Anduin's Future

FYI there are some spoilers for the end of the Sanctum of Domination raid here.

 Anduin Wrynn is one of the most straightforwardly likable characters in Warcraft. Yes, he is sometimes accused of being too much of a goody-two-shoes, and there's a deeply American part of me that just generally distrusts monarchs, but he's a pretty uncontroversially heroic figure, always working toward peace, but learning the harsh lesson in the previous expansion that as much as you might want peace, sometimes your foes give you no choice. It was Anduin who went to Garrosh after he was imprisoned and tried to connect with him - to learn why he carried so much hatred within him. It was also Anduin who recognized that Saurfang, while not a friend, precisely, deserved to be free (and also would serve to destabilize the Horde's war efforts, meaning he's not just good, but also fairly smart.)

Anduin has often stood in the shadow of another promising young, blonde prince who was blessed by a connection to the holy light. Arthas Menethil has always been the ultimate story of a fall from grace within the Warcraft cosmos, even if there were other entities far more powerful who did it as well.

So, seeing Anduin revealed as a death knight-like puppet of the Jailer is a shocking and alarming fulfillment of that comparison. After all, as we've learned, the Scourge was not simply some tool created by the Burning Legion (not to downplay the epicness of being created by an ancient army of universe-destroying demons.) Instead, the Scourge was manipulated into existence by the Jailer, who wishes to be (and kind of is) the true God of Death. Arthas' corruption was his plan too.

There's a whole other post to be written about how much we need to reinterpret the past like 20 years of Warcraft story now that the Jailer has been introduced as an element (long story short: I think it's obvious that Blizzard had no concept of him for most of those 20 years, but nothing here is strictly a retcon, as far as I can tell - just that we're learning that there was another party at work all along.)

But while Anduin's fall bears a resemblance to that of Arthas, things are significantly different.

First off, Arthas was already going downhill, morally, when he took up Frostmourne. While he was very strictly in Revendreth (or even Maldraxxus, frankly) territory, he was so obsessed with revenge against Mal'ganis that he had set his own troops on a group of mercenaries he had hired to burn their ships, all so that he could ignore his father's commands to come home and abandon his revenge. And even though he was warned that Frostmourne was cursed, he took it up anyway, seeking its power.

Anduin, however, very clearly never gave in to Sylvanas and the Jailer. Though she tried to persuade him, he very nearly turned her around, and it was by force (though we never saw the means) that she forced him to bond with the sword.

Secondly, we have to talk a little about agency. Arthas' soul was swallowed up by Frostmourne when he took up the blade. That being said, we're also learning a bit more about these "mourneblades" and how they work, and it seems strongly implied that Frostmourne split souls in half, taking part of it and leaving another part. This is the reason why the part of Uther that went to Bastion was nothing but anger and sadness, and it's highly possible that the only part of Sylvanas that was left was the same rage-filled, cold and tactical and ambitious part. One really has to wonder what she will be like after the Jailer returned what appears to be the missing part of her soul. I know a lot of people are wary of a Sylvanas redemption arc, but in a strictly "fantasy-mechanical" sense, if there's any time for her to come back, it'd be now.

So, to get back to our point: it's not entirely clear how responsible Arthas was for his acts following his taking up Frostmourne. On one hand, if the sword only takes part of the soul, then it implies that what Arthas did was within him all along (and likewise, what Sylvanas has done was part of her all along.) That's pretty disturbing. But on the same time, if someone dosed you with a drug that removed any empathy or capacity to feel guilt, could you be held responsible for things you did? Aren't you mentally impaired, and thus subject to some kind of leniency?

But we also don't really know if Kingsmourne and Frostmourne work the same. Has Anduin's soul been torn in half? I think the evidence seems to point toward no.

Arthas, whether morally impaired or fully mentally competent, was still calling his own shots. When he assassinated his father, he might have been prodded in that direction by Nehr'zul, but he seemed to still be the one doing it.

Not so when we look at Anduin's attack on the Archon. Anduin is not serving the Jailer - he's a puppet, in an almost literal sense. Since he was taken, the only times we've heard Anduin speak, the words are a script written by the Jailer, speaking from his own perspective. Momentarily, after he strikes down (though apparently not lethally) the Archon, we get a glimpse of Anduin resurfacing, where he looks mortified at what he has done, only for the runes on his armor to dominate him once again and his expression go blank.

