Curious about lore views on this for both factions. Warlocks control demons, use Shadow and Fel magic while Shadow Priests use Shadow and Void. Both are seen as outliers in both factions but I wonder which would be seen as the most “evil” or ostracized.
With Warlocks, you could argue controlling demons is fine as they’d be running rampant otherwise, similar to needing a Lich King for the Scourge. Better to have demons fight for us rather than with us. For Shadow Priests, they don’t really hold any power back per se, and could be argued to actually spread the influence of the Old Gods. Moreover, how did the Shadow Priests feel when we killed each Old God? We have idols for them now, surely we’d feel some way about it? Then again, the Forsaken’s Cult of Forgotten Shadows views their practices as more self-centered rather than Old God-focused.
So what do you guys think? Surely there may be differing opinions depending on race/faction. Which would you consider to be more morally grey if not outright “evil”?
I’d think warlocks are worse because of the whole soul shard mechanic. IIRC, you’re quite literally trapping someone’s soul to later burn them away as a power source, denying them existence in the afterlife just to empower yourself. It’s also originally how warlocks fueled the rituals that summon most of those demons in the first place.
Shadow priests are in an awkward spot since they got rethemed into being void focused. Prior to that, I don’t think they were all meant to be considered evil, as shadow was also performing a role as “generic spooky religious non-light caster” to partially represent stuff like troll witch doctors, which was lost in the Legion makeover.
I think the general answer is : Warlocks. But it could vary on the individual.
Are we talking about potential evil/capabilities of these classes on a cosmic level if they wanted to maximize damage and evil? Or just common Player types going about their day? Different people would push the limits in different ways.
Priests as a class also have 2 other Specs that are somewhat benevolent - Warlocks just have 3 specs to hurt folks.
Warlocks steal souls and use them to fuel their spellwork. They summon demons and blanket the landscape with fel fire and dark curses.
I was a fan of the old priest aesthetic - more of a mental/spiritual/psyche theme that focused on faith and manipulation. I think that was more interesting and frankly more malevolent on a personal level. But during Legion, Blizzard went full Cthulu with them. Which upped their cosmic game but made them lose sight of the older theme.
Shadow priests essentially harness the powers of the void for good or ill. Warlocks explicitly need to harvest souls to then summon demons. They also aren’t just harnessing a power as a means to an end, they’re utilizing curses, destruction magic, etc.
If you’re a moral/good/heroic sorcerer in Azeroth you become a mage. If you chose to become a warlock you’re dedicating yourself to the darkest magics in Warcraft lore. Playing a warlock is essentially the closest you can get to being the “bad guy” in WoW (outside of doing the original Death Knight starting zone).
No, you’re just a sorcerer who’s tapping into the arcane. There are plenty of reckless grasping fools on the mage side of the fence. Rhonin himself started as one. Many of the mages in Dalaran started tinkering with Nether summoning to the general detriment of the area surrounding Dalaran’s original location, when warned of the consequences instead of moderating themselves, they created the first of the Guardians to both clean up their messes and sweep them under the rug.
It was this particular culture that Aegwynn rebelled against when she decided to take the matter of Guardian succession into her own hands.
As others have mentioned… Warlocks, for sure. I think intention plays a key part in that reasoning.
The Shadow Priests we see in lore often walk a thin line. They delve into a secretive power at the expense of their mental well-being and those that end up being ‘evil’ usually become that way by peering too far into the Void. Most we see like Zabra Hexx, Natalie Selene and Aethalyste (to name a few) are driven by both knowledge and reverence of the shadows, rather than seeing it as a path of glory.
Whereas, Warlocks blatantly choose a path of power and self preservation at the expense of others through soul magic to either ingratiate themselves with power, feed an insatiable addiction to Fel or both. Their initial intentions may have been noble in the pursuit of knowledge, but ultimately their means to an end is much more destructive to others than a Shadow Priest’s path would be.
At the end of the day, a Shadow Priest can study their craft in solitude and the only victim in the end would be themselves as their mind slips away, whereas a Warlock NEEDS to use the souls of others in order to pursue Fel magic as a craft.
