I feel like it’s weird that only Smolderon showed up, right? The Elemental Lords were imprisoned by the titan keepers- and unless it’s turning out to be more stuff we were lied to about to make them look good, the elemental planes themselves were created as prisons for the elementals. Feels like they’d get along well with the primalists, since even though we’ve worked with the surviving ones in friendly manners before, overthrowing the titan’s ordering of Azeroth would be right up their alley. But unless I missed something, none of the others were even mentioned? Feels odd to me.
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My vibe is they did not trust the incarnates and decided it best to avoid them. For a good reason, it turns out as Smolderon ended up lunch.
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Even if that’s the case, it still feels weird that they’re completely absent. They don’t really like each other, the differing elemental lords, and Azeroth was about an inch away from being nothing but shadowflame. Therazane, Neptulon, and Thunderaan wouldn’t have enjoyed that. I get it’s mostly just how much they want to include in the story, but an elements based villain arc for the whole thing where only Smolderon shows up at the very end is weird, with the others not even being mentioned.
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100%, yeah. I feel as if something got cut in there. Like… Raszegath was the Storm Eater, for example. So perhaps primal dragons gain power through consuming powerful elementals?
There is also the fact that bound elemental spirits are ‘tainted’ by the Titans and might be seen as something to destroy to allow ‘true’ elementals to reform from the freed up elemental essence.
But that is totally me spitballing. They for sure dropped the ball there.
Therazane and Neptulon seem like they don’t mind being confined to the Elemental Plane. Given that both their realms were invaded by N’zoths forces during Cata. Plus iirc, a result of Cata is that they are free to walk Azeroth without needing a complex ritual summon that could go horribly wrong. As was the case for the Dark Irons and Ragnaros. Repairing the World Pillar in Deepholm simply stopped Azeroth from collapsing itself into the Elemental Plane. The damage done to the barrier separating the two is still there though iirc.
For Thunderaan, we do not know his opinion on it though.
Probably. We know that Smolderan was simply a sacrificial lamb to empower Fyrakk and his axe after all. And given that he was still fairly new to the role, might be why he was easily duped.
Well, other than Thunderan, who would even join up? Neptulon seems over it all, Therazane is relatively cool with things, and that just leaves the dude who did join and Thunderan.
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They’ve certainly carved our their kingdoms within the planes, but I doubt they’d pass up on a chance to take back what was theirs. There was a time when they ruled Azeroth, albeit while constantly fighting each other, and I personally can’t imagine they’d prefer to stay in a realm Crafted as their prison. They already despised the old gods, given they were enslaved by the old gods before they were imprisoned by the Titans. Our dealings with them have largely been a “hey, this thing is a threat to you and us, we should work together on it.”
Assuming that’s the case, they wouldn’t want the primalists mucking it all up and domineering the elements either. They wouldn’t have wanted the entire world bathed in shadowflame, that’s for sure, given the elemental lords have historically not gotten along. My point I guess is less they should have sided with the primalists, but being absent and unmentioned is weird.
Well, half the OG elemental lords from pre-Vanilla are gone. Dead and dissipated (until they aren’t). Therazane and Neptulon would be the only two to even remember these guys, if at all. We know from Ragnaros that elemental lords had to be summoned to Azeroth and couldn’t just walk out of their planes when they felt up for it.
So the answer for why they didn’t get involved is pretty simple; we didn’t summon them to help us.
As for why we didn’t, I’d make a pretty safe guess that we rightfully don’t trust them to always be on our side. Neptulon and Therazane might be cool with us now, but who’s to say they wouldn’t look at the primalists and think “maybe these guys have the right idea?”
Similarly, the primalists wouldn’t want to summon them because by extention of the previously mentioned worry, they’d have to add “and since this does seem like a right idea… Why aren’t we the ones doing it instead? Maybe we should betray them before they betray us?”
Instead the primalists went for Smolderon, who seems to be the least cunning and most aggressive of the Elemental Lords.
I’m not trying to crap on your question or anything, I just think there are very reasonable explanations for their absence or uninvolvement.
