This was brought up in another thread and went for quite a few posts, so I thought it best to have its own thread for discussion.
Elune as the representation of Life in nature and her influence on it and the Emerald Dream. There’s some discussion whether Elune is even connected or related to Nature and the Emerald Dream. Here is what we know:
Elune is said to be the direct counterpart to her sister the Winter Queen, as told to us in Shadowlands, even by the Primus. Each of the sisters represent part of the cycle of Nature and their respective realms in Death and Life. As the Primus also said:
The Primus says: The Winter Queen is bound to her counterpart in the realms of Life. Together, they embody the balance of the great cycle.
The Primus says: Through sorrow and understanding, the night fae sigil has been reborn. And perhaps their kinship as well.
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Ysera, who is an avatar and representation of the Emerald Dream, was called Elune’s “pet” by the Winter Queen. When the Winter Queen empowered and bound Ysera to her and Ardenweald, Ysera’s power changed from emerald to the same energy as the Queen.
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We have multiple mentions in Lore of Elune’s influence over life, growth and nature, from several races. Even the Zandalari Druids that live in the wild have said that Elune is no Loa, but that she is even above the power of the Loa and the other Zandalari simply haven’t realised it yet.
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Ardenweald was said to be the opposite of its counterpart in life. It represents Winter and Autumn and the Emerald Dream (if it’s the counterpart) represents Summer and Spring, as what we have already seen of it’s images. We also know that the connection was absent for a time but has recently been renewed.
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Claims that Freya made the Emerald Dream are not entirely accurate. We know she used it and bonded with Wild Gods, but it doesn’t accurately say she formed it. We also know much of what the Watchers and even Titans claimed wasn’t accurate, and that Odin specifically had things rewritten to place the Titans as the architects of everything.
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Elune’s son is claimed to be Cenarius, born of her and a wild god. Cenarius had massive influence over the Emerald Dream and guided others to it. Even if he was the child of a wild god, the amount of influence and power he wielded within it was above that of any of the wild gods/loa that we saw. He also assisted mortals in connecting to it and gaining Druidic power.
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We know Elune is even mentioned and worshipped on other planets, and the growth and nature seen there is attributed to her. This shows us she isn’t just focused on Azeroth but her power spreads to multiple words, which would be through her influence in Life.
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Claims that the Emerald Dream is just a reflection of Azeroth but full of nature isn’t entirely accurate. We learn that the Emerald Dream is much more extensive than we thought, such as the Rift of Aln. We aren’t entirely sure how the Dream works for the mortal within but it could be the Dream has different aspects in it for each world as an anchor. There could always be the chance that the Emerald Dream is a part of the greater Nature aspect in Life even.
I suppose the question to ask here is what Elune’s position in the Pantheon of Life would be. Is she basically the leader? Although that would make her more like the original Arbiter, as opposed to the Winter Queen’s opposite. Is there someone in the Pantheon of Life above her?
Or perhaps the Pantheon of Life doesn’t work that way. It could be more chaotic than we saw in the Shadowlands, a constant struggle for supremacy between different Eternals.
The winterqueen´s role is beside the arbiter the most important one of all other realms, she´s one part of the coin that is responsible that the entire circle is still running.
she and her counterpart are responsible that the great circle of life and death is running.
in Shadowlands the Arbiter is more important, for everyone else=> WQ > Arbiter
That is not really true. I mean all of the four are fairly important. No Kyrian means no anima for the winter queen. The Maldraxxi have fought who knows how many external threats.
The Venthyr are probably the only one that doesnt directly help the Winter Queen’s function but I am pretty sure the cycle of death needs them to function.
for the shadowlands, yes, the difference is only the arbiter and the winterqueen are important for the great circle, the arbiter is the one responsible to send the souls for the anima to the realms, so important, and the wq is the counterweight to life itself…both serve their role as the great circle of life and death and as far as we know, its part of a big engine that is critical for everything, the first ones were cruial in using this.
No.
Primus is stated to be the most powerful of the Eternals.
WQ isn’t essential. All she does is reincarnate wild gods.
Wild gods are utterly worthless and useless.
Orcs killed Cenarius, and wild gods have done a whole lot of nothing in Azeroth’s history.
Not literally nothing, but absolutely less than mortals did.
As far as we know, Elune is a being of Life. If we do consider her to be the Winterqueen’s Life counterpart, then it means that she’s probably part of the Pantheon of Life, not that she’s the embodiment of Life/Nature ; in other words, it means that she’s one Eternal One of Life among others (and also that she’s just a powerful robot with a soul plugged in, which is not very flattering lol, but that’s besides the point).
We know for certain that having a direct connection to the corresponding Pantheon is NOT necessary to wield a cosmic force. Proof of that is Draenor : it had no slumbering World Soul, no Naaru, no Old God, yet the Arakkoa freely tapped into Arcane, Light and Void. That’s because the cosmic forces flow freely accross the Great Dark Beyond. One can wield a cosmic force without ever establishing a connection with the corresponding Pantheon. Similarly, despite having no known connection to Elune or an equivalent of the Emerald Dream, Draenor was filled with an exceptional amount of Life energy, since there wasn’t any World Soul to gobble all the Spirit up ; there are even Saberon and Arakkoa druids.
