Concept art for both the Winter Queen (Ardenweald) and the Arbiter are available.
Winter Queen:
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/884734.jpgArbiter:
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/884744.jpg
(Can’t post images. Sorry.)
I’ve already seen speculation that one or the other is Elune but I’m not getting that impression.
Thoughts?
I think people need to stop trying to draw lines between these new figures and old ones. They’ve been pretty clear that these are new characters.
The art is, as always, a delight.
The concept art is looking good. I doubt that we will physically see Elune anytime soon. I do think we might see her before the end of the expansion though.
I dunno, the column inside the Soul Pillar makes me think Oribos could still be Elune, especially since Elune is supposed to take the souls of the dead and immortalize them as stars in the night sky.
The Winter Queen is nice.
I seriously doubt they would make the leader of one of these neutral covenants Elune, the chief deity of one of the Alliance playable races. Not only would this be a kick in the gonads to Horde players it would be two kicks in the gonads to night elf players as their own patron goddess would have to value the Horde and Alliance equally.
You really don’t want Elune to become unambiguously neutral content.
That said Ardenweald looks gorgeous. I can’t wait to explore it and see the different sub-zones. We know we’re getting Thros. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a more jungle-looking realm with loa.
Though I can see Hir’eek being quite at home here flying around the starry night sky.
Also the night fey are adorable. I already want to protect them!
Which one is supposed to be the Arbiter?
Winter Queen’s name is on her image.
Good lord do I hope Elune isn’t the Arbiter.
She isn’t on this page. I don’t remember where on WoWhead she was posted, but she had an image. She has like tyrael wings, but black.
Found it.
https://i.imgur.com/Xg4966N.png
Both images are on the page.
Winter Queen:
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/884734.jpgArbiter:
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/884744.jpg
Interacting with both Horde and Alliance wouldn’t make Elune neutral any more than it made Velen neutral on Argus.
All the same, I wouldn’t want Elune to be an NPC we can interact with (even in the Shadowlands). However, I’m expecting some association between the Winter Queen and Elune.
Moths like moon light.
Fighting evil by moonlight.
Winning love by daylight.
Never running from a real fight.
She is the one named Sailor Moon Tyrande.
There is a world of difference between Velen, an Alliance leader who we worked with in legion, and someone becoming the primary leader of a neutral faction.
People complained for a freaking decade because Malfurion was the head of the Cenarion Circle and didn’t partake in faction conflicts until BfA. Elune would be in the same position he was only worse since she’d be leading a neutral faction that the entire playerbase can join.
Honestly after reading years and years of complaints about Malfurion it is a little baffling to see people pushing for Elune as a neutral goddess.
If you’re talking about me, then you’re mistaken. I’m not advocating Elune be neutralized.
My only contention with your previous post was suggesting that interacting with the opposite faction makes one neutral. Thrall, Jaina, Baine, Saurfang, Anduin, Varian, Sylvanas have all done so without losing their faction affiliation as a result.
Again, I don’t want Elune to be an NPC we run up to and click on repeatedly to get all her soundbites. But in a scenario where that did happen, even leading a neutral faction - as you pointed out Malfurion does (did?) - I don’t see how that would make her neutral. Especially not in Shadowlands where the faction war is behind us.
My issue in such a scenario would be the dilution of Night Elf culture further by spreading Elune around so everyone gets a taste. Which I feel was similar to the issue with Malfurion where the character - an actual Night Elf hero and leader - is sort of removed from the racial faction and given to everyone.
It could work though if the Tauren are the horde representatives, as the Tauren view Elune, or Mu’sha as one of the 3 main deities in their culture.
Hopefully if we ever get to interact with Elune we do it through Tyrande.
I don’t want to displace or disrespect her as the Chosen of Elune and her High Priestess.
I don’t mean you specifically, just the vast majority of posters I’ve seen over the years. Malfurion has gotten a ton of hate for his neutral stance.
Just interacting with both factions wouldn’t make her neutral. Leading a neutral faction like a covenant would. Elune can’t really lead a covenant without going neutral and becoming a goddess for both sides. As you say, everyone would get a piece of her.
It would basically be the Malfurion situation but worse.
The Arbiter is meant to be purely objective; if she favours the night elves, then she definitely isn’t objective.
She’s 100% not Elune.
Yeah, by all accounts the Arbiter is about as neutral as it is possible to get. They have stated that the denizens of the Shadowlands literally don’t care one way or the other about anything to do with the factions. All that is a problem for the living, not them.
i don’t think the arbiter is elune. she’s impartial and seemingly unfeeling, she wouldn’t act to spare anyone, or she’d be acting all over the universe and never send anyone to the maw.
i don’t know if it’s possible for the winter queen to be elune. elune’s powers manifest as light, every creature in the shadowlands uses some branch of death/spirit magic.
Elune actually manifests as arcane. Her being tied to the Light is a weird modern invention where the writers try to work her existence into their cosmology.