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As someone else pointed out, the barriers to getting them to Azeroth seem to be lessened or gone. Neptulon is there on Azeroth during Legion, and you can even see him near Nazjatar during BFA- he can’t enter it itself because of the Tidestone, but he’s present and there’s no talk of anything special done to have him there. So he either never went back to the Abyssal Maw, or he can leave and come back as he pleases now.
But again, they weren’t even -mentioned-. Heck, before he showed up in the raid with no fanfare, the last we’d heard of Smolderon was he was missing during BFA, when the evil dark irons were trying to revive Ragnaros, and wasn’t ruling the plane. It seems more than anything else that they were either forgotten or blizzard just didn’t want to fit them in.
I’d guess that’s the case.
See, I don’t think this is as big of a deal. The primalists never associated with the elemental lords, we’re not exactly their buddies, so what would be the cause to bring them up, other than “there are elementals”?
Like, we didn’t see a big return of the orcs of the Dragonmaw clan, even though they’re tied to dragons. We didn’t see the Twilight’s Hammer coming around, even though they’re somehow tied to the elements, and have worked with elemental lords before, and even have ties to the black flight from Cata.
I just don’t see why the other elemental lords would fit in, other than to throw everything elemental-ish into the big mixing pot for reasons.
There is actually a side quest dealing with the Dragonmaw and one of them coming to terms with what they’d done. It is touched on. It’s not a major story beat, but it’s there (kind of hamfisted handling during it, but that’s just opinion.)
There are also a couple quests dealing with the Twilight’s Hammer.
Plus, proto drakes themselves descend from elementals, which is a big reason why so many were opposed to the Titan’s ordering.
In the end I guess we just disagree. Even if some of them have been cordial, I doubt the Elemental Lords enjoy being confined and would probably like to go back to their days of controlling Azeroth. They can still have influence on the world without walking it, as has been shown. Being imprisoned - not just the Lords, but most of them, for an incredible amount of time and their world forcibly “ordered” by those who did it. Seems unlikely, to me, that they’d miss out on a chance to involve themselves somehow.
Yeah, pretty much.
I don’t really see the argument for their personal grudge against the titans, assuming they even still have one, somehow extending to joining a group of possibly treacherous dragons fighting other dragons who just so happened to also have been manipulated by the titans. If this hypothetical grudge exists among the two remaining OG elemental lords, it hasn’t stopped them working with Earthen shaman in the least, nor has it been depicted that they will then ally themselves with the enemies of the titans; they helped defeat the Legion after all, not to mention the current living two not allying themselves with Deathwing or any other groups… At all really, beyond the whole “sure, I’ll smash stuff if you summon me to Azeroth” gimmick.
I think our inherent differing views boil down to the fact I just don’t see them as a bunch who join up with others, unless the threat directly could impact them via total world destruction. Not the survivors at any rate. Given the heroes of Azeroth already know elemental lords are not our friends we wouldn’t seek their involvement, and the primalists wouldn’t want possible competition. Since the ELs would only be allies of convenience at best (again, because they’re not joiners), there’s really no reason to risk dragging them in.
Smolderon was only joining to spread Fire’s influence.
Air, Earth and Water already have powerful influence over Azeroth so they have no reason to join the Primalists.
The most interest they’d have for the Emerald Dream is how to subvert it’s borders on Azeroth in order to reach other Worlds that don’t have Air, Earth or Water in order to spread their particular brand of influence onto such Worlds. Nymue dying might allow them to do that but we got rid of her anyways so they have no reason to pick sides and can simply hang back and watch.
Something to consider is that Fyrakk’s whole Amirdrassil agenda came across as something the Druids of the Flame had talked him into. They’re the ones who in some areas die ranting about ushering in “a new Firelord,” suggesting they already intended to replace Smolderon. Moreover, first the Prophet of the Flame, then Tindral Sageswift very much came across as insidious manipulators goading Fyrakk and Smolderon into pursuing their current course at the time.
