What meets your parameters as Zandalari using the Light? High Priest Venoxis’ abilities being Holy Nova, Holy Wrath, Holy Fire and Renew? The Hakkari Priests also use Holy spells? ToT was not the first place we saw Zandalari using Holy spells, that would be vanilla.
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Considering High Priest Venoxis and the Hakkari Priests were not Zandalari…
Still, the claim was made that Zandalari had Paladins back in Vanilla. Evidence points against this claim.
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Wrong again: " In order to quell Hakkar the Soulflayer, King Rastakhan sent a contingent of Zandalari High Priests into the ancient city of Zul’Gurub. Each priest was a powerful champion of the Primal Gods, or loa, but despite their best efforts, they fell under the sway of Hakkar and were forced to channel power into the blood god. Ultimately, the priests were slain by the adventurers who entered the city, and killed Hakkar."
Every Priest boss in ZG was a Zandalari High Priest who fell under the control of Hakkar, not a Gurubashi. So yes, the Zandalari have been masterfully wielding the Light since vanilla and likely prior, probably going back millennia lore-wise.
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They are also Priests trained by Warriors. They come from both sides, Uther, for example, was a Priest before he was a Paladin.
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Well, I stand corrected. Just shows how much of a crappy patch-job this games lore is.
Because those Priests in Zul’Gurub were Priests of the Troll’s Primal Gods, yet if they just “study the Light” like everyone else, their Primal Gods are just posers and have no real power. With no real power, the Loa are just pretenders, which opens up a whole new can of worms.
And yet it STILL doesn’t state that the freethinkers were Holy Warriors of any type, which is the actual point of discussion. Just because Amy is eating an apple, doesn’t mean John is eating an apple, too.
After all, Humans had been using the Light for thousands of years, too, yet didn’t have Paladins until fairly recently. So, just using and mastering the Light does NOT guarantee you have a Paladin option.
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The Loa would be no more pretenders than the Naruu, Elune, Anshe or the Church of the Holy Light. They are all deity-like beings or religions through which their veneration the power of the Light is channeled.
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You’re right. The lore is worse than I thought. It’s worse than high school drivel.
Thank you. Thank you for helping me see how horrible it really is. Time to stop caring, because it’s so bad.
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The lore really isn’t all that bad so long as you don’t go at it with the mindset of “everything is black and white and set in stone, nothing can ever be added or expanded upon or explained in more detail two decades down the line”. Literally any ongoing franchise or story that you approach with that mindset is guaranteed to be a massive disappointment as the years go by and the story evolves and you refuse to do so along with it.
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It’s not about the story adapting. It’s about Blizzard retconning crap left and right and making what used to be an interesting world all mashed up and too convenient, while also making much of it no longer make sense with what they’ve decided to share the way things are.
What you have shown is like saying “There is no difference between a Hindu Monk and a Televangelist Preacher”. That’s what they’ve done to WoW lore.
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I can agree to that. I think every release of chronicles releases cool new stuff but also retcons quite a bit of stuff in a really poor manner.
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Yeah. I think I’m done trying to argue lore, because it just doesn’t even matter anymore. What was once true is no longer true, and what is true now is not guaranteed to remain true.
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See above.
I mean, Ironforge dwarf shaman were shoe-horned in as much as Tauren paladins/sunwalkers were but you don’t seem to mind that ![:thinking:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/thinking.png?v=6" ":thinking:")
Seems like you have double standards.
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When was the last time you went to an ancient temple full of mummified dwarfs who are walking around, talking and attacking anyone who comes near them?
When was the last time you ran into a cult of blood drinking, vampiric dwarves when you were walking through the jungle?
You’ll find that some people only like the lore when it benefits them.
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That’s from G’huun, or did you not pay attention to any of the story in BFA? The necromancy was coming out because the seals were weakened and G’huun was able to spread influence through Zul. That’s the whole reason Rezan died at Atal Dazar…
Again, this is because of a sect of trolls worshipping G’huun. Or did you fail to pay attention to this part of the story as well? Did you miss that G’huuns containment chamber is in Nazmir and that’s where his followers congregated?
You’re talking about things I don’t think you actually bothered to pay attention to. There are well established reasons that those groups are there and they are the way they are.
If we want to draw idiotic comparisons to try and validate a point about why a race shouldn’t have a connection to the light: Why did humans choose to accept enslavement from the lich king through rune blades becoming death knights?
