someone has not played the campaign it seems
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You mean here?
Since DF I’m watching cutscenes without sound/subtitles, and the lore feels a lot better this way.
I dunno Jaina, had a good arc where she went from wimpy scholar to traumatised, to psycho to traumatised psycho, she doesn’t cry every 5s and still get stuck in when there’s fight
I’ve covered this in a different thread, but that sequence just doubles down on him being a coward. He see his people in danger and instead of maning up and actually trying to call on the light, he chickens out. Then when the nerubians are advancing he gets backed into a corner without even swinging once.
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Hopefully Anduin and Thrall both get disintegrated like Varian did by Gul’dan.
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No this was THE one scene where he finally did anything rather than just crying.
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I don’t remember him crying and whining.
He’s more … sullen, grim. But not crying and whining.
If anything the edgelords among us should appreciate that.
I’d like to see how they would act in the face of true adversity. They probably cry their eyes out and ask their significant other to take care of them when they get the sniffles. Oh, what am I saying… I mean ‘their mommy’.
Standing up to freaking Garrosh Hellscream while 15 years old, letting himself get captured by a mind controlling godlike being so that his friends and allies could escape, and throwing himself into what would have at the time seemd like almost certain death in order to stop a ballista from taking down a ship with his friends on board… I don’t know, calling a character who does those things a coward seems a bit far fetched.
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But men who show their feelings are cowards. Didn’t you get the macho memo?
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- He defeats a nerubian,
- Goes to use the light
- Gets scared because of his trauma
- Doesn’t actually try to use the light, decides others can use the light I’m not needed
- Jumps at the cannon.
- Surrounded by enemies and he makes no attempt to fight back, just backs into a corner and gets captured.
This is cowardice not bravery, he took the easy way out, didn’t try and fight, just caved to his feelings.
Bravery would be the following:
- He defeats a nerubian,
- Goes to use the light
- Gets scared because of his trauma
- See his allies are in trouble and bolsters his determination
- Attempts to use the light, whether it works or not is irrelevant to the next bit but for argument sake say it doesn’t work
- Jumps at the cannon to make it miss
- Surrounded by enemies and he fights back standing his ground until he is eventually swarmed.
He went down fighting, showing defiance and the ability to take control of his emotions, not that he can’t feel them or experience them. The making of a man is in dealing with his emotions instead of letting them rule him.
See the difference, they could keep the plot exactly the same, but the characters behaviour goes from whiney coward to a brave hero.
He’s surrounded with his sword drawn in a guarding positon. Any way he swings he gets hit form the other side. His stance doesn’t in an way indicate that he’s not going down fighting.
Sure he could have tried to call on the light but he’s at a point where he’s convinced that he’s not worthy of it. His arc is clearly going in the way of him gaining his confidence back, as I already said earlier. I don’t think it would have felt right for him to do this in the first couple quest of the expansion. Lore-wise he’s just returned from The Maw.
Again still, calling what he did cowardly is reaching.
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But again in that moment nothing he did would be considered brave. The only thing he did you would consider brave is jumping at the cannon and really that was more of attempted suicide, since his line before he jumps is functionally him giving up and saying he is no longer needed.
If you’re trying to argue this from a real sword fight perspective, he make absolutely no attempt to break the encirclement. Which would mean a quick back step and then a strike at one of the edges to push through. he doesn’t do that, just holds his sword and walks slowly backwards until he is captured. So no real attempt to fight back.
He was about to grab the ladder and climb on to the ship before noticing the balista is about to shoot it down. Sure he could have attempted to call on the light to make it just that little bit cooler, but he’s still at a point where he doesn’t believe he can, so he just goes in dad style. He didn’t decide to die, he had to do something, and he did. You can’t spin it as cowardice no matter how hard you try because it’s the polar opposite by definition.
Break it how? There’s at least 5 nerubians ready to pounce on him that we can see in every direction, except right behind him where there’s a burning pile of wood. His stance is defensive suggesting he’d got for parriest and counterattacks.
