Just thought I'd add that you made a good point about Chris Metzen's mancrush on Thrall. I would have brought it up but Tumblr has a reply character limit. However, I will say that I know a fair number of people who would be upset about Thrall's death. I am more annoyed by what they've done with Jaina, essentially making her the Alliance equivalent of Sylvannas, right down to the bitchiness and undercurrents of evil. I think Blizzard did it because they wanted the Alliance to seem more edgy.
Fair enough. I suppose without solid data it’s hard to say how many people would be upset versus how many would rejoice or just not care.
But yes Jaina’s treatment has been horrendous as of late. It could be about edginess, as you say, or wanting to move Jaina to a different role to let Anduin shine as the main peace-advocating Alliance character, or both. Either way, it’s not good.
I’ll just paste this here as well instead of making two separate reply posts:
Most of the time killing off characters is done as a remedy to writers block or poor story planning. Thrall had been grooming Garrosh as a replacement since Wrath and was blinded by Grom's redemption, so failed to see flaws in Garrosh's character.
This is true, and while it drove me up the wall during Wrath, it was still somewhat defensible for Thrall to be blind to it in that way. The main thing that bothers me is that it’s never treated like a flaw in Thrall’s character that he couldn’t recognize Garrosh’s flaws. He never really faces consequences for his poor judgment or the fact that he refused to take action for so long after Garrosh got out of control. Instead, he’s treated like the primary victim, over characters such as Jaina, Vol’jin, Anduin or Lor’themar, or the entire Darkspear tribe or the pandaren people, and refuses to accept even a tiny bit of responsibility even when called out. And we’re still expected to cheer.