If you can with certainty say you can restor it sure, now show that practically, it’s as they say, easier said than done.
They may both religious converts, but the portrayal I got from the Mag’har is there is it is involuntary (hence Darethy’s scars quote). Versus voluntary with the Lightforged.
shrug ultimately this is a philosophical difference. I see these differences as defining. You do not
I just mean the possibility makes such a thing worth consideration.
Sure. My problem is just that you would agree different starting points don’t necessarily indicate different end points. That’s why I was going on about ‘is this still a person’, but you’ve agreed on ‘they may both be religious converts’.
I’m fine agreeing to disagree. But it seems like you somewhat acknowledge the issue in this reasoning which seems pretty core in your contention. That this might just come down more to feeling about it.
I disagree that the starting points lead to the same end point. That they are both religious converts is not a huge deal to me. That one is converted through trial and tribulations shown to the players as voluntary versus one that is framed as involuntary frames one as protagonist and one as antagonist. One is about dedicating yourself to a cause versus being brainwashed into fighting for that cause. That is a qualitative difference between the groups.
Ugh, all this talk of the Lightforged and Lightbound does is remind me of how much more interesting Alosous Faol, who I am almost certain will not appear in BfA despite having EVERY REASON TO BE HERE, was at showing the light better as a dangerous force.
That moment of Turaylon genuinely on the verge of bashing an innocent old mans head in out of misunderstanding has a thousand more layers of nuance then Illidan get wrangled with the lasso of truth to become a mindwashed light demon, or whatever.
What makes the Lightforged interesting antagonists for me is precisely the fact they have free will, that they are completely in control of their actions, it’s why Derek Proudmoore is significantly more horrifying getting mentally tortured into something horrific. Or…would be more horrifying if we weren’t just complicit in a genocide anyway.
The fact that they can choose, and that in choosing they can still succumb to blind zealotry, is way more threatening then being scourge but with light injected into their brain.
But the fact you agree someone who chooses to be a religious convert and someone brainwashed into are both religious converts kind of proves my point. That different starting points can lead to the same end point. The end point is being a religious convert.
So consent doesn’t necessarily influence outcome. So to say there is some large difference based on that seems flawed.
Well the Lightforged scenario has them as the Alliance player’s protagonist and the Mag’har one has them as the Horde player’s antagonists, sure. They are different perspectives from groups opposed to one another.
I do not see that as the end point. The end point is the sum product of your experiences and events that shape you, and it is constantly moving down the line. How you get to your current “end point” is the sum of your experiences that led you there.
To put it another way, how you walk your path matters as much as where you are going to me.
I don’t think the framing is as important as how they came into being. The Lightbound come from a universe where the Light Mother, who is clearly Xe’ra, was never destroyed. In this reality her, and her Naaru, begin mass converting people by force.
Which is a much different then from the Forge of Aeons. You choose to subject yourself to the light, and as you are in your personal nightmare you use the light to forge yourself anew. When you come out you’re a different person, but still a person as opposed to a mindless drone.
The situations are radically different. Yes they both wind up religious zealots, but religious zealots of different degree, in case two the person is still themselves they have no magical spell forcing them to follow the light. They have things tilting them more towards the light, but they can doubt.
Darethy explained it better than I could, think I need to get to bed so I can get some semblance of sleep.
When I say end point, I mean ‘what do we call this thing’. To endlessly qualify how we describe someone based on experiences is impractical. Hence why terms like person, religious convert, etc are useful. I don’t see a use in distinguishing between someone forced into the Light or not when the relevant aspects of this group are the same. They an imbued with the Light, they fight together, they all seem to still have agency of a sort.
This discussion (at least on my end) has been whether or not there are differences in these people to justify calling them something different. And so far a different premise hasn’t been enough. A religious convert is a religious convert, despite how they got there. An undead is an undead, forced or not. A Lightforged is a Lightforged, whether they were initially forced or not.
Maybe. That’s been a key theory, that the forced conversion might internally be equivalent that results in brainwashing. We know the Army of the Light didn’t always use the Forge given we see Turalyon willingly converted. I don’t necessarily think Lightbound are being mind controlled or cannot doubt. There just isn’t a ton of information on how the Lightforging works or how it actually differs from willing conversion at the end of the day.
The fact that they choose to be there doesn’t mean the changes they undergo or the things they do are of their own agency. I choose to work at my current job too and I implement the policies there, that doesn’t mean I actually have any choice or freedom in implementing them. Boot camp, even now, is designed to remold the person into a soldier. That is not done through their agency but by the agency of the government through its selected subsidiary units. You can leave. You can’t choose how you’re being changed.
T’partos isn’t that Ancient Guide creating the whole thing in T’partos (and the players?) mind. That’s not self-directed, that’s following the path laid out and overcoming the challenges, the mental frameworks, as directed. He’s not forging himself. And you have jack-all to indicate that exactly such a journey was not going on for Illidan when Xe’ra did what she did to him, albeit one that ended with him turning away from it and remaining as he was. Something that can presumably also happen to one walking away from this vision-quest, rejecting and resisting the attempted change(s).
X’era tried to inflict change upon Illidan BY FORCE. Becoming Lightforged is a trial undertaken by the aspirant’s own choice.
Xe’ra also changed Turalyon by his own consent. So her process can be done either way.
Was it truly by consent, or did she pressure or maneuver him into taking the process.? X’era also spent a good amount of effort trying to break Alleria and Turalyon up as well. And she seems rather inflexible in dealing with the free will of others.
This may be a good moment to point out that X’era is a constructed being, not a lifeform that was born in anything resembling a natural process. She may be more like Landru, or at least Dark Kosh in personality.
It seemed consensual to all appearances. Doesn’t seem like there is good reason to think he didn’t want to do it.
Eh, that lore hasn’t panned out yet, far as I know. And I consider outside narrative text as more reliable than in-game in-character points.
When X’era points out specifically that she was forged instead of born, I don’t think that should be ignored offhand. The narratives of her relationship with WOW’s favorite Alliance couple should not be so readily dismissed either.
I’m not ignoring it out of hand. Just that it contradicts The Chronicle (so OoC versus IC narrative) and we’ve thus far not had it substantiated in a meaningful way. It might be relevant, but I’m not inclined to give it significant weight without more on it.
Unless there’s good reason to do otherwise, when things contradict, I take the game over someone’s novel.
I usually take things based on being more or less recent. But if it is something in-character, so not just in-game but from a character’s perspective, it could merely be prone to their misunderstanding. So I give an out of character narrative or Word of God more weight unless emphatically disproved.
The real problem however is that many of the novel writers seem to be operating without access to actual game material in development that may be divergent. Or Blizzard may decide to change tacks after the novel material is written but before the game content is finalised.
Generally, that’s true. But The Chronicle was written by Chris Metzen, Matt Burns, and Robert Brooks. And the intent was also as a definitive lore source. The intent, writers, and narrative put it higher up than a standard novel. I can accept it might be retconned, merely that to consider that true, I’m going to need more than two in-character, off-hand mentions that haven’t gone anywhere. These comments, both of which were in the same questline, are more likely to me to be a quest writer not getting the memo. Lest we all forget Stonetalon Garrosh.