The suggestion was that Elune should be a loa to help night elves connect with their “primal roots”. Or… Elune should be made into a troll god to help night elves more resemble trolls. The most traditional loa are animal spirits with tribal themes.
To me, “tribal” and “troll” seem to appeal more to the Horde aesthetic than the night elf one. In effect, trying to reclassify Elune as a “loa” (in the traditional sense, rather than the strict denotation) is taking a quintessential Night Elf symbol and making her appeal to trolls.
So maybe a “horde symbol” isn’t correct. Troll symbol would be better. However, trolls also have several values that represent the core of the “Horde aesthetic”, so making her more “troll” to a lesser extent makes her more “Horde”.
I can’t get behind a Forsaken and Night Elf Ashen Verdict, and I say this as someone who mains a Night Elf and has a Forsaken as his main Horde alt. I love playing both and I go full in on the fantasy of each race while playing them. But I feel like there’s a LOT more bad blood between the Night Elves and Forsaken than there was between the Argent Crusade and Knights of the Ebon Blade.
Chronologically, the Battle for Light’s Hope Chapel happens before the factions head to Northrend. The KotEB, while still under Arthas’ command/control, attack Light’s Hope. At the conclusion of the battle both sides attack the Lich King. Darion Mograine even gives Ashbringer to Tirion Fordring, forcing Arthas to retreat. With the battle over, the newly freed Death Knights and the surviving Argents decide to bring the fight to Arthas in Northrend.
While sharing a common cause, the two groups barely have any interaction across Northrend. It’s not until Icecrown that they begin to even slightly work together at the Argent Tournament. Finally, at the gates of Icecrown Citadel, they join together to form the Ashen Verdict.
That’s two groups that, while originally hostile to each other and DEFINITELY having polar opposite powers and philosophies, began the expansion as allies. They then spent the entirety of the expansion separately working toward their shared goals, and finally united at the end.
OTOH, we have the Forsaken and Night Elves. This expansion began with the near genocide of the Night Elves at the Horde’s hands. Among them, the Forsaken. After losing all their territory to the Horde, the Night Elves return to Darkshore only to find the Forsaken have been blighting all their sacred sites. From the looks of things, solely to spite the Night Elves and drive the dagger in a little deeper. Then, in the midst of the fighting, the Forsaken raise a number of fallen Night Elves into undeath, who then join the Forsaken and try to kill other Night Elves. The fighting presumably continues until the cessation of hostilities.
In this case, both sides spent the entire expansion opposing each other, with the Forsaken being almost gleeful in their desecration of Night Elf lands. It’s also notable that unlike the KotEB, the Forsaken never rebelled against Sylvanas. Neither did the overwhelming majority of the Horde. Not until she said something mean and flew away like the Wicked Witch.
I just can’t imagine those two sides even grudgingly working together so soon after BfA, let alone to the level of the Ashen Verdict.
So what you’re calling a supporting argument is merely me providing an in universe example that disproves your assertion of implication by establishing an alternative theory. You’ll also notice if you scroll back this was one of multiple reasons I don’t think your implication is justified.
Hmm, okay I missed that. This proves she knows about the titans. But also taken from the wiki
The Tauren have a myth that purportedly relates the story of Cenarius’s conception. Elune birthed Cenarius, but gave him up to Malorne because Cenarius was more a creature of the mortal world and could not be with her. When Cenarius’s birth sent a ripple through the Emerald Dream, Ysera took an immediate interest in him.
She also traveled in the same circles as Ysera who actually knew the titans. It’s just as likely a coincidence.
Far more interesting is the claim that she was less “of the mortal world” than one of the most powerful wild gods. This definitely indicates something more esoteric is going on with her. But on the flipside, she had a child with a wild god, Titan’s don’t reproduce that way, so whatever it indicates it’s probably not what you think is being implied.
Yes, I meant holy magic, my bad, a slip of terminology. Which is the magic manifested by every priest of Elune we’ve seen in game.
Ah, and I see that’s also where you get your claim of astral magic. You clearly think this is significant, I believe it is much less significant in no small part because it was removed from the game. Pending developer statement that this an example of arcane power, that comes directly from Elune and not the knowledge and skills of the priests themselves, I’m not going to use this as the basis for any conclusions.
