I doubt they’d do that tho. More than likely, they’d pull a GnomerGnome and MechaGnome situation. Were out of laziness they just smash the two groups together, but that threat of being accessories for Alliance races and reps still exists. This is especially likely with the “Good Ones” of the Horde Elves, as they have a history of not having people to actually represent and instead are shoehorned in as shallow Horde representation in Alliance stories.
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Oh hell no. Blizzard has done everything in its power to prevent me from identifying with or feeling good about being in the Alliance.
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I’m not. I was pushing back against the idea that swapping Halduron for Aethas was an equal trade.
I’m not sure it’s entirely canon anymore, since they retconned Lor’themar/Liadrin out of existence.
Honestly, I consider that to be part of the “sinister stuff.” Remember that the Blood Knights were originally a very edgy organization.
Droité, the “GnomerGnome and MechaGnome situation” is still legitimately better than the current model of “Factions and Anduin/Jaina/Sylvanas/insert writer´s pet character situation”… in the first case yes, two related races get homogenized but are still somehow pseudo independent from the other races in-game and developed as such. The current model is basically the glorified chronicle of God King Blanduin Wrynn… and the whole factions WITH the characters are being kidnapped to tell the tale of this lore black hole, no more and no less. The issue is SO severe even other pet characters end up getting development NOT as an organic consequence of the narrative but as collaterals to continue with Blanduin´s & Co. BS novella.
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If they don’t just abandon this whole thread, how much do you want to bet that the “truth of his people” has something to do with the Titans?
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I am almost willing to bet my life savings they have forgotten about it.
would genuinely leave my body
that, or tying it into Elune would also be ethereally tedious
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It was never a trade because they are characters with different backgrounds and that fulfill different purposes in the narrative (Halduron is a MUST to give some love to Farstrider lore, Aethas meanwhile is frankly irrelevant cause he doesn´t even contributes to Magister lore, only to “Kirin Tor” lore).
It is, the Belf Heritage Armor scenario is SO heavily based upon that novella to the point we can see Bel´ovir, Vandellor and Galell in it. And these are “novella only” characters.
Also, have in mind it has been what, 10 years in-universe since the story happened? And the novella was clear in regards to Liadrin being very apathetic regarding Lor´themar´s affections (the poor dude just wanted someone to love him… and If Thally was up for the task I support it, Lor deserves to be loved instead of pinning for someone that was never really interested; not even in the novella this was intended to happen).
Well, with the recent lore making the Light just another amoral cosmic force and NOT the “Lawful Good” cosmic force, me thinks the “sinister” portion of the whole Blood Knight organization was sustantially removed (I mean suddenly it´s not bad elves abusing the equivalent of an angel, it´s merely elves sucking energy from a being of questionable origins).
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No. More that if Blizzard wants to push Nightborne as another race of powerful magic users, having the Blood elves increase their anti-magic capabilities it would separate them a bit more than just their skin tone. Also, because of how magic heavy Jaina the Alliance is, anti-magic makes sense.
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And this would be more as a result of the Gnomes (like the Tauren) not hardly getting any attention or focus on them, just like the Dwarves. But unlike the Tauren, they don’t need to fill some “Token Good Race” plot-device role for their respective faction (since, y’know, all Alliance races ever are born perfect and good). Which, like the Dwarves, just results in their neglect more than anything else. The Horde elves on the other hand are not that lucky. They may not get much focus now, but generally their reps do also get shoehorned into a “accessories” for Alliance reps most of the time they’re on screen. They are all essentially treated like mini-Baines, meant to give the illusion of Horde Faction inclusion in very Alliance hero driven stories. But leaving no true impact.
I highly doubt that turning them in a hemogenous mass of Arcane Elfs will solve anything. Least of all in a 500 year timeskip situation. Because as much as Anduin exacerbates the issue, he really is ultimately just a symptom of the weird “perfect, flawless, innately good and absurdly virtuous” Alliance Faction core problem. He merely makes that Blizz safe-space easier to exploit, he’s not causing it.
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Oh, now I get it. I´m in total support of this, especially because Nightborne got their “Spellbreakers” as a consequence of being the purple ripoff of the Belves.
In real time, Belves got first the anti-magic units in WC3:TFT.
Idk Droité, I think Anduin IS the tool devs use to perpetuate their Alliance Purity Test… trying to replace him with a nobody from nowhere won´t achieve the same effect, ergo they maybe wouldn´t be able to portray the Horde races in the same accesory degree they do currently (simply there´s no background supporting this narrative direction).
Frankly, I just want the Blanduin soap opera to stop, period.
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You guys know if they did a timeskip they would say Anduin somehow got Lightforged and is now an immortal 18 year old, right? We likely will never escape him because Blizzard uses him to tell morality plays.
That said the magical focus of the Nightborne is very different, enough so that they could co-exist inside one unifed Highborne nation. Shal’dorei really excel at magic manipulating mana and its properties directly. Stuff like making barriers, messing with time and space, etc. The Sin’dorei excel at manipulating the elemental forces directly, particularly fire. They also since MoP have put a lot of energy into studying blood magics, most recently stealing techniques from the blood trolls.
