Anduin is one of few true homegrown World of Warcraft characters, and with his succession to the throne of Stormwind it feels like the development of the “boy king” is happening at an unsatisfactory pace considering the story of each expansion occurs over such a long period of time.
In the case of Arthas, another boy king, the episodic storyline of Warcraft 3 provided a concise and poignant way to communicate his development as a character. If you compare his progression from inception to the end of the Frozen Throne he crossed a gulf to end up on the throne with the Helm of Domination on his head.
World of Warcaft’s style of storytelling feels awfully slow in comparison, and it makes the leadership of the Alliance feel weak and like we won’t see an Anduin that fights fiercely for the Alliance for quite a long time, an Alliance that has felt much weaker overall since the passing of Varian. As a player that has ridden both sides of the fence it is a shame to see this and characters like Tyrande and Jaina are refreshing and hopefully get a proper treatment going ahead.
Wow storytelling doesn’t seem slow to me. In fact it seems too fast-- they leap past important character building to get to the “epic” parts, which makes it feel cheap and unearned. Anduin is one character where they have actually taken some time. He is probably one of their most three-dimensional characters as a result.
I hear you, maybe it is just in the way that he compares to other characters that he feels so slow? With BFA the threats were very internal to the existing caste of “grey good guy’ish characters” and some jumped leaps and bounds from where there character was at the start of, say Legion. For that reason Anduin feels like he’s being outshone and lost in the clutter a bit.
We have seen him grow up from young boy to a mighty warrior! Next expansion he will get arrested for drugs and attacking a cop. Then his Disney show main character progression will be complete!
Yeah, I almost agreed that WoW’s writing is too fast paced but it is also somehow slower than cold molasses. Anduin is also tbe least three dimensional character.
Sylvanas is probably the worst victim/perpetrator of this.
It’s been almost two years since she went postal and murdered millions of night elves, and we still don’t know why she did it or what her ultimate goals actually are. At this point nobody cares anymore. We all just assume until proven otherwise that her character has been assassinated for the sake of having a blatant villain, and even if they have some moral twist planned it’s going to land with all the aplomb of a badly gambled fart.
Everything from him taking up his father’s sword to his representation in the BFA trailer, the final in-game Battle for Lordaeron, and even his representation in Saurfang’s in-game cinematic just makes him look like a lost puppy. Where’s that guy with the flaring eyes at the end of him taking back up the sword? He throws it on the ground and mass resurrects everyone instead of jamming it in Sylvanas’ mouth. Varok faces off against Sylvanas.
We’re inevitably going to get a massive SPIKE in Anduin’s character development that is inconsistent with his development throughout these most recent expansions, same as with far too many characters that have been rushed when they suddenly became useful to the core plot. The Night Elves and Jaina have, again, been refreshing in this regard because they were given time to simmer while outside the spotlight.
Our race was annihilated, our leader made some kind of questionably evil pact to gain enough power to… kill a minor lieutenant of the person responsible, and then a developer told us all that we should feel good about our revenge. And now the writing is on the wall to present Tyrande as a villain for wanting anything resembling justice.
I don’t know how anyone could possibly say the night elves didn’t get completely screwed over with a straight face. They were the losers of this expansion, no question. Can’t wait to see how much lower they fall in 9.0 when the rest of the alliance turns their backs on them. (that was sarcastic. I don’t want to see it)
Anduin actually had some pretty good development both in MoP and in Legion. And the reason he is lacking in development at the present time is because he is trying his best to please his faction. He is still unsure of himself and his position as king, and head of the alliance.
She was always shady but she had a greater purpose than
When Arthas died she should have too, because the only direction her character could go after that is either some sort of redemption or to be dragged through the mud as a pointless antagonist. We can see what they decided to go with.
Garrosh told her to take Gilneas and using plague to do so would result in the least Forsaken casualties. It was tactically sound. As was blowing up Undercity to attempt to assassinate Alliance leaders.
Burning down her best bargaining chip because a dying night elf made her remember guitar sliding into Frostmourne was not tactically sound.
still evil tho, she literally didn’t care and would use a plague in a whole nation out of convenience, might be smart but its also evil, the whole reason why she burn darnasus if it was smart or not its whole other debate, if we talking about evil she has being this evil