The point of this thread is indeed that the Haranir do not currently have a compelling story:
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Thats why I initially commented. I was agreeing with you and how this fits into the larger trend.
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I cannot comment on the larger trend. I have no interest defending a place that doesn’t want my (Alliance) character there, nor do I have any interest in hanging out with Paladins and Priests while playing a Druid, so I am not doing the main campaign, and as such have not been exposed to whatever other nonsense is going on.
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I get that, but I was including the last few expansions. Its the Earthen, Kirin Tor, Goblins, Horde and Forsaken too. The recurring theme of breaking tradition and replacing it something more bland.
I am actually fine with the Haranir. I like going to new places to learn the lore and history. That is why I get tired of “x race/faction” has to change what makes them unique because “y tradition” is wrong, outdated, a lie, or oppressive.
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I mean, the Earthen weren’t so much having tradition as much as continuously being brainwashed. Which, you know, is bad.
But I also didn’t do The War Within main campaign, either, as I had no interest in being Xal’atath’s fool.
I liked Undercity, though. Though, sadly, as much of a revolution of getting rid of Gallywix was, Undercity is still being run like Undercity, despite Gazlowe suddenly having bright eyed dreams of making Undercity a better place, the world quests for Steamwheedle have you enforcing Noggenfogger’s control over markets, Revilgaz’s control over distribution, and Fizzlecrank running Venture Co. like… Venture Co., so not really a lot of tradition breaking there.
That is what I mean though. They frame their tradition as brainwashing and thus create a reason for it to be rejected. That is why I mentioned a strawman earlier. The writer marks the opposition as clearly wrong to justify a hollow-victory.
War Within’s story I think overall was better than Midnight, but I don’t blame you for not wanting to do it.
The Undermine stuff is a lot to unpack because I feel there is a way to progress the Goblin’s story without making them lose what makes them Goblins. The big thing I wanted to point out from that is the city is now run by a committee.
Having a few councils and committees are fine, but we are oversaturated with them now. The Desolate Host is another example of a council. Modern Wow replaces governments with councils too much to where it erodes that progression feeling natural.
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I wouldn’t call the Earthen’s free will an easy victory like the Haranir’s. The Earthen have to constantly fight of colossal destroyers rising up out of the sea to kill them all for discovering what they weren’t supposed to know, and on top of that the Earthen have not figured out how to regain their removed memories yet, either. So that’s still an ongoing campaign.
As for the Goblins, they’ve always had multipoint leadership structures. The Steamwheedle before were run by Nogginfogger, Revilgaz, Gazlowe, and some unknown leader up in Everlook. Before Gallywix overthrew things in Undermine through Xal’atath’s backing Undermine was being run by Nogginfogger, Revilgaz, Laslo Overbite, and Nikki the Fixer. So things going back to the leadership of four different cartels now, just with Gazlowe and Fizzlecrank swapping in for leadership of the Bilgewater and Venture Co. is rather things returning to a previous statue quo than something new.
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The Earthen story deliberately paints the Titans bad to justify their Edicts being broken. What happens when they disavow their Edicts? The Colossus destroyer comes to punish them for their disobedience.
My understanding is that each individual Cartel has always been run by a Trade Prince, but not a council. Prior to War Within was it ever stated the exact structure of Undermine? I am having trouble finding something canon.
Undermine is also a complex answer because I felt they villain-batted Gallywix too hard here. Gallywix genuinely being on Xal’atath’s side doesn’t make sense. It seemed to imply he was trying to betray Xal’atath and I hope that is the case because working with a world ending evil is simply bad for business.
Regardless, his rule parallels the theme of overthrow oppressive tyrant and establish a council. He was only put in that narrative position to then justify a rebellion.
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Huh? It had nothing to do with disobedience. The Titans considered Azeroth’s energy affecting the Earthen to be corruption. The Titans wipe out anything they consider to be corruption. That’s not new. That’s been the case since Wrath when we had to fight Algalon to prevent him from wiping out all life on Azeroth after judging it too corrupted. That’s the whole reason Sargeras started the Burning Crusade.
That is still the case. The Steamwheedle Cartel is run by Trade Prince Nogginfogger. The Blackwater Cartel is run by Trade Prince Revilgaz. The Bilgewater Cartel is run by Trade Prince Gazlowe. Venture Co. is run by Fizzlecrank.
There have always been multiple Trade Prince(sse)s all competing with each other over financial institutions of Undermine, and switched out with other Trade Prince(sse)s within their own cartels, ever since the early cartel wars.
Gallywix always only cared about himself first. He would have planned to double cross Xal’atath the first chance he got. Gallywix wasn’t villain batted for Undermine. Gallywix was born with a silver villain bat in his mouth. He was just the kind of villain that kept getting away like Inspector Gadget’s Dr. Claw until Blizzard finally stopped using plot armor for him at last.
I was referring to the Colossus in War Within. Merrix explicit state when they renounce their Edicts “So the titans send their ancient machines against their disobedient children”.
Does it state how they interact with one another in prior lore? Because that would make Gazlowe’s council option the most stable/unique.
He is a different kind of villain though. He wouldn’t side with Xal because the end of the literally everything means no more business. I personally think he was only working with her so he could develop a counter weapon to the Void. In the Blank Scroll story this is what happens when Gallywix is confronted about using the Blank Scroll (an all-powerful weapon that can conjure up whatever the user desires)
“I expected you to use it!” Ziya growled. “It’s what you do. You use things. You’re a monster!”
To her surprise, Gallywix nodded.
“Yeah, I am,” he said. “But not that kind.”
“You’re exactly that kind!”
