This was inspired by Calia’s clunky conversation with Margrave Sin’dane; there was no reason to visit the House of RITUALS to deal with an undead PLAGUE when we literally have contacts from THE HOUSE OF PLAGUES (this sort of thing is why I’m leery of anything Blizzard does with Light-related lore).
A bargain is an agreement in a transaction where both parties gain something or a person getting something for less than expected. And yet neither Light nor Death have gained anything from each other. In fact, they’ve cost each other.
Denathrius sent Nathrezim to infiltrate the Light, said infiltration was discovered and the Naaru counter-invaded in retaliation, leaving the Ember Ward as a lesson/warning to the forces of Death. During that battle, the Naaru Z’rali was captured by Nathrezim and turned into a guinea pig for eons until freed, and considers herself tainted as a result.
If Lothraxion’s loyalty to the Light is a ruse, that’s a boon for the forces of Death only, so no bargain there. If Lothraxion defected and is genuinely loyal to the Light (I refuse to entertain the fool notion that Lothraxion is being mind-controlled by the Light since he debated Turalyon and defied Xe’ra), that’s a boon only for the Light, so again there’s no bargain.
There is no reason for the Light or the Naaru to learn necromancy when the Light can resurrect people back to life properly. Which is why I say it makes no sense for Calia to comeback as a Lightforged undead when Faol and Saa’ra resurrected her, as the Light can do true resurrection. Finally, if there’s any arrangement between them, it shouldn’t hurt for undead to use the Light.
Since Blizzard has yet to retcon any bargain into the story, I say there is no bargain and either it’s a plot hole, Il’gynoth was wrong about this or Il’gynoth lied (which is unsurprising, since he’s a sanity-shredding monster and the Light is his sworn enemy, why wouldn’t he deceive about it?).
It isn’t a ruse he genuinely either got brainwashed into serving the light or he decided to do it of his own free will. It’s impossible to lie to naaru unless blizzard retcons that.
They’ve retconned so much about the Light already, and much of it for the worse, I wouldn’t be surprised if Naaru mind-reading got retconned too.
What’s even more egregious is that it was Xe’ra, everyone’s favorite Naaru (lol) and the one Lothraxion seemed to serve, who canonically can read minds.
I disagree with the brainwashing theory; Lothraxion challenged Xe’ra’s decision about Alleria, something he wouldn’t have done if brainwashed.
Striking a bargain doesn’t preclude being duped in some way. If we were using Lothraxion as an example, one could argue the Light thought it was gaining a useful agent in their struggle against the Burning Legion, while unwittingly recruiting a (possible) agent of Death.
I think they leave a lot of this stuff vague enough that several things can fit, apparent things might not fit, etc. Golden one claims an empty throne could apply to at least three different people at the moment, and it might not be any of them.
Probably in the minority here, but I don’t think making the Light just another flavor of cosmic trying to dominate reality was a good call, but it’s clearly something they’ve set up. I don’t think Metzen’s world-building allowed for that possibility, however. I think the Light was originally supposed to just be a pure expression of good, nobility, righteousness, and so on. Even when naaru “went bad” (up until Xe’ra) they transformed into void entities.
In all honesty, I think Blizzard is just doing story backflips with this whole “Light-risen Calia” situation to slowly introduce Undead Paladins. They’ve never been great at telling their own story and not messing up the previous chapters.
I will accept it only for Forsaken paladins. But it does contradict everything we previously knew about Light and undeath.
I saw this quote on Tumblr but it sums up wow perfectly in the last 4 years “When you’re angry at the characters, the story is well-written. When you’re angry at the writers, it is not.”
Il’gynoth’s quote said it was the Light that struck a bargain, so I’m not sure if that counts.
If that’s a minority, I’m part of it with you; I also think retconning the Light into “just another flavor of cosmic trying to dominate reality” was not a good call.
But apparently the Light being righteous wasn’t enough for the writers edgy fetish, so we got this slapdash business (which is unfortunately popular with a significant amount of the fanbase; look how many eagerly lapped up the “Rejection of the Gift” cinematic which I consider edgelord cringe, but it is one of the most upvoted WoW cinematics on Youtube, even more than any cinematic from “Wrath of the Lich King”, “Vol’jin becoming Warchief” or “Argus’ Defeat” smh).
