There was a similar thread related to this idea, but I was thinking about it more lately. Essentially it has been hinted at, both by the developers and in-game, that there’s going to be more equivocation about the goodness/badness between the cosmic powers. And my problem with trying to balance these out more as far as what each power is are threefold.
TLDR: Shouldn’t blatantly turn too many allied groups to villains, bad attempt at moral greyness, change hurts immersion too much.
These cosmic powers are Chaos, Order, Life, Death, Light, and Void. The reason I think they’re being equaled out start with a developer comment. Essentially a developer was speculating, ‘what is the Light in the Void’s perspective, horrible order’ or close to that effect. He talked about possibly seeing planets encased in crystal, frozen by the Light. This is seemingly hinted at by some of the Legion story elements with Xe’ra, The Lightforged/Lightbound, and the story A Thousand Years of War.
We have in-game text in Shadowlands kind of going over the idea of the First Ones, thus downgrading the Titans in what their role in the setting was viewed as before. The Chronicle, previously touted (and still marketed) as a ‘definitive lore guide’ was changed after the fact to be ‘from the Titan’s perspective’. Developers have given other comments that a few things are from their perspective and thus not necessarily accurate. And in-game text about Odyn suppressing information of ‘advancements’ or of The Black Empire. We have the Dragonflight conflict where it tries to paint the Primalists as having a legitimate beef with how the Titans have ordered Azeroth.
Juxtapose this with prior lore where the Naaru were largely of one very altruistic bend together. And where the Titans, barring a few rare instances, were also painted as rather positively. So now establishing that I think this is happening, why I think it is a problem.
Turning allies into villain fodder. World of Warcraft is a long running game. There are only limited areas to draw upon for new locations and enemies. This situation feels like a blatant attempt to open up the pool more for places to go / people to fight. Which is not necessarily bad, but feels tacky and unnecessary here. We’ve fought fallen Naaru, we’ve fought corrupted Titans / Titan servants, corrupted Wild Gods. None of these factions really need to be bad overall for there to be bad sub-groups to deal with. I consider that entirely sufficient.
Poor attempt at moral greyness. Blizzard has never been known for treating moral issues well. They’ve been poorly pushing the idea that every bad guy is fighting for some ultimately altruistic reason as of late. Sargeras feared the Void, Arthas feared the Legion, Zovaal feared something, and so on. These ‘reveals’ have never felt satisfying to me. They only really muddy the water as to how bad an enemy is when their acts are clearly beyond the pale. Sargeras destroyed countless worlds, Arthas killed nations of people, Zovaal tortured countless souls. These are clearly evil individuals, there’s no making them grey. Trying to paint classically good forces as being more equivalent to the bad forces mimics this unsatisfying presentation. Are we really going to put Nature on the same tier as the Void? Death as the same tier as Chaos? It feels very silly to me after our experiences. These are not nearly as negatives to our characters in equal measure, nor should they try to make it so. There has been much to-do about people saying the Titans are obsessed with Order or Naaru obsessed with spreading the Light, but we don’t exactly see this among other cosmic entities in a malicious way. The Pantheon of Death itself isn’t obsessed with invading our realm to spread death, merely the traitor Zovaal and only to keep the cosmos safe, not because he glorified death above all else. The Wild Gods (highest nature entities we have) don’t seem obsessed with making nature overflowing in the universe to exclusion. The Void Lords and demons of course have this desire, but that’s traditionally been the case among them specifically. Ultimately these groups are not equal in their nature as it relates to our characters. They shouldn’t try to make up actions to try and indicate otherwise when it’ll never fit. This isn’t Warhammer where there are no good factions.
Hard shift from older lore. Change is not always bad, but too much change can be. This relates to the various retcons and change in characterization. Traditionally the Light, the Titans, and Nature have been generally painted as benevolent with minor exceptions (Algalon, the Scarlet Crusade/nature of how the Light could be abused, that sort of thing). Trying to paint these forces as inherently worse to such a degree feels like it ultimately hurts my immersion in the world.
Those ‘minor exceptions’ are kind of huge in the way the portrayal goes. Algalon is direct that the Titans didn’t care about mortal life if it meant the possible loss of the world. The Scarlet Crusade proved that the Light didn’t care about intent to do good.
What this does is open up the Worldbuilding to both good and evil on every aspect, it doesn’t mean ‘every force is now pure evil’.
Minor in that it was a single instance last resort never really brought up or alluded to much otherwise.
As far as users, not beings that are of/represent that force. Naaru are such creatures. Titans, Old Gods/Void Lords, Wild Gods, demons, Eternal Ones. Individuals could always use any force for good or evil, I’m talking about characterization of the force and representatives of them.
I never said or indicated it does. It tries to paint them rather than some good ones and some bad ones but that they all have problematic aspects.
