Anduin Wrynn is the new, young, High King of the Alliance. Anduin's unique life story is important here. At the age of only seven, he-just like his father Varian-was thrust into the position of King. While he had a regent, the knight of Lordaeron Bolvar Fordragon, Anduin was forced to learn how to lead at this young age thanks to the machinations of Lady Katrana Prestor. With the help of a hero of the Alliance (the player character of WoW), Anduin was able to uncover the mystery behind his father's disappearance and Lady Prestor's identity. It turned out, she was the black dragon Onyxia: and that she was the one who had kidnapped Varian. Who, it turned out, was alive although not quite well. Able to step back a little, Anduin was nevertheless a political force to be reckoned with on the world stage: and not one who necessarily toed the Alliance line. More than once, he intervened with attempts to make peace between the Alliance and Horde. He also developed an affinity for wielding the cosmic powers of Light and Shadow. Most of his attempts at peace were short-lived: but, each was better than the last.
Anduin was even unafraid to oppose Varian: and not without merit on occasion. When the disappearance of King Magni Bronzebeard in Ironforge led to a dwarven civil war: Varian came with elite Alliance assassins to kill Moira Thaurissan, who had taken over Ironforge. The trouble was that Moira was King Magni's only child: and dwarven society misogynist enough that it was an open question whether she or her uncle Muradin had the better claim to the throne. Falstad Wildhammer meanwhile believed that neither was fit for the throne, and sought it for himself. Anduin saw a different solution: King Magni after all was not technically dead, just unable to rule. And so, he stopped his father from killing Moira Thaurissan. He then proposed that the dwarves install a council in which all three tribes had a voice: which would govern the day to day affairs of the dwarves. Ironforge would be open to all dwarves, and the seat of dwarven power. All the dwarven leaders, and Varian, saw the wisdom in this proposal. Emboldened by his success with the dwarves, Anduin attempted to end another war without bloodshed: but this didn't go so well. In fact it went massively not well and [spoiler alert!] got Varian killed. But, Anduin learned from his mistakes: guided by the draenei prophet and leader, Velen. At the same time, Velen also took his magical training to the next level: well, next several levels actually. Anduin at age 20 talking to Saurfang is not only a gifted priest, but a canny leader and seasoned diplomat. Still, he has the idealism of the young. Saurfang could not be more different.
Varok Saurfang is a contradiction. Like all orcs, he believes that a glorious death in battle is what will imbue his life with meaning. However, he struggles with PTSD. He is one of a dying breed: veterans of the first Orc invasion of Azeroth. For perspective: that means he's almost as old as Anduin's grandfather. Indeed, it is partially his PTSD which has caused him to be where he is right now talking to an Alliance High King. When the Warchief set fire to Teldrassil he heard the screams of the Night Elves: and remembered the screams of draenei children he and his fellow orcs killed in Shattrath City thirty five years ago. He snapped, refusing to strike down the Night Elf leader Malfurion Stormrage. The Warchief, Sylvanas Windrunner, branded him a traitor: and let him be captured at the Battle for Lordaeron. This was how he first encountered King Anduin: as his prisoner. But after Saurfang revealed that he wanted to lead a rebellion against Sylvanas: King Anduin let him go. So, Saurfang stands in this tower speaking to a man he owes a debt to. He is also a father who has lost his son, and indeed who believes his son superior to himself: for his son Dran'osh died with honor in battle opposing a threat to the entire world. Not dissimilar from how Varian Wrynn came to view his own son, after they were reunited. Anduin sees in Saurfang more than a little of his father. This surrogate father-son relationship is what makes their deeply vulnerable conversation possible.
