To start off: this isn’t a “Horde did nothing wrong” sort of post because the implications/ramifications of attacking a major civilian population center are pretty much the same whether it’s in a giant tree or not.
It’s more the way Teldrassil is so frequently treated by the narrative as holding comparable weight/significance to the other world trees, and it’s treated as this more existential loss/crime because of the Horde destroying something special and magnificent. Its roots are evidently (admittedly, I haven’t played beta and seen the whole Harandar storyline) treated with much the same reverence and significance as any of the other trees and a lot of plot beats just seem to have this expectation.
Did the writers completely forget that Teldrassil is only a few decades old, and initially planted by Staghelm? Like I know it was (partially) blessed by the aspects eventually, but the original story surrounding Teldrassil was that it was essentially a monument to Night Elven hubris. It was plagued by corruption from the start because of its whole “thing that should not exist” status (and because of Fandrel’s sabotage, iirc, but that only really worked bc of the lack of Aspect blessing).
As it continues to crop up in the general ‘world tree’ story threads it just feels jarring that it seems to be treated as holding similar significance to the actually ancient world trees rather than acknowledged as something that existed for an almost imperceptible blip in the 10,000+ year timespan that general story arc exists on.
When you look at old design maps for WoW you can see that as far back as 1999 they had the Night Elf capital on that island. I think that for some substantial period during development Teldrassil was just as ancient as Nordrassil. Maybe the shift came with Fandral’s creation? It growing offscreen seems so odd in retrospect. That seems like the kind of foundational story beat Blizzard would really want to depict in a cinematic.
The Emerald Nightmare plotline got kicked down the road so long. Stormrage (the book) tied a bow on the story, especially in regards to Teldrassil. That was like a soft confirmation they wouldn’t make it into a whole expansion. But they got real obsessed with a rigid ‘Race/Class Fantasy’. Legion comes around and you can tell their design initiative for it was a collage of Night Elven concepts. That outweighed any previous depiction concerning the Broken Isles. So they bring back the Nightmare to fill it out and that needs a tree. Well they already fixed Teldrassil so they gotta make a new one!
Because of Shaladrassil, Nature’s ‘fantasy’ demands that World Trees always existed, even before Night Elves. It’s the same mindset that made Maldraxxus. Doesn’t matter that the Scourge took their architecture from Nerubians. That’s just what Death looks like now. The art team’s inspiration board demands it.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Teldrassil burns right after Legion washed its hands of the Nightmare story. That might have been in the notes for years. The whole thing with Fandral becoming a flame druid and then his ultimate creation is destroyed by fire.. Makes me wonder if Teldrassil was supposed to get burned a lot sooner.
Just writers not knowing/caring for, own lore
and they will FOR SURE (try to) use haronir for when it regrows to go:= SEE BOTH FACTIONS HAVE CARED FOR THIS TREEE!!! AND SUFFERED S MUCH FROM ITS LOSS!!!
(ignoring it was mostly causing troubles, was made due staghelms ego after 3rd war but before classic)
To be fair, we’d already established there were multiple (attempted) world trees with Vordrassil back in Northrend, so Shaladrassil coming around wasn’t too crazy. The weirder thing to me is just the way we have several trees at this point of various provenance but the writers seem to largely forget that Teldrassil existed for a very short amount of time, almost half of which it was regarded as an unnatural, corruption-prone aberration, not some crucial pillar of existence (for anyone but the Night Elves, anyway).
Imo the story is a lot better served when the tragedy of Teldrassil is the actual loss of life and culture inherent to the destruction of a city, not the enormous focus on the tree itself.
I think it is less about the history of Teldrassil in the game and more about how much it means to the people playing it. Teldrassil was important to Night Elf players, so it becomes more important as a focal point than it would have been from a pure lore perspective.
Sacred works, but you’re right, ancient is silly (there are humans older than that tree).
Maybe a writer got confused on how sacred works and thinks sacred things must be old. It’s actually about being set aside for holy purpose or signifiance or it’s appointed as such by God (or whoever the relevant group worships, in this case).
Idk that “sacred” even works that well, certainly not so universally. To the Night Elves, sure (although I can definitely see that having been divisive pre-burning given the way the Fandrel stuff played out), but to wider Azeroth? Even after Teldrassil was “fixed,” it was only blessed by two aspects. Meanwhile the story often treats it like this eternal monument tragically laid low, even though almost every major character in the narrative was an adult when it was grown. It’s regarded with a sort of primordial quality that it just doesn’t actually have.
