What to do with Anduin?

Lore Story
15

The idea here was less about what they will do, but what they should do, just to have fun imagining. They might not be competent story writers, but the story you propose could be? :wink:

I kinda like preparing my expectations and speculating a bit. The worst-case-scenarios for WoW’s writing aren’t exactly hard, but the best case can be more complicated, considering the baggage they have to deal with.

Well, apart from being outrageous, I guess it does have the benefit of actually making everything about human failings, instead of cosmic catastrophes. Falling in love with the wrong femme fatale during his dark phase might be a bit ridiculous, but ridiculous in a human way. There would have to be a real option to oppose him, though, else they are killing the RP element once again, by forcing players to do stuff they don’t want their character to stand behind.

I’m not so much interested in Anduin as a character, but more in Anduin as a part of the story. I’ll agree that Varian was the better king, once they magicked his faults out of him, but he was also not very interesting. I don’t miss Varian, I only regret Anduin’s ascension. A perfect king could easily make the story more boring, instead of more interesting, since there is no reasonable ground for conflict. So just looking at how his personality might have matured doesn’t really give me the idea about the worthwhile story of his return, that I’m looking for.

I find that really hard while sticking to the “cosmic powers” conflict. We already know the answer to that one too well. Any of the six in excess is bad and its own kind of evil, we need an apropriate balance. Anyone who is for the balance that allows for flourishing, but not all-consuming life is good, everyone who is against that is bad. So if we make it about void-Anduin vs light-Turalyon we’d alredy know that both sides are wrong, if it was balance-Anduin vs. light-Turalyon, we’d already know tat the golden boy is the only reasonable choice once again.
I guess they could create a conflict about how to achieve balance, or where to draw the lines, but that’s pretty abstract, and not easy to do. I personally can’t really see any story build around that working for me, yet.

I might prefer the Anduin-Sylvanas-marriage to that one.

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16

The point of it sort of is that they come in way past the point of :poop: hitting the fan and the void/light stuff is at the moment unfortunately the best set up topic key groups could ideologically squabble over. Could something else be set up? Yes, of course, however it’d need an even longer build otherwise you again end up with a Dragonflight, where hugely powerful characters and organisations pop out of thin air for no reason outside us needing a punching bag.

Anduin will need somebody who opposes him and fundamentally challenges at least one of his core values. Regardless of the finer details. That’s the reason Joker vs Batman, Superman vs Luthor and so forth have been such enduring rivalries.

17

Would it? I mean, we don’t exactly lack established organizations with established characters and differing ideologies on Azeroth. Do you really need that much of a buildup to make some race relations within the alliance go bad, or to create a conflict between ideologically opposed organisations like the Silver Hand and the Ebon Blade, once there aren’t any more important shared goals to focus on? I don’t think Light vs Void is without alternatives at all. I’m just not looking to explore them here, except in the context of how they might help to make Anduin’s return not suck.

That’s one way to do it, yes. I’m not set on having him be the protagonist again, though, and I wouldn’t mind if his role were to be permanently diminished, either. So I don’t think we need to focus solely on conflict around him to look for ways to resolve his story. Like I said, I’m looking for best cases, and as one might have gathered, I wasn’t an especially big fan of Anduin before his timeskip-hiatus, either.

18

Tbh I’m not convinced racial tensions on their own will really cut it, the Aliance and Horde are effectively dead, as a concept, especially once the cross faction guilds become a thing and many of the organisations we have are either world police, nishe or have no friends. Who would ally with the Ebon Blade against Silver Hand and Friends, over what?

Sure primary kingdoms and such of races can have territorial disputes, but that’s barely something the people on azeroth would give that much fo a toss about. So going to the afterlife to fetch Anduin&co from retirement would be a complete overkill, unless it became some huge campaign again.

Even as a member of the supporting cast he needs to have those moments and counterparts. No point returning him if he isn’t used and urine takes rarely work for long term storytelling.

19

I’m not gonna argue that, since it really doesn’t advance my cause of looking for the best case. I guess, if your offer is Anduin featuring prominently in Light vs. Void, celebrity couple Anduvanas leading to melted brains seems like the better contender to me. Which is saying something. Let’s see if anyone can come up with something better. I’ll certainly try at some point.

