B/c one way or another, Elune was going to fulfill her obligation to the Winter Queen and feed Ardenweald the souls and anima it desperately needs.
So, how would you have done the Extinction Level Event of the Night Elves outside of Burning of Teldrassil?
Your first paragraph is incorrect. The Winter Queen asked for Elune’s aid and sent the souls of the Night Elves killed in the Burning to Ardenweald. She wasn’t going to kill them herself.
Not to mention, if the machine of death weren’t broken by the Jailer, there would have been no Burning of Teldrassil by Sylvanas.
What happened was Elune heard her sister’s request and in the wake of the Burning decided to send the souls to her. She didn’t endorse it but after it happened she felt the best way to help her sister and her favored was by having them come together, as it were.
However as she lacked a connection to Death she was unaware that the system had broke and all souls were being funneled into the Maw.
I disagree with your OP and your premise. It runs counter to the lore. Gornur stated the actual facts and events well.
But, for the sake of fun, I will reply to your question. The manner in which Night Elves receive justice tends to spark conversation and inflame some of the more partisan folk.
I would have involved the Bronze Dragon flight.
The Alliance seems to be good buddies with the Greens, while literally bedding the Blues. The Reds have an understandable anger towards the Horde, even if they aren’t exactly in bed with the Alliance. The Black Dragons are increasingly on both sides, with Ebonhorn and Wrathion, so that is a wash. So, the Horde is pretty far behind on the Dragon front.
I would make a bigger deal about the Bronze Flight refusing to bless Teldrassil. Maybe they could support the Nightborne and Thalyssra, making her similar to Elisande as far as a mistress of time magic.
Then I would have Thalyssra lead the uprooting of the Night Elves, backed by the Bronze flight, and Time magic. And as she faces Tyrande, she could say:
“Where has Elune’s wisdom led to? You chose to spurn our people, so we sought other Allies. And our new Allies want your wood. So I have come to take it.”
And Nightborne Dragon Riders on the backs of Bronze Drakes freeze the Night Elven defenders, as the Horde cuts them down.
Maybe Saurfang runs around screaming:
“Stop, there is no honor in this! Stop this madness…”
And then Thalyssra nods at him, and the Dragon she is riding freezes Saurfang in time.
Her dragon then says :
“I was waiting for your command, my mistress - I thought he would never cease his bleating.”
I wouldn’t have.
I wouldn’t have written a story about genocide of a player race with no real plans for follow through or proper closure, really only written to facilitate the character arcs of Anduin and Sylvanas. I wouldn’t have written Elune’s first appearance in game as her being an actual incompetent who can’t tell her people are going to superhell, only to shame the one character who’s angry about it for the crime of being angry about it. And I DEFINITELY wouldn’t do all that, then have the audacity to say I was really satisfied about it before it even dropped.
Also no, Elune had no “obligation” to feed Ardenweald. She just said she sent those souls in “the midst of tragedy” - she didn’t will the Burning into being, especially given the Burning was meant to feed the Jailer.
I agree with this comment completely.
Side note; between the hash they made of Xe’ra’s story after Patch 7.0 in Legion, N’Zoth’s and the AU Draenei’s stories in BfA and the Jailer’s and Elune’s stories in Shadowlands, I think there needs to be a re-evaluation and major course correction before proceeding with any more cosmic stories.
Given some of the quests in Desolace which really drive home how brutal a Goddess Elune can be, I don’t think the Night Elves would’ve suffered genocide at all to provide Ardenweald with souls.
I think Elune would’ve commanded and empowered Tyrande and the Kaldorei to go on a holy crusade and purge some race from the face of Azeroth. The Horde probably would’ve been on the receiving end of that given the tensions at the time.
never said she was going to kill them herself. It needs to be pointed out constantly that Elune could have saved every single Night Elf in Teldrassil at the time of the Burning…NEs prayers went on deaf ears.
WQ/Eternal Forest needed help and Elune was going to answer one way or another.
Where are you getting this from? I don’t see any basis for it. Where has she displayed the power to stop a massive tree from burning? Or save every single Night Elf?
She was able to protect Tyrande when Azshara captured her - but that is one person. It is a stretch to say she could just put a bubble over the whole tree.
And the prayers were heard. She placed the Night Elves into a peaceful slumber so they would not suffer as they died. I think people expect more from her than she has ever displayed.
It seems like alot of people don’t understand the phrase : “in the wake of tragedy.”
She was never meant to be an omnipotent godess. Otherwise, nothing negative would have ever happened to her “favored children.”
You implied as such.
That’s a terrible logic leap though. You’re saying that because Elune didn’t stop the extinction event, the extinction event was always destined to occur. This is false - if the Burning hadn’t happened, there’s nothing that denotes another genocide level event would have to occur to the Night Elves - AT MOST, it only tells us that if one DID occur, Elune would permit their souls to go to Ardenweald (ideally).
This is also completely ignoring the fact that the reasoning behind Elune allowing this to happen was because of a draught caused by the same entity who ultimately orchestrated Teldrassil. So no, your line of thought really doesn’t track at all.
Gonna be honest.
With Sylvanas’s whole “broken system” thing
I think they’re planning on revealing that the Maw was created by the Eternal One’s to imprison Zovaal (Grimoire mentions it’s the only Eternal Damnation zone, and other temporary punishment realms exist) and that there exists Predestination in WoW’s universe so free will isn’t entirely real (eg Loom of Fate and Fatescribes).
I think Danuser & Co are actively writing themselves into a conclusion of Predestination + Eternal Damnation in combination
Which is World of Calvinismcraft lol
But given the ethnoreligious background of the writers we know about, we are supposed to take away “Elune allowed this to happen and could have stopped it”. It’s very “Eli Eli lama Sabachthani”.
If I’m right, and they reveal that Predestination exists in this capacity, then the worst case scenario analysis is correct.
Nah the conflict here is why worship a deity that does literally nothing for them? “Well I put you to sleep so you wouldn’t suffer as you died” isn’t really a huge sell on the capabilities of a deity. If she put that as her only power on a CV to apply to being the goddess of the Kaldorei, she’d be rejected.
So Elune is utterly powerless and clueless. Why call her a god then? She’s a god in the same way Loki was a god, in that she’s pretty much useless and is only there for comic relief and mating with animals.
What has Elune done for Night elves? Turn them Trolls to Night elves? Trollish Loas at least actively participate in the societies they are a part of. Clearly Elune isn’t meant to be a capital G god. She’s not omnipotent. But at least Troll Loas actively participate in doing things, and arguably Night elf Demigods like Cenarius and Malorne too, but they tend to take a neutral stance when their staunchest allies for thousands of years are getting murked by someone other than the Burning Legion. It’d be too geopolitically inconvenient for those demigods to get involved I suppose.
Not sure what this means.
In real life, people believe that God is omnipotent and that he has created all goodness in the world, and all evil is the result of the wickedness of mankind or it is a test for mankind in order to become a stronger spirit and prove worthy to go to heaven.
That was a little too much, my bad.
I think one of the poignant issues I have with the metaphysics revelation is that WoW reverse IRL harmatiology
IRL, for Abrahamic theology:
In WoW:
Evil exists and is cosmically defined as the presence of Damnable qualities but Goodness does not.
Ardenweald seems to be pretty straightforward as a zero sum Anima system. Anima enters and is either reborn or repurposed. “Hey sis, we’re running out of Anima” is tantamount to “hey sis, souls in Ardenweald are being obliterated.”
The Night Elves were destined to die because the writers wanted to get rid of them once and for all, that’s why their resolution for Teldrassil was the obliteration of their souls so that they could never come back.