I have changed my opinion on Anduin. I’ve never been an Anduin hater in the sense of “hurr durr he’s not like Varian, healing is for girls” kind of attitude.
He’s been through a lot and he needs to sit with for a bit to sort it out. I think his feeling of being unworthy is pretty relatable. So I enjoyed his story I just didn’t think it was enough to make him a lead character in the MSQ.
However, within the story, all of the main characters are magic infused warriors except for Anduin. He might have a legendary weapon, I guess, but he can’t use the light which is a massive handicap, yet he still goes to the front line and does the best he can in his current state. I’d say that shows great courage and commitment to his allies.
And yes, he did throw himself at nerubians in a stupid, reckless attack that would have cost him his life if he didn’t wear an alliance grade plot armor but that’s besides the point.
I’m fairly certain when it comes to Ragnaros it wasn’t physical enslavement. Some of them liked it because they got power from Raggy but not all.
When? Cause she’s died and come back so much I’m not sure, her fall in WOTLK wasn’t the easy way out. I’m not belittling heroic sacrifices when they make sense or are done well. Anduins was poorly done and Baelgrims was stupid.
It’s not that it’s not enough for me, it’s the fact that he’s faced the same trauma 80% of the main cast of the game has over the years yet he’s the only one crying all the time.
Honestly if they want to do Anduin justice, what they should do is send him back to the shadowlands, or spirit plane or whatever, briefly to speak with Varian and have Anduin come to terms with, what is functionally his own dad issues. He’s scared he’s becoming Varian. While he loved his dad and respected the things he’s done, it’s very apparent over the years that Anduin could see his dad’s flaws. Varian’s tendency towards violence bloodshed and war. I personally think it would make the character 100% better if he didn’t shy away from it and came to accept that violent fire inside, it’s not something he can just hide from, he is his fathers son. What he actually must learn is to temper it, so as to not let it control him. Work this into a metaphor for the expac theme, finding a balance between light and dark violence and peace, mercy and wrath etc etc. Then start to make him abit more assertive of a character. That’s just me though.
Depends if by “fall in WOTLK” you mean the time she leapt off off the Icecrown Citadel because the saronite would obliterate her soul.
I wouldn’t call it the same trauma, I still see it as a lot worse. Literally being puppeteered around by domination magic to be a killing machine for someone, and eventually being forced to turn on his own people while he was still himself inside and witnessing himself doing everything for the whole time sounds like absolute horror. Just imagine that you’re completely lucid an doing things yet none of your actions are yours.
Much worse than being ensalved and fighting for your life in an arena I would say because in that situation you’re at least still in control of your own actions.
But even besides that point, even if Anduin’s trauma was the exact same level as the rest, it still doesn’t change the fact that some people have more serious reactions to the same trauma than others. His struggle is what makes him relatable to a lot of people because they may also know what it is to struggle to come to terms with things.
Yes I can’t remember her reason for that, although I feel at the time I thought it was good.
Sure but it becomes odd when the other don’t seem to have any lasting Trauma just Anduin.
Take Khadgar he’s mid 40’s in the body of an old man because his master he respected turned out to be evil cursed him into a debilitating body of an old man when he was like 16 or something along those lines. Now granted Khadgar has had more time to deal with this, but even at the time it functionally didn’t stop him saving the world, he didn’t cry and break down every 5m and refuse to use his magic.
There’s a new age way of writing characters that are self obsessed with their own feeling as opposed to being the heroes of a story and putting their own grief aside for the greater good. I would agree Anduin turning up to help with just a sword because he doesn’t feel that he has any powers anymore is brave. However in game it’s counteracted by him whinging and moping about constantly huffing and puffing with woe is me lines every few minutes. Every time he’s on screen, not in cinematics I’m talking in game voice lines, it’s just a constant stream of, I’ll help… if I can . I don’t know if I can every be forgiven
We get it dude you have issues, we’re aware, care to shut up for 5m while we deal with this wave of mobs.
That’s possibly where alot of hate for him is coming from, not from cinematics but from in game lines.
