So we have the cosmic realms: Life-Death, Order-Chaos, Light-Void. Every single one wants to either control our beloved planet’s soul, or simply use it for something (recreating reality or killing everything in existence).
Except Life. Or am I missing something? Does life want to do something with Azeroth, or just preserve her and let her do things?
Is there something in the books or hidden amongst the expansions where Life is being naughty and wants a piece of the cake for itself? I’m genuinely curious about this part as it might be that life and nature is the only realm that doesn’t want to do anything we would consider morally “bad”.
To be honest, I think depicting the forces in that level of abstraction is a mistake. One that is based on Blizzards own presentation, sure, but frankly not something that’s really reflected in their ground-level plots, yet. When the “forces” act, they don’t do so by themselves, they act through characters with motives that can diverge quite a bit. Xe’ra’s plans weren’t necessarily the plans of “the Light”, Odyn’s plans aren’t necessarily the plans of “Order”, the plans of Chaos are a bit of an oxymoron anyway, while Sargeras’ plans are quite a different matter. And we’ll probably learn a bit about Xal’atath’s plans not being the same as the Old Gods’. We also spent the strange story of the last addon helping most of the rulers of the Death-realm to stop the one that actually wanted what you are talking about here.
Azeroth is a super powerful MacGuffin. So everyone who wants superpower for something has a reason to want it. And beings outside of Azeroth don’t really have a reason to care for Azeroth beyond its power. So… we don’t really need more than that to get the same plot, do we?
Not really missing something, but we are working with pretty much no information at all here. We haven’t met any force of Life that’s higher-ranked than a Loa, and we know the parts of Life’s realms that we see were heavily ordered by the Titans/Eonar.
The biggest player that might or might not come from Team Life that we know of is Elune, and her nature or plans have been kept pretty mysterious for now.
Not on Azeroth, but Chronicles did state that unhindered Life forces on Draenor had set it up for destruction, since the growing Life there didn’t care for sustainability. That’s how they explain Aggramar messing with the world, by introducing the breakers, that counterbalanced the devouring life. But since everything in the Chronicles might be Titan propaganda now, who the heck knows, if a retcon is coming on that one…
I think this is a good example on the required balance that everything is centred around and this is why I believe in the “twin theory” of Azeroth that it’s actually 2 in one and depending on which side of the equation you are on, the side of Azeroth will “talk” to you.
But yes, in general I missed the Draenor part and I agree that we think more of the lore than the writers in general, hence speculations and such.
I’m more than sure that this will be an issue with the next expansion.
My prediction - Sometime later, we will fight life forces as they go around with unhindered, unsustainable growth that will start to waste the world. Because we basically sorted out its competition. And it will be paired with player housing and dating/wife sim for our characters.
A lot of people found their significant other while gaming so why not Blizz make it even further with getting Tinder in the picture I think they’d make money on it!
On the topic: I like your prediction though! Would be an interesting concept on how to create balance again.
I don’t think that’s anything but “propagnda” . In shadowlands and now we see these so called Life and death forces work together and the Winter Queen and Elune being sisters , rebirth and all .
From that logic Life and Death Balance each other so there is no point in doing anything else .
Also regarding the whole Life wants something .
If we believe the latest quests about Q’onzu the Loa of Change , Life pretty much just wants to grow and growth is change . So Life forces seem okay with pretty much any change . They are more inclined to chaos than order .
The above “Loa” also tried to just jump in the fire stuff and see if he could become a fire nature loa , but felt it is boring and “static” .
Also according to the same quest he managed to somehow “escape” the dream and is the oldest of the Loa , who has “always been there”
My guess is Q’onzu is something more and we will see more of him in the future . Chances are he is Life Aspect itself (or something of the sort), because if Life is change and he is Loa of change , he is Loa of the Life .
He even said he is called Loa , not because he chose it , because he is what he is and the mortals started calling him that .
Chances are Life forces just go with the flow of whatever is happening .
Might be, but I actually don’t see any specific reason to doubt that part of the Chronicles. We saw and faced the Botani and their ilk. They certailny seemed to be ebings of life, and they were highly unpleasant creatures who certainly had no regard for our ways of life. I really don’t see why Life as a force couldn’t have higher-powered creatures like that as well, or why some Life pantheon couldn’t include them.
I mean, I still think that the talk about the powers is pretty much irrelevant, because it can reduced to talk about the characters that represent them. For Life we just haven’t got many on a cosmic power scale that we understand, so I find it hard to judge.
Not to mention that I really can’t see why the devs would decide to designate one power as the good one without its bad sides, when they already pretty much told us that balance was king. That way they can just use any of their color-shemes for baddies, since anything can get out of balance.
I wouldn’t expect Life to go bad any time within the World Soul Arc, though, they already have their plate full enough. They might get into the Elune mystery in Midnight, but Life seems to keep a background role elsewise.
Indeed they were “highly unpleasant creatures who certainly had no regard for our ways of life” … AKA no regard for beings created by Order titans and what not .
Let’s do a small thought experiment .
So the Botany tried to spread , consume and mutate anything . What would have happened if they consumed all sentient species ?
Nothing … Life would just go on and the botany would eat and mutate each other . If they became too many some would die and the other would feed on them and so on . The life goes on . Balance of Life nd Death .
I do not know if the writers intended it in such a way and probably not , because it would be too logical and “natural” no pun intended , but it is what it is .
Honestly if you think about it , “Life” as a force really is neutral because all it cares is to grow and adapt .
Has there been any place at all since the begging of WoW where we have not met living creatures that we can kill .
Add nature > it becomes wild animals
Add Fire > it becomes fire animals
Add Fell > it becomes fell animals
Add Shadow > We get shadow animals .
Add the completely unexplainable concept of “death forces that are somehow alive” and somehow we got Death animals
What they intend to do with “Life” as a force , I have no idea idea , but judging from the above it really does not give two crackers about what color it is in .
Imo we (the players) are the force of Azeroth, which - again - imo represents balance. We are the ones who use either realm of the cosmos to fight against another realm of the cosmos (usually on the opposite spectrum) to regain balance on Azeroth, otherwise the story would’ve ended ages ago. Life would be - as someone else stated above - what happened on Draenor.
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I think they’d make money on it!