To be honest, Anduin is the cancer of story.

[Super Dickmann]

Because of Anduin. I thought that was obvious by the fact he monologues the entire cinematic as a letter to Anduin talking about how much he's learned and changed because of Anduin, but apparently that wasn't clear enough.

This is a retarded point. Sylvanas could have easily let Varian die in the Legion cinematic but instead ran in to help him. Ditto, her staying there would not have saved anyone. Even BTS that has as its main deal to throw her under the bus explicitly has Baine and Anduin, chief author's mouthpieces who the narrative never casts as doing anything wrong realizing this and going on about how it was the right thing to do. Trusting Sylvanas there was the correct call and BTS goes on and on to even show us how Sylvanas felt terribly bad about it in her own mind but it was the only option.

Now everything in BTS re: Sylvanas's internal monologue is essentially non-canon given how it had fuck all to do with her goals in both BFA and her slightly different goals in Shadowlands, but the point is that when the scene was written, Anduin was meant to be correct about trusting her and even retroactively, the alternative is worse. It's not a case of him being flawed. Nothing Varian could've done in that situation re: Sylvanas would've saved him and no one ever calls Anduin on this anyway.

[loras]

Well but the ritual still didn't show us anything about her being crazy either.




They had not made it more than clear that all this happened because they had deceived the spies of the alliance?
But if not. Does anyone even blame Anduin?

I do not mean lose herself as in crazy, i mean lose herself as in losing control over her power and potentially destroying herself or those close to her.

[n7stormreaver]

No. He is the best character fully created in WoW and his story and character are well written.

You mean Garrosh?

[Super Dickmann]

I do not mean lose herself as in crazy, i mean lose herself as in losing control over her power and potentially destroying herself or those close to her.

Before the destruction of her capital and a lot of her people and losing most of their territory and without being infused by elemental vengeance, Tyrande decided to kill the majority of the Watchers/Wardens to cut Illidan loose and attacked and killed both Horde and Alliance outposts freely.

As the Night Warrior she said some mean words at a leadership meeting and then again to Thrall. When given a chance to kill not Wardens doing their jobs but a risen example that got turned into a psychopathic sadist, she refused to do it.

One of these courses of action got her chewed out and treated as being insane by her allies, another has never been mentioned again. Three guesses as to which is which.

[loras]

Before the destruction of her capital and a lot of her people and losing most of their territory and without being infused by elemental vengeance, Tyrande decided to kill the majority of the Watchers/Wardens to cut Illidan loose and attacked and killed both Horde and Alliance outposts freely.

As the Night Warrior she said some mean words at a leadership meeting and then again to Thrall. When given a chance to kill not Wardens doing their jobs but a risen example that got turned into a psychopathic sadist, she refused to do it.

One of these courses of action got her chewed out and treated as being insane by her allies, another has never been mentioned again. Three guesses as to which is which.

You conveniently forget that during the former the alliance was not even around to have an opinion on the matter. And of course the trees did not object, though i do recall Malfurion being cross with her over that decision.

[geco]

Tyrande doesn't kill Sira at Maiev's request. But that's what I'm going to do.
Tyrande night war is much less revenge and cruel than Tyrande, Tyrande.

But Anduin already calls her "corrupt for revenge" and we've all talked about that we're going to have to kill her because she's going to turn Evil.

[Super Dickmann]

You conveniently forget that during the former the alliance was not even around to have an opinion on the matter. And of course the trees did not object, though i do recall Malfurion being cross with her over that decision.

Malfurion sounded mildly inconvenienced. By comparison, the Alliance who the night elves became vassals to despite not even knowing anyone from Stormwind at that time and it being a continent away chewed Tyrande out for being against a white peace with the guys waging a total war on them until five minutes ago. And again, sparing Sira as the Night Warrior vs. killing the Wardens doing their jobs while not being the Night Warrior.

[geco]

And again, sparing Sira as the Night Warrior vs. killing the Wardens doing their jobs while not being the Night Warrior.

