Elune expansion possibility and speculation

Lore Story Forum
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I am not saying the story is good, and everyone is getting what they want except night elves. The story is still Sylvanas’ story… Regardless of how shallow it is, her actions still drive the story forward. It is all about her journey. Her failures, her successes, her path of rediscovery.

Meanwhile the night elves get their home burned down, and for the next 4 years and thrown some throw away cutscenes that don’t really affect the plot in any significant way.

And to really understand the way Night Elf fans are feeling, you have to take BFA and Shadowlands and look at it as a punctuation mark to a long, run-on sentence of the same type of story telling. This isn’t new for us, it is just the most heinous form it has taken.

For the vast majority of Night Elves fan, this wasn’t a sudden punch in the face that forced so many to quit. This was a long string of abuses that finally made many of us realize that being a night elf fan in this game and in this community is a straight up abusive relationship, and has been for almost the entire game.

I mean, you even said it yourself here

After Teldrassil, the Night Warrior was a path for the Night Elves to reclaim power and purpose in a story that took everything from them. And now we are told that it is wrong for us to have that. And when you really add in the outright sexist context of Nelf story telling, and pair it with the corporate culture at Blizzard… It suddenly makes sense in a really gross way.

BFA and Shadowlands almost feels like a Grand Guignol play written by a vindictive, abusive ex. And every cinematic dedication to Tyrande, every quest about her or night elves… it feels like a creepy love letter Charles Manson would write to his victims.

“You don’t need power. You don’t need justice, vegnace, vindication… You just need me. You’ll be happy in the end, I promise. Just wait and see.”

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62

I dunno. All of that feels shallow and without substance as well.

Yeah, but he didn’t have any agency at all either. He’s been a damsel pretty much this entire story, even if he did have some dialogue with Sylvanas in Torghast. His entire purpose in this story is to be a, “Hey, remember Arthas!?” callback.

I don’t feel that Anduin has any substance in this story.

Sylvanas has been the protag of WoW arguably since Legion, yes. She’s still been incredibly shallow and lacking any sort of depth as well.

Yes, I agree, she should be there as well.

That doesn’t change that they’ve been a huge part of that narrative, which was my original point. They’re extremely present and in your face. The problem is that none of that lore is good at all and basically now Night elves are worthless.

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I think you misunderstood. I’m not disputing that at all. You’re 100% correct that it’s Sylvanas’s story. I’m just pointing out it’s a very shallow story. I fully agree the night elf treatment here is objectively worse, and that comparing the two is a non-starter; Sylvanas’s story is about Sylvanas, whereas Tyrande’s story is about the Night Warrior McGuffin and only addresses her as the vessel containing that McGuffin. It’s utter dog crap.

I just don’t want to call anything we’re seeing in Shadowlands as somehow not shallow; combined, the entire expansion has less total depth than the commercials for Medicare I saw last month.

I had to look that word up, so poop on you Aki.

But yeah. Saying BfA or SL somehow had a night elf focus or bias or anything rings hollow once you look at what that actually amounts to.

Teldrassil burned so Anduin could be a big boy king, making big boy choices, fighting a big boy war against the evil, just like his daddy would’ve done. Teldrassil then became largely an afterthought, except for “the other warfront” and a poorly animated cinematic where Tyrande told the assembled dozen people that they won because of the power of friendship.

We got a cool Nathanos fight, sure. Tyrande got to kill a mini-boss villain. But it solely existed to show off that the big power-up she got during BfA? Yeah, that’s going away because it’s a bad.

And, well, I said all I need to say about how much Tyrande was a factor in her own story in SL. Except to laugh in frustration that the power-up she got in 8.1 was taken away from her by 9.1.

I think we’re largely in agreement, except in terminology.

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64

You are confused. There is bad narrative. Then there is bad storytelling within the narrative. You are mixing up the two.

I would say he had all the agency in BFA… and in Shadowlands, yeah, his role in it is cheap, but it still moves the plot forward. As bad as Anduin has it right now, he still has more than any Nelf character.