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I have seen so many undead troll storylines, areas, dungeons etc in every expansion of WoW that I have lost count of them. I hardly notice them anymore. The undead trolls in Zandalar are neither unsurprising nor unusual. Whenever I see live trolls, I expect that undead trolls will be nearby. I don’t care who they follow or which flying snake God they worship or what sect or flavor of troll they are.
How are humans responsible for the lich king or death knights?
The Scourge were a creation of the legion through the orc Shaman Nehrzul and the dread lords. Most death knights did not choose to become death knights.
It is you who does not understand the history of Paladins and the silver hand. You never did the exiled paladin questline in WoW classic did you?
Tell us, who was the exiled Paladin?
Everyone knows it was Tirion. That quest wasn’t even remove until like cataclysm.
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Never said they were responsible for it, I said that living humans made the decision to become deathknights. I’m not talking about Arthas.
My understanding of your point is that you see Trolls that practice dark and shadow magic therefore a connection to the light and paladins doesn’t make sense.
Well, if a particular race practicing shadow magic should make it impossible for them to develop enough of a connection to the light to become paladins, then about humans as a race?
- Why is the former leader of the Council of the black harvest a human warlock?
- Why was the cult of the damned formed and resulting in Kelthuzad a formal human Kiren-Tor mage creating a human cult of followers?
- Why does the twighlight hammer clan have such a heavy human influence?
- Why was arthas still able to use his connection to the light despite committing atrocities and being corrupted by the lich king?
Hmmm, seems like humans also have a pretty strong connection to shadow magic.
TL;DR Version - Priests existed in human society, orcs invaded, priests wanted to help, Uther and co. become militant, but maintain that they are fighting for a righteous cause to maintain their connection to the light. After the orc invasion you get splinter groups, fighting for different reasons but still maintaining that they are fighting for a moral and righteous cause and thus maintain their connection to the light. Tirion is another example. What about this do I not understand?
The only theme that’s a constant here with Paladin lore is that if you believe that you are fighting for a righteous cause, you will have a connection with the light. The light doesn’t force a specific morality, the morality is in the eyes of whoever is carrying out those tasks. Lore that explicitly supports this - Arthas was able to commit the culling of stratholme as a paladin while still using paladin/light powers. Uther and Tirion walked away appalled and Arthas suspended the KoSH. The light stayed with everyone here because those individuals believed they were doing what was right.
Blizzard’s also acknowledged this property of the light. Same way AU Mag’Har got slaughtered by Yrel under empowerment from the light.
To put your argument in simile: It’s like living on an island with an airport and assuming that you’ve seen the world despite making no effort of the obvious way to confirm your understanding of it.
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If you knew your lore, you’d know that the vast majority of trolls see undeath as an abomination because souls of the dead are supposed to travel to the Other Side with Bwonsamdi. Undeath prevents this and thus is seen as a violation of the natural laws of the loa. Some of the trolls who broke away from the others (like the witch doctor in zul’farrak) and follow different loa of death may raise zombies, but it’s few and far between as the vast majority of trolls mummufy their dead and the souls are ushered into the afterlife by Bwonsamdi and one or two other loa who watch over the dead (although one of those, Samedi, is thought to be another name for Bwonsamdi and the other might be from the rpg, so Bwon might be the only one currently active lore-wise in-game).
Humans, however, have a history of necromancy and groups like the cult of the damned were voluntary organizations (unlike Arthas whose stupidity led to his corruption). The humans willingly forming a cult of undeath and ushering in the Scourge did more damage than any “troll necromancer” ever did.
In fact, anytime a troll has turned to necromancy, they’ve been exiled or killed by other trolls. See the Hakkari/Atal’ai trolls in ZG, it was the Zandalari who recruited the heroes of the horde and alliance to kill everyone within Zul’gurub. The same with Zalazane in the Echo Isles, the Darkspear killed him for practicing necromancy. And Zanzil was exiled from the Skullsplitter tribe for using necromancy and was one of the trolls the Zandalari recruit you to kill inside ZG.
Unlike the horde and alliance who tolerate undeath and necromancy, the Zandalari are pretty quick to stomp it out. While knights of the silver hand willingly save and ally with the undead among the knights of the ebon blade who are undead and also continue to raise new undead and actively perform necromancy in the open.
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