That isn’t to say there aren’t ‘worse’ Shadow Priests though.
Shadow Priest entails some sort of worship of the shadow powers, tapping in and using them. Because Shadow lore is basically tied up with Void at this point, with neither being their own thing, it makes Shadow Priests seem much more potentially malevolent.
Warlocks are at high risk of becoming people who are selfishly interested at power at any cost. But I can see Chaotic Good Warlocks. With the way Shadow Priest lore currently is, imo, they seem worse.
Warlocks have our share of shadow magic. Especially Affliction. I have been intrigued with the lore behind such things. The Fel part is always given the stage.
Warlocks can also order Blueberry Voidlords to prance about.
Gotta say I am surprised so far at how Warlock-sided it is. I’m not too familiar with soul shard lore (especially now with how spells like Shadow Bolt/Demon Bolt supply them). I had the same notion that Shadow Priests are more fanatical and spreading insanity. I love both classes either way (here’s hoping the Shadow rework is successful).
It’s simplified by modern game mechanics. Used to be you’d have to kill an enemy with drain soul to generate a shard. Essentially you were stealing a soul before it could move on, and using it as a battery. While certain Shadow Priests can be up their, the general run of the mill Warlock is deliberately evil.
I’ve been curious about this too and looked at it, and my best guess is that Affliction’s spells are Shadow damage just because them being Chaos would be insanely overpowered. I don’t claim to be an expert, so if anyone has lore I missed I’d love to see it to learn new things, but based on what I’ve been able to dig up it seems like lore-wise, Affliction is supposed to be using Fel magic the most directly of any of the Warlock types.
The spell effects in the modern day back this up somewhat. If you look closely at the sparkles and particles of Affliction spells, they all have the same color schemes as the various demons on Argus and such. As far as I know, the Voidwalkers are just an example of Warlocks being willing to use any sort of dark magic that would benefit them and dipping a toe into Void stuff for a good tank.
But as to the topic of the thread as a whole, I’d have to agree about Warlocks being the worst ones. Shadowlands muddled a bit whether or not people who get soul drained just have Cessation Of Existence and no afterlife, but it’s still absolutely canon that the soul is mutilated and destroyed by being used as fuel, to a degree that makes what happened to Uther in Bastion look like a shaving cut.
There’s also the fact that part of the reason souls are required is because the Warlock is actively using someone else’s soul to shield themselves from the magics they’re using so that their own is less corrupted. (I think. That’s how it was explained to me, but I could be wrong there. Again, please let me know!)
Fel’s destruction of the Life in the Souls pales in comparison to the destruction of the Death within Souls in the Afterlife.
Death manifests as Anima(Sin, Memories, Necromancy, Virtue, Nature, Capitalism and Pain) and Soul Dust(parts of the Soul that aren’t Anima).
Removing all the Anima causes a Soul to start fading until it becomes Soul Dust or gets Brutally Tortured to make new Anima.
Mawsworn not only brutally torture Souls but hack them apart basically dividing the Souls into more Souls to torture to make Anima.
Incidentally the Souls that die in Torghast are(judging from the fact that Torghast is the place for the worst of the worst) the ones drained completely of Anima in Revendreth so them dying is due to us saving them from their torment before it could make Anima to sustain them.
The Souls who survive us saving them in Torghast are the ones who were tortured the longest and the newcomers resulting from the demise of the Arbiter via Argus.
The Night Elves of Teldrassil had the Mawsworn cut out the bitterness within their Souls and split them off into more Souls for his plans before we and Tyrande kill the amalgam of the bitter side of the Night Elven Souls followed by us rescuing the grateful side of them.
Since Pelagos forbids the Maw the Venthyr are probably going to start Torturing fully drained Souls until they start making Pain Anima(the Rainbow-Black stuff used by Mawsworn) which is useless to them and goes into the Endmire. Then they can get back to the business of making them acknowledge their Sins and repent under less brutal Torture.
Demonology seems far less involved with draining souls and more into summoning demons and fueling power from them, if I’m not mistaken. Just reading over the spell list, there doesn’t seem to be much directly other people’s souls.