Not to mention, he isn’t Varian. He trained to be a priest and actively disliked and avoided sword training. It’s completely in character that he’s not mowing through heaps of nerubians with just his sword.
If you wanna compare it to Varian’s death scene, he wasn’t corenered like Anduin is and instead was allowed to fight the demons more or less one by one and still only managed to kill like 4-5 before being taken down. You can’t reasonably expect Anduin, who is nowhere near his father’s level in sword fighting skill, to cut through mutliple nerubians at once while cornered with barely any space to work with.
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Mocking a character when you dont know the story is silly. Comparing Anduin to Thrall is also silly. Humans being more emotional humanoids compared to orcs.
He lost his light and is just starting to believe in himself again. He is going to be a badass again in time.
Also saying he is a coward is wrong when he keep putting himself in harms way for his friends all the time
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h ttps://imgur.com/a/azpvNAj
Breaking an encirclement looks something like that. You do a large step back followed by an immediate explosive attack to the edge of the attempted encirclement, you don’t have to actually kill or strike them, you’re aiming to break the group into a straight line to you meaning you’ve now got the ground to move.
It’s never set in the lore that Anduin hated learning the sword, he in fact fought a world war with a sword. They established in BFA he’s not a bad swordsman.
His line before jumping was someone else can carry the light, implying he’s going to die, he’s giving up on fighting. He basically quit, without even trying, which is allowing his emotion to rule him as opposed to him controlling his emotions. For example in the scenario I proposed, if he at least tried to use the light, whether it worked or not would at least show him trying. Have him at least attempting to break free of being encircled would have been something, instead of slow walk a backwards into being captured.
And gets kidnapped every expansion 
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“The death of Aerin impacted Anduin in another way. Before he met the dwarven guard, he resented training with heavy weapons and often found excuses to avoid it. But since he lost the dwarf who, for at least a brief time, taught him how to fight, he decided to train again so he could become at least a good swordsman, fully aware that he also has the Light by his side.”
It would take more than just a good swordsman to get out of that situation. It’s completely understandable that he took up defensive position instead because those 5 nerubians we see on the close up shot are not all there is. Right after it zooms out to the view from the ship, you can see that there are more nerubians in pretty much every direction.
“even if someone else carries the torch”. He’s not saying “I’m done here, you guys take it from here”. He’s prepared to die to save the ship, not actively trying to die. If he gave up on fighting he wouldn’t be backing up in a defensive stance with a raise sword. He’d have just let a nerubian kill him.
Players of a game should not have to read books for characters in game behaviour to be explained. That’s poor story telling. As far as in game established lore, Anduin started using a his fathers, sword, and has taken down multiple trained armed combatants with it, establishing him as a somewhat decent swordsman.
No it wouldn’t that’s literally a very early understanding of movement in a fight anyone who has had basic training using a sword would know these things. Hell anyone who’s learn any martial arts learns that incredibly early on. When fighting multiple enemies always force them into a line to you, it let’s you fight one opponent at a time you use your opponent as a barrier to the other enemies. Always stay moving never be caught flatfooted. I’m also not suggesting he would need to succeed in breaking out, just at least attempt it.
The way he behaves is as if he has never held a sword in his life, or had any form of training what so ever.
We will have to agree to disagree on that one I think.
That’s just a backstory for people who are more interested. It can’t all fit into the game. The fact is that Anduin was never shown to be more than just reasonably competent with a sword, nowehere near Varian. He’s always been primarily a diplomat pacifict with a focus on using the Light.
This is shown very well in the BfA cinematic where his physical sword fighting looks quite sloppy and it’s ultimately his use of Light that has any major impact. He is not and never was a warrior. At best he might be slightly better with a sword than your average footsoldier.
So in a way ye, “somewhat decent swordsman” would probably be quite accurate. Not quite what he’d need to know what to do when cornered by a damn nerubian army.
I’m not entirely sure that works all too well for being surrounded by an army of 4-8 legged creatures of which most are twice your size and the rest can fly.
You have to admit that he’s at the very least ready to defend himself against attacks. His stance is very clear. He’s obviously not going down without a fight. Whether that fight is effective is another matter.