? Is she talking about us? I always just assumed it was Uther for what I daresay are rather obvious reasons… but he’s not a mortal. We are. What’s the go, here? Have I missed something?
I also kind of just assumed it was Uther. I guess the distinction of “mortal” has me at a loss in this setting. Even the souls of the dead and the various Godlike creatures are capable of death, so mortality doesn’t seem like the same concept. I figured she meant the soul of a mortal, and that would be Uther. But lets put that aside and postulate on others.
My next guess would be Sylvanas. She still qualifies as a Mortal I guess, if she didn’t get processed by the machinery, and can pass through the veil. Maybe she told people about her 9 Valkyr, and that is all related somehow.
Again, the exact connotation of Mortal in this setting is a bit curious. Would Helya count? Most likely not. But it could be her. She was sent to the Maw upon her defeat, but I don’t know if the Kyrian brought her there, or if she had always had that as a back up plan.
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I’ve had a think, and I’m confident in saying that I think it’s a case of Blizzard calling Uther a ‘mortal’ because he’s a familiar to us - even though this really isn’t consistent, because other Azeroth characters have referred to us as ‘mortals’. Uther pretty much was the cause of the Forsworn and everything bad happening for Bastion (sorry lad), so it simply has to refer to him.
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She’s talking about Uther. Just because he’s a spirit now doesn’t mean he wasn’t at some point a mortal.
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That can be said about 99.999999999999999999999999% of the denizens of the Shadowlands, probably more. That’s like calling a Vashj, as she is now, a night elf.
The wording may be inelegant, but the point is that Uther was still primarily operating off of the memories of his mortal life when he “exposed the folly” of Bastion, rather than off of the supposedly superior mindset of the ascended.
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Maybe Devos is one of the original Paragons, born of Kyrestia’s will, and was never mortal.
Renathal was never a mortal soul, he was born of Denathrius.
Or its a voice over artifact from when this was the case.
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I figured as much. I didn’t give it much thought until I saw it posed as a question in the OP. That seems likely.
That is an interesting thought. If she was sort of spawned from an Eternal or a native of Shadowlands, then she would view the souls as “mortal souls”. And that could include anyone.
Again, I figured she meant Uther. Still do. With all things considered, it makes the most sense. It is most likely “inelegant” word choice, and not some intended reference to some different Mortal.
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The fact that it can be said about most of the Shadowlands’ denizens does not make it untrue. Plus, that’s not really an equivalent comparison at all. Vashj was a Night Elf previously, but she was a Naga when she died, so it’d be consistent and correct for someone in the Shadowlands to call her a Naga even now. In the same vein, Uther was a mortal who died and went to the Shadowlands, so yes - calling him a mortal in this sense isn’t strange.
Say my dad is a carpenter. Now say my dad dies. If people were to say “a carpenter died” people would know you were talking about my dad. The line of logic you’re pitching states that they CAN’T be referring to my dad, because right now my dad is a corpse and nothing else. He has no historical permanence, because he only ever has existed in his current state and nothing else.
You’re really overthinking this for no reason.
My dear, where do you think we are?
Normally I’d say Story Forums, but given your line of logic, I’m only allowed to say where I am geographically right now, because clearly I didn’t exist until this second.
Jeez, chill out!
I’m perfectly calm dude, I’m just pointing out you don’t really have any object permanence, like with your response to the Scourge Invasion post. To you things can’t be occurring unless you see them, and people can only ever have existed in the state they currently exist.
It’s amusing that the NPCs throw around the term mortal like it correlates with some form of inferiority in an expansion were the ‘immortals’ are pretty much helpless in their own realms.
All in all, Blizzard seems to have a very limited vocabulary when it comes to these terms when trying to differentiate types of characters from one another. If Devos was referring to Uther, she should have used something else, like unascended, instead of just making the Shadowlands seem even more mundane.
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I agree.
I have been feeling an overall senselessness in the words being expressed by NPCs. I used to keep track, but now I just expect it. Almost like the writers are tired, and throwing in words that feel weighty or sound cool. Like “Mortal” and “Genocide”.
Its all starting to meld into a sort of “whatever”.
I don’t think desensitization IRL is a wholly negative thing. It can be a revelation. But in prose and in fiction, it can dull the experience.
I actually get the impression that mortal doesn’t have the same context as what we expect. As if “mortal” being anyone from the mortal planes but not an “immortal” soul.
Or maybe Devos just simply misspoke.
I also have this theory that the shadowlands and the mortal world are not actually life and afterlife concepts that we typically think of them. Rather, the Shadowlands is the true “reality” and the mortal planes are similar to artificial realities that were created to generate life for anima, to fuel the Shadowlands.
(Think Rick from Rick and Morty creating a universe inside his car battery)
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That’s because you can only work around the parameters that have been established. Attempting to argue lore points that weren’t on the radar of Blizzard (“How did they get there?”) is, by definition, a dead end, but it’s fun to speculate.
Think you need a breather! This is a video game story discussion forum, remember!
Yeah, and I’m discussing a video game, just like you are. You’re just deflecting because I’m not agreeing with you.
Also even if you can only work with the parameters established, that doesn’t mean things outside the parameters don’t exist. For instance, the Scourge is a HUMUNGOUS swath of undead that is constantly growing, and nothing says that the invasion was stopped. Therefore, it’s silly to assume that the invasion ended in like… what, two weeks? All of Bolvar’s sacrifice for nearly a decade culminated in the threat being quashed within two weeks? That is silly, yet because you lack permanence outside of things you can’t comprehend in front of you at all times, it’s what you believe.
Also what happened to you? You used to make solid points, but now you just give up after like two points with stuff like “yikes lad” or “it’s just a game.” Like you’d like to pretend that people who are just trying to prod a discussion are acting unreasonable. You’ve kinda become worthless to the discussions on these forums nowadays. You just throw out lackluster points, then you don’t even bother to make any good arguments for them.
I’m not so sure I’m the one who needs a breather.
I get the sense that when a denizen of the Shadowlands refers to a “mortal,” they mean living mortals and any unaltered mortal souls that haven’t been fully transformed into one of the various agents of the death realms, and therefore are essentially still the same person they were in life.
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Uther is a mortal soul.
She’s talking about Uther.
It’s fairly obvious she’s talking about Uther, even in the next line; “When I peered into Uthers’ memories, what I saw shook me to the very core.”
Dunno why it’s even in question who she was referring to.
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