Warcraft’s most neglected villain deserves love at BlizzCon

World of Warcraft has a wonderful history when it comes to villains, from the cataclysmic force of nature that was Deathwing, to the tragic yet horrifying story of the Lich King. However, it has so far failed to capitalize on one of Warcraft’s greatest villains, one who has been not-so-quietly plotting all this time – Rafaam, the Supreme Archaeologist.

If you’re a Hearthstone regular, you would scoff at the idea of calling Rafaam neglected. Rather, Rafaam is oversaturating the card game – but he’s never managed to make it into World of Warcraft. I think Blizzard are missing a trick, and I would love nothing more than for them to confirm the arrival of the flamboyant and dastardly Ethereal in WoW this BlizzCon.

WoW’s villain problem

You see, World of Warcraft has had real issues with its villains. Most of the best baddies were pulled from Warcraft’s earlier RTS entries, or weird, esoteric parts of its sprawling background lore.

However, whenever they get brought up, they must then inevitably die. Most of WoW’s villains get resolved within their own expansion, leading to ever dwindling reserves for future stories. Not that trying to keep villains around from expansion to expansion is helping either.

The main big bad, Xal’atath, is unlikely to be properly dealt with until the next expansion, The Last Titan, yet has already worn out her welcome. Despite World of Warcraft’s best efforts, utilizing a villain who has been teased since Legion, her meandering machinations and often iffy writing are leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths.

So few characters from the past remain to carry the story forward, and the new villains are failing to capture the players’ imagination. What is Blizzard to do? Well, I’ve got a solution wrapped in bandages and with a fabulous cape by the name of Rafaam! He’s got everything that you could want in a villain – personality, presentation, and power.

Rafaam has become something of an overblown supervillain over time, but in his original incarnation he was a collector of rare artefacts and rivalled the Explorer’s League. A smaller-time villain by any imagination, but later he would be outright stealing the floating city of Dalaran, and resurrecting Galakrond – the most powerful dragon in Warcraft lore.

These plots were all driven by tenacity, an overinflated ego, and a desire to taunt his opponents. It seems he would be a perfect fit for some World of Warcraft drama.

Why so serious?

The main issue that Rafaam might present is that he’s simply not serious enough to properly act as a villain in Warcraft.

While many aspects of Warcraft’s lore are very silly indeed, the actual game usually plays them with a fully straight face. Warcraft is made up of a mashing together of classic fantasy, sci-fi, and horror tropes into one sometimes cohesive package, and it often only works because the façade of gravitas doesn’t usually slip.

Rafaam doesn’t really live in that world. He might have done in his original incarnation, but as his plans have grown, his personality has grown more bombastic, and the villains he surrounds himself with are almost as elaborate as well. Rafaam is a comic-book character that offers a straightforward villain with uncomplicated motivations, and that might not be what you want in your World of Warcraft.

I still think it has a place, though, as proven in concept by Final Fantasy XIV. You see, in Square Enix’s tremendous MMORPG there’s a long multi-expansion-spanning quest chain called ‘The Hildibrand Adventures’, following the exploits of one Inspector Hildibrand as he goes on to what can only be described as hijinks.

While the main story of Final Fantasy XIV is serious and often beautiful, Hildibrand is a sequence of goofs, facing off against ridiculous foes and bringing in sillier characters from the series, such as the lecherous octopus Ultros who first appeared in Final Fantasy 6.

These quests give Final Fantasy XIV the chance to be a bit more ridiculous, and to flex their muscles when it comes to more dynamic cutscenes.

I believe that Rafaam, his League of E.V.I.L, and the heroic Explorer’s League all would have an excellent opportunity to bring that same kind of energy into World of Warcraft. Maybe Rafaam isn’t quite main villain material without calming him down considerably, but he’s definitely worth opening up some dungeons or delves to deal with his sinister deeds.

Expanding the world (of Warcraft)

Bringing Rafaam in would break a seal that I think World of Warcraft has long needed to open.

While Warcraft’s world has incrementally changed, it is often left stagnant, and often not living up to the promise that its somewhat cartoon-y world offers. Hearthstone has expanded again and again into new locations, new ideas, and exciting remixes of the Warcraft iconography, but rarely does this ever actually make its way back into World of Warcraft.

Having this alternative path, whereby the champions of World of Warcraft face off against this globe-trotting blowhard, gives prime opportunities to update the world in small ways, and maybe bring in more ideas from Hearthstone.

In WoW, Gadgetztan is a Goblin outpost in the desert of Tanaris, having been left in a somewhat uninspiring static state since the Cataclysm. However, in Hearthstone, it’s a sprawling city with rival gangs and fast cars that feel akin to the Goblin city of Undermine featured in The War Within.

Doing these small updates and implementations gives Blizzard an untold hoard of already existing concepts to tap into, and a host of small stories that it would suddenly be able to tell. The Hearthstone team has already done all the hard work, and it feels strange that World of Warcraft wouldn’t capitalize on this.

We almost certainly aren’t seeing anything to do with Rafaam at Blizzcon, but I think it’s something that Blizzard should seriously consider.

The concepts and characters are right there for the dev team to latch on to, should they want to take that step. At the very least, they should consider adapting Rafaam and his plans to a Dungeons and Dragons adventure, just for me.

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