I’ve begun to be concerned with what I perceive to be a possible direction the writers will go in, given some hints recently. The cosmology has 6 fundamental forces that are in balance. This however, does not mean that they are all morally neutral. Would the writers really say, “Void and Light are the same, they just need balance, one isn’t more good than the other”? When the game has been battling against the Void, Chaos, and Death, in the names of Light, Order, and Life. The simplest reason is that the latter three are what have led to the creation of functional societies in the game, and the former pose constant existential threats. Survival determines morality, what will lead to the greatest long-term flourishing for the most well-intended, that is good, and those forces would be Light, Life, and Order.
I felt like the example with Illidan tried to be “edgy,” as Velen stood ambivalent to the destruction of one of his people’s semi-deities without whom his race would no longer exist. It is admissible to say that that naaru, like any individual, made a flawed choice, nowhere are the naaru said to be omniscient.
What I think is far more compelling is the acceptance of evil forces while always striving for the good and keeping what is not under proper control.
I mean, in some cases, purely black and white morality has been engaging. But the story hasn’t been purely that since like… Orcs & Humans. I agree that the relativism has been rather hamfisted often with this game though.
I feel like there are two very confused arguments entangled here.
You can talk about the morality of actions taken by characters, or you can talk about the broadly perceived “benevolence” of spheres of magic. The two have very, very little to do with each other.
Moral Absolutism is equally boring. Regardless, if I were to group the cosmological forces together I would probably put them into realms of “Orderly” (Order, Light, Death) and Disorderly (Disorder, Void, and Life). Though even that would be a gross oversimplication.
Also, “Death” has led to functional societies as well. Ancestral Spirit Worship and Worship/Reverance of the Loa of Graves (Bwon) has very functional cultural practices; outside of instances where a monolithic outside force screws with them. It truly is only the Alliance that has had an almost exclusively antagonistic relationship with the Death Cosmology. The Horde cultures have always had a far more nuanced range. Which is part of why it is such a shame that its DKs and Alliance Characters dominating the SLs story.
EDIT: Outside of that, I would welcome a bit of exploration into the darker side of the Light Cosmology. Its existed for ages, its always been a possibility. Its just never been explored.
I think both moral relativism and moral absolutism can make good stories, when used by skilled storytellers. But I feel like WoW has been making an awkward retcon/transition from one to the other, putting emphasis in the wrong places, and generally muddying the waters. The result (IMO) is that they’re getting the weaknesses of both types of story and the strengths of neither.
Yes. I’ve made my official prediction that they’re going for “Babylon 5” eventually.
Blizzard isn’t exactly catering to the White Wolf crowd.
Danuser has said that the cosmic forces themselves are not really concerned with morality.
I like the whole “balace” philosophy where Death, and even Disorder and Shadow play an important cosmological role.
People confuse this a lot. Moral relativism does not necessarily mean or imply moral, uh, negligence. Used to have a better word.
In other words, just because you accept other moral claims have equal weight to your own in a logical sense does not mean you have to pretend your own morals do not hold greater weight to you for obvious reasons and act accordingly.
Anyway, going too far down either ‘this is objectively good/bad’ and ‘everything is the same’ both have issues.
Makes me think of the “Darkest Night” and the “Brightest Day” comic book series.
Poor Deadman.
I miss the good old days…
You know.
Light good. Shadow bad. Nature good. Necromancy bad. Alliance good. Horde bad.
Life was more simple.
I, too, remember BFA as if it was yesterday.
Glorious wasn’t?
Well said.
It all depends how the story is pulled.
Moral absolutism in pure good vs evil can be done in very good, entertaining way. Kinda like animated movie “Sleeping Beauty” which was visually stunning depiction of the good vs evil, we didn’t have to get into defails of why Maleficent was evil, and in this way ironically she ended up being one of the most iconic villians.
As for Moral relativism - it can also create very entertaining stories, exploration of characters, their motives and deep dive into human nature.
But as you said, wow writers aren’t that skilled to pull it either. They planned to villain bat Bwonsamdi for crying out loud 
There’s a very, breaking the fourth wall, commentary on Moral Relativity by some brokers in Oribos
Trader Ba’telk: I’m growing fond of these mortals. Many possess flexible morals. I can appreciate that.
Trader Ba’gor: Not sure they would agree. They seem to believe they are the heroes of the story.
Trader Ba’telk: That depends on who is telling the story, does it not?
They know what’s up.
Jokes on them, we Hordies haven’t been allowed to be the heroes of our own story for over a decade lol!
At the start of WoW, the only bad faction is the forsaken …who aren’t even friendly via rep with the rest of the horde.
Vanilla also paints the alliance as the constant aggressors to the Horde simply trying to survive which furthers the wc3 story of thralls horde seeking atonement and redemption. This can be seen by tauren, orcs and trolls being attacked by alliance friendly npcs as early as level 5.
Meanwhile, the alliance is given a racist narrative, fighting dragonmaw and frostmane trolls that aren’t horde friendly but share the races of the horde. Earliest you fight a horde player friendly orc, tauren, or troll as a human/dwarf/gnome is in Arathi Highlands (night elves in ashenvale by mid to late 20s I believe and even they fight forsaken first in darkshore). Before that it’s forsaken or clans/tribes that aren’t part of the horde.
If we are talking about the good old days, that is.
Only human characters are allowed to be heroes.
Everyone else is collateral damage.
Yea I am also not so sure where he takes that “Alliance good” where we had plenty of backup on how Alliance wasn’t good at all in the past. Now the narrative portrays them as superheroes, but in the past, it wasn’t like that.
WC3 is explicitly about the folly of humans who are arrogant and don’t listen to medivh, leading to several kingdoms collapsing and the crown prince becoming the lich king and being the star of the undead campaign.
Yes, Grom and the warsong have their own issues with the night elves but at the time, night elves were their own kingdom and not alliance.
If Shadowlands is any indication it’s less that moral relativism is at play and more that Blizzard is going with the idea that each of the cosmological forces are populated with both good and bad actors from the perspective of us mere mortals.
You’d think Death as a whole would be anathema and antagonistic to Life, but given how the afterlife runs on Anima, there are many creatures of Death who would not exist without Life - and I’m not just talking about the mortal souls that get recruited by the covenants:
Likewise I expect we will find elements of the Light in the Void and Order within Disorder, and vice-versa. It’s not that the cosmological forces are naturally at war with one another (although the Dreadlord’s would love it if you thought that were the case.) but rather they blend together to create the fabric of what we think of as ‘reality’ in the Warcraft universe.
So yes, the Light, Order, and Life are not going to be populated with entities that are 100% all good. The Void, Disorder, and Death aren’t populated by entities that are all 100% evil. Not even close, as a matter of fact. That’s not moral relativism, that’s just shrugging off the naïveté of a simplistic mortal view of the cosmos.