And I personally like the Naaru as individuals over being by-default benevolent hive mind; as it gives more weight to their individual sacrifices over “they do it because they are just manifestations of good itself”. And through that capacity for individuality, the capacity for various ideas, beliefs, and even dogma exists. Even “Darker Visions of the Light”. And given that Blizz has effectively built up the races of the Alliance into by default, pure, flawless, paragons of every conceived virtue (to the point where they are just morality itself in this setting at this point) … I am less concerned about maintaining the simplicity and purity of the Naaru and Light while the other Cosmologies get more layers.
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idk, I see the original version as full of variety and potential to explore, because they are so different: different organization, different goals, methods, ideologies, etc.
And now it seems to me like:
Which is exactly what the Legion is:
By this point, Sargeras had learned more about the nature of demons—including how to permanently destroy their spirits. He offered a simple pact in exchange for the demons’ newfound power: fight at his command, or be extinguished. It was not a difficult choice.
Some are lied to, like with eredar. Some are tricked in some way, like what dreadlords did. But the underlying idea is simple: when the force can benefit, or can’t force the deal - suggest cooperation. Otherwise - act like Sargeras. Repeat for every magic colour.
What I see is not “evolution” of the cosmology, but homogenization.
But it’s just my perspective.
gl hf
Not … really? It was less variety, and more “If you operate in Fel, Death, and Void you’re just evil. If you operate under Order, Life, and Light you’re just good”. There was no nuance or wiggle room, especially with how Alliance “lensed” the Cosmologies operated under. Because DEATH was always portrayed in a negative lens (because the races of the Alliance have always had an almost exclusively antagonistic relationship with that cosmology), despite the fact that the Horde Cultures had a far more nuanced and intimate relationship with that domain. With their spirit worship and Loa reverence (neither of which have any real impact on the Death expac btw).
In short, the Cosmologies were already homogenized … just in different ways. Between those that are framed as “By Default Good” and those as “By Default Bad” … and it has always been very difficult to escape those themes. Which is why its not shocking that Spirit Worshipping cultures have been systematically undermined for over a decade, and “We like his personality and VA” is the only thing that saved Bwon from the Villain bat.
Depends on what you value, find interesting, etc., I suppose.
Warlocks of the horde is the best example. Acting in the background, but their force is known and needed. They did not have to be “totally evil” even though their existence is fighting against the demonic will, which sometimes could overpower the weilder.
I do not think there was much of it in the originals. W1-2 had necrolytes who used the void magic to raise undead. Plague of undeath was a mystery which could go in whatever direction.
Void was a mystery. Examples of original OG story would be the Prophecy of C’Thun:
The Old God would create avatars from the Silithid in its own image. These avatars were to be known as Qiraji. Sentient and with purpose, the Qiraji would name their creator: C’Thun was born… For many thousands of years the Qiraji worked feverishly to build a force capable of laying waste to the world that would betray their god.
In the time before time, when the world was still in its infancy, a battle between a Titan and a being of unimaginable evil and power raged on this very soil. The prophecy is unclear about whether or not the Titan was vanquished in this battle but it illustrates that a Titan fell. An Old God had also fallen - or so it was thought.
Dwarves did call him evil and there were IMO sad quests like Dearest Natalia. But at the same time the story just said that their goals are who knows what and why. And it is the others who betrayed them. So, not quite strictly “you’re bad-bad” as some might try to portray original OG stories.
They are shady from the very beginning, joining the story with the title of “usurpers”.
Life is what you could see in stories of Barrens in Wailing Caverns. Remulos and others did outline the are of their story, but it was tightly connected to Dream and Nightmare, which were not quite explored. They are assumed to be “good”, because being alive is good, but there were many more things that seemed odd or needed a lot more details to understand.
Light could be used by different mortals. But it was the most personified.
In her dreams, Mereldar saw five strange, inhuman forms thrumming with holy power that filled her mind with the wisdom of holiness, protection, justice, retribution, and compassion. When she put their wordless teachings into practice, power seemed to flow through her, miraculously curing wounds and illnesses.
But yeah, that is iirc the same ish place that was later known by the name of Scarlet Monastery. Exploring that thing could’ve been an interesting story. And there were bits of it, for example negotiations of some Scarlet Crusade members and Argent Dawn to fight against Kel’Thusad and siege Naxxramas. And… it got to a cartoon villain status in the later years.
We are in the middle of what I mentioned when linked the Danuser interview. We could have the horde experiencing the Ardenweald story with the help of troll figures. We could have the story of Elune explored by nightborne and blood elf explorers / historians.
What do we get in practice? I am sure you saw the threads with the horde players’ reaction to them having to do the quests alongside the 9.0 night elf stuff, which was afaia not wanted, not needed, and unpleasant.
It’s all been there, but I am sure you can as find more versed people [than I am] about what the new retcons did to the horde spiritual practices lore. iirc Baalsamael had quite a few posts on the topic.
That is what we in practice get from those “extra layers”. I am sure the intention could’ve been good. Implementation is… just consider how enjoyable is the experience for you when the people with this new vision are in full control.
gl hf
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But the scarlet crusade isn’t some new information changing anything. It is a old real lore that nearly always existed now.
I mentioned Scarlet Brotherhood in several posts and pointed out that naaru are not regular Light users. Plus, keep in mind that the Scarlets we had originally had more facets than they ended up having (none) in the Cata+ timeframe.
gl hf
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Yeah but the point was either or not the light can be evil. And as much as the light can be good, it can also serve evil purpose as we saw with the scarlet crusade long ago.
So declaring now that the light isn’t just good and can be bad is just not a retcon.
My point was that the current statements of the devs about the direction with the Light and naaru story can’t be derived from what we knew about them in stories before the Legion.
Individual users might do questionable things, plus Scarlets were not one note villains early on. So, those elements worked. Now - not so much.
Light giving power (some) to those who believe in their cause is not the same as “naaru will force you to follow them if you do not agree with their methods / vision”.
gl hf
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LOL, I wasn’t hiding anything. Most of those posts were arguing against the story direction, it was never a secret that I didn’t approve. And you thought it was because I was an Alliance fanboy at first.
This thread has nothing do with Yrel, the Draenei or the Light despite my track record… until others brought it up. You and your cheerleaders in the upvote brigade/my potential hatedom can stick that in your pipes and smoke it.
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