What If Cairne Defeated Garrosh?
People underestimate just how much of an impact Magatha Grimtotem played in the recent times. With the poisoning of the weapon, the high Chieftain Cairne died and future events were entirely different. However, what would the Horde and Azeroth, in general, be like had Cairne won that duel? So it is 2020 and we are still using giant bulky and unpractical wallets, luckily the sponsor of this video The Ridge Wallet is offering an excellent alternative.
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If you go to Ridge.com/DORON you can get 10% off as well as free world wide shipping. Check out the link in the description below! So Cairne never really liked Garrosh Hellscream, he always thought he was hotheaded and overly aggressive and when Thrall had to depart and put Hellscream in charge, Cairne was absolutely furious.
The killing of the innocent druids was the last straw and at that point Cairne challenged Garrosh to a mak'gora for the leadership of the Horde. Now the duel, the ancient orcish tradition still existed as a sanctioned non-lethal version but Garrosh demanded a mak'gora by the old laws, to the death.
Cairne agreed and the battle began in the Orgrimmar arena. Chieftain Bloodhoof as a 107 year old extremely experienced warrior was having an easy time with Garrosh. He was a match and their fighting styles cancelled each other, so he wasn't completely dominating.
Nonetheless, Cairne backed him up into a corner and Garrosh now desperate, did a leap of faith strike and actually shattered his runespear and inflicted a wound across the chest. Despite being a strong blow it was really nothing for the gigantic tauren, but all of a sudden Cairne just collapsed.
Garrosh was shocked himself, but regardless just dealt the killing blow. It turned out that Magatha had poisoned the blade and really had that not occurred it is highly likely that Cairne would have won. As it was a duel to the death Garrosh would most likely be killed but it wouldn't be surprising for Cairne to spare him by following Thrall's ways and just teaching this young orc a lesson.
What this version would do could be a whole another video but let's just assume that Garrosh would be dead. This event alone would literally changed the entire story up until now significantly. Most likely Cairne would take over the Horde, although as he was really old he could have also given it to someone else but let's assume that he is the Warchief from now on.
A lot of people forget just how influential Garrosh was in the entire faction conflict, especially in stirring up the conflict. Of course both factions had a long history of war but at this point, the Horde and the Alliance worked together against the Lich King, they weren't on great terms but they weren't at each other's throat.
Now during Cataclysm when he just became the warchief Garrosh really wasn't overly aggressive and the Horde really did need resources so maybe the war couldn't have been averted, but even if it happened I feel like it would be a much more localized conflict than what it actually was.
When the Alliance observed what Garrosh was doing, how he built his capital as a military base, how he brought Magnataur from Northrend to destroy the night elves and cut down everything in his path, yeah you can't say they were exactly looking to sue for peace and Garrosh wasn't a mediating figure.
In the case with Cairne he was a pacifist and was much more open to negotiation and not taking the conflict too far. He could have still battled the night elves but maybe that wouldn't become a world war. Theramore would still be around and Cairne 100% wouldn't nuke the entire city, which would completely change the Jaina storyline and she would still be open to working with the Horde and the Alliance would also not be set now on taking over Orgrimmar.
On the other side of the world, the Sylvanas storyline might have played out differently. Maybe Sylvanas would still invade Gilneas but I doubt Cairne would support that as originally it was Garrosh's idea to take over the port and to expand the Horde's influence in the Eastern Kingdoms.
However no doubt Sylvanas would still cause trouble, and maybe without the orcs observing her she might have gotten even worse with resurrection and the plague and I feel like she could have played Cairne more easily than she did Garrosh, so I feel like the Sylvanas storyline would definitely continue in a similar trajectory as it did in the actual universe.
Also most importantly, there would be no civil war which means that Horde would be so much stronger. Sure Garrosh cranked the military budget to 1000 but in the end he damaged the faction so much that Varian Wrynn was standing in the middle of Orgrimmar and threatening to end the Horde.
So if the civil war was averted, Horde would be much more powerful and would be on par with the Alliance because since Mists of Pandaria Horde has been lagging so much. With all these wars they've lost so many men, ships and resources. Even more importantly there would be no Warlords of Draenor which not only would be better for Warcraft in general but there would be no Garrosh to incite the Iron Horde and no alternate universe stuff.
This means that there would be no opening of the Dark Portal again and also no way for Legion to invade as it did. Now I am 100% certain that Legion would still find a way to attack Azeroth regardless of whether we went to the alternate Draenor or not.
So Legion would still happen just probably wouldn't be through Gul'Dan which would change everything, most likely the entire Broken Shore ordeal. From this point forth I think it is much harder to predict as in Battle for Azeroth Sylvanas played a key role but who knows what could happen now, maybe Cairne would fall during the demonic invasion, maybe he would be stabbed in the back by the Banshee Queen.
Regardless I still think the events would occur as they did, the Legion invasion, defeat of Sargeras , the wound to the world soul and now the connection to the Shadowlands. The Jailer and Sargeras have been behind the scenes and plotting so whether Cairne was around or Garrosh it wouldn't really matter all that much.
However, the main difference would be the fact that there would be most likely no Warlords of Draenor and the civil war and possibly even the Horde and Alliance conflict in Pandaria. This means that both factions would be much stronger, they would have a lot more resources and a lot less casualties, meaning that they would be more equal as the Alliance is definitely stronger than the Horde right now and has been for quite some times.
Furthermore, with both factions being stronger, we could deal with the Legion a lot more efficiently and without the massive rift between the two factions that Garrosh almost solely created maybe Sylvanas and the Jailer wouldn't have such an easy time of infiltrating the Horde.
Also with Cairne as a Warchief his pacifism could even create better relations than they were under Thrall. All in all when you look at all the points it is a bit insane to think just how influential that mak'gora actually was. Seeing as it was in the book and a thing most people already forgot by now the event literally shook the history of Azeroth the core.