Anduin poses a question to Saurfang. If we overthrow Sylvanas, he asks, what kind of Warchief will you be? Saurfang does not answer the question. Instead he offers to Anduin his own self-loathing. This is not simply because Saurfang is depressed: this is a calculated move. In order to overcome the past and move the Horde towards it's highest ideals: the past must be faced and dealt with. The fact that the Path of Glory on which the orcs walked in order to invade Azeroth was paved with the bones of the draenei they had slaughtered: this must be put out in the open. This is not an apology. You can't apologize to someone for invading their kingdom and murdering their grandfather: which is precisely what the First Horde did. You can however face what you have done and take responsibility for it, in front of a representative of your former enemy. Anduin responds to Saurfang in kind: for the Alliance is not innocent either. Again though, this is calculated. Anduin decides to admit specifically to the abandonment of Quel'thalas. Arthas, having picked up Frostmourne and leading the Scourge was nevertheless not the Lich King yet when he invaded the elven kingdom. He was, technically speaking, the King of Lordaeron: even if the still living citizens of that Kingdom no longer acknowledged him as their sovereign. This means that the Alliance of Lordaeron is in fact responsible for the invasion: and thus Prince Kael'thas was justified in joining the Horde. Now, this is the first time in the entire game that any character from the Horde has taken responsibility for the first invasion, or any character from the Alliance has taken responsibility for Arthas. Indeed, other characters prior to this had explicitly disavowed responsibility for these particular events: blaming the Burning Legion for both crimes. But now as Anduin and Saurfang stand here: the Legion has been defeated, if not totally eradicated.
Anduin is positioning himself as a new kind of King: setting out to topple old assumptions about what it means to be a leader and even what it means to be a man. He tried to be a Warrior-King like his father: that lasted for all of five seconds at the Battle for Lordaeron. Realizing that he was not helping by trying to wield a sword poorly: Anduin set it down and healed his comrades instead. Not only did this save crucial lives, it also improved morale: and the Alliance was able to win the day. But the people of Stormwind still need a warrior-leader: someone who can stand on the front lines where the troops can see them. Luckily, on Kul Tiras Anduin found someone who could do just that: Taelia Fordragon, daughter of his old regent Bolvar. She has a warrior's heart, like Varian and unlike Anduin. Alongside her mount Galeheart, she has become a formidable force for law and order on the docks in Kul Tiras' capital Boralus. She is able and willing to solve problems with force, when that is what the problem requires. This is not however the traditional role for a Queen of Stormwind. It will take the people of that Kingdom some time to adjust to their new rulers, but they will. Anduin has already proven that his powers and approach are effective enough to warrant a break with tradition.
Varok Saurfang can't do this. He is too old to successfully complete the process of redefining what it means to be an orc or a member of the Horde. But he can start that process with his death. His own death, and no one else's. He does not tell Anduin this, but it is clearly what he is thinking about. The Horde has a tradition called Mak'gora: a ritual combat to the death. Any leader of a member race can challenge the Warchief to Mak'gora. But, everyone knows that Sylvanas will cheat because the whole reason they are here is that she has no honor. If Sylvanas cheats, Saurfang will certainly die. He will probably die even if she doesn't. So the way to make his death meaningful is to expose how little Sylvanas cares for her own people: the Forsaken, and those of various other races who have also remained loyal to her. He can do that by preying on her arrogance, by embarrassing her in front of a crowd. She'll need to defend her actions, and in doing so she will mock those loyal to her. Saurfang can leave an example to follow so compelling that others will be able to do the work of redefining the Horde.
Others, like the young troll who idolizes Saurfang: Zekhan. Others, like the old Warchief Thrall: who has in the past few years been forced to face his own mistakes, and his own flaws as a leader. Others, like Lor'themar Theron: the Regent Lord of Quel'thalas, who betrayed his longtime ally Sylvanas to stand with Saurfang. Others like Thalyssra, the leader of the Nightbourne elves who recently joined the Horde. Most especially, others like Baine Bloodhoof:the High Chieftain of the Tauren people, whose father Cairne helped establish the current Horde back at the time of the Third War. Whether the mantle of Warchief passes to Thrall or Baine, Saurfang's example will be their guide. That means they cannot go back to the way things were. They will be held to the standard that Saurfang held himself to. Because, you know, spoiler alert: Saurfang does indeed die.
Anduin and Saurfang cannot erase the atrocities committed. But they can agree on two important things: Azeroth is their home, and that the future is not determined by the past. Now this is opposed to Sylvanas: who sees the notion of "home" as irrelevant, and who is letting her past dictate her future. She has refused to grow beyond the suffering that Arthas inflicted on her, and so she is letting Arthas define her: even though Arthas is long gone. She reveals in a cutscene that she despises her fellow Forsaken for finding new places for themselves in the Horde and reasons for continuing to exist. She destroyed the Undercity, the home that the Forsaken had constructed in the sewers under Lordaeron's palace. She refuses to die, but refuses to live: a trap many of us, myself included, have fallen into as well. But it's important to swerve away from that and grow beyond your trauma: because then your pain becomes something you can use. Saurfang's empathy for those who have suffered is born from his guilt about the atrocities that he committed. His empathy is also the very quality that makes him so beloved among the Horde. Anduin's profound love for others is born from his personal suffering: and his love for others is the source of his immense power as a priest.
