A better expansion idea than “Light Crusade”

[Tammy-wyrmrest-accord]

@Thadeus-caelestrasz

@Tammy-wyrmrest-accord

Which evidence and arguments have I ignored and what evidence did I leave out in order to cherry pick?

You ignored my quotes from “A Thousand Years of War” in regards to Turalyon. You deliberately ignored how the Chronicles quote proved you wrong about the aqir and n’raqi (see below). There’s more examples I’ll link on request, but I’m striving to be concise since we’re already making walls of text with our back-and-forth.

I quoted it, responded to it and posted the the parts of the book you left out where it clearly explained that painting the Light/Void as wholly good/bad is wrong.

I don’t think you can claim to be a fan of conciseness when you repeatedly make entire threads repeating the same incorrect treatises making same handful of incorrect arguments while abandoining entire other threads.

So like I said, the aquir and n’raqi from the Old Gods infusing with and influence Azeroth. They didn’t just pop out of Void and Shadow. You also skipped the part in Chronicles about how the Old God’s curse of flesh created Gnomes, Dwarves, Vrykul and Humans. without the Old Gods and the Void, those races wouldn’t exist.
I’m saying the Old Gods don’t create anything form nothing. They influence and change. even the Void Lords themselves have trouble maintain permanent forms for long and have to feed on matter and other stuff to sustain themselves. They only create life by messing with what’s already there, be it worlds like Azeroth, machines, or peoples’ souls/bodies.

Wrong, the Chronicles specifically stated they emerged from the essence of the Old Gods themselves, not them mixing with Azeroth. The Old Gods rendered the land around their bodies lifeless, as stated in the Chronicles, did you actually read the quote? The Curse of Flesh mutating Titan constructs into Dwarves, Gnomes, Vry’kul and Humans - plus the Ethereals losing their physical bodies - is very different from how the Aqir and N’raqi were made. You’re deliberately ignoring the difference.

They emerged from the essence of the Old Gods after they integrated themselves into Azeroth and drained it of its existing life. It is different in the exact details, but very much the same in terms of how the Void operates, wherein they don’t just create something from nothing, but alter and change what exists before.

The bad qualities are their campaigns of genocide and forcible conversion. This related to the Light because they Light feeds of conviction and can only see limited possibilities, resulting in a tendency towards zealotry and in the most extreme cases, intolerance for anything they deem not Light enough. And the Light by itself is not enough to sustain life as we know it in the universe. It has to be balanced out with other cosmic forces to various degrees.

Citation needed on the Light feeding on conviction, especially since it predates the other five cosmic force, including the Void (and the hypothetical “seventh cosmic force” relating to the First Ones is current vague and unproven). Again, are those qualities inherent to the Light itself or come from those who follow it?

Sure, here’s some more citations.
" Without spoiling too much, we can tell you that wielding the Light is a matter of having willpower or faith in one’s own ability to do it. That’s why there are evil paladins (for example, the Scarlet Crusade and Arthas before he took up Frostmourne."
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ask_CDev#Ask_CDev_Answers_-_Round_

And here’s developers explicitly stating how Xe’ra being convinced she’s right doesn’t mean she’s good for us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PBzHRc4FZY&t=1663s&ab_channel=lordmons&loop=0
And again…
“The Light seeks one path and shuns all others as lies. The Shadow seeks every possible path and sees them all as truth.”
https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/template_resource/U5IQKY6K35271505861653212.pdf

And I agreed. They aren’t part of the crusade. They’re part of the SCARLETS. The crusade isn’t part of the Brotherhood, Onslaught, or Apostates either, but the crusade are still Scarlets. They’re all still Scarlets.
That’s why you have to insist they’re not a member of the crusade because you know they’re still a member of the Scarlets, which includes the Crusade, Brotherhood, Apostates, etc.

When I first said the “Scarlets” were wiped out, I meant that as shorthand for the Scarlet Crusade was wiped out. Makes sense that you misunderstood me and thought I meant all their splinter groups too, an honest mistake.

I was pretty explicit and in repeatedly pointing out that while the Scarlet Crusade and Onslaught took some big hits, that the Scarlets as a larger movement continues to exist in various forms that never actually renounced the Crusade.

Why do I think the nobles would support the Scarlets?

