After doing the Darkshore scenario, Sira mentions she chose to accept the Val’kyr’s call.
Ever since the quests in Cataclysm where it was debated if the slain and newly risen Gilneans in Silverpine or farmers in Andorhal were under some kind of coercion or charm.
That SIra indicates she was given a choice and accepted the call to be raised into undeath, does that flip the script? Could we assume that reanimation into undeath is not always against the will of the formerly-deceased?
You play an undead character. You should know from your starting zone that it’s not always that way.
Willing to become undead for a second chance at life? Sure, I can buy that. Swearing allegiance to the ones who killed you in the first place and waging war on your friends and family? Not just no but Hell no. It doesn’t make sense.
Yeah that’s always been why people thought it was coercion or charming.
I think if you die, it’s gonna have a pretty profound effect on you and maybe make you more receptive to the choice.
Nope. This is exactly like Cata: Blizzard swears up, down, sideways, center, turnwise and widdershins that there’s no mind control, while presenting a scenario where mind control is the only sensible explanation for the events that occur.
What makes mind control the only reasonable explanation here?
Well, fall all we know, their had suppressed doubts and the trauma of dying/being raised and the sense of abandonment all made for a bigger “swing”. OTOH, the writing was also hamfisted and kinda blew past something that better writing would have spend a little more time on.
Its not. That fact that we don’t know what they really felt before hand, the fact that they are changed by the process, and the fact that Blizzard often just blows by scenes for time (or whatever) are all simpler explanations.
People who want it to be mind control are jumping to it.
I think there’s a technical difference in how raising Night Elves and Humans works. I assume the reason they can resist is because they become wisps and can fight back.
I agree with that. In the starting zone, humans are given a choice after the fact. Here, they can refuse before hand.
Okay, I’m going to assume you’re actually asking in good faith here. I mean, you said this:
So that makes me think you’re asking in bad faith, since it should be obvious if you actually played the scenario. But I’ll play along.
Sira goes from:
Do you see the encampment on the beach below? The Horde followed Tyrande here. No doubt some of them have remained here in the shadows in case she returned. Kill them.
This is where it ends. You have nowhere else to run.
Spare me the trouble and die!
…to 100% Horde loyalist, to the point where she’s screeching about death to the living and killing all Alliance in the warfront, in the space of the three minutes or so it takes for her to get killed and raised.
That doesn’t seem odd to you? Like, at all?
It seemed odd to me until Sira said “I chose”.
I promise I’m arguing in good faith. I was very critical of the idea that newly risen Forsaken were so quick to shift loyalties back in Cataclysm. With the night elves, it seems to be about the fact they thought they had something to believe in and no longer do.
I think it’s less a “For the Horde” thing and more of a “Elune failed me” thing.
That’s basically it, amusingly enough. When you start the scenario, when one of the night elves makes a usual Elune watch over us or something, Sira is very quick to jump in and say “Where was Elune when this whole mess started?”
Summermoon did the exact same thing in Elegy as she was dying on the beach; question Elune.
As other has said, undeath can change a person. Shift their thoughts around, ect ect. For all we know the val’kyr told the elves that were having doubts about Elune that Elune had abandoned them and that by joining the Forsaken they can fight back blah-dab-blah.
But everyone hates Sylvanas. And the undead. So mind control is the only way.
But she can’t tell you why she chose. Literally all she says is “Because reasons.” Which means that Blizzard doesn’t have a reason.
I think it’s less a “For the Horde” thing and more of a “Elune failed me” thing.
There’s nothing to indicate that the worship of Elune is based on transactional piety.
I’ll post this again, since you apparently missed it:
Do you see the encampment on the beach below? The Horde followed Tyrande here. No doubt some of them have remained here in the shadows in case she returned. Kill them.
But everyone hates Sylvanas. And the undead. So mind control is the only way.
I don’t care much about Sylive, to be frank. I’m just more amazed that Blizzard can serve up this tripe and paper-thin justifications and have people devour it.
Sure, but having a choice at all doesn’t imply coercion.
Besides the fact her priesthood gets powers.
And honestly it’s really not about piety. It’s about having a cause to believe in and feeling like it didn’t amount to anything.
But if she has a choice and it’s not coercion, then surely she could articulate that choice? They were in no danger; they had already successfully fled Tyrande and Malfurion. The very next thing we see is the Terror of Darkshore cinematic, which starts with Natty being interrupted doing very important amounts of nothing. “There’s no time to explain” isn’t true in the slightest.
False equivalence. Or find me the quote where Tyrande or some other priestess says “We worship Elune specifically and only because she gives us Starshards as an ability.”
That’s why it’s speculation.
A loss of faith/purpose is not exactly a new thing for storytelling and has been used so frequently that we can draw similar conclusions to Sira’s motives without her having to spell it out with us.
I didn’t say it was absolute, but you claimed nothing even indicates it. Her priesthood specifically are granted her powers. Veneration gives powers in other Warcraft religions. This gives at least some indicate how it probably works.