I’m certainly not looking forward to any greater evil reveals. It was cool one time when we found out the Orcs weren’t demons from Hell. But aliens enslaved by demons FROM SPAAAAACE.
That was a legitimately fun twist and allowed the Orcs to evolve from Warhammer rip offs to probably the best presentation of the fantasy race in the genre.
Then they did it again with the Scourge. And that was pushing it. Then they did it again with the Legion, and things were getting silly. And then they did it again with Zovaal and the whole thing felt like;
But with that being said I’m not conceptually opposed to some ambiguity in the cosmic forces.
I actually think for once their, let’s be polite and say unique, interpretation of moral grayness could be appropriate. Because we’d be talking about vague cosmic forces, gods or monsters depending on your perspective, not people. They wouldn’t supposed to be relatable. They’d be beyond good or evil and just doing what’s in their nature.
A tree isn’t morally good because it produces air and food - that’s just what it does. We like them because that’s helpful for us, but the tree isn’t trying to help anymore than a wildfire is trying to hurt. They’re simply things going about their existence and we assign values to them based on how they effect us.
I could picture the cosmic forces operating in a similar way. The ole ‘What’s chaos to the fly is order to the spider’ thing.
As far as Dragonflight is concerned with the primalists, I don’t consider this to be, ‘darkening,’ the titans. Almost all of the revelations we’ve been seeing pertain more to the Watchers/Keepers. They’re the ones who write the history learned by mortals, not the Titans themselves.
As Algalon made clear long ago, the Titans are not a, ‘Good,’ force. Nor are they, ‘Evil.’ They’re a truly Neutral force in the cosmic grand scheme of things, bringing order to the cosmos. At the same time, they’re not really shown as closeted or bigoted. Even in the Chronicles, they don’t have the image of the cosmic powers with Order and Chaos in places of prominence, unlike the Shadowland’s version which shows Life and Death as the ultimate forces and the others as lesser.
The Titans aren’t Good, but they were never portrayed that way anyways.
The Titans aren’t Benevolent, but they were never portrayed that way anyways.
The Titans aren’t Perfect, but they were never portrayed that way anyways.
I really don’t see anything wrong with our latest set of lore developments, as it’s nothing new or different yet.
The Chronicle described them as benevolent with a code of temperance towards the civilizations they encountered. Dedicated to defending worlds even without a world soul and sending Sargeras to defend others against demons. The Ultimate Visual Guide supposedly says: Bastions of purity and good, the titans are unable to conceive of evil or wickedness in any form. The Warcraft Encyclopedia also called them benevolent.
WoW has long since moved past that idea of the Titans and the cosmology in general as the cosmology expanded over time.
As it is now, I think the key here is to see the forces as being driven by a core impulse. They are not good or bad, they merely are driven by this single desire. Sometimes these desires mean they do things which are also beneficial for mortals. Other times they are not. Invariably any one force in excess will be a bad thing. We ideally need all six in balance, as each of the three pairings keeps its counterpart in check.
Forces of Structure
Order binds, analyzes, builds, and organizes. It is also dispassionate on a cosmic level and unyielding as it tries to enforce the One True Timeline.
Light unifies and restores but also inflames zealotry as it tries to enforce the Path of the Light.
Death provides an ending and curtails Life’s infinite drive towards growth. It sorts and manages countless souls as they migrate across countless afterlives.
Forces of Change
Chaos destroys, and is particularly attracted to topple the Order’s sand castles. In doing so it prevents Order from binding the entire universe to its calculated vision of perfection.
Void consumes and drives mortals mad with it’s Thousand Truths. It also provides infinite possibility and the vectors of free will and choice in contrast to the monolithic Path of the Light.
Life spreads, consumes, and evolves to create more of itself. It will also destroy even itself in excess.
If anything, I think Dragonflight should be making people realize that for as long as the physical universe has existed, the force of Order has won. There’s talk of “balance” being destroyed by Void or Death or Light exerting total control over the cosmos, but when you think about it, complaining about such an outcome is extremely hypocritical and blind to what’s already happened: Arcane did take over the universe early on, and any change isn’t a loss of balance, but just a shift from one power ruling to a different one. “Stop the Jailer from destroying the cosmic balance!” was a farce. There has never been balance, just a nonstop Arcane steamrolling of the entirety of the Dark Beyond.
In hindsight, literally the entire story of Warcraft is more or less “help the force of Arcane/Order maintain its stranglehold on universal power over the other five forces.” As mortals, we’ originated from and have been molded by all the forces, yet we’ve dedicated ourselves to completely upholding Arcane’s status quo.
Not saying Arcane is bad, just that the in-universe narrative is biased towards them.
I’m not denying they’ve destroyed planets. I just view people clutching this single reference, they act like they haven’t also been explicitly described as good and benevolent that try to be temperate to existing civilizations in a few sources.
And ultimately the point only really touches on when they started waffling if we’re assuming the destructions were bad.
