expansion started 2 weeks ago, give the story the time to open up for crying outloud x’D it is like reading the first 10 pages of a book and deeming it worthless
…if it’s worthless you often don’t need more than these few pages. You might not be able to see all the plot, but you can see the qualtiy.
Yes, which they never built up on. If he had been shown to ever doubt himself during Shadowlands, this evolution would have made sense, but they don’t take that book into consideration at all. When Shadowlands started he was just fine, no self doubt, no doubt in the Light, no irrational decision, no inner conflict at all despite having used the Void in “Shadows Rising”. His faith was at its strongest and he had no problem standing up to Sylvanas until he was made to obey. It’s like there’s two versions of this character that never meet.
Or maybe we played the game and saw how little these things affected him in SL until he was made Arthas 2.0? That’s when I gave up on the game before coming back for TWW. I used to be a big Anduin fan but they turned this character into a parody of what he was on his way of becoming, by not acknowledging the existence of his character development in “Shadows Rising” in the game despite it being the original turning point
Can’t argue with that. Sassy prisoner Anduin was kinda fun, but if they knew they were gonna break him quite counterproductive.
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He was a rising sun, that fell down, and now he’s trying his best to get back up. I think people are too impatient. Every good story needs to develop. Thrall also had a very rough time in the story after he killed garrosh, and lost his good will from the elementals.
If you wanna read a very fast paced story, I actually recommend to start getting into fantasy books. The Way of Kings and Lord of the Rings are my favourites, but there are many good ones to bridge the time a bit that the warcraft story needs to develop. Issue is that it’s gated by game development too.
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The evolution of Green Jesus had its mediocre points too, but that’s literally another story. Blizzard writers lack maturity when it comes to character development. It’s like they refuse to let them have depth and insist on making them all white or all black, even when they claim to make them morally grey (I’ll never forget what they did to Sylvanas). Anduin was on his way to becoming a morally grey leader considering a position he took in “Shadows Rising” that even chilled Jaina’s blood, but the game pretended that none of that had happened, made him shining white again to forcefully make him dark through mind control. You’re right, I lack the patience Blizzard expects all of us to have for things like this.
I’m not sure what it has to do with the way Blizzard writes Anduin, but I’ve been a high fantasy reader since childhood. That’s why I started playing WoW: to be a High Elf of sorts and evolve in a high fantasy universe.
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Same 
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Comparing Anduin with Aragorn is what is wrong with the world we live in (BTW, that cry in the movie is because he broke a toe, and it was added into movie).
Aragorn is a man who didn’t want to be king. He fought enemy in the first line and was willing to give his life for his people. He became king because he had to and was honor bound to do it, not because he wanted.
Anduin was a weak boy, who was not (and is still not) fit to rule. Half of problems of actual Azeroth are because of Anduin “wanting peace” and thinking that “there is good in Horde”. Wanting peace with a genocidal enemy is stupid.
Anduin’s arc is actually good writing finally there is consequences cause of this war and pain i just wish he would get lot more spotlight than he gets. He was too young to be King too much pressure to put into him and then shadowlands things him forced doing things he hated and now he is an broken man because all of this just works.
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A broken boy. A man (Aragorn for example) will stop whining and will start do what needs to be done.
Even Aragorn cried LOTR people did show emotions and emotions are part of good story , even the silmarillion,children of hurin were full of emotions and tragedy. But i do wish they do an good build up story from now on from anduin
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The issue isn’t so much that Anduin is being shown to be emotional for me. It’s that his own actions have directly and indirectly caused immense death and trauma for other individuals and groups who are expected to simply get over it because he wants ‘peace’.
When the Purge of Dalaran resulted in innocent Blood Elf civilians being tortured and murdered in the street I desired justice and for Jaina and Vereesa to be held accountable for their sins and the blood staining their dirty hands.
Such justice never came and the game quietly retconned the event altogether years later rather than ever properly address it.
So, no - I don’t particularly care about Anduin. He’s the effective leader of the very same entity that has rarely, if ever been held accountable for its shadier actions even though practically every sin of the Horde has either been punished directly or at least heavily shamed.
That’s not to mention the simply fact that certain playable races and classes have been through the same sort of mind control that Anduin has. Forsaken and Death Knights.
Multiple playable races have also lost far more friends and family than Anduin has to various conflicts, particularly the Blood Elves/Void Elves and Draenei.
WOW community so toxic they hate men showing emotions.
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To be honest, Anduin isn’t especially noteworthy in his whining anyways… The last decade or so WoW has just been all about dwelling in suffering for everyone. It was a meme, when the DHs did it in Legion, defining themselves through their suffering, it was omnipresent in BfA, where all the good guys constantly mourned whatever they were doing, and the most prominent character feature was about an old orc being sad and wanting to die… And it peaked in Shadowlands, where Sylvanas literally preferred to rule in the bleakest, most torturous hell the devs could think of, rather than to suffer living.
Yeah, I get it. War is bad and makes people suffer. I already know that sucks. How about something heartening or emboldening instead? Something that is a bit more positive than “yeah, life is crap, but we can survive it” at best?
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my DH is loyal to Silvermoon now that the Legion is defeated.
Wall of text ahead, beware.
I’m generally not a fan of Anduin, though it’s not really the PTSD so much as it is Anduin himself. The very conflict around him always feels manufactured to me, and my opinion of him is very heavily painted by BfA.
