He’s not a soldier. He has a long history of RUNNING from his problems. He has never really run joint NATION armies. And he is the poster child of “living through too much” (now that Saurfang has kicked the bucket and lost that title). Muradin in contrast does truly have more experience with current events of AZEROTH over the last 15 years than just about any other leader. Has more experience running Joint Nation military operations than just about any other Alliance hero living atm. And above all, the Dwarven Kingdoms have hit an era of stability … which means that he will have to focus on their upkeep less (and focus on his duties in some High King role more).
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How about we just abolish the position seeing that it has no real purpose? The Alliance never needed it to begin with.
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I don’t take that into account, it was a different Horde, different orcs from the vast majority of orcs currently fighting-age in the current Horde. It was a horrible thing, a terrible genocide, but it can’t be blamed on the Horde of the present. Not saying the current Horde isn’t responsible for some horrible stuff, just making that distinction between Old and New because I don’t think being demon-corrupted and out of their minds holds them responsible for their actions.
You’re welcome to disagree and present your rebuttals if you’d like, but I’m not super interested in arguing it too much because most people who insist the New Horde is responsible for the Old Horde’s actions entirely are usually the type of people who have their minds made up about the Horde anyway.
Understanable thrn yes by that standard the night elves suffered the most.
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Did you play through any of post-ToS Legion? Velen does exactly the opposite of all those things, including being introduced to a new concept from Illidan (screw fate, screw relying on other powers to comfort and protect us rather than our own capabilities—a pretty radical concept for a 25,000 year old prophet), absorbing that concept, and exploring it with an open mind. He faces his problems pretty square-on in Legion and has led his people through more strife and sorrow-filled years than the Alliance has days. I don’t necessarily think he’d be the best possible High King, I’m just correcting what I feel to be absolutely weak opinions with little basis, and at times outright refutation, in the canon.
And why would being a soldier have anything to do with leading the Alliance at all? I thought the Alliance and Horde were supposed to be at peace now. What purpose would putting a soldier on the throne serve? Perhaps having peacemongers on both factions’ sides would be best for all (up until a new world-ending threat comes around lol).
Thanks, booboo. As an orc fan of 15 years, my reflexes when it comes to that specific topic are swift and unyielding.
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I tend to seperate the new and old horde as well it is only fair
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If we have to have a Supreme Commander of the Military, it should be either Turalyon or Jarod Shadowsong (preferrably the latter to show that non-Humans matter too, really).
But if we must have a High King who must be a political leader, then I’d go with either Muradin or Mekkatorque. Velen’s too alien, Genn and Tyrande are busy getting their lands and justice, and Anduin’s too young, inexperienced, idealistic, annoying, concerned with the well-being of the Alliance’s enemies…
Eitrigg is the only remaining prominent orc from Blackhand’s Horde now that Saurfang got death beam’d, isn’t he?
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Blizzard doesn’t really develop any of the Alliance leaders to such a meaningful degree that any of them would fit the High King position.
They didn’t even develop Anduin for the role. They just threw it on him and expected everyone to accept it blindly.
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Velen really should have been the supreme commander after the great arc he had in legion, didn’t he stopped running away and became proactive? to trust in visions ?
This expansion he didn’t even had a single-line-of dialogue.
why? but in the other hand… if he became the “supreme commander” he would too receive an insane amount of hate for wanting to stop the war at some point.
maybe because… well the genocide thing… yeah…
stupid blizz.
maybe velen would’ve remembered that they have a giant space ship that could’ve prevented the genocide.
Thiiiis is actually not true.
Anduin’s role throughout most of WoW’s was the very obvious buildup to leadership. From his characterization from the comics and books, to him running off to do “what he believed was right” in Pandaria, once Varian came back and Anduin started to do things, it was very very clear Blizzard was building him up to be a leader.
It’s basically what they were doing with Vol’jin, except unlike the troll who was fast tracked from (essentially) just the troll leader to Warchief in a single expansion, Anduin’s arc was stretched over years across multiple things.
Compare that to basically any other Alliance leader and there is quite literally no one else was set of narratively to be Supreme Commander. Anyone who took that role would have just been given a Death Flag for Anduin to eventually take the role.
