I think it worked really well too. But I started noticing the pattern in Legion when the Naaru prime turned out to be sketchy. And then the (very heavy-handed) light-forged AU orc scenario came rolling around to very firmly let us know that the naaru aren’t completely good, and in some contexts can just be plain evil. Which was a pretty big shift to everything we knew about them.
And then with shadow realms rolling around and we get a look into the beaurocracy of life and death, we see once again that divinity is imperfect and not always to be trusted (but not necessarily inherently bad either.)
This is why the elune stuff didn’t surprise me. It fits with the pattern.
I think it’s valid to think the pattern is dull or disappointing. But I don’t think it’s inconsistent from everything we’ve seen about cosmic forces and their respective pantheons.
A big theme running theme in wow seems to be: “you have the potential to be powerful enough to control your destiny, not gods.” But some gods still try their best to help those they favor.
Sylvanas incidentally was invented so that Blizzard would not turn Jaina into Kerrigan.
Clearly they did not notice that Arthas was already a Kerrigan(despite using the Novels to make him a Mengsk which goes against Lore) and that they were turning Sylvanas into Kerrigan herself.
Now if only Microsoft puts in mandates to prevent forcing certain people(read: Arthas, Kel’Thuzad and Ner’zhul) into a Mengsk Role despite prior Lore saying they are in an unwilling Kerrigan Role we might get somewhere!
Of course Ner’zhul being forced into a Mengsk Role is simply Blizzard trying to follow the Text of WarCraft 2 Beyond the Dark Portal’s Horde Ending. Unfortunately the text only said that he saw the Azeroth Forces of the Horde as tools not the rest of the Horde so him abandoning them in the Novelization is a Mengsk-ification.
Incidentally Mengsk’s grudge against Kerrigan stems from her being mind controlled into killing his father.
Sylvanas’s Novel Depiction of Sylvanas(daddy’s girl and being a monstrous Villain condemned by everyone else) of course seems almost like Christie Golden’s take on Micky Neilson’s StarCraft Novel(StarCraft: Uprising) where Mengsk uses Kerrigan to kill the 2 Ghosts who killed the rest of his family before telling her she killed his father while also claiming to forgive her(he obviously didn’t considering StarCraft 1).
Sylvanas incidentally used Arthas despite hating him to subjugate Anduin through Kingsmourne just like Mengsk used Kerrigan despite hating her.
Of course Blizzard wanted Arthas to be Mengsk fully and completely(despite WC3 clearly depicting him as Kerrigan) and Sylvanas to be Mengsk becoming Dante from Dante’s Inferno(Tyrande says rescuing Souls from the Maw is the beginning of Sylvanas’s Penance suggesting there is more and considering Blizzard says we might visit new Zones in the Shadowlands…).
Yeah, this is kind of how I saw it a lot too, they would alternate good and bad expansion. Even though I actually didn’t like the main story of MoP, I thought the side stories were great with the pandas, the mantid and the stuff with the thunder king, the AvH stuff was just in the way of a really good expansion.
But now we get two bad expansions in a row. So it’s hard to really believe anymore they are really going to do a 180 and deliver something good…(coughespeciallyifyoulikenelfscough) and hard to believe they ever understand why people like the different races and cultures, maybe they don’t really see a point because it’s too much work when you can write them all as just stormwind humans with pallet swaps.
Or maybe they just announce playable moonberries so I forget about the story completely!
I think the Elune stuff was as shocking to people as it has been is because unlike the Naaru, unlike the Titans, unlike the Old Gods… Elune was treated by the developers and writers as both different and special.
She was once described as “the only true god known in the Warcraft universe”. What that meant was completely unknown, but it establishes her as not like the other divinities.
And that made sense. Titans were creators, oldies were corruptors, Naaru… Well, Naaru weren’t even divinities. They were near-divine, but more akin to killable angels since BC. We’d already known they could be fought. We fight one that went dark in Sunwell, a decade before we even saw a titan in game. And we knew old gods weren’t quite god-like since Vanilla, when Uldaman calls them a parasitic lifeform (I might be jumbling that a bit, but by the time of Cthun, we knew they weren’t actual god-types).
But Elune wasn’t like them. We fight the constructs of titans, the minions of the old gods and, as mentioned, a twisted Naaru. But Elune, we only get hints and whispers of. Elune was the final great mystery of Azeroth.
But then she has a sister. And I remember nelf fans, I remember when you were in denial. This Winter Queen newbie couldn’t be Elune’s sister. “Eonar makes more sense” you said. But those of us who saw 9.0 and gave up hope knew.
And that sister has a “brother” in Denathrius. A brother we beat up and lock in a sword. And if the Winter Queen is on par with her “brother”, then she’s on par with her sister too. Which means Elune is defeatable. Which means the Word of God dev statements that Elune is the only true god known cannot be true any longer.
That was already a bad enough hit, but the hits just kept coming. I’ve gone on enough about that. Back to the main point.
The Elune stuff was shocking because it represented such a clear and visible change in direction regarding the last unsullied thing associated with the night elves. And it got sullied. And what was once a mystery is now just another 3-D printed future raid boss-tier being whose importance and relevance is completely gone.