See where you say you find yourself wanting to reassure him, I find myself annoyed at a narrative seemingly custom built to reassure and to try and get me to reassure him of just how kind and good he is. I struggle to find the conflict compelling because I know that the ultimate goal of it is to show me how great and noble Anduin actually is, the focus of it pinned to arguably the most black and white possible option with “mind control” as Anduin can feel pained by it while not having his heroic image tarnished as ultimately he’s clearly not to blame.
It doesn’t feel like he’s ever actually meaningfully challenged, because the narrative always bends over backwards to make sure that he was in the right, that he couldn’t be faulted. The narrative will never meaningfully question how he magically became High King as a child and proceeded to lead the faction through a war of extermination where he spent most the time trying to save the Horde from themselves, because ultimately he was proven to be right.
Then the thing that really gets me about this “PTSD” when it shows up, why Anduin? There are so many characters who have suffered, entire species, factions, and yet it always has to be Anduin. The question always has to be “How does Anduin feel about this?”, in this sense Anduin simply continues the legacy of his father, having reached greater heights of plot induced potential than Varian ever could have dreamed of so I find myself biased by my dislike of the narrative being bound to how this concerns our chosen Human Male Protagonist.
There’s also just the infuriating element of the whole “Hero goes on an introspective journey to reconnect with his powers and come to terms with being a main character” in that we’ve already been here, we did this with Thrall and I didn’t enjoy it then either.
So yeah, I don’t fault Anduin for being emotional or traumatized but I still find him an exhausting character who tends to hog the spotlight and feels way too much like the favoured main character of the writers who we’re supposed to love because of how great and pure he is. But hey I never much cared for the notion of the game having “main characters” anyhow.
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There is much more to this than Mind Control. And I personally prefer to ignore this mind control issue alltogether, pretty much like everything else from Shadowlands.
Playing Mists of Pandaria campaign you can clearly see Anduin’s key traits, among them - high level of responsibility, empathy and even sympathy to to others.
At start of Legion his father dies and the throne of huge superpower falls into 16 years (or was it even 15) old boy’s hands very unexpectedly, putting a huge responsibility on him. The war is victorious, but many lives of his subjects are lost and it is already a burden to him.
Then in BFA Anduin basically has to deal with a WoW version of Hitler and Alliance has to wage war on numerous frosnts, loses are even greater than in Legion. Finally, there is a truce in the end, but as leader of the entire faction all Alliance’s losses are heavy burden for Anduin’s mind, he takes responsbility and no wonder it breaks his spirit.
The guy in teens had to lead a huge empre through 2 bloody wars and see all the horrors of the wars, ofc it gave him PTSD.
Which Shadowlands never emphasised. I won’t ramble again about the personality reset they did to Anduin at the beginning of that expansion, I’ve already said what I think about it and how much it has affected his character development.
None of the events you mention were used as an explanation for his current mental health. The only element the writers chose to use is the mind control and nothing more, although they should. As said before. It was the same thing with Sylvanas when they chose to explain her mindset and decisions by having her soul split despite the crazy amount of trauma she had been through, which was more than enough of a justification for her to act the way she did.
The difference between the way we both look at this situation is that you’re still willing to fill in the gaps left open by the writers’ negligence. I used to be like that, saw how little sense it made considering how they treat characters, and ultimately stopped doing it. Not worth it
I have 2 problems with Anduin.
Suddenly, without reason, he became leader of the alliance for the wartime. A time of peace and diplomacy? This is his perfect moment to shine and I don’t think any other leader would mind. However, the moment the Horde moved on Teldrassil, he should have handed over the leadership to someone else. Moira, Tyrande, Turalyon, Alleria, Gen. All of them have more combat experience than Anduin. As a priest, he should stand up to heal the wounded, even try to resolve the conflict peacefully by quietly contacting the Saurfang forces as a rouge.
Turning him into a Palladin.
Maybe it’s just me, but heavy armor on Anduin kinda bothered me. Anduin was never the fighting type like his father. When he picked up Varian’s sword, I felt some anxiety, which later turned out to be prophetic. at first he was a combination of priest and rogue, suddenly turning him into a palladin didn’t suit him. Blizzard wanted to make it Arthas 2.0 so much that instead of making a good development for him, they wanted to play on the players nostalgia, which bit them in the hand. Anduin was a priest, rogue, death knight, Paladin, warrior, and now they’re trying to connect him with Void. The mix of all these classes starting to remind me of Me’dan
I understand the desire to develop his trauma (although literally every other leader also has numerous traumas that Blizzard is not interested in), but a journey to the center of the earth is not the right time to bring him back. We already established in the lore that Scarlet Crusade want to take control of Stormwind at some point, so why not bring back Anduin then?
In addition, Blizzard obvious favoritism for his character is visible. They want him to be the main character in BFA. Without much reason, they elected him High King of Alliance. They wanted him to be important in SL, suddenly he’s the perfect candidate to be the champion of Zoval. Even his presence in TWW is poorly explained. Thrall says that they need his light at a time when Anduin is having an emotional crisis and is without power. Did some vision of Azeroth say they needed him? I don’t remember anything like that. Even if, this is the third time that some higher power chosen him to do great things. (In Legion, Velen saw him as the chosen one leading the army of light in the final battle of Light and Darkness)
They just put him in places where he doesn’t fit ignoring better charcters who should be in his place which is frustrating.
It’s more about me rejecting their interpretation and adding my own, based on the the facts.
The only other options are to agree with blizzard’s s simplistic interpretation based on the worst written expansion (at least the guy responsible for it is gone now), ignore the lore alltogether thus lose big chunk of fun playing this game or stop playing this game alltogether. None of these options appeal to me.
If you have better options to suggest, please voice them, so perhaps I can take on them.