Lets look at one particular example of the Night Warrior’s power. A former host of said power used it to kill an Old God to save their world and possibly species too? Then they died. Sounds like this power is supposed to be used for self sacrifice intentions, not rulership, or rampaging, or party tricks.
That implies it might also have a time limit.
Either the Goddess power runs out, or the vessel burns out.
Tyrande has had this power for quite some time now hasn’t she? It seems more like Tyrande can’t keep going rather than Elune’s power.
How does killing Sylvanas or rampaging around the Shadowlands, and dying because of it, help the Night Elves? Does it grow back Teldrassil? Feed and house the refugees? Bring back the 1000 dead Night Elves? What?
Here is a thought…Why don’t we put out these fires, dig our still alive friends and loved ones out of the wreckage, find shelter, food, and medical care for them, and let the paid mercenaries we contract all the time kill him for us, if they fail we can just send more. Okay?
NO!!! I NEED TO JUICE UP ON GOD POWER AND KILL HIM MYSELF!!! OR I CAN NEVER FACE MY PEOPLE AGAIN!!!
How did that work out? Oh yeah the tree had to be exploded to (sort of not) kill Archimnde, who still got to it anyway, and murderhobos had to be paid to come fix the messes with the Emerald Dream.
Someone had a good phrase on this topic. Something like “Players don’t need proof of Elune’s special treatment, they KNOW that Elune has a special relationship with the night elves.”
The first part of this is frankly misaligned whataboutism that reaches into territory that includes blaming modern day Night Elves for Azshara. This is nothing more than red-teaming, and I’m not going to accept it as valid.
The second part is a wishy-washy attempt to sidestep what matters when we have these moments, or any moments in any story period:
What does the audience take away from the experience?
I’m going to stop right here and ask you to tell me, without googling it, what the significance of Mar Sara is.
Like I said, don’t Google it. Don’t also read below just yet. Just pause and think about what Mar Sara is and why it matters.
Done? Good - now I’ll proceed.
Mar Sara is a terran colony that is significant because the player in Starcraft’s campaign is the magistrate of it. Nominally, this is someone who is responsible for the colony’s defense. They should ostensibly know the people there and have a deep connection to at least some of them. In Starcraft, you play more of your missions there than you do on any other planet, fighting the zerg and then eventually having to evacuate the colony before the Protoss destroy it.
But does Mar Sara matter? No. For the RTS player it’s another battlefield, and an RTS doesn’t have time to build those investments in the first place. Deep personal investment with places and people is not the point of such a format - so I could forgive you if you didn’t know about Mar Sara, if you’ve never heard of it, or if you played the game if you even care about it. When I first thought up this example, I couldn’t even remember the name for quite a while.
So yes, what happened to Mar Sara was a terrible tragedy ostensibly including a great loss of life - and it doesn’t matter.
So why does Teldrassil matter?
Well, Teldrassil matters because the investment in an MMORPG is immensely more personal. It matters because people had considered it their origin point and their home for fourteen years. They made memories there. It matters because this game encourages you to identify with playable races, and you’re invested in how well they do - because you yourself allow yourself to become a part of them - to identify with them. It matters because on the other side, there is a rival that you want to do well against, but here the game is making it clear that compared to them you are trash and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Teldrassil doesn’t matter because fantasy people got blown up. It matters because it actively went out of its way to ruin the enjoyment of a large segment of the playerbase.
WE, that is the people behind the screens as players, were the ones hurt by Teldrassil. The pixels don’t matter.
WE had our investment destroyed viscerally in front of our eyes.
WE watched Blizzard put to lie the notion that we invested in in the first place.
WE had to swallow the bitter feelings of loss that we had zero counterplay to prevent.
WE had to deal with all of the abuse that Horde players heaped on us for the event.
WE still have to deal with that abuse.
WE continue to have no real counterplay or thing to show for it.
WE, not fantasy elves who feel no pain because they aren’t real, are the ones who were hurt by this.
That just doesn’t happen with events that are buried in the backstory. I don’t care if it’s canon, what matters is the PLAYER experience.
Everything is already arranged. Injured in Stormwind and possibly Hyjal. Campgrounds are no match for home, but the patient won’t die. He’s just in a very serious condition.
The attacker threatens to blow everything up. To treat, feed, build - is it meaningful if the island on which you are doing all this becomes unsuitable for life?
