I mean, absolutely, but lets be very clear here. There was going to have to be a stopgap force that ensured the Horde survived. That force was always going to come from the Alliance, and if it weren’t Anduin and Jaina it was going to be somebody else. Danuser wrote the Horde going too far. He and his fixation on the WC1/WC2 Horde and Sylvanas threw us over a line that I’m not sure we can ever go back from. Which means there was no way for out faction to really save itself. Alliance Plot-Devices like Anduin and Jaina were gonna happen.
That being said, I liked Jaina’s story on Kul Tiras. It was good, and I at least bought that part of her mellowing out came from her reconnection with family and home. Since a major reason she became so unhinged in the first place was the loss of both. Anduin in contrast, like Saurfang and Thrall, was almost a non-factor outside of the cinematics. Not much of a read on him.
While not a highlight, for me the perfect distillate of BFA is how Anduin, when he faced a hard decision about how to draw away Zul’Dazar’s armies, conveniently had an entire legion of volunteers ready to die on that mission.
Like, him sending men on a suicide mission could have been a great moment of reflection and crisis. But, instead, there are thousands of men and women (including precious, scare Night Elves) falling over themselves to die on Horde blades, sparing him any unwinnable choices.
Their last words as you slaughter them as Horde, by the way, are stuff like ‘We expected this…’. Not regrets, not thoughts of their loved ones, not calls of vengeance - they can’t even die without informing the Horde about how blameless their king is.
As was using the GobSquad to absolutely slaughter your way through these NE forces. It was crazy the bloodshed that quest allowed considering the circumstances.
Yet the story never clearly explained why she mellowed out though. After the events of Legion it almost seemed like she was going to wage a one woman war on the Horde. She even warned everyone that they would regret not going after the Horde and she was proven right.
In BFA she shows up in Lordearon and helps but isn’t exactly that same angry person. She goes to her homeland and is instantly arrested for turning on her father(who ironically was also proven right). Shipped off to death Island where she basically waits for the player to show up. I would have expected to grow more bitter when tormented by the specter of her father taunting her about she was wrong to trust the Horde not coming to the conclusion that she was right. It honestly made no sense to me.
The real frustrating thing as well about this is that no one call Anduin out for this. Originally it was going to be Anduin not Jaina was going to prevent the Alliance pressing the advantage against the zandalari. I guess even Blizzard realised how on the nose it would have been after he sent alliance soldiers to die for no reason.
It would have been nice for Genn or Tyrande or even Moria blame Anduin for throwing away their peoples lives. However no one can second guess this naive 18 year old who doesn’t apparently do anything wrong.
I never even thought of the Battle of Dazar’alor in that context before. All those Ally troops slaughtered, Telaamon included, and for what? For the Alliance to drive the Zandalari into the hands of the Horde, the one thing they hoped to avoid?
It was also the event that entirely invalidated the entire Horde War campaign. Like, seriously, the entire thing. That giant rep grind to get access to stealing the scepter of the tides, and the Alliance just steals it back and we destroy it. LOL WHAT EVEN IS BFA?!
Yeah. He doesn’t even send them to die well, he sends them to get obliterated, like chumps, all in service of a distraction that… works? I mean, it did everything it was meant to - but what it was meant to do was stupid.
The Horde take the bait and STILL get back in time to save most of the citizens from being immolated by Dark Irons, take down a heaping handful of Alliance champions, and then deal mortal* blows to two Alliance faction leaders (*Who get better, but that’s Alliance for you) - only, in the end, for the Horde to get the Zandalari to join them anyway and “win” the 4th war in the end, if the final cinematics are to be believed.
Why did all those soldiers have to get slaughtered again? Isn’t the point of feinting an attack to not actually commit tons of troops to the grinder? Anduin decided the best way to fool his enemy into thinking he was wasting thousands of lives on a doomed attack was just to do it for real. It could have been a nice point of development, but the story can’t bring itself to have him make a hard decision, let alone a wrong one.
Maybe the Alliance wouldn’t have been so outnumbered by the end if he’d been a little more cautious.
I mean, lets not throw all the responsibility on him. Both Genn and Shaw must be some of the worst advisors in existence. Like, Shaw especially consistently proved himself so incompetent that I was convinced he was Mal’Ganis for half this damned expansion. Screwing up on purpose. I mean, my god, where do I even start with this supposed master of spies and assassins? Bilgewater in Silithus? Mucked that up. SI:7 in Org, mucked that up real bad. Saurfang’s release, I mean … holy crap Shaw! He’s even the one to make some grand speech at the suicide mission. LOL!
Let’s not forget that the entire advantage of the Alliance destroying the Golden Fleet was thrown out the window with 8.2, where the Alliance nearly lost their entire fleet when Nazjatar opened up.
This whole stituation was just a painstaking lesson in futility.
You think Anduin would order him to leave a signed paper trail with his own name with a bunch of drunken guards he visited in person to ensure Saurfang made a clean escape? Its like he was trying to implicate Saurfang with SI:7, since he had SI:7 members waiting outside the sewer for would be pursuers. Seriously … a true master of spies he is.
And as a side note, the Saurfang thing was the only gambit Anduin played that actually payed off.
It’s surreal to think that the Alliance won in just about every theater that DIDN’T involve Anduin. They won in Arathi, they won in Darkshore, the latter despite his lack of assistance.
I suppose it does at least mean that he is not in fact a Gary Stu if nothing else. He’s definitely an Author’s pet, but at least he is portrayed as an incompetant screwup who left pretty much every member of the Alliance leadership ticked at him by the end of BfA. Guys sucks at war.
Man, there are so many reminders in BfA alone that Anduin as a character might actually be serviceable if he were just the Fledgling King of SW and not forced into the High King role. MURADIN FOR HIGH KING! ITS TIME FOR THE DWARVES TO SHINE! …outside of Magni and Bran, I’ve had enough of their nonsense.
Again I doubt Anduin gave him much choice in the matter and he had to act quickly to facilitate the escape. I half expect that he wanted it to fail or for saurfang to be killed.
It was still a pretty stupid decision and really should have failed. I mean without meta knowledge there was no way Anduin could have known what Saurfang was thinking at the time. The orc had just lead sylvanas’s forces in Ashenvale and was there during the burning. He was also still with the Horde defending them in Lordearon. None of Saurfangs actions really would have given any indication that he was going to turn on Sylvanas in fact show he supported them.
Not to mention there is no reaction to his release from anyone else in the alliance like Tyrande or Genn. I highly doubt they would have agreed to those actions.
The story bends to try Justify Anduins actions and ignores all the time he screws up
At this point you can’t convince me he isn’t an agent of someone outside of the Alliance. Goblin engineering explodes less often than Shaw screws up.
Which reminds me, is Shaw still the one that accidentally reveals Bolvar being alive to Taelia?
There was some datamined stuff about the Alliance leaders talking about finding out how Saurfang escaped at some point during BfA, but it didn’t make it to the live game.
I doubt Blizzard will throw the one gay rep they have in WoW under the bus.
He is a priest. You know the guys who use leap of faith. I doubt he knew 100% what Saurfang would do but I am pretty sure he realized Saurfang did not like what was happening to the Horde.
ah yes, Anduin’s Magic bones… If that isn’t the laziest writing to make sure your favorite character doesn’t make mistakes. He is a such Mary Sue that an attack that should have crippled him now given him super powers.