They’re the cosmic Worfs of the Warcraft universe.
While the Wild Gods are too*, they aren’t touted as major players in the cosmic conflict on the same level by story or writers. The Worf Effect trope can work, but not when overused and done poorly like here.
Because of this, they have been:
• Captured by Blood Elves, drained like a battery and slain by 10-25 adventurers (Mu’ru).
• Drained like a battery and then shot out of the Exodar (K’ara)
• Turned into a Void god by Cho’gall then killed by a lone adventurer (AU K’ure).
• Had to sacrifice himself to just banish Dimensius when mortals defeated Dimensius without that (T’uure).
• Trapped and injured by Rakeesh, then one-shotted by Rakeesh’s Fel Reaver (O’ros).
• One-shotted by Illidan in a jobbing death - and this Naaru was supposedly stronger than A’dal (Xe’ra).
• Captured and imprisoned by Kil’jaeden for millennia, then killed by five adventurers and Alleria. (L’ura).
• Captured by vampires and made their guinea pig for eons until freed by adventurers, left weakened and then trapped by vampires again in a shadow bubble while they freed the villains she was detaining (Z’rali).
• Captured by Brokers, turned Void form in despair and used as a literal punching bag in Maldraxxus’ gladiator games. (Ti’or).
Every other Naaru save Saa’ra and A’dal practically disappeared from the story after Burning Crusade. A’dal disappeared after Wrath and Saa’ra didn’t exist until Legion (and it’s strange that Saa’ra never reacted to Light’s Heart/Xe’ra’s core for the Priest Class Hall).
By now the question is not “who can beat a Naaru?”, but “who hasn’t beaten a Naaru?”
Whatever story arc Blizzard gives them going forward, unless they want bad writing, needs consistent explanations and to give the Naaru some wins so they’re feasible as strong allies/enemies/whatever.
Otherwise, any future story with the Naaru will be just as bad as the Jailer. At least the Burning Legion, Titans, Old Gods, Eternal Ones (including the Jailer) and Elune have big wins to balance the losses.
*(Note: The August Celestials and Loa also count as Wild Gods while I don’t think Elune does)
Naaru really have just been the jobbers of cosmic forces, huh. I wonder if they’ll introduce some real Old God-equivalent type forces if they go Light Bad with an expansion, especially because I can’t imagine beating on 3 identical chandeliers of different sizes being all too visually impressive.
Its almost as through they were never concieved to be a cosmic threat and instead have been retroactively crammed into that role like everything else in the new cosmology.
The Naaru were able to save the Draenei from the Legion, evacuate them, transport them across the cosmos, and eventually help defeat the Legion in Outland as well as Argus.
Even Elune, with all her power, has not been able to move her favored people from one doomed world to another - she could bless a chosen avatar with the Night Warrior in the hopes that they can save themselves. But the Naaru have escape pods for doomed worlds.
Not every character needs to have the same strength and powers. Perhaps one of the strengths of the Naaru is their followers and that faith. If the Naaru have have Legions of Lightbound at their service, that could be a formidable threat.
Putin is sick, and Biden is old, they wouldn’t win many 1v1 matches in the ring themselves, but the world fears the Legions at their disposal. The Naaru can be fragile as glass, but if they have Lightbound Ogres and Saberon and god knows what else in the way… that could be a tough fight.
Couldn’t the same be said for any of the cosmic forces? At least with the Void Lords, Old Gods seem plenty powerful and competent on their own, all while there’s loads of threats loyal to the Void. C’thuun was a threat, but so were the Aqir.
The Naaru just get chumped a lot and by a lot of varying people. Heck, Xe’ra, arguably the strongest one in canon, can’t even really hold Illidan there for more than a few minutes and just gets utterly annihilated by him. Sure, Illidan is strong, but the strongest one can’t even have a brief back and forth light versus fel laser blast thing. Then Turalyon tries to take a swing at Illidan for blasting her to pieces and Illidan just catches his blade. So even in that matter, their faithful followers aren’t making much of a good showing.
The Lightbound are a slightly different subject, but frankly I loathe a lot about it and honestly kind of hope they reveal Yrel to be puppeted by like, whatever’s higher up in the Light’s echelon in terms of power compared to the Naaru.
The naaru like any other being of a vast cosmic threat do have one thing in common with the rest - they can inspire other powerful beings to do their bidding.
Aka, burn worlds in glorious holy flames.
And as you mention with Illidan, they are capable of forceful conversion - and the most dangerous part is that most are willing to just sit there and watch it happen because they are naaru.
I would say it is quite dangerous.
That said, we probably won’t get a expansion with naaru big bads. The one bad apple we have had, were just highly radicalised by the tunnel-visioning provided by the light, luckily Illidan snapped the annoying chandelier out of existence, and prevented further radicalization of the lightforged.
Of course, this was all intentional on their part. Mu’ru was a willing sacrifice.
Again, fairly certain this was willing, including her being shot out of the Exodar so she wouldn’t harm anyone in her darkened state. More self-sacrifice.
I forget the context around this one. Wasn’t this the one already in the process of going dark due to the Genedar’s crash on Draenor?
Another case of self-sacrifice…
Seems fair, to be honest. Granted even adventurers get one-shot by Fel Reavers so…
She’d also reassembled herself not more than… what? 5 seconds before he destroyed her? I’d hate to see what Xe’ra would actually be like at full power.
Yet more self sacrifice in play. She literally stayed on Argus so Velen and the other Eredar whom would become the Draenei would be able to flee.
This isn’t the worf effect you think it is. The Light waged war on Revendreth. The Ember Ward is permanently bathed in the Light, well after the Naaru and their forces withdrew from it. Z’rali was a casualty discovered by Denathrius and, in her near death state, used as a guinea pig for experiments.