Let me make one thing clear to you, little boy, the only thing Illidan ever sacrificed is other people’s, including his allies’, lives.
And I would rather keep Tyrande away from that nonsense.
Yet she does, so that’s wrong.
It brings justice for the dead, deprives the Jailer of a pawn who gave him victories, deprives the Jailer of a Maw Walker, saves Azeroth, helps the souls of dead night elves, scatters her servants on Azeroth and ensures that she and her ilk would never dare to harm them again and sends an important message to all other enemies of the night elves
Want more? I can make a list.
You’re dumb as hell. Tyrande is the mercenary. She is part of the army that brings down the Jailer. The heroes cannot kill everyone on their own, if you had even a little bit of vision left through that piece of metal stuck over your eyes you would know that.
That was their plan, you imbecile. It didn’t explode because Archimonde was draining it. It exploded because the night elves wanted it to, so that Archimonde couldn’t drain it, and would be killed.
Did killing the Old God? Its a means, a leader, is willing to accept in order to protect their people from future attacks from said enemy.
Again, Slyvanas isn’t some old powerless shell of a banshee queen locked up in the stockades, she is still and continues to be a threat to all existence.
Why would you ever kill an Old God then? Arthas, Deathwing, whatever.
You can’t, otherwise you’ll just be reduced to a “bloodthirsty lunatic” seeking… REVENGGEEEEEE!!!
If that’s what it takes… Slyvanas hasn’t been beaten by the Mercenaries yet, she even escaped Anduin and Thrall countless times before.
If you want something done right… do it yourself.
Also, what is to say the mercenaries are even capable of killing slyvanas? Wipe inc.
True. I had a friend back in BC days (2007 year) who made a Teldrassil (the one from the arts) as tattoo on his hand. Of course in our days he can lie and tell everyone that this is actually a tattoo of Nordrassil, but that lame…
Five people entered a portal to “another world” risking their lives in order to save ours… Hrmmmm that sounds so familiar, just can’t put my finger on it.
But I suppose they were all just seeking vengeance…
There was entire Alliance expedition, not only 5 heroes. There were also gnomes for example, and I dont see any gnome statue at the Valley of Heroes…
No one cares about the life of the ordinary footman.
Her shot would have been letting Anduin go. Or getting him out of the Maw.
The other thing about redemption, you have to want it. Illidan being the self-centered arrogant jerk that he was, never got to a point where he wanted it or believed that he needed it. It’s a road that no one can walk you on.
The Orcs don’t feel they need so either. From their viewpoint everything they did was either justified on it’s own merits or was the responsibility of the WarChief. The Forsaken likewise aren’t interested in redeeming themselves in the eyes of people that seek nothing but their eradication.
What you’re doing is conjecturing. Or supposing the worst possible motive and/or reasoning without evidence to support it.
No, you really can’t without ignoring all lore that came before it.
Right. Previous Night Warriors (at least one) all took on all of Elune’s power and DIED as a result. And if Elune’s power was not taken back at that moment, Tyrande would’ve shared that fate. THAT is something we do know.
What makes you think Elune would be willing to sacrifice another of her Children when she has already lost so many? No matter which way you look at this, you can’t help but to ascribe malevolent and/or sinister motivations to Elune’s actions, when there is nothing in Elune’s lore or character that would support such conjecture.
(And I kind of get the feeling you’re projecting.)
I wouldn’t say Elune is malevolent, but she can be quite aloof at times. I honestly think she held Tyrande back because tyrande still has a vital role to play in stopping Zooval.
I think so too, and I also think that she sees Zovaal as responsible, not necessarily Sylvanas. And I think the night warrior could still play a big role there.
You could say that she still has a bone to pick with Zoval.
Knowing what we know about what happened to An’she, it’s not surprising that she’s more withdrawn then what she has been.
Agreed. Elune wasn’t going to let Tyrande kill herself to kill Sylvanas when the power BEHIND Sylvanas is still a Threat to the Night Elves as well as the rest of Creation.
This reminds me of the time that one of Sylvanas’s VAs (not Patty Matson, other-than English VA) posted on twitter how upset they were about Sylvanas saying the “Horde is Nothing.”
Point being, they don’t know. I’ve seen Patty Matson interviewed many times, she doesn’t know what the future holds for Sylvanas anymore than we do. Let alone Tyrande’s VA about obscure cosmological mythos.