So Smolderon was probably lured to Amirdrassil with the promise of being able to scorch Azeroth to cinders as part of their plan, all the while intending for him to be defeated and betrayed so his power could be taken by Fyrakk. Basically everything in 10.2 felt like the Druids of the Flame had hijacked Fyrakk and the Primalists for their own purposes instead. One will note that during questing the rank-and-file Primalists were shown to be increasingly uncomfortable about the whole thing , as lifting the yoke of Order only to spread a different, burning corruption all over Azeroth didn’t really sync with their ideology, so they were getting antsy about what Fyrakk and his new allies kept demanding from them. Being saddled with a bunch of djaradin “allies” who regularly insulted and abused them probably didn’t help their outlook on the whole thing either.
It really wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out the Druids of the Flame approached Fyrakk so shortly after he consumed the Shadowflame because they were sent to do so by “someone,” i.e. Iridikron’s “other” allies. It’s important to remember that while the newer generation of Druids of the Flame were driven into the cult by the burning of Teldrassil, the leadership was still being steered by at least one very notable survivor from Fandral’s original group, who had serve one of the two Firelords allied to Deathwing (and therefore N’zoth) and who basically functioned like a fire-aligned branch of the Twilight’s Hammer, even acting on orders from the Twilight Father when they attacked Thrall at Mt. Hyjal.
In which case the other three Elemental Lords could have been absent because none of them were part of the original Primalist cause to begin with, and Smolderon only became involved later because certain Void-oriented schemers already had a preexisting Druid of the Flame equivalent ensconced in the Fireland domains to manipulate him.
Consider that the Dungeon Journal indicates Smolderon is there seeking to incinerate the Emerald Dream, not unlike what Ragnaros intended for Hyjal (and then the rest of Azeroth.) That’s outright not what Fyrakk and the Druids of the Flame were trying to do; they’re seeking to corrupt the Dream - and Azeroth - into eternal flame itself as they’re shown doing to people, animals and plant life within the Dream during questing. That difference was even the point of contention that started driving Vyranoth away; had Fyrakk simply wanted to burn Amirdrassil and the Dream to the ground, it would have constituted destroying something of the titans’ making, but corrupting it to use oneself was a whole different story. So Smolderon’s own designs seem to have been immaterial to why he was actually brought there by the Druids of the Flame, as their and Fyrakk’s intentions for him didn’t include actually letting him burn the world to ashes.
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It should also be stressed that Therazane probably still hates our guts for killing her daughter, but her sons like us. It is why she tolerates us and not the Earthen Ring.
So Therazane might’ve helped us, but at the same time she might have stayed neutral. In contrast, The Legion was a threat to everyone. Hence why she sent some of her forces to aid the Earthen Ring during Legion.
Added bonus is that he is the same primal power as Fyrakk. That of fire.
They were too busy killing themselves over who would led a Deathwing cult.
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I think there are plenty of reasons for the Elemental Lords to sit out this fight, but I’d have preferred to see those reasons referenced in-game rather than guessed at in the forums.
Even something small, like having Thrall (as the notable shaman rep) have buffs named “Stonemother’s Protection”, “Neptulon’s Strength”, and “Thunderaan’s Swiftness” when he appears in the big cameo quest, would be good.
I know this setting has so many characters that it’s a lot of work to keep relevant minor ones in mind for each plot, but that’s the kind of detail that really makes the world feel alive.
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So busy they couldn’t help the Faceless in Aberrus in securing the Slitherdrakes to do with them what they got Sarkareth to do to himself nor provide them with Black Dragons to perfect their Shadowflame Elementium Dragons(since they naturally couldn’t use Ebyssian nor Wrathion for that purpose).
The Void failed in it’s goals because the Twilight’s Hammer was consumed by ambition.
The Twilight’s Hammer could have had Sarkareth lead a vast army of Elementium Dragons and Void Slither Dragons but it had to have infighting causing the N’raqi of Aberrus’s Legacy(cleverly passed off as Neltharion’s legacy despite Neltharion only creating the Dracthyr in that place) to amount to nothing while Neltharion’s legacy continues to remain strong in the Dracthyr, Black Dragons, Nether Dragons and secretly surviving Twilight Dragons.
Also it came across during Cataclysm as if Therazane considers organic life something of a corruption in her realm, so she in particular may well just prefer staying in Deepholm over helping someone like the Primalists try to reclaim an Azeroth that’s been so thoroughly infested by the Curse of Flesh.
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