You know what, just read my above post. I think that’ll clear things up a bit for you.

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As I said though, there is a difference between narrative and in-narrative storytelling.

Yeah, seems like it. I suppose when I say “Substance” I mean it in a way that nullifies the general trashiness of the entire thing.

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I don’t know that this is true.

Sure, we saw night elves in the BfA pre-patch, but they disappeared from launch until 8.1, when they were a warfront. Then they disappeared again until the epilogue quest. That’s… Less presence than the four OG Horde races, certainly less than humans, and while more than the remaining two OG Alliance races, that isn’t saying much. Just by being present at all, they’d tie.

In Shadowlands, we’re seeing two night elves total; Tyrande and Shandris. And Tyrande’s story isn’t about Tyrande; it’s about the Night Warrior, which turns out isn’t even a Night Elf thing. We got whatever the horde and stag guys were originally, we’ve got a HM tauren, and they too got to be night warriors. We’re seeking them out because they’re important to night warrior-ness. We’re not seeking out anything relevant to Tyrande to bring Tyrande back from the edge. Tyrande is basically the box the night warrior explosive is kept in, for all her character is worth to the story.

And in the end, there’s Elune. Who thinks so highly of “her chosen people” that she let them die so she could send her sister a snack. SL makes even the night elf tragedy of BfA into a McGuffin for this weird Winter Queen - Elune story. The night elves were allowed to go to the Shadowlands and end up in the Maw because Elune really likes her sister.

The night elves are as “in your face” as a hammer or a wrench, because they are tools being used to build someone else’s narrative.

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67

I agree with what you’re saying about the Night Elves and Elune. I’m not sure what your perspective is on this, from my perspective the Burning of Teldrassil wasn’t Elune’s plan, but a crisis she took advantage of. Those Night Elves ending up in the Maw was due to a blind spot on Elune’s part (and bad writing).

As for a pun on Christmas, here’s one for you;

WoW Shadowlands: the most soulless story I’ve ever seen that’s literally reliant on souls.

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Simply, my perspective is that Elune was an opportunist. She saw dying night elves and decided that instead of “wisping” them, she’d just funnel them to her sister.

Which brings up a minor headache of a quandry; how did Elune know about the anima drought from her place outside the Shadowlands, but not know that souls were getting funnelled to the Maw directly? There’s a few semi-satisfactory answers floated by the playerbase, but I’d rather a more canonical one.

And you get a gold star for the pun.
:star:

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69

Just a random thought I had.

The whole “Vengeance or Renewal” thing was also stupid to me. But I don’t think I could rightly articulate why until recently. I would always talk about vengeance and its relationship with justice, and I would talk about what the Kaldorei deserve, but I think there is a better way to frame it.

As I said above, the Night Warrior was about the Kaldorei reclaiming power and purpose after it is taken from them by Sylvanas with the Burning of Teldrassil. I mean, the Terror of Darkshore cinematic actually made me emotional when I first saw it, because it is really the only time in WoW where the Kaldorei are presented in a powerful and scary way. And that is really important for the Kaldorei as a whole… I mean, their whole thing savage amazons, the “perfect warriors” according to Grom Hellscream. The whole appeal of playing a Kaldorei is the duality of barbarism of civility. Tranquil forests, Temples of monolithic marble. Women, muscular and scarred from battle, dressed in elegant, moonlit white gowns with fangs and a steely gaze like that of a Lioness, blood soaking her claws and the scent of wine lingering on her lips.

The “Renewal” of the Kaldorei involves a reclamation of power. I don’t necessarily mean in the sense of armies or hero power levels.

What I mean to say that “renewal” for the Kaldorei is impossible when the one who took everything from them can do so with impunity. Vengeance, in this case, is fundamental to the reclamation of Kaldorei power and thus fundamental to Kaldorei renewal.

The Night Warrior should have never been a tradeoff. The Night Warrior should have never been presented as if it were a bad thing.

