Anduin is just as much a problem to the narrative and the characterization of other figures in the game as Sylvannas is. What I mean by that is how Anduin only ever has one response to any situation regardless of history and context: to seek peace. Just as Sylvannas only ever had one response to any given scenario from Cata onward: to be unambiguously villainous.
Now at first Anduin wanting peace was somewhat refreshing in contrast with the motivations of other characters, but he literally is nothing more than that singular want. In MoP he wanted peace, he wanted peace with Garrosh despite Garrosh going all Orc-Supremacist, in BFA he wanted peace right from the start despite the mass murder and destruction of Alliance peoples and lands.
There was never any question at all what Anduin would do in BFA: Ally with the Horde and seek to remove Sylvannas. No thought of justice, or reclamation of Alliance territory, or having the Horde pay any kind of price for the War of Thorns and other massacres. He had one motivation from the start and has doggedly stuck to it despite all logic, blaming everything on the actions of another rogue Warchief.
That’s two-dimensional. Simplistic. Boring.
But on top of that, just as Windrunner had to make normally honorable and reasonable Horde characters idiots, apathetic, or out-of-character monsters to go along with her Scourge-lite plans, Anduin makes Alliance characters irrationally passive and peaceable. Just look at the dialogue for the Alliance leaders for the next patch, everyone except Genn and Tyrande agrees with the twenty-something boy king that yes, this time will be the last time the Horde goes feral and runs rampant through the Alliance despite the mountain of evidence and history that points to the opposite being true. Muradin can only muster a weak-willed threat, Moira of the Dark Irons lost all her ruthlessness…Jaina of all people even buys into Anduin’s trite nonsense!
Anduin is simplistically good. A cartoon good-guy who warps the personality of those around him to push forward the plot.
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In other news, the ocean is full of water.
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Remove o kill Anduin is the only way to write an interesting plot for the alliance imagine bfa without Anduin would much better history.
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Anduin’s perspective is the most logical from that of a two faction game, but at the same time, it’s also really boring yes, and it feels almost like a meta-thing rather than an in-universe perspective. The two faction thing wrecked the war from the start though. There’s no way they’d have had it in them to defeat and gut a faction out of it. That said, if Anduin had died during the expansion, then it definitely would have locked the Alliance into a ‘victory or death’ spiral with the Horde, as the whole ‘peace’ thing is pretty much focused from him. There’s Jaina I guess? But she seems much more capable of changing gears if Anduin went down, especially if it was particularly dirty in its execution.
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Just remember this.
While Anduin could have had a plot line where he had to navigate his desire for peace against godsdamn Sylvanas.
But Sadfang was a story that needed to be told.
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He would be fine if there was difficulty for him to deal with Daelins in the Alliance. If the faction conflict actually was morally gray he would have to work for his ideals among his own faction.
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I like Anduin, he’s a better leader than his father was even though he’s so young but he doesn’t get any respect for it because he’s not the typical roided out meathead that players like to wank over.
He’s diplomatic, has a tactical mind and gets things done yet somehow still managed to come out of it with his morals more or less intact. I find that admirable and refreshing in a time where grimdark seems to be all the rage. I’ve got edge fatigue. Good guys might be out of fashion with a lot of jaded fans these days but I’m happy. I started playing Alliance when i was a teen because it seemed like good guy faction and 13 years later I feel vindicated in that choice.
If a hot-headed senile airhead like Tyrande had been in charge of the Alliance things would have gone much worse for everyone involved. I wish those people critising Anduin’s actions in BFA got exactly the ending they are asking for. “N’zoth eats Azeroth, everyone dies. The End.”
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Anduin’s not a “Good guy”. He’s THE BEST GUY! He’s an important role model for weak willed children everywhere! (per Blizz)
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They were almost doing it right with Jaina “I trusted Varian, but Anduin can suck an egg” dialog, but she changed her tune quickly when she saw Thrall’s big bi’s. I guess that’s the power of going to the gym 6 days a week, (or doing the equivalent in agricultural labor)… maybe I should quit my job and look for farm work.
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Way to completely miss the point of why people don’t like Anduin. A diplomat is fine, a doormat who puts peace before the wellbeing of the people he represents isn’t.
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Except he didn’t do that. He orchestrated a rebellion that dismantled the Horde’s dictatorial system of government and replaced them with a worthless tribal council style government (literally one of the worst systems of government historically) packed with Alliance sympathisers.
