There’s 2 main sources at the core of what is wrong with the story:
Prioritizing “cool moments” which emphasize shock value over cohesive narrative.
The raiding treadmill killing off a steady stream of important lore characters to provide loot pinatas. Cannibalizing the lore has forced the writers into resorting to ridiculous narrative devices like time travel, alternate universes, retconns, etc.
I don’t know the source, but supposedly the last thing Metzen was working on before leaving the company was the BfA cinematic. Later on, he mentioned that he was shocked that Teldrassil was burned. If that’s true, it means the Alliance attacking Undercity originally had nothing to do with the the Burning of Teldrassil/War of the Thorns storyline.
Yes and it’s partly because Christie Golden has a creepy obsession with Anduin. You can tell if you read Before the Storm.
From a narrrative standpoint? Yes. He is pretty much the cause of all this stuff.
People are gonna be ‘‘buT wRiTerS’’ and while they do suck at their jobs I believe that’s not the point you’re making
Are we talking like Danuser and Nathanos level of obsessed? I read it but not with an eye towards that so I didn’t really notice.
So he doesn’t know whether it was on purpose or not yet is still reaching out to Sylvanas to make peace and putting his own people in harms way. yeah that made alot of sense. BTS is part of the core issue I have with Anduin as its basically a novel written to justify his pacifist notions while villain batting the Horde…
Yet the first thing he does is try to make peace with the Horde after Legion
But he doesn’t need to be both. ITs why he makes such a poor choice for leader of the Alliance
What make him Alliance though, if you put him in the Argent crusade or kirin tor he would be the same character spouting the same thing. Just because he is on the Alliance doesn’t make him “for” the Alliance.
When he stops defending the Horde and seeking to make peace with them and instead wants to see them surrender, then ill agree with you.
Exactly, The legacy of king Varian is dead in the story and will never be brought up again. they can’t bring it up because it wouldn’t line up with anduins whole world peace plan
Christie golden defiantly has an vested interest in making Anduin Savior of the universe. However she also has focus on Jaina and Baine and making them line up with Anduin as well.
Kind of makes sense I don’t like all of their recent characterizations now. Jaina was growing on me until she went right back to peacenik doormat.
Anduin I’ve probably written an essay on and Baine, well, he sent a piece of himself to Anduin. 'Nuff said.
Anduin becoming HIGH KING is the primary issue; but he’s honestly not that bad a character on his own. He’s a pretty standard coming of age story, and in all honesty he would be perfectly find as JUST the King of SW. If there had to be someone in the “High King” position (to lead Joint Nation forces in a time of crisis or war) … then that person REALLY should have been Muradin (for several reasons) … and a LOT of the issues stemming from this story is Anduin being forced into that overarching authority chair he doesn’t fit (same with Sylvie for that matter).
Scary thing is I think High King is just that stepping stone to leader of Azeroth with him leading both Horde/Alliance against the Void.
I think its part of the reason the writers are so afraid to have him do anything during this war because then Horde players won’t accept him as their supreme leader.
Well … that and Blizz wrote themselves into a corner with the Horde this expansion. Like it or not, we are a Playable Faction (with about half the playerbase) too; and many of us Hordies are every bit as invested in this story of this game as the Alliance (as well as the racial fantasies of our favorite PC races). As much as the Alliance finds themselves in the odd position of being restricted by the overwhelming restricting influence of the Anduin; the Horde is the victim of the ridiculous crazy-train that is Sylvanas right now.
Long story short … Anduin is serving as a functional method to justify WHY the Horde will survive this expansion (because Blizz can’t really destroy the Red Faction) … At least no more than just making us side-kicks in what was supposed to be our own stories too like in Legion (man … it is going to piss me off so much if in a potential Shadowlands themed expansion its the Alliance that gets center stage again; even though DEATH is the ONE domain the Horde towers over the Blue Team in terms of relation and relevance).
Exhibit A on why the unifaction fanon is absurd. It doesn’t matter what the writers have Anduin do, most Horde players would never accept Anduin or any Alliance character as their leader and honestly…why should they?