I repeat it again because I wrote it Wrong.
Tyrande does not forgive Sira.
Tyrande agrees to Maiev's request not to kill her.

You know why Tyrande now aside if she listens to her allies. Not like Anduin who is always right by default.

------
But yes. If you read Wolfheart, Maiev doesn't blame Tyrande for killing her sisters. Clearly Blizzard tries to make us ignore that fact or disregard it.

I mean, Tyrande's problem isn't that she did the Ritual. The bad thing Tyrande did is say NO to Anduin.

[Eggroll]

lol,Alliance fans... of course you like Anduin,

Night elves: hold my Teldrassil.

No, being an Alliance player doesn't mean we like Anduin. Whiny self servicing bastard. Horde can have him for all I care.

[loras]

Malfurion sounded mildly inconvenienced. By comparison, the Alliance who the night elves became vassals to despite not even knowing anyone from Stormwind at that time and it being a continent away chewed Tyrande out for being against a white peace with the guys waging a total war on them until five minutes ago. And again, sparing Sira as the Night Warrior vs. killing the Wardens doing their jobs while not being the Night Warrior.

Point is it's a moot comparison, you're comparing a situation where no one realistically even had the option to respond to one where people did respond and then go "See! They responded more harshly!". Of course the response is always going to be more pronounced compared to the non-response, as that lack of response alone renders the entire context irrelevant, and leaves the comparison void of meaning.

Where does this "chewed out" come from? "Watch out with that mortally dangerous power that will destroy you, it's mortally dangerous and will destroy you!" and "Don't let your emotions (revenge) cloud your vision, as it has done exactly that for dozens of other people, like a certain former Lich King i have forgotten the name of!".
Especially the combination of the two is dicey.

[Atrea]

Imagine getting as upset as OP at what you think other people are thinking about a character in a video game.

This entire premise is just one great big yikes.

[Super Dickmann]

I repeat it again because I wrote it Wrong.
Tyrande does not forgive Sira.
Tyrande agrees to Maiev's request not to kill her.

You know why Tyrande now aside if she listens to her allies. Not like Anduin who is always right by default.

------
But yes. If you read Wolfheart, Maiev doesn't blame Tyrande for killing her sisters. Clearly Blizzard tries to make us ignore that fact or disregard it.

I mean, Tyrande's problem isn't that she did the Ritual. The bad thing Tyrande did is say NO to Anduin.

Maiev not blaming Tyrande for killing her sisters is people not blaming Anduin for cocking up the war effort tier. It's true, but nonsensical and abysmal. Ditto, Tyrande sparing Sira isn't good from a writing perspective - it's a sign that she's more moderate than she used to be and that she's all bark, no bite. Sira is leagues worse than the Wardens who defended Illidan who did nothing wrong, or the Horde outposts that attacked Cenarius but were unrelated to Grom and undeath as a whole is a taboo to the Night elves.

@loras

The conclusion that someone not wanting a white peace with the political entity that waged total war on them until five minutes is consumed by revenge rather than possessing of a working brain is where the narrative falls apart. That person responding to that not by killing those involved, as she's verifiably done so before but by sulking off in her tree house doing nothing except dispensing further mean words further rebuffs the point they made about her character.

[Tharivor]

she was going to start the war any way but handing her more reasons to legitimize it to the other horde members is still a massive failure as if she didn’t have those legitimate reasons people like saurfang would have opposed her he pretty much handed her the path of least resistance.

That's not what happens though. Sylvanas does not use the Arathi incident to convince Saurfang- it never features in any of his justifications for the war as far as I'm aware. Some Horde fans on the forum certainly tried to use it to justify the war, but thats not what happens in game or in the lore.

The only impact of the Arathi meeting is overwhelmingly positive- it demonstrates that Sylvanas is a tyrant ruling over the Forsaken by force, sets up some Forsaken to be sympathetic to the Alliance and be seen as sympathetic even by Alliance stalwarts such as Genn, and most importantly heralds Calia's resurrection as a light-undead. If Anduin hadn't believed in his idealism and given the Forsaken a chance then there would be no Calia and no possibility of a Forsaken redemption post-Sylavanas. Heck, even Genn is depicted as being convinced by the meeting that Anduin is right and the Forsaken can be redeemed.

