Well you’ve decribed it below. It’s probably more the idea that he was under the control of the magic of death which came between him and the Light, forcing him to do things that went against who he was.
Also he said he didn’t like his own reaction to what happened, actually enjoying at times. He learned things about himself that he didn’t like.
As for your opinion that the expansion was a bad one, that doesn’t factor in to how the characters feel.
I mean, yes. That would be equally horrible. I think it was definitely purposeful for Anduin to go through what he did. Because he now better understands what his father and Thrall went through.
odd. his father seemed to carry his personal problems much more… kingly.
It’s just not relatable at all. No one wants to hear him tell us about his stupid feelings. It’s just another kick in the teeth from Blizzard mocking us about how they’re ‘listening to player feedback’.
If they were really listening to player feedback, they would have had Anduin ask Thrall to help him go on the forums to make sure people are aware that [FotMeta Class] is OP, and to remind everyone that Shadowlands was the worst kind of betrayal in the history of WoW, and oh yeah, also no one likes dragons 
.
Instead, we just got a bunch of whining. 
That’s an interesting take so let’s unpack that. You say that Anduin betrayed the Light.
How?
We see during the Anduin/Arthas raid encounter that the Light fully responds to his call and he weilds it expertly.
The Light, like Death, is an uncaring entity in which to tap into as a resource. The Light doesn’t care if you use it for good (Argent Dawn) or evil (Scarlet Crusade).
So even if Anduin turned his back on it (which was never shown to be the case) it would be akin to you unplugging an appliance.
Anduin used the Light to mug robots for McGuffins and wipe my raid group a few times. Then we slapped some sense into him when he tried to pull a Geodude and use self-destruct.
The way it was described was they were the 1st thing in their realm, then dead people showed up.
the first ones made them first to recieve the souls. At least that is what I got from ardenweald bits where the Winter queen was there to recieve the explicitly stated first soul ever to go to forest heaven.
But I try not to nitpick this too much. It has me get really confused.
Like what superior beings have the entire universes souls go through 1 single point of failure. With no backup in case it fails.
Oh dear the arbiter went offline. I guess everyone goes to hell now.
It’s that age old problem that the game has had for some time:
Too many big story events are relegated to media outside of the games.
If you have even a passing knowledge of half the things Anduin witnessed in his life from a young age, his current mental state begins to make a ton more sense. His imprisonment/mind control in the Shadowlands/Maw was really the last straw in a long line of events.
The average casual player however? Well, if they were around for MoP, they might know he nearly got killed by Garrosh, but they’d likely blow that off.
“Big deal! Multiple major lore characters have nearly died multiple times over!”
Past that, their mindset likely runs along the lines of “Oh, he’s just sad that Wrathion’s actions indirectly/inadvertently got his daddy killed. He’s such a mopey little brat. He only got mind controlled for a little while and I didn’t see him kill anyone on screen. What the hell’s his problem?”
Look, Blizzard is a business, and they alongside their various publishing partners are trying to run a business and make money. I get that.
It’s inexcusable to have what feels like every last drop of important lore outside of the games. There have been too many cases of players not understanding key story beats due to that info not being front and center. Hell, multiple people have now said that some of the odd things with the story in Dragonflight begin to make a ton more sense once you read War of the Scaleborn.
I’m not going to say don’t write Warcraft novels, but if something in one of those novels is a major plot point that would make understanding a certain course of action or character in the game much easier, then they’ve got to give some serious thought towards making that info accessible in some manner in the game.
Show of hands: how many of you here realize that Fyrakk is Alexstrasza’s cousin? I’m going to guess not many.
That last tidbit right there is the sort of thing I’m talking about. It would make some moments in the expansion far more impactful and meaningful if a piece of information like that was front and center in the actual game.
Lmfao! First of all your explanation Is hilarious.
I think it’s just the fact He almost helped destroy the thing he had the most faith in and protected the most. Azeroth. If anything Azeroth speaking to him means he’s forgiven and she still loves him, but does he forgive himself for almost killing her?
