I last played the expansion after Panda and returned about a month ago. I rushed through all of The War Within questlines before Midnight launched to immerse myslef in the lore, and I’ve now completed all of Midnight’s story and raids. After catching up, I have to be honest - I’m really disappointed.
Almost all the major male NPCs, especially on the Alliance side, have been turned into overly emotional, soft, and camp characters. Anduin Wrynn and Arator (Alleria Windrunner’s son) are the clearest examples. The tone around them feels completely different from the strong, heroic leaders we had back in Pandaria LK etc. It no longer feels like Warcraft to me. I wanted to introduce my son to the game, but right now I won’t be doing that. These are not the kind of role models I want him looking up to. Unless the next expansion brings back real Alliance vs Horde conflict with proper grit, strong leaders, and actual faction pride, I’ll just let him keep playing Roblox and Free Fire.
Im reading it coincided with some lawsuits at Blizzard in America, then others mentioning its now a paradigm of “The state of the west” they literally let real world events, trends take over the game. Im also reading this coincided with one of the main components Metzen leaving wow.
I knew none of this 2 days ago, I had a clean break from the game Draenor exp.
Since Anduin started being developed as an emerging adult in MoP and Arator – in Legion, their defining qualities are open-mindedness, compassion, honorableness, prudence and hesitence to resolve to violence – essential for Warcraft qualities of a good-hearted paladin. Both attempt to find best in those around them and hope to build a more peaceful world through both diplomacy and first-person action. Considering that you yourself play a paladin and write that Uther is your hero, why would you not want to introduce your child to such role-models?
Uther is dead, Anduin and Arator are hardly role models now are they. Like I said wow has been poisoned by real life it seems all fluffy. I don’t want my son being emotionally unstable because the main characters in the game are emotionally unstable children learn form what in front of them.
This is exactly why characters in this universe are so traumatized and unstable – living through a war does that to people and this is a universe of perpetual cosmic scale wars. And it is not limited to the current characters.
Varian, whom you earlier referenced as your hero was also traumatized and unstable, being unable to control his rage from becoming fury (and it was love and memory of Anduin that helped him to overcome this). Similarly, he was full of sorrow, missing his wife and regretting poor relationship with Anduin.
Varian also shares other traits with Arator and Anduin: open-mindedness (he allowed death knight of the Ebon blade to join the Alliance), compassion and hesitence to resolve to violence (he did not execute Garrosh and establish control over weakened Orgrimmar), prudence (he supported collaboration with the Horde during the Iron Horde invasion).
His case, as cases of Anduin and Arator show that WoW consistently for years told stories that included trauma, difficult emotions, healing with help of others and overcoming oneself for the greater common good. These are good lessons to learn.
varian had room to breathe and make mistakes that were called out
whenever arator or anduin make a mistake it isn’t considered as such and they’re constantly glazed for it
just like how arator has nothing but seething contempt for the scarlet crusade only to weirdly describe the dark horde as ‘traumatised’ despite the former being far more fitting of that term given that they’re essentially living through a zombie apocalypse after being abandoned and shunned by the outside world then manipulated by devious forces
and what sylvanas and vereesa did is just as terrible if not worse than what the likes of garrosh inflicted upon azeroth but of course arator glazes his two war criminal aunts as well
I think a relevant difference is that with Anduin, Arathor and other characters in that mold the damage their experiences did to them often is the whole story, while for characters like Varian it’s either externalized (like him being literally split in two and later reconciling with his other half) or far in the background. The story of King Anduin is about breaking under the pressures of war and dealing with PTSD. The story of King Varian is about surviving conspiracy and betrayal, fighting his way out of the fighting pit, and, with the help of familial love, tempering the violent impulses of his “wolf spirit” (once again an externalisation) that helped him survive before, to become a well-rounded ruler.
Characters like Varian or Uther don’t bend or break where we can see it, they stand tall. If there is a phase of ugly depression like after the death of Varian’s wife, that’s background information and we aren’t asked to live through such weak moments with him. Characters like King Anduin and Arathor are introduced as wavering doubters that are desperately looking for guidance. They have idalistic moral ideas, but cannot make them guide their actions within the world and freeze.
Some of that is due to the different character ages (or rather maturity, I guess). It’s not exactly a problem if young-ish characters stumble and fail on their way to adulthood. But it certainly is a very different story than the ones we got before. And considering how slooooow WoW’s release-schedule restricted storytelling is, and how split the writers’ attention is, that can leave us with the low points for quite a few months, if not years. That might be a more plausible timeframe to deal with real trauma, but following them through therapy kind of defeats the purpose of choosing the younger characters in the first place. Instead of bringing energy, ambition and constant improvement, they slow down the plot, remind us of the harrowing aspects of modern life, and stagnate for months.
Youth doesn’t come with hope for a better future, nor with misdirected energy, it comes with depression pills and therapy. I don’t care how realistic that is for current young people, it sure as heck isn’t aspirational in any way, shape or form, and it seems anti-escapist in form. I don’t particularly care for that in fantasy mass media. There can be gripping stories about stuff like that, but they are usually done by better authors with a clearer understanding of what they are doing in media that aren’t intended for “light entertainment”.
Edit:
…it might have been a bit premature to include Arathor as a strong example. He is still moving in the right direction after being slapped with doubts at the start. The foreshadowing on his future makes me think it might fit retroactively, though…