I think Kage’s 100% right, but devs have written lore in semi recent history (lol) wherein they implied Teldrassil was ancient. Players corrected them, and they corrected themselves. So I think the problem is becoming an ouroboros.
It is also weird that even back in vanilla Teldrassil was used as the Night Elven starting zone. Why make your capital the tree that the aspects refused to bless because it was grown out of arrogance? Hyjal should have been used as the NE starting zone and have the starting experience be focused on repairing the damage brought on by the Legion. Blizzard went big on the phasing tech with Cata so Hyjal being reused as a cata leveling zone probably would not have been a problem. Given that just an expansion later they would bring in ways to revert a zone back to a different phase (Dustwallow Marsh in relation to Theramore).
Forgot, or never realized it in the first place if they’re newer hires. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had comparable lore inconsistency (coughTemporaryFrenziedStatecough).
I kind of think of it like… maybe the Night Elves would view the tree as a part of that ancient lineage despite its young age, that to them any tree of this quality and size inherently must be just as important.
Like in Lord of the Rings, the dwarven kings are all said to be reincarnations of Durin, their first king and therefore one and the same. If a new Durin were to die when he was 10 years old yeah he hadn’t been around for that long, but he is considered a PART of and extension of all previous Durins.
I think of the World Trees in the same way, that the Night Elves view them as this contiguious lineage, and therefore all World Trees are simply extentions of the original Nordrassil (which since most of them were made of cuttings from this tree is also more literal than just conceptual)
So while Teldrassil ITSELF is young, its essence both physically and culturally is ancient in many ways.
It wasn’t ego, it was PTSD. Staghelm lost his son in that war. (jast as an aside another Staghelm was apparently killed in Silithus when it took that big Sword hit)
And Malfurion’s little stunt with Nordrassil cost the Night Elves their immortality, so he got hit with a refresh of his sense of mortality.
So here is the thing. The other world trees were planted to stop Yoggsaron’s influence sans Nodrassil. Which now that Yogg is dead means they have less of a purpose.(although I assume they are also somewhat helping nature maintain its balance)
Teldrassil on the other hand, while it initially was planted to try and make the night elves immortal again it also had a different purpose which is:
According to Broll Bearmantle, as a World Tree, Teldrassil was linked to the very health of Azeroth, affecting not merely its immediate surroudings, but those lands beyond the island, and a Teldrassil that was not well could not properly maintain the balance between nature and decay
So the loss of Teldrassil was a blow to Azeroth herself and is probably why the people of Azeroth, not just the night elves, treat it as such a great loss.
I would argue a World Tree is a big deal just by being a world tree. There are not exactly many of them. And they take a lot of work/magic to create. So, even young trees are a super valuable thing.
Does it? Are they actually valuing it the same? Or is it a case of each one is so valuable that they treat them all with extreme reverence. When the least valuable one is extremely valuable it can be hard to differentiate how they are treated. If there are people that are willing to do everything in their power to protect the least valuable tree how would you even know if they value one 10,000 times more? Everything in their power is still everything. We never actually see them choosing between trees.
I would counter that, beyond the scope of Night Elf culture, the story hasn’t really justified this consistently. There’s evidently one Broll Bearmantle quote suggesting that it has some sort of unquantified impact in balancing nature but that doesn’t appear to be borne out anywhere.
By even counting it in the same category as the others, even though half its short life it was nothing but a corrupted expression of elven hubris and vanity, I would say yes, they pretty clearly are. Like to be clear, I don’t think it’s weird purely because it’s young– so is Amirdrassil, but its significance is pretty clearly established. It’s weird because of the heel turn of “Teldrassil is a vain creation that some argue probably shouldn’t exist” to “Teldrassil is one of the most important things on Azeroth.”
Well, mostly correct. There are the Harronir. But it doesn’t really matter in this case. Because the factions/races that don’t value world trees are also not treating the loss of Teldrassil as anything more than the wiping out of a civilian population center. The ones concerned about the loss of a world tree value world trees.
Teldrassil was a World Tree. That is the category.
First, I think you are reading the “one of the most” parts into it. It was a powerful tree connected to the world and blessed by the aspects. It was important. Maybe not as important as Nordrassil, but still important.
And second, it wasn’t a ‘heel turn.’ It was created with corrupt purpose and was corrupted by it. That corruption was why it’s existence was a problem. That corruption was removed and it was blessed by the aspects. If the problem with a thing is corrected it is not a ‘heel turn’ to no longer find a problem with that thing.