The Arathi meeting is basically one of the most perfect examples of how the narrative bends itself to support Anduin- even when his idealism ends in a massacre it still managed to convince the doubters of his correctness and the Light itself performs a unique miracle to turn his defeat into a victory.

He’s the high kind of the alliance and ultimate leader of wartime movements the blame full upon him even if the other leaders were tricked as well the buck stops at him as they say.

He thinks the buck stops with him, hence the moping. No one else views it that way though- neither Tyrande or Genn or anyone blame him for what happened.

As for blame it really isn’t needed for something to be a failure Jiana isn’t blamed for getting theramore blown up but it’s still ultimately her failure of trying to be neutral while also staging alliance troops which lead to it.

It is needed though. We're talking about Anduin as a character here- if something happens but the narrative explicitly distances him from it and shields his character from any relation to it then it can't really be said to be a character flaw or a personal failing can it?

When your worst "failures" are not seen as such by anyone in universe, and ultimately lead to your vindication, they aren't really character flaws in a meaningful sense. I never argued that Anduin is omnipotent or omniscient. I'm arguing that the narrative warps itself around him to constantly prove him right. Whenever he fails its not because of any of his character flaws, its because of circumstances outside of his control. And whenever his ideals are involved, like his decision to reach out to the Forsaken at Arathi or Saurfang in prison, any seeming "failure" ultimately turns out to be the most important thing that led us to victory.

He personally lead the assault on undercity and it was his tactical blinded who got a ton of his troops killed he tried to be the strong war time leader his father was and failed at it Wondrously.

What tactical blindness? The Alliance doesn't fail because of tactics, it fails because Sylvanas is sooooo eeeevill that she deploys the plague in an unthinkable action that horrifies both Horde and Alliance alike. Had it been an "honourable" fight Anduin would have won.

Now we as players can look at that and say "This is dumb, both sides should have expected this" but that's not what we see in-universe. Even Saurfang is horrified and shocked that Sylvanas deploys the plague against the attacking army.

If the moral of BfA was "The Alliance needs to wise up and fight fire with fire" then yes, Undercity could have been a big moment of character development for Anduin as he's forced to confront his idealism and the mess its caused him. But that's not the message- the moral of BfA is "stick to your ideals no matter what and you will triumph in the end." Which is exactly what happens- its Sylvanas who comes out the Undercity tarnished and hated by her own side, while everyone on the Alliance just shrugs and carries on. Anduin did exactly what was expected of him and exactly the right thing.

it’s his plans and he sends the forces to do it against the wishes of tyranda who wants aid in dark shore, just like his plans at lorderon they kinda suck and end in failure.

Its the Alliance plan; afaik its never depicted as his specific stratagem. Again, maybe its different on the Alliance side, but on the Horde side all the "Evil alliance, how dare they attack us, we must join the Horde now" is focused entirely on Jaina who is the one that kills Rastakhan in (seeming) cold blood. Anduin never gets mentioned.

saurfang has nothing to do with the attack on Zandalari he was already in the wind not supporting Tyrande not only hurts night elf human relation it also Help pushes the Zandalari right into the horde which is what they were trying to stop.

Not supporting Tyrande is the main reason why the Alliance won the war. If Anduin had sent all his troops to Darkshore he wouldn't have had any to push to Orgimmar and support Saurfang's rebellion. While Tyrande was wasting time in a never ending warfront, Anduin's idealism and trust of Saurfang literally ended the whole conflict. The whole point of Tyrande being mad at Anduin is that she's being irrational and consumed by vengeance, and the story continues in exactly the same way in Shadowlands, where no one can mention Tyrande without immediately referencing the "dark path" her quest for vengeance is taking her. In hindsight, not supporting that quest was clearly the right thing to do.

