(SPOILERS) 9.1 Tyrande Cinematic

Lore Story Forum
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Yea, the last few sparks of hope are being taken out. Like their souls that were obliterated and the justice that was denied. And obviously the lands that they’ll never get back.

They didn’t what? Lose the zones? Yes they did.

" After the Fourth War, Nordrassil has become a temporary home for the night elves following the destruction of Teldrassil "
Where is this mentioned in the book? Because I have seen nothing else than the meeting there.

Seemingly not enough to matter, or to indicate that there aren’t “far too few” left anymore.

Yea, and it took them until pre patch. They must’ve died then because there’s no way they’d just give up on Ashenvale and let the Horde keep it.

Except being a Night Elf, and every Night Elf needs to be dead according to Blizzard. And since that’s not enough, they also need to be tortured and obliterated in the maw, and the one who did that has to be glorified.

Yea, this is the questline where some were obliterated in the maw, and we saved 80. We saved 10-20 more in quests after that. That’s around 10% of those that died in Teldrassil alone
And we also saved those remaining 10-20 from the place where souls are forged into weapons, if that’s not a hint, then what is?

They don’t have enough people to reclaim Ashenvale, yet the Horde only could muster around 40 (I think it was?) soldiers?
That should tell you enough about the state of the Night Elf military.

And yet no sight of Ashenvale. The Val’kyr turned out irrelevant because it never mattered, and farmers have killed one in the past.

It pretty heavily implies that there won’t be any justice seen for Teldrassil, especially since she’s benched for the Sylvanas raid.

How? How are the souls that were obliterated in the maw going to rebuild? With the Horde still in their zones too, and their home being a neutral zone with Horde members there.

I have “A Good War” for Ashenvale.
I have several Interviews of writers saying that Sylvanas is not evil, and that her redemption will be nuanced. We also have her talking about justice in the raid encounter, and we have a canon story about how her soul is split and how she’ll be absolved of all crimes through this. She’s even portrayed as the victim despite all the atrocities she commited.

I mean the Horde was given Ashenvale in the sense of them conquering it, and the Night Elves never getting it back.

But that also means that they’ll never get a new capital city. I don’t see how Hyjal can be their home with Horde members present there that want to see them gone from Kalimdor.
Obviously I’d be wrong about this specific thing then, since the few Night Elves are in fact in Hyjal now, but that still doesn’t mean that they have a safe home now. The handful that are left.

Nope, the exact number was 982. Those we saved were around 100.

Yes, because it’s always the worst and most disrespectful outcome for Night Elves. See the Sylvanas getting away with it, Night Elves not getting anything back zone wise and their zones being obliterated.

Yea, again. It will never happen because the Night Elves will never get positive development, so I don’t have a reason to be happy.

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Man… this thread… some people have a lot of free time on their hands.

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Blizzard has done this before recently, with the cinematic at the end of the Ny’alotha raid starting off with an in-game cut scene to show the player character blasting N’Zoth before switching to pre-rendered footage for the actual destruction of N’Zoth and Ny’alotha. Whether or not one thinks that was a particularly effective way of using both techniques together is another matter entirely, but there’s definitely recent precedent for doing it.

I have no idea about how much cost and time each method takes compared to each other, but I think it’s worth remembering that due to the nature of how each is made, only in-game cut scenes can include the player character as part of the action. In this particular case the player character does seem to be involved (the figure in Venthyr transmog in the foreground at the beginning of the cut scene is a player character). Including the player character seemed to be the main reason why the first part of the Ny’alotha cinematic wasn’t pre-rendered, and also was probably a factor in why the escape from the Maw in the introduction scenario, even with its more detailed Anduin model and lip-syncing, was still an in-game cut scene rather than a pre-rendered cinematic. I believe the player character is supposed to be actively involved in the ritual here rather than just observing if I remember what I’ve read correctly, so that may be part of the reason Blizzard opted for an in-game cut scene here.

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That doesn’t necessarily mean the story needs to be a happy one. Blizzard story have thus far always ended on a “we won but usually at great and with alot of things destroyed but at least we get to fight another day”. I mean just look at Diablo or Starcraft or Overwatch.

Heck, Overwatch wont actually be a thing until OW 2.

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Well, but if it’s about a playable race, it should have a happy ending in some way atleast.

The souls being tortured and obliterated after having all been burned alive… like really?

For the Night Elves it’s “We lost with everything destroyed and our people killed and thus don’t get to fight another day or even move on from what happened”.

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and untreated mental illness and an evident unwillingness to go to therapy in general lol

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248

Not all the souls were obliterated and hence part of the whole we get to fight another day. We are saving them and the winter queen even mention how each soul we save is a blessing.

A good chunk of the night elves escaped.

This has happened with the humans(Stormwind burned)
The gnomes(irradiation of Gnomeragan)
THe draenei(both their exile from Argus and Shattrath)
The people of Theramore.

Heck, even starcraft 1 ends with Meghk leader of the terrans, Raynor an outlaw and the Protoss barely escaping Aiur. It took a decade before they got back their home planet!

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And the Sin’Dorei (90 percent of their population to the Scourge). And the Darkspear (and I haven’t a clue how they still have people left at this point). And the MU Orcs. And the AU Orcs (the most recent in that “near extinction level event” lineup). Even the Bilgewater! And pretty sure if THEY can overcome Kezan and the Undermine being blown up by a Volcano; the survivors of Kezan being enslaved and their slave ship blown up by the Alliance; and the survivors of the Yacht fighting through 2 death islands and being enslaved on another exploding Volcano … pretty sure the NEs will be just fine as a race in this game.

EDIT: Oh! And the Kalimdor Tauren too (the Centaurs)!

