Well we might as well be done here because we don’t see eye to eye and that’s ok. Differing opinions are fine and dandy.
Anduin is OK written, the problem with anduin is that they keep telling the same OK story over and over. Im tired of anduin sad boy arc 3 times in a row.
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By your measure, his entire life should just be constant PTSD. In his own words “We fought death and even the end of the world.” and he didnt get PTSD from that. Two literal near extinction level events in his short teenage life, nothing. Almost got crushed to death by a bell, all bones broken. He nearly went to the shadowlands the correct way on three separate occasions. He goes to the afterlife to get MC’d and suddenly he is quaking in his little stormwind booties.
Stop trying to defend bad writing, and sudden posteriour pulls.
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Are we playing the same game? From day one of TWW Anduin was there and we fought along side of him all through the Season 1 campaign.
He was not in Dragonflight but then it is common for them to leave some of the heroes out of each expansion. For example, except for a cameo in SL, we haven’t seen Vereesa Windrunner for quite some time.
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I struggle to say he’s well written.
I always go to bat for him in threads where people attack the character’s masculinity simply because he has had tears in his eyes and ignore everything else about his character. It really rubs me the wrong way and has actually gotten me to actually like Anduin more than I used to. I was pretty ambivalent to him, but the constant, weird posts about him have made him grow on me.
Even still, his trauma is sourced from the Shadowlands and his domination by the Jailer. It is inextricable from that plot point and thus his character is tainted by it. So I cannot say he is well written because of that. But I still appreciate his character.
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Apparently not because you don’t seem to remember the number of cutscenes that included the lines:
“Anduin!”
“I… can’t…”
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What gets me, is how often people like to pull “well real men cry, and show emotions”.
Yea we do, but their is a time and place to do it. If everyone is in danger, you put aside your feelings and do the right thing, afterwards go sit with some friends and do something (play cards, shoot the breeze) and bring up the nonsense that made you lose it.
Your other male friends will listen tell you it was rough, then offer advice. Then you get better and you do the same for them.
Its not a secret its not hard, most people cant seem to understand
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It’s a hot take and I agree with it. The average loud WoW fan is honestly dumb as rocks and one person in here using Warhammer 40k Space Marines as an example as to why he’s a bad character is genuinely funny.
Something a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that this arc of Anduin isn’t even finished, and because Shadowlands as a whole was largely badly written, most of the people who are incapable of understanding writing in general just immediately play off character development as just bad writing.
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I don’t agree with all the overtly negative approaches to telling OP they’re wrong, but I do agree that they’re wrong. Anduin is a terribly written character.
It’s 100% an ideologically motivated strawman. Bottom line.
Probably in combination with a lack of experience in having positive and healthy male relationships and role models.
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I wont say he is well written.
He is as generic as any other character over WoW’s 20 years. He just encompasses a different trope.
WoW doesnt do in game well written characters. It never has.
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Shadowlands? What’s that? Anduin having trouble calling on the light is because of his self esteem issues with living up to his father’s legacy. Lacking that required conviction for the Light to answer your call.
Joking aside, no. Anything that is a direct follow-on from what happened in SL is poor writing at best because it’s such a shaky foundation to start new arcs from.
This comment being irrelevant to Anduin since he does “the right thing” by joining the battle against the Nerubians, and protecting his friends.
I’d really like you to list these, especially if this happened a number of times, because I do not remember this.
As a matter of fact when he’s unable to call upon the light to fight a void elemental, he rushes into battle to hit it with his sword. When Nerubians are about to take down an airship with his allies on board, he is the first one to sacrifice himself to protect the others and gets himself captured in the process.
So where’s this wealth of cutscenes where he is simply unable to do anything while moping?
I dunno, man. After experiencing the Shadowlands for two years, the last thing I’d want to do is immediately send myself back there.
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Last time an NPC looked up to the player character in personal for guidance, I had Thrall telling me one of his kids wanted to be a death knight like me when they grew up.
What I’m saying is that if you rolled a paladin or a holy priest, maybe you’re aspirational for Anduin or whatever. Otherwise, you’re probably more of a weird gremlin auntie.
You literally just listed two of them. And you can try to frame them as positive if you want but they’re examples of exactly what I’m talking about.
To be more precise, after refusing to try to call on the light in order to fight a void elemental, Anduin rushes forward and ineffectually lashes out at it in an emotional outburst. That is what is directly shown and clearly intended in the cinematic.
In the second example, he quotes Faerin and references a pep-talk she gave about passing the torch, deciding to bequeath any role in leadership or responsibility he has (presumably to her, as indicated by the camera shots on both of them during her speech and this moment) and throw himself away, only for the airship to be harpooned and boarded anyway immediately afterwards and for his companions to embark on a quest to rescue him behind enemy lines. (Again, btw)
He is moping and emoting in almost every second of every cutscene or conversation he’s in. And that goes back well before TWW.
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Well, for one, people with physical disabilities will also have mental comorbidities more often than not.
This pretty much. He is a far cry from Varian. It just seems like a character that is unable to cope more than anything.
It’s quite literally in the story multiple times, repeated, that Arthas has ceased to exist and is just “The Lich King” now. Like there’s a whole dungeon (Halls of Reflection) where Jaina tries to talk to him and they have to tell her he doesn’t exist anymore so it’s pointless. They force you to sit through the RP dialogue of this before being able to do the dungeon.
Light responds to faith. Any faith. If you have no faith, you don’t have Light. Tirion also had this problem. Anduin has no faith, so it’s not ‘refusing’ to call on the Light. And the cinematic ends directly after he attacks the void elemental so it’s obviously meant to be a call to action for the player to join in. Moreover, it doesn’t matter if it was ineffectual. He committed action, that is the important part you are glossing over.
He does not wait for the player to engage while he cowers. He moves to action.
Anduin had no leadership position on this mission. He is not currently High King. He is a warrior on the ground. While we’re talking about design intent of cutscenes, how about the design intent of Anduin sacrificing himself to save others? Which is not the first time he’s done this.
You’re the one who seems to be reaching to put a spin on these cutscenes to fit this narrative you have. He does not mope during these cutscenes. He commits action. At great peril to himself.
So which is it? Where is this “I can’t”? All I’m seeing is action, despite his self-doubt.
This post seems to me like