Odyn is as evil or more so than Helya, imo. Helya only became malevolent through Odyn’s machinations. She tried being good in the face of Odyn’s evil, and protested against usurping the afterlives of the Vrykul. And she suffered for taking a stand against that vile villain.
As you said, it is a matter of opinion. I find her sympathetic because she took a stand and suffered for it. Even if she is up to no good now - the root of that is Odyn’s evil. And she stood against him at great cost.
I honestly can’t help feeling like the implication with Odyn, Loken, and the other Keepers is that they’d have not become misguided and split from each other if only Ra had remained with them. Had he stayed in more regular communication with his peers, I feel like he and they would have together prevented these terrible things from happening.
Plus Ra strikes me as the only other Keeper whose word could have quelled Odyn’s disagreement and put him in his place during the whole Aspect argument. Like neither he nor Odyn were “complete” without the other’s input to offset their respective shortcomings, so they both succumbed to their baser impulses when left to their own devices. Being indomitably prideful and self-assured, Odyn’s reckless certainty in his own decisions makes him one to press on whether it’s clearly a good idea or not (and so likely to press on even in light of the titans’ deaths), while Ra’s decision to set up a planetwide contingency like the Forge of Origination coupled with his loss of purpose in the face of his own makers’ falls makes him seem like he’s more introspective and restrained about assuming success without a long list of backups and Plan B’s.
As if they’re two opposite extremes of the same original personality, so neither held up on their own, but had they remained together with the other Keepers I suspect they’d have kept things from falling apart. Like maybe the whole “there can be no chosen one” thread applies here as well. Naming a Prime Designate was a mistake. Each Keeper had a role, and they functioned best when working in tandem, not when subjected to a rigid top-down assignation of power and responsibility, which opened the way to a narrowing of vision and a vulnerability to corruption when the topmost Keepers faltered - first Odyn, then Loken - and subsequently pulled the rest down with them.
Between the Forge of Origination, reinforcing C’thun’s prison with his titan-forged Anubisath, mopping up the larger chunks of up Y’shaarj while taking the Heart for study and the geographical likelihood that he’s probably the Keeper responsible for Uldir, Ra comes across like he may have been the long-view, “big picture” thinker and overall steadying hand of the Keeper “Pantheon,” building contingencies and backup plans without committing to any one solution to the exclusion of all others. So when he left Ulduar, the remaining Keepers - Odyn and Loken especially - being overly decisive “this one way is the only way” thinkers led to the adoption of increasingly questionable and ineffective measures to solve each new problem as it arose.
One might note that the Valarjar, the Aspects, all of Loken’s crackpot schemes to cover his betrayals; these all tended to be one-shot “this better work because I’ve/we’ve really got no other ideas right now” sorts of plans. None of them have had redundancies or backup plans built in, while frankly everything Ra went south to do seemed to fit into a mindset of establishing multiple contingencies just in case this or that part of the experiment we call “Azeroth” goes sideways and needs to be fixed or reset.
Probably nothing. I was tired and talking out my alternate name for a donkey the forum won’t let me say.
During the encounter, Malygos makes claims that it is ultimately us mortals who are to blame for the Nexus war due to our historical abuse of the arcane
" It is you reckless, careless mortals who are to blame for this war. I do what I must, and if it means your extinction… then SO BE IT!!"
“UNTHINKABLE! The mortals will destroy… everything… my sister… what have you-”
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Malygos_(tactics)
Even some of his followers provide similar comments, such as Mage-Lord Urom. Urom also comments on how his actions were for azeroth upon dying.
“Those without foresight or understanding. How could I make you see? Malygos is saving the world from itself!”
" Everything I’ve done… has been for Azeroth…"
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Mage-Lord_Urom
Now not all of Malygos’ mage hunters felt that way. Some joined the blue dragonflight for revenge on Dalaran etc.
Murozond was living outside of time when we killed him in End Time.
Nozdormu says afterwards that becoming Murozond was his destiny, he cannot change it.
also something people need to take into consideration.
Odyn isnt a mortal being.
The Titans and by extension, their creations. have a complete different outlook on things like good vs evil and morality than we do.
Remember Algalon and re-origination? The titans literally had zero qualms with hitting a reset button on a planet and murdering billions of sapient life, if doing so meant saving the planet. And Odyn shares that same view. What are mortal lives compared to the safety of the world soul.
It would be like…if someone important to you that swore you protect was in danger and to get to them you have to step on an ant hill. You think you…or anyone is going to cry over the hundreds of ants your foot may have killed? Of course not.
I believe that crappy metaphor was how Odyn viewed thing. We are the ants, or at least were.
I am fairly certain since the end of Legion Odyn has a new foudn respect and acknowledgment for the mortal races and from what I remeber, no longer views the titanforged as being the only thing able to save the planet. he acknowledged that we mortals were important and needed in the end. So at least eh changed his tune.
So after that long wall of text and dumb rambling which I hope I made sense in, to answer the OP: To us the players, from an mortal point of view he is for sure some gnarly shades of grey.
The matter of opinion is in regards to Odyn, not Helya. Helya is very much evil and not at all morally grey, regardless of the origins of her heel turn.
I disagree. So, yes, it is a matter of opinion. Even if you feel your opinion matters more for some reason.
We have no idea what her bargain with Sylvanas was, and she is set to make a return. So there is more to this story. I do not see Odyn’s demise as an evil goal for one to have. It seems good to me.