20

Ok, how about this one, though the details need some work: Anduin comes back, but at first it is far from the main plot. The idea would be that he actually was back on Azeroth for a long time, which only Bolvar, who ferried him out, knows about, and has been wandering about the world incognito. In Shadows Rising, we saw him breaking under the weight of rulership, and preferring to go among the people as one of them, and afterwards his faith has been shattered. If he came back, and noticed that the world was doing pretty fine with Turalyon on the throne, maybe even better off, considering his experience. Cosidering Anduin’s character, there isn’t much of a reason to assume that he would claim his throne, if he didn’t feel he had to.

There could be a series of weekly sidequests, where we either knowingly, or unknowingly follow Anduin’s footsteps through the world. We could first reistablish the state of enduring despair he is in, gain some glimpse of the time he spent in the Maw (maybe through stories he told to others), and finally help, or at least witness, him get his goove back. Most of the characters that are involved in the main plot and its current politics could be unaware of him, so that he really wouldn’t have to be involved.

I think it would make sense to do more of a MCU-Thor-arc for him, where he finds out that he isn’t the best person for a throne, and that his personal priorities are with helping people directly, not commanding nations. A big part of that could be dealing with Bolvar, whose relationship with him still has some room for exploration, and Calia, who is another royal heir who gave up any designs for a throne. Maybe even Anduin’s search for love could be worked in. If Bolvar is involved, working with Taelia on tracking him might make sense, and she has always been an obvious candidate for romance with him.

I would also personally like to see him reestablish his connection to the Light. His dark magics came from dark places, and I’d like the game to acknowledge that that isn’t a good and sane thing. Anduin getting over his trauma and finding his inner light again, is a classic kind of story, him accepting the darkness as equally valid just a bit of nihilism.

In the end we could work the Lordaeron-plot into it. If Anduin is doing stuff in Loraderon, we could finally do something with the Scarlet Brotherhood that those letters from 8.3 teased. They could snatch up Anduin, as another potential political ressource. Them having the rightful ruler of Stormwind in their grasp would be an obvious benefit to them, and dealing with people who would use the “holy” Light for evil might spark the outrage that Anduin needs to find back to his own convictions, and thus access to the Light, once again. If he feels that he isn’t worthy of the Light right now, dealing with Light-users that are more despicable can be a plausible contrast.

In the end I’d like Anduin to be an adventurer character on our level. A priest that we can party up with on a quest. A wanderer who helps people in need. High level, sure, but not with the fate of nations on his back, and not a cosmic level saviour like Khadgar and Jaina.

I’m still mulling over that idea, but I think I might like him like that.

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21

I’m still at odds with the whole Holy Light thing. I fear that Turalyon will become a religious extremist when Yrel invades Azeroth with her Lightbound fanatics. I’m almost sure that after Dragonflight there will be another invasion, either of the Void or the Light. Then, the prophecy about the “third death” will come true and either Arator or Turalyon die, sending Alleria over the edge and then… [thank you, profanity filter]… poo-poo will fall into a ventilator.

I still believe Anduin to be the true Child of Light and Shadow, but the far more important question for Azeroth is:
Will he have a beard when he returns? :man_beard:

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22

Like I said, I am not trying to predict anything here. I do agree that when they introduced fanatic Yrel and Xe’ra, they certainly had some Light invasion plot in mind. I’m not so sure about Turalyon, since he has been supportive of his voidy wife from the start, but I guess I see how they could escalate that situation, if they wanted to.

What I’m certain of is that I don’t want them to. And with their recent directional chances, I am not convinced that the devs are sticking to their original plans, either.

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23

I have a soft spot for the Warcraft 2 characters and everything regardig Turalyon and Alleria has a bit of nostalgia for me, so I don’t want to see any of them “corrupted”, but… I guess, we have to wait and see. Arator would fit the prophecy as well, since his father is Lightforged and his Mother Void-infused, but there has to be a pay-off for that weird purple force that crawled up Anduin’s arm in the novel.

I really wonder what he might be doing in the Shadowlands, and I’m excited to see what he’ll become after therapy with Sylvanas.

