Oh thank god, I'm not the only one who thinks he's a Gary Stu. You've just put it into far better words than I can.

You also forgot to put on your checklist that "nearly everyone near and dear to him has died." I wouldn't be surprised if Little Anduin was kidnapped and cannibalized by the RAS in a future story plot. It would just add the icing on the cake at this point.

Luisette: He is SUCH a Gary Stu. If I was an Alliance player I'd be offended that Blizz thought so little of me that I'd take pride in a shitty character as long as he has a big sword and a couple scars.

TWO big swords, actually! And where did that extra sword come from? The physical embodiment of the personality that was magically separated from his body by Onyxia, of course! And then, wait, what? Onyxia's spell backfired and the two were reunited into one body once more?

My gosh. If his backstory could insert any more elements of deus ex machina, then divide by zero and run for cover because I think Azeroth would implode from the sheer amount of "But it's MAGIC"-excuses that Blizzard would have to wave in front of our faces to make it even remotely possible.

You also, also forget about the facial scar going over his eye and his anime blood elf hairstyle. SO cliche.

The guy was even called "Anti-Thrall" by Metzen and co. when they first mentioned they were creating a "new badass Alliance hero." He has almost the exact same background as Thrall, but unlike Thall, who is a noble and heroic leader in spite of his past, Varian is a huge dick because of his.

Blizzard even had to create new Horde characters just so his actions could be somehow justified. Putress came absolutely out of nowhere, and Garrosh is being written purely to act as kindling for the conflict.

As a character, he's shallow, one-sided, unoriginal, and poorly written.

Sorry but if Varian is a Gary Stu WTF is Thrall ?

dead parents ? check
dead love interest ? check
seriously, name one mistake the blue eyed boy has ever made that isn't explained away 'out of his hands' in some form...

i'll agree with you on one thing: it's badly written tripe

all 'the lore' is.

it's put together and governed by a comic book geek who didn't and doesn't have the talent to even get a job on a small independant comic label but somehow was simply lucky enough to get his foot in the door at a fledgling but talented sofware company by contributing art and 'blurb' to manuals just as the market was beginning to mature to the point it was deciding games needed storys beyond those couple of paragraphs and pictures.

'blurb'

thats what you are all talking about.

over extended 'blurb'.

'shakespeare it isn't'