1. The nobles are not a fan of Anduin and stormwind’s been trying to take back Lordaeron for a while. They’ve never opposed the Scarlets. Only elements of the Church of Holy Light have.
2. The Scarlets are not a fan of Anduin and have been trying to take back Lordaeron for a while. And they’re starting to try and influence Stormwinf politics in Anduin’s absence.
3. AU Xe’ra hasn’t shown up and started convincing people elsewhere to commit the genocide and forced conversions like she did with Yrel and the Lightbound yet. Naturally, she’d be opposed by Anduin, which makes him a threat to. So they’d all make comfy bedfellows.

1. Saying “only elements” of the Church of the Holy Light have opposed the Scarlets is merely your headcanon.
2. There’s a difference between influencing Stormwind’s politics and allying with enemies of the Alliance.
3. Assuming AU Xe’ra would oppose Anduin or ally with the Scarlets is also just your headcanon (Xe’ra’s she’s not racist against non-humans, and she can read mind so the Brotherhood can’t pretend to get over their racism).

It’s not head canon that The Scarlets continue to keep coming back in various forms and filling their ranks with paladins, priests, monks and other devoted followers of the Light despite repeatedly getting their butts kicked over the course of WoW’s history. Their ways are clearly attractive to some and they are not universally revilved by others of the faith. That’s how they managed to get a rep into the church to begin with.
The Scarlets are not enemies of Stormwind and obviously there’s people in Stormwind sympathetic to their goal of wiping out the Forsaken and retaking Lordaeron, among other things.

Xe’ra and the Scarlets align in that both are A-okay with genocide and other uses of force if it means wiping out people who aren’t followers of the Light. She’s already turned Yrel and the Lightbound into something akin to the Scarlets.

What has any Scarlet Crusade splinter group been confirmed to have that the Stormwind nobles can’t get for themselves? Also, don’t you know that a Regent, by definition, is a temporary ruler? Can you name any nobles who oppose Anduin enough to overthrow or undermine him? Any good name the Scarlet Crusade, their sympathizers and splinter groups might have had was long gone before Legion.

What can a radical religious/political group offer government officials they can’t get themselves? Political support. Supplemental muscle. Most importantly: plausible deniability.

We don’t yet name any specific nobles because the ONLY thing we know about the House of Nobles right now is that they’re among the people who don’t seem to be found of Anduin. Also that Stormwind’s been supporting proxies and sending troops to expel the Forsaken from Lordaeron for a while now.

I never accused you of claiming anything’d be the end of WoW until you brought it up… which apparently wasn’t directed at me. So why’d you bring up something you were going back and forth with Cursewords about to me when I never mentioned before?

Must’ve been when I suspected you of being Cursewords’ sockpuppet, before we cleared up that you aren’t.

But everyone who disagrees with you does so for the same reasons because those reasons are all consistently wrong. If we’re not being mean to you, there’s no reason for you to bring up the people who are when talking to us.

Some are being mean to me, some aren’t. The worst offenders are Cursewords, Renastus, and occasionally Evelysaa, Lenastus and yourself. The first four are who I’ve nicknamed my “hate bridage”.

So we’ve established that I and dozens of other people who disagree with you are not part of your hate brigade. There’s no reason to bring them up whenever responding to me.

No, power levels don’t matter, as the Legion was supposed to be the greatest threat the universe ever faced- to the point where it was the enemy of the Light, the Void, the Titans, and who all fought it on multiple fronts and couldn’t defeat it.
That the Lightbound didn’t finish completely eradicating races of Draenor down to the last person doesn’t make it something that should be allowed to continue. The fact that lives can still possibly be saved is all the more reason to stop them now.
Since there is no actual Light Crusade yet, there’s no published announcement about Xe’ra’s specific plans for Azeroth. But we can look at exactly what she’s already doing on Draenor to see what she’d be capable of should she arrive.

Yes, power levels do matter if the Light’s supposed to be as bad as the Void at the extreme and its polar opposite ala Yin and Yang. Even you conceded AU Xe’ra (and we can’t blame MU Xe’ra for AU Xe’ra’s crimes or vice versa) falls short of the Old Gods, for one. What AU Xe’ra did on AU Draenor doesn’t make your theorycrafting about what she might do on MU Azeroth canon.

No, power levels don’t matter, because WoW has had antagonists at all power levels. Most of them less a threat than the Legion and Sargeras. We’ve stopped many threats that aren’t as mighty as the Legion with leaders as individually powerful as Sargeras.