“No,” Gallywix said. “We ain’t ever met face to face, Sergeant, so let me explain. I don’t mind selling you if you get careless. I’ll send you to die if it’ll help the cartel’s bottom line. But I won’t get you killed by stupidity or a big dumb weapon for nothing. That ain’t me.”
He also has this to say about Garrosh.
“My people need security and profit. Under Hellscream, we got a whole lot of neither”
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Orcs and Draenei came from entirely different worlds but still speak like everyone else.
Arakkoa have never stepped foot on Azeroth prior to TBC but were able to speak Common.
Alternate Draenor Orcs were able to speak Common despite never even knowing Azeroth existed prior to Garrosh.
Trying to make sense of language, dialect, accent, etc in Warcraft is a fool’s errand.
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Merrix was in the dark as much as any other Earthen about the truth:
- Archaedas says: With the danger posed by the rogue thraegar, the great Aman’Thul ordered the rebellion to be quelled and the thraegar hunted down until the threat was neutralized.
Archaedas says: However, the issue of earthen malfunction under the influence of the Worldsoul’s energies remained, and so a new solution was devised.
Archaedas says: The earthen of Khaz Algar will relinquish their memories into an Archive to preserve recorded data, and purge the influence of the Worldsoul’s energies.
Archaedas says: By initiating this protocol on a regular cadence, we will ensure the thraegar malfunction does not take hold again.
Archaedas says: To secure compliance, the titans have programmed Edicts into the operational earthen to regulate and enforce their discreet functions and efficiency.
Archaedas says: Thus, the earthen will maintain the integrity of the Coreway and the machines of Khaz Algar. Should the Edicts be broken, more permanent failsafes have been set into place.
The trade princes were considered to have brought stability to Undermine through force of will and violence after the cartel wars, effectively by keeping most people down to keep profiting off of them. So, business as usual, just with the player ending up being the muscle for them in the world quests.
As for Gallywix, I was annoyed he got away after the Fourth War, so I was happy to get to take him down, regardless of whatever he had planned.
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In all honestly this is all well and good but it seems silly how their ideology and tradition is only challenged because “we” the players show up. The Nightmare corrupting Shaladrassil should have been the moment they realized that we needed to break tradition at the very least. They claim they are proud servants of their goddess and protect the roots but they couldn’t be bothered to realize that involves ensuring the trees themselves do not fall? Until we showed up anyway.
I really want an AU where we failed to defeat Il’gynoth and Xavius back in Legion to see how the Haranir reacted. Because until the Lightbloom showed up and started killing their own, you get the impression that they wouldn’t have done anything until they were personally in danger. And even then it was a slow burn to convince them of that even with the lightbloom.
In comparison let’s look at the Utaru from Horizen Forbidden West. Their ignorance on how their ‘land gods’ (Plowhorns) operate and the derangement as a whole is the reason why their elders were all, “oh well we lived a good life, nothing we can do”. They had no knowledge of GAIA, Hephaestus or that their sacred cave was a repair bay. Therefore in their point of view, the blight that was affecting the land was just part of the natural cycle. Not that the whole biosphere was collapsing upon itself because it wasn’t fully complete (thanks to Ted Faro deleting the Apollo database), GAIA was destroyed and the subordinate function designed to maintain the biosphere via machines had gone rogue and viewed Humans as a threat to said biosphere. As humans were actively hunting down those very machines. Mainly out of ignorance of their purpose. So their refusal to change their tradition is more believable. It doesn’t really work in the case of the Haranir who knew that some of the World Trees and hence the roots were in danger and did nothing to stop it. Basically hoping someone else will come along and “fix things” because “tradition says we don’t leave cave regardless of the reason”.
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They’re not poorly conceived it’s just nobody has any literacy anymore. People see nature and immediately jump to conclusions about a night elf ripoff as though Nelves have a sole claim to any nature themes.
Are Blackrock orcs ripping off dwarves and goblins for being good smiths and engineers?
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World Tree Druid Wild Elves.
I was more referring to Danuser just copy-pasting his Wild Elves from an entirely different game into Warcraft and hoping no one would notice and the utterly nonsensical concept of World Tree Root Guardians who don’t care what happens to the roots that have inexplicably avoided detection by anyone who should have seen them for millennia.
Iron Horde tech is derived from goblin tech, so … uh, no?
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Now that is a strawman.
It is more like the Night Elves were the ones who planted the World Trees, such as Nordrassil and Teldrassil. It is they who defended them from external threats like the Burning Legion, Ragnaros and even the Horde. Even if the latter failed. The Night Elves actively fought against the Nightmare etc all the while the Haranir are claiming it was their purpose to protect these trees that to them, came out of nowhere and did F all in actually defending them.
Basically they do none of the work and claim all of the credit.
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There’s no point in talking with you because you’re operating in bad faith and walking backwards from your conclusion. Anyways I’ll enjoy my bat person and their zone, and if you don’t like it, tough beans
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Yeah that’s the point, Orweyna and the PCs are Haranir who are tired of their elder’s stupid traditions.
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The problem is, why did it wait until NOW for things to change?
Why didn’t they do anything when Andrassil (Vordrassil) was corrupted and later chopped down? Shaladrassil was corrupted (not once but twice)? Teldrassil was burned? Nordrassil was under threat twice (Archimonde and later Ragnaros)?
At least Amirdrassil was in the Emerald Dream when it was being attacked by Fyrakk so I am willing to give them a pass on that one.
How many world ending threats did their need to be before they got off their lazy asses and actually did something they claim is their sacred duty to do?
It is just bad writing to excuse away why they never “showed up” from a retroactive lore perspective prior to TWW. And all because Blizzard changed their lore from ‘protectors of one specific tree that only has its roots left’ to ‘protectors of ALL world trees’ for some reason.
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yeah I don’t care. Have fun.
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