I mean…
Anduin has to be pretty damn naive, or yes, stupid, to think Tyrande’s going to answer his summons and show up at the gates of Orgrimmar to save the Horde from yet another Warchief…after he basically told her, “Get in line, reclaiming your home isn’t our highest priority.”
I fear vengeance has consumed her.
Mansplaining doesn’t make you a grownup, Andy.
Even Shandris should have told him to go screw himself.
The Warchief has a throne.
But her agents don’t do that. I know because I’ve played one. For the most part it’s the same content but, less, like with Zenkan where you don’t help out Saurfang but he clearly didn’t need it. Or you do stuff like break Derrick and Baine out of prison but, undercover because Slyvanas is a using clever strategy from Sun Tzu’s lesser known ??? -> Profit chapter in the Art of War. Only the ending is actually different where you do see perceived rebel sympathizers dragged away in chains to the open delight of her loyalists.
But Anduin needing to give Saurfang a pep talk so he stops depression napping in the Stockades isn’t? It’s not even like Saurfangs under some lethargy charm Anduin dispells. No its just,
“Nope. I’ve seen to much ish as is. I’m just going to curl up in a ball and rot in this prison”
“C’mon, please help me stop the Banshee Queen”
“Oh, alright. I’ll do it for you kiddo”.
Seeing as Before The Storm has him reevaluate his prejudice toward the Forsaken, that’d be
That’s not to say other Alliance couldn’t do bad things. Turalyon and Alleria just got back from space and have never seen the Horde not be deranged pricks before so why try to coexist with them? And Trollbane already sounds like he’s about to ruin Pilgrim’s Bounty by saying Teldrassil was engineered by Gnomes so the Nelf refugees can come to Stormwind to out populate humans. So he can just be Stabby McRacist. You also have Ivar Bloodfang and plenty of other secondary characters you could make go to a very dark place during the war.
Instead though it’s the Horde who I guess are mostly completely deranged racists. We’re told Slyvanas has the support of the people of the Horde but we’re never told why. It’s not like she’s improving infrastructure or winning great victories for the Horde. Since taking office the Horde is now down a city and the Forsaken are now panhandling outside the Wyvern’s Tail.
Slyvanas doesn’t seem powerful enough to rule through fear alone, she’s not successful enough to rule through respect, and the Alliance isn’t brutal enough to make it believable that the Horde feels wars the only option. They just come off at best as complete idiots and at worse like bloodthirsty wackos who evidently always quietly wanted to burn down Teldrassil. Was it obstructing views? What’s the reasoning?
Anduin giving Saurfang some pep in his step for being lazy/sad isn’t as stupid, with people like Genn Greymane being present during the Mak’gora. Genn was right all along, maybe Genn would have been able to convince Saurfang faster.
They do jump on the “let’s torture for information” bandwagon pretty quickly…
Gonna say that’s an old favorite from the Lordaeron days.
It is considering Saurfang was literally right there at Teldrassil during the pre-expansion World Event and did jack all about it until the tail end of the expansion.
Which literally only involved him dying in combat anyway.
So he still accomplished jack all for playing a key role in the Burning.
I will agree I think those scenes could’ve worked much better if it was Genn. They’re both old soldiers who’ve buried their sons and struggled with magical rage issues. That could be an interesting dynamic.
But Heaven Forfend we ever go ten minutes without the story reminding us what a forward thinking, erudite and might I say very handsome young man this Anduin is.
Sylvanas rules through the inherit hatred of the Horde, towards the Alliance, or all life on Azeroth or w/e. It’s how she convinces Saurfang, and it’s why the dude needs his little coaching sessions from Anduin.
As far as it goes, Genn was more concerned with following through with the right thing, from the beginning he established in Stormheim. Talking to Saurfang would have, reasonably, been a complete waste of his time. It takes someone with more patience, to convince the raging warmonger, and that person is Anduin.
To me personally. Genn not killing some evil Forsaken in Org, is a little more stupid then him giving up hating them in the first place, despite ya boy Anduin being so convincing. Or Alonsus I can’t remember who does it to Genn.
Actually his reasoning is one of the legitimately good parts of Before The Storm.
He sees an undead women left in tears by her ex living husband and she doesn’t become enraged or try to kill him or anything. She’s just completely shattered and stands there looking defeated.
Before he admits he only saw the Forsaken at war. He saw them as monsters jealous of life who wanted to destroy it. He’d never seen one just be a person, dealing with immense pain not by lashing out but by just quietly suffering.
