I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, basically verbatim.
As a Night Elf fan since I started playing this game, I really don’t want Elune to be some omni-diety. I don’t want her to be a First One or anything of the sort.
The only thing that matters to me is her connection to the Kaldorei.
Elune is a night elf symbol. Yes, I understand that she has connections to other races, but, up until Shadowlands, the night elves were the 90% shareholders in Moon Inc. I’m not trying to diminish her relation to other races, only put those relations in proper context. She’s a footnote in the annals of other races but the nucleus of night elf culture. And, her being that nucleus is what made her important to me. It was a reciprocated relationship: it seemed like the night elves were as important to Elune as Elune was to the night elves.
Personally, I don’t want her to be very powerful, because a lack of power explains why bad things can happen to her children. If she’s just a moon goddess with her fingers in various astral powers, then the answer to “How could you let our people burn?” is “I weep for your suffering, but I’m not capable of stopping that, it’s out of my domain.”
If she’s some First One with her fingers in the Light, the Void, Death, Arcane, whatever… Then it just makes it seem like the night elves weren’t important to her. Just as I wouldn’t want them to take Elune out of the night elves, I don’t want them to take the night elves out of Elune. Keep them equally important to one another.
If I could, I’d take out every mention of Elune out of the Shadowlands. But, if I had to write the story given what’s been established to this point, including the 9.1 Beta, here’s what I’d do.
Elune is the Winter Queen’s sister, her counterpart in the Gardens of Life. Elune’s domain within the Gardens of Life is the celestial bodies of the universe, which are just as much a part of nature as the earthbound trees and animals. She sets the stars in the sky and moons in orbit. She is a mother figure to many races, elevating some of her favored children to a different form and bestowing some of her astral power on them.
Additional Details
She created the moonkin. It would make sense that the druidic totem that draws upon astral magic was made from a goddess of astral magic.
Through her being a life deity, she has a connection to the Emerald Dream. Though it was created by Freya using Eonar’s power, Elune can still connect to it. That’s how she Malorne and Ysera, became one’s lover and the other’s friend. Elune may very well be on friendly terms with Eonar.
Through her connection to The Winter Queen, she has some command over the spirits of powerful nature beings and those races that are her children.
The uh… The Naruu thing is the weirdest. I’d either say that Khadgar was just wrong (after all, his source was a non-specified book he just found somewhere). Or… Clearly, being of one pantheon doesn’t lock you into that magic. Eonar uses life magic despite being an arcane titan. Tyr called on the Light. Maybe Elune, being a star deity (and stars having light associations) used her astral light to help make Xe’ra’s core. Or maybe Xe’ra’s core was a crystalized star. idk man it’s weird
This helps limit her scope. She is the astral deity of the Life domain. It makes sense why she couldn’t do everything. Additionally, it retroactively contextualizes the Winter Queen’s position in the most-dubiously-defined cosmology ever. Furthermore, it accomplishes the goal of asking, “Okay, if they’re sisters, then who is their parent/creator?” It prepares our minds for something bigger that doesn’t have to be answered now.
If/When we do eventually go to her plane, the night elves could be received as long-awaited children finally come home, finally having found their way to her directly. She is excited to see us, but we are beings of the material world so can’t stay with her forever. Confirms that we’re important to her, she’s important to us, she can only do so much to help, and we’re good to go.