Rumors about Anduin

Kind of like how annoying it is being told you’re evil because some shadowy figures forced some void into your flesh?

Or even that the void is inherently evil… because it’s not the light?

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That would be annoying yes. And void elves are perfect examples of what I mean. If the void was “good depending on a POV” then the struggle of controlling those forces or resisting the voices becomes empty. Now take the void as an oppressing force of evil, being manipulated by people with strong will and knowledge that decided to use this power they gained (be it because they wanted or because it was forced on them) makes it more interesting.

I would say the void would be inheritly evil because it tries to drive anyone messing with it into madness, doesn’t seem to treat any party with kindness and seems to not care for the well being of mortals. So yeah, I do consider the void an evil force by nature and that is why I like void elves.

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From Vanilla it’s been clear that the Light favors no particular ethics or morals, It’s just as effective in the hands of malice as it is in those of weal.

I think most of them simply want to be badasses with hammer or sword. Kind of like those “Grey Jedi” whackos who want to wield Force Lightning without turning into a prune. For them, Torquemada is a far more appealing image than Galahad.

And who can blame them?

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Are you sure about that? Ever been hit with a reality shattering truth? That can be quite the trip as you suddenly find yourself questioning everything you thought you knew. The Void drops truths that break’s minds and perceptions of self and others like rain drops in a storm. The real question is are those truths ones from the current reality or another? Keeping that in check can be very trying I’d imagine.

I’m not convinced that madness is actually the intended goal.

Based on my understanding of the void it’s basically those people who know about nearly everything there is to know about and it’s trying to share that information… except it’s trying to do so without context and/or all at once. I also suspect that because the Void views all paths as true… it can’t really tell which one it’s interacting with and is possibly sharing information that is actually from another reality/path that doesn’t even apply to the path our characters are on.

I can point to a lot of humans that don’t treat animals with anything approaching kindness/respect and near as I can tell that’s about all we are as far as the cosmic forces are concerned. Yet many still claim that humanity is inherently good or at least has the potential to be good.

We do meet with that Traveler(?) that was helping the Blonde Windrunner become a void user, and they don’t seem evil, in fact they seem to be trying to help. I suspect we are dealing with a cultural issue when it comes to the Light and the Void… currently the Light seems to align with our concepts of good, and the Void seems be lacking in these elements… however that could just be a lack of understanding on our part. We are after all only shown a single perspective of this.

Also, I think it’s important to keep in mind that just as you point to the Void Elves as something to be respectful of so too could the paladins be if it turns out the light is actually evil or at least not interested the survival of Azeroth and its people. Because despite the intentions of their source of power they choose to do good.

that would be interesting, and therefore based on blizzard’s past performance cannot be true

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That would negate all the lore setup beforehand, when all the manipulation is just “we’re presenting just all the truths at once, you got mad on yourself” feels dishonest.

Also feels dishonest to shift the light, whose players of the forces have mostly acted on goodwill and benevolence into some sort of “secret force playing behind our backs”.

Shifting the place between scarlets and other paladins in the opposite direction, where the scarlets are the “norm” when it comes to the light and paladins, the draenei society and most naaru’s we’ve seen are the “exception” now?

I don’t think this is happening necessarily mind you, but If that happened it would mess up class fantasy for a lot of people for sure.

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Isn’t this just because it doesn’t mesh with the “truth” you believe you know? :smiley_cat:

“How better to win over the masses then by giving them what they think they want?”

How many dictators and tyrants have rose to power by presenting themselves as the heroes fighting the good fight?

How many people with views we believe are evil do you imagine actually believe their views and perhaps goals for this world are evil? The world isn’t black and white. Why should our fiction be?

It’s possible that all of these are perfectly in line with its goals. You might just be making an assumption about what the goals of a Light that isn’t objectively good are.

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In a videogame lore setting, the truth will be whatever the responsibles for the lore consider truth.

The initial designs of the classes and the forces did have some degree of objectivity to them.

If a story becomes too much about POV, in my opinion it becomes lame.

“Oh, sargeras just wanted to end the void”
“The void just want to show all truths”
“Fel is just the opposition of order, order is the problem”
“Sylvanas just wantes to end the life and death cycle”

What do these elements make for the story, present as heroes those who we perceived as villains or present as villains those that used to be seen heroes, what does that bring the story? What does it bring to the class fantasy? Warlocks for instance would become just another brand of mage, they would lose all the edge if suddenly “fel” became a force of “good depending on your POV”. In the same way, Paladins would not be paragons of justice and valor if their “valor” becomes just a POV.

