OMG YOU GUYS I SPEND ONE EVENING RAIDING AND THE WRATHION FANDOM HAS A COLLECTIVE CORONARY OVER NEW SOUNDFILES?!?!?!!!!! WTF!!!! D:
*deep breath*
Okay, seriously, though, after listening to the new sound files twice, I’m mostly optimistic that he’s going to remain morally gray and giving us quests to do his heavy lifting. He’s just giving up on trying to work with either faction. We adventurer/mercenary/champion types are too useful to cut loose entirely.
He’s just having a temper tantrum because he’s been so damn smug all expansion long, thinking things were playing right into his hands, only to find out that the real world doesn’t always operate in predictable patterns. He’s not as smart and invincible as he thought he was. You can’t always get what you want, which is a tough lesson for a two-year-old, in dragon years or otherwise.
Some players may feel betrayed, but I posit that Wrathion does, too, in a way. He thought by arming and guiding the Alliance he could turn them into his personal army, in a way. Now, after all the trouble he’s gone through to groom the Alliance heroes to further his goals, after all the time spent psychoanalyzing Varian, after all the gems and weapons and cloaks and sigils…it blew up in his face. We didn’t hold up our end of the bargain (not that we knew what it was, of course, but…)
It’s like when a kid asks “Have you seen updog?“ and the parent responds with an uninterested “No, dear,” the kid stomps his feet and whines because you were supposed to say “What’s updog?“ so the kid could say “Not much, dawg!” and then giggle for ten minutes straight. Or when a kid brings you a crayon scribble and you say “That’s a great looking horse!“ and they start to cry because it was supposed to be a dinosaur riding a motorcycle. He thought he had us figured out so he could predict exactly what we’d do, and he could manipulate us accordingly to get what he wanted. And we threw him a curve ball by being more complex than he realized. So he’s sitting in the corner breaking his crayons and crying because we’re the worst people ever, OMG.
Also, remember that he admitted he sympathized with Hellscream’s daddy issues—i.e. the burden of trying to get past his father’s misdeeds. There might just be a part of Wrathion that’s freaking out. "Oh no, I thought Garrosh could get out from his father’s shadow but he failed and got corrupted anyway. Is there any hope for me?”
Could Blizzard take a steaming crap on all Wrathion’s character development and make him into Corrupted Guy We Have To Kill For Loot #872? Well, sure. I’m not impressed with how Fandral and Garrosh turned out, after the wonderful potential they both had. But I wouldn’t give up just yet. (Besides, there’s always fanfic.)