Sarm is darn quality. But, it’s not me writing the book. I do appreciate you, and never lump you in with anyone.
This is quality content.
4 Likes
On this, we can agree.
10/10 would read again.
1 Like
The benevolence of the Light is, however, very much in question nowadays. Even though that’s a retcon.
2 Likes
Yrel declared all of that settled at the conclusion of Warlords of Draenor when everyone joined up for the final battle on Gul’dan. So that’s not relevant in the discussion.
The Light can sear and dessicate if too much of it is applied, and that’s the charge the Mag’har levy against Y’Rel and her lightbound. You can see the results in the Ember Ward.
Y’Rel herself may well have been subjected to the treatment that X’era planned for Illidan and for all we know she may be nothing more than the Light equivalent of the Lich King… Some of those Draenei that we battle in the scenario look to be as mutated as Burning Crusade Eredar bosses.
The biggest mistake that anyone can make of the Light is to assume it’s benevolence. The extremes that the Light can go to can be just as much anti-Life as the depradations of the Void Lords. If the rest of Draenor now looks like Gromgorond I’d say that the Mag’har have a valid charge.
7 Likes
The Lightbound are a dumb concept and I’m still not entirely convinced we know even half of the actual story, because since WoD Blizzard has had the Orcs portrayed as essentially really mean and brutish children who are immensely ‘creative’ at justifying why they’re losing a given battle.
Moreover it immediately contradicts the lore we got in Legion, wherein anything resembling Lightforging or Lightbinding can only be done by a Prime Naaru or the Forge of Aeons, not by any random Naaru with a hankering for a crusade.
It was a horrible chimaera of bad lore to try and make The Iron Horde, aka ‘well we have no fel juice but we’re gonna wipe you all out anyway!’ and Grom ‘Toss the children into the soul jacuzzi’ Hellscream sympathetic.
I mean, gee, thanks for the new Draenei hero, Blizzard. We lost Maraad and the vast majority of the Draenei characters we knew were sidelined for the sake of edgier zealot Draenei you made up in one expansion… but at least we got to learn that Yrel and all our Draenei friends we made on AU Draenor are now either dead or evil.
I’m really looking forward to possibly needing to kill Soulbinder Tulaani for reasons…
5 Likes
Make Lightbinding the Alliance equivalent of raising people into undeath so we can play “Not touching you” with the Horde for a decade
1 Like
Contradicting previous lore?
Say it ain’t so! 
2 Likes
I find “grey” morality so overused these days, a return of black and white morality would be new again (like vinyl records).
On a side note, it’s funny how people - not saying you specifically - are all for shades of grey in morality… until someone with an opposing worldview does something that clashes with theirs.
imo neutral is good or evil with commitment issues.
1 Like
Dude, that quite literally is all Blizz writes these days. They have no idea what moral ambiguity is, and they use “grey” as an excuse. Nothing more. Just look at how they wrote BfA. And frankly, I get the feeling that outside of your peeve with Yrel’s victimhood to the Iron Horde … its the idea the the Light isn’t some by-default benevolent force that’s really what got you all twisted up. When, its never been just that. The Scarlets even existing shows that Light has always been fully capable of monstrous evil; and fanatic dogma. Its just that that concept hasn’t really been explored beyond that.
EDIT: Also, Good Race/Evil Races was a fantasy trope that Blizz was once praised for subverting so successfully back in the day. And yet, now they’ve so thoroughly embraced Tolkein’s regret that they’ve taken it to pretty absurd levels.
6 Likes
I like and agree with everything you just said. By the way, don’t forget the part of the chimera that involves villain-batting the Draenei and Light.
Surprisingly, I’ve been flagged a few times for my stance on this subject. It’s pretty telling of how fragile some people are that pointing out the Lightbound aren’t simply baddies and that the Mag’har aren’t all innocent victims - and why - triggers those people so much.
Eh, I can sympathize with him not liking it because of the Light being shown as a stand-in for God. Maybe it’s naive of me to say but it seems like the same thing as not liking how other races or faiths tend to be depicted darkly. It’s just overall easier to dismiss that concern since Christianity is one of the most dominant religions in the real world (the most, maybe?).
I just don’t think trying to find justifications for its darker depictions is actually the way to go, though.
2 Likes
It’s not that simple, and the Light isn’t a stand in for God anymore. A big problem is the bad fanfic-tier writing that says the Draenei swept the Iron Horde under the rug despite everything the Iron Horde did to them, only to turn around and wage a holy war without acknowledging their past. Another problem is that we’re expected to sympathize with a group who’ve rallied behind an unrepentant war criminal and expected to hate said war criminal’s past victims.
1 Like
Personally I find it hard to get invested in anything involving an alternate universe. There’s an alternate universe for every single possible scenario you can think of so any given one is about as meaningful as any other (which is to say, not meaningful)
They can be fun to explore though.
I said the Iron Horde are anti-migrant. I said this in response to comparing the “Lightbound” to colonialism. The Draenei are literally refugees; they’re fleeing from planet to planet because the Legion is after them and only came to AU Draenor because they crash-landed.
And what happened later; the Orcs formed an Imperialist “Orcs first” civilization with slavery and went after the Draenei before they’d even done anything… and now we’re expected to sweep all that under the rug because some edgelords like a “muh fanaticism” story better.
You do realize they also rallied around both AU Draka and AU Durotan right? And that regardless of why it happened, Yrel herself buried the hatchet with AU Grom. It also remains unclear whether within that 30 years what Grom did (or suffered) to offset his actions with the Iron Horde; but it was apparently sufficient enough for Yrel herself to refer to him as a friend … just before attacking him. No matter how much benefit of the doubt you want to give her; that really muddies the water.
Like it or not, that peace did happen, and then 30 years passed. With two major changes later. The continued influx of Naaru onto the AU World (one of which sounds like a Prime, like Xe’ra). And then AU Draenor began to die, which is likely not due to either group; but a consequences of that AU collapsing on itself (though neither are aware of that). For all we know Yrel has either been Ner’zhul’d (like AU Grom was by Garrosh); or she’s been straight up Lightbound (like what Xe’ra attempted with Illidan).
Either are very possible. It however does not justify a convert or die philosophy; no matter how many excuses you conspire to justify or invalidate it for each group.
1 Like
Funny thing; I did say their “join or die” policy is wrong. I’m saying they still have a point with their reasoning and shouldn’t be written off as villains or irredeemable. Did you read the title of this thread?
It’s still representative of it on some level. The light doesn’t need to continue being called God to do that.
And you are making bold assumptions that they’re trying to purge the current culture when I’ve cited real-life religious societies that have diversity of language and fashion (the Amish as a non-violent example and Saudi Arabia as a violent example).
By the way, Lightforging itself isn’t’ brainwashing. All Xe’ra tried to do was Lightforge Illidan by force, she wouldn’t have controlled his actions afterwards. Look at Turalyon and the other Lightforged Draenei, they weren’t her mindless drones. So can you and everyone else drop the false “Lightforging = mind control” fan theory; it’s about as accurate as phrenology.
And somehow expected that after she completed that process by force he’d suddenly be OK with it? Interesting that. I wonder how exactly that was supposed to work without some mental component to it?
I get that you’re REALLY desperate to give Yrel the benefit of the doubt; and REALLY don’t like the idea that the Light isn’t this by-default benevolent force … but its stretching a bit thin and transparent. You’re right that we don’t know enough, but the reason you’re giving the benefit of the doubt to Yrel (and heavily skeptical against Rah) has nothing to do with the legitimacy of what we do or do not know.
8 Likes