Wow I’m actually impress and intrigue… this is probably the most structure and simplify way to see the Cosmic Forces and their function in the WoW universe.
I’m curious, what are your thoughts on the Elemental Forces on a grand cosmic scale?
We know that most we know is tied to Azeroth itself at a planetary level, but if you take it at a Cosmic Scale how would you View it?
To offer another view, I wouldn’t say that Order won. After all, they didn’t exactly stamp out other cosmic powers, and they were defeated by Chaos (Sargeras and the Burning Legion). You’re not wrong in that the Titans provide the most significant presence in the material plane of the universe out of the various cosmic forces, but even that is somewhat tempered when you accept they don’t and never have had sole control.
If Order had maintained a stranglehold on the universe, Old Gods never would’ve left the Void in massive numbers. Naaru never would’ve been able to flitter about hither and thither on their quest to make an Army of the Light. Necromancers wouldn’t be allowed, organic life would be eradicated to keep Life from spreading like some kind of weed.
The thing about the Titans (and not necessarily Order itself), is that they’ve always embraced a balanced approach to the universe. One can argue the Titans themselves are largely a composite of Order (Arcane) and other Cosmic powers.
Eonar - Arcane and Life
Argus - Arcane and Death
Sargeras - Arcane and Chaos
What we have yet to see is a Titan that is a combination of Arcane and Void, and one that is a combination of Arcane and Light. Personally, I wonder if Azeroth herself isn’t a Titan of Light, given the golden coloring of Azerite.
I would say Aggramar fights this bill. Given that Tyr has a connection to the light and Aggramar was the one who empowered him. I mean Tyrs silver hand was repurposed into a vessel of light, used by Holy Paladins during Legion.
For one thing, its stated Aggramar imbued his courage and strength to Tyr, which made Tyr the greatest warrior among the Keepers. For another, Aggramar hasn’t really been shown to display any light-based powers, as far as I recall. We fought him in a raid, after all.
Azerite’s appearance seems more than enough to really drive home this idea that Azeroth is to become a Light Titan. I feel like this also plays somewhat into the Titan’s original evaluation of Azeroth as the most powerful World Soul they’d encountered, and thus likely to be the most powerful Titan when awoken. If a Void Titan would be the most powerful Titan in the cosmos, then the Void’s opposite, Light, would be likely to produce a Titan just as powerful.
As they have decoupled technique from magic types (ala necromancy being usable by the Light) I do not think you can say, for example, Eonar actually uses Nature Magic 100% for sure. It may be Order Magic actually, and it be more apt to say they have a domain they have a vested interest in bringing structure to. Freya brings order to nature, in this example. They call her the Lifebinder for a reason, I suppose.
Good and Evil is all about perspective. What’s ‘Good’ to someone can be ‘Evil’ to someone else. I think they’re trying to go to some sort of ‘morality’, which was where the ‘morally gray’ thing with Sylvanas came in.
Tbh, I’d like them to stop using Old God Made Them Crazy trope every time someone loses their gourd and trashes the whole garden. It’s getting tired. They’ve done so many well-written chars (Fandral was one of the biggest upsets to me, they could have done SO MUCH DEVELOPMENT with him involving the War of the Shifting Sands and his son dying and all of that, but they never developed it beyond ‘Xavius told me he’d give me my son back if I killed Malfurion!’) that way, and it just turned into a really bad excuse.
They really need to evaluate it and give players the perspective to draw their own conclusions in regards to what’s good and evil. Level the playing field, as it were, let us pick which side we’re on in that regard. Could make for some seriously good content, where you have races picking whether they want to be on the Life side or Death side, but still working towards the same overall purpose. On the Void side or Light side, again, still working for the same overall purpose. There’s a lot of development I feel like they could do, but they’re so hung up on the PvP aspect of this game and making content just for Mythic-tier World First stuff that the lore and storylines never get developed past that. -.-
I’ve seen this complaint elsewhere and I don’t really understand it.
If you’re a primal incarnate, you want to go back to the way things were before the Titans “ordered” things. If you’re an Old God, you want the Void in charge. Sargeras wanted to prevent the Void from ruling so he felt like exterminating all life.
Just because folks have a legitimate (to them) reason to want us dead, doesn’t mean I want to side with them. In my opinion, it actually makes villains less mustache twirlie and more understandable.
Primal incarnates want to go back to elemental whateverness - also they’re mad we killed their sister.
The Titans have been pretty clearly Titan-centric since Wrath, so I’m not really sure why that seems to be a change. The good news for us, is generally we like the Titan side.
Order is also in a large part the force of civilization building. It is thus a force that most cultures are going to be highly preferential towards. Back before Order created dragons, the primal dragons were not civilization builders. They didn’t have buildings or anything else we associate with a civilization. The inclination to do that was all Order’s doing.