That and we don’t know what he had to face from walking around the maw for the last 5-7 years in cannon game. If you don’t recall there’s a lot of tortured screaming spirits, Evil angel and beast looking things trying to kill you… umm walking in hell for 7 years would give everyone PTSD. So In short…
He almost killed the things he loved most, including his own planet, couldn’t control himself and became evil for a short time, and walked through hell. Yeah…. You’d have ptsd too.
Still a hilarious explanation though lol.
Just because you were being forced to do something against your will doesn’t mean you wouldn’;t feel guilty about it. Logically you’re not guilty. But emotions don’t run on logic.
Simply being controlled like that would be traumatising. Let alone almost killing your friends and allies.
I get most of the shadowlands plot sucks. But if you were to put a real human being in that scenario it would 100% mess t hem up.
You don’t actually have to kill someone to feel like a monster.
Did he? We don’t know much about how Varian dealt with his own trauma because we were rarely ever given a window into his personal thoughts and feelings on the matter.
And what about Thrall? People seem to conveniently forget how angsty and conflicted he has been over the course of WoW, especially in the earlier days. The dude literally abandoned his faction for a while so he could sort himself out.
Why can’t Anduin have vulnerable moments too?
^ This x1000
I don’t think much of the playerbase actually realizes how much our class suffers on a daily basis within lore. Third War and Northrend era death knights might be free of the Lich King, but there are multiple things either physically or mentally wrong with them.
Fun class to play, but definitely not a state you’d want to be in if you actually existed in Azeroth.
People are never willing to give current stuff the same benefit of the doubt as things in the past because something something “modern WoW” something something “paintings of fruit!”
Truthfully, the only reason I know this is because of third-party entities, such as Bellular, who told me.
This is, honestly, a crime.
Yeah. I definitely didn’t know that. All I really got from it all in game was “Big fire dragon bad. Must hit bad fire dragon till he’s dead.”
So we’re gonna take a step back and do a think, and it’s a conspiratory think, but a think nonetheless.
WHAT IF, part of Arthas actually got absorbed by him? That would explain why the only remnant left of Arthas was a flicker. Or it actively consumed him, and he’s just Arthas with a new body? None of this is likely, but…that’s the kind of crap I expect at this point.
On the real other figures have seen worse and are fine. idk…maybe he just needs to embrace it and go full warrior. blood for the blood god.
I think it’s far more likely that Anduin could go full Warrior like his dad. And I’d be all for it.
I think he should. \o/ Rip and tear.
It is highly unlikely, but I actually wish he’d go the other way and legit kill himself and not in some glorious sacrifice to save others or in some other grandiose heroic fashion…but like a real trauma victim whose internal struggles leave him more and more anxious and desperate to get the thoughts/images/feelings/whatever is plaguing him out of his head and in that moment of desperation, he makes an unfixable and tragic decision that is every bit realistic and plausible. Even better, imo, would be in a heated moment in front of his loved ones who are otherwise trying to stop/talk him down and aren’t able to.
Show the other side of the traumas soldiers and people struggle and deal with and the repercussions among those they leave behind. It should be a sickening and gut wrenching moment and leave you feeling hollow and numb which hopefully would serve to drive the narrative home. That he isn’t just being a whiny crybaby upset he did a no no but someone whose truly damaged and lost.
But there is exactly 0% chance this kind of plotline could ever happen. It would be deemed far too potentially triggering and too dark to handle. If he is to die, it’ll be sacrificing himself for the greater good and/or in some other glorious way that will be deemed bittersweet at worst.
There’s so much to unpack here. Good lord. I’m not touching any of this with a 10 foot pole.
It’s funny, but I was thinking this while I was feverishly typing out my OP.
I didn’t include it because people’s attention spans are frustratingly short and I doubted they’d even read the part I’d already written.
I theorized that Anduin had misconstrued what he’d done with what Arthas had done. It’d explain him striking that classic Lich King pose with Shalamayne in the WW cinematic.
But that would be far more clever than anything Blizzard could possibly hope to write.