24

Why should he be corrupted? He could simply be driven by faith and conviction, in the AotL’s values, in contrast to a more true believer standpoint of the likes of Velen.

Alleria is either going to get rid of the naaru, go mad from the whispers or have it be completely irrelevant for the rest of her existence.

25

God Emperor Anduin Wrynn will return after his done the classic horde soul searching ™ thing and just like the horde he will have learned nothing from it :smiley:

26

He is not going to die and will return eventually. No need to worry.

27

So I am doing the human Heritage Armor quest and working from your idea of Anduin being a low profile figure , how about this ?
Doing the heritage Armor quest I liked the old school vibes of the nobles and the small people . Going around the old zones .
So going from there we could have Anduin return incognito and message us (the hero) to meet him , since he’s known us since Pandaria .
He goes around similarly to how old Thiroun Fordring was (before he became the Ashbringer >>> in vanilla he was just named “The Hermit” ) . Basically no-one recognizes him and he goes around helping the small people . He asks us the hero to go with him on his journey to see the world from the perspective the small man . We fix carts ,save kids from wolves , kick the behind of some corrupt noble who took the mayor’s daughter and so on . We go around and see how our heroic antics have really put ordinary Joe trough the grinder and no one cares for him . Remember the Vanilla set up ? The armies are away fighting who knows what and there is no-one to protect us . Well damn , we have been away for a veeeeery long time . Surely much has happened .

All of the above goes well with Anduin’`s desire to help people and would be nice not to put him on some shining pedestal of all knowing guru . The above selfless acts could really expand his connection to the “light” also , as to tell the truth I like the light to remain good and not some ambiguous cosmic force . It would also build him up to be a truly good and respectable future king in deeds and not just words .
It also gives us a chance to revisit old zones and see what happened to many characters we interacted with in the past .
Best of all , this is a back to ground approach , where we can finally be just >>> that guy and not All mighty lvl 9999999999.9 hero .

To tell the truth this could have been a great set up for a new expansion , where you don’t even have to invest tons of time and resources in creating new zones . You simply use the old once and put in them some quality content . To tell the truth , I am so tired of these 3-4 zone expansions , back to back .Azeroth is supposed to be wide place and you are stuck in a small speck of it all the time . Supper boring .
All the above could have actually been this expansion instead of going to dragon lala land and I would have enjoyed having 30-40 zones with 50-100 quests in them to complete instead of riding dragons in the same zones over and over . I think this would have been a good use of the “time skip” and the “end of story” of the Jailor .

This leads me to my next though . Blizzard should really reconsider their approach of “islands” for each expansion and instead revive the old world . Make new content for it , so that we can see it change with each expansion based on the actions we took . It could also help fix the leveling experience as now new players would be on the same level of old players exploring the world together .

28

I think for now it’s pretty out of character for him to have fallen this far so quickly. I mean he’s come back from Garrosh quite literally dropping a bell on his head, led the Alliance to victory in the Fourth War and as seen in the new heritage questlines he was doing genuine good in Westfall and cracked down on corruption within the House of Nobles.

I think this complete radio silence is really out of character, but I would like to see him working from the shadows for a while and basically having Shaw relay his commands. I know Turalyon is an overall good character, but if he ever becomes a bit too big for his boots and starts making aggressive movements against the Horde and ignoring Anduin’s edicts/changes them, that’s when Anduin should step forward again.

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To be fair, he was imprisoned and tortured for 2 years, and then had his mind violated, and watched his body murder indiscriminately. That does sound like it could be worse than what he went through before.

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Tbh it’s rookie numbers for at least 50% of characters in this game whether lore characters or random NPCs.

31

For innocents/allies? Not really, no. And I think the mind-graping-thing is quite different than doing it of your own volition.

32

I say Alliance civil war. Imagine all the suppressed scores people could settle.

I bet Wimbert has the longest black list!

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33

Purge them all!

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34

Why are the people so obsessed by the idea of an alliance intern conflict, the garrosh story a third time only dyed in blue.
That doesn’t make the story any better if you change colour, its just predictable and the outcome won’t changed after all, at the end ist just status quo.