Now, this gets us to the question of druidism : what is a druid ? There are two possibilities. 1) It’s someone who wields Life/Nature magic. Not someone with a direct connection to Elune, not even someone with a direct connection to the Emerald Dream. The reason why up until now druidism was so heavily associated with Elune and the Emerald Dream is probably that the most important druidism-oriented civilization is the Kaldorei civilization, hence why their practice has been overshadowing the others. But the Harvest Witches and Drust used Nature magic without any connection to the Emerald Dream, as far as we know. Remember how the Kaldorei and Tauren “tried to counsel the Trolls on correct druidic nomenclature” when Trolls called the Wild Gods “Loa” ? https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ask_CDev#Ask_CDev_Answers_-_Round_2 This hints at the fact that the Cenarian practice is the “dominant culture” : there’s literally no valid reason as to why Wild Gods should inherently be called as such rather than “Loa” or “August Celestials”. Actually, there’s also no reason why “Elune” would a more valid name than “Mu’sha”. 2) Other possibility : druidism does indeed specifically refer to the users of Nature magic who have a special relationship with Elune and draw power from the Emerald Dream. Then, only the Kaldorei and the Tauren should be called druids, and it should be acknowledged that the Troll, Drust and Gilnean users of Nature magic are something else, but are classified as druids due to gameplay limitations and class system convenience.
The Lun’alai saying that “Elune is no Loa, she is even above the power of the Loa and the other Zandalari simply haven’t realised it yet” is irrelevant. Of course they’d say that, most religious people are convinced the deity/pantheon they worship is the “one true deity/one true pantheon”. There isn’t any reason to give them credit on that.
(Also, saying “Elune is no Loa” is factually incorrect, since “Loa” is just the name given to whatever the Trolls worship : can be Wild Gods, dead Trolls, whisps, Elune, literally anything in existence)
When it comes to the Emerald Dream : it is an artificial realm, and we have absolutely no reason to think that we wouldn’t be able to wield Nature magic without this artificial realm. Its origins may be retconned soon, but as of now, the canon lore is that the Emerald Dream was a plane created by the Titans to order and enhance the development of Life on Azeroth. Nothing more. Now wait and see for potential future developments.
(In addition to all of that… let’s not dispel the thought that the First Ones may absolutely be liars. Let’s be real here : EVERYTHING about them is reminiscent of the Titans, and the Titans were confirmed to have lied on their role in the cosmogony of both Azeroth and the Great Dark Beyond in general. I personally think the First Ones are actually just the most powerful Order beings ; I’ll try and do thread about that).
I feel like there’s a thematic issue with this in that Elune is connected to night time and moon/starlight.
Suddenly adding on nature/growth (traditionally linked to things like sunlight) would kind of contradict her usual motifs.
An’she/Belore would make for a natural counterpart to her, if we’re honest, although at the same time, Day/Sun might also be something of an Eternal One in a Light Pantheon, depending on how that works. Or maybe An’she/Belore has a brother in that Pantheon or something. It’s all rather undefined at this point.
I’m still not sold on the idea of a Life pantheon being anywhere near as organized and mechanical as the Death pantheon is. It could very well be a constant battle for supremacy between their Eternal Ones, just like in nature it comes down to survival of the fittest. If that were the case, I could easily see Elune being the preeminent Eternal One in a Life Pantheon by virtue of her connection to Azeroth alone, shifting the balance of power monumentally in her favor.
Sobering thought; that would also give any other Life Eternal One ample cause to come after Azeroth should they discover the source of her power.
That’s assuming the other eternal ones in the life pantheon don’t have a connection to other planets in the cosmos or something similar to what elune has with Azeroth
Well, I would be shocked if they didn’t. That having been said, Azeroth is prime real estate. Everyone wants it, and they’re willing to pay top dollar for it.
If Gallywix ever gets into interdimensional business, I’m positive he will be selling Deeds to Azeroth to every Eternal One out there.
Ysera is not the “Avatar” nor representative of the Dream. She’s more like a manager and guardian. The Dream has nothing like that. And her power didn’t disconnect her from the Dream. As she said, it’s just not as it once was.
All of which come from people that worship Elune. As for the Zandalar Druids saying that, citation needed.
That “connection” was between the Winter Queen and Elune on a personal level, not the Dream and Ardenweald. That connection has remained constant. That’s how the Drust were able to invade Ardenweald.
It is true that Freya didn’t make the Emerald Dream. But the rest is either untrue or just your conjecture. Eonar crafted the Dream, be if from a preexisting energy or from scratch is unknown but she made it. And she put Freya in charge of managing it and Ysera as another manager and its guardian.
Cenarius is not a Wild God. He’s a demi god. His wild god powers like cycling and coming back to life come from his Wild God father Malorne. That isn’t a “if” that’s a fact.
Mentioned, not worshipped. Perhaps even referenced but we have zero evidence that she’s worshiped on other planets. It’s a logical conclusion but still is a theory, not fact.
None of this has anything to do with Elune at all. Just the full nature of what the Dream could be. And none of that is even confirmed.
Oh, she’s 100% worshipped on other planets. We even met some of her Night Warriors from other planets. Azeroth being the only planet who worships her is just not true anymore as per Shadowlands
Of course not. Only thing it proves is that out of the life patheon, she’s apparently a lot more active than we initially realized. Which explains why she appears to not always answer prayers. Elune is busy with several planets priesthoods begging and or asking her to intervene
I disagree. If anything she’s more associated with cycles. Moon cycles, day and night cycles, life and death cycles. That kind of thing. But definitely not growth nor life in general.
I think its more accurate to say, it’s 100% true that she was worshiped on other planets. We do not know if any of these worlds are still around, let alone have life on them. Considering the Burning Legion’s track record, who knows? Theoretically, Elune could be worshiped on Azeroth alone at this point.