So I was thinking that “elemental” has become a bit watered-down in WoW. In the real world an element is a specific kind of matter, and in a fantasy setting I always thought it was a specific state of matter. What these two have in common is being largely indivisible. You can’t have an atom that is half hydrogen and half helium. And (this one is more or less) you can’t have something that is both liquid and solid.
So I had this thought when elementals stated being combined. A storm elemental includes lightning, air, and water. You could have this, I thought, because it is defined by not having any earth. And insofar as fire is separate from lightning, it is defined by not having any combustion - just plasma.
So in some sense elementals are pure. That’s sort of what defines them.
But once you’ve got candle elementals walking around you’ve sort of lost me. Maybe they shouldn’t be called elementals but poltergeists or something similar. They’re not spirits of the primal states of matter at all, but spirits that enter and animate more or less anything.
It’d be like having a bed elemental. I mean, you could make a plausible one that either animated beds (but see, this is an obvious poltergeist and not an elemental, isn’t it?) or had traits that made it closely associate with beds, but that doesn’t mean it’s an elemental. It would be soft, hopefully clean, warm, and sleep a lot. ( )
No I swear!!! I’m just suggesting you call it something else, like what that thing over there is called. Man it’s huge. I hope it doesn’t crush us. That’s a golem right? Or maybe it’s a fel reaver… that’s headed right for us…
In WoW, an Elemental is basically a spirit that inhabits a collection of an energy or substance, such as a bunch of Water, or a collection of Fire, or some rocks.
If you can make an elemental out of rocks, why couldn’t you make an elemental out of steel? Well that’d basically be a golem, but eh. Same concept.
Well, what about a pile of wax? If you can animate a bunch of rocks, why couldn’t you animate a pile of wax? Or a bunch of pillows?
Or, how about a bunch of turds? I’m surprised that old Blizz didn’t already do that one, lol.
Elementals have personality and sentience, or at least a bunch of them do.
You come across several sentient elementals, they are definitely elementals, and a lot of the named ones that can actually talk to you, and have sentience are not elemental lords at all.
Like, just go do quests in Deepholm again and you’ll learn that MANY elementals do have sentience. A lot of them never talk and so you wouldn’t know it.
I agree with the alemental but not so much the fire one. The alcohol is dissolved and so comes along with the water blast so the water blast from my alemental battle pet, when he’s only controlling the water, has an inebriation effect. Okay I can see that.
The candle, however, is the big part, not the flame. You’d have to say the fire elemental can move the candle by pulling on the wick. And that’s not what they show. They have little footies.
more put together, and powerful (Usually older) elementals have a high chance of being sentient, younger less powerful elements are likely not sentient, communicating with them requires strange rituals and other forms of communication which was sort of the Shamans whole cornerstone early on in wow.
Alot of “Appeasing” Elemental quests usually wasn’t done by talking to them, they didn’t speak, it was through other methods (Like playing drums to soothe them) that was your interaction with them.
I’d argue that a Candle Elemental is specifically probably a fire elemental wrapped in wax. Probably kobold magic given their affinity for Wax, fire, and candles in general.
I think that the elementals who do have sentience, do actually have souls.
They don’t go to the Shadowlands, because their “afterlife” of sorts are the Elemental Planes.
The Earth Elementals live as spirits in Deepholm, and they inhabit bodies made of stone until said body is destroyed, and when that happens, a new body needs to be formed, and their spirit/soul is then bound to it by an elemental lord, or a shaman using similar magics.
)