So what's up with Thrall and Shamanism?

Lore Story Forum
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As per the title, is Thrall’s connection to the spirits & elements restored or? … :thinking:
:face_exhaling: It feels like they say the connection’s restored one moment — Then not the next.

Peeps have also been saying Thrall’s connection to the elements was restored in the Shadowlands, with his Maldraxxian mother; mostly revolving around his mental state than anything spiritual or elemental — But personally I think that’s a pretty stupid or cliche way to ‘restore’ his connection with the elements.

  • They need to bring back the spirituality side to shamanism :dracthyr_nod: It was harshly insulting that Death Knights were the prime spirit guides in SL, and shamanism held 0 relevance — Despite the prequel book to Shadowlands hinting otherwise …
  • They also need to bring back the mysticism side of things and perhaps paint more mystery within the elements too – even so much as stating there’s an elemental plane / spiritual realm, not created by the titans; but forged by both ancestral & elemental spirits – perhaps even some Loa.

Seriously though –

Shaman lore has been pretty brutally neglected over the years. :face_exhaling:

Part of why I was pretty stoked for the Primalists & elemental relevance in Dragonflight – Loved it! Brilliant start to rolling back into the rythm of things. I particularly liked how the Primalists were gifted elemental power by either immensely powerful elemental spirits, or primal elemental dragons & the incarnates.

Anyway, back to Thrall …

I enjoyed how he was involved with the Stormrook storyline in the War Within quests and albeit his powers are lacking — His knowledge remains … However, I’d love to see more.

Anyone else feel the same way or? … :person_shrugging:

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I remember the TWW trailer cinematic trailer Showing thrall with elemental dysfunction or ED.

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he needs to get his mojo back, perpetually

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As of this moment, Thrall can’t shaman. Aggra outright states it in Heartlands, which happens just before The Horde and Alliance deploy to Khaz Algar. I suspect this is because someone (fingers crossed, Metzen) wants to do that story justice, much like how Thrall only just figured out Geya’rah is AU-sister.

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Off the topic of thrall, I really wish blizzard would recognize spirit walkers and explore them more considering there’s basically no lore about them for highmountain tauren.

Like the last thing we learned of them was that they lived in stonetalon.

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Thrall is unique among the major characters in that his abilities flat out don’t work like literally every other character who is supposedly that class.

Jaina, Thalyssra, and Khadgar are mages, their spells and abilities are in line with what we know is the lore for how mages work, they are big nerds who know a lot of secrets no one else does and so can cast powerful spells. They’re among the strongest mages but their methods are the same as lore dictates.

Malfurion is the most powerful druid, but his methods, again, are the same as all druids, just beefed up. Tyrande’s abilities are in line with other Sisters of the Moon, just supercharged, Velen and Anduin are the same for Light priests. Vol’jin was an elite Shadow Hunter but he used the same tactics and methods as other Shadow Hunters, same can be said for Rokhan. Up until the Jailer supercharging, Sylvanas operated the same as all other Dark Rangers.

Thrall does not work like that.

Shamanism is inherently a sedentary type of magic, because it’s all about bargaining with, communing with, and attuning with the local spirits and elementals of a given region. The whole point of totems is to carry some of that power with them so they can do the same things on the go. But a shaman is at their most powerful in a familiar region, where a particularly powerful shaman can accomplish things that even a strong mage would balk at. Drek’thar flattens a mountain and wipes out a large chunk of an army after five minutes of elemental debate club, something Khadgar can’t do.

Thrall does not need debate club, Thrall bypasses local elementals and spirits entirely, because the actual Elemental Spirits (not the lords, their technical superiors), just really like him. That’s it, that’s his shamanism, he doesn’t bargain, he doesn’t commune, he doesn’t cajol, he just asks nicely and things happen. And this carries over to other worlds, they just think he’s a super guy, allowing him to perform acts of Shamanism beyond anyone else.

Zappy Boi cracking open the earth like an egg during the BfA cinematic probably used a totem that he’d spent hours meticulously crafting and imbuing with elemental power. Thrall can say pretty please to the Earth and backhand a squad of human soldiers so hard they break the sound barrier.

His problem is entirely mental, and because his own spiritual and mental state is messed up, he can’t ask the Spirits directly anymore, and while he’s talented as a shaman, he doesn’t really know the methodology because he’s never had to. So my hope is his regaining of power helps re-establish actual shaman lore along the way.

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They brought back a spiritwalker in Dragonflight and killed him off camera. I mean, Tauren are Horde, so there’s really only one way for that to go, I suppose.

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I think you mean two ways, but given this tauren was clearly not the warchief, I suppose it would be a bit harder to explain how he started a genocidal war against the Alliance and got defeated without dying so he could cause the next expansion to happen.

Admittedly, it’s the rarest path of the two, but it still does exist.

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Well the Spiritwalkers had zero relevance whatsoever in Shadowlands — and Baine, one to be said the most spiritual amongst his people - was told that his spirit was found lacking by what was essentially a death-god & then dropped like a turd, where he then literally went and sat in the corner of the city afterwards for the majority of the expansion because he was so useless.

Shadowlands pretty much singlehandedly retconned the Tauren having any spiritual power, relevance or potential whatsoever. :face_with_diagonal_mouth: lol

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Anduin couldn’t use light but got it back. Thrall is gonna do the same thing soon. Mirrors.

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Anduin speed-running his mental & spiritual-healing journey + restoring his powers, compared to Thrall who’s had a slow crawl from over the pass 11 years, feels kind of … I don’t know, demoralising – To the old warchief. :joy: lol

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This was just a ploy to deceive Horde fans into thinking they played a role in the expansion.

It’s sad that Blizzard isn’t creative in lying and using the same thing over and over again.

I miss the time when Horde and Alliance had their own stories and leveling phases…

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I think you mean “standard Horde story progression.”

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My apologies, yes yes. :dracthyr_nod:

:thinking: Albeit if we’re TRULY going on standard Horde story progression — This expansion we will see Thrall:

  • Vilified
  • Rebelled against
  • Then either have Thrall’s throat slit & head mounted, exiled — or exiled & killed off even later yet still …

But I guess we’ll see :person_shrugging:
… However hey maybe I’m wrong — He might even be killed off screen like Cairne was :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I honestly think that just boils down to Metzen was gone. So, Blizzard had a problem.

They couldn’t do much with Thrall. They obviously don’t want to re-write, change him to much away from Metzen’s vision. And Metzen was not there to give them direction on his vision for the character. So, he couldn’t be at the forefront of the story. He couldn’t be more than a guest star. So, they needed a way to write him out of most of the stories. They couldn’t kill him. Not only would that just not be cool, the player base would riot. And seriously, what dev wants to be behind killing Metzen’s character? And with where his power level was, it was hard to justify him sitting out major, world ending events. Ultimately, depowering him and letting him ‘retire’ to family life was really the nicest and least problematic solution.

Now that Metzen is back, it is likely Thrall will take an active role going forward. Meaning, chances are he will get his powers back. Maybe not at the same level (all depends on what Metzen wants to do), but to at least some degree.

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He lost his powers again

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The difference is that in one we witness his trauma and how he overcomes it, while in the other it is resolved off-screen.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if he got the Cairne treatment. Because Thrall offers no added value and is completely boring. It’s time for new Orc characters!

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For God’s sake someone just reboot the story at this point. It’s cooked.

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Welcome to the Horde, comrade.

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The story has been mediocre at best for years. Since at least Cata

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