This is my main problem with the idea as well. I don’t take issue with Light wielders being evil or anything, I take issue with them turning every single cosmic force into the same thing with a different color scheme. This is also why I don’t like the idea of everyone and their mother trying to take Azeroth and make her aligned with them, that was initially just the Void’s thing but now apparently all the cosmic forces want it because all of them are written exactly the same as each other.
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i think making all zealots just demonically corrupted is a really flat view of what makes something like zeal compelling narratively and personally. the fel and the void aren’t really inevitable conclusions of negative thinking, though they might be more attractive to those inclined towards it.
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Didn’t we already have that with the Druids of the Flame in Cata and Dragonflight?
That Lightbound business in BfA was profoundly poorly written. Even if they wanted to use them, iirc they have no way to get to MU Azeroth. We only got there due to a Bronze Dragon.
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they are 100% going to introduce cool chill Arathi that will be on our side in the future confrontation even if it’s mostly just the ones we’re getting to know now.
Occuleth was able to move people back and forth from AU Draenor.
But that was only AFTER we used a fragment of the device that sent us to AU Draenor originally
My point is more that if Blizzard wants to bring them back, they can.
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Fair enough. And it’s certaintly true about if blizz really wants to make it a reality, they’ll make up a way to get us there
Forgot where I saw it but there was some interview where someone was saying that major narrative decisions get made by someone going “wouldn’t it be cool if?” more often than not, so to your point, Blizzard doesn’t have to adhere to their own lore to make something happen narratively; it doesn’t have to be a good reason for something to happen, hell it doesn’t even have to make sense.
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You know, rather than an outright, “Church is bad,” or, “Empire is bad,” kind of story and antagonists, I wouldn’t mind seeing it taken in a direction that sort of but not really combines the two.
Tell a story of people who pay lip service to the faith while not actually believing in it (and in fact doing a lot of stuff that would be major sins), and using that to influence governance of the Empire by whipping people into a frenzy, feeding into their ignorance to instill in them the fear of threats that are invented, but do not even exist. With these massive cult followings they design their own interpretation of the holy scripture which is built on hypocrisy and othering. “A sin isn’t a sin if we do it, for we are ordained by the Sacred Flame,” becomes as much a mentality as, “That person over there feeding orphans and building homes for the poor is evil. They’re preying upon the weak and needy to sway them from the truth path. These are not, ‘good deeds.’ They are the temptations of evil! Every act of, ‘kindness,’ from these heathens is to corrupt our pure society!”
I would LOVE to go killing antagonists like that.
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I would say by the end they are “corrupted”, but Fel and Void wouldn’t be the impetus for their zeal. I also wouldn’t say all that fall prey to zeal become agents of Fel or Void, just the worst cases or those irredeemable. I think you can have both exist. Plenty could learn from the errors of their ways. So I agree with you there.
I find the narrative compelling that those who bastardize their moral code become a twisted reflection of it. The Scarlets become the monster they see in others.
But fel and void have nothing to do with zeal
No? the druids of the flame were just the nelves enemies, they are the nelves equivalent of the scarlets
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So, a RL mirror. Fiction is used for that a lot, so that would fit.
That would certainly give some level of catharsis as we can’t smack those kind of hypocrites in RL.
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My point is we also have the Druids of the Flame if you’re looking for an Alliance-adjacent enemy to fight “without worrying about the Alliance’s fee fees”, as you put it.
Yea and we fought and beat them, time to move on
Every church want just your best.
Your money.
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The entire Arathi plot line is the most inconsistent hot mess of a story i have seen in this game in a LOOOOOONG time.
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The sacred flame
Some sort of Hand wavium magical light arcane thing that we literally get zero explanation about what it is, how it works, where its comes from. Nothing, just magic fire. -
Super Xenophobic
Blizzard is SUPER inconsistent with this story beat. Remember the people in hallowfall have been there only about 20 years so most of them came from this arathi empire, and despite growing up in a highly xenophobic nation, they apparently welcome everyone with open arms. So again this is a horribly inconsistent plot point. -
Missed opportunity to be unique.
but the WORST thing, is we had a great opertunity to see a human kingdom that actually was different. They could have made the human kingdom of arathi be highly military, or clan like, where they are more like barbarian kings or something, but what did we get? Generic Light worshiping humans #234980
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You do know Warcraft is a soft magic world. And magic is everywhere. Most of the story is magic just doing things because magic.
I disagree.
First off, I don’t think the game described them as “Super Xenophobic.” It has certainly indicated there is some level of distrust of those that are different. But it is not described as “Super.”
Plus it seems to be more rooted in interaction with the light, not race. They are a mixed heritage group (humans & elves). You can see an example of that if you play a class using the dark powers (I did it on DK). One of the quest givers will specifically call you out and say they still don’t trust you until you do an additional step to help them.
And finally, those distrustful tendencies can be mitigated by fighting for survival for 15 years and having to rely on some that are not light users. They did have trade with the Earthen for a long time, and likely would no have survived without it. And now they are facing being wiped out if they do not accept our help. That kind of mitigates a lot of the ‘we don’t like non-light users’ side of things.
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They literally do, the entire zone they and faerin talk about how they(The arathi and the empire) are super closed off, and dont like outsiders at all, yet they welcome everyone with open arms, they make a point about describing how closed off they are yet ever single NPC who has been there for years and was raised in the Empire and fully indoctrinated to them, seem to just at the flip of a switch welcome all outsiders.
That is not how xenophobia works.
People who are recluse and eve surviving will not just magically change their tune because of survival. The problem with the being distrusting of non light users is that it would be more geared to not trusting anyone who does not trust/use the sacred flame, which is eveyrone becuase its a new thing that they never explain what it is.
Yes and we get no explanation of how it works or what it does or how its different. We get a horrible explanation in game, and im not saying its horrible because its bad im saying its horrible because the NPC that tries to explain it literally says “Im probably explaining this really bad.”
Its just random. The most we got is that its something arcane and light, so maybe akin to the sunwell?
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She talked about how they are less open to some of they types of people in our groups. She did not say they were hostile. Just that we would not be welcomed in the empire. You are adding the ‘super’ part.
But they don’t. I even used an example of one that very much does not. Most of them are not open arms. They accept us because they need us.
It actually is.
Distrust of others is most often a consequence of fear of the unknown. Get past that and you get past a LOT of indoctrinated beliefs. And when faced with survival, even people/groups that hate each other will often work together. In the case of the Arathi, their needs for survival force them to work with non-light users. Then working together lets them see the ‘humanity’ of the others and is going to get past a lot of that indoctrination.
And it is important to repeat, they are not all open arms. There are NPCs that still act skeptical even after you help them.
Honestly, I think you are acting as though they have to be extreme one way of the other. Like it is either openly hostile or think we are the greatest ever. Both the empire and the Arathi we meet don’t have to be an extreme.
Sure we do. It is holy light that is the opposite of void darkness. They repel each other. The Sacred flame pushes back the void darkness and Void flame pushes back the light. Not a lot of details, but that is the nature of a soft magic system.
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