Because the saronite would obliterate her soul. She felt tormented, and also just missed her only opportunity for revenge. She wanted it to end.
Creative choices. If you put real people in those same situations you’d have all of them coping with it differently. Showing Anduin’s struggle to come to terms with what he was through was the point. A very common theme in those charcters you mention was thirst for revenge. They wanted Anduin to be different and instead of having more of the same they chose to give him an arc where he has to work through his struggles in his own way.
Anduin didn’t either. He had moments where it was a bit over the top but let’s not pretend that was the whole thing because that’s straught up not true. I think he was portrayed significantly better in the expansion revealed cinematic.
I thought it was meant to be to stop the lich king from doing something but yeah that’s pretty dumb if that’s the reason, been awhile since I played WOTLK.
Go do any of the segments with him in game. Any of the voice lines he does is a loop of these whiney dower, I just don’t know anymore, o it’s so hard, I can’t do this, I just let people down. His issues are literally the only things coming out of his mouth constantly, which since you want to reference how real world people express, is not really natural. People suffering from emotional anguish bottle up then explode in breakdowns then bottle up again, and while everyone explodes/expresses differently it’s generally always the case of compression then expulsion of emotions. Anduin just constantly blathers on about woe is me, the same way an emo teen would. There was one singular moment where his emotional state felt connected or well done, the bit in the cave, where he doesn’t use the light and just starts going ham with the sword, it felt visceral, you could feel his emotional state. Then it’s right back to gameplay and more just constant blathering woe is me lines.
I would honestly say it would be better if he had no voice lines in game. just cinematics, it would feel more natural to someone going through what he is, he will just go through the motions shut it down, while helping out, have a couple quests where he’s talking with Faerin about the light and how he feels. Then the rest of the time he’s quiet.
I’ve done all of it including the stay a while and listen. Didn’t that impression nearly to the same level as you. Agree to disagree I guess.
As for realism, I can’t even think of one character who speaks like a real person would. Almost every character’s voice acting is exaggerated on purpose. Anduin’s was no different.
And this straight up isn’t true. Some people feel comfortable sharing their emotions and don’t bottle up or explode.
Generally speaking if you’re comfortable speaking or sharing your emotions you’re not going through anguish. Sharing your emotions with friends of family is healthy, if you want to portray someone with an unhealthy state of mind you want to show them isolating and keeping things locked inside then going through outbursts. Otherwise they come across as whiny, when all they do is talk about how sad they are constantly to everyone around them on repeat, mainly cause it’s a game and theirs a limited number of voice lines that cycle.
To portray this properly in the medium of a game, you want him to go quiet, to that dark place. Almost robotic in a sense, he will help, he will do what’s needed of him, but like the joy of life itself has been taken away. Then every now and then you have a storybeat hit him slightly the wrong way and he explodes. then silence again. Has much more gravitas and depicts a mind/man in distress, you can empathise much more with this than with a character that constantly berates you with their feelings.
Might me a male to female thing though, generally speaking as a man you’re never worried about a mate who tells you about horrible things happening in their life. You’re assumption is he either wants advice on how to sort it or already know what he’s gonna do to handle the situation. It’s when you know horrible things have happened and he’s just a little bit too silent at times, that’s when you worry.
You’re debating with people whose only and hardest choice in life is pizza hut or KFC, and have probably never been near a traumatic experience.
Could they have worked his storyline to be a little less depressed? Certainly, but i’m just thankful that for once, there’s someone working through the trenches, I got tired of happy time themes in Dragonflight.
They tried this with Jaina and proved they are not capable at making it convincing. It was very quickly noted as boring and too much of a repeat of the last time.
I can see what they are going for but they are going about it in the wrong manner. They expect players to care about specific characters more than others even as many more interesting characters than Anduin have been unceremoniously killed off or forced into the background.
Legion was very good at having even some of the minor, forgotten characters show up whereas the current storyline focuses almost exclusively upon a handful of Alliance aligned characters.
. I don’t know if I can every be forgiven 