If Death has (secret) Agents, why can't Life?

Lore Story Forum
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If Death has (secret) Agents, why can’t Life? Surely all the Pantheons believe in self-preservation, and they can’t be so naïve as to believe they are free from external influence or threat. If Death has its agents infiltrating the other domains, why can’t other Pantheons do the same?

It’s (mostly) clear that the Nathrezim (a.k.a. Dreadlords) serve Death (and likely Zovaal). Perhaps their thousand+ year quest to spy-on and manipulate the other Cosmological Forces wasn’t just about assisting Zovaal’s escape, but for self-preservation.

It would make sense if all Cosmological Forces valued their power that they would enact preventative measures from invasion/defeat. Maldraxxus comes to mind as an example. I think the Dreadlords served in this capacity when Zovaal was in power before his imprisoning, only to avenge him from the shadows after his jailing.

So that got me thinking. Are there other spies or agents that are seemingly out-of-place in the WoW Cosmos? Then it occurred to me that there are two (heavily) nature-and-life themed characters that sit on Pantheons seemingly contrary to their own (if not out right antithetical).

Eonar, the LIFE BINDER, sits on the Pantheon of ORDER, and the Winter Queen presides over a realm of hibernation & rebirth on the Pantheon of DEATH ?! Could it be, the two daughters of Elune are in-fact agents of LIFE, planted on different Pantheons to serve Life’s interest?

This would also make even more sense of the Eonar & WQ sisterhood, and why they wouldn’t necessarily reveal the identity of their mother (that would sound alarm bells). I’m not suggesting Elune is a Life Goddess; if I were to guess, she’s probably the Goddess of Balance and a FIRST ONE. I also don’t believe Elune is involved in the operations of the Life Pantheon.

She (Elune) has a history of mating with Nature demi-gods (Malorne) producing children with horn & leaf appendages growing out of their heads (Cenarius, and now perhaps Eonar & the WQ).

I think the WQ sees her sister as “vexing” because they don’t see eye-to-eye on matters concerning their mission. She obviously doesn’t hate her sister, or else she wouldn’t have sacrificed what she did to revive Ysera.

LIFE may very well have other Agents out & about that we don’t know of. This could also be true for the other Cosmological Forces, but for now, Eonar and the Winter Queen represent the most curious “out-of-place” entities in the WoW Universe.

Thoughts?

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It comes down to this is the Death expansion. The developers, writers included, are going to try and hype up the forces there, show how important to the story and get players thinking that it’s amazing. Partially because it’s new creative minds behind it, and they want to show their lore is just as good, if not better than their predecessors.

If there is a Life expansion, Void, Light… no doubt there will be examples of how crafty and important those powers are, likely even retconning the Shadowlands lore to show how they were manipulated too.

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Blizzard have stated that their direction for future WoW expansions will draw upon the WoW Cosmos, and this DEATH Expansion is the beginning of it.

Legion wrapped up most of WoW’s WCIII lore in that we saw justice with Sargeras. If he were to escape somehow, we’d have to tread into more cosmic theme expansions. This all aligns with Blizzard’s stated story goals.

Eonar being the LIFE BINDER was probably never considered a LIFE PANTHEON member many years ago, but her theme is so convenient that the writers could effectively say she was always an Agent of Life without retconning much at all. She has druidic magics and is nature-themed, with “LIFE” in her title.

They could reconcile the fact that she was born from a Titan World soul by proclaiming that being born as one doesn’t automatically make them a designee of ORDER; hell, maybe most Pantheon Members from most (or all) the Cosmological Forces were born out of some type of world-soul, hence their power levels. Sargeras took up the mantle of Fel Energies and was originally born from a world soul.

I was just pointing out how curious it would be if Eonar is indeed the Winter Queen’s sister. If this is confirmed, then I have a hard time believing Blizzard planted two significant nature-themed NPCs (who happen to be sisters) on non-nature Pantheons by coincidence or oversight.

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They have pretty bluntly stated Titans are beings of Order, and return to Order’s domain when and if they die. The Titans seem unique compared to the Eternal Ones as they each have a very distinct relation to one cosmic force, and seem to exist to bring it into Order. Or, actually… to bring them into balance. One could say someone might of engineered them that way. If only we knew of a cosmic entity of balance who has unexplained Titanic links. Hmm.

