I beg to differ, Boromir from Fellowship of the Ring has a very underrated and important arc. Of course you’d need to watch the directors cut to get a full grasp of it.
In fact I would go as far as to say Boromir comes very close to the perfect male hero.
On the other hand Aragorn is stoic to a fault but he is brought up as an example of the quintessential male in fantasy for a reason.
In any case, let me compare Boromir to Anduin for just a moment here. See, if you watch the extended eds Boromir has quite a few emotional scenes where he seems lost and distraught. In fact, he is either on the verge of tears or actually cries in some of the scenes.
Despite that these emotional moments are contrasted by scenes of heroism, particularly his famous last stand. Anduin just doesn’t get to shine that way. Any heroic feats he has performed are being overshadowed by the sheer volume of ‘emotional’ talky talk fee fee scenes they depict him in.
I do sincerely believe a lot of us low key expected Anduin to grow out of his boy phase and become more like his Father… especially since the story sorely lacks that classic stoic male right now. Very badly.
If you’re an old school fan of Warcraft lore from the good old Warcraft 2-3 days you know that every faction leader has been a badass. Thrall, Grom, Varian, Arthas… just to namedrop some of the classic heroes many of us grew up with. For the last few expansions or more that strong presence has been lacking.
Anduin’s lack of badassery was to some degree compensated by Genn Greymane by his side. But now he’s retiring and Tessa is the Queen. Yeah, we have another Queen as if we haven’t had enough Queens as of late in a franchise that used to be about brutal wars between orcish warlords and humans.
In any case I’m sorry, but girlbosses just cannot fill the void left behind by the more stoic male heroes that have all either died or retired.
You can shout and scream sexist or misogynist all you want as far as I know nearly every show and movie and franchise that decided to replace its classic male heroes with new and ‘improved’ female heroes(Star Wars, Marvel, Terminator just to name a few) has tanked and drained the goodwill of its established fanbase. Nobody went to see Furiosa and it was actually good movie that was ill-timed. Allegedly nobody went to see it cause of recession. Yet everyone suddenly had money to go see Bad Boys and Deadpool vs Wolverine.
Luckily for Blizzard WoW is a game first, storytelling vehicle second. If this was a netflix show it would scarcely be more respected than the last few seasons of Game of Thrones at this point. They might as well hire Mindy Kaling as a writer and nobody would notice a difference.
