Basically if faith and pragmatism met in the middle.
Priests as a whole boil down to the concept of faith. They believe in something, and act as a conduit for that belief. They recognize the existence of something greater.
In the case of discipline, my head canon has always been that Shadina threaded the needle. She can recognize both exist, and respect both. Having faith and understanding the existence of / believing in something is less linear than blind loyalty. So she walks the fine line, while paying equal respect, without making empty promises. The end result being able to utilize both aspects of the cosmos in some form or another, in situations where it makes sense for her.
And really, when you think of it in that light, the spec’s name makes sense. You’re disciplining yourself to not over commit to one side or the other.
I wanted to make a relation to real-life religions for a moment, but realized that would be a horrible idea (and also incorrect for the example I’m thinking of).
So, this’ll have to do:
In FFXIV, there were at one point three different schools of magic. White, which was the magic of healing and nature; black, which was the magic of destruction and calamity; and red, which sought to combine both into its better form.
Disc, to me, is that red magic school. Light and Shadow are not mutually exclusive with each other, and can be balanced together for a more harmonious/desirable impact.
Part of what made me appreciate this more was the animation updates for Discipline. It has and actively uses the Power Words of both Holy and Shadow, it leans on Holy’s healing magic, it leans on Shadow’s destruction magic, and several ability animations (Dark Covenant-enhanced Halo, Divine Star and Penance) function as a perfect combination of both Light and Void magic.
Light is one side of the coin, Void is (kind of) the other, and Discipline is both sides of the coin simultaneously.
think of the scarlet crusade and the the characters in scarlet monastery. the priests there were not “healers”. they were there to punish you for your sins.
where there is light, there are shadows. disc priests master both.
penance is a punishment
atonement is making up for sins
discipline priest can heal you is you have earned healing or damage you if you have warranted punishment.
(Shadow mend isn’t using shadows, it’s bleeding the shadow out of you with the light, it just means you get splattered in a bit of a shadow like a surgeon getting splattered in blood; it’s just a messy side effect)
understood, but if you are actually running disc in group content and not using shadow spells, your damage and healing are likely gimped. on the other hand, I guess there is a super heavy shield build. to each his own…
This is how I see it too. Blizzard can do what they want with their cosmology (I hate shadowlands) but to me there is just “Light” magic, and “shadow/void” magic are just what happens when you use “Light” magic to manipulate the mystical force of Light away from somebody. They’re not opposing powers, they’re ONE power that can be turned in two different directions, pushed into something or pulled out of something.
I also have a tinfoil hat theory that “Blood” magic (including Blood Death Knight abilities and all forms of vampirism) are a form of Light magic, which draws out the Light of the target (like shadow magic) but then absorbs it into the self rather than just dissipating it into the environment. Such that vampiric undead/DK’s maintain their unlife by continually stealing Light energy from living things to create a semblance of life (unlike skeletons/liches/etc who maintain their undeath in different ways)
I see disc as a kinda Moira from Overwatch type deal where you’re channeling the two energies through separate arms. I always thought that was so cool looking.