Who even wants that beyond gameplay reasons? I don’t understand the appeal of that scenario. The Alliance are already super, incredibly boring because of Anduin. Character-driven stories need conflict and conflict requires character flaws, differences of opinion, sometimes dramatic differences of opinion. If every racial leader becomes Anduin then WoW might as well be an episode of Captain Planet.
Honestly … as awful as this makes me sound … I would prefer the “Mostly” Red Kalimdor and “Mostly” Blue EK route instead of the unification of the Factions. By all means end the Faction War (its a garbage story thread anyway), but you don’t need to destroy the Factions … just get them out of eachothers hair for a while. I’m not saying I would WANT such faction exclusive continents (outside of Exodar and Silvermoon) … but I wont deny the merits of boths sides being in a position to finally leave the other largely alone either…
100% agree. Then again that applies to pretty much all of the magic wielding leaders.
I hate that people keep bringing that up. Yes the game is called World of Warcraft. It is based on a preceding series of RTS games that started off with the name Warcraft. The marketing people probably recommended calling it World of Warcraft as opposed to say Azeroth, World of Azeroth or whatever the original planet name was before it got retconned.
Outside of those two points most of the rest of this I pretty much agree on. Well the mouth piece I’m out of time for but outside of that. It was an interesting read.
I understand why its being done but its in such a hamfisted way. Though I guess blizzard doesn’t want to be writing two lots of quests for alliance and horde instead just one for the Super alliance under anduin next xpac.
Hey I hope when it comes to shadow lands content the horde get their go. However the Alliance does have Taelia who is lich kings daughter. Who was Anduins ward…so yea…
Funny, I’ve seen a lot of posts by people who think he is “growing into” the role just fine.
I assume they haven’t actually played BfA. Or are just shills.
Do you admit he considers blaming the Horde? Because he does, I just gave you evidence. He said vengeance must way, showing consideration. But like I said before, the Horde via Baine contest what happened and his magic bones back it up.
Baine had expressed his sympathies about Varian’s death, reminding Anduin that he, too, had lost a father. The initial reports from Genn Greymane and others were that Sylvanas had betrayed them, abandoning Varian and presumably every other member of the Alliance, to die when she retreated with no warning from the Broken Shore. Baine, who had been there, had told Anduin a different story. Another wave of demons had appeared, he said, and Sylvanas reported that a dying Vol’jin had ordered her to sound the retreat.
Had Baine lied to him?
No. Anduin’s heart was sore, but there was no warning of danger or deceit from his once-shattered bones. Baine had told the truth as he knew it. Yet no one but Sylvanas, it seemed, had actually heard the order from Vol’jin.
I will not let Sylvanas tarnish my faith in Baine, he thought resolutely. With a deep sigh, he rose and tossed the letter into the fire, watching as the flames flared brightly and reduced the parchment to a blackened writhing ball and then to ashes.
If this writing crew were the screenwriters for A New Hope, we would all hate Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, and even Chewbacca.
Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine would be even more cartoonishly evil than they already are.
Anduin is not the source of the problem; it’s their inability write to a good story.
Many fine posters have commented at length above on how the writers have failed to write Anduin.
Your basically pointing out everything I hate about his charcter. He has his “magic bones” telling him to trust the Horde. He is believing what Baine had told him against what the Alliance like Jaina and Genn are.
Its stupid writing like this that justifies his pushing for peace against all other reasoning.
Well he is also believing Baine because he has a perspective Genn and Jaina don’t have. I mean, I’ve said this before, the entire confusion over the events is stupid when a simple spell lets people see a willing person’s memories. Not to mention Vol’jin’s ghost has been walking around lately.
The ‘all other reasons’ here always seemed far fetched to me in the first place. But beyond that, clearly I care less because I am against the current war narrative in the first place. Mists should have been the end of it. And I don’t think Blizzard fundamentally can do it anymore in a way I find satisfying.
Ok, but like - he’s really super duper hot though…?