Seems like the Undead have a choice in the matter

Losing faith in your god does not equal losing faith in your friends, family, people, and nation. They went from “Death to the Horde” to “My life for the Horde” in less than a minute.

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Obviously.

The more interesting change here is that in the Forsaken starting zone you used to see undead being raised and then being asked to be put back down. Coupled with a few undead who were just utterly confused about what had happened to them. Compare that to the Darkshore campaign which now shows the dead being consulted, or at least checked, to see if they are willing to return to the living.

It either shows that the Valkyr and Forsaken recruitment have become more refined with time. That the method of their recruitment has been retconed in a way that most people won’t notice. Or possibly that Night Elves have some greater way to communicate than humans while dead.

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I’ll say, was it hamfisted writing? Sure.

It would have been better to show ahead of time something like they had doubts they were compensating with strong shows of loyalty. Or that their entire belief was tied up in the view that Elune would save the. Or afterwards, or maybe in a timeless period while dead, them coming more gradually to decided that Elune was really to blame.

But I have to say I don’t see how “it has to be mind control”. And, to be fair, to Blizzard, in an MMORPG you are often limited by other pacing needs to write something like you would like.

Because it doesn’t. Just because faith in Elune (or Elune herself) grants powers doesn’t mean that her religion is set up around the expectation of those powers.

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I didn’t miss it though. I know she was 100% “I’mma kill some Horde” to “I is Dead” to “100% for the Horde”.

I also said “Undead changes people” and “It’s likely has to do with her wavering faith in Elune”.

It’s paper thin yes, but most of the time it’s always been paper thin. Logically speaking, there should be no post Third War Forsaken. Everyone should logically kill themselves as soon as they are raised because seriously who would want to be undead.

But instead Blizzard made it so that, again unless there are very specific “We are going to mind control you” moments, everyone raised seems to be given a choice. If one likes that or not is up to them, but this isn’t some new development.

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  • Traditional D&D/RPG trope.
  • Elune’s priestesses get powers.
  • Night Elves expressing a sense of betrayal/failure at Elune’s recent level of involvement or accomplishment.

It just seems obtuse to say this doesn’t indicate a degree of transactional expectation.

Where are you, Elune? How could you abandon your children to fire? We gave all we had. For what?

She was lucky. Arrows would claim her life. But the children whose cradle had been the boughs of the World Tree would die in agony and, worse, in utter innocence.

Turn your face from Azeroth in shame, Elune. Her thoughts were daggers. You have abandoned us. We tried so hard . . . We

believed in your love, in your protection . . .

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Everyone who has actually followed the canon and not simply rejected it for their own imagination because they didn’t like it already knew that about the Forsaken when they raised the dead.

Why not? Your people and nation are a theocracy. Your family is already dead. Your surviving friends and colleagues also failed you.

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I kinda get what Bargrand is saying.

But at the same time, once you start questioning and rejecting your faith, what would stop you from questioning and possibly rejecting literally anything else of significance?

When she broke free of the Lich King, Sylvanas’ violent anger was directed at Arthas and the Scourge, not at the Blood Elves. The Forsaken, as a race, were originally built upon an unrelenting hatred of the man who had killed and raised them. The man who had slaughtered their families, and destroyed their homes. Yet Sira and Delaryn seem perfectly happy to fight alongside the Forsaken. You know, the faction that had just killed them, killed their families, and destroyed their home. There is a real incongruity here, and just telling Night Elf players to accept it passively is unreasonanble.

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Sylvanas, Sira, and Delaryn are not the same people. Yet you expect the same reaction from them.

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It wasn’t just Sylvanas. It was all of her followers. All of the original Forsaken.

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Are Sira and Delaryn allowed to be their own people and make their own decisions? I don’t even agree with this premise that all the freed undead made the same decision or even for the same reason.

I dont understand why you guys are giving Blizzard so much leeway in their writing.

Sure it’s not possible to show EVERY interaction in a cutscene that lead up to a decision an NPC makes but there are other ways to convay a loss of faith or to show how fragile the NE’s belief in Elune was that losing their home would shatter them such as in game text or diaries found in their home, maby a sidequests that details more into their religious structure.

These are all things we’ve seen Blizzard use in past expansions to convay the nuances of the story and they obviously work considering the depth of knowledge those who delve into those sources have compares to those who just blow through the text.

We’ve seen little to no evidence of any such story telling in this narrative, witch leads to the conclusion that Blizzard is forcing the story in this direction purely on the rule of cool. That’s NOT ok.

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I’m allowed to criticize the writing that determines the outcome of those decisions without attacking the independence and autonomy of the characters.

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I don’t mind if you criticize the writing. I take issue that people’s comparison with other characters shows they’re probably more interested just with the decision rather than the character’s own possible thought process.

I’ll entirely agree the presentation is garbage. But the insistence that there’s no possible way to have it makes sense is what bothers me. Because we have a host of characters who join their enemies. Those two aren’t Sylvanas, they can have different thought processes. And I don’t think all the freed undead made the same choice or even for the same reason.

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So this is going one of two directions. Either the renegade Night Elves are a minor facet of the Darkshore warfront who are merely receiving alot of attention because of how pants-on-head crazy the idea is. Or the Renegade Night Elves are a significant plot point for the future that simply starts in the Darkshore warfront.

If it’s the first, then in a years time they’ll simply be another, in a long line, of weird things that cause people to roll their eyes. At the end of the day they are no worse and no better than the Kirin Tor of Ambermill who pulled a 180 and joined the Forsaken.

If it’s the second, then there will be an explanation and in a years time we’ll all accept our current confusion as necessary to not spoil it and accept Delarayn’s current laconic response as foreshadowing.

Point being, it doesn’t need to lead to conclusions at all. People are choosing to reach conclusions when they could just shrug and then wait and see.

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It could make sense, if Blizzard tried to write it in a way that makes sense. But they didn’t. They said “they have reasons, but they won’t tell you what they are.” That is completely unacceptable, especially when it is so contrary to what the Forsaken themselves did in WC3. It’s a gut punch to Night Elf fans that Blizzard is treating with a cavalier and reckless attitude. It makes Sira and Delaryn (someone I actually care about from the Warbringers trailer) seem pathetic and cowardly.

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Sure, and that’s fine. As long as we can acknowledge they could have valid reasons. I entirely agree the presentation of the situation is needlessly poor.

I probably wouldn’t phrase it quite as extremely as you have, but sure. It is absurd they couldn’t have more a more detailed rationale given.

I really believe it is as bad as I describe. I felt a real, palpable discomfort when I first saw the images of undead Sira and undead Delaryn. Like, it upset me in a serious way. That was when I started to lose faith in Blizzard’s storytelling. So, I do see it as a big deal, even if other players don’t.

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This also made it to live:

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