And that sucks. Because while the whole “age of mortals”, “only you dictate your fate” style storytelling sounds fun, it doesn’t work in a game when two classes in said game revolve around gaining their power through worshipping these divine beings who are now just really powerful mortal-ish beings. It doesn’t work when we know from Shadowlands that we don’t dictate our fate. Because now that the gods we had have been trashed, it’s time for new gods above those gods.
Now the First Ones are the ultimate power, the ultimate raid boss. All to replace that which was freshly stolen away.
Yeah. I sort of see what you’re saying there, and I do agree that “mythical, unknowable, mysterious divinity” is a lot more fun than “it was 3-d printed in the god factory.”
But part of me also thought that Elune just might be a story-- that there wasn’t a force behind her at all, and that’s what seperates her from the rest of the tangible cosmology. I like this idea better than robo elune or true god elune.
But now that she’s real and for sure has a voice, that changes things.
I dunno if I like the idea of “only the night elves have a one true god and everybody else just doesn’t,” which is why I’m not as bothered by an Elune with limits from a balance perspective. But “elune is mysterious and unknowable” is fine for me too if there’s other mysterious and unkowable forces.
We just know that this game has the habit of wanting to overexplain every little detail to the point of almost becoming the scifi genre.
It goes beyond races, all the way up to factions. Even through Cata and MoP, I could enjoy being a proud member of the Horde. Yeah, that whole Garrosh thing was a bit fluxed-up, but as soon as a rebellion got started, we did the right thing. After Theramore, we all started looking around at each other and said “maybe that was just too far”. It all started with a misunderstanding at the Wrathgate, and hotter heads prevailed on both sides when some coolness was in order. We did stuff, they did stuff, but nuking a city? Maybe we need to end this now. And then we did get a rebellion going! I’m abbreviating the story, but it is what it is.
Post-BfA, that Horde’s dead. We literally started things off with a Theramore-style event, only bigger. There was no Wrathgate event to point to. Stormheim was not it at all, nor was the Broken Shore. Stormheim was by its worst interpretation the skirmishes of old brought back. It’s certainly not a global war starting misunderstanding.
I can be a proud Horde emmebr after Theramore. I cannot after Teldrassil. And that trickles down to affect everything else. How can I enjoy the blood elves when they were going to jump ship after Theramore but didn’t, yet after Tewldrassil it wasn’t even mentioned or seemingly considered? How can I look at my favorite races without thinking of them through BfA’s lens?
And then Shadowlands. I just can’t go into it. It ruins more about my faction identity, and I’m not even sure how to articulate it. It’s pretty bad when I’m vibing with Baine just sitting on a step in Oribos and letting Shadowlands just happen around him.
Unless the First Ones turn out to be the Pantheon of Life(which would mean the Winter Queen is Titania stuffed into a Robot after dying leaving her Husband Oberon to run the Summer Court and her sister Elune to aid in the Cycle of Life and Death) pulling the same stunt as Guild Wars 2’s Mother of Elder Dragons.
End of Dragons Spoilers
Soo-Won the Deep Sea Elder Dragon created the other Elder Dragons(Plants, Death, Ice, Crystal and Fire) to help her balance out the Elements as she herself embodying the Element of Water could not do it alone. She is the Mother of the Elder Dragons.
She also created Tyria & the Elder Dragons just as Elune is stated to have created the Naaru Prime.
So two things: Elune wasn’t described as the one true god. That’s a slight misunderstanding of the phrase. She was the one true god that was known. It doesn’t mean she is the god above all others, or that she’s even the only god in existence; just that she’s the only god people know exists.
The other thing is that Elune wasn’t just for night elves. Nelves were her favotires, but we had stories or myths or legends of other races Elune also showed a fondness for. Tauren were one (even if that was dropped and forgotten until Huln), furbolgs and owlkin were others, but it was theoratical anyone could worship and recieve power from Elune. But the night elves were her favotires.
Neither of these are big corrections, but I wanted to offer clarity on both.
If I could boil down my biggest criticisms with WoW over the nearly two decades I’ve been playing (god I’m old), this nails it.
Stop.
Overexplaining.
Everything.
Old Gods were just plain cooler before they became big, living viruses the Void Lords shot into space like a snot rocket. End of story.
Honest to God let’s just pack it in with the bleeding elves already.
Sick of the knife ears screaming from the mountain tops about how their lives full of perfect health, idyllic scenery and loving families were marred by tragedy, murder and hardship.
Yeah mfers that’s most people’s lives only most people didn’t get to frolic in the hundred acre wood for centuries. Buncha crybabies finally got something to cry about, big whoop.
Very unlikely, given the familial relationship between the WQ and Elune. We see the WQ’s prototype body in the raid, therefore something had to make her. If Elune made her, then Elune would be her mother, not her sister.
Your idea is better, but we’re not going to get better ideas. We’re going to get 3-D printed gods, made by Firsties, who in turn were made by the Ducks.
Denona keeps confusing the ducks who made the Firsties with the ducks being the Firsties. They are not the same, ducks made the Firsties.