Nah, see…this supposedly-miraculous “Light Goldy Boy” ability Anduin has to magically turn everyone into a good person is the biggest stupidity of all.
You have Genn Greymane, who’s hated the Forsaken for years because of what they—not just Sylvanas—did to Gilneas.
Before the Storm: “Well, maybe they’re not all bad.”
You’ve got Saurfang, a grizzled war veteran, who after learning he’s just been played for a sap at Teldrassil, proceeds to…enter into a depressive state that only Anduin can snap him out of, rather than lopping off Sylvanas’ head with a patented, rage-filled, Saurfang Cleave 
right then and there.
Anduin Wrynn is not “Da Chosen One.” He’s not some magical Light Prince who somehow makes everyone want to sing kumbaya together.
If the Battle for Dazar’alor and the Darkshore Warfront are any indication, he’s an immature, idiotic child playing king, and an absolute imbecile when it comes to anything resembling military strategy.
Well, at the end of the day he’s only as convincing as Sylvanas I guess. Seeing as Saurfang I guess sits around, and pouts all day if one or the other isn’t influencing him.
Pretty much this.
Horde got a genocidal Warchief who makes them look like monsters.
Alliance got a classically-European, blonde-haired/blue-eyed “angel child” who’s so full of hope and Light and purity that he can charm his ickle way into one of the most ferocious orc war veterans of the Third War.
Lose-lose for both sides.
Well, if Greymane had done the convincing I think a lot of people would have had their feelings hurt. The Horde’s former warchief has her cheeks stained from tears after all.
They’re a sensitive group of hateful savages.
Faol actually sends him running from the Cathedral of Light like he summoned a vacuum cleaner and causes Turalyon to cry when he pulls his “Search your feelings” moment.
Genn initially cannot deal with the reality this man he respected is both undead and also still the man he respected. He goes away instead of trying to confront that challenge to his prejudice. Deciding Faol is the exception. Not the rule.
It’s when he sees a bunch of other Forsaken meet their families that he really changes his mind. And it’s not the happy reunions that do it. Because he’s sitting there, thinking
“Oh this is going fine now but the second one gets upset they’re going to attack”.
And then a Forsaken gets really upset. To the point where responding with anger wouldn’t really be out of hand. Someone she still loves called her a monster and stormed off. But she’s just extremely sad, not angry, certainly not murderous. And as Genn is prejudice, not bigoted, this makes him reevaluate his world view.
Then isn’t that reason enough to say, Saurfang needed Anduin’s lip service for convincing, because he’s probably still trapped in his, belligerent, rage against people who are, and have been trying to help his Horde?
Did you play the game? Obviously not. Because Saurfang doesn’t want to come with the Horde when they offer to break him out of prison while rescuing Talanji.
I’m more then aware of that. I’m pretty sure he was more informed then the rest of the Horde was about how dangerous being the in the vicinity of Sylvanas at the time would have been.
Like it or not, it still took Anduin’s convincing, and talking down to see him go through with anything.
Yeah. And I maintain it’s pretty crummy writing when the guy who’s arc is sacrificing himself to save the soul of the Horde needs to have the High King of the Alliance be his personal cheerleader to get there.
Perhaps they thought this story needed an idealistic young man showing a defeated old man that the world is still worth fighting for. That’s fine. But did it need two? Because why the hell would you invent Zenkan for that purpose- and then still have the King of Stormwind do it twice.
Zenkan is a literal Saurfang fan boy. He would’ve happily waved pom poms for him.
White America does not desire to be hated. This is White America in a nutshell.
White America when the times were good and the WASPS were basking in the prosperity caused by the longest boom in the country’s history. (which what you get when every country that was competing with you was bombed flat in World War 2), White America was willing to tolerate others in a paternalistic way as long as “they kept their place” and it was clear that they were in full ownership as the super majority voting block in the country.
That’s no longer the case now. White America sees nonwhites as the barbarians at the gates. They see themselves as becoming a minority, and many have at least a subrosa awareness of how this country deals with minorities. The simmering resentment went into full panic mode when one of THEM was elected to the highest office in the land and it hasn’t died down since.
But the fire had been stoking for decades prior when Nixon crafted his Southern strategy. You’re simply not old enough to remember when the world and this country was in a different tone.
Ah, well it’s not quite so much so that Saurfang needs to be convinced the world needs saving, as much the Alliance will still be around after he assists saving said world, that he needed convincing about.
Yeah, I actually play the game btw. I’m just not as concerned about crap like Zekhan as you though.