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Most of them, and the souls aren’t able to fight either unless they’re revived.

Guess that’s because we only save so few.

None of those other races had 3 zones of theirs taken away and wiped out, and then obliterated in the maw. None of those races also had their genocide glorified and the ones responsible fully get away with it.

Not if the writers don’t want them to be. This is obvious with them getting none of their zones back, no new home and generally nothing positive at all. Also no justice of course.

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Text about presentation, involvement, different genres, ten years of waiting since the Cataclysm, destroyed backstory (racial fantasy).

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You do realize there is a reason we are trying to stop the Jailer right? His defeat will mean ALL THE SOULS in the Maw will be saved, or at least given a fair trial by the Arbiter.

The difference in genre do not matter. Warcraft/Starcraft stories are so closely similar we can easily compare any number of events.

Presentation has been about the same. Even when they were outnumbered by the Horde the night elves were able to give as good as they got even if they lost. Darkshore is now theirs as of the finally of BFA(I wish Ashenvale is less questionable but we probably have to wait until October to find out its status).

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Doesn’t matter if they have been obliterated already. And we know that since those few night elves we do save after the scenario are at the place where souls are obliterated.

This means that a lot more than 90% of the night elf souls were obliterated.

We don’t really need to wait for something that is clear already, also it most likely won’t be in the book. Ashenvale was also not mentioned in Shadow’s Rising, so most likely not in the future books either.

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What was the topic of the original post? Is it normal for the night elves to suffer, or that the night elves have to wait to get their revenge on everyone else?

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The Forsaken and BEs didn’t get justice against Arthas. They weren’t really even in WotLK, with the prior exclusively being used to stoke the Faction Conflict instead. The BEs will never get justice for the Purge, least of all with Blizz’s years of “walking back” the severity of that event for the Alliance side. The MU Orcs weren’t even allowed a footnote for justice against KJ. The one who exploited their faith and health against them … and led to the destruction of their world … for a personal grudge.

The NEs seem poised to at least play A part in the downfall of Sylvanas. And if Tyrande can’t be there directly, the ideal outcome for the raid is for Sylvie to get abandoned by the Jailor and for Thrall to make good on his promise (and bring Sylvie back alive to Tyrande for judgement). But … the outcome of the raid is currently one of 3 plot points still being hidden in 9.1. So there is something there … we just dont know the quality.

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Arthas was killed and sent to the maw. What else do they want?

Uh what downfall? It’s all about redemption and justifying her actions now to show that what she did to the night elves is actually good because she did it and the writers hate the race.

Uh yea but Tyrande has already given up on justice, even against Sylvanas. Despite the souls of her people being obliterated.
Tyrande even vowed that Sylvanas will never win, and the souls of her people asked her to avenge them before they were obliterated in the amalgam.
None of this ever happened.

Guess what, either we forgive her right away or she flies away again. And then in the upcoming book everything gets whitewashed. You can bookmark this comment. There aren’t really a lot of different outcomes. The outcome will inevitably lead to her total redemption / justification, so it’s really boring.

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I guess it’s fine, then, if Tyrande is relegated to a secondary plot about the green dragonflight

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There is no lore that ever stated that most of the night elf souls were destroyed. In fact when we first went to the Maw we saw most of the night elf souls mingling with other condemend souls in Gorgoa: River of Souls.

That point should be everyone does end up suffering, night elves are not unique in this particular regard. That revenge is not guaranteed and usually is too costly for most people and that you are probably better off trying to make a better world for yourself and those that remain then pursing it.

That is not to say we can’t try to pursue justice. But that not everyone will get and the world just happens to be unjust enough that being “lawfully good” mean actually making sacrifices.

People keep saying the Alliance has never sacrificed anything for their good guy status, when in fact Varian of all people gave the deciding vote to keep the orcs alive and in turn potentially lead a series of event that did weaken the Alliance.

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Here is a more objective question. Is this cinematic really worth the whole year people had to wait for? I am curious to see this other cinematic is supposed to be but this is some really weak stuff. What in the world has Blizzard been doing for almost a year?

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No, because Sylvanas and every Horde member still got away with everything. Even those shamans enhancing the flames to kill more innocents. Are you also telling me they didn’t know about the genocide? Lol

Except the fact that 1000 died in Teldrassil alone and the total amount of souls we saved from the maw is around 100.

Except that the Horde will wipe out the remaining Night Elves if they aren’t utterly defeated in Ashenvale. They have commited genocide against the Night Elves twice now, and they’ll definitely attempt to finish off the last few survivors if they dare settling in Kalimdor again.

They also now know that they can commit genocide against the Night Elves now and not face any downsides or repercussions for it. In fact, they’ll even be rewarded with peace and new lands.

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So if the end result is all that matters, then whats the outcry for this cinematic all about? If “punishing Sylanas” is all that matters, and it doesn’t matter who plays a part in that, then why does it matter the quality of this half-done cinematic? Or whether or not there is something more substantive to follow?

There is no indication that Sylvanas will be even coming out of the SLs with us, let alone rejoining the Horde. Not only has she burned all those bridges, but her only way “out” results in her relying on a Ranger General not even her Forsaken have ever met. And only a few Horde BEs know her. Not to mention, we do know at least that its highly likely the Banshee is losing her physical body in the raid (thanks to a Devs slip of the tongue about looting her corpse). Which makes her returning to Azeroth all the more difficult.

EDIT: And as a note, the Forsaken never knew Arthas went to the Maw. They didn’t know anything about the Maw or his soul after his defeat. Arthas has also had no presence yet to give them that insight, nor do they as a people have any presence in the land of the dead at all to gain it once it is revealed. Only Calia exists, and she’s …

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