Mortal races know that the titans exist. Mortal races tell myths about titans. Mortal races name things after the titans. It’s not unlikely, and the alternative is that the Titan’s are naming these artifacts after themselves. So what is more likely, does Aman’thul really think it’s a good idea to call his “space time modulator” the Eyes of Aman’thul? Wouldn’t that get confusing since he also has a pair of eyes that he probably calls the eyes of Aman’thul? Or does a highborne Night Elf show well deserved pride in possessing a potent artifact directly from the Titan Aman’thul by giving it a grand name equal to its significance and value?
First off “significant portion” is a vague term and debatable. We’re not given a number for Night Warriors but the Army of the Black Moon holds every Night Warrior in existence, is only partially comprised of Night Warrior Night Elves and still seems to fight like a small guerilla force.
Bwonsamdi empowered his chosen avatar, a singular person, but to much greater effect. Rastakhan was super human after his blessing and I don’t think the Night Warriors were anywhere near as powerful.
Small note, but there were some Forsaken that worked together with Shandris in Nazjatar:
However, yes, these were likely specifically among the Horde rebels, not the ones that were loyal to Sylvanas until the moment she called them nothing.
Elisande says: Kaldorei? You disgrace a glorious past, hiding in trees and cloaking yourselves in false piety. You have grown as savage as the trolls that skulk about your forests.
Frankly, I’m not wild about how quickly the Alliance and Horde put aside their differences for the millionth time in Nazjatar. But I can accept individual Night Elves and Forsaken working together in the context of a larger group of other Alliance and Horde races like in your pic. I was thinking more along the lines of a Night Elf army and Forsaken army, by themselves, joining forces and working together. That I can’t see.
Slyvanas and the Forsaken have been synonymous until October. Not having them be involved in the conclusion of her story would be less writing and more vomiting through a pen.
So I’m not exactly putting it past Blizz but I’d certainly be thoroughly disappointed. Gotta admit the Forsaken having basically nothing to do when finally taking Arthas was a big contribution to me getting bored at Wrath. And then EoN cemented my indifference to playing again for like 7 years.
Seriously the Forsaken are by far one of the most unique races they have period. This would be a gift wrapped opportunity to expand on them but ehhh, we’ll see.
There’s too many characters with beef with her bolvar and tyrande is already to much forsaken really don’t need to be there. Forsaken need to help the horde in a different way and truthly find themselves killing Sylvanas is nothing more than repeating the statement they already made in the Saurfang cinematic
What statement? Tink? Ah yeah that famous Forsaken line of dialogue. Metallic ringing.
Any given Forsaken, pick one, has more of a reason to hate Windrunner on a personal level than Tyrande or Bolvar.
Far as I can tell Bolvar’s degree of personal interaction with Windrunner is - looking at her (maybe) through the Frozen Throne, some unkind words about her in Legion and a cinematic where he gets owned. That’s about it. I’ve most some duels too I dont consider it a blood feud.
And on Tyrande’s end. Yeah she’s a lot of reason to be mad at the Horde who followed Windrunner’s orders but personally have they ever even shared a line of dialogue? They don’t really know eachother personally.
The Forsaken though? Yeah. Real personal. Extremely personal. Intimately personal. From the mushroom vendor up to the grand executors not a single one of them hasnt at least held her in some personal reverence for some amount of time.
Suggesting the Forsaken shouldn’t be involved is such an asinine thing you ought to use it as an application for Blizz’s writing staff.
Genocide and the crown breaking is just a much bigger event, and not to mention that the burning effected the whole alliance, and the crown effected the whole playerbase, while the forsaken, is just them, just them doing what was already stated narrative, its literally a waste when focusing on tyrande or bolvar is actually much different narrative wise.
Tyrande is getting justice, and once that justice is gained, it can go anywhere
bolvar is I dont really know, but that could be very interesting, depending on how he leads us next xpac (bolvar is the leader of all our efforts next xpac)
forsaken well like I said, it will just be restating what they already told us, that they abandoned sylvanas. We already know this and them killing her just doubles down on this and is narratively usless outside of a cool moment for forsaken
You just covered why Forsaken might still not hate Sylvanas. They expect her to come back to them. Shadowlands is too soon for them to realize she won’t.
