We all know about the awful desecration of lore that undead night elves are fighting for Sylvanas, and I’ve already created threads and hundreds of posts about it, so this thread isn’t about that.
I want to know your opinions on how the night elves would consider their own undead citizens raised by Sylvanas’ val’kyr who are still loyal to their people. Considering the Sentinel Army is still almost completely intact and the Burning of Teldrassil was a civilian massacre, the night elves are still a major military force, but don’t have any major civilian presence to center their society around. This means, in essence, that the Kaldorei have become a completely martial society, because the military has no one left to protect but itself.
Without civilian night elves left to affect military decisions, would the military reevaluate the commonly held night elven view of undeath as an unacceptable aberration? Would the more pragmatic and less idealistic approach of accepting undead night elves back into the fold begin to gain favor in the Sentinels’ ranks, considering their people’s mass depopulation?
Say night elf dark rangers decide they want vengeance on Sylvanas instead of Tyrande, do you think they would be allowed home to fight for their people again, or would the surviving elves cast them out?
There’s still civilians alive. We in fact evacuated them as part of the burning. I’d be ok with new allied races being forsaken night elves (alliance) and forsaken blood elves (horde).
There are civilians, but not enough to call a civilization. They’re a shattered minority, while the Sentinel Army and Cenarion Circle are almost the entire population of the night elves.
I know I would accept them back, while still being a bit suspicious (Sylvanas might be able to mind control maybe). But, I would still think they would be accepted and Tyrande would use some of Elune’s magic to make them stronger and purify them from Sylvanas’ necromancy.
i just call em undead slaves at this point, even if blizz said they are not.
i’d say they are regardless, even so, if not than there literally the dumbest night elves to be there.
I assumed their spirits were in some form of emotional vulnerability/denial, which is why they were so eager to be resurrected and place the blame on their allies.
i don’t want to sound like that guy gilblin, but… are night elves stupid?
if what you say is most likely what happened, i don’t deny the fact that they are stupid for blaming a goddess for literally all the banshee queen did.
by that theory, if i stub my toe, do i blame myself or the footstool?
i’d blame myself and just go “OW! SON-OF -UUUUUUUUUUUURGH!”
Curing corruption, and having influence over the Shadowlands (which one would need to return someone to life) are very different things. In fact, I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been a single character that has been returned to “life” in Warcraft lore; only various forms of Undeath (and ALL of these forms, regardless of creation, have some connection to the Shadowlands).
Our Murder Hobo’s revive abilities are mechanical, not really represented in universe; and even then … Forsaken are revived as Forsaken (not Humans).
My questions are under the assumption that an undead night elf does have free will, and that they use that free will to rejoin their people.
Elune is a full deity within canonical lore, not a Titan like Eonar or some old god like C’Thun. If there is any possible creature within Warcraft who’s capable of restoring true life, it would be the only deity within the franchise. And with satyrs, the transformation into a demon is complete and absolute, body and soul are merged with the fel to create a demonic being. If Elune is capable of separating the body and soul from fel, and if I’m not wrong she’s the only character to ever do so, then it’s not a great stretch of the imagination for her to truly bring the dead back to life.
As a guess I’d say that Tyrande and Malfurion would be very accepting of undead night elves who want to return to the fold. I love Shandris but I also think that she might represent a branch of nelfs who would be resistant, mostly through concern for her mother. I think Tyrande has had the experience of viewing the world through three lenses (Political, spiritual, military) and Shandris mostly just the one. So I guess we call it an uneasy reintegration of the undead back into nelf society. (I SO want Delaryn and her Sentinels back on our side.)
Elune is the primary Goddess of the Night Elven pantheon, she has never been established as a surefire canonical God above even that of the Titan’s themselves (outside of the Warcraft RPG, which is considered Non-Canon). There is a legendary item referring to the “the Myth’s of Elune, the one true goddess…” but it doesn’t specify if her being a true goddess is itself a myth.
Velen actually seemed to believe that Elune had some connection to the Naaru (or at least operated in some similar way); and Tyrande shut him down before even hearing his out, being outraged by even the thought of such an “outlandish claim”. However he is right that Elune seems to operate on a Light and Dark cycle like the Naaru; which is why I think he believes she may be their origin.
Elune is immensely powerful, but very little is actually known about her. She has dominion over LIFE to some degree (allowing her to cleanse it), but she has never been shown to have any dominion over death before. Also, her apparent connection to the “Tears of Elune” (a Pillar of Eternity created by the TItans) suggests that she in fact has some connections to the Titans as well.
Purify? No, no, noooo… you see, Elune is a void goddess. Meaning she spreads suffering throughout the world. She even creates old gods and slings them out into the universe, and those old gods here on azeroth we have, yup she created those too.
Everything in game is getting explained. Many of the things that started out as mystical and exciting can now just be pointed to. “Yup. That’s a Titan. Tall isn’t he.” Magical things like dragons and immortality and fonts of power are being removed from our reality. My hope is that the best minds on Azeroth and worlds beyond all get together and conduct a study. They spend years sifting through tomes, digging up artifacts, conducting interviews, traveling the stars. Then after millions of man(person)hours and billions in gold they release their report. “We have no fracking idea WHAT she is. We may have to consider the possibility that she is a God and just take that on faith.” Imagine something that exists beyond light and void. Something bigger than our minds can possibly conceive; and she hangs out with the night elves cause she just likes them. Awesome.
Funny how in Darkshore we literally stop the old gods, as a night elf that is ordered by Malfurion who just so happens to be the husband of Tyrande, Elune’s greatest champion. Don’t you think she wouldn’t condone stopping the Twilight Cultists and the rise of Soggoth?
I have no problem with Elune remaining a mystery, but I feel like you’re SUPER interested her being a “REAL GOD” is because you are a Kaldorei fan; and her being THE ONE TRUE DEITY gives the Kaldorei immense validation.
Like, its pretty much the NE playerbase equivalent wanting to claim that their religion is the only right one (because they got lucky, were born on Azeroth (rather than Argus and Dreanor), and decided to worship the right one of two moons) isn’t it?
If she really was a real Goddess, don’t you think the Titans would have been SUPER interested in her? Or the Old Gods for that matter? Like, screw the Titan Soul in the core of the planet, there is a REAL Goddess to corrupt somewhere out there.