Also, thinking that Yin Yang is about either being all good/bad, or one being just as bad/good as the other shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept. This would explain why you keep reducing these cosmic forces and various groups to being all good/bad. With less room for even the small amount of nuance WoW’s writing is capable of.

Even if she’s not as bad, it doesn’t mean she’s good. And it doesn’t mean she doesn’t need to be stopped.

How so? Unlike the Naaru, the Titans are guilty of multiple actual genocides (as Algalon states and indicated with the “Reorigination Engine” in Uldum), should we have stopped or turned against them too? Rules for the Naaru, but not the Titans?

We’ve fought against the forces of the Titans and stopped the activation of the reorigination engine and battled its creator and didn’t take down the rest of the Titan watchers or even the Titans or Arcane.

Same rules would play out in a hypothetical “Tyranny of the Light” expansion possible to oppose Xe’ra and her allies without having to take down every single naruu or the Light itself.

As for those two thread you linked;

• From the first thread, I responded to someone else who raised similar points to yours and mistakenly thought I’d replied to you. Plus there wasn’t proof of your theorycrafting or mine. By the way, the idea of Turalyon unquestioningly following Xe’ra’s orders has been thoroughly debunked by myself and others in this thread and the one you linked.

You made one more post in the thread that didn’t adress anything I said and then abandoned the thread.

• The point of the second thread was to debunk the notion that Lighrforging itself was brainwashing. Note the thread’s title; "Lightforging = brainwashing" debunked . You conceded that point before making a different argument. Since the thread’s point had been proven, I didn’t bother to respond.

But the Light is capable of brain washing. It’s capable of lots of manipulation, up to and including brain washing. I was still pointing out how the Light can brain wash people when you just stopped responding. And now here you are, trying to declare the matter settled when it wasn’t and making the same wrong arguments.

So I’ll give you another opportunity to actually respond to my posts instead of just running off and making another thread. It’ll help keep things concise as opposed to having several threads all covering the same topics…

The quote you provided claiming Lightbound let Maghar keep their language and other elements of their culture is the same quote as the one I keep posting.

However, when we look at things, there’s no evidence that the Lightbound are letting the Mag’har keep their laguage, animal husbandry, fighting style or anything else about Mag’har culture, and lots of evidence showing they’re actually replacing elements of Mag’har culture with Draenei/Lightbound stuff.

Illidain was a leader of the Moonguard, the leader of the Illidari and a commander in the combined efforts to defeat the Legion. He’s an authority figure. He meets all your criteria for “the Man”, but now you’re adding the “more concerned with his own goals” criteria, even though his ultimate goals are even the same as Xe’ra’s, too: defeat the Legion.

And when I asked characters who’d qualify as “The Man” that have or would ever oppose Xe’ra and/or forces of the Light? You answered “Turalyon”: Xe’ra’s greates champion, who unquestioningly followed her orders in he past and currently leads the Lightforged army.

Anyone else?

And here…

Yeah, I don’t think Xe’ra’s brainwashing/controlling people in that she can’t simply dictate others’ actions on a personal level/puppet on a string sort of way. But she’s definitely manipulative, engages in coerced indoctrination and has great tools for doing it.

BUT, she can also grant visions to people, like she did to Turalyon and Alleria when Turalyon went through his Lightforging process. She can forge mental connections with people so she can watch them at all times and-when they do things she doesn’t like- pop into their mind and go, “I know what you’re doing/thinking. You’d better not.” She forges a similar mental bond with the player.

Then, when Alleria did disobey her and she was still mulling over her options, she looked into Turalyon’s heart/mind and read it before she actually bothered to explain what she was even going to do. Turalyon, fearing what Xe’ra might do, could only think to beg for mercy in the face of some unknown punishment for his wife, only to go about carrying out Xe’ra’s orders when it eventually came down.

Turalyon never “challenges” Xe’ra. He begs for mercy-even though he has no ide what the punishment is. Xe’ra looks into him delivers a punishment and he goes along with it.

Because she doesn’t control him directly like a puppet with direct control over his mind and body, but she absolutely does play mind games, hide information from him and manipulate him in a way that makes him loyal to her in a way that he probably wouldn’t be if he knew the full truth of what she’s doing.