He was absolutely right to ignore Tyrande’s screeching to sacrifice Alliance soldiers to take back strategically worthless, blighted land on another continent.
It’s funny how Night Elf players embody the worst flaws of the race. Arrogant, self-important and completely oblivious to the lives of the non NE they want to sacrifice to save their dumb trees. Anduin is the High King of the entire Alliance, he has to do what is best for a dozen races not sacrifice everything because Tyrande just can’t handle he long-belated menopause.
Anduin did the best with the resources he had. It’s baffling to me how anyone could expect him to achieve more. What more do you want from the guy?
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I actually blame most of BfA’s story on an attempt to promote Anduin to everyone and generally preserve his “character” and “integrity”. He’s the only major character in this expansion who acted out more or less true to his character. Everyone else had to constantly make irrational or inexplicable decisions to make the plot work. Even Sylvanas. She literally could have done anything else after killing Saurfang, but just flies away and lets Anduin claim victory.
A good guy arc in and of itself isn’t a problem; it’s a problem when they absolutely must win by the end of the episode and the universe has to bend around them to achieve this.
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Anduin’s really not that offensive in the story.
Technically the factions are almost worthless in some overall stories when it comes to a threat like fighting Legion would scrap Sylvanas’s story for legion.
My problem with Anduin is that his idealism is purely cringe-worthy at times, and as the OP stated, no one in the Alliance is willing to confront him.
I think that, while characters can agree that peace is preferable, there should be many within that camp who believe Anduin cannot achieve that peace on favorable terms for the Alliance. Which, to be fair, is absolutely true. Anduin cannot secure peace on favorable terms for the Alliance. No one can. The amount of concessions on the Horde’s part would destroy the faction.
This expansion was supposed to resolve the root symptoms of the faction conflict, but unless the Devs honestly felt the symptoms were, “Sylvanas,” then nothing has been resolved really. Worse, new issues have cropped up. The Nelves should be seeking vengeance for Teldrassil, and the Zandalari should be seeking vengeance for Rastakan.
This war that was supposed to bring resolution just ramped it up further.
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Don’t worry I’m sure we’ll resolve it in MoP 3: Garrosh’s Revenge.
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We’ll see. Players have been asking for the Alliance to be the aggressors for a change so I imagine the next time stuff crops up, Tyrande will be the raid boss at the end.
Eh I doubt that. We won’t see a faction conflict expansion for a long, long time after how this one went. By then Tyrande might well have been replaced by Azshara the Redeemed as glorious queen of the Night Elves.
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People asked for and expected that after MoP, but we got … this. Why should next time be any different?
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Okay, hear me out…it’s not actually a bad arc, it’s just handled poorly.
If I can make a comparison to other media, look at Naruto. Naruto was a great series before talking became the main tool for beating the villains. Reasoning out the logic of peace and goodness is boring because peace has to be BOUGHT sometimes. You cannot negotiate peace with everyone, sometimes you have to spill blood over a conflict of ideals to earn it. This was a story where blood needed to be spilled, and if I can echo Varian’s sentiment from the Broken Shore “Peace is the noblest aspiration, but to preserve it you must be willing to fight.”
This is where Anduin fails. He should at the very least be tougher on the Horde. Not mean enough to instill hatred and sow seeds for future conflict, but hold them accountable for the wrongs they committed. SOME kind of reparations MUST be made, especially to the Night Elves. Above all else, Sylvanas MUST be killed for her actions, she crossed a line and there is no coming back from that (his dialogue in the Lordearon throne room really convinced me at the time he knew this already --> “You put the torch to Teldrassil, but I failed those who burned.”
At the time, Anduin knew there was already blood on his hands, and the only way to right that wrong was to bring the person who spilled it to justice. Why he’s now silent on the matter (or even arguing to spare her? IDK, did I miss that?) is beyond me.
To sum up though, the narrative of a hero who desires for peace above all else is not a bad one, but it must be tested and resolved properly. To maintain peace, you must sometimes go to war. He went to war alright, but Anduin seems to have missed almost entirely why it was being fought. While Sylvanas lives, the peace he has attained is hollow at best and artificial at worse.
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When jaina confronted him in legion wanting revenge for varian’s death she was portrayed as wrong and literally abandoned the alliance.
So anduin ends up always in the “right side”. and that sucks, he is just incapable of doing mistakes or feeling anger like… at all.
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