above it.

While the Horde was doing it's best to turn Elwynn Forest into a slag heap, it was joined by both the trolls and the goblins. The trolls had ancient grudges against the elves, and they were in some way being influenced by their bloodthirsty loa gods. I have empathy for those who would succumb to the temptations of violent and destructive magics, but what I cannot abide is the actions of those who seek out war in order to turn a profit.

The goblins were never threatened by the Horde; their lands are Kezan and the Undermine. They were never under the threat of annihilation. They chose to align themselves with the Horde, because it was good for their bottom line. When the Horde was destroyed and the Orcs enslaved, the goblins extricated themselves from the Horde, again for reasons of profiteering. They have an understanding of neither loyalty nor honor. They seek only money, the most vile of all things.

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