A Light holy war expansion would be a bad idea for several reasons, including;
The Light is still better/less bad and not as much of a threat as the Old Gods, Burning Legion or the Jailer. Naaru don’t want to destroy the universe and genocide everyone, not even everyone’s “favorite” naaru. Speaking of her, Xe’ra attempting to imprison one elf and forcibly Lightforge another pales by orders of magnitude compared to the laundry list of atrocities the Old Gods, Sargeras and the Jailer have, plus the naaru are kinder to their followers than the aforementioned three. Even the Titans have far, far more blood on their hands than the Naaru (remember Algalon saying he’d killed “a million million lives” – that’s ONE TRILLION PEOPLE – for not fitting the Titans’ vision).
Making the Light less benevolent required retcons, and people are starting to get fed up with the writers’ incessant retcon habit.
Whatever flaws got retconned into them, the Light, Turalyon and AU Draenei have good qualities and legitimate grievances (Burning Legion, Iron Horde, Old Gods). For all that some fans talk about nuance and corrupt factions, Blizzard seems to be retconning and railroading them as moustache-twirling fanatics despite that and railroading us to fight them.
The “extreme order is equally bad as extreme chaos” shtick has been cliché for decades. It’s not even the first time Blizzard pushed that story, even in Warcraft. They were setting up the Titans for that with Algalon and the Mogu from Wrath to MoP, and in other Blizzard games we have Malthael’s Reapers (Diablo), the Vishkar Corporation (Overwatch) and the Tal’darim Protoss (Starcraft) to name a few.
A better solution would be a Light/Void showdown where we can choose a side or resolve their eternal conflict, temporarily or maybe permanently. If they want to keep going the “cosmic war” route, they can, and we can flesh out their differences rather than yet another “they’re as bad as each other at the extremes” story arc.
Also, an expansion where the Alliance are the aggressors could be its own thing without the hackneyed “holy war” angle.
I think a better solution is just not doing the Light/Void expansion at all. The topic has hardly been built past vague prophecies and cryptic boss quotes. There’s still time to abort this plotline, and by god they should.
No matter what expansion we go with it’s gonna be Alliance-centered because of how the cosmology and Power Rangers are set up so I just don’t care anymore
Life Expansion will use Malfurion and Tyrande as the neutral characters
Light or Light vs Void expansion is gonna use Turalyon and Alleria as the neutral characters
Another Fel expansion will likely just double down on Illidan and Velen
An Order expansion would naturally center the Alliance races.
It’s all just kinda meaningless.
I’ve said it a million times, none of our speculation matters because they’ve only ever written one story and they’ve written themselves into a corner in every facet of this game
The Light vs Void next expansion is based on really flimsy evidence. Yrel’s portrait being added to the battle.net launcher could mean absolutely nothing. Yrel wasn’t an avatar option before, they were probably adding her in for inclusion not hinting at a next expansion. Yrel was recently added to Hearthstone don’t forget.
Thad, until Blizzard actually hits Y’rel or The Light with the villain bat or hints at a Light vs Void expansion, there’s no point in borrowing trouble.
A better idea for an expansion is CHIHUAHUA STORM! All across Azeroth a massive rain small rat-like dogs appear, threating to annoy everyone to death. You must gather as many chihuahuas as possible in sacks and throw them into pools of lava before the world is yapped, shivered at, and peed on unto it’s destruction.
I thought I would chime in because this is an interesting topic.
The Light is a tool just like any other cosmic force. We have multiple examples of different forces using cosmic powers for good, and for evil. Illidan, and the demon hunters, use Fel for good. Void elves, and Shadow Priests, use Void for good. What’s wrong with a faction using the Light for evil. It at the very least is consistent with the use of other cosmic forces.
Algalon used the term “Maker’s flame” which as also used by the primal Arakkoa to explain the darker aspect of the Light. He was talking about re-origination, sun priest lore points to the Light being the Maker’s Flame and the source of re-origination.
It wouldn’t be a retcon, and it would mean that the Titans were using the Light to genocide entire planets as part of their Ordering process. The Titans were the first race to use the Light for unholy purposes. There’s already framework for villifying the Light based on purification as justification. The Titans wanted to purify, and purge the Void from planets. X’era wanted to purge the Void from Alleria. Re-origination doesn’t discriminate between the corrupted and uncorrupted. That is why Alagon needed to be stopped.
AU Dreanor for both the Draenei and Orcs were just a snapshot of what could happen in an Alternate Universe. The AU Draenei had different experiences than Main Universe Draenei, and we only saw what they were capable of under those different circumstances. Maybe they will down the line become a faction of enemies, we have to kill. It is highly plausible. Their fanaticism isn’t exclusive to them, the orcs in our Main Universe became fanatical by drinking the Blood of Mannoroth, they are being mirrored to show that orcs becoming fanatical wasn’t an isolated incident based on orcs as a race.
Absolute order does corrupt absolutely. It does seem like Blizzard loves to use this and will continue to use it.
Aligning players by values and preferences instead of by race is what most players want.
It’s hard to remove the Alliance from an affiliation with the holy Light when it’s a prominent faith amongst Humans, Dwarves, Draenei.