While I think calling Xe’ra bad/evil for simply imprisoning Alleria and Lightforging Illidan is a stretch (even our own PCs have done much worse than that - blame Blizzard for playing fast and loose with morality), that naaru was so badly written, I have found over a dozen plot holes concerning Xe’ra alone.
I am angry at the writers, and have been for awhile.
Blizzard has been somewhat open about its design choices. And they seem to have been listening to the fan discussions on lore.
Muezhala was sort of a background character in a leveling zone/dungeon. He sprang to the fore as far as being pretty consequential, as he whispered to Voljin who he should name - Sylvanas didnt even seem to know about that part of the plan. I heard him mentioned by fans for a while, and then he made a big appearance - almost as if fans reminded Blizzard he was a thing that could help squeeze some Troll story into the Afterlife expac.
Basically my point is : Blizzard can always “repurpose” loose plot threads, especially if fans remind them of the potential, with theories.
I dont know what Blizzard’s purpose is. But they seem to have a plan for the Light. I recall that as she was discussing Before the Storm, Christie Golden stated that Blizzard wanted her to incorporate a Light-Zombie, and she suggested Calia - which makes me think Calia being a Light Zombie is actually her main narrative purpose, and who she actually is was less important.
I’m pretty sure this is more a function of gamepmay than lore.
My interpretation is that the Light and other healing arts can work as sort of magical defibrillators. They can sometimes pull someone back if they’ve just died. But if they’ve been down for awhile it’s as useful as trying actual defibrillators on a corpse in the morgue.
Also I for one am glad they’re not pursuing this cosmic disco war BS. That sounds like a terrible idea. The farther the story gets from the going ons of Azeroth and the nations therein, the worse it gets. WoD and SL are broadly considered the worst expansions and they had the least to do with Azeroth.
As for this Light undead stuff, idk, I’ve mained an undead Priest for five years now and I never thought using the Light detracted from his spookiness.
You might be onto something about Blizzard’s writing method and intentions.
The question is - what’s the point of the character? If Calia was made a Light zombie for no other reason than a dev wanted a Light zombie, I think that’s not good writing. It’s rewriting the story for a whim or a flavor of the month.
Sadly I think that the cosmic disco war BS hasn’t been cancelled, just postponed. I strongly suspect “Yrel’s Holy Terror” was the planned expansion after Shadowlands, but people were sick and tired of cosmic stuff and a lot of the former devs were kicked out, so that idea didn’t get implemented.
I really hope not because I’m just not seeing how that won’t be SL 2.0.
For the most part they actually did a good job with the Covenants. I liked most of them. The trouble was they were so disconnected from Azeroth that I found it difficult to care much. That Bastion quest in particular was weird because it made me go;
“WTF am I doing here? Shouldn’t I be protecting towns from the Scourge? Especially if the afterlife machine is broken?”
I’m just not picturing cosmic factions being anty different. They’re only going to be at best tangentially related to Azeroth.
Do we just need to mail Blizz a bunch of D&D modules with a note saying “Use this”? Stop with the cosmic claptrap. Just put some dragons or lichs or bandit kings or ogre overlords on the board. Have them threaten Azeroth and then have us thwart them.
The lore has always been that Old God prophecies are sometimes true, sometimes false. There is no reason to believe that everything Il’gynoth said was inevitable. On a meta-level that means Blizzard gets to choose what Old God prophecies to fulfill and which to ignore.
That doesn’t mean “The Light has made a bargain with the Enemy of All” isn’t still true. It just may be true in a way we did not expect. Or it may not be true at all. Can we ever really trust Calia Menethil under these circumstances?
In the Jailer defeat cinematic, he says “A cosmos divided will not survive… what is to come.” What did he mean by “what is to come?” We know that this has to be something outside of the six cosmic forces, since the Jailer wantsd the cosmos to unite against it. What if this is the seventh cosmic force mentioned by Firim in the Tazavesh books?
It would make sense, if my theory is true, for the seventh cosmic force to be the “enemy of all” mentioned in the prophecy, meaning the enemy of all six cosmic forces. Perhaps the Light’s bargain with it will be revealed next expansion.
smh).
. How do you think that could’ve worked?