What? Why would they learn this from Blood Elves? The Blood Elves’ version of the light is the exact same as the one humans have?
They were founded by Aponi Brightmane after a series of theological discussions with Tahu Sagewind about the importance of balancing out the night elven focus on moon-worship through reverence of light as part of their worship of the Earth Mother. As such, the Sunwalkers are warriors who wield the power of An’she, the sun in tauren mythology, as they did in the past
Never had anything to do with the blood elves
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Why do some people hate Xe’ra so much anyway? You’d think she killed their childhood pets from how much they rage.
Funny, since I’ve seen a few Illidan fans with that “Illidan did nothing wrong” attitude too. But when did she do that? It’d be more bad writing if she did.
What’s your definition of fanatic? The Army of the Light aren’t fanatics as we know they compromise, are allowed to question and challenge leaders and listen to reason. So much for the so-called fanatical Naaru influence.
Chandeliers are appliance, not living energy beings. Then I can say I objectively that Illidan is a cringe fel junkie.
That’s just another example that proves my point about how poorly they’ve been handled in the story. Gargoyles with no combat experience gave them a hard fight.
I didn’t count elementals and I addressed the Wild Gods in the OP, remember?
Did you even play Legion or any of the Xera quests? Or do you just reflexively whine and cry if the Light isn’t portrayed perfectly?
That was one of the things that made her annoying. Her reframing of events designed to prop up Illidan. It felt hamfisted and forced, telling us about events we know about, but through her perspective.
She was the biggest Illidan fangirl.
It has been explained - it has nothing to do with any real life drama that you want to transpose. She was annoying as all heck to most people. It is as simple as that. She was sanctimonious and proved to be a hypocrite, and her destruction was a catharsis for those who put up with her.
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People had disliked xe’ra well before illidan killed her, From her entire questline touting how chosen and special illidan was, To Her treatment of alleria. she was hated from day one cause she was written to be hated
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Hypocritical how? And none of that changes the fact that she was a poorly written jobber and using her to undermine the Naaru’s reputation was also hamfisted and forced reframing for some edgelord fetish of Afrasiabi. She’s one of the biggest examples of this poor writing for the Naaru, I could make a thread of all the plot holes and questions her writing raises (and I might too).
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This is the beginning alone.
For context, which is also in the same video, but I just saved it closer to the Xe’ra dialogue, we have just been presented with a memory from the War of the Ancients, where we play as Illidan. We are to fight back Legion forces as Illidan, and in order to do so, Illidan continueally sacrificed his peoples lives in order to empower himself to beat back the legion.
This is the beginning that shows the mindset of Illidan and Xe’ra “the end justifies the means”.
Later on in the story, she admonishes our characters for opposing Illidan in TBC for the crap we saw him doing, and which was further developed in his own story. To summarise, what Illidan did in Outland was, as you point out, enslave Akama, kill numerous people, denied drinking water for other living beings, controlled Outland with a brutal hand. But Xe’ra excuses all of it, because he did it for the purpose of defeating the Legion - because the end justifies the means.
“What would you have done differently?”
All this and more flushed away to make Xe’ra the punching bag for Afrasiabi’s edgelord power fantasy.
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So you acknowledge she is poorly written… why do you then wonder that so many people despise her?
You almost expect people to love her just because she is involved with the Light - but even as her biggest fan, you think she was horribly written.
That’s just another example of how Xe’ra is a poorly written character. I don’t blame her for that, I blame the writers, especially Afrasiabi. On that note, what do you think of Illidan for taking those actions he did?
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Poorly written, or intentionally written that way to show beings of the light being able to be just as radical and ultimatively destructive as the opposing force. This is not a new concept, that people despite their belief in the light, could still be made crazy to the point of doing vile stuff, even while still wielding the light.
If the light was a benevolent force that could just give or take its powers from those who wield it, then Arthas would not be able to use the light following the purge of Stratholme, or even after he picked up Frostmourne.
The Scarlet Crusade would have lost all of their light powers.
Beings who are fanatically about the light, are clearly not exempt from being vile beings. The cosmic energies of Void or Light do not care, they have no opinions, they just are. The beings that spring from those energies, however, are beings with their own minds and thus morals and opinions.
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Xera appeared in one Expansion, so far. The writers delivered their message clearly with her.
It isn’t like Sylvanas, who had multiple writers since before even the MMO, and an internal struggle for her direction that caused whiplash. Xera was developed, released, played her part, and shattered.
You seem to want Xera to be something that she wasn’t to begin with.
That’s a good point.
People seem to say stuff they dislike is “poor writing” or “bad writing,” when it seems they really just want an entirely different story.
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And that is another example of the slipshod writing that has plagued WoW.
Even with the narrative bending over backwards to retcon bad deeds into followers of the Light, they don’t even come close to matching Old Gods’ laundry list of atrocities.
If what you say is true, it would’ve been better for the story if Xe’ra was not killed off so easily in her debut expansion. At least the Old Gods and the Jailer got a boss fight. Even Sargeras did too with the Avatar of Sargeras and possessing Argus the Unmaker in Mythic difficulty.
Legion was the start of their cosmic war narrative, In which each force would need a villain for this narrative
Its almost like one can be evil and still wield power regardless of the source of power
What I usually chalk up as being poor or bad writing, is when there is a hole in continuity, or when there is a lack of total consistency.
Don’t pretend you or others hate her for being poorly written. If that was the case, you’d agree with my points and save your scorn for the writers.
She has all that and several plot holes. Plus, you didn’t answer my question about what you think of Illidan for taking those actions.
(clearing up a weird formatting glitch on the forums) If what you say is true, it would’ve been better for the story if Xe’ra was not killed off so easily in her debut expansion. At least the Old Gods and the Jailer got a boss fight. Even Sargeras did too with the Avatar of Sargeras and possessing Argus the Unmaker in Mythic difficulty.
What? No, this concept is as old as Warcraft 3 itself. The entire idea of the cosmic forces is fairly recent, comparatively, but at that point it is not lore bending over backwards, it is a retcon, but it is a retcon in the sense that it explores something deeper about the light and shadow.
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I don’t think Xe’ras narrative purpose was to be a big bad of the light but rather show that the naaru are not a monolith of morality, they are just as capable of being good or evil
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Funny to hear you say that after you said this earlier;
And her death was still fanfic-tier jobbing, regardless of how popular it may be.