To borrow an iconic phrase from Get Out (which, incidentally, is a freaking great movie,) Anduin's in the Sunken Place. He's aware of where he is and what his body is doing, but every movement and action he takes is being directly controlled by the Jailer, such that he can't even call out for help.

And here are the stakes for the story: the Jailer wants that for everyone in the cosmos.

The one upside to this, I guess, is that Anduin has nothing to redeem himself from. He is purely a victim, and not a collaborator. Granted, Anduin is the sort of person likely to borrow worry, so I could imagine that he'd blame himself for some of what's going on, but there's no sense that he is "corrupted." He's just being puppeteered.

Anduin is not freed by the end of Sanctum of Domination. Indeed, there's very little sense that we accomplish much in that raid in the long run. The Jailer leaves a potentially re-ensouled Sylvanas behind, but she's played her part already, and the Jailer is a complete narcissistic solipsist who has no sentimentality for tools that have served their function.

Maybe. Why does he give her her soul back? Is it vindictive cruelty? Or is it, bizarrely, what he considers a fair reward for her service?

I think we've got a whole other post to write about the Jailer, but let's stick to Anduin for now.

It's possible that the Jailer just wanted to have someone righteous enough to get an audience with the Archon (and again, our player characters are absolute garbage at communicating very important information - Anduin's arrival should have sent up a million red flags.) However, the Jailer does not discard Anduin - he takes him with him through the golden portal and the end of the raid after having his armor (or is it just his true form?) restored.

We are unable to rescue Anduin just yet.

What role should we expect him to play in the story moving forward?

Let's assume that the Jailer is the final boss of the expansion. It makes sense - he's been set up as maybe the most powerful entity we've ever encountered (with the possible exception of Sargeras) and he's very clearly the big villain. If we also assume that this expansion is going to get the proper "three tier raids not counting the intro raid," then we're going to be due for another big raid in 9.2 and a final one in 9.3. 

I think that it's possible we'll fight Anduin at the end of the next big raid, hopefully freeing him from domination. And honestly, I think it almost has to be him, given that we haven't had any other major "villains" set up, especially with Kel'thuzad and Sylvanas going down in Sanctum of Domination. (The other possibility would be Tyrande, though I see her going through some kind of rehab more than becoming a threat.) Now, of course, we could always find ourselves in an Argus the Unmaker situation, with a brand-new character capping an upcoming raid, and it's possible we'll need to defeat the Jailer to get Anduin back.

I'm also very much hoping it won't be the case, but it's also possible we get a Warlords-style "two-tier" expansion due to all the pandemic delays. But I'd rather just get 10.0 in 2023 than cut what has been a great expansion if you ignore the long delay of 9.1 short.

I think Anduin is going to be ok by the end of all this, partially because of that dubiously canonical comic in which we see a much older Anduin leading the Army of the Light, but also because, narratively, it would feel really underwhelming to see this character - who is younger than most playable characters - have his story end so catastrophically.

We're now well into July, and while Blizzcon/Blizzconline is a big question mark, historically it's been in the latter half of odd-numbered years that we get the next World of Warcraft expansion announced. Yes, it feels super early for that given that we just got the first patch of Shadowlands, but in any other year, that would have happened in, like February, and we'd likely be playing or anticipating the imminent release of 9.2.

I think it's likely that we're going to have a more grounded, Azeroth-based expansion following Shadowlands, but I could be wrong. There's even a part of me that would kind of respect Blizzard a lot if we didn't even get to fight the Jailer this expansion, and that the next had us involved in a grand cosmic war in which we need to let Sargeras free to fight him (which would be epic as hell, but also maybe not work for an MMORPG's sense of players being able to, you know, do the fighting.)

The whole "Dragon Isles" concept would be a possibility to scale things down again so that we can be adventuring through places where relatively normal people live.

Anyway, I'll say that I doubt that Anduin is going to be killed off, and I think that we will probably free him from his current really horrific state by the end of Shadowlands. But before then, I'm very concerned that the Jailer doesn't seem quite done with him yet.