Odyn did bad things for his goals. So does Helya. As I said, Odyn is either as evil or more so than Helya. And Helya only became evil due to Odyn’s evil deeds.
If Helya can defeat Odyn and free the Vrykul from being bound to him in their after lives, she would be good in my eyes.
Her story is not over.
Morally grey is using questionable tactics for the right reasons. This does not apply to Helya at all because she’s using her tactics to screw the players in their attempt to acquire the Aegis and defend Azeroth whilst simultaneously holding Odyn (who’s actually helping us) hostage in his own home just to settle a grudge.
Where’s the greater good there?
She’s not even trying to do this either. She was actively kidnapping and enslaving Vrykuls to serve her own purpose (including Odyn’s chosen ones). It’s the entire reason why the players are sent to take Helya down once and for all.
Couldnt you argue it was less Odyn’s deeds that turned her evil and more Loken living up to his namesake and being norse Grima Wormtongue?
Except Helya doesnt want to ‘free’ the vrykul. If Odyn was dead, instead of the Halls of Valor, all the Vrykul would just go to Helheim instead where Helya would then delight in torturing their souls, subjecting them to unending torment and agony for her amusement and pleasure until she warps them into Kvaldir and then sends them out to kidnap more innocents to bring back and torture…
As a Vrykul, If you had to choose between which diety and after life to go to, Halls of Valor seems like the much better deal. You get to Fight, Feast, Drink, tell tales and Hunt all day long. Things Vrykul love doing in life. Pretty great afterlife for them. Better then having your soul caged up and torn apart suffering agony
At the end of the day ‘current’ Helya is just evil for evil sake. She has no greater good motive. She just does these horrendous evil deeds, revels in causing agony and torment to innocents. Enslaving souls to subject them to untold suffering until; they bend to her will.
Odyn on the other hand, all of his morally questionable decisions he did because he 100% believe they were the right things to do to protect Azeroth.
Defeating Odyn is the greater good.
That is what Odyn did. She learned she must sink to his level if she wishes to challenge his power. And she wants to use those forces to end Odyn’s tyranny. Which is a greater good.
That is a mission from Odyn. That does not make it a good deed or right.
We do things for Cordana Felsong, Xalatath, Nzoth, and other creatures who are evil. The fact that we do things for people does not mean they are always good or right.
If Odyn respected Helya when she said no, and if he understood that no means no, she would never have been warped in the first place.
Dominating someone’s will in such a way is being touted as the ultimate evil lately by Baine and others.
I never said that was her goal. I listed it as an example of her goals being unknown. We do know she risked her existence for them in the first place, and that she is gathering her strength for a return. So she is not done yet.
And we have yet to see if Odyn will go full evil. There is foreshadowing. He may yet be the “Lord of Ravens” who “turns the key.” He has plans to visit Ulduar. That may be bad.
So I see Helya being good without Odyn’s influence, and she becomes bad after he uses his power to dominate her. While Odyn was up to bad things on his own.
“Challenge” his power to do what? As far as she knew, he and his army could never break her curse and escape the Halls of Valor. So she basically spent millennia continuously amassing her own army of enslaved vrykul souls just to afflict the vrykul in particular and otherwise terrorize everyone else on Azeroth out of spite.
Even her associations with the vrykul via the Warrior artifact weapons’ backstories (Arms and Fury specifically) make it pretty clear that this hasn’t been some grand benevolent scheme to claim justice over Odyn and set the vrykul free. She just plain hates everyone, including her own former people, and seizes upon any opportunity to torment, corrupt and enslave them out of sheer malice.
Odyn gave daily world quests to Horde to murder the Alliance anti-Legion army for no reason.
Odyn gave daily world quests to Alliance to murder the Horde anti-Legion army for no reason.
Odyn was an evil malfunctioning robot.
All I know is that if that bearded punk tells me to prove my valor one more time, I’m gonna lose it.
Thanks for the explanations.
Yeah, I remember that now. It’s sad. I was hoping he wouldn’t. Maybe if we get rid of N’zoth as it was the old gods that turned him.
To be fair the Alliance and the Horde soldiers were already fighting each other. All Odyn directs us to do is to join the fray.
I think he is good aligned but his pride and ego are getting the best of him, thus unknowingly helping evil.
I wonder…if that whisper “The king of ravens will turn the key”
refers to him (he uses ravens to spy on mortals) and the key could be the eye he exchanged to see into the Shadowlands. In his obsession to carry his will (to revive warriors into valkyir) he readily accepted the deal with the Shadowland’s spirit without considering what this could mean on the other side (the Shadowlands can, likewise, see into the realm of the living? ).
Odyn is a true neutral / neutral.
He doesn’t care.
He just does what he wants because he feels like it.
I think he’s too complex to label as either. He’s not totally righteous like Uther nor is he irredeemably ruthless like Gul’dan - which I think makes him interesting and realistic (in so far as comparing him to a real world equivalent like Odin or Zeus). Ironic considering most “mortals” are cut-and-dry black or white on the moral spectrum.
I view Odyn as one of the few, actually “morally grey” characters.
He was tasked with the protection of the World Soul by the Titans and was chosen to be the Prime Keeper, leading the other Keepers in this duty.
From his point of view, everythin’ he does is for that reason… regardless of who he has to crush in order to make it happen.
The ends justify the means.
To that end, I do find sympathy for Helya as her current state is a product of Odyn’s overzealous and prideful nature in the belief his methods of protectin’ Azeroth are the correct ones. Even if they backfire in a self fulfilling prophecy sort of way like with God-Queen Sigryn.