Anduin is not the first Wrynn that Varok Saurfang has inspired by accident. The Lich King killed and raised Varok's son Dran'osh. The heroes of the Horde (the player characters) went with Saurfang to destroy him and take home his body. His bravery, after all, merited a proper funeral. Muradin Bronzebeard tried to block the way. Until, that is, King Varian showed up. Now Varian usually, understandably enough, hated orcs. But Varian instead bid Muradin to stand down and "let a grieving father pass". As a father recently reunited with his son, Varian could suddenly empathize with Varok Saurfang. He could see him not as an orc, but as a father. Having come back to Stormwind to find that Anduin had ruled capably in his absence, Varian understood for the first time how terrible it would be to lose his son. He could project his feelings for Anduin onto Saurfang, erasing the racial emnity between them for one moment. Furthermore, Varian could compare Dran'osh Saurfang to his own father: both were leaders who stared death in the face with pride and defiance. He could understand for the first time how his father felt as they stared death in the face: how he felt love, not hatred, in his final moments. So he could let go of his own hatred of orcs, because his father had not died hating them. He could instead honor his father by following his example. Which, when the Burning Legion returned to Azeroth, he did. Indeed Varian did not simply die with defiance and with love in his heart for others, but like Dran'osh Saurfang, willingly embraced such a death.
So, as Anduin and Saurfang stand in this tower confronting the ghosts of the past: they are honoring Varian by following his example. Indeed, they are taking his example and applying it on a greater scale. He confronted and overcame his own personal trauma, his own personal fears and hatreds. Saurfang and Anduin are dealing with mass traumas here. It is not enough to confront them on a personal scale, they must do so on a mass scale. It is necessary to defeat Sylvanas that they confront both the legacy of the First Horde, and the legacy of Arthas: both the atrocities committed by the Horde, and those committed by the Alliance. The atrocity of action, and the atrocity of apathy. Sylvanas after all, is not simply an individual: she represents an ideology. She believes hope is a weakness, home is a lie, relationships are tools. She has not overcome her trauma, and is trying to drag others down with her. She was created from Arthas' invasion of Quel'thalas, and she represents a continuation of the First Horde's legacy. To stop her, Saurfang and Anduin must commit to overcoming these atrocities.
There is a reason we use the word "atrocity". It is because these are actions you cannot apologize for or compensate: they involve loss of life on such a grand scale, or inhumane actions that cannot be justified by reason. It is tempting to think that you can, but in doing so you would devalue human life and human dignity. There can be no reparation. There can however be a confrontation, and an acceptance. No human society after all is entirely innocent of atrocities: the scale, nature and frequency might vary but all societies have had their darkest hours. We cannot justify abuse, but we can understand it: we can empathize with those who have hurt us. This is our greatest gift as human beings, although it is one we do not use as often as we should. I can look at the man who assaulted me and understand that he was just as much a victim of the Patriarchal system as I was. I can understand that he acted not out of malice but out of desperation, having been told that sex was the way to get the validation that his mother and his peers were not giving him. I also knew then as I do now that his satisfaction would have been short-lived and hollow if I had given in. So too, I can look at a homophobe and see, not as monster, but a person who has doubts about his or her gender and sexuality just as I do. I can oppose that person because they are dealing with their problems in an unhealthy way rather than because I hate them. And only by doing this can we move past these traumas.
What we need in order to have this conversation, is three things. 1) to recognize that we have experiences in common which transcend the boundaries of identity. 2) to recognize that we share a home: earth. and 3) to recognize that the future is not determined by the past. We need to be willing to share deeply with each other: to share not only the things we're proud of but the things we are ashamed of or afraid of. We need to be willing to take responsibility for both our actions and our failures to act. We need to have this conversation, or the sins of our past will continue to haunt us because we will continue to be traumatized by them: both those who committed the atrocities and those who they were committed against. Only by taking responsibility can we move beyond the trauma. This simple short film from a video game shows us what that conversation about the atrocities in our past looks like. It is an amazing example of what is possible in games, when developers have the courage to actually tackle a complicated theme like "how do we move past mass atrocities?" It is a perfect example too of why we need media despite all it's problems. We need these models, these test-runs, these myths.
