Did anyone else clock the seeming increase in aggression from Paladins in this expansion?
Obviously Turalyon trying to kill a defeated enemy and hitting his son. With Arator’s story seeming to be about trying to balance against this aggression of the Light. Lothraxion seeming angry throughout Voidstorm, up until turning against his allies to almost destroy Silvermoon. We know the Lightblinded Vanguard are bosses in The Voidspire, though we don’t know the exact context. Even the Lightbloom having a negative effect on the region and people involved. And some of the Vanguard seem very brisk about wanting to really help Silvermoon in general beyond just fighting the Void.
What do y’all think? Will we see more of this “blinding zealotry”?
In essence, yeah. Its a bunch of very devout, convicted people driving themselves to the point of exhaustion funneling that devotion and conviction into a massive font of energy … that was already supposed to have a proximity effect. It having a bigger effect on the guy who tattood the Light literally into his skin … isnt that surprising tbh.
Even Liadrin was suprised when the Sunwell shot that beam up into the sky and is holding back the storm. I don’t think anyone in the story really knows whats going with it. Just that it’s having a negative affect on the surrounding area and light users in general. Liadrinn is the only one who seems to have remained calm so far though.
I’m still reasonably well convinced the story was initially about The Light behaving strangely because of the Light vs. Void armageddon going on. I think someone decided along the way to pivot into “it has always been this way” for some reason, despite it very plainly not having always been this way.
Lightblinded is a retcon, its not originally why Scarlet Crusade went bad. They were bad because of their ideology led to not only killing scourge, but innocents as well.
Not really. Even as far back as the WC2 novels, you see it when Turalyon has an epiphany after Lothar’s death. It wasn’t called, ‘lightblinded,’ back then or anything, but we’ve seen on several occasions where the Light infuses its champions with a righteous, unyielding fury. Arthas seemed to be on the susceptible side of it if you play through his WC3 campaign.
Indeed. Turalyon after Lothar’s death in Tides of Darkness gets an epiphany that the Orcs being Alien means the Light is not inside them and he can use the Light on them with impunity. He starts shining brightly with the Light causing all the Orcs to feel fear as he vows death upon them even after declaring Doomhammer would stand trial.
He simmered down after the War ended and the Orcs were imprisoned and in the Novel afterwords(Beyond the Dark Portal) he objected to Alleria’s attempt at Orc Genocide.
The irony is that Lothar chose Turalyon because he would be willing to do things the other Paladins wouldn’t do(sounds a lot like an insult towards Uther’s treatment of Stratholme and Tirion’s unflappable Honor) and didn’t choose him for his sense of Mercy.
Lothar never mentioned his looking down on Uther and Tirion for being too Honorable to the 2 Paladins themselves keeping it between him and Khadgar.
Imagine what would happen if he loudly announced that he chose Turalyon because he was less honorable than Uther and Tirion and willing to do what was necessary to fight the Horde…
In any case the Lightblindedness during the fight against Doomhammer was visible as plain as day.
Ah, yes. The “righteous, unyielding fury” that comes from a rational theological realisation which makes you… spare your enemy… in anger. Definitely sounds like evil, blind zealotry to me.
You might want to go back and redo the TBC quests, probably examples in classic quests but I haven’t played them recently enough to know that. Especially those out of Shattrath. This isn’t anything new, it’s just never been called out so bluntly.
Lightblindness is not an old thing. Jerks using the Light to be jerks is, though. Lothraxion and Turalyon in particular never behave like this before Midnight. Arator and Alleria and Liadrin all comment at various points about how unusual it is.
You’re getting fixated on the word… the concept, in the broad strokes of personality and value manipulation, isn’t new. There are examples of the Light altering perceptions and forcing concepts onto those who were converted, there is a quest chain TBC that calls it out. Even the quest givers know they are being controlled but still do it because they also feel like it’s the correct thing to force their fellows to convert and to kill those who resist because the Naaru altered them by infusing them with the light. It actually has us doing that to unhatched eggs. It’s literally conversion by the blade.
What’s going on with the Light in Midnight just feels like a natural outgrowth of prior examples.
Sadly, can’t remember the exact quest chain, I’m really bad with names. It was one of the bird people. We get the first step in Shattrath (sp?) I think it was a Naaru who does the introduction.