That’s where I’m confused. I thought that the new blessing given to the tree re-established our immortality.
… Im going to have to peruse through wowpedia again.
Nozdurmo’s blessing gave immortality, and he didn’t bless the tree.
Remember, Stormrage is set before Cataclysm, and in Mists of Pandaria there was that night elf expedition looking for the Pools of Youth to re-establish immortality, so they couldn’t have gotten it back in Stormrage.
In Pathfinder terms, Tyrande is a Cleric and Maiev an inquisitor. Both are divine agents.
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Both of these things are mentioned in the starting experience questing on Teldrassil and in Chronicle Volume III.
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True, I exaggerated, but I think you know what I meant. These are not minor things, and yet are never brought up in any sigificent way. The only time I really recall any character reference the Nightmare War was Jaina in the Shattering novel.
Frankly, if it wasn’t for Fandral going crazy and the marriage, you probably could write out the entire book and little about the story would change. The Nightmare War had no lasting impact on anyone, even the Nightmare suck around in Cata in the same amount of force we saw before hand. Xavius showed up later none the worse for wear, ‘ressurected’ in the character page, but no real mention of this in game.
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I don’t believe any single writer ruins a character. Blizzard has to approve things.
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That’s true. Ultimately the book’s only purpose was to finally bring Malfurion back and to explain what Fandral was doing with all that Morrowgrain he was collecting in Classic.
Well it was interesting, my understanding is that the idea was that Astral magic was almost a utilization of Arcane and Nature magics together. That said, the divided between Arcane, Nature, and Holy has always been a tad unclear with Elune. And, as you say, with Void or Necromancy thrown in, she is an unusual entity.
As Ximothy said, that wasn’t the case. Ysera, Nozdormu, and Alexstraza all blessed Nordrassil differently. Ysera connected them to the Dream more, Nozdormu gave them immortality, and I think Alexstraza made them more resistant to disease. These blessings were destroyed at the Battle of Mount Hyjal. And only Ysera and Alexstraza would later bless Teldrassil.
Aha! There’s where I was confused. Thank you. So Teldrassil did get blessed, but not by Noz so immortality still off the table.
I think it’s pretty likely the other two blessings are gone too. I mean, the tree seems to be dead.
And considering the loss of Aspect powers, I don’t think they can do it again.
To be fair, we never really see those powers cared about much. Malfurion doesn’t really lament losing Ysera’s.
I never really got what Ysera’s blessing even was. What’s different about what druids do now compared to before?
I used to think the "control over nature’ was how the night elves were able to have nature guardians like Mountain Giants, Fae Darters, Chimeras, etc, as their allies, and when they lost it, they stopped listening, hence the night elves loosing those allies in vanilla WoW.
But it’s clear now that’s not what it meant, so I dunno.
Seemed like it was just to allow druids easier access to the Emerald Dream. But yeah, it seems rather needless and has for some time.
“To the night elves, who have lost their hopes, I give forth the ability to Dream again. To Dream, to Imagine, for in that is the best hope of rebuilding, of recovering, of growing…” She looked ready to do as the other Aspects had, then paused. Her head swung toward Malfurion. “And to those who follow the path of one held special by me—and mine—I grant him and the other druids to come the path into the Emerald Dream, where, even in their deepest sleep, they may cross the world, learn from it, and draw upon its own strength…the better to guide Kalimdor’ health and safety throughout the future.”
Agreed. Ysera is dead and Alex (and the other Aspects) arent as powerful now.
This actually makes me like the “Dark Warrior” thing we’ve got going even more. Druidism being a cornerstone of the culture, losing some connection to the dream is a hit to our cultural identity, as is now being suceptible to disease and having to worry about that now. As a race we are now decimated and vulnerable… so going this darker vengeful route feels even more appropriate.
As I recall, the option was there, but Malfurion decided that the Night Elves would be better off without it.
That was narratively not a possibility:
From Samariyu:
I think this is a hard question to answer. When considered in a microcosm, the Night Warrior in its BfA presentation is very much more in-line with Maiev’s characterization. It’s essentially a hyped up Avatar of Vengeance. And so on that front, Maiev would be the logical choice to fill the role.
However, this brings us to a secondary problem: Tyrande absolutely needed some spotlight wherein she’s presented positively if Blizzard intends to keep the character around.
Ultimately, the problem here isn’t that Tyrande is getting some spotlight, it’s that she’s getting a spotlight not tailor-made for her character, and one that’s thematically less-suited to her. Rather, the night warrior was a pre-made role that she was slotted into because they wanted her to have prominence. Thus Tyrande becomes less of a character and more of a tool. It’s such a lazy way of writing, and lazy writing is what got Tyrande into her mess of a character in the first place. I think if they wanted to make Tyrande night warrior, like if they REALLY thought she wasn’t powerful enough or angry enough on her own without further supernatural intervention, then they should’ve made the Night Warrior less an Avatar of Vengeance and more an aspect of spiritual protection (as it was in prior lore…). I have no problem with Tyrande being presented as the spiritual and moral leader of her people in these trying times. That’s exactly where she should be as High Priestess. But the Night Warrior (especially as flavored in BfA) was not needed for her to do that. In fact, I’d probably respect Darkshore a lot more if Tyrande was doing it all without becoming the EVEN MORE CHOSEN of Elune. (Reminder that baseline Tyrande was already powerful enough and angry enough post-Teldrassil to accomplish everything she’s done on Darkshore without the Night Warrior’s help, thus essentially boiling the Night Warrior down to a palette swap.)
Though in actuality I think using the Night Warrior as an avatar on the battlefield is inherently a mistake for a number of structural story reasons, but that’s another discussion for another day.
I apologize if the above is worded weirdly or doesn’t get my point across. It was a long day at work and I’m extremely tired.
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I think he basically thought, it wasn’t even worth arguing for. That he denied the idea of Teldrassil on philosophical grounds. But it has been a while.
I’m late to the convo lol.
Anyway I think that Tyrande was the correct choice. Based on reasoning they presented in game she was probably the only one that could have truly handle the power. Would making Maiev the Night Warrior been a good choice, yes and maybe even more interesting given her thirst for vengeance and battle. However, I think that Maiev would have gained all the spotlight with Tyrande and Malfurion pushed aside. Apparently the is not enough space to prominent characters other than the leaders to be seen unless they are human.
Given her history as Elune’s chosen and being a more effective priest, while lower ranked than Miaev, Tyrande was the better option.
I personally liked the books but I prefer to head cannon the original version of the war, where they were more experienced by the end of it. Brox was in legion?
This is what we should have gotten in legion in the first damn place. Unless the Illidan novel says different (I haven’t read it) no Night Elves followed him to Outland. The blood elves should have gotten the demon hunters and the night elves the wardens. Although wardens are usually women (which i’m ok with in game because it fits lore) that could have been changed. We’re seeing male sentinels and priests of Elune. It could have been the ne version of the paladins that we’ll never get.
Fandral trapped Malfurion in the Emerald Dream before he even grew Teldrassil. Malfurion wasn’t able to return until the events of Stormrage, but then at that point Nozdormu had been missing since Classic, and so was not around to bless Teldrassil in Stormrage like Alexstrasza and Ysera did. Nozdormu only finally returned in Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects, but used up all his powers along with the other Aspects to defeat Deathwing.
Within this timeline, Malfurion never denied the Night Elves their immortality back.