After facing tragedy and trauma… finding power and purpose is fundamental for survival. And really… the only suitable end for Shadowlands is Tyrande killing Sylvanas. Sending her to be with Nathanos.

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70

I think the Winter Queen directly asked her for aid. Hence the troubled relationship. No aid was forthcoming and yet Elune was leaving her pets lying around in Ardenweald.

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Same way the Winter Queen and Archon knew about their droughts, but not about the Arbiter/Maw situation. Remember, until the player came along nobody outside Oribos knew. The denizens of the Shadowlands (besides the captured Primus and those involved in causing the problem) didn’t know anything beyond the fact that new souls had stopped coming and therefore no fresh anima along with them, seemingly being the cause of the drought. And they didn’t investigate themselves because said drought had those in charge locking down traffic between the realms to avoid wasting their already waning stores of anima. Only the Arbiter’s Attendants in Oribos knew, and until the Maw Walker’s arrival set off all sorts of red flags about prophecy and whatnot they weren’t telling anyone else what was really going on in Oribos because it was “all part of the Purpose” and therefore (in there estimation) not their job try to do something about it beyond wait for the Arbiter to wake back up of her own volition.

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I think the Lun’alai would disagree with her not caring about Trolls. Though admittedly they seem to be a small group… and Elune’s idea of care is "sorry, I can’t be bothered helping you not to have virtually your entire people slaughtered. But hey I’ll totally help you get vengeance. -stops you getting vengeance and forces you to choose renewal- “Psych!”

I don’t mind the power being so strong it hurts the person wielding it side of things, but agree with the rest. If the person who tried to wipe out their entire species gets away with it how can the Night Elves be renewed?

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At this point I think the only good outcome is Sylvanas sacrificing herself to help defeat the Jailer and her story ends this expansion “That’s all there is, there isn’t any more”.

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But surely the Kyrians who were dumping souls into Oribos should’ve noticed that all the souls were being funneled into the maw. Like Kleia does.

Unless they knew about it and kept their mouths shut for whatever reason.

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We know the reason. Until the player started shaking things up, nobody in Bastion and Oribos in particular was willing to deviate from their role in the Purpose. So anything that hinted at a problem was dismissed out of hand (see: the reflexive, almost desperate rejection of Devos’ concerns.) The very idea that something could be going wrong was anathema and unthinkable, so every sign of a problem was contextualized as just an unusual facet of things still being fine. The Arbiter’s status wasn’t being shared by the Attendants, so every Kyrian would see the souls going to the Maw and think “I guess the Arbiter judges that they all belong there, so everything’s working fine.”

Even the drought and accompanying dearth of new arrivals was being treated by the Kyrian like just some unpleasant twist in things still operating the way they were supposed to. When we Maw Walkers first show up, only the Forsworn are willing to even suggest anything’s actually wrong; everyone else treats it like just one more trial to get through rather than a symptom of some larger problem in the Shadowlands as a whole.

Honestly I have to wonder if maybe some part of Zovaal’s betrayal might have traumatized the Archon into fundamentally refusing to even consider that something might be wrong with the Purpose, since that’s basically what Zovaal’s sales pitch was for wanting to take their sigils and change everything.

The other three realms took steps to try to deal with the problem. Maldraxxus underwent an internal shift in power (admittedly influenced by Kel’thuzad’s shenanigans), Ardenweald started selectively culling groves, while Revendreth implemented strict (often outright tyrannical and cruel) tithes and rationing. Compared to them Bastion seemed to just keep trying to chug along, scolding any waste of anima for new purposes but otherwise attempting to just operate as if things were normal, figuring if they remained adherent to the Purpose, sooner or later new souls and anima would start coming their way again.

Kleia notices and speaks up because unlike the Ascended up to that point, she was influenced by the player. From the moment we get there, the actions of we Maw Walkers starts influencing those around us to start asking questions and thinking outside the box, which none of them had really been doing before. Aside from the Forsworn, who were basically driven to the opposite extreme, rejecting everything because they couldn’t reconcile what was wrong with how they’d always been told nothing could ever be wrong.

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