The current trajectory of TWW appears to be the writers changing the titans from mostly uncaring pragmatic god-beings whose intentions may benefit or harm us depending on the context, to bland uncomplicated mustache-twirling bad guys who never cared about Azeroth and only wanted to use her “for their own purposes”. And are doing so by repeatedly emphasizing the titans trying to squash earthen free will and then covering it up because current Blizzard writers are apparently those types of people who are incapable of critical thinking and don’t realize that giving a machine awareness of their condition is literally the single cruelest thing you can do to them.
And this brings the Curse of Flesh into question. We currently know it was what the old gods afflicted on the titanforged to make them mortal, to undermine the works of the titans. But with the current themes of the Curse of Flesh giving Earthen more free thought and Arcaedas saying his defiance of the Titans by making the discs may be due to Azeroth’s influence. It leaves the door open to say that we were lied to and that the Curse of Flesh was actually a gift from Azeroth to “give us free will”.
But this would completely undermine the established nuance of the Curse of Flesh. Yes we do enjoy the free will it gave us, but it’s a double-edged blade that also makes us potential threats to Azeroth, something that has been proven thousands of times now. But if the titans never had good intentions for Azeroth in the first place, which is what they’ve been implying lately, then all of this mostly becomes a moot point since we would have been bad for Azeroth without free will and our free will would be better for Azeroth. But then the nuance is lost because “free will is good” is already a very well-established sentiment and thus our worldview is not being challenged by the Curse of Flesh anymore.
Some people might say this post is me jumping at shadows and that may be true. But I wanted to get it off my chest.
A lot of people don’t seem to realize that challenging a widely held belief is not the same as disagreeing with it. It’s just asking you to evaluate it and realize that even the best things rarely come without drawbacks. It’s hilarious to me that people are saying the narrative in WoW is becoming more nuanced because to me it’s been becoming more black-and-white than ever because they have been slowly removing these moral dilemmas from the story and no preconceptions are being challenged.
I think the Curse of Flesh is more about introducing mortality. Azeroth in particular seems to crystallize things when “corrupting” them, not turn them into flesh.
Apart from that, I largely agree. Not a lot to add, other than expect a lot of inconsistencies to continue springing up as a natural result of replacing previous foundational worldbuilding.
I like the “new direction” i always saw them as villains, i genuinly could not care less about what ever reasons they have, they put a nuke beneath the world.
I mean that’d also kind of be contradictory given that the element of spirit in great quantities can suffuse to various elementals & make them flesh — and Azeroth’s world soul had slurped up much of that (which the lack thereof such makes the elementals further volatile & allows them to become more powerful).
Hence why Azeroth’s elemental lords were unlike Draenor’s — and Gul’dan couldn’t abuse or use them to his own benefit like he had done on his own world.
At the very least, I wouldn’t mind if they wrote it as:
In the old gods mad quest to corrupt the slumbering world soul of Azeroth — Azeroth herself played a grand-game of mental chess with the old gods, that they themselves could not see …
Azeroth saw the potential of the titanforged spirits and the intellectual delight within their minds, yet noticed it was shackled behind the edict of the titans — Thus she presented a whisper of a ‘solution’ to the old gods, to take the reins of vast latent spirit energies and weave it into a ‘curse’ which would spread throughout their numbers.
This curse did what they desired … or so they thought. In truth, it would grow to present a greater threat to the old-gods than a benefit. Azeroth smirked, as she slipped back into her slumber once more.
Azeroth gives out the Gifts of Diamond and Free Will while the Titans upon noticing that their Earthen were gaining Free Will afflicted them with the Curse of Stone which affects all Earth-based beings affected by the Gift of Free Will including Dwarves blessed with the Gift of Diamond like Magni.
The Old Gods even noticed this and decided the Curse of Flesh(which they gave out for the sake of corruption) was now a “Gift” to counter the Curse of Stone that afflicts Earthen influenced by Azeroth’s Gift of Free Will(which overpowers even Old God Mind Control that came with the Curse of Flesh) that precedes the Gift of Diamond.
This has actually been my question as well. If thraegar are rebels then by does being one give magni access and respect everywhere he goes.
What I hope is that it will turn out the titans will have realized their error and realized that having some earthen who can speak to Azeroth would be useful to have around. What I fear is it’s going to be one of the keepers reprogramming things in defiance of the titans’ will.
There can be good byproducts of things done with evil intentions. Just as there can be bad byproducts of things done with good intentions. The problem is that newer WoW lore doesn’t like having that discussion and would rather have everything be entirely good or bad with no room for debate.
Thats true, i think you are right on that, but i also think that, giving Azeroth more creidt is also important for the story on how, we are in the middle of everything, by this i mean, if you think about it, Azeroth is like us in the way that, in the sense that all the forces want to corrupt us, they also want to literally corrupt the world soul of our world, and imo i think its cool that, our world soul make us not be corrupted just like she dont want to be corrupted.
I think it have a deeper meaning (only my take on it)
The titans lied about the Thraegar to the earthen, saying that they were heroes but they were all gone now. Its essentially to put them under the rug without upsetting the Earthen… who already proved capable of overthrowing oversight that they don’t like when pushed too far.
The Titans are clearly inspired by Marvel’s Celstials, and I was sure from the days of Vanilla that they would follow a simmilar characer development as is common among Guardian Elder Races such as Babylon 5’s Vorlons.
We ASSUMED that the Titans were good because the dwarves, ignorant of their Earthen past, did.
You’re making the same assumption about Aeroth. Both beings are so far up the latter beyond mortals that such tags as “good” and “evil” are meaningless to them.
When first presented, Marvel’s Celestials are presumed to be “good guys”, but it’s later revealed that the only reason they tinkered with the development of Humanity was to make a protector race for the nascent Celstial that was growing inside the planet, whom when ready to be birthed would destroy the world.
Beings of power don’t have feelings that we can relate to. They have Agendas which we can try to understand and deal with. The Earthen, and Mechagnomes were created to be servitor races with strict Edicts tha would govern their actions. Free Will was never an intended part of their design.
Why you should "fear’ character development is beyond me. What are Heroes without enemies to fight, after all?
We’ve been pretty sure they weren’t objectively good since Wrath. I’ve never once argued they were benevolent.
But there’s a difference being to big and ancient to consider mortals and their mayfly lives to be relevant on a universal scale and actively scheming against the cosmos.
If the Titans are the new baddies for TLT, why did we save them in Legion? Also, I don’t like everyone become less or more evil now. If we got evil Titans, we will get the Light as evil character and the Life too then everyone else will be evil.