“My mistake. It seems the upstart “goddess” still holds sway here. Oh well…” - Xal’atath
With that one statement, we can infer two things, Elune is younger than the old gods, and she is probably weaker than them. You dont call some one more powerful than you an “upstart”.
You do when you’re a squid monster with an overinflated ego.
Are you just gonna keep throwing darts at baseless theories about Elune and hope something sticks? Also Xal’atath is a servitor of the Old Gods… y’know… the entities known for being massively deceptive and haughty?
I’m more interested in the scare quotes around the word “goddess.” They imply that Xal’atath has other ideas about what Elune is.
Eldritch being far wiser than any mortal in the lore - literally says what I’m saying.
You - What you said is baseless.
Me - K
Wise? That’s a laugh.
Wiser or not, Xal’atath still isn’t an excellent source of information. Especially since what she says seems a lot more like an angry and/or aggravated statement for someone who holds a low opinion of Elune. Putting credence into this is like saying that some dungeon boss screaming some “I SHALL KILL YOU!” aggro quote is steeped in deep knowledge.
For example:
“My master has shown me the future, and you have no place in it. Azeroth will be reborn in darkness.” - Loken
Loken is VERY ancient, and presumably very wise. Yet this statement, given what has happened and what’s going to happen come 8.3, can largely be considered blatantly incorrect now. The passionate blustering of malicious zealots is not a basis to infer anything factual about anything. It’s the equivalent of saying that the Horde is factually nothing because Sylvanas said so.
Well, I think it’s clearly true that Xal’altath doesn’t think Elune is a Goddess. That doesn’t mean she’s correct. But, frankly, we have no idea what Elune is supposed to be in this story. Blizzard has been cagey about it forever, but has certainly dropped hints that she is related to the Naaru in some way.
I, frankly, have no idea what the word “god/goddess” actually means in WoW. I mean, I know what an Old God is; that has been fairly clearly defined. But if actual Gods/Goddesses exist, we don’t really know anything about them.
Honestly? I kind’ve like the way they kept it vague before. But with the way things are proceeding now, we’re moving towards a story where Elune’s gonna have to show up in some form or another.
There’s other evidence that Elune is relatively weak. Here is some dialogue from the 8.1.5 leatherworking questline
We have everything we need to craft the drum, except Elune’s blessing.
The drum is but a vessel, like a cup. We need her to imbue the drum with power, filling the cup so that we may drink.
With Tyrande donning the mantle of the Night Warrior, much of Elune’s power is taxed. Asking for another favor is not insignificant, but I must try.
While I’m doing that, I need you to craft the drum. Try to keep it small. The larger the vessel, the more power it can hold, but the harder it becomes to move.
Tyrande is apparently draining almost all of Elune’s power at this point, at least that’s the implication.
Even if she were, ‘young’ is relative to an outsider entity who does not exist within the loop of life and death. It’s not as if Elune is just an idea. She’s a living, divine power who is capable.
From what we can tell, most of the quotes Xal’atath says that we can verify are accurate.
“I can feel the pulse of your world quickening. Soon, all will be drenched in its life blood. (Kil’jaeden defeated)”
" This land has seen so much upheaval. The Cataclysm, the Sundering, the Scouring. You really have no idea"
I’ve actually never seen her say something that is verifiably untrue.
See what I said in your other thread. Doesn’t lend any credence.
when did they lie? They usually just give cryptic predictions or brag on what they want to do that usually either true or we simply stop them from becoming true. But lying? That’s not how they operate
The whole ‘Elune’s power is drained from the Night Warrior ritual’ thing is just the writers kicking night elves again. Elune has never been shown as anything but insanely powerful, just not always interfering. Every single kaldorei priestess gets her powers from Elune, not just Tyrande, and all at the same time. Even their own lore regarding the Night Warrior states that Elune was able to empower multiple Night Warriors at once to secure Kalimdor for the Kaldorei Empire.
Elune was able to utterly stonewall Archimonde when he tried to get at Tyrande, he couldn’t so much as scratch her. We can’t have it both ways, either Tyrande is so powered up by the Night Warrior ritual that she can basically storm Orgrimmar by herself, and thus Elune’s power is drained, or Elune’s power isn’t drained and Tyrande isn’t insanely powerful.
Having the bulk of Elune’s power at her disposal would make Tyrande a being stronger than Archimonde, and Azshara, which clearly isn’t the case. This was just another throwaway line to make it seem like the Night Warrior is the big bad path of vengeance, you can’t have that said and then also have Tyrande say that Elune abandoned her people.
On topic… I would say that Elune is certainly younger than the Old Gods, but not by much. Remember that the Old Gods were defeated long before the War of the Ancients. Azeroth existed in its post-ordering, pre-War of the Ancients state for longer than it hasn’t. My assumption has been that she was born, or came into being in some way, after the ordering, and is probably tied to the Well of Eternity in some way, in terms of origin.
Which still makes her older than dirt and more powerful than 95% of all beings in Warcraft.
Yeah…that line was particularly odd in the datamining. Combined with Delaryn saying they were abandoned in the Calia meetup, when clearly Delaryn and Sira did the abandoning, is either lazy terrible writing or the devs forgot what they wrote like less than a year ago.
Elune cannot both intervene and abandon her people at the same time.
Let’s hope the datamined 8.3 stuff so far gets a drastic re-write. Especially the stuff between Delaryn, Calia and Lilian. (which is unlikely since they already recorded the voices for it).
Otherwise Forsaken and Night Elves are getting screwed by terrible writing.
I’d like Elune to stay an enigmatic entity but agree that we may be approaching a point of no return regarding her backstory…
Having some truly mystical stuff in the game helps give the World, well, some mystique and size - to me.
So more of the same since Cataclysm, really.
My personal theory is that Elune is a benevolent Void Lord. (Moon has no light of its own, yadda yadda).
Of course, this is kind of a cool theory to explore so Blizzard won’t go for it.
I’d take it as her being massively sarcastic. Like a douchebag Atheist going “yeah “God” did it.”