Well, if you go study biblical lore, angels are sort of terrifying and amoral creatures that only exist to do the will of their god. I mean they are noted as having killed every Egyptian firstborn. That’s pretty dark stuff.
Stealing the Light of M’uru was an intentional plan of the Light, which required M’uru to sacrifice itself in order to fulfil an agenda of ultimately turning the Sunwell into a font of Holy power. Funny thing is as a planar being M’uru should just go back into the light to be reborn, and the plan
- Converted the Sin’dorei into a very devout society that sees the Light as redeeming,
- We sort of created a Sunwell that is basically stealth Lightforging the Sin’dorei slowly. You got those gold eyes for a reason.
- …also it is easily able to end up a portal for the Light to pour troops through.
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I agree here. Anduin has been the moral center of the Alliance since MOP. Maybe even Cata. He was the vessel that delivered the Alliance to Pandaria, where his pacifistic ideology was tended and grown. By the time of Legion, Varian even said “I now believe as you do, that peace is the noblest aspiration.”
We still see that, where Anduin is moralizing to Tyrande about peace with the Horde, the people responsible for the genocide of her people. Which just reeks of Chamberlain’s appeasement strategy when dealing with the 3rd Reich.
“Peace in our time” indeed… despite zero reparations paid to the people who actually suffered.
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I dunno … it feels like he’s an easy vehicle for that moralizing, but there were pretty big warning signs during the transition between WotLK and Cata. This ugly noncomittal nature with Blizz and Alliance aggression; that resulted many times in whitewashing, handwaving (even by their victims), or just burying those few grey acts under mountains of excuses or justifications.
- The treaty created in an in between expac book that invalidated Varian’s declaration of War, just in time for Garrosh to “start it”? Not Anduin.
- Blizz putting more work into absolving Hawthorne of his part in Taurajo, than they did in the actual event of Taraujo itself? Not Anduin.
- Another treaty created in an in between expac book, to invalidate the neutrality Dalaran threw out the door in the Cata conflict, so Garrosh’s attack again it and Northwatch were “unprovoked”? Not really Anduin.
- Blizz dialing back for years the severity of the Purge of Dalaran, to the point where the only person to every beg for forgiveness for it … was the leader of the victims Aethas? Anduin wasn’t involved in this mess either.
- Nothing coming from the clear act of War that was Genn and Rogers ambushing Sylvanas in Stormheim? Even the Horde were forced to ignore it? The only involvement Anduin had in that was his total lack of response to it. He wasn’t used as a means to enforce the purity test there.
- The Silithus incident? Where Blizz wrote not ONE, but TWO excuses to try to justify why an Alliance military group slaughtering Horde civilians wasn’t an act of War? Again, no real input by Anduin here either.
Hell, outside of his BtS stunt, where he flooded Orgrimmar full of SI:7 to send the deliberate message “we are always watching you”, Anduin is rarely even involved in the more egregious whitewashing events. He’s more a poster child for the Alliance’s “goodness”, but when he is actually involved he just ends to be used as a plot-device to justify why the Horde is even allowed to exist in this game anymore. Because … as a Plot-Device itself … the Horde isn’t worth setting up motives, means, or opportunities for that themselves.
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Oh, i know biblical angels aren´t precisely “lawful good” in the modern sense of the word, I was just using a figure of speech.
Well… you are correct in some things (Light being seen as a redeeming feature for some Belves, Liadrin is an example of this) but not in others. Officially, the golden eyes are NOT a result of the Sunwell being half holy, they are a result of individual devotion to the Light as per Word of God (the perception of the Sunwell “lighforging” the Belves is headcanon until devs say otherwise).
And he officially became the true “moral center” of the Horde in BfA when a veteran like Saurfnag had to take Blanduin´s counsel starting the expac, and this once again seems to be the direction devs will take with Sylvanas in SL. In short: Blanduin is narrative wise a massive black hole that MUST be culled for the good of the story.
He´s NOT the one directly involved with withewashing cause he´s ALWAYS the one involved with the “muh moral argument was right and I´m gonna make a speech about it” since MoP.
Ironically all elements that golden had a part of writing. However i disagree with the element that the two are unrelated. Golden simply cannot have her favorite non toxic masculine character leading a faction that does anything wrong. Same reason she has written Jaina as being so bipolar, because she is anduin’s surrogate mommy so has to be on the same wave length as him.
Again they cant simply have the alliance own these events and be the antagonist more often because it would require an attitude change for its leader which they are unwilling to do. Because Anduin is a role model of non toxic characteristics.
Until blizzard stop trying to Force political/positive messaging and virtue signalling into the story and turn the focus back to writing a coherent story not much will change. Not to say they cannot have more inclusion in the story but needs to be introduced more organically not so forced to cover for bad writing.
This also doesn’t mean villain batting Turaylon or the alliance is an easy answer either because that is the same thing that happen to the Horde and made more issues with the story than it resolved.
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I think it’s been mentioned that people tend to conflate making someone antagonistic with them being hit with the villain bat. I don’t blame them. With Blizzard it’s usually all or nothing.
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I swear. Saying anduin or somehow referencing him and then saying he is bad is the equivalent of this:
I mean, there’s a reason for that.