A bit of both, like any story the narrative moves past failure to continue to the good guys winning but that doesn’t make those failures any less part of the narrative even if people want to ignore them.

It’s like for example saying Harry Potter never failed at any thing because even though he got people hurt and killed Voldemort died in the end.

But Harry Potter has very documented character flaws, and when he fails its because of those flaws. If you "fail" just because of circumstances outside of your control then its not really a personal failure, its just you being mortal. Anduin has no meaningful flaws because his flaws never get him in trouble- every "failure" is because the opposite side was just too evil (Undercity) or because of the actions of other people who don't agree with his ideals (Dazar'alor).

Again, compare him to Velen:
Does Velen ultimately win in the end? Yes. Like Anduin.
Does Velen stick to his values and remain morally good? Yes. Like Anduin.
But does Velen also have character flaws that lead to problems and that he has to confront and overcome in order to win? Yes. His blind faith and indecisiveness causes problems and he is only able to achieve victory in Legion when he faces and overcomes these flaws. This is what Anduin lacks.

I'm not complaining that Anduin is victorious or that Anduin is good. I'm complaining that he has no meaningful character flaws because there is never a situation where his personality and ideals lead to problems. All of the problems are external and caused by the evil of his opponents: all the solutions are solved by his internal perfection. There is never a point, like for example Illidan and Velen, where another character says to Anduin "Look your methods have failed, you need to address this if you're going to win" and they are proven right. Every time a character disagrees with Anduin and calls him out for being too passive or naïve, ultimately he is proven right and they are proven wrong.
He doesn't earn victory through having to change himself, he earns victory by persevering in his initial views without any change because he was already right to begin with and the narrative exists just to prove that to everyone else.

[Unholyground]

They just need to merge the factions already, it is taking too many expansions.

[loras]

Maiev not blaming Tyrande for killing her sisters is people not blaming Anduin for cocking up the war effort tier. It's true, but nonsensical and abysmal. Ditto, Tyrande sparing Sira isn't good - it's a sign that she's more moderate than she used to be and that she's all bark, no bite. Sira is leagues worse than the Wardens who defended Illidan who did nothing wrong, or the Horde outposts and undeath as a whole is a taboo to the Night elves.

@loras

The conclusion that someone not wanting a white peace with the political entity that waged total war on them until five minutes is consumed by revenge rather than possessing of a working brain is where the narrative falls apart. That person responding to that not by killing those involved, as she's verifiably done so before but by sulking off in her tree house doing nothing except dispensing further mean words further rebuffs the point they made about her character.

Except it doesn't, like at all. Arthas saw enormous parts of kingdom die and literally return to fight him and his kingdom.
He swore revenge, took on a risky power and set out to kill who he thought was the cause of it all... only to go ahead and make it all several magnitudes worse despite his best intentions and justified emotion.

And the alliance knows this story well.
By no means do i mean to say that Tyrande is headed down this path, but that's me as a player. I'm not sure the characters in the story can see that as well, they will likely just see the similarities, and as such will be inclined to be very wary of her in such a state.

And personally i agree 100% that the peace was done improperly to say the least, and would definitely side with Tyrande and Genn in hunting the horde. ^^
But that doesn't change that the characters treat her plausibly, especially given the history of the alliance.

- - - Updated - - -

They just need to merge the factions already, it is taking too many expansions.

This seems like an unrealistic pipedream.

[Cherry123]

I guess Anduin will never return to the throne, Blizzard listens to the community.

[Super Dickmann]

Except it doesn't, like at all. Arthas saw enormous parts of kingdom die and literally return to fight him and his kingdom.
He swore revenge, took on a risky power and set out to kill who he thought was the cause of it all... only to go ahead and make it all several magnitudes worse despite his best intentions and justified emotion.

Comparing Tyrande to Arthas is simply unconvincing, especially when her sole demand was to put more focus on Sylvanas being killed and mentioning that the Horde cooperated with her - when she is refused, she doesn't go on a Horde killing spree or refuse to follow the peace, though she'd have ample cause to do either. She just heads back to Hyjal.