Pure Nature is what you saw on Draenor. It is wild and feeds upon itself. Unrestrained Nature disturbs Titans who are compelled to bring it into order before it kills its host planet.

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Who is to say they don’t? After all, if we knew about them, it means they would have failed their job in staying secret

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The Titan Pantheon was a creation of Aman’Thul to recruit others similar to his nature (i.e. born from world souls) to aid in his quest in ORDERing the Universe.

Titans aren’t an automatic designee of Order, and Sargeras showed how voluntarily one can switch sides on a whim.

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https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/030/710/dd0.jpg

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They really are. Sargeras applied the force of Order upon Chaos (Fel) to create the Legion. Demons do not naturally organize into regimented armies. That is really unnatural for the force of Chaos: before Sargeras threatened to erase them from existence if they did not serve they would drop out of the Twisting Neather to randomly pillage a planet as a chaotic swarm, and get cleaned out by Sargeras as he did his Titan thing. The moment Sargeras was removed from the picture the Legion fell apart as demons reverted to their natural inclinations.

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Well given that he’s spent most his life championing ORDER, why wouldn’t the Burning Legion version of Sargeras not possess both order & fel? That’s what made Disorder so formidable once he was recruited.

Serving a “new master” doesn’t mean that his qualifications as a mighty commander (and organizer) somehow disappear. And when he left, of course the armies reverted to their true nature: “disorder.”

It’s quite apparent that Titans can choose the Pantheon they wish to serve. Quite clear actually.

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Because they might not care or believe in it?

That’s the problem with cosmic forces based on diametrically opposing ideologies.

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I for one am sick an tired of Blizzard’s “they were actually manipulated” trope. It was actually Dreadlords/Old Gods/Titans/Alpharius all along to explain poor plot cohesion and gaps in world-building is trash “manipulation.” I hope for their sake they never try to write an actual spy story.

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It was clearly Omegon.

:pancakes:

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For a story that’s evolved for two decades (including back to the Warcraft RTS days), you’re going to see the occasional recycling of common tropes, it’s inevitable. Couple that with the idea that Blizzard borrows heavily from other mythologies, why is this “manipulation” so bothersome to you?

Try building upon something as convoluted and old as the WoW Universe without occasionally re-using plot devices, character motivations, etc. It’s how it’s re-used that matters really.

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Because I want to shown said manipulations, not told about them afterwards.

We are told that Dreadlords are super-manipulative, but we are shown that they are egotistical edgelords who can’t pass on the opportunity to drop hints that jeopardize their goals and absolutely cannot stop themselves from Monologuing.

So much of the continuity snarls could be averted if they actually did their homework instead of writing on the fly. Last I checked someone was actually drawing pay for being an on-station lore expert to prevent said hamfisted retcons.

Lets not get into the stupidity of trying to convince fans that Sylvanas regularly lies to herself in her own head.

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To add to this, the manipulation should actually be part of the story. Take Ner’zhul for example, he thought he was doing what was best for his people, but was been fed bad advice through deception by Kil’jaeden who posed as his deceased wife. His goal never turned into invading Azeroth in the name of the Legion and power. Ner’zhul still had had his own identity but was playing into someone else’s goals as well.

What I believe Anyaceltica means, and I agree with, after a story and characters are established, possibly even resolved, to have them reopened with the reasoning, “This is what really happened, they were manipulated into doing everything because of someone else,” that just stripes of the character of their motivations and identity. I’m hesitant to even call them a character anymore, they just become tool.

If you want to have Sargeras was alluded into destroying a certain planet that would have been out of his way, which freed some ancient god or demon, something like that, and that entity comes in play in the future; I think that would be more acceptable than having his entire crusade be because a dreadlord told him to do it.

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Every living thing is Life’s Agent.

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The keyword is secret, my friend.

We will find out about their secrets once we go to the “Lifelands” no doubt.
Not everyone can keep secrets as well as Spymaster Shaw kept Bolvar Fordragon’s secret, after all :slight_smile: