Alright, I know I’m new to the story forum as far as posting goes, but I’ve noticed one thing everyone agrees on, alliance or horde, is they don’t like Anduin. I’m trying to figure out why.
So I understand not liking a character cuz they are the goody-two-shoes but as far as character writing goes he is one of the most consistent. (Unless I’m missing something). As a kid his dad was always gone fighting. His dad although a righteous dude was very angry all the time. In my experience kids whose parents (especially single parents) who are angry all the time can either grow up to be very angry or grow up trying to make everyone be friends and happy, and it seems like Anduin went with the latter.
He consistently tries to mediate conflict and make everyone friends again, he did it when Genn was joining the alliance, during MOP, and as a kid he fought against the horde but only due to the pressure from the other alliance leaders as is shown he was reluctant to fight and was happy to end the war with no real justice to either side, granted in the book that came out he seems to be learning to get a little more aggressive.
My point is, as far as character writing goes he is far more consistent to his established personality traits than other characters blizzard has written. But I can understand not wanting a goody two shoes leader of the alliance and wanting more of a Varian or Genn leading.
I can’t speak for the Horde and I’m sure one will weigh in to answer that, but I don’t like him because he never puts the interests of the Alliance he’s supposed to lead before his pacifist ambitions in peace with the Horde. He can and has sold his own people down the river many times in service of the Horde and is more their leader than ours. He should not be the leader of a multi nation faction he doesn’t even care to protect.
Generally speaking, I think the issues people have with Anduin really just boil down to his being forced into the High King role. If we were merely the fledgling King of SW, honestly he’d be a pretty run of the mill Coming of Age story. His peace oriented nature wouldn’t be so oppressive and overwhelming if he weren’t shoehorned into a role that doesn’t quite fit him. Its not who he is that’s really a problem. Baine on the Horde side of things meets similar scrutiny, but he’s not our central leader; and his biggest issues are more functional use over narrative.
That being said, the anti High King Arguments normally break down when it comes to talking replacements. If that role has to exist, Muradin Bronzebeard would probably be the best fit out of the remaining leaders for many reasons; but because he is distant enough from recent events to maintain some objectivity … he’s not likely to appease those Blues who really want reassert their power fantasy over the Reds. Or just want to to outright destroy an entire player faction.
While I DO like anduin, I understand and share some of the frustrations people have with him.
For me, a big thing is he should not be High King of the Alliance.
King of Stormwind? Absolutely.
Lots of sway because of Stormwind’s military strength? Makes sense
Leader of the whole Alliance- Wait, what?!
After Varian’s death the High King title should have been retired/shelved, and if they needed someone like that again they should have revived Anduin Lothar’s title of “Supreme Commander” for Alliance military forces.
To avoid the inevitable whinging that Anduin gets, I offer this.
Had Anduin gotten the story development in Legion he was hinted at, I doubt we’d be in this situation.
The waste of Sylvanas usually gets the most attention but Anduin was supposed to have a story arc in Legion. In fact both faction leaders were supposed to have similar arcs, at least from the start; leaders of their factions thrust into that position against their will, do they grow into their roles or do they fail in the attempt.
But then Anduin didn’t get that arc and was just…High King and ready for the job (outside that one quest with Dad telling him to pull his pants up, which I will say is not a character arc).
people dont like to be pointed out that they are wrong, thats what it is, jaina was hated too when she was the main anti war character, people really dont like characters who remind them that war and death is bad.
This. He literally killed thousands of troops in a suicide mission (which included worgen and Nelves, as if they needed to die off more) so the Alliance could achieve victory… only to halt the attack because, “Continuing would make the Alliance no better than Sylvanas…” What? How? So he sacrificed all those Alliance troops for nothing because he didn’t want to be mean to the Horde.
And this.
Those are the biggest reasons. Anduin as a character is fine, the issue is he is the leader of the ENTIRE Alliance and as such Blizzard forces his ideals and beliefs onto the other races and their leaders even if it makes no sense.
Had Anduin just been the King of Stormwind his story throughout BfA actually would have been cool, having him undermine the Alliance High King and everything. But nah, instead we get an 18 year old leading the entire Alliance and the story has to bend over backwards to fit his values and ideals, even if it means writing other characters OOC.
Also the Wrynn family is just a narrative blackhole.
I mean I understand that people don’t like the role he plays but as far as writing goes I don’t think they did a bad job he seems consistently written which is more than can be said about others
As a Horde player I don’t hate him at all. Which is sort of the problem.
He’s a wide eyed nice boy that just wants to help. He’s even accepting of the undead and, like it or not, was ultimately nicer to them than Slyvanas was.
You pretty much have to be an unrepentant blood crazed lunatic to get the guy to fight you, and even then he’s going to be literally crying about the senseless killing the whole time.
Like I only attacked him in game for the achievement. The guy’s never wronged anyone it’s hard to want to hurt him.
The same reason people have disliked Sylvanas lately, The story seemingly bends around them to complete certain objectives or goals, at the expense of others.
Sylvanas and Anduin are more or less two sides of the same coin, on one side the story goes out of it’s way to show how evil Sylvanas can be while Anduin is shown just how painstakingly good he is.
My issue with Anduin is that for all his talk of taking responsibility, he actually deflects it.
Case in point the Gathering in Before the Storm. The deaths happened because Anduin let Calia attend, and two Forsaken recognized her. One sought to use her as means to stay with living family and got others on board, and then the other Forsaken rushed to inform Sylvanas.
Calia, being naïve, believe that those Forsaken were declaring her their true Princess/Queen and then tried to get the other Forsaken on the field to deflect. Meanwhile being informed that Arthas’ sister was the on field caused Sylvanas to lash out and call upon her Dark Rangers to join her on the field.
When the dust settled all the Desolate Council members on the field and Calia were dead. Anduin later helped bring Calia back to life, where upon he low key accused her of sabotaging the Gathering because she tried to get them to defect. He later tells Genn that he believed Sylvanas is truly lost.
Though he does express guilt, he didn’t once acknowledge that him giving Calia the green light to attend started the dominos leading to the deaths on the fields of Arathi.
I mean of the two leaders at the Gathering he’s the one who didn’t hurt any Forsaken and gave the ones Windy killed a proper burial.
Nothing was funnier than the bit in the BFA intro quest where you’re hiding right under Anduin’s nose. It’s framed as this tense moment but, WTF is Anduin going to do if he finds me? Arrest me and give me a fair trial and humane treatment? Okay?