There’s no indication Ti’or turned Void Form, “from despair.” Seems more likely the Cartel simply caught an already darkened Naaru.
Seems like the Naaru beat themselves most of the time in self sacrifices. Some of the only cases where they actually lose to someone else, is a result of them already being in a weakened state.
I see you left out Xi’ri, whom obliterates entire battalions of demons at a time outside the Dark Temple in Outland.
Whats funny is, back before all the post-Legion cosmic lore, WAAAAY back in TBC, Blizzard kept emphasizing how Naaru are the most powerful cosmic beings we’re going to meet for a very long time.
It was silly, but it was also pretty awesome. Back in the day, Naaru felt like just a small taste of whats really out there beyond Azeroth. Now they’re one of like 6 cosmic entities that wants to take over all of reality…just like all the other cosmic forces. They’re also hilariously weak compared to what was originally portrayed, just like you describe.
I’m fine with the Blood Elves capturing M’uru. That was meant to be a huge accomplishment. But yeah, they’ve really been worfed over the years.
The fact remains that 10-25 mortals being able to kill him makes him look weak.
Fair point, though it seemed surprisingly easy to do.
This Naaru was going dark, but my point here is how weak K’ure is that one mortal could kill him. At least the others killed by mortals took more effort.
My point is that T’uure had to sacrifice himself for that when mortals didn’t, which makes T’uure look really weak.
The fel-reavers that one-shot adventurers are bigger and more powerful than the one that killed O’ros.
Nothing in the lore indicates that being recently assembled effects power-level, and according to the novel she’s supposedly at least as strong as a A’dal. Xe’ra is a prime (pun intended) example of worfing/jobbing Naaru.
Yet another example of a Naaru that is supposedly powerful but turns out to be easy to kill.
While I did consider the Light that scorches the ember ward, the Naaru took heavy losses from a bunch of stone statues in this war - the Stoneborn - who had no prior combat experience.
The announcer in Maldraxxus’ arena states that this information about Ti’or in-game before you fight him.
Only a third of examples I listed were self-sacrifices, I alluded to Xi’ri with that part on Naaru who disappeared after Burning Crusade (and I think Xe’ra’s jobbing death by fel junkie eyebeams offsets Xi’ri’s actions) and I’m not sure being Void is a weakened state rather than a state involving another power but with less control (a sidegrade rather than a downgrade).
So dangerous that a fel junkie could kill one in one hit (all that cinematic was missing was a fedora). For beings supposedly radicalized, strange that those Lightforged Draenei didn’t say or do anything for or against Illidan after he edgelorded their leader/guardian angel to death.
This after having been drained for… I dunno. A full year? Mu’ru’s power drained to supply an entire order of Blood Knights with power for a full year? Just goes back to the point of being in a weakened state.
The problem here is, mortals are VERY GOOD at doing what others can’t. Case in point, the Titans and getting rid of the Old Gods. The Titans couldn’t do it without destroying Azeroth. We do it every other Tuesday.
You’re kidding? Xe’ra was functionally dead. Powerless.
Well, the forces of the Light took heavy losses. Doesn’t seem to be just Naaru. We’ve seen plenty of Light Elementals around. Who knows what else is out there that we haven’t seen?
Wasn’t on the Wiki. Odd.
[Edit]: Actually, I think you might be misremembering this one? Doesn’t seem to happen in game either, according to this video.
To be honest, Naaru turning to a Void State is often a direct result of having been weakened in some manner. Wounded, drained, what have you. In Luu’ra’s case, she had thousands of years to recover as a Dark Naaru, but it doesn’t seem as if Dark Naaru recover easily, if at all. A Naaru coming back from a darkened state is supposed to be a rare event.
You left out a few points from my previous comment.
I would concede the point about M’uru except other Naaru were as easy to kill without that excuse.
Every time mortals got rid of an Old God it was with direct or indirect Titan help (even the Sha only exist as pieces of an Old God crushed to pieces by a Titan).
Xe’ra was weakened until we reunited Light’s Heart with the rest of her body, and her death came after that. And she clearly wasn’t powerless if she could try to Lightforge Illidan.
The fact that they took heavy losses proves my point.
I might be misremembering whether Ti’or turned Void before or after capture. But nothing suggests capture or going dark weakened Ti’or.
I remember Locus-Walker saying it usually happened due to mortal involvement but not that it weakened them. The swap Light for Void and lose control, not get weaker.
I’d imagine that whenever a Lightlands expansion comes out, the naaru would probably be on the lower tier of whatever enemy types will pop up. Maybe the light equivalent of what dreadlords are like now, and then you have stuff above them.
While that may happen, it sounds like Mawsworn/Jailer 2.0, you remember how that one went? Not a good sign.
They still seem like the weakest cosmic beings and get jobbed a lot. And a handful of Orcs and Ogres from one planet aren’t much against several varieties of Aqir/demons/mawsworn from across the universe.
And we’ve been over this;
If her followers were so fanatical, you’d think they’d have acted against their leader’s killer… but they didn’t. Either they should’ve tried to avenge her in their fanaticism or they didn’t because they’re not fanatics. You can’t have your cake and eat it (and that cinematic was still edgelord cringe).
Enaz started it here, not me. I’ll stop criticizing it when others stop praising it, that’s fair. And it’s a prime example of my point. Naaru make poor threats or allies when the most powerful one can be killed so easily and their followers do nothing afterward.
Light fanatics, not necessarily Xe’ra fanatics. Though Turalyon kinda were if being brought to do violence because your big mommy leader is being punished for being a hussy, is the definition of being a fanatic.
The destruction of the annoying chandelier is what saved the Army of the Light from total, and blind fanaticism to an ideology similar to what we see in Yrel’s group of Lightforged and the Scarlet Crusade.
