Sylvanas was a little different from a conqueror; she wanted to be an extinction event. That said, normalcy bias is a hell of a drug when you’re trying to hope that your new Warchief isn’t pulling a sequel to your worst Warchief that you had to physically depose.
Even then, notice how Sylvanas was regarded as a hated villain once she burned the tree.
Azeroth no longer has a tolerance for conquerors.
To be fair the writing was awful since WoD. But my entire point was that it is expected that conquest is part of the Warcraft Fantasy. And it is bizzare to play World of WARcraft to avoid everything related to War, conflict, strife and such.
End of the day, we’re supposed to be the heroes of the day; we face the reality-ending threat and beat it down so Azeroth can keep spinning. We can have war and conflict all we like, but we need to direct that toward the actual threats. Being forced to fight each other over some of the stupidest nonsense is completely counterproductive. Teldrassil was an awful event, and not just because it was horrific on its own merits, but because it made every Alliance character into incompetents and every Horde character into monsters.
He has been and as the leader of the alliance its expected that he will lead men again in combat. This quality to fall apart is bad leadership.
But when he fell apart he wasnt actively leading.
To say that our leaders must remain stoic in their private lives away from subordinates is a bit harsh imo. To never voice doubt, ever in their lives?
If this happened in the middle of a battle with people actively looking to him, that would be different.
Where does Angron fit on that list?
Is this another veiled Anduin X Wrathion thread? Gosh some people really are creepily obsessive…
My issue is, as realistic an interpretation as Anduin’s PTSD is, it doesn’t feel particularly earned. He says the exact same words Saurfang does about “what I’ve seen, what I’ve done”, but it was far more raw and far better executed with Saurfang because you know just how messed up his life has been. Especially matched up with a green and idealistic recruit like Zekhan who thinks only in terms of the propaganda he’s been fed about war.
This seems to be a case where he’s skipped a step. Most characters of this type, made to do something bad potentially against their will, usually have a phase where they question what they’re doing…and then they make a mistake where they deliberately do something terrible and don’t realize it until they get slapped in the face with the consequences. THEN they are left in the state you see here in this cinematic.
That being said, my favorite kind of heroes are those who go through dark times, even struggle with inner demons…but they never lose their optimism.
Probably not for nothing that this is my favorite song right now.
His struggle is precisely with people like you though.
People WANT him to be a ruthless leader, but he’s someone who is actually quite merciful and compassionate.
These traits don’t make a weak or bad leader and in fact can make a very strong leader.
Not every leader needs to be a zugzug idiot warrior like Garrosh
There is no “look” to trauma
Oh you mean how men were abused to keep their emotions in until they explode like a emotional bottle rocket and lash out?
Newsflash: That’s not healthy. Or normal. At all.
And if you say “Oh I went thru that and I went thru it fine. Other men should have that forced on them” then you didn’t actually make it out fine.
The dude has witnessed countless loved ones and friends die. Has attempted to be diplomatic every step of the way. Was thrusted into leadership when his father died. Has experienced multiple wars by now and essentially grown up in them. And what finally broke his convictions on everything is being dominated by the Jailer essentially being awake but having no control over the things you’ve done. And that’s barely scraping the iceberg with his history.
Guy has PTSD just like Thrall did after taking out his BEST FRIENDS only son and just wanted to get away from everything.
Heroes? I didn’t feel very heroic in the past. Mercenary that would do anything for the loot? Damn right.
But you highlight the issue that I have with this game and that is lack of agency. The game decides for you on whatever you want to be good, bad or between.
I’d rarher if we had an option to do things our way. So Alliance could act evil and I could be shady individual that threads the fine line between good and evil.
And honestly those threats you mention feel super hollow to me. Made up third party with close to zero backstory, that serves more as a monster of the week than actual meaningful adversary.
This is why I prefer horde vs Alliance because I care the most about my faction and the enemy that I face I know the best - we have a long history after all. It’s personal.
I have zero attachment to third party that is usually super forgettable and irrelevant once the expansion is over. Since SL all we have is neutral contwnt - and it’s soulless, boring and just doesn’t resonate with me at all. Espeically when you are meant to follow pet characters that represent themselves most of the time, and yeah I am not into Anduin at all, any other option would be better than him yet the game is hell bent of making him main character when he isn’t that popular among playerbase.
And I don’t want to fix others problems espeically when I have plenty of my own- and If I am meant to I better get something in return.
basically what you say goes, got it
This, THIS. This is my problem with the storyline - not that Anduin has feelings, but they forgot to give him anything to have this level of feelings about.
Born into war he didn’t ask to be around or being a king
Lose both parents
Captured by Onyxia and almost fed to baby dragons
Nearly killed after being tackled into a bell. And being left with chronic pain afterwards.
Forced into a leader role after dead dad
Isolated in his imprisonment
Enduring Domination magic
All while also experiencing the confusing shock that he enjoyed hurting people
Yeah sure they totally skipped like. So many steps. Or how all this goes down in like 10 years just one after the other.
Anduin has always been very capable. I think the most telling thing here is that people seem to just want to see him kill a bunch of people. And that’s the opposite of what Anduin is, it’s not that surprising when people seem to so highly praise garrosh who was basically just a hot headed racist unfortunately.
But he was totally fine, an optimistic little blonde bean until this point.
These are the only bits that he’s in his feelings about currently. And that, they just didn’t properly set up in the story. Maybe they originally had more planned that would make him feel more betrayed by himself, a good Plague of Stratholme-ing that got cut for time or just inattention. If the Kyrian leader that he’d stabbed had even been actually destroyed, I might’ve seen it. Or killing another ally after the fact. But he just didn’t really do anything when he was under the Jailer’s control, so it’s puzzling that he’s spent the past few years being so Shrek’t by it.
No one is capable 100 percent. That’s foolish. Even characters like Doom guy have their bad days. ( altho doomguy does bounce back quickly but I hope I made sense )
Try being a pacifist all your life. And suddenly you’re surprised that you enjoyed hurting someone.
Is that you? Or the domination magic? I think anyone would break in that instance. Especially since he was alone all this time post Shadowlands.
There’s also the fact that he doesn’t feel connected to the light anymore. He probably begged the light to help him during all that in Shadowlands and just having no answer.
Current “War Within” Anduin makes total sense
Anduin is being formed by his experiences like we all are. Or at least that is what i see them portraying with him. He unfortunately has been unevenly written at times and that leads to some of the criticism but i enjoyed the new cinematic and the exposition even if it was not the big bold moments we have gotten with some of the other announcement trailers. I think it was important to see where Anduin is at emotionally and mentally and this interaction with Thrall showed quite a bit about the aging of both and where they are in life.
In the future they just need to continue his arc of being formed into the man they want him to be but have it written more intelligently and more forthright without him constantly wallowing in tears…basically he needs to man up some once they have forged the man they want him to become from the child (and by extension childish/unrealistic world view he had) he was.