On a scale of 1 to Arthas, how much free will do the souls trapped inside aboms and mindless skeletal husks have? Are the risen skeletal archers in Darkshore also willingly raised?
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Back in vanilla, it was stated Sylvanas only resurrects those undead who are willing and already being tugged into unlife by Arthas’ magic. Others are helped along to true death. However, that also kind of got turned on its head in Cataclysm with the Gilnean invasion, so I really don’t know.
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Not sure if this is Forsaken related so much as Necromancy related, but I believe that risen Skeletons don’t have a soul bound to them, but are more like constructs; enchanted inanimate objects given motion, bound to the will of the spellcaster.
As for Abominations, I actually have no idea. They almost seem to be something entirely new rather than any conglomerate of souls from bodies of the once-living.
The Abomination are totally free, with one small disclaimer, they’ve had there memory of being Alliance completely removed. I believe that the majority of them are made from the corpse of children because they always “want to play” I don’t see the point in stripping them of memories when children are easily influenced, but many Forsaken being sociopaths and pragmatic they said hey why not. Contrary some go on to be awesome military leaders within the Horde, but haven’t reached that iconic status yet well aside from Gordo who is a mere servant /sad.
I’m patiently waiting for cdev to flesh out an abomination and give it some hero status.
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Risen skeletons, I assume no free will if only because Sylvanas isn’t suppose to have the power to raise things of that level.
Abomination are made, not raised. They seem to have some freedom of thought, to the degree you can tell because they aren’t “very bright”.
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Sounds about in line with some stuff I’ve read. Quest linked above was a good’n.
So about free will. If we’re defining things here regarding the Forsaken and their respect of agency, there’s a lot to question here. Did the quest victim have agency? When? Do we count their mind after it has been lobotomized as having true agency?
There’s also the lingering question: The Horde know how aboms are made. Why are they okay with this? Why is Derek a line again? What has shocked them this time that hasn’t before?
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Skeletons, ghouls and abominations are constructs. The abominations are quite literally a pile of guts and muscles sutured together in a massive bag of flesh and given a brain to make use of it all.
The Forsaken curse is different in that the soul is, in a way, improperly severed from the body. The body is very much dead, but the soul is still attached to it, giving it life. It’s a traumatic experience (both the death and the return to life) that everyone copes with in their different ways, thus giving the original concept of the Forsaken culture a philosophical bedrock to work with and make it interesting.
I don’t imagine skeletons and abominations have much in way of free will, as they’re the subject of an operating table or a spell of necromancy. As for why the Horde’s okay with abominations; I don’t think they approve, but they don’t disapprove enough to do something about it. The brain is different in Warcraft in that it’s not the true self, like the soul is.
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Sereven these are great question and this is really one of my favorite things to talk about. You’re talking about free agency, lets first ignore the whole glaring issue which is the functionality of an undead brain, it’ll make your head hurt. I compare the abominations to brain surgery to the curse of undeath. In my opinion many Forsaken have been stripped of their normal living agency, prime example(and I have a lot) a former member of Stormwind who now lives in brill was killed and resurrected so now he’s cursed with undeath, when we talk to him he says something to the effect of “I know I have family but I don’t know why I don’t care for them” free agency of nah?
I assume most Forsaken aren’t exactly the same as they were in life, so to simply answer your question I would say yes and no. Yes the majority of the Forsaken are free to live their life the way that they please, but they lack a part of them that they had while living.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
You’re going to draw him to this thread and then it will turn into a thousand-post sh!tshow.
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I think we’re good, he’s been very chill lately.
Aw thats why I came to post. It is an interesting side topic.
Purely my own speculation here: I imagine there is technology, science, and magic in Warcraft that allows for high level brain manufacturing - and perhaps an imperfect sentience.
Maybe there is a way to piece together working parts of various brains and create a manufactured brain. And in that brain, the battles of portions of psyches creates a new entity who feels the various fragments of thoughts almost as an Id, Ego, and Super Ego.
This would enable a degree and level of physical programming on pieces of brains for aboms.
There are many opinions out there, and many justifications for those opinions. People get adamant.
More than one thread in the old forums died on this hill.
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I’ve somewhat felt this way as well, but instead of piecing together parts of a working brain they of course piece together various body parts and as we know necromancy binds a soul to a corpse. In the case of an abomination that’s several souls(likely children souls) connected to a sewn together corpse were souls are vying for dominance over the brain.
I think Severn linked the one quest in which the Apothecary uses one brain and literally snatches out the memory for safe measure.
Abominations are constructs made from various parts. Skeletons and ghouls are raised dead and thus have souls bound to them in some manner or another. There’s various quests (one in EPL comes to mind) where you free souls from ghouls and skeletons.
A bone golem like Rattlegore, while skeletal, is made from various parts and would likely qualify as a construct like an abomination.
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A conglomerate of souls could actually BE something entirely new naturally. There’s simply no way it could be expressed as an additive thing, outside of taking it straight down the disassociative identity route.
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Thank you! I wanted to swear I remembered quests that showed that but my brain always fails me on specificity.
Everything that’s been explained to you already? Derek is a Forsaken raised and whose free will is immediately denied. So he’s an exception and seen by the witnessing Forsaken and Night Borne as Sylvanas crossing a line.
Oh. Forsaken is a state of being now? What makes the skeletal archers less Forsaken? What makes their conversion more free willed than his?
The problem is Blizzard’s poor concept of what they consider honor, good and bad, and free will. Which makes parcing their comments on the matter tricky.
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Right, it’s being denied, not removed. As in, he is not allowed to exercise that free will in the same way that the player character, and presumably every other Forsaken raised peacefully and not immediately hostile, can. No choice to die immediately, or set off to found a new Forsaken, with elbows.
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