From what I understand, understaffing + covid means large delays.
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This pretty directly implies that Anduin has some level of autonomy which goes very, very much against every appearance of him in 9.1 since being dominated. Heās being directly mind controlled.
Heās not like having an emo phase and throwing out his stupid dad who doesnāt understand the pain heās going throughās compass. The modes seem to be mind controlled and not. Not some weird evil version who has sentience but is justā¦choosing to be evil for some reason.
Again whatever, kill Anduin off at this point, heās so awful like everything else about this overarching story. But as usual I think people are reading way too much into what seems like a super obvious story.
We already know Jaina can use her rubberbanding god powers to see the memories of someone (She does this in BfA), so it seems like its just her recalling a memory from right before get gets dominated. Perhaps Anduin ends up dropping it while we fight in on Korthia or something and thatās what happens.
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We see that heās aware of his actions in the attack on Bastion, but unable to do anything about it. He is a prisoner in his own body and experiencing something that has really only been experienced by a handful of other major characters in the lore, perhaps most prominently (and ironically) by Sylvanas herself.
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Yes but do you not see how thatās different from Anduin, of his own free will, throwing away the compass because heās a emo boi now? Why would the Jailer care if Anduin had the compass on his person still while heās directly controlling him?
Anduin is aware of his actions but he cannot control them. Heās not like some suddenly weird amoral dude who has free will.
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I donāt feel like I should have to explain how agonizing this must be. Acknowledging the compass, a keepsake of his family and a reminder of who he is, as the one splinter of resistance that he can muster only to have Zovaal easily reassert control and force him to discard it is loaded with emotional symbolism.
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ā¦this has nothing to do with anything Iāve said.
My point is that he doesnāt need to consciously decide to discard the compass for the fact that he has been forced to do so (specifically, for what the act symbolizes) to be a milestone for his character that will heavily inform it going forward.
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Yes I truly cannot wait for a 10 year arc of Anduin being sad and agonized about the trauma inflicted on him.
Surely weāve never had such a brave and unique story in Warcraft before.
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I, too, hate character growth.
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I think the real question people want answered is whether it will be Jaina or Genn that deliver the unironic āI know youāre still in thereā line at some point or another.
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Thatās definitely what I said you got me.
Iām amazed people still defend Blizzardās junior high-like mentality of character growth only being born from inflicting insane trauma on a person and then having them steal the spotlight of the franchise for 5 years while they deal with it.
As if thereās no other way to actually develop a character.
How many characters have they done this EXACT storyline with? I can think of 10 immediately off the top of my head.
So forgive me if Iām not jumping at joy to see them setting up Anduin now having 10 years of story about how sad he is that the Super Lich King made him Super Arthas to lead the Super Scourge to destroy the universe.
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Iām pretty sure itās already happened like twice on the PTR. Hasnāt worked yet though so itās going to take more than the power of friendship to free him (weāre going to have to beat him up, THEN use the power of friendship. I call it āthe Kingdom Heartsā)
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In WoW? Sylvanas, maybe Arthas although he wasnāt really dominated so much as robbed of his soul. Darion Mograine I suppose.
It doesnāt actually seem that common? There are plenty of fallen heroes but thatās a story as old as stories themselves.
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The story of Blizzard inflicting insane trauma on someone to then make them sad and depressed for 10+ years?
Sorry its way more than that lol. Thatās the primary way they do ācharacter developmentā in this game.
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Honestly I just canāt take it very seriously.
The Jailer is so completely uncompelling so having a big thing about what he did to Anduin isnāt going to be the emotional hit its intended to be. Anduin has not been challenged as much as literally whisked away like a princess in a typical āsave me heroā story, not be so OP with his Light powers that he cannot infinitely hold back Satan and his forces closing in, and now his corruption is just magic that was inflicted on his soul or something. I think Blizzard thought everyone would gasp at Arthas 2.0, but we got the bargain bin knock-off.
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Generally most character arcs involve being challenged by some sort of adversity and reacting to it yes, either by overcoming it or succumbing to it.
I think that this community is a poor metric to judge Anduinās popularity. The dude is really, really popular with people who arenāt brainpoisoned by forums. Especially among the ladies.
I also think itās unfair to say āoh, of COURSE they would do a mind-control edgelord story with Anduin, so predictable!ā when last expansion the refrain was āOf course they will NEVER have anything bad happen to Anduin! Blizzard is always shielding him from adversity so he can stay pure!ā
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I actually kinda like him ever since I did the quests with him when leveling through Mists content.
I just donāt find what happened to him interesting whatsoever, a big part of it being how underwhelming the guy who did it to him is, whose appearances are just āarrogant, evil all over him future raid bossā in the most generic sense.
And it isnāt helping that his fall from purity is something completely not his fault, not even just how he chose to process trauma, its being fundamentally messed with by domination magic. Nothing to possibly judge him for. Excuse for every bad action.
If it more closely mirrored what happened to Arthas, but he manages to start pulling himself back from the truly unforgivable stuff (the genocide of two kingdoms), it would have been something.
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You are completely strawmanning the problem people have with Anduinās storyline in Shadowlands.
Which is that in no way is he falling from grace or any of this stuff being done of his own volition.
Heās not slowly going down a path and its one that he needs to self-reflect and grow from before itās too late (Or it becomes too late like Arthas), itās a storyline thrust upon him from a secondary character and he has no actual role in it whatsoever.
That same pureness is not going anywhere. Heās literally just being mind controlled lol.
Itās not interesting or deep or engaging when itās just, āTake the morally good guy and mind control him to do bad stuff.ā It completely robs the central participation of the audience in the story, which is judging for themselves whether or not actions the character do are morally justified for what happens.
Heās not Arthas or Illidan or even Sylvanas for that matter. They had free will and chose to do morally ambiguous or evil things for their own agenda. Heās just a puppet walking around doing things the Jailer wants.
And frankly, if they try to also spend 10 years making him feel bad for something he had no control in, considering Blizzard keeps saying that the Jailer is a Titan++ villain, that would be entirely asinine.
Anduin is not at fault for what happened to him. Not even slightly. You canāt even pretzel logic yourself into saying he is. Whether its stealing all the sigils or stabbing the Archon or helping the Jailer accomplish what Iām sure is a super interesting goal that people will in no way find disappointing, he didnāt actively choose to do any of it.
He wasnāt even manipulated into doing it like Arthas was. Heās literally just mind controlled. Its amazing that they somehow wanted to recreate the Lich King/Arthas dynamic and missed the primary thing that made so many people (Not me but others) like Arthas. Which was that he was doing evil things of his own volition.
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I disagree. Iām curious to see how the morally good guy reacts to the fact that he was forced to play a decisive role in the condemnation of thousands, if not millions, of innocent souls to an eternity of anguish and suffering in the Maw.
Imagine something taking control of you and forcing you to go on a shooting rampage that youāre completely aware of but helpless to stop. You might be a good person, and you might still be a good person after, but boy howdy this would change you.