What I want more of is “divine magic comes from belief of a people” more than “divine magic comes from a specific deity” which was what I was hoping to be the case with elune.
Me thinking: “like, of course night elves would be her favorite since she’s created by the belief and souls of the night elf people.”
But she’s just some 3-d printed thing instead I guess. Not as interesting to me.
Personally? I hate that. Because then the different between a priest and a mage is less fun damage dealing, fewer convenience spells, but you get to use some healing spells. It just ruins the priest and paladin class fantasy of serving a power higher than yourself. It turns that devotion and belief into a big nothingburger.
… Which is literally already the case because roflmao everything’s a 3-D printed thing, lmfao!!!
This isn’t world building. This is world destroying. Storytelling like this does more to destroy the world than anything Zovaal could have done.
The Zereth Mortis Questline states that Souls acquired by Zereth Mortis are placed inside the Robots not created artificially as part of the Robots!
My theory is that at one point the Winter Queen perished and the rest of the First Ones discovered her Soul learning of the Cosmic Force of Death and decided it needed a Pantheon to balance out their own thus had stuffed the Winter Queen into a 3D Printed Robot Body and amalgamated Souls of Mortals into more 3D Printed Bodies creating Artificial Gods to aid the First Ones’ sister the Winter Queen in ruling the Cosmic Force of Death.
Yes I’m suggesting the Winter Queen is the first Eternal One due to dying and being stuffed into a 3D-printed Robot with the rest made artificially to balance out the First Ones.
Well, I wouldn’t say that, because there’s a lot of real world religions that function like this-- that divinity and souls come from the care and beliefs that generations and their families pour into something.
I once read somewhere long ago that Night elf lore took influences of real world Japanese Shinto shrines (I don’t have the source though and I couldn’t tell you where I read it once, but the shape of the moonwell shrines is a bit shinto)-- which is more how that religion works than dedication to a single entity.
So… there are no more Night Elf souls then? We’ve finally finished saving all the ones remaining?
I just think it’s stupidly done. It basically says, “There’s a lot of people (Night Elf or not) there unjustly, and it’s a terrible thing, so go take the next few lifetimes and fetch them. We know it’ll take you basically forever, but those folks will wait until you get to them.”
Seems like this would be the kind of thing we decided was priority number 1. It would seem more logical that they’d have her destroy Torghast brick by brick with nothing but her hands or something else more menial and that didn’t prolong the suffering of folks.
It’s not that Tyrande is wrong for judging Sylvanas harshly, it’s just that the cinematic team didn’t do Tyrande any favors in their portrayal (or the story decision). It’s a bit of a head-scratcher.
That’s mostly why I hate those characters. Tyrande tells me off, Genn tells me about the amount of crimes I have (not just Sylvanas), and I’m surprised Pelagos’ dialogue at the end didn’t tell me that if I’m not careful the Arbiter might make exceptions and send me to the Maw.
Yeah, it’s obnoxious, because I didn’t start the war, and I didn’t sign on for genocide, that’s an in-game decision from Blizzard. It’s like if I choose Dreamweaver as my soulbind, only to have key characters in the Shadowlands insult me for my choice.
As a Horde player was I not supposed to join the Night Fae? Tyrande and Shandris sure aren’t friendly. As a WoW player was I not supposed to join the Horde? Because that’s what the game seems to be conveying.
Add on top of that, one of the quests to rescue souls there released some named Night Elf souls. I thought “Yay! Story!” (we’re really deprived right now). Roughly half of them insulted me even after I literally saved them from the Maw.
I WASN’T EVEN SUBBED DURING TELDRASSIL!
I literally left at the end of Cata and didn’t come back until mid-way through BFA during Blizzcon. The last thing my character had done was be the leader of my raid party that was the first on our realm to kill Heroic Madness of Deathwing! We were celebrated by yellow text server-wide! Then apparently while resting from the amount of stress that caused, my character sleep-walked into committing a bunch of war crimes.
//And no matter how bad the story gets, WoW is a heckuva drug. Never should’ve resubbed.
On THAT note… I am going to regret this… but there is one moment in Warcraft relating to Tyrande relating to hypocrisy that makes me dislike her.
Demonic invasion, world being overrun, and Illidan’s cell’s has the words “Break in case of emergency” so she releases him. It makes sense - worst case scenario he does something that destroys the world. Well, world being destroyed already, so… whatever, right?
To do so, she has to kill the wardens guarding his cell. Technically she’s the high priestess and I would assume they would listen to her, but maybe there’s some hierarchy I didn’t know about and since it was urgent, she couldn’t afford to spend time going through the red-tape.
Now we’ve gotten into the realm of, “We’re in serious trouble, so killing these guards to free our demon-slaying machine is worth the cost.” While that’s not the same as the actions countless others have taken, she’s clearly passing a moral threshold.
Except, she’s still more than willing to pass judgment on others doing the same type of, “Killing innocents (in her case, her own people doing their job) for good reasons.” So when she tries to take the moral high ground about preserving life, without some genuine reflection about her own murders because she felt it was a necessary step, I squint my eyes at her.