When this is the design goal, such mozaic world building can work reasonably well.
For example, early WoW was similar in fashion - a bunch of seemingly disjointed storylines introducing elements one after another, and then stories that combine them together and in a way that make sense. (that’s not how Duskwood story was originally made, for example)
Or in other games, “Souls” games do it rather well. Personally I prefer Bloodborne, but others are fine too. It has a storyline that leads ahead, but then adds a bunch of hints in dialogue, item descriptions, scenery.
The main difference in both of those cases that it actually has finished storylines which also happen to have some clues to what can happen further. In WoW the devs are afraid to finish the plot lines it seems, and it’s just a perpetual cliffhanger.
I might be misunderstanding, but isn’t the implication here that Ardenweald would consume the anima from these souls, effectively destroying them?
Because if so, that still seems like betrayal / evil to me. If not, how is giving mama winter a bunch of new hungry mouths to feed going to help anything?
Ardenweald has never worked that way, as far as I know. The souls would just take an animal shape and passively feed the realm with their existence like everyone else does when they end up there. Losing all of their anima just makes them lose their Soulshape ability, not destroy them.
I probably just misunderstand the system then. Anima is described as the sum of a person’s memories and identity, so I thought consuming it would effectively erase the identity.
If that’s not how it works, though, then that puts Elune in a better light
As I understand it, the anima draught began when Sire Denathrius cut off the anima supply chain from Revendreth and started hording the anima in a secret cache in Revendreth, a cche that was later dumped into the Maw.
It very much does destroy them. That’s why Ara’lon’s choice was so bloody painful. Ursoc’s not coming back. When you’re sent on the anima tithe quest in Darkhaven, you’re told that one of the souls is drained dry… condemning it to oblivion.
As shown by Maldraxxus’s Covenant Questline draining a Soul completely of Anima causes them to start starving until they die of starvation or until the Anima is replaced. The death is not immediate though.
A Soul with small amounts of Anima can generate more over time. A Soul needs Anima present to both sustain itself and generate more Anima.
Denathrius of course drains the unrepentant completely of Anima and tosses them into the Maw so that they can be ground into Stygia or wither away into Soul Ash following the Anima Drought which judging from the Accuser’s statements is against the Venthyr’s traditions.
As for why he is leeching them completely of Anima against tradition: Irredeemable Souls are hard to subjugate while Normal Souls that are redirected into the Maw are easy to wear down into dominated Mawsworn Shades.
Denathrius basically changed the rules so that Vile Souls sent to Revendreth die in the Maw while Normal Souls are converted to the Jailer’s Armies.
From what I’ve watched the Drained Soul doesn’t disappear or die immediately though the Venthyr makes it clear that he or she will get no redemption.
Wildseeds seem to be a unique situation as Ysera despite being given Anima appeared to be on the verge of death anyways until the Winter Queen revived her.
It seems pretty clear that in both situations, what was done is not going to be walked back later when there’s anima available. What’s done is permanent and irreversible.
She can certainly do some things, many of them are great and powerful, but nowhere near omnipotence. Even if what she can do classifies as divserse or unrelated, even if she seems to have a grab bag of divine powers, that isn’t omnipotent. It’s just vaguely powerful, which is most lore characters in Warcraft. Also, that’s most deities IRL. They have a seemingly-unrelated set of domains, in which they are very powerful, but not “omnipotent”. Not “all powerful can do literally whatever”. Just… powerful.
Besides, look at the list.
Speculation.
Helping one person.
Moon stuff.
Helping one person.
Helping one person.
Helping one person.
Psychopomp.
Like, her divine interventions have clearly been on the order of a few individuals, not overtly save thousands. If I had to describe her, she’s a moon-themed psychopomp with potent healing powers. That captures most of her abilities, except the one time Khadgar was like, “so one time this book - idk which one - i found said that Elune made the naruu, let’s give it a try”. People criticize Blizzard for retconning and changing things far more concrete than that.
Again, I see where you’re coming from. I agree. We don’t know what the limits of her power are. We don’t know what she can or cannot due. Some people assume, “well, if she can do all this random stuff, she should be able to save Teldrassil”, but there’s no reason that should necessarily be true.
Then why didn’t she calm Sylvanas? No clue. Literally no answer. Personally, I don’t think the writing team thought it through. They went for rule of cool, only later realizing people would ask questions.
Is Anima going to be available in time before the Drained Soul becomes Soul Ash?..
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Bottled_Up_Inside implies it was lucky we arrived when we did or Emeni’s friends would have died.
The Tithelord is killed after Gharmal and the Soul-draining of Emeni & her friends(who we rescue in the first week of the Covenant Campaign) was during the attack on Bastion I.E. in the same week as the Drained Soul…
We rescued Emeni in the same week she was stripped of Anima while the Tithelord(the guy who demanded the Anima from Darkhaven) was killed 5 weeks later which means his Anima Tithe would not be returned to any imprisoned Souls until then at the least.
The Soul has most certainly starved to Soul Ash by then if not thrown into the Maw and ground to Stygia first!
That’s what inspired my one. The thing is, that Youtube comment’s wording sounds like the aversion to justice only applies to this cinematic. My comments points out there’s more examples.
As best we’ve been shown souls have to be purposely drained of their anima or killed to reach the state where they lose cohesion and destruct into soul ash/stygia.
The process of a mortal soul becoming part of the Shadowlands is a net gain proposition for the realms they go to. Likely this is due to the adjustment of your mortal life fading from prominence in who you are releasing the built up anima naturally. However as we can see with Revendreth forcefully removing these pieces of your mortal life does change who you are, while reaping the anima of that part of you.
Because it was basically stated that powering up Tyrande herself, was using up the bulk of Elune’s power. Elune isn’t the meaga powerful Q type figure that people have been making her out to be. She may not be that much beyond say, Jaina Proudmoore when it comes to raw power.