But this goes over everyone’s head because Blizzard had the bright idea to name the Supreme Commander “High King” to match the grandiose of Warchief…
Yep exactly.
Also given the… mindset the writers like to display themselves as having on twitter, they are an extremely ill fit to be put in the position of trying to write an adequate Hero’s Journey story as they seemingly think it means the character has to be a Mary Sue right out of the gate who doesn’t have to struggle to learn and grow into that mold, instead being given all the privileges and prestige a hero should ONLY have by end of their journey.
I have to disagree. Anduin’s development has more to do with his development as a person. His story is more of a coming of age story. None of it had any relevance with leadership.
What chance Blizzard had with Anduin developing “leadership” was squandered in BtS and BfA by making the story re-align around his ideals, or by not having him show up at all. Varian had “trials” to set up his leadership and to prove his worth. Anduin had none of this. He’s just suddenly High King with zero explanation or build up and that’s supposedly called “build up.”
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It was building his character…and also his future to lead. Just about every plot involving Anduin involved him being told “One day you will lead Stormwind as King” and blah blah blah.
That was the build up in the narrative. But then Blizzard shat the bed at the end by killing Varian and just dropping Anduin into the role however way before he should have been. I think there was originally supposed to be a narrative foil between Anduin and Sylvanas becoming leaders of their factions, but then they went all in on Sylvanas being laughably evil and Sadfang so that was the end of that.
Even his future as king of Stormwind was nothing but a few vague “you will one day be king” comments at the end of a personal problem. That screams more of personal development than leadership. Then again, I don’t expect anyone at Blizzard to know anything about actual leadership outside of a few buzzwords.
Yes, being the King of Stormwind is a different job than being High King. His development for the latter is nonexistent.
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Except for the fact that back in MoP the dwarves nearly withdrew all their support until Varian(and later Moira) stepped in. The High King, has mostly been focused on getting the rest of the Alliance to support whatever military venture is needed by the Alliance and at best been more of a high level leader. The actual field leadership has usually been left to various Alliance commanders over the years, or in Jaina’s case an Alliance leader.
Except even Saurfang considers it a part of the Horde’s legacy. If the Horde wants to continue using its name, it will ALWAYS end up being directly linked to its bloody past.
We already know the issue with trying to make Gelbin the Alliance leader. The Mechagnome recruit mention that he has always been gnome first and Alliance second. As for Muradin, he has never been that interested in leading the dwarves, much less the entire Alliance. And even if he did, I doubt Moira and Falstad would simply let him considering there is still abit of infighting between then and only now do they have some modicum of stability.
Only if you look at it in game. As I stated his development was spread out over years across the comics, multiple books, and finally here and there in game (and most prominent being MoP).
It clearly wasn’t done when they decided to fast track it to High King but it was there.
Compare that to literally any other leader in the Alliance. None of them had a story arc that would could have concluded with “Now you are a leader”. And I’m not talking about the boring fan hate jerk over “this person should be High King because experience!” From the outside, writer/reader perspective any option other than Anduin was just dropping a body in the high seat to serve as a plot device. Anduin so far as WoWs life is concerned is the only one built with a story that the High King could work with.
Then they effed it up by making his foil a cartoon super villain who can’t really lose.
The other leaders do not require that much build up as they are already leaders. Anduin had none of that pre-established fluff. Going from stage 5 to stage 6 is more of a natural progression than skipping two. Anduin as high king only works for an writer’s perspective that looks at him as the only protagonist from the get go, however only recently has the narrative put a lser focus on him at the expense of everyone else.
Muradin progressing to High King shouldn’t require much build up. He’s already a proven leader. Same with Turalyon. Anduin moving to High King breaks the suspension of disbelief because he went from zero to hero without the meat of the a hero’s journey.
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The problem with characters like Muradin, Tyrande, hell just about any leader on both sides is that without the sufficient build up and an actual reason for the person to lead, you just end up with a guy on the chair waiting for the plot to have a use for them.
And we saw what happens when you raise a leader like that; Vol’jin was fast tracked to Warchief with at most 1 expansion and a book to justify it and once he was there, Blizzard didn’t have anything to do with him so they offed him to bloody trash.