The better historical parallel is that when the Alliance, in a much stronger position than this time around, made a white peace with the Horde after SoO, it lead to Тeldrassil being destroyed. Anduin's inaction in striking Sylvanas first meant she could hit first and burn the tree. Historical precedent is on Sylvanas's side and Tyrande isn't insane for bringing this up or somehow imitating Arthas.

Don't get me wrong, I know that's what the narrative is trying to sell, it's just weak, and the way they sell it is too. The characters are behaving irrationally to service the narrative. They are not acting with the in-story knowledge of historical precedent plus being the rulers of depleted kingdoms who's civilians have been targets and have sustained heavy losses in an avoidable war. Instead, they act as if aware that in the meta-narrative the Horde is now defanged and will be peaceful and that all the casualties were all nameless NPCs. It's not a human response.

[vian]

Anduin feels like an afterthought.

That's the worst thing one could call you.

[Ielenia]

lol,Alliance fans... of course you like Anduin,but don't forget how you used to treat Thrall.Remember guys when people used to complain how Thrall was a Mary Sue for being a powerful shaman? I wish that people were complaining now about Jaina Tyande and Anduin getting DBZ powers.BTW,Sylvanas is no longer Horde character after 8.25.

“Green Jesus this...Green Jesus that...” "Mary Sue" “Horder bias” “blizz favor horde too much” “why quest with horde npc?”"Why am I going to save Horde leader"...

You'll have a point when we have an expansion centered around how Anduin is the savior of the world, like how the Cataclysm was basically centered all around Thrall, with his marriage, his soul being taken by the elements, and then finally being ascended to "aspect of earth" and being rather pivotal in the fight against Deathwing by wielding the Dragon Soul artifact.

[loras]

Comparing Tyrande to Arthas is simply unconvincing, especially when her sole demand was to put more focus on Sylvanas being killed and mentioning that the Horde cooperated with her - when she is refused, she doesn't go on a Horde killing spree or refuse to follow the peace, though she'd have ample cause to do either. She just heads back to Hyjal.

The better historical parallel is that when the Alliance, in a much stronger position than this time around, made a white peace with the Horde after SoO, it lead to their genocide. Anduin's inaction in striking Sylvanas first meant she could hit first and burn the tree. Historical precedent is on Sylvanas's side and Tyrande isn't insane for bringing this up or somehow imitating Arthas.

Don't get me wrong, I know that's what the narrative is trying to sell, it's just weak, and the way they sell it is too. The characters are behaving irrationally to service the narrative. They are not acting with the in-story knowledge of historical precedent plus being the rulers of depleted kingdoms who's civilians have been targets and have sustained heavy losses in an avoidable war. Instead, they act as if aware that in the meta-narrative the Horde is now defanged and will be peaceful and that all the casualties were all nameless NPCs. It's not a human response.

-
Arthas responded to Stratholme by preparing expedition to Northrend, Tyrande has no similarly convenient leads to Sylvanas. And neither bothered with the lackeys or perceived / real allies of their prey, after their prey had stricken them. Thus far the comparison stands.

Also in the situation surrounding Tyrande's favor: the war's end was necessitated by depletion of forces... and thr rise of a freed old god. Such matters might not make genocide palatable, but they limit the means and reasons to continue waging war significantly regardless of genocide.

-
Varian strick that peace, even with Anduin's cheerleading the decision and responsibility is his and not Anduin's. That said thry had a choice during that peace, this time around N'zoth and the depletion of the armies made it a little bit different with regards to what could be done, it makes what "should be done" less realistic.
Also the Arthas comparison is mainly in adopting dangerous powers on a wild goose hunt for revenge, less so about her not having a point that the horde remains an enemy.

-
Fair enough, i agree to some extent.
Personally i suspect that this was a way to justify a simmering cold/hot/hate war for expansions to come, perhaps to open up a way for the alliance to be aggressors for once.