I understand that some find that interesting, that everything has to be relative, but in my opinion, absolute good and absolute evil are necessaries in a setting, and morally grey only works when both extremes exist as well.

Things we consider now to be absolutely evil or good now weren’t always true say a thousand years ago. Societies morals change over time and there’s very very few things that anyone agrees on when it comes to things being absolutely good or evil.

Someone can always prove me wrong though :wolf:

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… I could speak of this for hours days even… but I’d just end up rambling because I’d get too heated and lose the thread.

So very true.

I’d be impressed, given what I know of history if there has ever been one thing, we all agreed upon as objective good or evil.

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Characters are allowed to say things as if they’re fact but also be wrong about that fact. They’re also allowed to have ulterior motives about what they say, or… you know, lie. If Blizzard is trying for more complex writing where things aren’t spelled out for us, or spoonfed to the playerbase as if they’re toddlers, then we’re likely going to see at least some ambiguity regarding the cosmic forces.

It probably won’t even be that complex, maybe slightly more so.

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I just think people often loose sight of the fact that morality and what’s deemed right or wrong, happens to be whatever that society and their religon says is right or wrong and you could hop one town over and they would have different rules, but some basics like murder and theft are generally considered wrong even in ancient societies

But rarely is anything considered to be Absolute.

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I find it so good that the light is just a Force, a source of power from a different realm that we mortals can tap on, and do what we choose to do with it.
It gives layers to us, to the world, if the light was that 100% force of good, what arthas did in stratholme would never be possible, the light would leave him the moment it “sensed” that him was not good enough anymore.

And paladins may think that they are paragons of justice and valor, but like Kera said, societies change and with it their insights in what is consider good, bad, dishonor, loyalties, wrong or right.

So a human paladin from Stormwind can reach for the light and wield it to smite a paladin of the scarlet crusade that is also wielding the light to attack a forsaken.

So if the light was that force 100% sentient it would never let that same paladin of the scarlet crusade attack the forsaken, cuz his heart is full of anger and perhaps he is killing an innocent.
And this scenario where we have 2 light users wielding it for different reasons can only happen when the light is a force without good or bad alignment, like the void, death, elemental force, life and arcane are.
Maybe the creatures from those realms have their own reasons and thus their own vision on things but that is on individuals and for me that was what blizzard was doing.

The void lords, titans, first ones, chaos lords are those creatures, they may be from those realms abd for mortals they may represent that force but even if the titans all die, the plane of order will still exist and mortals would still be able to tap into arcane energy.

The same can be said for Light, void, life and death.
So for me the way blizzard is doing things is in order with how classic and even wrath have introduced these forces to us.

Eating the yellow snow. Considered objectively evil since the dawn of time.

Boom.

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You’re back!

:smiley_cat: Might have noticed you were not around… :dracthyr_comfy_sip: :black_heart:

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Yay! Our fav mocha elf is back! Was worried for a bit there :heart:

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Yuh, I was quiet for the last couple days, but not gone!! I just had a lot of stuff to do is all. I was still lurking here when I could!!

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Even further back. It has been established lore that the Light can be drawn on by anyone since 2001. That’s two thousand and one. All of the roleplaying X-tian zealots on this forum who think the Light is good are almost certainly people who started following Wacraft lore after that time, so not only are they wrong about the Light, they have always been wrong about the Light, and have been ignorant about the lore since day one. The Light responds to all who think their cause just.

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The late great David Hargave of Arduin fame always believed that two lawful good Paladins from opposing religions should be able to fully smite each other…with full bonuses.

This page has a free download of Book 1. For those who want a taste of what I call the 4-bit era of gaming.

https://empcho.com/about-arduin/

That the light didn’t exactly pick sides, that we’ve known for a long time yes.

I’m more against turning this force that has been mostly used for good into something that is inheritly an enemy to all player characters.

People have been vocal about wanting this, the “light lords” having the lightbound, turalyon, the lightforged and becoming major enemies.

Scarlets work as a villain because they’re the exception, not the rule. And honestly, they have been kinda lame recently.

I’m also really weirded out by the idea of painting the void or fel in a more positive light, execution would be tough for me to swallow that. Not because void has to be evil, but because every material made on the void no matter the perspective has been shown this way.

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