I understand where Thadeus is coming from. He’s anxious that any narrative focusing on the Light as an antagonistic force would devolve into some kind of hamfisted anti-religious or anti-faith message. I sort of agree with that sentiment because I think that the “they look good but they’re EVIL and the sheeple don’t see it” thing is tired and is precisely the kind of edgelord thing that Blizzard would go for.
I think that the Light could be an antagonistic force in a narrative that simultaneously treats faith and religion with respect but I don’t think that Blizzard has the capacity to do that whether the writers want to or not.
That being said, “appearances can be deceiving and the forces of evil will become false prophets and try to seduce you by adopting the trappings of good” is a fairly common theme in a lot of biblical narratives as well, and I believe that the entire concept of the antichrist is that that it’s a figure that will present itself not as opposing Christ but by subtly trying to take Christ’s place.
So the idea of “holiness” that is actually a perverse doppelganger has precedent in a narrative that treats faith with respect. The trouble is that I don’t see any way for Blizzard to really set that up as it is now without properly exploring the Holy Light as a faith in the WoW setting.
To say nothing of such an approach requires the writer to set out to deliberately deceive the audience until such a time as to reveal the deception and even if I think Blizzard could keep their cards close enough to their chest to do that, I think that the community hates the idea of being deceived in the narrative even though the entire idea of engaging with a narrative is to allow yourself to be manipulated.
His fear kind of ignores the fact that any “Light as an antagonistic force” will inevitably include NON-antagonistic Light users and likely come away less with an anti-religious/anti-faith message and more of a message against blind adherence to dogma or religious violence. A very safe and middle of the road take.
Sure, Xe’ra, the Scarlet Crusade, and these “Nobles” will definitely get the villain bat, but Turalyon’s likely only going to be antagonistic so much as he remains manipulated by Xe’ra. And figures like Anduin, Velen, the PC Paladin/Priest and all the Naaru that aren’t Xe’ra are definitely going to be coming out squeaky clean and showing us that the Light isn’t all bad, and in fact can be very good.
This dichotomy’s always been a part of the Light’s portrayal in the Warcraft franchise.
But even that level of nuance is too much for Thadeus. Either the Light and it’s champions are the ultimate good in the universe, justified in all they do and everyone else who opposes them is bad/wrong/inferior, or it’s “bad writing”.
I’m not sure what the focus on Turalyon is for. He has demonstrated conviction but that isn’t the same as zealotry, as he’s also demonstrated a willingness to understand new things and change his ways accordingly. I’d much rather that Blizzard introduce an antagonist by expanding on the structure of the Church of the Holy Light.
Turalyon was Xe’ra’s right hand man. Turalyon having to choose between his commitment to the Light/Xe’ra and his love for Alleria was a big plot point in their last book. Xe’ra is the main instigator for all of this Light-is-not-nice business and turned the once sweet Yrel into a crusading genocider. She tried to forcibly turn Illidan into her new champion. Controlling/manipulating people is Xe’ra’s thing. He sits on the throne of Stormwind as the most respected Paladin, so he’s her most obvious target.
But yeah, the lion’s share of the blame and really bad stuff is going to be pinned on the Scarlet Crusade and these so -far-unnamed nobles that would like to see Anduin, Velen and all the more peacenik Light users out of the picture.
I don’t think it’d be a permanent thing at all, but Turalyon being manipulated by Xe’ra, even if temporarily, only to cross sides and join the rest of the heroes of Azeroth in opposing her is very Blizzard-esque. Again, there’s the whole thing about his love for Alleria -who is also implied to be the chosen one of the void who will assist the light in defeating the Fel- being the “chink” in his devotion to Xe’ra.
I hope so. Nothing makes me yawn more than the idea of a Light v. Void expansion. But I’m worried that the devs and story team are locked into it. I can just imagine a certain head writer sitting in a chair, stroking his goatee, and saying, “With the launch of Shadowlands, the TRUE story of Warcraft has finally begun…”
I think part of his issues stem from his projection of Catholicism onto The Light. While they share some common themes as well as some cautionary similarities. They are not the same. Villifying the Light is not villifying Christanity. Blizzard has a pro-Christanity (or maybe more accurate to say pro-revistionist occult centic christanity) narrative in Diablo.
Thad gets triggered by any criticism towards Catholicism, even if it’s just a projection and not what’s really happening. All religious belief can lead to dogma, and radicalization, and violence. Thadeus is the only one here who, for whatever reason, can’t accept that universal truth.
Yeah i can agree with this it seems logical. The idea of an “Expansion around a theme of cosmic proportion” is awful. When handled like shadowlands, And I dont think it is about the connection to azeroth either. Pandaria didnt have much connection to Azeroth (the warcraft gameplay story etc) as in it wasnt involved in nostalgia etc but the story was… Well I would say it was probably the best story they have done in a looong time. Even with its issues.
Anyway I feel like most people would just appreciate the small stuff etc. But I dont think we will get what anyone wants in an ideal world 10.0 would be a “Realm reborn” etc. But currently it looks more like we are getting “WoW Infinity war” but with the cosmic forces as infinity stones.